They came toward a densely wooded patch where the road disappeared in the gloom. “Put your helm on, my lord,” Albrecht told her. “There may be brigands.”
She looked ahead with interest. “Really?” She was grinning.
It was harrowing to ride into the woods, where the trees’ branches were so interlaced that little more than scraps of the sun’s light made it to where they slowly advanced.
“Ahead,” Albrecht abruptly spoke.
She followed his gaze to where three men stood in the road, obscured in the darkness but still identifiable. “Brigands?”
“Probably,” Albrecht replied. He drew his sword and continued to ride slowly toward the men. He dropped the packhorse’s lead so he could lift his wooden shield to his chest. Elisabeth followed suit, her heart racing with anticipation of her first real encounter.
It was not easy to see, with the gloom and the narrow view from her helm. The two rode steadily forward, keeping their eyes on the trio on the road. Albrecht called, “You, there, make way for the Lord of Winterkirche!”
The men appeared to consult with one another. One lifted a bow and fired an arrow toward them, but it flew wide. The men suddenly turned and dashed away into the thick of the woods.
“Well, damn and hell,” Elisabeth swore.
Albrecht did not respond. He looked puzzled, then turned to look behind them. “Damn and hell indeed. The packhorse.” He whirled Carlchen and spurred him back the way they came.
Elisabeth turned Gauner in time to see their packhorse’s arse disappear into the thicket alongside the road.
“Two brigands, I think,” Albrecht shouted back to her.
She spurred Gauner into a run and caught up with Albrecht. She let Gauner follow Carlchen off the road into the trees. Gauner, a superior mount to Carlchen, overtook him and spurted forward. She lifted her sword to strike as they came up to the two thieves with the stolen packhorse.
One man shouted something to his companion and dashed ahead on his own. Elisabeth leaned down as she rode past the man who gripped the packhorse’s lead rope. He turned to glare at her, starting to raise a short sword. She brought her arm down with all her might. Her sword bit into his shoulder where it was attached to his neck. He screamed and loosed the pack animal, falling as Elisabeth shot past him.
Breathless, she slowed and turned her horse to ride back and finish the man off. She saw Albrecht dismount and walk to the screaming man. As she rode forward, he raised his own sword and brought it down on the man’s uncovered head.
Halting Gauner, Elisabeth slid off the saddle and came up next to Albrecht. She looked down at the man they had killed. His shoulder was a bloody mass of carved raw meat, but it was his head and face she fixed her appalled gaze on. His skull was split from his crown to his mouth. She could see his brains as they oozed out. One of his eyes lay out and down the side of his face. She quickly pulled off her helm, turned, doubled up, and vomited. Albrecht reached to hold her shoulders as she heaved.
Standing, Elisabeth wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her chain mail hauberk. It scratched her face, and the vomit stung and made her wince. “I… I’m sorry. It’s just that… that was my first kill.”
Albrecht looked at her, his eyes distant. “I know. Mine too.” He turned away from her and heaved. It was her turn to hold his shoulders.
Just then they both heard a zip and saw a crossbow bolt bury itself in the eye of the packhorse. Its head jerked back with the impact and it toppled over sideways.
Raising her sword, Elisabeth began to run forward, cursing, but Albrecht reached out a hand and snatched at her. “Stop! There’s no point.”
She slowed and came back to him. “I suppose you are right. The best that could happen is that I get a bolt in my own eye.”
Albrecht nodded, his shoulders slumped. “We had better get back on the road. No sense standing here like targets.”
She whipped her head around but could see no bandits. “What about the horse? The supplies?”
“Unless you want to eat the horse, leave it to them. As far as the supplies….” He shrugged. “The packs are not on the horse. The other man must’ve unstrapped them while we were still advancing on the other two.”
She followed Albrecht back to their mounts. He helped her up and then dragged himself up onto his own horse.
As they returned to the road, she realized she still had her sword in her hand. She raised it to sheath it and saw the blood.
Seeing her tremble, Albrecht snapped, “Here!”
Startled, she looked over to see that he had tossed her his neck kerchief. She snatched it out of the air.
“Clean your sword,” he said.
The kerchief was clotted with blood and worse already, but she wiped away as much as she could before sheathing her sword.
He chided her as she returned the bloody kerchief to him. “And you wanted to kill paynim? Good thing you were never really serious.”
She turned to watch as he prepared to go on with their journey. Not serious? she thought. Is he right? Do I have any idea why I am here? Or where I am going?
Elisabeth grew silent as they continued on the road. The killing of the brigand had shaken her, but not the way she thought it might have. She realized as they rode that she had not hesitated to fight, to raise a real sword and intend to kill. She tried to tell herself it was simple practicality, that in such dire circumstances anyone, and more to the point, any woman, would do the same if her life was at stake. But no, that was not necessarily true and besides, that was not what struck her now. She had not risen to the occasion. She had been ready for it. It felt natural to her, if not exactly pleasant. A girl would not feel this way, she thought.
Elisabeth reflected on all the times she had felt wrong in her own body. Did I ever accept my lot as a girl? I can’t remember a single instance when I was not chafing at my skirts, wanting to run and climb trees and be loud. When I was little I was often punished for taking off my skirts and running around in a tunic and my hose, just like Elias dressed. And how I fretted over the restrictions Mother tried to place on my behavior. The only way I got through it was the freedom Mother’s illnesses gave me.
She recalled a time, when they were small, that Elias had flatly refused to believe when a servant told him Elisabeth was not his brother. They had grown so similar in every way that the two regarded the anatomical differences as mere individuality, not of any significance. In fact, Elias had taught her how to pee standing up. She made a mess of it every time, but so what? She was better at some things, and he at others. After his hot denial of her girlhood, Elisabeth noticed her brother spent a fair amount of time looking at her and then at village girls, seeming puzzled that his sister in no way behaved like even the most boisterous of the girls.
Marta constantly lectured her about being more “ladylike”. She told her that it was all very well to be a girl who liked boy things, but as she grew up she would find other interests, other pursuits, and ultimately would want to attract a man, not be one. But that never happened, she now realized. If I never wanted to be a girl, might it be that I am somehow not one?
Wearing these clothes, this armor, relaxing and swearing, and then acting on the need to kill, they all feel right. In fact, over the past days, I have never felt more genuine, more right in my own skin, more me.
The feeling was so strong, so clear, that Elisabeth did not even try to puzzle out how it could be, how she could have a woman’s body but know in her core she—no, he—was a man. It felt true, truer than anything else she ever had felt.
What path Elisabeth could possibly follow seemed clear at this juncture. It was a gift, this quest, this opportunity, a chance to be the man I always knew I was to be.
THEY STOPPED for the night where a small pier jutted out into the flow of a huge river. “The Danube?” Elisabeth asked.
“Yes,” Albrecht said. “Almost there.”
She gave him an odd look but did not say any more until the light had gone and
they were ready to roll up in their cloaks and sleep by their campfire.
“Albrecht, I have to tell you something,” she began.
He stopped trying to get comfortable on the ground and looked up expectantly. “My lord?”
Hesitantly, she continued. “I want to keep going.” He did not interrupt, so she went on. “I love this. I love the freedom, the adventure, and the independence, even the fighting. I don’t want to be a woman anymore. I want to be a man.”
Albrecht sat up and wrapped his arms around his bent knees, his eyes focused on Elisabeth. “I don’t understand.”
She looked up and straight into his face. “I think you do understand.”
He considered and then asked, “Are you saying you want to persist in the masquerade? To try to live your life as a man, a fake one?”
“No. I want to be a man. I can’t explain it, not really, but I think I am a man.” She ground her teeth, squared her jaw, and asserted, “I am a man.”
At his confused look, Elisabeth tried to impress her conviction. “Albrecht, maybe I can explain it better later, but all I can say now is that I have never felt like a girl. I always felt like a boy. I think someone made a mistake when they gave me a girl’s body. Right here, inside, I am a boy, a man.” Her—his—hand was on his chest, over his heart. Now he looked full into Albrecht’s eyes. “I told Elias about this before he… died. He called me brother.”
Albrecht sat silent for a moment, then nodded. “And now you are, who? Elias?”
Elisabeth—Elias—shrugged. “Why not? It would honor him to take his name. But I want more. I want to stay a knight. I want to go to the Holy Land. I want to do what my brother was to do. I want to fight paynim and to make it to Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” He looked down and plucked at the crusader’s cloak he wore. “I want this to mean something, to be real.” The man Elias glanced up, then firmed his jaw and said in a stern voice, “I don’t just want that. I am going to do that.” His voice softened. “And I want you to go with me, to be my squire.”
Albrecht gazed at him for some time. He suddenly got to his feet and bowed to him where he sat on the ground. “My lord, I would be honored to continue to be your squire.”
The new Elias jumped up, and they locked arms. His face was lit with anticipation, but at the same time with earnestness and anxiety. “Thank you, Albrecht,” he said breathlessly. Then he added, “Deus lo volt. God wills it.”
Albrecht grinned. “I just hope he knows that.”
Chapter Six
Ida
DAYS LATER, after threading the deep gorges carved in the mountains by the mighty Danube, Elias and Albrecht heard the captain of the small river craft announce, “Mölk ahead. All departing, ready yourselves.”
As they saddled their horses, Elias looked at the town growing closer on the south bank. He could see some sort of stone structure under construction. Glancing at one of the other passengers, he found his quizzical expression answered by the man. “That’s the margrave’s new monastery. They say once it is built, he will move his residence somewhere else.”
One of the crew interjected, “Well, I don’t care. Even if he and his court move away, it’s not like there is no other traffic on the river. Especially with you crusader knights going back to the Holy Land to finish what you started.”
Elias marveled that the crewman was indicating him when he said “crusader knights,” and he looked down at the red cross sewn on his tabard.
“God wills it,” he murmured. He could only hope God would recognize him as the man he was.
Elias continued to marvel over how readily everyone he came in contact with accepted him as a man. A young man, almost a boy, but a man all the same. As he and Albrecht waited outside the hall of Margrave Leopold, he whispered his surprise to Albrecht. Since they had been among other armed men, many of them wearing the cross of the crusaders, Albrecht had taken more care to walk behind him and to defer to him in every way. He introduced him as “Elias, Ritter of Winterkirche.”
“I have only seen one person look oddly at me when you introduced me. That court official, the one who left to ask the margrave if he would see us.”
Albrecht glanced about to assure himself they were not overheard. “I noticed that too, my lord. I suppose we will learn the truth soon.”
Elias enjoyed the playacting that was a survival tactic for him now. He made a point of watching how other knights stood, how they laughed and talked, and how they treated their equals and their inferiors.
He tried a swagger, leaned indolently against the wall, cleaned his ear with his finger, and belched when he needed to. It helped distract his worry about whether Reinhardt had seen through their ruse when upon his return he heard of their flight, or whether perhaps Hans had played them false. While on the road, he was confident they had the jump on any possible pursuers, but now, in Mölk for who knew how long, his anxiety about pursuit returned. The sooner he and Albrecht could get on with the journey to Constantinople, the calmer he would feel.
The door to the hall creaked open, and the court official bowed to him. “My Lord Elias, their graces will see you now.”
Elias started to ask if Albrecht could come in with him but thought better of it. He simply held his head high and walked past the man, letting Albrecht take the initiative to follow. He heard the squire’s armored footsteps on the stone flags behind him and smiled to himself.
The hall was a huge and elegantly appointed room that held no furniture save one table on a dais. The table was covered with what looked like fine white linen with gold embroidery, and the candlesticks and wine goblets it held were likewise made of gold. The three people who sat behind the table were garbed in the richest finery Elias had ever seen.
None of the three were looking at him as he approached the dais and went down on one knee, his head bowed. He had time enough only to see the profile of a young clean-shaven man not many years older than he. He was strikingly handsome, with softly flowing fair hair and strong cheekbones. There was a cleric of some rank on the man’s left. On his right, a woman was obscured to Elias’s view as she leaned behind the young man to speak to the cleric.
“Your Graces, Bishop, may I present the Ritter Elias von Winterkirche,” announced the man who had brought him and Albrecht into their presence.
The young man turned toward Elias and said in a warm and welcoming voice, “Ritter Elias, how pleased and surprised we are to see you!” He sounded quite sincere.
With his head still bowed, he replied in his best male voice, “Your Grace, I am gratified for your welcome. You are too generous.”
He heard a chair pushed back, and the man he assumed was the margrave stepped first on the dais and then on the stone flags. Fabulously be-ringed hands reached down to hold and raise him by his arms. Astonished, he looked up and into the margrave’s smiling face. His blue eyes sparkled. He still held Elias’s arms, and he leaned to kiss him on both cheeks.
“Young sir, we were delighted to learn that the news we received from Bavaria was untrue!”
“B-beg pardon, your grace?” was all Elias could muster as a reply.
The margrave looked a little abashed. “My dear young sir, we had heard you died!”
Impulsively, Elias answered, “Good my lord, I think it was my twin sister’s passing that was mistakenly reported as my own.”
Leopold III looked back into his face with concern. Letting go of his arms, he made the sign of the cross and said a quiet prayer. “I am so sorry. May God bless her and keep her to his bosom. And may our Holy Mother ease you in your loss.” He looked up at the table on the dais. “Do you hear that, Mother? It was his sister, not he. Good news, but yet so sad.”
Elias followed the margrave’s eyes and then froze. The woman on the dais sat forward with his her hands clasped prayerfully on the table, looking with sympathy into Elias’s face. She was as fair as her son, the margrave, and seemed hardly older than he. Elias immediately saw why this woman, Ida, margr
avina of Austria, was called the greatest beauty in Europe. Her skin was smooth and soft, her blue eyes luminous, and her Cupid’s-bow mouth was red as strawberries. Her hair, where it showed underneath her loose veil of some delicate Eastern stuff, was almost a white gold as it cascaded in soft curls to frame an angel’s face and spill out upon her white shoulders. Elias thought, I could die in her arms, and then panicked, afraid he had said it aloud.
In a sweet, bell-like voice, Ida said, “Your Grace, my Lord Bishop, can we not have a prayer for this young knight’s sister?”
Elias caught an amused smile on Leopold’s face that turned solemn at his mother’s words. He knelt next to Elias, while upon the dais the margravina stepped back from her chair and knelt before the bishop, who stood, one hand raised, and spoke a prayer in Latin. Elias discovered he had knelt as well, though he could not bow his head. He could not look away from the glorious woman on the dais.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, amen,” the holy man finished.
Elias expected a hand under his elbow to help him rise, but it flashed through his mind that men did not do that for other men, unless they were old or infirm. He stood and said gratefully, “Your Graces, Bishop, I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you honor me and my family so.”
The bishop, seated again, said in the deep sonorous voice he had used for the prayer, “Young knight, I see you wear the cross of the crusade. Are you ready to take the vow to serve God and remove the godless paynim from the ground upon which our Savior trod those many years ago?”
“I am, your grace.” He looked up into Ida’s eyes and thrilled to see the pride and approval there. Let me die at your feet, lady. He knew he said it only in his heart this time.
The margrave slapped his on his mailed shoulder. “Good, good. Though you are not a subject of ours, we shall be glad to add our blessing to your act of faith and honor.”
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