Beloved Pilgrim (12 page)

Looking from Elisabeth to the squire,
Magdalena said, "Wait here. I have something for you."

Albrecht took the minute that Magdalena
needed to retrieve some items from her cottage to regain his
composure. He turned back just as Magdalena came out.

"Here, if you are a pilgrim, then you need a
pilgrim's cross." Magdalena reached out a hand and put a cross on a
leather thong into Elisabeth's. "And you need a cloak."

Albrecht and Elisabeth stood and gaped at the
item the woman held up and shook out. It was a cloak with armholes
and which must be pulled on over one's head. As she held it by its
shoulders, the two were able to see that it was very white wool
with a red cross sewn onto one side of the upper breast.

"A crusader's cloak!" Elisabeth cried. Her
eyes lifted to Magdalena's, full of gratitude and awe. She had
already removed her helm carefully, and now she strung the cross
around her neck. Magdalene bunched up the cloak so she could put it
over her head. She let it fall, and Elisabeth slipped her arms in
the armholes. Magdalena stepped forward to shake out the garment so
it would hang right.

"Why did you make me a pilgrim's cloak? You
know I am not planning to go on crusade for real."

Magdalena shook her head. "Let's just say I
wanted to see you in one." Her look was unreadable.

Elisabeth raised her arms as Albrecht reached
around her to put the heavy sword belt on her. Buckling it he
looked up into her eyes. "You truly are Elias," he murmured. He
shook his head as though to clear it. He stepped back and tried to
joke, "Except you are missing something important."

Elisabeth twisted from side to side examining
herself. "What? The gorget?"

Albrecht and Magdalena exchanged
conspiratorial looks. "You have to be born with what he is talking
about," Magdalena chuckled. "Oh, that reminds me, how are you going
to pee?"

Elisabeth stood nonplussed. "I suppose I
could be a very shy young knight?" she proposed.

"You wouldn't be the first," Albrecht
responded. "I can let it out you have some sort of disfigurement .
. . down there . . . and are ashamed to let anyone see it."

Magdalena had a most un-nun-like look on her
face. "You could tell others the disfigurement is that it is
massive!" she quipped wickedly.

The other two stared at her surprised, and
then both fell into laughter. "No, I'd better not. Then everyone
will want to see it."

Elisabeth's lips spread in a smile of
complete satisfaction. "This feels so right. I feel like I am fully
dressed for the first time." She swung one leg and then the other,
reveling in the freedom of no skirts. "I feel like I am completely
me for the first time."

Magdalena went up to her and stood on tiptoe
to plant a chaste kiss on her forehead. The two women looked with
understanding into each other's eyes.

The horses were saddled, and Albrecht was
mounted on Carlchen. Elisabeth stood fully armored now except for
her helm, which was secured to Gauner's saddle. A third horse was
piled with what supplies they had accumulated.

She held Magdalena's hands and looked into
her face. Her voice broke as she said, "I can never repay you for
all you have done for me, have meant to me. What are you going to
do now?"

Magdalena glanced about. "Why, stay here and
keep praying for forgiveness," she said.

"What will you do if they question you about
where I have gone?"

"I will tell them you gave me the slip and
ran off with that scoundrel over there." She smiled in Albrecht's
direction. "If they get difficult, I will just move my little
homestead somewhere else." She put her fingertips to Elisabeth's
cheek and wiped away tears. "None of that now, Sir Knight. If you
weep the other knights will beat you up."

The young woman who stood in armor tried to
smile. As Magdalena said a prayer of blessing over her, she nodded.
She turned to see that Albrecht had carefully led Gauner so she
could step up on the wooden bench to mount. Gratefully, she stepped
up onto the bench, not without feeling anew the weight of all the
armor, and mounted her horse. Unable to speak, she looked one last
time at Magdalena, turning her horse to follow Albrecht through the
wooded path to the road beyond.

At the road she halted Gauner. Albrecht
looked back concerned.

"I need to be a girl for one last time," she
explained. He could see tears running down her cheeks.

"Boys weep too, my lord," he told her. "We
just don't let others see it."

Elisabeth gradually began to get used to the
weight of all her armor as she rode Gauner along the muddy road to
the east. She was in the lead now, as the two traveled as a knight
and his squire. In the few encounters they had on the road, those
passing them in the opposite direction simply saluted and made
humble greetings. When two young women riding in a hay cart sneaked
looks at Elisabeth and giggled, the object of their ogling was
thrilled.

"They thought I am a man!" she announced to
Albrecht.

"It doesn't surprise me. But there is one
thing we need to work on," he replied.

"What's that?"

"Your voice. The way you talk. You don't
sound girlish so much as just not masculine. Let me think, what can
we do about that?" He thought a few moments, then looked up with a
broad smile. "I know. Swear like a man, my lord! It will be hard to
stay sounding female if you get in the habit of speaking
coarsely."

Riding along more or less side by side with
him, Elisabeth asked, "You mean like this? Bugger off, varlet!"

Albrecht slapped his thigh, leaned his head
back to erupt into delighted laughter. "That is it! What a hoot to
hear it."

Elisabeth smiled back. "You scurvy son of a
poxy whore! I will slice you from cock to chin, so I will, and you
can use your stinking guts as a rope to hang your miserable
self."

Albrecht had to hang on to his saddle's
pommel to keep from slipping off. He screamed with laughter.

"Take that, demon spawn, and may you spend
eternity in a vat of excrement up to your eyes!"

"Enough, enough," Albrecht pleaded. "You're
killing me!" He halted Carlchen and sat wiping his eyes and
catching his breath. "You are too good at it. Practice like that,
but I would not advise ever actually saying that sort of thing to
anyone. Not if you want to keep your body and soul tethered to each
other." He sighed. "God, I needed that." He looked up. "My
lord."

"You know, I think you should shave me,"
Elisabeth said, stroking her chin.

"Shave you? Albrecht asked, startled. "You
can't grow a beard."

Elisabeth looked over at him. "We have to
make it look like I can and would if you do not shave me."

"But how about when you go back to, you know,
being a woman?"

An odd speculative look crossed her face.
"I'll worry about that when it happens."

The two rode along the road that would
ultimately bring them to the Danube where they could get passage on
a river barge downstream to Austria. Throughout the journey they
could see the imposing Alps rising on their right, between Bavaria
and Italy.

At a crossroads, Elisabeth let her horse fall
back so she could ask Albrecht, "Is this the road we would take to
Italy?"

"I think so. I think this one leads to the
Brenner Pass. Why, my lord? Are you thinking of going to your
Lombard kin after all?"

The look in her eyes was far away. "No, not
that. Just curious."

Elisabeth continued to practice her masculine
voice. Albrecht cautioned her not to lower it. "You sound like you
are faking it," he said.

"Well, I am faking it," she protested.

"Yes, my lord, but you don't want to sound
like it."

When they camped, as tired as they were,
Albrecht made her practice her already formidable sword skills but
with the addition of learning to maneuver in the armor. She was
beginning to notice that every day it was easier. She also felt
freer and stronger than she ever had felt.

They came toward a densely wooded patch where
the road disappeared in the gloom. "Put your helm on, my lord,"
Albrecht told her. "There may be brigands."

She looked ahead with interest. "Really?" She
was grinning.

It was harrowing to ride into the woods where
the trees' branches were so interlaced that little more than scraps
of the sun's light made it to where they slowly advanced.

"Ahead," Albrecht abruptly spoke.

She followed his gaze to where three men
stood in the road, obscured in the darkness but still identifiable.
"Brigands?"

"Probably," Albrecht replied. He drew his
sword and continued to ride slowly toward the men. He dropped the
packhorse's lead so he could lift his wooden shield to his chest.
Elisabeth followed suit, her heart racing with anticipation of her
first real encounter.

It was not easy to see, with the gloom and
the narrow view from the helms. The two rode steadily forward,
keeping their eyes on the trio on the road. Albrecht called, "You,
there, make way for the Lord of Winterkirche!"

The men appeared to consult with one another.
One lifted a bow and fired an arrow toward them, but it flew wide.
The men suddenly turned and dashed away into the thick of the
woods.

"Well, damn and hell," Elisabeth swore.

Albrecht did not respond. He looked puzzled,
then turned to look behind them. "Damn and hell indeed. The pack
horse." He whirled Carlchen and spurred him back the way they
came.

Elisabeth turned Gauner in time to see their
packhorse's arse disappear into the thicket alongside the road.

"Two, I think," Albrecht shouted back to
her.

She spurred Gauner into a run and caught up
with Albrecht. She let Gauner follow Carlchen off the road into the
trees. Gauner, a superior mount to Carlchen, overtook him and
spurted forward. She lifted her sword to strike as the two came up
to the stolen packhorse and the thieves.

One man shouted something to his companion
and dashed ahead on his own. Elisabeth leaned down as she rode past
the man who gripped the packhorse's lead rope. He turned to glare
at her, starting to raise a short sword. She brought her arm down
with all her might. Her sword bit into his shoulder where it was
attached to his neck. He screamed and loosed the pack animal,
falling as Elisabeth shot past him.

Breathless she slowed and turned her horse to
ride back and finish the man off. She saw the squire dismount and
walk to the screaming man. As she rode forward she saw him raise
his own sword and bring it down on the man's uncovered head.

Halting Gauner, Elisabeth slid off the saddle
and came up next to Albrecht. She looked down at the man they had
killed. His shoulder was a bloody mass of carved raw meat, but it
was his head and face that she fixed her appalled gaze on. His
skull was split from his crown to his mouth. She could see his
brains as they oozed out. One of his eyes lay out and down the side
of his face. She quickly pulled off her helm, turned, doubled up
and vomited. Albrecht reached to hold her shoulders as she
heaved.

Standing up Elisabeth wiped her mouth with
the sleeve of her chain mail hauberk. It scratched her face, and
the vomit stung and made her wince. "I . . . I'm sorry. It's just
that . . . that was my first kill."

Albrecht looked at her, his eyes distant. "I
know. Mine too." He turned away from her and heaved. It was her
turn to hold his shoulders.

Just then they both heard a zip and saw a
crossbow bolt bury itself in the eye of the packhorse. Its head
jerked back with the impact and it toppled over sideways.

Raising her sword, Elisabeth began to run
forward, cursing, but Albrecht reached out a hand and snatched at
her. "Stop! There's no point."

She slowed and came back to him. "I suppose
you are right. The best that could happen is that I get a bolt in
my own eye."

Albrecht nodded, his shoulders slumped. "We
had better get back on the road. No sense standing here like
targets."

She whipped her head around but could see no
bandits. "What about the horse? The supplies?"

"Unless you want to eat the horse, leave it
to them. As far as the supplies . . . " He shrugged. "I didn't see
the packs still on the horse. The other man must've unstrapped them
while we were still advancing on the other three."

She followed him back to their mounts. He
helped her up and then dragged himself up onto this own mount.

As they returned to the road she realized she
still had her sword in her hand. She raised it to sheath it and saw
the blood. Seeing her tremble he snapped, "Here!"

Startled, she looked over to see that he had
tossed her his neck kerchief. She snatched it out of the air.

"Clean your sword," he said, realizing that
he had successfully shocked her out of a fit.

The kerchief was clotted with blood and worse
already, but she wiped away as much as she could before sheathing
her sword.

He watched her and knew he could chide her
saying, "And you wanted to kill Paynim? Good thing you were never
really serious."

They camped, though they no longer had their
tent or bedrolls, when they found themselves where a small pier
jutted out into the flow of a huge river. "The Danube?" Elisabeth
asked.

"Yes," Albrecht said. "Almost there."

She gave him an odd look, but did not say any
more until the light had gone and they were ready to roll up in
their cloaks and sleep by their campfire.

"Albrecht, I have to tell you something," she
began.

He stopped trying to get comfortable on the
ground and looked up expectantly. "My lord?"

Hesitantly, she continued. "I want to keep
going." He did not interrupt, so she went on. "I love this. I love
the freedom, the adventure, and the independence, even the
fighting. I don't want to be a woman any more. I want to be a
man."