Crusade of Tears: A Novel of the Children's Crusade

by C. D. Baker

  The children looked at their battered feet and yielded to Pieter’s wisdom.

  As the company moved closer to Genoa, the roadway became more and more crowded with peddlers, pilgrims, men-at-arms, and travelers of every imaginable sort. Heavy-laden carts groaned and creaked behind horses and donkeys straining against their yokes. Wagons heaped high with fresh-picked pears and apples lumbered and lurched their way along—those heading north working the whip and those pointed south leaning hard on creaking brakes.

  The sun was bright and the air was warm. The smell of salt air grew stronger and the joyful crusaders nearly ran down each descent. Then, at last… at long last… they rounded a curve and beheld the full majesty of the sea. So stunning was the sight that the children could do nothing else than stop and gasp and stare in disbelief.

  Heinz broke the silence. “’Tis truly there?”

  The others laughed.

  Otto’s green eyes sparkled. “Aye, Heinz, ‘tis truly there.”

  Wil and Karl stood shoulder to shoulder. “To think we’ve come so very far!” said Wil. “And look, ‘tis as if the sky and water join somewhere out there.”

  “I cannot see the end,” noted Karl. “I cannot see the end at all. Is that the edge of the world?”

  “Look there,” said Frieda. “Look there!” She pointed to four tiny white dots.

  “Ah, you see the sails of ships traveling south,” Pieter instructed. “And look over there; you’ll see more.”

  Wil could have spent the whole day just gazing at the wonder before him. Though he had not yet set foot in Palestine, reaching the sea was, itself, a feat that swelled his heart. Ever mindful of his duties, however, he turned his eyes away and ordered a midday meal at the very spot where all could enjoy the beautiful sight. He ordered his soldiers to build their fire on the shoulder of the road. After all, perhaps passersby might offer a bit of charity from the plenty of their wagons.

  Before long the crusaders were chewing on strips of salted pork and a few crusts of bread. Otto and Heinz had found some apples that had fallen from a passing cart, and a kindly stranger tossed Frieda a cheese and a small slab of bacon. To these pilgrims it was a meal that surpassed Gostanzo’s feast. They basked in the Italian sunshine and laughed and drew their nostrils tight on the intoxicating smell of the salt air.

  Karl was radiant. His blue eyes sparkled like the waves shimmering in the distance and his ruddy face flushed with excitement. His curly red hair was dancing in the sea breezes rising from below. He finished his meal and studied the long, sloping mountains dropping gently toward the spires of the city. His eyes lingered on the castles perched atop ridges on his left and his right. At last, he thought, and then to Palestine. He looked into the faces of his many companions and felt warm and good as he thought of each of them.

  When he spotted a patch of flowers on the opposite side of the roadway, he pictured Maria and sighed. He stood and secured her cross in his belt. She would have wanted all the girls to enter the city with flowers in their hair! he mused.

  Dashing across the busy road, he found himself shin-deep in a wonderful bouquet. There were yellows and reds, purples and blues, delicate blooms and bold. He reached down and gently plucked a long-stemmed, white flower with a beautiful golden center and held it to his nose; he reached for broad-petaled, orange flowers and red-laced blue ones, soft pinks and bright lavenders. He hummed and whistled, certain that the angels themselves had planted this majestic garden for just this very day.

  Pieter, Wil, and the others were resting peacefully in the grass. The sun felt so good to them and there was such comfort in being finally near the sea. But the quiet of the moment was suddenly broken with the sound of hooves thundering down the mountain. With no thought to the helpless travelers at their feet, a troop of light-armored cavalry were crashing their way through the crowded roadway. Behind them charged a team of thick-chested horses hauling a huge wagon loaded with footmen and barrels of supplies. Midst shouts and screams the company rammed their way through the scattering throng, dumping carts and trampling any in their way.

  Wil’s quick eye fell on Karl, distracted and lost in thought, and picking flowers dangerously near the edge of the bend. His eye flew back to the soldiers whose reckless path now seemed aimed directly at Karl. He jumped to his feet and called frantically, but the roar of the tumult suffocated his cries. He raced toward his brother waving his hands desperately. “Karl, Karl, move! Move!” he screamed. “Move!”

  The deafening sounds of hooves roared closer and closer to Karl until, at last, the startled boy jerked upright. Without a thought, he instinctively dashed onto the roadway in a desperate flight toward the far side. He sprinted a few strides with all the speed his panicked legs could gather, but it was not enough; his red head vanished in a blur of horseflesh, wagon wheels, and clouds of dust.

  Wil cried out as one horse stumbled, but when he saw the huge wagon bounce, his heart seized. He knew that Karl was lost.

  The crusaders dashed onto the roadway as the soldiers disappeared around the bend. Wil led the frantic charge and reached Karl first. He collapsed by his brother’s side and cradled the lad’s crumpled body in his arms. “Oh God, oh God!” he wailed. “Not you, Karl. Oh God, not you!”

  The others fell about the boy weeping and wailing in utter shock. Fingers spread toward the broken body, lightly touching it as if to impart some spark of life. Desperately, Pieter pushed his way through the circle of his crusaders until his body folded in the dust beside his beloved Karl. The old man shook violently where he lay, weeping and groaning and beating the earth with angry fists.

  Suddenly Karl stirred. Wil’s eyes widened and all grew still. “Qu-quickly … quickly … help me, Otto!” he cried. “We needs lift him off the road.”

  With the help of many anxious hands, the two boys gently moved Karl to the grass where not long ago all had lounged in the warm sun. They laid his body on the soft earth and his head on Wil’s lap. Pieter tenderly held one of his crushed hands in his own, and Frieda stroked the boy’s red curls.

  Karl’s chest heaved as he gasped for air. His eyes fluttered for a moment, then opened bright and blue. He smiled faintly and wheezed another breath. Blood frothed from his mouth and now began to ooze from his ears, dripping slowly onto Wil’s sleeves. The beloved lad looked at Wil and then at Pieter. His eyes offered kindness.

  “Dear, Karl,” whimpered Wil. “I … I …” Wil stroked Karl’s cheek as his tears fell onto his dying brother’s brow.

  Karl tried to speak but failed. His generous heart, however, urged a quivering smile.

  Pieter leaned close to the boy and set a soft hand on his arm. “This day your soul shall find its rest, my dear lad. You shall set your feet in the Holy Land, indeed.” He laid his trembling hands on the boy’s head and prayed, “Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censurius et peccatis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”

  Wil bent close to Karl’s ear and whispered, “Forgive me, Karl, for the ways that I have sinned against you. Know that I have always loved you.

  “And … and tell Maria,” Wil continued, “I … I do love her so.” His voice faltered.

  Karl shook his head and labored desperately to speak. “Her … cross,” he whispered hoarsely. “Give … Maria her cross …”

  Pieter and Wil stared at each other, astonished at the boy’s unfaltering faith. Wil bent to his ear and answered. “I will believe, Karl. I will see that her cross is returned to her own hand.”

  Karl’s eyes began to dim but he stared about the circle of tear-stained faces drawing close to his own. He struggled to draw another breath into his crushed lungs, then released it with a whisper. “God is good …”

  His body shuddered and his eyes rolled white. His face relaxed and he settled quietly against his brother’s heaving breast.

  There were no words to be spoken for none could have eased, in any part, the agony each crusader now suffered. The dreadful familiarity of such excruciating pain prompted, inste
ad, a silent ritual that offered what little comfort that might be found. Each comrade laid a hand, in turn, upon poor Karl and bade farewell. All the while Wil rocked his brother and wept. When all had passed by, Pieter laid a trembling hand upon Wil’s hardened shoulders and knelt by his side.

  They washed Karl’s body with water offered by sympathetic travelers and wrapped it in a shroud of linen Heinz begged from a passing merchant. By late day he was carried to his “Angel’s Garden” and buried beneath the wild-flowers. Frieda removed her crusader’s cross and set it lovingly above his head and the fellowship joined hands.

  Pieter fumbled through a prayer, but, unable to speak any longer, he simply crumbled by his cherished boy’s grave. The children huddled quietly and stared mutely at the distant blue water. It did not draw them as it had, nor did it seem as beautiful. And the sun no longer felt warm and healing, nor did the air smell clean and good. None wished to leave Karl’s side and so they gathered around his grave for all that dreadful evening. As night fell they simply sprawled in the flowers and stared at the starry heavens above until, at long last, sleep came.

  Dawn broke but was not escorted with fresh joy, and the company yet grieved. Some woke hoping Karl’s death was but an awful nightmare … a wicked, starlight tale spun by rotted pork or green apples. But it was not so, and they rose for the day with little vigor, void of all incentive to press the final day’s march.

  Pieter took Wil aside. “Karl now rests in the ‘Haven.’ He rests in the bosom of God. Y’might close your eyes and see him now playing with the others, teasing with Georg. Perhaps he is trying his riddles on the angels.”

  Wil smiled a little.

  “My son, we may stay or we may go; we may press to the sea or return to our homes. You, as always, are the commander of this company and we await your orders.”

  Wil sat alone by the graveside, staring at the sea while his soldiers choked down reluctant mouthfuls of morning gruel. At last he climbed to his feet and faced Pieter and his patient followers. He straightened his tunic and cleared his throat. “Should there be a time to end our crusade, I’ll surely know it. I have considered the matter with care and it is my decision to go forward. Karl and Maria, Georg and Manfred, and so many others did not want our pilgrimage to end on their accounts. And this: I …I believe God has not told me to stop. I’ll trust Him to make it plain if I ought end this journey.”

  Wil stooped to pluck a long-stemmed wildflower and secured it in his belt where his dagger once hung. He turned to Pieter. “You say you’ll not follow us beyond the shore. You say you’ll return to find our Maria?”

  Pieter nodded.

  Wil took Maria’s cross from his belt and handed it to the old man. “Then I charge you with this final duty: When you bid us farewell, find Maria and kiss her for us all. Then give her this; set it in her hand with Karl’s blessing.”

  Pieter received the cross and held it to his breast. “This I do vow.”

  Wil then lashed together two wooden crosses from some poplar sticks. One he handed to Frieda, the other he gripped tightly in his shaking hand. He surveyed his remnant and cast a longing, loving eye at Karl’s grave before setting order to his troop. His crusaders then raised all of their wooden crosses high and sang their melody as they marched bravely past their fallen comrade toward Genoa and the sea.

  A short while later the crusaders rounded a bend where Wil commanded they stop. “There,” proclaimed Wil. “There waits Genoa.”

  The children were not able to fully savor the sight below them, for their hearts were yet heavy. But they nevertheless were pleased to note gray-tiled rooftops sprawling from the mountain slopes to the curved harbor at the sea’s blue edge. Beholding Genoa was like having a large burden lifted from their bent backs and they sighed, relieved and satisfied. They stopped in the shade of short, broad-leafed trees and rested briefly.

  “Look,” pointed Pieter. “You see the tall spire of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo? Ah, ‘twas old when I was but a smooth-faced boy. And look there, at the harbor wall. Do you see the tall masts of the galleys? Ach, kinder, this place is not as any other y’have ever seen. ‘Tis rich with art and blessed with plenty … but it is not a good place. Heed m’words. Genoa is a proud city and a free city. It owes homage to no lord. Keep close and keep watch. These people are shrewd and wily. Treat them with respect and trust none.”

  “You’ll heed Pieter’s words,” barked Wil. “Now … to Genoa.”

  The children formed their column and commenced their final march. The city’s walls loomed ever closer, and then at last, with neither fanfare nor salutation, they paraded past the gate’s stern porters and onto the streets of the busy port.

  The sights and wonders of Genoa slowed the crusaders’ steps and they walked over the smooth cobblestone streets gaping at the white-and-gray stone buildings towering over them on all sides. But the jeers of the folk made them apprehensive and ill-at-ease, and they quickly felt like unfit callers from another world. The crowded walkways, the busy markets, and the noise were not unfamiliar; nor was the hostile spirit of the population. After all, they had been witness to such things in Basel and Dunkeldorf. Perhaps it was the foreign tongue or the plastered walls or the septic air that added to their estrangement. But, for whatever cause, the company soon lost its joy.

  As the cautious band marched deeper toward the city’s center, it seemed that the citizens became ever more mean-spirited. Now curses and oaths were hurled from open windows as well as refuse and dung. Finally, an angry casalinga charged from behind her brown stuccoed home and swung her broom wildly at them. “Tornate a casa! ” she shrieked. “Tornate a casa!”

  Pieter sighed. “She says, ‘Go home you brats.’”

  Wil encouraged his friends. “We’ve met worse than an old hag with a broom.” His comment earned a few halfhearted smiles but the disillusionment of their reception would not be so easily overcome. Some wondered if Jerusalem would be equally disappointing.

  They trudged along the streets and turned a corner only to pass by an old man sitting on a stubby oak stool. By the look of him Conrad knew more unpleasantry was in store. He set his jaw and stared straight ahead. As all expected, the crotchety old man stood up and shook his tankard of wine violently, spilling most of its contents on his sleeve. “Tornate da dove siete venuti, via, via.”

  Heinz tugged on Pieter’s tunic as they walked by. “What did he say?”

  “Oh, nothing very complimentary.”

  Otto pressed. “What did he say? Tell us.”

  “He said, ‘Get out of here. Go back where you came from.’”

  The crusaders tightened their column only to walk headlong into several men-at-arms. Three soldiers stepped toward them. “Andate vi!” boomed one.

  Wil put his hands on his hips and was about to speak when Pieter interrupted. “Signore, we are about the business of Crusade and need …”

  “Si, si,” said another guard. “We know exactly what you be here for. Legions have come before you and none are welcome.”

  “But, sir, I implore thee …”

  “Begone. You shall not remain in this city.”

  “Good sir,” insisted Pieter, “we are not without means.”

  The soldiers eyed the priest suspiciously. They looked carefully at the ripped tunics, the tattered blankets, the worn shoes. One bent low to look at Heinz. He took his helmet from his head and held it under his arm as he placed his long nose close to the boy’s dirty face. “You, my little master of the northland,” he said sarcastically. “You are of some means?”

  Heinz could not understand the man but fully grasped his tone. He puffed his chest and glared.

  Pieter stepped to the soldier’s side. “I said, my son, we are not without means and that is what I meant.”

  The guard stood upright and replaced his helmet on his head. He measured his words. “You’ve the look of a padre of sorts; perhaps you claim to follow Francis of Assisi?”

  “I don’t know the man, but I foll
ow none save young Wil here.”

  “Yet you wear a black robe and have a strange cross about yer neck.”

  “Si. Forgive me, sire, I ought be more plain. As you, I do follow our Savior.”

  “That’s beside the point,” growled another guard. “Our city is overrun with these thieving whelps from the north and we’ve no need of more. But since you claim to be a padre, you’ve the choice to walk away or to meet our dungeon master.”

  The sudden image of Basel’s terror made Pieter cringe. He quickly plucked the pouch of coins from his belt and bounced it in his hand. “I say again, signore, we are not thieves—I am a priest. Unlike others we have been blessed with special means.” He opened the bag and pinched out a few pennies.

  The soldiers whispered amongst themselves, then turned to Pieter. “Are we to believe that is not stolen money?” one quipped. “Or perhaps you were paid for forgiving sins.”

  Pieter slowly dropped each coin back in his pouch. He held the last few in his fingers and lifted them toward the group. “Our pardon, sirs, for robbing you of your time. Perhaps we ought pay you for it.” He tossed the coins into the air and let them bounce about their boots.

  As the soldiers scrambled to snatch the scattering pennies from the cobbled street, the children slipped by and lost themselves in an alleyway. Once certain they were free to move along, they followed the downward streets toward the water’s edge.

  As they passed through the oldest portions of the city, the crusaders took better note of how very different was this place. Here were no steep-pitched thatched roofs or heavy-timbers. Instead were stone or plastered buildings capped with strange, tile shingles. Instead of brown hues and tans were whites and greys and the trees seemed shorter and stout. At long last the column turned a final corner and faced the busy docks. The children’s eyes stretched wide and mouths dropped as they beheld the proud bows of huge galleys from the entire known world. The ships seemed to be waiting patiently, resting comfortably on the clean, blue-green water and tethered to their smooth pilings like mighty oxen tied to heavy poles.