Sylvia

by Bryce Courtenay

  At the end of the sermon from the rock, with the people of Koblenz rejoicing in the Lord and praising the precious name of Jesus, it seemed that we had recovered well from the calamity in town. I too was by now somewhat better in my disposition. It was then, with the townsfolk each choosing a Crusade Child to take home to feed, that we heard the thunder of hooves. Soon a troop of soldiers on horseback appeared, carrying swords and urging their beasts into the milling crowd and moving at a canter towards the rock. People scattered in every direction trying to avoid the charging, snorting horses, though two of our children were knocked over, one to receive a broken arm, the other later to die from bruising to his chest. The soldiers drew up to the rock and their captain urged his horse up its sloped portion to stand with his sword drawn, huge and menacing atop. Then we saw that his saddlecloth bore the cross and the mitre of a bishop and the colours and coat of arms of a noble house.

  ‘We come for the priest’s murderer!’ he shouted down at the crowd. ‘Deliver her and none will be harmed!’ He waited but no answer came. The other horsemen were now moving among the crowd with their swords drawn, all intending to intimidate in case the people would grow angry. I felt the children start to close in around me as if they would protect me. With Reinhardt I stood not too far from the edge of the rock within plain hearing of the troop leader.

  And then I saw Father Paulus approach the base of the rock and climb up to stand in front of the captain on horseback, the soldier and his horse towering above the little priest. ‘We come in God’s name and there is no murderer here, captain! The priest fell backwards and was unconscious, two clerics then took him away!’ he shouted.

  ‘He is dead, that’s all I know,’ the captain said. ‘She attacked him and now he is dead, that is murder!’

  ‘Nay, an accident, perchance as he fell he knocked his head?’

  ‘Aye, because she attacked him. She has murdered one of your own, a priest! A man of God! Why do you protect her so?’

  ‘Nay, it was the priest who, in a fit of madness, murdered! We have only just buried the infant he most brutally slew,’ Father Paulus cried.

  ‘That is for His Lordship the bishop, and his brother the count, to decide and not some scungy priest! The priest is dead and we have witnesses that say the wench from the wagon jumped to attack him.’

  ‘Nay, to stop him! But too late!’

  ‘Father, I grow impatient. Name this wench!’ the captain said.

  Reinhardt turned to me and said in an urgent whisper, ‘Sylvia, I think we must away from here at once.’

  ‘Nay, we cannot escape. Someone will point me out and they will run us down.’

  ‘Sylvia, we must try, they will hang you for a murderer!’

  ‘If they catch us escaping then they most surely will.’

  ‘Sylvia, we have no tricks this time – rats and crows will not solve this problem! Come now, the woods are not far and they are on horseback – we have an even chance among the trees!’ he whispered urgently, even though because of the noise the crowd was making his voice would not be heard by the horseman on the rock.

  ‘Nay, I will not run from this!’ I said. ‘If God wishes me condemned then so be it. I did not kill the priest and if he died it was an accident. I will not be cut down with the sword without a word spoken, a common felon fleeing. That, ratcatcher, is what they would like! All my life I have run from something and now I must stay. If they would kill me then it must be for a cause and be seen by all.’ But in my heart I felt a terrible despair, first my father and now a priest, both dead, killed by my own doing. Surely God has forsaken me and I am intended for the devil’s child.

  Reinhardt shook his head and said in a bitter voice, ‘Jesus, Sylvia! Why are you stubborn unto death?’

  ‘Do not blaspheme!’ I shouted, close to tears and angry, though not at him but at life, at the sins that seemed always to engulf me so that my very shadow seemed possessed by the devil. But even yet I was not willing to die or be named a murderer except by God. I had almost reached the edge of the rock and while my heart was beating fiercely within my breast I was astonished at the little priest’s courage and his defence of me. If he believed in me, then God was still with us and would protect our cause and perhaps me as well. I must place myself at His mercy. ‘Don’t go, Sylvia!’ the children around me begged. Those closest were my healing angels and now they clutched at me in an attempt to stay me.

  ‘We have no murderer in our midst, the maid is God’s child and has been the subject of past miracles!’ Father Paulus cried. ‘The priest who died was possessed by the devil and killed an infant in front of witnesses. If he died from falling then the hand that smote him was the hand of God!’

  ‘Perhaps the Virgin Mary’s, eh?’ the captain chortled. ‘The hand of God cannot be a woman’s!’ The soldiers, having seen the crowd was not hostile, now returned to form a guard around the base of the rock. They all gave a dutiful laugh at their leader’s clever jibe. This seemed to please the captain. In a voice now turned most reasonable and no longer shouting out the captain said, ‘Come now, Father, be a good priest and declare this wicked wench amongst your flock of devil’s urchins.’ It was clear he was a man well-pleased with himself and not without wit.

  ‘Eh?’ Father Paulus said, cupping his ear, the horseman now speaking too softly for him to hear.

  ‘Damn your eyes! Name this wench!’ the captain shouted, losing his patience.

  ‘Nay! I shall not! We have no murderer here!’ Father Paulus again cried out defiantly.

  I pushed past a surprised horseman and climbed up onto the rock. ‘It is me that you seek, Captain. I ask only that I be judged fairly and in God’s name!’

  ‘Nay, Sylvia!’ Father Paulus shouted. ‘Do not let them take you!’ He fell to his knees and started to pray for my protection.

  ‘Ha! Sylvia, is it?’

  ‘My name is Sylvia Honeyeater. What is it you want, Captain?’ I asked, not knowing if my words were brave or foolish, but only that I wished to say them while I had courage left in my heart.

  ‘Ah! It is as well you gave yourself up or we would have found you and put you to the sword and saved ourselves the trouble of the gallows!’ the captain said. I could sense he was pleased that he remained well in command of the situation. The crowd below the rock, though loud with clamouring, did not surge forward towards the horses and remained calm.

  ‘You may kill me now! Let all God’s children see the way your bishop and your count serve out justice in the name of our heavenly Father!’ I cried.

  ‘You have a big mouth, Sylvia! I will be the one to hear it gargle as the rope tightens!’

  ‘If you butcher me now or later place the knot about my neck, I remain God’s child and I die in His name!’ I shouted defiantly, though it was my voice that held me rigid, for my knees desired to collapse, and my furiously beating heart seemed to drown my cry so that I did not know with certainty if I had spoken or not.

  ‘Pray that God might grant you life eternal.’ He pointed to the west. ‘For I doubt if you will see the sunset over yonder craggy hills, Sylvia Honeyeater.’ And then I knew with an absolute certainty that he was bluffing. He had gone too far, enjoying the power at his command in front of this crowd. He had taken me for an ignorant peasant who would not know that no bishop’s soldier could make such threats and carry them out. Though he might arrest me, I would be properly judged.

  I knew a fair deal about the power of the Church from long discussions with Brother Dominic. No bishop could with impunity pronounce my death or cause me to be hanged or put to the flames. Even his brother, the count, who had the right to maintain the law within his lands, could not turn an obvious accident, clearly witnessed by a great many people, and name it murder at the behest of his brother in the Church. If he would do so he and his bishop brother would have to answer to Rome, and the bishop’s career within the Church and his future wealth in land, rents and taxes could be severely curtailed.

  I could hear Brother Dom
inic’s voice clearly in my head. ‘No bishop, archbishop, cardinal or even the Holy Father in Rome does God’s work for the salvation of the people, but for the power and the money. There are rules prescribed that make it seem that they act with faith, love and charity and it is the priest and clerics who must be seen to demonstrate this for the people. Unless he has permission from Rome, no bishop may demand the death of even a heretic in the name of the Church. If he acts on his own there are many ways he may be punished, but the curtailment of entitlement is the usual way. The Church denies him land and rent and the ability to ask for taxes. Greed is the factor that will always stay a bishop’s hand. The closer a Prince of the Church gets to the Pope, the more wealth he acquires. If he puts the Church in a poor light with arbitrary decisions concerning the life and death of common people, he denies the so-called charity and love of the Holy Roman Church. He spoils it for the other Princes and so he is removed from the largesse of the Pope. These are not men of God who seek to gather souls for Christ or live in the image of the Nazarene, but are greedy, ambitious and rapacious churchmen. Most are of noble birth, who care only for their own earthly gain and think that, in the end, their money will buy them salvation and a place in heaven.’

  Despite my distress I had not panicked, the pompous and puffed-up soldier serving to keep my mind clear. To this knowledge of the way the Church must behave, I added the power of the Children’s Crusade. Even though the Church did not condone it, they knew that the common people believed this journey of children to Jerusalem to be a miracle and a result of God’s command, and so they would not tolerate the hanging or burning of one of its leaders by a Prince of the Church. While I had not sought to be seen as such, this mantle of a leader had been thrust upon me. No bishop, even one as stupid as the Bishop of Cologne, would openly cause my death – that is why he and Master Nicodemus had planned the ambush of the wagon, knowing that he couldn’t openly have me destroyed.

  I took the few steps towards the now weeping priest. ‘Father Paulus, I need you as a scribe and witness. Pull yourself together, we are not done yet.’ The tearful priest stood up and I drew him to my side. Then I called for Nicholas and Reinhardt to stand with me. Both came quickly, Nicholas still in his woollen robes, and I thought how hot he must be for the mid-afternoon sun was scorching.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the captain cried out.

  ‘If I am to be tried, then let the people hear me first, Captain. Let them bear witness!’ I shouted this as loudly as I could, so that the children and the people gathered around would hear me, and there came a fair crying out, ‘Let her speak to us!’ from the mob below the rock.

  ‘Nay! You are under arrest!’ he shouted.

  The cry from the mob came back louder. I turned to see Reinhardt whispering urgently to Nicholas who nodded and with his tau cross raised at the soldier shouted, ‘Stay your hand!

  You are no Roman soldier and this is not Calvary!’ The captain looked suddenly confused.

  I am right, he is sent only to frighten us and has overplayed his hand, I thought. I stepped forward and addressed the crowd. ‘Let the people decide who is guilty and then you may take their verdict to your bishop! We have six thousand children and it would seem most of your townsfolk – it is sufficient to judge this case.’

  The captain, bewildered, shook his head as if to clear it, unable to comprehend what was going on.

  ‘Have you seen the mad priest before?’ I asked the crowd.

  ‘Aye!’ came the reply from below the rock.

  ‘Has he molested your children?’

  ‘Aye!’ This time even louder.

  ‘Did you see him murder the infant?’

  Although only a few may have seen the murder, it now seemed they all had done so, a mighty roar of ‘ayes’ followed, to it added the thousands of children’s voices.

  Nicholas stepped forward. ‘If you think Sylvia has committed a murder then raise your hands, if an accident, shout, nay!’

  This time a great roar of ‘nays’ rent the air.

  I then shouted, ‘Let heaven itself and the very birds of the air witness that you have spoken my innocence!’ I was aware that I was being overly dramatic and carried away as I began to call. But such was my relief that I had survived thus far and the people gathered had called out for me, that I thought to give them some small reward. Soon the birds began to fly from the surrounding woods, at first only a few and then in increasing numbers, until the air about my head was thick with their wings and the horses began to stamp and turn about and neigh in alarm. The cacophony all about made it impossible to speak, although the crowd could be heard roaring their approval. Then, as if God willed it, two ravens flew in and landed on the captain’s shoulders and the crowd roared. This was a certain sign to them that he would suffer a terrible consequence if he tarried any longer. A look of terror appeared on the soldier’s face as he beat at the ravens, knowing that their visitation meant a curse upon him. I then sent the birds away, the ravens the last to leave.

  Then Reinhardt ran up to him taunting, ‘The devil’s birds have come for you, Captain! It is best that you and your men be gone! The crows come next to pick out the horse’s eyes!’

  The captain was plainly confounded, nay, terror-struck by what had just happened with the ravens. He crossed himself and looked at me and then at Father Paulus. ‘I beg you lift this raven’s curse from me, Fräulein Sylvia,’ he cried. Then, looking at Father Paulus, ‘I ask forgiveness before God!’ he cried out, before he quickly led his horse down the side of the rock and called to his men to follow him.

  The Pied Piper took up his pipe and played the opening to a hymn we all knew well and sang constantly on the crusade. As the crowd parted for the horsemen the children’s voices rose to the glory of God.

  I have often wondered what the captain said when he reported back to the bishop. But if we thought ourselves now freed of an openly disapproving Church, news of the incident at Koblenz must have preceded us, for trouble lay ahead when eventually we reached the city of Marbach.

  Wherever we could we followed upstream the rivers that ran north, knowing that they flowed from the Alps and beyond that awesome barrier lay Italy. If all went tolerably well those first weeks, by mid-June the excessive heat and insufficient food was causing the weak to drop by the wayside. I was aware things were beginning to fall apart and that many of the children who had joined the crusade in Cologne had become disenchanted. At Mainz a large number had departed, some to return home and others, grown tired of the meagre and haphazard food supply, to seek work. But for as many children as deserted there were others that joined, so that our numbers were actually growing all the while with our difficulties increasing. Still we pressed on to the foothills of the Alps.

  Our next major confrontation with the Church occurred at the monastery of Marbach on the upper Rhine, where there was a most concerted effort by the monks and the bishop to discredit us. This incident is well recorded so I will not dwell overmuch on it. It soon became apparent that they knew of the mad priest and his death and thought that we had escaped punishment. The story was now told with a heavy bias in favour of the dead priest, the accidental killing of the priest now a murder most foul, with the death of an unbaptised infant without a soul seen to be of little or no consequence.

  However, if the Church thought to vilify us, here also was our faith eventually confirmed. Nicholas preached to the commonfolk a version of the sermon he had preached at Koblenz. At the same time he challenged the bishop to preach his sermon of denial on the same occasion by putting the Church’s view to the people, but he would not appear, fearing perhaps the resentment of the common people. Instead the bishop sent the Augustinian prior to do his dirty work. But when the prior, a less fearful or perhaps less cautious man, named the Children’s Crusade the work of the devil, even asserting that if it was created by a miracle then the devil could also work miracles, he was howled down by the simple folk. They believed, as we ourselves did, that we travelled through di
vine inspiration and not from any foolishness and they gave us generously of food and other necessities. A mob of our children had to escort the prior at my instructions back to the monastery for fear the townsfolk might beat him severely and so give the Church and its established authority another reason to call us the devil’s disciples, a term repeatedly used by the prior.

  Towards the end of June and into the second month of our journey, when we’d reached Ebersheim on a little island on the Ill River, our numbers were estimated at now near eight thousand. Despite the desertions and the dead we had doubled in number since leaving Cologne, and with the drought now having taken a grip upon the land, food was very scarce and daily the deaths reached a hundred children and on some days even more.

  The children began to eat grass and weeds grown at the riverbank or, if they should find one floating by, the flesh from a drowned animal became a feast and they would race the crows for carrion. At night when we camped, the boys fished, but the river seldom proved generous. And each day Father Paulus performed the last rites to more dying children, and now each evening we said the Prayers for the Dead.

  Father Paulus had long since ceased to surprise me. His loyalty and courage at Koblenz had even further earned my respect. Now, the more the local clergy seemed against us, the more inspired he seemed to become. He lost his stutter and spoke most forcibly to the gathered congregations so that they often gave more generously than we might have hoped. His love for the children was now overbrimming – this being a man who would once run from any contact with the young.