The Crusader

by Michael Eisner

  Baron Correa had not been to Montcada for many years, though. He had grown disinclined to leave his two children and would dispatch in his stead the family seneschal to attend the King’s court.

  My uncle sent one of his vassals, Pere de Girona, to guide me to the Correa estate. The trip to Girona took two days. The night before my arrival, Pere and I camped in a sheltered grove of pine trees a half day’s ride from the Correa home. We sat around the warmth of a flickering fire, both exhausted from the day’s journey. Neither of us made an effort to untie our belongings to retrieve the smoked meat that we had brought on our journey. We preferred to bed hungry and cold, huddled in wool blankets, anticipating the warm shelter in Girona.

  I remember the crunching of soft footsteps on the snow, a deer with two of its young peering at us around our campfire. Pere and I must have seemed strange pilgrims, shivering, bereft in that white forest. With one stroke, I could have orphaned the two fawns, but I did not have the strength or will. I pulled the blanket over my head. When I let it down, the visitors had abandoned our camp, disappeared into the shadows of the forest. I lay staring into the fire, listening to the crackle of frozen branches. If the flames foretold a destiny in Syria, I did not see it. It was an unwritten journey, Lucas, unwritten, unread.

  By dawn, fresh snow had covered the dying ashes. We mounted our horses and set off for Girona. We rode without rest and reached the Correa estate before noon.

  The storm had finally let up when we came upon the castle. We stopped before the moat that surrounded the manor—more of a ditch really. Pancho and I could have leapt over the gap with a running start. My uncle had neither the resources nor the enemies of a Montcada. Pere stood on his horse shouting until a white-haired servant, roused from his nap in the stables, shuffled out to let down the drawbridge.

  A small courtyard led to the manor—a timber structure, dusky brown, with two levels of colored glass windows. Four stone towers were evenly spaced on the shingled roof. One of the towers slanted forward as if scrutinizing new arrivals.

  The old servant stayed my horse, Pancho, and helped me down.

  “Welcome, Don Francisco,” he said. “We were not expecting you until tonight. Baron Correa and Andrés are still hunting. I know the young master was anxious to welcome you. They should return shortly.”

  Pere led my horse into the stable. The servant helped me brush the snow from my body, then led me inside the manor. After a brief struggle, I wrested control of my trunk from the old man and balanced its weight on my right shoulder. I followed him up the stairs to the second floor, where we turned right and walked halfway down the hall to an open door. He stood aside to let me pass.

  I stood in the doorway for several seconds. The room was large and filled with light from the double windows looking out over the garden. To the right was a large wooden bed, with two green wool blankets folded at the base. I could hear the wheezing of the brick hearth just across from the bed. I walked toward the smoldering embers, inhaling the sweet wood smoke, until the heat burned my face.

  While blowing into my cupped hands to thaw my stiff fingers, I turned to examine the other side of the room. In the corner, a white marble Cross with the figure of Christ writhing in agony hung over a small prayer pew. The Christ statue was looking toward the ceiling plaintively. His eyes were open wide, as if He were surprised to find Himself nailed to the Cross. Perhaps the Son of Man thought that at the last moment His Father would show mercy, that His own fatal prophecy would not be fulfilled. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

  I walked to the window. The clouded glass blurred the vista. I opened a small pane to look out. The land was white and serene. I could see a mountain range several miles from the estate. Directly under the window, a manicured garden of waist-high bushes formed concentric circles around a fountain with a stone statue of the Virgin. Her eyes were closed and her hands were open in a gesture of submission.

  A looking glass hung in the corner of the room. I approached and examined my face in the reflection, consoled by its familiarity, but unsettled by its severity, the sharp curve of my jaw, the faint vertical lines where the wind had burned my lips, the dark circles that ringed my eyes and the sea-green waves that danced within them. I draped my winter cloak over the glass.

  The door opened slowly. Andrés stood with a wide, mischievous grin. The hunt had muddied his cloak and tangled his thick blond hair. It had been just three months since I last saw him. Yet I noticed a change in his demeanor. His tall stature, his broad shoulders and powerful hands no longer seemed the innocent attributes of an oversized, artless youth, but instead the instruments of a practiced warrior. As a fair maiden loses the blush at her blossom and learns to welcome the attentions her maturation provokes, so Andrés, at nineteen, had embraced his brute strength. He strode confidently across the room, his bold gaze and certain gait displaying the command he had taken of his willful and strapping limbs. That I had overlooked the evolution of Andrés’ maturation testified to our proximity and to the unbroken nature of our time together. Andrés grasped one hand behind my neck as he studied my face.

  “Francisco, my friend, you have been seeing ghosts again. That will not be tolerated in the Correa household.” Andrés was shaking his head, a tender reproach.

  “Father,” Andrés said, “come greet your nephew, Don Francisco de Montcada.”

  Baron Correa, standing in the doorway, seemed a twin to his son. A hulk of a man, he had the same shock of blond hair, only streaked with silver. I recognized his smile, kind and earnest, which bore in the indentations of his cheeks the trace of a full life.

  “Welcome, Francisco,” Baron Correa said. “It has been many years—too many. You have been remiss in not visiting your uncle and cousins sooner.”

  My eyes found a third figure in the doorway, a young woman. She wore a dark green velvet dress that fully covered her body. Flowered brocade decorated her sleeves and hem. Even so, I could see the outline of her figure—the rise of her breast curving down to the waist; her slender shoulders; the gentle contour of her collarbones visible through the smooth fabric; the lissome neckline; her flaxen hair braided behind her head.

  “Francisco,” Andrés said, “I present my sister, Isabel.”

  Her face was rather plain. Her nose perhaps too prominent, her skin freckled, her lips too thin. Yet the combination of her features was somehow quite pleasing. Even disconcerting.

  Perhaps it was the color of her eyes—slate gray—the exact shade of my brother’s tomb. Layer upon layer of stone. In that depth, Isabel, just sixteen, seemed to possess an awareness not shared by the other Correas, an understanding of that other, nocturnal side of human existence. When I met her gaze, I thought I was peering into the looking glass, into the twilight shadows buried in the recesses of my soul.

  I suppose such a notion sounds ridiculous. True or false, it does not matter anymore, does it? But, at the time, there was a part of me that took this confluence of colors as a hopeful sign—that perhaps Isabel was no stranger to the darkness that resided in me.

  “Francisco,” Andrés interrupted my thoughts, “this is my younger sister.”

  Baron Correa and Andrés were observing me curiously, waiting for a response.

  “Forgive me, cousin,” I said. “Andrés did not warn me of your gracefulness.”

  Her lips parted, her cheeks rose, the glint of her gray eyes seemed to unfurl. It was a smile.

  “Francisco,” she exclaimed, “you are all my brother talks about. Now that you are here, perhaps Andrés will be able to converse on other subjects.”

  Baron Correa clasped arms with Isabel. “Daughter, we leave the two soldiers to discuss battle strategy and dress for dinner.”

  Baron Correa and Isabel left the room, the Baron exiting with a deep, theatrical bow.

  I turned away from Andrés’ gaze. I opened the dark casket of my trunk and started sorting my belongings on the bed.

  “I have news, Francisco,” he said. “We received corr
espondence from Calatrava just two days ago. King Jaime will send the Order of Calatrava to the Levant with his own entourage. The King’s illegitimate sons—two of them—will accompany our force to the Levant. The royal bastards.”

  “The best kind,” I replied.

  “We will set out for certain by autumn.”

  “Thanks to the Lord,” I said.

  I do not think I could have survived another winter in Montcada. Waiting to heed Sergio’s grim call whispered in my ear every night.

  Andrés began to laugh and edged his way toward me with open arms. He picked me up in a bear hug. As the breath was squeezed from my chest, I saw the miniature Christ looking directly at me, as if calling me to some unknown, unknowable fate.

  “Then we wait for the bastards,” Andrés said.

  A HORN ANNOUNCED dinner. Andrés and I walked down to the Great Hall, on the first floor, where servants with basins of fresh water and towels attended to the washing of hands. Dirt from two days of travel was deeply embedded and only stubbornly abandoned my skin. Our company sat at the very end of the long oak table. The Baron occupied the head, Andrés and I on one side of him and Isabel just across, next to her father. Fireplaces carved into the two other walls provided ample heat for the room.

  Giant tapestries covered two walls opposite each other. I was facing the martyrdom of John the Baptist in eight parts—from his captivity to his death. The first panel portrayed John, bound, imprisoned by Herod. In the second, Herod’s niece, the beautiful Salome, danced for her uncle. The King was pleased; his eyes feasted on her graceful movements. Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatever she would ask, though it be half of his kingdom. In the fifth panel, she asked for the head of John the Baptist. The sixth showed King Herod sorrowful, as if John were his friend. For the oath’s sake, he commanded that Salome’s wish be fulfilled. In the eighth and final panel, Salome was smiling, holding up a platter with the head of the saint.

  Baron Correa said grace to bowed heads before servants brought out bread and butter from the adjoining kitchen, quickly followed by a warm spiced wine. Two dishes of meat were served. There was a large boar on a wood platter. It had been hunted by Andrés in my honor the day previous. Its mouth was stuffed with oranges, its eyes squinting at the diners contemptuously. The chief servant held the boar’s head as Baron Correa carved the succulent meat. There was also a special dish of mutton stew, blended with rice and boiled in almond milk. I was famished from my journey and had to restrain my appetite so as not to appear impolite. A lighter fare of peas and beans cooked with onions and saffron was served after the meat, but I was never partial to the dish.

  Baron Correa and I spoke of mutual acquaintances in Barcelona. He knew the Garcías, my neighbors. Baron Correa and Don García had served together on the King’s Council, which fixed the amount of the annual tithe paid by Muslims in the new territories of Catalonia. One of the García sons had taken the Cross several years before. Baron Correa asked if the family had yet received word from the boy. I told him that they had not but that they remained hopeful of his return.

  “Are you also hopeful, Francisco?” Isabel asked.

  Yes, of course I am hopeful—these are the words that were expected of me, the words I should have spoken. But I did not.

  “No, Isabel,” I said. “I visit their house on occasion. It bears the scent of death.”

  The conversation stopped sharply. It was a disquieting comment. Casting my gloomy meditations during my first dinner in Girona. Idiot. I could not help myself.

  Isabel was not deterred.

  “What does death smell like?” she asked. A morbid question, but then I was responsible for its content.

  “Isabel, let our guest eat in peace,” Baron Correa said. He smiled at me, a paternal, wary, lopsided smile, which seemed to counsel silence.

  I was asked, though, and I would answer. I thought of the smell that permeated my brother Sergio’s and my bedchamber in the weeks following his death.

  “Sweet,” I said, “as a room filled with incense and flowers.”

  “What kind of flowers?” she asked.

  “White roses,” I replied, “just on the verge of decay.”

  Our eyes met for an instant. Isabel, solemn, seemed to be contemplating my answer. Andrés was fidgeting with his knife. Baron Correa was pouring more wine into glasses that were already full.

  An awkward silence broken by a burst of laughter from Isabel. Unrestrained, unbridled, limitless. I had never heard such a sound. She tried to stifle her laughter, placing her hand in front of her mouth. But it was useless. I stared at her in disbelief. Was this the same girl whose gray eyes seemed to grieve unflinching? How could she, seeing that darkness, knowing it, laugh at its very doorstep?

  Except for Isabel’s laughter, the room was silent. It seemed as if the entire company had ceased breathing. Baron Correa regarded me uncertainly, waiting for my reaction. Andrés was wincing. I was still gazing at Isabel, trying to comprehend this contradiction in her character. She stared back, her laughter cascading across the table, through the windows and the doors. I do not doubt that the serfs resting in their huts after their day of toil could hear the reverberations.

  Alongside Isabel’s laughter, I heard a remote, forgotten sound, retrieved from the dungeons of another lifetime. It was my own laughter, twisted, forlorn. It seemed to come from deep within my stomach and built in waves. Andrés and Baron Correa were baffled. They looked back and forth between Isabel and me. Gradually, they joined in the laughter, at first cautiously, and then with more abandon. The servants took their cue from their master. Very soon, every person in the dining hall was laughing with Isabel, as if she were the conductor of a musical composition that reached its meridian and then gradually subsided.

  “Next time I smell roses I will surely think of you, Francisco,” Isabel managed to say between gasps.

  Isabel reached across the table and placed her hand palm upward between the platter of bloodstained meat and the carafe of red wine. It occurred to me that Isabel intended to hold my hand in a gesture indicating her goodwill and the benign nature of her joking. I hesitated, though, lest I was mistaken—you can imagine the embarrassment if I tried to grasp her hand and she had not such intention. Isabel nodded to me, though, and her open smile encouraged my advance. I raised my hand cautiously and reached across the table to clasp her own. The meeting was brief—we withdrew our hands upon contact.

  Andrés was never comfortable with the subject of death or dying. Perhaps he feared such talk would trigger my own spiral toward melancholy. He laughed with the others, but I could sense his unease. When the noise abated, he seized the opportunity to change the subject. He spoke of the future.

  “Father, tell Francisco of Uncle Ramón’s report from Calatrava. I fear he is skeptical of my rendition.”

  Uncle Ramón bore no blood relation to the Correas. He was a close friend of the family, though, having fought with Baron Correa in the King’s army against the Muslims. After participating in the campaign in the southern territories of Catalonia, Baron Correa retired to his estate in Girona and married. Ramón remained one of Christ’s soldiers, eventually becoming the Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava.

  In the commotion, Baron Correa did not hear his son’s question. Andrés was forced to repeat himself to catch his father’s attention.

  “Yes, I am afraid Andrés’ report is quite true,” Baron Correa responded. “We received a message from Ramón two days ago. The Order of Calatrava will accompany the King’s sons in the forefront of the expedition.”

  Andrés held my arm. “You see, my friend, we will be fighting the Saracens in short order.”

  Isabel’s laughter faded at the mention of the Cross. Her smile turned down, almost disdainful. She glowered at Andrés, although he did not seem to notice. Then she turned to me.

  “Francisco,” she said, “why do you join my brother on this mad adventure?”

  Andrés sighed loudly and responded
before I could answer: “Isabel, be quiet. You know nothing of these matters.” Andrés’ exasperated tone indicated that this was not the first time brother and sister had engaged the subject.

  “Perhaps your friend can speak for himself, brother,” Isabel said.

  “Yes, Isabel,” I said, “on a good day, I can. I go with your brother on this mad adventure. We intend to be the heart of Christ’s army. The heart and the soul.”

  She studied me, trying to discern my intentions, perhaps even the nature of my faith. She spoke to Andrés, but her stare never left my face.

  “Brother, I think your friend mistakes my youth for naiveté.”

  “That was not my intent,” I stated, “but if I misspoke, please accept my apology.”

  Perhaps my tone had contained a certain sarcasm, but I did not intend to insult my friend’s sister. Evidently, Isabel did not accept my apology. She continued to examine me without responding. She seemed to be waiting for a clarification. The heavy weight of her gaze perturbed me.

  Andrés came to the rescue. “Father, Isabel forgets herself again. Is it her place to approve or disapprove of my decisions or those of our cousin? Or even to question my course of action? Isabel, you are my sister. My younger sister. Not my mother.”

  Isabel remained upright, at ease, unaffected by her brother’s chastisement. Until the mention of her mother. Then her body sank back into her chair as if absorbing a blow.

  Baroness Correa had died while giving birth to Isabel. The mother started to bleed shortly after the birth. The doctor was unable to stop the hemorrhage, and the young mother bled to death. Andrés was three years old at the time. He never spoke of his mother. I learned of her death and the surrounding circumstances from one of our colleagues at the seminary whose family also came from Girona. Andrés seemed to have banished the painful event from his mind. Not so Isabel. The tragic loss burned a sepulchral black into the soft ridges of her gray eyes.