The Crusader

by Michael Eisner

My heart was racing. I feared the worst—that I had unwittingly inflicted an irrevocable setback on Francisco, speaking of the Cross before he was ready. I thought Francisco would die before I could exorcise his demons. I thought his soul would dwell in the fires of hell for eternity.

  I ran to Brother Vial. I found him in the kitchen, helping the servants and lay brothers prepare supper.

  Brother Vial took my hand and led me into the parlor. We sat down on the bench. The strain of the previous months overwhelmed me. Indeed, I am ashamed to admit, but I cried for some time.

  When I had recovered my composure, I told Brother Vial of my frustration and my fears concerning Francisco’s future.

  “Remember the woman,” I asked, “who had suffocated her infants? You said she had wed the devil and that there was no chance of dissolution. Maybe Francisco has made the same unholy pact. Maybe he will never recover. Maybe he does not want to live. He could just as easily have used the knife to cut his throat instead of his palm.”

  “Francisco’s case is different from the murderess’,” Brother Vial said. “He has hurt no one but himself. He isolates himself, starves himself, lacerates himself. Why does he punish himself? Perhaps he holds himself responsible for some act, some terrible consequence.”

  That’s when I told Brother Vial that Francisco and Andrés were in Abbot Pedro’s chambers the day of his martyrdom. I felt that I had no choice. You see, I thought it was Abbot Pedro’s murder that haunted Francisco.

  Brother Vial did not ask me whether I believed Francisco was responsible for Abbot Pedro’s death. If he had, I would have told him how Francisco’s eyes, as if hypnotized by some dark force, followed the razor.

  “Do you believe, Lucas,” he asked, “that Abbot Pedro was guilty of Noelle’s murder?”

  Expressing an opinion on such a matter could carry grave consequences. I weighed my words carefully.

  “Did not Saint Benedict write, Brother Vial, that the faithful must endure everything, even injustice, for the Lord’s sake? Isn’t that what he wrote?”

  “Yes, Lucas,” Brother Vial said, “but some injustices cannot be endured. Abbot Pedro’s fate is not what ails Francisco. The source of his possession lies elsewhere. Find out what happened after Francisco left Santes Creus, what happened to him on the crusade. To unravel the thread of Francisco’s soul.”

  “How?” I asked. “I have already asked about the crusade. See how he responds?”

  “Faith, Lucas,” Brother Vial said. “Faith and patience.”

  “Brother Vial, I cannot do this. Remember you told me that a man must recognize his own limitations. I do not know how to help Francisco. I do not know what the Lord wants from me.”

  “The Lord does not demand very much, Lucas,” Brother Vial said. “He demands everything. Blood and soul.”

  YESTERDAY, ON THE first of November, I entered Francisco’s cell. His food had not been touched and the candle had been snuffed out. I read for several hours before dozing off. Francisco’s soft words woke me.

  “Andrés was at the Citadel with me.”

  I did not stir, trying to distinguish my own dreams from the substance of things. It was the first time Francisco had spoken of Andrés or the crusade.

  “Andrés was at the Citadel,” he said, staring blankly ahead. Then he turned over and closed his eyes.

  I was unable to sleep that evening. I dozed momentarily but awoke abruptly with an image of Francisco approaching with a crown of thorns and open palms revealing the stigmata. In his agony, Christ must have looked similar to Francisco on that first day when I saw him in his cell at Poblet—emaciated, unkempt, excruciatingly vulnerable. I wandered barefoot in my quarters on the cold stone floor, clutching the beads of my rosary. I was trembling through the night, although whether out of fear or anticipation I cannot say.

  When the bells rang, I dressed methodically, went to church for matins, then set out for Francisco’s cell, ostensibly in the same manner as I had done the previous four months. I do not think I took one breath during that long walk.

  I half expected to find him dead or gone, as if the Lord had finally taken him back. He was neither. He looked directly at me as I entered and started to speak as if no time had elapsed since his first words of yesterday.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE CROSS

  IT WAS NEVER my intention to take the Cross.

  Francisco did not look at me as he spoke. He was sitting on his bed mat, staring out the window, his arms wrapped around his knees. He rocked back and forth slowly, his rhythm uneven. I was standing, my hands clasped at my chest.

  I was drawn neither to the sword nor the cloth. Martyrdom seemed so lonely, and the clergy rather boring.

  Not to my brother. Sergio was eighteen when he announced his desire to take his vows—to join the Cistercian monastery at Poblet as a novice. My father was terribly upset—his firstborn, the Montcada heir, forsaking the society of men. He tried to press upon Sergio the importance of fulfilling his worldly responsibilities. He could do nothing in the face of Sergio’s fervor for Christ, though. Except change its direction—he convinced Sergio to take the Cross as a warrior instead of a monk. Sergio would go on the crusade to reconquer Jerusalem from the infidels. He would return in a couple years to assume his rightful place as the son of my father, the King’s most powerful vassal. My father had no intention of permanently surrendering Sergio to the Lord. I wanted to go with my brother, but my father forbid it. I was only fifteen.

  All of Barcelona celebrated the launching. King Jaime led the festivities. Banners were held aloft—red and gold, brown and silver—the colors and arms of the most noble families—Berenguer, Díaz, Morera, Múñoz—and of the military orders—Knights of the Temple, Knights of the Hospital of Saint John, Knights of Calatrava. Minstrels plied their lutes for a coin or two from the honored citizens of the great city. Clad in black robes, priests from as far as Val d’Aran raised their hands to shout their blessings over the departing knights. The mendicant Orders gathered on the steps. They chanted psalms and swung censers of burning incense. Several of the clergy, overcome by emotion and the heat of the July sun, fainted where they stood, easy targets for the pickpockets that mingled amongst the crowd.

  Five hundred knights from all parts of Spain, dressed in full battle armor, pranced up and down the dock—receiving the applause of lay people, both high and low, and the benedictions of holy men. The soldiers seemed giants, invulnerable. The Bishop of Barcelona, Arnau de Gurb, raised two fingers in blessing. The yellow rubies that lined his vestment shimmered against the sun’s rays as he christened the ship María de la Cruz.

  Sergio held my hand before he ascended the ramp. His smile serene. I was proud of my brother.

  We had shared the same bedchamber growing up, drunk from the same cup, prayed side by side. I do not think I had been separated from Sergio for more than a day since my birth.

  He put his cool hands on my cheeks to wipe away the tears, the same hands that had taught me to ride and to shoot a bow.

  “God loves you, Francisco,” he said.

  The ship capsized soon after launching. A new ship, untested, built at the shipyard at Drassanes, not one mile from where it went down. I was holding a shell to my ear, listening to the ocean depths, when the ship disappeared into the morning glare. Teams of sailors boarded fishing boats and rushed toward the empty space. In vain. The knights, still in their armor, were unable to swim. All five hundred drowned. Sergio’s body was never recovered. God’s love can be severe.

  Francisco laughed. It was short, but unmistakable. I must have started or made a sudden movement, because Francisco looked up. He wore an amused expression, almost condescending, not quite smiling.

  Excuse me, Lucas, but even you can see the humor in the situation. Five hundred knights thrashing around in the ocean. It was a ridiculous sight.

  I crossed myself. I felt afraid. Lord, give me courage to serve you. Was I in the presence of a demon? It was Francisco’s voice, but the words
… Remember your station. Remember your mission. Remember who you are. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to picture the dark grain of the wood Cross hanging in my cell.

  A great lamentation rose up from the dock. Fear and anguish. It was as if God were passing judgment on the entire kingdom—rejecting our most precious offering—our sons and brothers. Monks, beseeching Saint Michael, protector of mariners, fled in terror—back to the safety of their monasteries. Mothers wept. Fathers gnashed their teeth. I stood alone wading into the sea—separate from the throng. A few lazy waves lapping up on my shins. And then silence. Still water.

  I always wondered what was going through Sergio’s head as he sank to the bottom of the ocean. Did he close his eyes as the light faded?

  The Holy Father in Rome had declared that all those who fell on the crusade would be assured a place in heaven. But since Sergio’s boat had barely left the shore, there was talk in the city that the souls of the drowned men were in limbo—an indefinite sentence in purgatory that could be ended only by the intervention of Santa Eulalia, patron Saint of Barcelona. Bishop Arnau said that Santa Eulalia would champion the most worthy souls before Our Lord Jesus Christ, which meant the sons of families that were generous enough to underwrite the construction of a new church at the monastery at Montserrat.

  My mother believed that the number of prayers that reached the heavens would overwhelm our patron saint. She directed her entreaties to Santa Tecla, who had received the Gospel directly from Saint Peter, the holder of the keys to heaven.

  When she was not kneeling in the chapel praying, my mother walked through the gardens mumbling the Ave Maria over and over again, barely lifting her head. On suspicion that an evil spell had been surreptitiously cast on Sergio, my mother dismissed the entire domestic staff.

  Within the family, my father bore the brunt of my mother’s mourning. Although she never said so, she blamed him for Sergio’s death. Not without reason. If not for my father’s insistence, Sergio would have been safely ensconced at the monastery at Poblet.

  My mother moved her bedchamber downstairs where she could be closer to the chapel. She said that she would not share my father’s bed until the proper penance was exacted for the sullied union that begat Sergio nineteen years previous.

  My presence seemed painful to my mother’s eyes. Perhaps the brotherly resemblance opened her wound afresh. The same pale skin, our blue eyes—which I studied in the looking glass, searching for the source of my mother’s repugnance and of the crashing waves that changed my life.

  Our estate in Montcada became a garden of sorrow. An aching longing for a time and place that were extinguished.

  My mother left Montcada. The servants packed her belongings in twenty-four chests, which followed her wagon in a caravan to our residence inside the old Roman walls of Barcelona—the palace built by my grandfather on the street named for my family to commemorate our service in the conquest of the island of Baleares—the Carrer de Montcada.

  Sullen, remorseful, my father paced through the castle corridors. Often he seemed not to recognize me when we passed in the hall. He would pat my head with a perplexed smile before averting his glance. I thought my father would surely suffocate, if not from sadness and guilt, then from the exorcist’s concoctions of blue smoke that pervaded the house.

  My father too found his escape, though. He took his entourage of knights and traveled north to the jousting tournaments—to the Loire, Marseilles, Burgundy, Cologne.

  I remained in Montcada with the seneschal of our family, Lord Ferrán, and a staff of servants and tutors. Our shared room had become a shrine to Sergio. The white roses of condolence breathed a sweet sickly smell. The Scriptures open to the last page we had read the dawn of Sergio’s departure—

  Know that God hath overthrown me,

  And hath compassed me with his net.

  Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard.

  My bedchamber—a crypt for my brother. And me—a tree uprooted, cut down on all sides.

  Francisco winked at me, his eyes glowing an unnatural shade of deep blue. He was smiling broadly, an inane, burlesque, diabolical expression. He looked completely mad. I measured the distance to the door just in case a quick retreat became necessary.

  I did not leave my bedchamber for several weeks. Lying in my bed, I stared out the window at the tall, red grass tumbling in the wind. I read that page from the Scriptures over and over, as if some secret meaning lay behind the gold leaf and black ink.

  Lord Ferrán ran the affairs of the family in my father’s absence. He was responsible for the well-being and education of the Montcada line. With Sergio’s death, Lord Ferrán focused his concerns exclusively on me. He believed that I had taken ill, and he instructed Doctor Don Mendoza to discover the cause. After collecting and examining my feces for ten days, the good doctor diagnosed a buildup of black bile, a species of melancholia. He prescribed cold baths and bed rest. He also forbade me to take the sun or to eat spicy foods. Lord Ferrán posted one of his assistants outside my bedchamber to monitor my condition and to discourage any inclination I might have to wander from my room.

  Andrés Correa de Girona appeared in my doorway on the fourth Sunday of October, ninety-three days after the death of my brother. I had met my first cousin but once—eight years previous at the funeral of our grandfather. I recognized Andrés by his long blond hair, which reached to his shoulders and gave him a feminine air. At fifteen, though, his vein-lined forearms and broad shoulders belied the impression created by his flaxen locks.

  “Still so skinny, cousin?” he asked, shaking his head. I was sitting up in my bed, pruning the petals of Sergio’s rusted roses.

  “Come, cousin,” he said, “I have brought a present from my family.”

  Andrés disappeared. I continued tending the roses. I expected Andrés to return when he realized I had not followed. The corridor remained silent, though, except for the sibilant blaze of candles that lined the hallway in tribute to my brother. After perhaps half an hour, I rose from my bed and peered down the corridor. The sleeping attendant lay sprawled in his chair just outside my room. No one else was present. I went back to my bed but briefly. The temerity of my cousin rather annoyed me—entering my room stealthily, without a proper introduction, and then insulting me in my weakened condition. I resolved to have a word with him, even if it required disobeying Don Mendoza’s instructions. I returned to the hallway and walked its length cautiously. There was no sign of my cousin. I descended the stairs and opened the door to the courtyard.

  Andrés was sitting atop his horse with his hands on the reins of another.

  “Her name is Pancho,” he said.

  The horse’s black eyes were depthless, luminescent.

  “I told my father,” Andrés said, “she would be too much of a horse for you. He said that you would grow into her.”

  We rode all day. Through the Lecaros’ cornfields, my face and lips stung by the sheaths until I could feel warm drops of blood on my cheeks. Faster and faster. Across the tilled fields of the Garcías, the peasants dropping their plows and staring as if we were divine messengers. Through the King’s dusky forest just outside the city. The horse’s briny sweat mingled with my own. Farther and farther away. Across the muddied mountain pass to the cliffs overlooking the sea.

  We returned well after darkness had fallen. Lord Ferrán was seated in the courtyard. A servant had apparently reported our departure.

  “Welcome, Andrés Correa de Girona,” he said. “Thank you for responding to my invitation. I trust in the future you will provide company to your cousin without scaring the serfs half to death and requiring formal apologies to our neighbors.”

  Andrés shared my bedchamber over the next several months. He made himself quite at home. He took up three-fourths of the bed, confining me precariously close to the edge. Three days after his arrival, he picked up the open Bible.

  “A beautiful passage,” Andrés said.

  I did not respond. He turned several
pages. Then, without consulting me, Andrés closed the Bible with an emphatic thud that sent a cloud of dust scurrying across the room. He buckled the binding’s latch and placed the Book in the chest alongside our winter blankets.

  My stomach muscles contracted as if I had been punched. I could hear my teeth grinding. The presumption of my cousin. His unabashed arrogance. As if Andrés could stave off the darkness by such a thoughtless, unremarkable gesture. As if he could close the chapter on the blackest night, push it off to the side, and then go on living oblivious to the destruction wrought by Sergio’s death. I scowled at Andrés. He smiled back at me, a wide, simple grin. Perhaps, I thought, like almost all my noble brethren, Andrés could not read. He did not comprehend the significance of his action.

  “It is unwise, cousin, to trifle in affairs that are not your business and that you do not understand,” I said, trying to maintain an even tone. “Do not forget, Andrés, that you are a guest here.”

  “Does the Good Book not say, Francisco, there is a time for every season?” he responded. “It seems the time for that particular passage ended several days ago.”

  I had underestimated my cousin.

  Two days later, Andrés threw out the dead flowers that adorned the bedchamber.

  “The stench of these flowers has grown tiresome, Francisco,” he said. “Perhaps we should discard them?”

  He did not wait for an answer. He gathered them up gently and carried the bushel into the hallway.

  This time, I did not protest. I said nothing. I turned aside, held my breath, and concentrated intently on the Cross above my bed.

  Despite Andrés’ brusque manner, Lord Ferrán welcomed his presence. He could not help notice a marked improvement in my health. Andrés and I took a daily ride in the morning and often practiced archery after supper in the afternoon. Three weeks after Andrés’ arrival, Don Mendoza diagnosed a dramatic betterment in the color and consistency of my bowel movements.

  “Francisco, now that you are well,” Lord Ferrán said at supper that evening, “we must turn our attention to the family’s affairs. Royal, noble, and clerical delegations have requested permission to visit Montcada to pay their respects to your blessed brother, Sergio. Your father remains in France competing in the seasonal jousting tournaments. In his absence, you must receive the visitors. They will scrutinize you closely—to assess your character, to curry favor, to glean any weaknesses that might be exploited when you assume the mantle of the family. Andrés will keep you company during the interviews. Your cousin’s presence will demonstrate the allegiance of the extended family and the future strength of the clan.”