Beloved Pilgrim

by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

  “The looters. I didn’t see all that much action in the battle. You?”

  Ranulf shook his head. “It all happened so fast. My unit did not even move from our emplacement before we heard the shouts that the Turks surrendered the city.” He looked at Elias from the side of his eye. “Aren’t you looking forward to your first all-out battle?”

  Elias laughed harshly. “I suppose at least then I will feel more like a pilgrim knight. But I have a good imagination. I don’t think war is glorious. It isn’t clean. It isn’t merry.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. There are two things about battle you never hear anyone describe. It’s loud and it stinks. Even if you come away unwounded, your ears ring for days and you can’t get the smell of blood, guts, and shit out of your nostrils.” He grimaced. “It’s like a charnel house, only it’s men, not cattle you are smelling.” He stood slowly, stretching his back with the crackle of joints and a moan. “I should go see if my men are staying out of trouble.” He saluted Elias, winked at Albrecht, and strode stiffly away.

  Wrapped in his cloak on the hard stone of the mosque’s porch—“St. Etheldreda’s,” he reminded himself to call it—Elias discovered he really could be tired enough to sleep on a cold, unyielding bed. His thoughts went immediately to Maliha, how he had felt healed by her touch, lost in the radiance of her smile, far more than the satisfaction he had gotten from Giuliana. Through the three experiences of loving a woman—as a supplicant of Ida, the celebration of that part of life with Giuliana, and now Maliha making him complete—he realized the violation by Reinhardt felt like a distant memory, like something that happened to someone else. It did, after all, not happen to someone named Elias. He dropped off during a memory of a succulent Turkish kiss.

  He awoke sore and stiff, and as he struggled to stand up, Albrecht brought him bread and wine. Elias swung his arms and pulled his knees to stretch them as he went into the alley they used to relieve themselves. He came back only slightly more limber. “The twenty-fourth of June, eh?”

  Albrecht smiled. “Don’t ask me whose saint day it is. I never paid any attention to that. Except for my own saint day.”

  “When is that?” Elias asked around a mouthful of bread he dipped in the wine.

  Albrecht looked blank. “You know, I don’t remember. Sometime when it is very cold.”

  “My twin brother and I had the same birthday, of course. The twentieth of July.”

  Albrecht looked interested. “So which did you get, St. Elias or St. Elizabeth?”

  He took a swallow of the wine, complete with dregs, and smiled. “Elias.”

  Albrecht laughed. “It was meant to be,” he said in a mock-portentous voice. “What was he patron saint of?”

  “Twins,” Elias said with no hesitation.

  “Really?” Albrecht exclaimed. Elias’s snort betrayed that he was jesting.

  Elias went in search of the constable of the Holy Roman Empire after a quick visit to a fountain to try to wash off some of the blood. It came off the mail, but he knew water on mail was a bad idea. He hoped Albrecht had some oil for it. The blood was too well set into the cloth underneath to make much headway.

  He found Conrad talking to several German knights and joined them when the constable nodded in his direction. It seemed someone had just asked him where the pilgrims would go next. “North, to Gangra.”

  “Is it a fortress? As heavily garrisoned as this one?” a knight asked and was applauded with laughter.

  Conrad did not laugh, nor did he even smile. “Don’t know. We have scouts out to see what they can find out. And foraging parties.”

  “Good. I think I could eat a camel.” Laughter rewarded the man who said this as well. Nervous laughter.

  “You may be lucky to get camel,” the old commander said acerbically. “We will see when the forage parties get back. We will probably get through the rest of our own stores and all of the city’s in a couple days.”

  As it came to pass, turning Ancyra over to the emperor meant that his representatives would deny supplies to the pilgrims. If they had taken and kept it, they could have stripped the city of anything they needed or wanted—not only food and water, but also weapons, horses, and women, not to mention booty of a shinier kind. Instead, Raymond stood with his arms limp at his sides, flabbergasted at Tzitas’s support of the council now in charge of the city for Alexios.

  “How do you expect us to go on without enough supplies?”

  The Pecheneg commander studied him impassively. “You were not meant to take this city. You were meant to take Dorylaeum and Konya. There you could take what you wanted.”

  Stephen of Blois, red as blood in the face, shouted, “How are those cities any different from this one? They are in Seljuk hands.”

  “They would be in Byzantine hands had you not detoured from the path you promised the emperor you would follow.” Tzitas spun about and stalked away.

  His one eye blazing, Raymond scowled at the archdeacon who stood to one side, listening to the discussion. “Are you happy now? We did as your people insisted, and now we are neck deep in shit.”

  Archdeacon Ludovico, the cleric who represented the archbishop of Milan, pursed his lips. “You ought to know what fighting in paynim lands is like. It’s not a holiday. It’s war. Holy war.”

  Stephen eyed Raymond as he stomped to the cleric. “Is it holy war we are here for, or to save the arrogant arse of that bastard Bohemond?” he demanded, shaking his fist in the archdeacon’s face.

  “It is not God’s will that his knights should battle each other, but the heathens.”

  “Are these the heathens we were sent here to eradicate from the Holy Land?” Raymond challenged.

  Archdeacon Ludovico looked up and away, as if dealing with a vexatious child. “What matter, if they are heathens. The emperor—”

  “The emperor commanded us to go south.”

  “Almighty God requires that we go to the aid of our brother Bohemond.” Ludovico pressed his thin lips tightly together to punctuate the point. He was going to argue no more.

  “Oh, for Christ’s pitiful sake,” Raymond muttered, then turned and left the chamber, Stephen close on his heels. Elias, who had viewed the exchange from the doorway through which they passed, was able to hear their continued discussion.

  Stephen put a hand on Raymond’s shoulder, flinching when Raymond threw it off. “North, then,” the shorter man said. “How?”

  The count glared at him. “We shall have to learn where the main road is.”

  Stephen’s self-satisfied grin presaged his news. “I have a guide for us, Raymond.”

  Raymond stared down at him. “You do. Where did you find him?”

  “He came to me and a couple of the others. He says he knows the path to take to regain the road to Gangra.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Stephen did not appear happy with his leader’s response. “What can he do, one small man against our thousands?”

  Raymond opened and shut his fists at his sides. He frowned, considering. “All right,” he finally said. “Let’s see what the latest report is from the scouts. Then we’ll decide.”

  Stephen smiled victoriously. “But of course. I have other news….”

  Raymond sighed. It seemed to Elias that talking to Stephen was like milking a goose. “And what is that, pray tell, Stephen?” He smiled unctuously.

  “I know where we can get a little more in the way of supplies.”

  Raymond bowed his head, lower lip pressed out in thought. “Get it. And once we have the reports, we’ll make our final plans. If possible, we leave at dawn of the day after tomorrow.”

  ALBRECHT ROLLED Elias’s suits of chain mail in a shallow trough of sand mixed with oil. He looked up from where he worked when he heard Alain’s greeting. “Where is Elias?”

  He got to his feet and made a short bow. “My Lord Alain, he is with the constable dealing with some issues with the horses.”

  Alain looked annoyed. He was
not in armor, and Albrecht noted a rent in his tunic. One of his shoes was torn at a seam and curled and flapped when he moved. “My lord, what happened?”

  Alain glanced down at his clothes and shoes and frowned. “Blois had us fetching supplies from where they were hidden in a former mosque. The mullahs and their congregation did not take kindly to our removing it.” He narrowed his eyes. “I did not realize I came to the Holy Land to fetch and carry.”

  “Why are they even still here?” Elias’s voice came from several feet away. “The Muslims, I mean.”

  “The Byzantines seemed more tolerant than I would have expected. Something stinks around here.” Alain put out his hand to clasp Elias’s. “What news?”

  Elias walked over to the trough and nodded his approval of Albrecht’s cleaning of his mail. “Remarkable. I thank you.” He looked back over at Alain. “We are on for tomorrow at dawn. It seems Blois has a guide who will take us on a path that goes north to the main road. Somewhere between here and another fortress called Gangra. The scouts saw Turks up north, but they were just camped. Not that many, they said. We may have some trouble, but Conrad says it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  Albrecht pulled Elias’s suit of chain mail out of the oily sand and started to brush it off, knocking clumps of sand onto the dirt of the square. The metal underneath shone unevenly. “I will scrub the dull parts with fleece until they shine.”

  “Will it be ready for the morning?” Elias asked.

  “Of course, my lord.”

  Alain put in, “I will be glad not to be cooped up in this sorry excuse for a town.” He looked at Elias sharply, but with a grin. “Black Beast tells me he pulled your arse out of the fire the other day.”

  Elias laughed. “You could say that. And you would be right. I was nearly spitted and roasted. What about you? Did you see any action?”

  Alain shook his head ruefully. “When we got to the fight, it was all over. You did get a couple kills, he said. But no prize.”

  “No indeed. The pikeman was on me before I could take anything. Too bad, too, as I hoped to sell it here in Ancyra and send the money back to Maliha.”

  Alain stared at him. “Why would you do that, mon ami?” he asked, clearly puzzled.

  Elias looked back at Alain as if he realized there was nothing he could say that would make a lot of sense to the Frankish knight. He elbowed Alain. “He’s got contacts in the black market. I want him to help me build my wealth.”

  Alain shook his head. “You are a young idiot. He’ll take everything and you will never see it or him again. That son of a bitch Andronikos is probably in on it too. Slimy catamite,” he spat.

  Albrecht started to simmer. Elias punched Alain hard in the shoulder. “You’re probably right. That I am an idiot, I mean. You had better go. We are supposed to be ready to head out first light.”

  THE SUNRISE turned the clouds a smoky yellow as the troops made their way along a narrow track to the north and east. The track led to narrow gaps between higher ground, then out again into the open, only to wind between hills again. Relieved to be on the move after forced idleness, many of the pilgrims nevertheless kept glancing about. The way was just too perfect for ambush.

  As the German contingent wrinkled their noses at the Lombard peasants who trooped before them in the procession, one of Raymond’s men came trotting toward them on his way back to the rear and his commander. Elias waved him over. “What word?”

  The man drew up and removed his cap to scratch his lice-ridden head. “The van is just half a league from the main road. Nothing seen yet, but there’s a god-awful smell.”

  Someone piped, “That’s just the Lombards!”

  Raymond’s man looked back, unsmiling, at Elias’s similarly unamused look. “It’s smoke. Smells like after the crops are harvested and you burn the stubble in the field.” He saluted the others and doubled his horse’s pace back to the rear.

  When the Germans reached the place where the land opened up to reveal the main road heading north, they had to slow and gather in behind the Lombards. The army had stopped. Conrad, standing in his stirrups, apparently could not see what was causing the delay. “Damn it,” he muttered. “Why don’t they send someone back to tell us what is going on?” He urged his horse through the press, reaching the edge of the procession, only to be joined by Raymond. Elias heard the Frankish knight mutter, “Now what are the idiots doing?” He and Conrad rode quickly forward, Raymond in the lead.

  The Lombards mingled or sat or lay down where they were. Elias could hear grumbling among them, along with women’s shrieking laughter, a crying child who had just been pushed in horse dung by an older child, the beginning of a drunken brawl, and the ribald comments of a group of unkempt men taunting a shy girl.

  “Why are they so loyal to Bohemond?” Elias asked Black Beast, who rode at his side. “He’s Norman. Not Lombard.”

  “A bunch of them fought under him after they messed things up for the Hermit. He is the Holy Land to them. And everyone knows the fight between him and Raymond is a petty, unworthy thing. Like a couple of bully boys squabbling over an alley.”

  One of the German men-at-arms called out that there was water in the middle of a mostly dried-up streambed, so the knights and the boys tending the sumpter animals headed off into the scrub to let the animals drink.

  Coming back into the procession, Beast said, “We must be moving.”

  The Lombards, from those farther up to the stragglers just in front of the Germans, were standing up, brushing themselves off, and gathering up their possessions and family members. Near Elias, a fat woman was kicking a man who was lying on the ground. He finally woke, got up, and slugged her in the face.

  Elias started to urge Gauner forward, but to his astonishment, the woman fell into step next to the man, who put one arm around her shoulders. The two walked on companionably.

  WHEN AT long last Elias reached the place where the path joined the main road, he instantly understood what had caused the sudden halt. The smell of stubble burned on a cleared field was caused by just that. Only this time, the crops had been burned, not the stubble. The Turks had torched every field he could see in either direction. While the pilgrims had taken the alternate route, the Turks took the main road and systematically destroyed any food the pilgrims could have taken.

  He glanced at a body off to the side of the path. It was barely recognizable as the guide hired by Stephen. The body was mangled, its throat slit, and had clearly visible stab wounds, likely inflicted by dozens of angry men. He caught the smell of urine on the bloody body, urine and worse.

  “Did he lead us down the path to delay us, or did he simply tell the sultan we would be here?” Elias turned to look at Ranulf as he settled his mount to fall in step with theirs. “Or was he innocent, a poor man wanting silver to feed his family with?”

  “God knows,” the mercenary captain said.

  “Which God?” Elias said acidly.

  In places where the crops had not been burned, they saw everything edible was gone. The Turks, after all, had to eat as they did. Even if the Turks never attacked, the pilgrims were doomed if they could not find food. How could this all have been so badly planned? Elias wondered.

  With the carts and livestock, the men-at-arms, and the camp followers on foot, it would be days before they could even hope to see the walls of Gangra before them. Scouts continued to report that the army of Kilij Arslan, sultan of the Seljuk, retreated before them. Every step of the way, they deprived the pilgrims of supplies. All they found were burned fields, all the sparse wood available likewise destroyed. Even the few wells they came across were filled in or contained decaying carcasses, usually of dogs, poisoning the water. The river just out of sight was at its midsummer low, so silty water was available, though just barely. Rations halved, the pilgrims marched steadily north and east toward the Pathlagonian city. Everyone was hungry and parched, exhausted. Even the Lombards quieted.

  Whatever he had expected, what Elias experience
d now was sheer hell. Though he did not wear his helm as he rode in the blazing summer sun, he did wear his mail and the thick padded shirt under it. He could not believe how hot the metal got in the sun. The quilted gambeson held in the heat. He dismounted from Gauner from time to time, not only to give him some relief from carrying his weight and the weight of his armor, but because the horse’s body heat was making it worse for him. He could feel the sweat running out of his hair and down his neck and back, where it tickled. He felt as if he wore a sponge full of hot, smelly water under his mail. He longed to strip naked and dive into a pond, but while some of the men took the chance and went to soak themselves in the river, he did not dare. He realized he must be starting to smell as bad as the Lombards and other camp followers. He tried fantasizing about splashing in a fountain with a naked Maliha, but after a short time, the fantasy itself started to torture him. He genuinely wondered if he would ever be clean and cool again. He would not let that other thought, the one about whether he would ever see Maliha again, crystallize in his mind.

  Elias worried mostly for Gauner. The small patches of green grazing that survived the devastation were long cropped to the roots by animals farther up the line. Elias meted out small handfuls of grain he carried for him. Gauner ate it gratefully, then nuzzled him for more.

  “Here!” came a shout from the line ahead of his one afternoon as he fed his horse. “Give me that!”

  It was a peasant, a big man with filthy hair and beard and filthier clothing. He strode forward, one hand extended and the other grasping a short, thick knife.

  “Why should that overgrown horse get to eat when my children do not?” he demanded.

  Elias drew his sword as he approached. “If we come under attack, you will be glad of this horse when he carries me to defend your sorry arse.” Any impulse to compassion for the little ones was precluded by Elias’s knowledge that what he said was God’s own truth.

  “You knights,” the man said as he spat on his shoes. “You have messed things up bad enough, haven’t you? We’ll be lucky if we get out of this alive.”