Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  I slept that night in the woods and in the morning drank from and then washed my face in the stream, and soon after found a few early berries, not yet summer-sweet but not entirely unpleasant. It was a lovely late-spring day when I stood once again at the giant wooden gates. But this time I called the birds until several hundred flocked about me. I reasoned that if that Italian deacon, Francis of Assisi, could impress by preaching to the birds, maybe it would also work for me. I did not ring the bell but simply waited directly opposite the little window set into the gate. It opened soon enough and a different gatekeeper’s face, surprised to see me, appeared. ‘Good morrow! What is it you want?’ the monk shouted above the bird cries, pulling back in fright when a magpie landed on the ledge in front of him.

  I indicated the birds. ‘We have been sent to pray at the grave of Brother Dominic. He was a great friend of the birds and they have come to sing a Gloria of their own at his graveside.’

  ‘We saw them coming,’ he exclaimed. ‘They came from everywhere – the sky was filled with their cries. I am sent to inquire,’ he shouted in a friendly voice. I made a mental note to think a little better of this bird preacher, Francis of Assisi. Perhaps he wasn’t as stupid as he seemed.

  ‘Well then,you are to letus in, we do God’s bidding,’I shoutedback.

  One of the great doors swung open and with the birds hovering above me in an avian cloud we followed him. But with the monastery already alerted by the gathering of the birds and with their noise in the air above me, by the time we reached St Michael’s Chapel, which served as the monks’ burial ground, a hundred monks had gathered and soon even the abbot arrived. I was led to the grave of Brother Dominic where I let the birds sing a little longer before letting them be gone, and then I asked permission of the abbot to sing a Gloria I knew to be my tutor’s favourite.

  The abbot then intoned a short prayer and thanked me for coming. ‘We have heard much about you, Little Sister Sylvia. It seems God has blessed you in Cologne and you have made a powerful friend in the new archbishop.’

  ‘Father, I am no longer at the nunnery and am now plain Sylvia Honeyeater, and as for the archbishop, I have met him but the once.’

  ‘But well met it seems. He has visited and speaks mostly highly of you and claims you have great sensibilities for a woman and are gifted with four languages. I know Brother Dominic greatly loved you and you brought him great joy with your questioning mind. He thought us all not worth the time to tutor and claimed you would one day be another Hildegard von Bingen.’

  I blushed. ‘Nay, Father!’ I protested. ‘Brother Dominic was always over-lavish in his praise.’

  ‘I think not,’ he replied quietly. ‘Perhaps you will tarry sufficiently to take some repast?’ Then he added, ‘I would greatly like to hear the story of the archbishop’s inquiry. We get scarce any news here and the archbishop on his visit told that you did play a surprisingly relevant part in the hearing and greatly helped his deliberations, though he didn’t tell us more of the proceedings.’

  ‘Did Brother Dominic not tell you? I told him all of it.’

  ‘Nay, he was old and felt himself betrayed by Rome.’ The abbot sighed. ‘He trusted no one in the priesthood and in the end, perhaps only thee.’

  I would not have found myself able to accept the abbot’s hospitality knowing that news of my coming would reach the abbess and that this might prove awkward for him. It was he who had originally urged her, to her fury, to free me for the afternoons so that I might study with Brother Dominic. I did not wish to make further trouble between them. But now, by telling the abbot of the archbishop’s inquiry, I would justly earn the food he offered and so I readily agreed. Besides, with only a few half-ripe berries in my stomach I felt myself famished. ‘Thank you, Father, you are most kind and I cannot refuse. I have not eaten since the morning of yesterday and the return to Cologne is long and without sustenance would prove arduous.’

  ‘Then you are welcome and you must have bread and wine to take with you.’

  He led me to the guest room near the kitchen where the smell of newly baked bread from the nearby ovens caused me to salivate. He bade me be seated though he continued to stand beside me. Soon fresh bread still warm from the oven and cheese and a little smoked fish with a jug of ale was brought to me. ‘Will you not sit, Father? It is a long story and you will be more comfortable.’ It was then that I suddenly remembered. ‘Oh dear, please forgive me, Father. I have brought you a small gift that I hope you will accept.’ I removed my Father John satchel from my back and from it took a large jar. ‘It is ointment. I am told it is most efficacious and will bring you some comfort.’

  The abbot took the jar of ointment for his piles without a change of expression. ‘Thank you, it is most thoughtful of you, Little Sister Sylvia. The abbess has closed the dispensary at the convent and we greatly miss the many efficacious items she prepared for us.’ Then, to indicate that he understood the nature of the ointment, ‘Though an ointment such as this, though promised, was never obtained.’

  ‘Father, the woman Rosa, it was she who prepared these medicines at the convent but she has since departed. I know her whereabouts in Cologne.’ I hesitated a moment, drawing a breath.

  ‘Perhaps she might bring the unguents and ointments you need from time to time, her payment being perhaps in wine and grain?’ I knew that Frau Sarah would be happy with this arrangement – she had taken a liking to Rosa and enjoyed her cheeky peasant wit. Whenever she had an early morning free they would spend time gathering herbs in the woods.

  ‘Ah, that is an excellent solution. We have always paid the abbess in wine and wheat or barley and sometimes smoked fish – it will be no greater burden to pay this woman, Rosa.’

  I then commenced to eat and all the while to tell the abbot the story of the naked women chanting in the square right through to the end of the inquiry when we were once again restored to the bosom of the Church.

  The abbot, still standing, looked pensive. ‘This boy, Nicholas of Cologne, you know him well?’

  ‘Aye, I have known him since I first came to Cologne.’

  ‘And is he blessed?’

  ‘Yes, Father. On the days he preaches his sermons are filled with the glory of our Saviour and his message is most inspiring. He now preaches to over a thousand children and each time still more come. Some have travelled for days to hear him,’ I added.

  ‘And this Children’s Crusade, what think you of it?’

  ‘It is a miracle, Father. A miracle I have been waiting for all my life.’

  ‘Miracle? Has it guided you? Is there a message?’

  ‘Aye, God has bade the children to march to Jerusalem to take the Holy Sepulchre back from the infidel.’

  ‘And you would go?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘I must answer God’s command and do His bidding.’

  ‘You have prayed? Sought guidance? After all, you are no longer yourself a child.’

  ‘Aye, but I work among street children and know their natures well. I must go to care for them.’

  ‘Oh, Little Sister Sylvia, will you not think carefully upon this!’ he cried in a tone of great alarm. ‘Jerusalem, it is a year’s walk if you are fortunate. How will you cross the sea? Who will provision you? There are perilous climbs and dangerous places, mountains and snows and deserts, brigandry is everywhere and you will have no arms or knights to protect you.’

  ‘I cannot deny God’s command to me, Father,’ I replied softly. ‘I have seen this miracle and I must now test my faith.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Cross of Crows

  I ARRIVED BACK IN Cologne from the monastery of Disibodenberg on the 25th of April in the year of our Lord 1212 to find Nicholas in the highest of preaching spirits with energy that could not be contained. This was to continue for the next ten days and both Father Hermann and myself were run off our feet. Halfway through this period, the good priest was heard to declare, ‘I cannot keep up with him, Sylvia. He preaches daily, recruiti
ng for his crusade, and each day the children attending increase in number and come from everywhere. Only yesterday I met boys from Liège and Floreffe and they told of others from Marbach, Neresheim and Zwiefaltern. I came across a group of young girls from Schäftlarn in the east! I told them to return home, that embarking on a crusade was hard and dangerous and no place for girls.’ He laughed wearily. ‘One of them looked at me and said, “Who then will do the cooking, Father?” It was a good point, we have not thought of this.’

  In fact we had not thought of very much. Nicholas had insisted that on his latest visitation the voice of Jesus had instructed him that he must leave on the day of Pentecost, just sixteen days after I’d returned from the visit to Brother Dominic’s grave. When I pointed out that we couldn’t possibly be ready he shrugged. ‘I cannot disobey my Saviour!’ And that was the end of it. Which was all very well, but it left Father Hermann and myself shaking our heads in dismay.

  Father Hermann had set up an alms box near the sacristy of St Mary’s on the Kapitol and the people of Cologne gave generously at first. While they had given the Children’s Crusade a nod, thinking it the natural outcome of the Miracle of St Martin’s, they were being called upon to feed several thousand children each day and things were slowly turning sour. Some grumbling in the markets could be heard when our collection carts went round. Peasants are steady grumblers and not a naturally generous lot, but it must be said in fairness that with so many hungry mouths to feed and with very few children possessing any means of their own, they were beginning to have good reasons to complain. Moreover, the country folk coming into Cologne with produce, who camped outside the city gates waiting for them to open when the Angelus rang, now found their passage hindered by the hundreds of children arriving overnight.

  The churches of St Martin’s and St Mary’s on the Kapitol possessed four horsedrawn carts that the bishop, thinking to regain the people’s confidence by supporting the Children’s Crusade, had allowed us to use. We would visit the markets daily with them, two of the carts to the produce market, one each to the fish and butchers’ markets. Every day the carts, fitted with special harnesses, would be manned by volunteers among the children who did not see this as arduous work but simply fun, and there was always a rush in the morning to occupy a harness. Pulling the carts made them feel important and a part of the coming crusade and it was often difficult to keep at an even pace. Young boys are naturally competitive and they were always trying to race each other.

  Father Hermann and I would take turns in manning one of the carts and upon arrival at the market I would sing, and he would give a short sermon and then take confessions, and thereafter conduct mass. Country folk, unless they live in a large village, seldom enjoy the services of a priest and so have few opportunities to confess and thereafter partake of the blessed bread and the wine, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Having been given the opportunity for confession and mass they gave generously. It was thereafter, when their consciences were once again clear, that they were heard to grumble.

  Both church squares were now filled with child pilgrims and the older women worshippers of both St Mary’s and St Martin’s did the cooking, feeling themselves an essential and cheerful part of the impending crusade. We also gathered together a couple of hundred of the children, some girls but mostly boys, who were given lessons in rudimentary cooking.

  If all this sounds well thought out, it wasn’t – chaos abounded and then the alms box was stolen from near the sacristy of St Mary’s on the Kapitol. It was a large sum of money, almost sufficient to purchase an ox wagon to carry the portable altar the archbishop had donated as well as the huge cauldrons needed for making soup and the bags of flour donated for baking bread on the journey to Jerusalem. Father Hermann was deeply anguished by the crime, as he felt personally responsible, it being his church, the alms box having been taken in front of his beloved Virgin’s eyes. He thought this a particularly bad omen. But Nicholas seemed infuriatingly unconcerned.

  ‘Nicholas, don’t you understand? We are done for!’ I yelled at him.

  He smiled. It was a smile he was increasingly seen to wear, halfway between saint and precocious brat, and I was beginning to hate it. ‘Nay, Sylvia, God wishes us to have faith. When the time comes He will provide.’

  ‘Horseshit!’ I yelled angrily. ‘What? Manna from heaven?’

  Nicholas shrugged, ignoring the expletive. ‘He has done so once before,’ he said disingenuously. ‘Are we not also departing for the Promised Land?’

  My nerves were already frayed, beside me Father Hermann was wringing his hands and bemoaning our fate and this stupid boy was looking at me smug as a bug in a sacristy rug. ‘God requires us to plough the field and plant the seed before he does the growing!’ I yelled. Then, looking at the priest’s anguished and helpless demeanour and Nicholas with his superior little smile, I could contain myself no longer. ‘For God’s sake, do something!’

  I cried. It was the first time in my life I had blasphemed and I crossed myself immediately.

  But neither seemed to have noticed, too amazed at my anger to register. ‘What can we do?’ Nicholas said, with another infuriating shrug, although for the first time slightly on the defensive.

  ‘There are at least a thousand children in the square outside this church,’ I yelled. ‘The alms box was large and sealed and not broken into but taken – the coin slot is too small even for a child’s hand. Someone must have seen the thief carrying it out of the church!’

  ‘Good idea!’ Nicholas said, then added pompously, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  Father Hermann visibly brightened. ‘Ah, such a good mind!’ he exclaimed, clapping his hands.

  Ever since the archbishop’s inquiry he had gained a respect for me that at times proved highly embarrassing, often deferring to me in front of others. A woman’s opinion, apart from that on domestic matters, was seldom if ever sought, and I would note the look of surprise, even disbelief, on people’s faces when he asked me to pronounce on some secular or religious matter.

  That afternoon Nicholas was due to preach in the Church square. ‘I’ll ask,’ he promised.

  There would be a number of incidents that I would deeply regret in the months to come, but this request to get the children to find the thief was to be the first of them. At the appointed time the Church square was packed with children so that all had to stand to hear Nicholas. His sermon was as fiery and inspiring as ever we’d come to expect and the spirit of the Lord Jesus seemed to invade the square. I sang as usual and, carried away in the euphoria, had entirely forgotten about my request to ask if anyone had seen the thief. Then I saw Father Hermann urgently whispering into Nicholas’s ear and his nod in reply. Turning to the crowd, he held up his hands for silence.

  He then explained the theft and in conclusion shouted, ‘This money belongs to Jesus! It has been stolen from Him! To steal from God’s pocket is a mortal sin! I bid you to go out and find the thief and hang him in God’s name and in the name of the Children’s Crusade!’

  A great roar rose from the crowd. My heart sank and I rushed over to where Nicholas stood. ‘Nay, Nicholas! Tell them they must bring the thief to us!’

  ‘I just did!’ he protested in a querulous voice.

  ‘No, you said they must hang him . . . the thief!’ I cried.

  ‘Well, yes, he has stolen from God!’ Then, as if not understanding my concern, ‘What else? Hanging is the normal punishment for theft from the Church.’

  ‘Aye . . . the authorities, with the bishop’s consent, not us.’ I pointed down at the square. ‘Look at them, they are already a mob.’ The compulsive feeling in the air was palpable. I had never seen a mob formed, but it was done almost in an instant. Filled with the spirit of redemption by Nicholas’s sermon, they now had a God-given purpose. ‘Contagion’, Father Paulus’s word for it, was a perfectly apt description. As if one entity the children rushed into the two streets leading from the square. ‘Thief! Thief! Thief!’ they chanted.
/>
  The evening meal was about to be served to a thousand hungry children, the only meal they received all day, yet heedless of their growling stomachs they felt compelled to find the thief. It was, I now realised, ridiculous – an angry mob crying out wildly was unlikely to flush out a lone thief hiding in the city, a veritable needle in a haystack.

  With this notion I became calmer and said to Nicholas, ‘If they find him you must promise that he will be brought to justice by the authorities.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked insouciantly. ‘He stole from us. May we not judge him ourselves in the name of Jesus our Lord?’

  ‘Nicholas, don’t be stupid! Listen to me. There are several thousand children in Cologne sleeping in the streets, and with more arriving each day we are trying the patience of the city. Already there are complaints of theft from the market stalls and shops. Now, what will they think of this rampaging, angry mob? If we should catch this thief and hang him that will be the end of it for the Children’s Crusade. No one will feel safe and we will not have the archbishop’s blessing or the cooperation of the city.’

  He seemed to suddenly make up his mind. ‘I should be leading them!’ he cried out urgently.

  I grabbed him about the waist. ‘Nay, don’t, Nicholas!’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he lashed out angrily with his arms. ‘I know what I’m doing! Jesus tells me!’

  Father Hermann now had him in a neck-lock. ‘No!’ he said. ‘No, you’re not going, Nicholas!’

  The resistance suddenly left his body and he collapsed on the steps and commenced to weep. ‘Nobody cares!’ he sobbed, and his eyes seemed to go vacant, the almost supernatural energy of the previous days gone. In front of our eyes Nicholas had sunk back into one of his states of despondency.

  I tell you this because it is always made out that Nicholas of Cologne, while only fourteen years old, was a strong and charismatic leader. And it was true, when the spirit of the Lord possessed him he was irrepressible and irresistible. But when, as he put it, the devil visited him, he was listless and possessed of a constantly despairing mood. We had learned that no amount of cajoling would restore him to his previous self and that it must come about in his own time.