Beloved Pilgrim (15 page)

Alain's mace was his practice mace, without
the spikes he would want for killing. When one of the men standing
about offered to lend Elisabeth his battle mace, she started to
protest, but Alain waved her concerns down. "I will give you that
advantage, my friend." Nevertheless, he eased her qualms by donning
a thick padded gambeson.

He and Elisabeth squared off with several
feet of ground between them. It was apparent from the beginning
that the young German knight knew how to use the weapon, though
primarily for defense. The two moved toward each other and held
their maces with one hand low on the handle and the other cupped
under the shaft nearer the heavy iron head. Each tested the
weapon's balance by slapping its shaft onto that palm. The trick
was to watch the opponent's eyes to see where he was considering a
blow. Elisabeth managed to deflect Alain's blow aimed at her right
arm by getting the shaft of her own weapon up quickly enough to
intercept the smooth round ball, though the weight of the blow
shoved her back. She feinted, no mean trick with such a weighted
weapon, and swung about to strike Alain's thigh. Alain shouted with
surprise. The site of the wound was under the padding, but
nevertheless a small amount of blood ran down his leggings. He
grinned and held his weapon out in front of him like a sword,
danced back and then forward so sharply that the round iron ball
took Elisabeth in the teeth. Her nose erupted in blood. It was her
first significant wound, but rather than cry out, she whooped with
soggy pleasure.

"Look!" she cried, putting one glove to her
streaming nose and reaching up to her mouth with the other, having
dropped the mace. With triumph she pulled out a tooth and held it
aloft. "I lotht a toot!" she crowed.

Albrecht and Renard came running up at that
point. Albrecht dropped the shield he was carrying and ran to
Elisabeth. "My lord! You are hurt!"

Still clutching her nose, she replied, "Yeth,
but he ith too. And I lotht a toot!" She smiled as wide as she
could so her squire could see the missing tooth, though in truth he
could not for the blood.

Black Beast shook his head, but he was
smiling too. "I remember my first disfiguring scar. I was as proud
of it as our young Elias is."

Albrecht fetched his shield. He told the
group, "The front was plain black, so I decided to paint a sitting
duck on it." He held it out, then frowned as the knights laughed.
Then he looked chagrined. "I painted it upside down!" he moaned.
Turning the shield around, they saw it was true. There was a duck,
indeed, but its feet pointed skyward and its head toward the
ground.

Black Beast slapped him on the shoulder.
"When your master knights you, you will be Sir Albrecht of the
Upside-Down Duck, the bane of Paynim throughout the Holy Land!"

Thereafter the group practiced together
daily, and Elisabeth found her command of weapons increasing, her
prowess growing greater over time. The only thing the knights could
not persuade her to join in on was their carousing. She demurred
quietly, and the knights teased her about her religious fervor but
also respected it.

"He is a true man of God, our young pilgrim
knight," Gerhardt boasted to anyone in hearing.

Another result of Elisabeth's seeming piety
was that their small hoard of coins remained more or less intact.
They used one coin for the offering as they visited Leopold's
monastery. It was a long structure made entirely of stone on a
cliff overlooking the Danube and the Wachau Valley. Standing at the
edge of the construction, Albrecht asked a Benedictine monk who was
assigned to show them around, "I don't understand the name of the
town. What does Mölk mean?"

The young monk shook his head. "It's not
German. Someone told me that it is from a Slav word that means
'border.' When this land was given to the Margrave's family, it was
meant to be a sort of bulwark between Bavaria and the Magyars. Why
it has a Slav name then, instead of Ugric, I do not know."

Gazing out over the dramatic landscape below,
with its deep gorge and glassy blue river surface, Elisabeth
pursued, "And the Margrave has given this land to the Benedictine
order. Where is your abbey now?"

"Lambach. And he actually gave this most
generous gift to our order a decade ago. He moved to the lesser
part of his castle so we could take most of it. It is a rare
blessing. We hope to make it a great abbey, with a school and
scriptorium, for the greater glory of God. And that is his Grace's
aim as well. He is a most devout man."

Albrecht called from where he had wandered
over closer to the edge of the rock. "My lord, see here!"

Elisabeth strode over, accompanied by the
informative cleric. "What is it?"

She looked where Albrecht indicated. There
was a long line of boats and barges coming down the Danube. Each
was packed with men, livestock or stores in barrels and crates.

"Conrad?" Elisabeth wondered aloud.

"It must be, my lord." Albrecht counted the
vessels. "A dozen so far and methinks there are more behind."

The monk sighed, though his expression was
excited. "I know not where we shall put them all."

Elisabeth gestured to Albrecht to come.
"That's what sailcloth is for," and pointed to one of the barges
that appeared to have rolls and rolls of a tan material. "Tents.
Let's go down to the wharf to meet them, Albrecht."

At the wharf the first of the boats was
pulling up and being tethered to the shore. A dock man tossed a
plank to make a gangway. The first man to disembark was in full
armor with a flat-topped iron helm and the ubiquitous crusader
tabard complete with red cross. Behind him a knight carried a
banner with the emblem of the Holy Roman Emperor, three black lions
passant on a yellow background.

Elisabeth and Albrecht and all the other
knights and their attendants sank to their knees in greeting.
"Conrad?" Elisabeth whispered, leaning to Albrecht's ear.

Albrecht nodded. "It must be."

They stayed kneeling as the Constable of Holy
Roman Emperor Henry IV passed, followed by many knights of
considerable degree.

At the feast given in his honor, Conrad stood
to address a hall packed with men dressed in crusader garb. "The
Emperor will exult at my report of how many of you have come to
join our faction. It is indeed a great and glorious quest we depart
on. May God give strength to our purpose. How can he not?" The man,
older but sturdy, battle scarred and grim, made the sign of the
cross and took his place next to the Margrave. The Margravina was
the only woman in the room. Other than Elisabeth, of course, who
sat far down one of the rows of trestle tables with Albrecht in
attendance behind her.

Albrecht leaned forward to say in Elisabeth's
ear, "Look over there, on the opposite wall at the bottom of the
room."

Elisabeth swiveled her head to peer through
the throngs of servants delivering platters of food to the tables.
"Well, I'll be . . . ," she breathed.

Almost out the door of the hall sat Ranulf
the Peacemaker. As she gazed at him, frowning, he happened to
glance over and see her looking at him. He grinned and raised his
cup in a salute. When she scowled, he laughed and shrugged.

When the many knights were called to be
introduced to the Constable, Elisabeth was pleased to see that she
was invited up but not Ranulf.

As she approached Conrad and went down on one
knee, Leopold leaned to speak in the Constable's ear. The German
nodded, and turned back to Elisabeth. "I fought with your brave
father Sigismund, my son. As you may know, I was also not able to
leave with the first crusaders. I did not have your father's sad
reason. And now I hear there is a loss in your family again, both
your father and your, is it? Your sister? I also had thought it was
you yourself."

"No, my lord, my father did leave, though
late, for the Holy Land. But my sister is a great loss. I miss her
greatly," Elisabeth said mournfully. "But it is my aim to go share
in my father's and my . . . uh . . . my father's vow and fulfill
his pledge to His Holiness and God." She had almost said, "and my
brother's."

Conrad put his hand on her shoulder. "Good
man. We need brave and committed men in our armies. You are most
welcome in your father's name."

From the Constable's side the Margravina
smiled her blessing on the rapturous young man.

Elisabeth felt two inches above the stone
flags as she came back through the hot, noisy hall to her place.
Albrecht looked questioningly at her. "He knew my father!" she
said.

"But not your brother?" Albrecht asked
nervously.

She hadn't thought of that possibility. "Oh,
dear God, but no. I don't think so. But he knew I was dead."

Albrecht put a finger to his lips. "Careful."
He satisfied himself no one had overheard. "Well, good, we are
almost on our way, my lord."

The next day the nearly completed abbey
church was the site of the mass oath-taking led by the Constable,
the Margrave, the abbot who had led the prayer for Elisabeth's
"sister's" soul, and more besides. As one voice they made the
pledge led by one of Conrad's bishops. Elisabeth's command of Latin
was unusual for a knight's daughter, but she was able to follow
what the bishop intoned.

"I pledge my sword, my life and my soul to
Almighty God that I shall make my way to his Holy City of
Jerusalem, to kneel and worship at the altar of the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher where His Blessed Son was entombed and later rose
and ascended to His Heavenly Father. I will protect my fellow
pilgrims and drive back and punish all those who seek to befoul the
Holy Land. I will join the noble ranks of those who have gone
before me and gloriously wrested the Holy City from the Paynim and
brought it in the name of His Holiness, the Pope, back into the
hands of the faithful. I pledge my honor and the surety of my soul,
for God wills it. Amen."

The voices of the abbey choir rose in a hymn
of praise. Elias von Winterkirche, Knight of the Crusade, almost
teetered, her head was so full of the sheer glory of it all.

In a few days, she and Albrecht, in full
armor and with a new packhorse, set out to the south for the
journey to Brindisi at the heel of Italy and thence by ship to the
Sublime City of Constantinople.

Looking back from where she sat mounted on
Gauner's broad back, Elisabeth marveled at all the souls on the
road with her. Though Conrad's contingent was not a national one,
the number of people who accompanied him was surprising. She
guessed the number of pilgrim knights was relatively small. She
knew that larger groups would join them before they set sail from
Brindisi in the far south of Italy. The throng she surveyed seemed
to consist of men-at-arms, servants, families, traders and the less
reputable camp followers. These last made a strong contrast to the
stated pledge of the knights to remain chaste at least until they
knelt in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Black Beast grumbled about leaving so late in
the season. "We're likely to find our asses in some mountain pass
in a blizzard."

From their reactions, it looked like Alain
and Gerhardt were in accordance with his sentiments.

She turned to her squire. "Is that
likely?"

Albrecht shrugged. "I pray not."

At first the traveling was fairly easy. The
company headed west along the bank of the Danube for quite some
time, ever with the Alpine vistas to their left. They seemed
impossibly high, insurmountable, but Alain reassured her that there
were several passes where one could travel between the highest
peaks.

"Have you been through them?"

Alain shook his head sheepishly. "Well, no,
not exactly. I heard it from someone who has many times."

"What time of year did he travel?" she
pursued.

Gerhardt laughed. "When sane people do it.
Summer."

"Well, mayhap with our holy cause God will
delay the worst weather for us."

The three knights exchanged glances, and then
looked at her. "That's why we travel with you, Elias. You keep us
focused on why we are here," Alain commented.

"And keep us humble," added Gerhardt.

Whether or not God had anything to do with
it, Elisabeth's hope was made fact. As they turned south at
Raulbing, the grade rose, but even as they approached the pass they
had only occasional snow flurries. What's more the ground was
frozen enough that the little moisture did not turn into mud. The
three knights began to call her "Elias the Lucky." The name spread
and stuck. Even Conrad hailed her once with that appellation.

The two Winterkirche pilgrims shared sighs of
relief as they turned away from Bavaria. For the leagues they had
traveled through their home duchy neither had been able to relax.
Trying not to be obvious, they kept an eye on travelers coming the
opposite way. They expected to see Reinhardt or his men searching
for her. She could only hope that her disguise and her presence
amidst so many that were likewise dressed in chain mail and the
pilgrim's tabard would make her invisible to his eyes.

"Do you think he has given up?" she asked
Albrecht not long after the road turned toward the mountains to the
south.

Her squire proposed, "Mayhap he is afraid he
will find and be stuck with you?"

Elisabeth gave him a sardonic look. "Very
droll."

Albrecht cocked an eyebrow. "Nothing about
your father, my lord, from anyone along the way?"

She shook her head. "I expected none. He was
to take the western pass. Mayhap in Italy . . . "

In spite of the fortunate weather, the
traveling was slow. It was definitely a hardship every time they
had to stop to make camp for the night. They had sailcloth tents
for the ranking members of the pilgrimage. The rest bundled up
together as best they could, sharing body heat, blankets, and
probably the pox, Elisabeth imagined, noticing when she was on
watch how the bodies in some spot or another writhed and bumped.
When the chill wind blew, getting fires started was no easy task,
and the hot food did not stay hot long. But the conviviality that
was part of the start of any adventure was apt medicine for the
discomforts and privations.