Beloved Pilgrim

by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

  From time to time, the procession passed tiny villages. Before the middle contingents reached them, the word would come back that the village was stripped of all provisions and livestock. They were able to get some water from the small, dwindling wells. One of the Byzantine horsemen who rode up from the rear came over when Elias beckoned to him.

  “If they cleared out when they knew we were coming, why did they leave the wells for our use?” he asked him.

  “They are long gone into the hills, my lord. They clear out during this time of the year, and they take their livestock and foodstuffs with them into the hills. They will need the wells when they return in the fall. They are all but dried up now, anyway.” At Elias’s thanks, he saluted and continued his progress forward.

  The pilgrims trudging along desultorily in front of Elias and his companions grumbled when the edict came down from the commanders that, now that the river had angled sharply east from where they rode, the water was to be reserved for the animals, and only when they were refreshed could any remaining supply be distributed to the people. Elias tried to explain that the animals were working, that the pilgrims needed what they carried to survive, and therefore the animals must be watered first.

  One man with a running sore on his cheek shouted over the protests, “I don’t see your animal carrying anything we need, my lord!” The last was said with a sneer and rewarded with laughter from those about him.

  As soon as Elias opened his mouth to respond, he was drowned out with jeers. He looked up to see Albrecht on Carlchen some way ahead. He had a disgusted expression on his face when he looked back at Elias and shook his head wearily. Elias noticed he had a child on his saddle in front of him.

  As evening approached and the heat barely eased, Conrad rode up alongside Elias. “Elias, I need your young eyes. Look out over there.” He raised his arm and pointed to one side of the procession, many yards distant. “What do you see?”

  He pushed his mail coif back from his sweat-sodden quilted hood and stood in his stirrups. Putting his hand over his eyes to shade them, he peered off into the distance at the rolling hills. “I don’t see…. No, wait.”

  Conrad waited for him to go on.

  “I see them,” he said. “Riders. Just along the crest of the hills and some closer.” He looked at the constable. “Are they just following to see that we go where they want, to the sea, or are they…?”

  Conrad shrugged his heavily padded shoulders. “I do not know.” He nodded to him. “Thank you, young lord.”

  At long last, the procession made camp for the night. It formed as a huge oblong with men-at-arms standing sentry in a ring around it. When the word came down that the journey would begin again before dawn, Elias stifled his own version of the groans he heard coming from all sides. After he saw to Gauner, he found a spot where he could rest his back against a dry tree trunk. He dared not take off his mail, so he could not take advantage of the slight breeze that would have dried his sweat-soaked clothing and cooled him. He took sips of the water in his waterskin, conserving what he knew was a precious commodity.

  He looked up when Albrecht joined him by the tree, carrying a wooden bowl of some sort of meat and grain for each of them.

  “What is it? The meat, I mean.”

  Albrecht grinned at him. “I have no idea, my lord. I didn’t really want to know, so I did not ask.”

  In the low light, Elias peered into the bowl. “Well, whatever it is, it’s not the only meat in here.” He reached in with his ungloved fingers and brought out a cooked grub. He grinned and popped it into his mouth. Pretending to chew with gusto, he said, “Delicious!”

  Albrecht laughed, and they finished their stew in silence, save for the slight crunching of the undercooked grain.

  “We are being followed. I saw Turks on the hills,” Elias said as he used his forefinger to wipe what was left of the liquid in his bowl to get every last drop.

  “I know. I saw them too.” Albrecht looked pensive. “I wonder what the morrow will bring.”

  Elias made the sign of the cross over his dusty, stained cloak with its red cross. “God knows.”

  THE TEEMING mass of pilgrims was up and moving north before the sun appeared in the eastern sky. Elias marveled, not for the first time, how a mass as huge as the thousands of pilgrims could be mobilized at all, no less as swiftly as they were this morning. He guessed it must be the result of marching in the relative cool of the day and being allowed to camp during the hottest periods.

  He took his place as usual with the German and Austrian contingent, led by Constable Conrad. The smell from the unwashed bodies of the Lombard peasants was worse than yesterday, but he realized he was not any sweeter smelling after all the days of the march since Nicomedia. Worse than the smell was the noise. Two thousand or more men, women, and children created a cacophony that quickly caused Elias’s head to ache and his ears to ring.

  The sun was hardly up when the Turkish riders appeared again on the hilltops to both the east and west. Elias was among those who saw them first. He peered out from under his helmet at them, wondering if they meant to keep at a distance, unnerving but not molesting the pilgrims. He had his answer in little time, as he swung his head to the west to see the source of a sudden, terrifying commotion.

  He made fast the strap under the chin of his helm, drew his sword, and turned to await the hundreds of mounted Turks he had seen coming toward the van. The other knights quickly formed a defensive line with the men-at-arms.

  As the Turks streaked toward the pilgrim column, he heard their shouts, the same eerie ululation as the day before, and stared to see what sort of attack they meant to make.

  Every one of the Turks, like the men who had chased them after Gangra, carried a bow, not spears, not swords, save for the swords they wore at their belts. The column Elias was in had formed an all-but-impermeable wall all the way back as far as he could see when the first wave of Turks let fly their arrows no more than thirty feet away. As one hundred arrows thudded into shields, those one hundred mounted archers swerved away and another hundred replaced them. Another flight of one hundred arrows hit the air and then the column. Two more waves of horsemen swooped in in turn.

  When no further wave followed the last, a roar of outrage erupted from the assembled knights in the van. Elias watched with both dismay and understanding as many knights broke through the shield wall and tore after the jeering horsemen. Elias wanted to go out there and return blow for blow, but he knew in his heart it would be useless. With their smaller horses, the Turks could easily outrun the knights on their huge destriers.

  Only then did Elias notice Blois was mounted quite near him. His aide de camp rode up on his right side. “Your Grace, I count at least five hundred Turkish horsemen total!”

  Elias stared at the man. Stephen shouted, “That means… five hundred arrows in a matter of minutes!” He looked back at his charging knights. The five hundred Turkish horsemen not only did not stand to meet them, they fled in all directions in parties of at least one hundred each. “Don’t chase them!” he muttered through his teeth. “Get back here!”

  The huge mounts of the knights were not bred to run, and within a quarter mile they were winded, forced to slow. Nevertheless, their riders did not return, but walked them more slowly forward. Elias glanced in all the directions the fleeing Turks had taken. “Dear God,” he whispered, then rode his own destrier to the edge of the column.

  Another five hundred Turkish bowmen streamed toward the knights. They came at an oblique angle, and because of their obscuring helms, the knights did not see them at first. When a few who did catch sight of the attackers wheeled their horses as quickly as they could, the rest realized what was happening. They, too, turned their horses and started back to the column. But the animals were spent and could not race back as they had raced forward. The first flight of arrows took to the sky and fell among them. Elias’s bowels clenched at the first cries of wounded battle horses.

  Conrad rode up beside
him, accompanied by a score of his knights. They watched with horror the drama unfolding near the van. The constable waved his arms and screamed, “Retreat!” Elias shook his head. If the men-at-arms had followed the knights, then at least the ground they covered chasing the Turks might have been held. He knew an entire new way of fighting was upon them.

  Many of the knights who came threading back through the shield wall had arrows sticking out from their shields and even their armor. Some were bloody and slumped against their horses’ necks. One man, unhorsed when numerous arrows felled his mount, tore forward, only to be flung full-length toward the outermost wall with an arrow in his back.

  Rejoining his countrymen, Elias saw Stephen look over at Conrad, his face pale behind the cheek pieces of his helm. He looked back to where a few horses and men lay on the ground between them and the Turkish riders. One horse stood and a Turk rode forward, grabbed its reins, and drew it away with him.

  “I could not stop them,” Stephen said defensively to the German commander. “They just reacted.”

  Conrad eyed him steadily. “Why did you not send the foot soldiers after them for support?”

  Stephen glared furiously at Conrad. He scowled and wheeled his horse to ride away.

  Conrad stared after him. “Elias, Gerhardt, go out and collect all the arrows you can. Take some of the foot soldiers. When you cannot carry any more, stamp on the rest to break them.”

  “Where should we take them, my lord?” Elias asked.

  Conrad sighed. “I don’t know. Just take them to the ox carts.” He muttered to himself, “Do I have to think of everything?”

  There were fourteen dead knights and thirty-seven wounded among the Burgundians. Five horses were lost or taken. The fact that no Turks had sustained any wounds at all made the otherwise low numbers seem to swell in importance.

  With the arrows gathered or broken and the formation starting to move forward again, the unthinkable happened. The hundreds of Turks rode up again, this time from the east, and in their sweeps at the column, loosed arrows just as they had before, first one hundred, then another, and then another, followed by two hundred more.

  Burgundy’s knights remained in position this time. Conrad had turned back to his own contingent, and when Stephen looked over, his scowl was aimed at Conrad’s two knights.

  “Where are they getting all those arrows from?” Elias asked no one in particular.

  Gerhardt responded, “Well, those that miss will be added to our arsenal.”

  Few men or horses were hit. The tight column with its multiple rows of shields prevented the sort of casualties sustained in the first round of attacks. If this happens again and again, Elias thought to himself, we won’t lose many men, but it will slow us down to a crawl. He wondered how far they had to go and whether they had or could find provisions to last. His old notions of what battle was like had altered extravagantly. It wasn’t valor he thought about, and not even fear of wounding or death. All he thought of was where the next water and food would come from.

  THE SUN was still a distance from its zenith when the Turks suddenly appeared once more, this time on the rear where Raymond rode. Another five hundred were in that attack, and to everyone’s astonishment, as many again struck along both flanks. Now not only the Pecheneg and the Byzantines in the rear were struck, but one thousand Turks harried the Germans and Austrians all the way up to the Lombard noncombatants. The heathen archers streamed along the sides and shot their arrows high into the air so they fell down into the middle. Only those who wore stout helms and shoulder armor could hope to avoid the arrows, and even they were vulnerable if arrows struck their mounts. Though the attack only lasted as long as the first two, perhaps several minutes, there were many more casualties.

  The company delayed a midday rest until the Turks were gone out of sight over the hills to the east. The commanders had no real choice. The injured and the dead must be seen to.

  “Find us someplace to rest,” Raymond barked at an aide.

  Only a half mile ahead, they found a deserted village. There were no people, no animals, and little water in the wells. Nevertheless, there was some shade in the lee of the buildings and rough outer walls. The Lombards streamed in, following the Burgundians’ men-at-arms, and took every space they could bully their way into. Elias and his companions could not find shade for the horses, but a breeze wafting over a hill to the west, slightly cooler than the heat of the day, dried both human and equine sweat, providing some relief.

  Conrad stalked about the village, stopping to talk with the clumps of men resting wherever they could find space. He made his way slowly to where Elias and Albrecht sat with the three knights and their squires in the shade their own horses made. He returned their nods, asking how they fared.

  “That tactic,” he informed them without preamble, “has not been used successfully since the Parthians.”

  Alain looked puzzled. “Who were they?”

  Albrecht surprised his comrades by responding, “They fought Alexander the Great in Persia, is that right?”

  Conrad cocked a single eyebrow in appreciation. “Very good. The tactic was abandoned after Alexander decimated the Parthian army.”

  “How did he do it?” Elias asked.

  “Well, I can tell you it wasn’t by riding out in small groups and trying to chase them down.” Conrad’s disgust was evident. Then he appeared to reconsider the courtesy of criticizing his fellow commanders. “Alexander’s foot soldiers were just too well-armored and too good.”

  Elias observed, “Alexander was not called the Great for nothing. Not an easy example to equal.”

  Conrad, looking away, made a gesture of dismissal and walked off.

  “What is going to happen now?” Alain asked rhetorically.

  Black Beast made a rude noise in his throat. “If that keeps up the rest of today and the next day and the next….”

  Bertolf, his squire, a barrel of a man even at his young age, shook his head. “We are not going to keep on to rescue Lord Bohemond, are we?”

  No one looked at him or replied.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Only Way Out

  AT NIGHT, the pilgrims fell into sleep almost as soon as they lay on the ground, from the sheer exhaustion of the day’s march. They did not awake refreshed in the dawn. The blazing heat made the pilgrims, particularly those in armor, stupid from dehydration. Young joints resisted flexing as if their owners were aged. Sleep, rather than being restful, just fogged the senses.

  God help us, Elias thought, if we are called on to act quickly.

  Quick turned out to be the last thing anyone would have to be. Not long after the column formed and began to move toward the mountains and sea, the Turks swooped down again. The turtle formation was almost second nature now. No one complained about the slow pace, stopping for the attacks, then moving at a crawl in between, because no one had the energy to move any faster. That single day felt like a week, and then in the early morning it all began again, each day the twin of the last with relentless assaults on the slow-moving procession. On everyone’s minds was one crippling realization. The slow pace meant more days on the road, and more days on the road made it inevitable that thirst and hunger would begin to claim lives as surely as any Turkish arrows could.

  There was no respite from the assaults. The only change for the pilgrims was that they were increasingly ill-equipped to keep going. Water was even scarcer than before, and the grain carts were emptying. Added to the actual heat from the searing sun was the impression of heat from torched fields and groves. The acrid smoke turned already parched throats into painful, cracking tissue.

  People started to drop where they walked. The very old stumbled, and though helped to stand by their family members, soon fell to the ground again. Some of the men among the noncombatants tried to carry their old people, but they were little hardier than their burdens. At first they laid their dead atop the lessening stores in the ox carts, but the weight took its toll on the already
suffering draft animals. A near riot of protest at the removal of corpses to be left behind on the ground was quelled by yet another sweep of Turks, whose arrows felled more of the pilgrims who were too slow to get into a protective position.

  The fourth night after Gangra, they made camp in the open. Elias heard Albrecht, who had strayed from his side, and looked up as he lay down near him. “Where were you? What’s wrong?” he added as he saw the desolation on his face.

  Albrecht rasped as much from his parched throat as from a desire to be discreet. “I went to look for the Lombard woman and her child. My waterskin was under my cloak. I have been sneaking water to the child against orders. A guard came out of nowhere and grabbed me. I pretended I could not understand him, but he just reached under my cloak and pulled out the waterskin. He asked me who it was for. I told him it was for my horse. But he was wise to me. He pointed out that the Bavarians’ horses were picketed in the opposite direction.”

  “What happened?” Elias urged.

  “They took it, the skin. Confiscated. Asked me how my horse will drink now. I started to reach for my sword, but the other guards grabbed my arms. I asked on whose authority he confiscated my water. He said it was Toulouse, not that he wants for provisions himself.” Albrecht scratched his bent head and made a derisive noise in his throat. “He told me I wasn’t going to take water to my ‘bit of tail.’ As if I had the energy to fuck. He said, ‘That well will be as dry as the rest in no time, with nothing to pay her.’”

  Elias wondered if Albrecht’s Lombard woman had assumed from the first that he wanted something in return for the water for her child, and the only thing she had was her body. When the squire never made his advances, she would no doubt have been puzzled.

  “I couldn’t keep looking for them with nothing to give the child. I knew the woman would be waiting for me, but I just turned and came back here.”

  THE NEXT day, children started to die. Furious recriminations accompanied the soldiers’ insistence that the bodies, not only the old people and the wounded who could not walk, but now the little ones, be left on the side of the road at the mercy of whatever the Turks would do to them. Dozens became scores lining the path churned up by thousands of feet shuffling between stops to form the turtle.