Beloved Pilgrim (31 page)

Conrad stalked about the village stopping to
talk with the clumps of men resting wherever they could find space.
He made his way slowly to where Elisabeth and Albrecht sat with the
three knights and their squires in the shade their own horses made.
He returned their nods, asking how they fared.

"That tactic," he informed them without
preamble, "has not been used successfully since the Parthians."

Alain looked puzzled. "Who were they?"

Albrecht surprised his comrades by
responding, "They fought Alexander the Great in Persia, is that
right?"

Conrad cocked a single eyebrow in
appreciation. "Very good. The tactic was abandoned after Alexander
decimated the Parthian army."

"How did he do it?" Elisabeth asked.

"Well, I can tell you it wasn't by riding out
in small groups and trying to chase them down." Conrad's disgust
was evident. Then he appeared to reconsider the courtesy of
criticizing his fellow commanders. "Alexander's foot soldiers were
just too well-armored and too good."

Elisabeth observed, "Alexander was not called
the Great for nothing. Not an easy example to equal."

Conrad, looking away, made a gesture of
dismissal and walked away.

"What is going to happen now?" Alain asked
rhetorically.

Black Beast made a rude noise in his throat.
"If that keeps up the rest of today and the next day and the next .
. . "

Bertolf, his squire, a barrel of a man even
at his young age, shook his head. "We are not going to keep on to
rescue Lord Bohemond, are we?"

No one looked at him or replied.

At night the pilgrims fell into sleep almost
as soon as they lay on the ground from the sheer exhaustion of the
day's march. They did not awake refreshed in the dawn. The blazing
heat made the pilgrims, particularly those in armor, stupid from
dehydration. Young joints resisted flexing as if their owners were
aged. Sleep rather than being restful just fogged the senses.

"God help us," Elisabeth thought, "if we are
called on to act quickly."

Quick turned out to be the last thing anyone
would have to be. Not long after the column formed and began to
move toward the mountains and sea, the Turks swooped down again.
The turtle formation was almost second nature now. No one
complained about the slow pace, stopping for the attacks, then
moving at a crawl in between, because no one had the energy to move
any faster. That single day felt like a week, and then in the early
morning it was all to do again. On everyone's minds was one
crippling realization. The slow pace meant more days on the road,
and more days on the road made it inevitable that thirst and hunger
would begin to claim lives as surely as any Turkish arrows
could.

There was no respite from the assaults. The
only change for the pilgrims was that they were increasingly ill
equipped to keep going. Water was even scarcer than before, and the
grain carts were emptying. Added to the actual heat from the
searing sun was the impression of heat from torched fields and
groves. The acrid smoke turned already parched throats into painful
cracking tissues.

People started to drop where they walked. The
very old stumbled, and though helped to stand again by their family
members, soon fell to the ground. Some of the men among the
noncombatants tried to carry their old people, but they were little
hardier than their burdens. At first they laid their dead atop the
lessening stores in the ox carts, but the weight took its toll on
the already suffering draft animals. A near riot of protest at the
removal of corpses to be left behind on the ground was quelled by
yet another sweep of Turks whose arrows felled more of the pilgrims
as they were too slow to get into a protective position.

The fourth night after Gangra they made camp
in the open. Elisabeth heard him and looked up as Albrecht, who had
strayed from her side, lay down near her. "Where were you? What's
wrong?" she added as she saw the desolation on his face.

He rasped as much from his parched throat as
from a desire to be discreet. "I went to look for the Lombard woman
and her child. My water skin was under my cloak. I have been
sneaking water to the child against orders. A guard came out of
nowhere and grabbed me. I pretended I could not understand him, but
he just reached under my cloak and pulled out the water skin. He
asked me who it was for. I told him it was for my horse. But he was
wise to me. He pointed out that the Bavarians' horses were picketed
in the opposite direction."

"What happened?" Elisabeth urged.

"They took it, the skin. Confiscated. Asked
me how my horse will drink now. I started to reach for my sword,
but the other guards grabbed my arms. I asked on whose authority he
confiscated my water. He said it was Toulouse, not that he wants
for provisions himself."

Albrecht scratched his bent head and made a
derisive noise in his throat. "He told me I wasn't going to take
water to my 'bit of tail.' As if I had the energy to fuck. He said
that well will be as dry as the rest in no time with nothing to pay
her."

Elisabeth had wondered if Albrecht's Lombard
woman had assumed from the first that he wanted something in return
for the water for her child, and the only thing she had was her
body. When the squire never made his advances, she would no doubt
have been puzzled.

"I couldn't keep looking for them, nothing to
give the child. I knew the woman would be waiting for me, but I
just turned and came back here."

The next day the children started to die.
Furious recriminations accompanied the soldiers' insistence that
the bodies, not only the old people and the wounded who could not
walk but now the little ones, be left on the side of the road at
the mercy of whatever the Turks would do to them. Dozens became
scores lining the path churned up by thousands of feet shuffling
between stops to form the turtle.

When the column stopped for its midday rest
in a burned out grove of trees Albrecht, tortured by his failure to
find and explain to the Lombard woman, dashed away to find her and
learn how she and the child fared. Elisabeth followed. He searched
in vain. He finally found some of the people she traveled with.
They would not meet his eyes.

"Where is Maria? Where is her mother?" he
demanded in camp pidgin.

One older woman bowed her head and croaked,
"Gone, my lord. Both of them."

"Gone? What are you talking about? Not dead?"
he said with mounting fear.

She shook her head. "You stopped bringing
them water. She despaired."

A young boy stepped forward. "When the Turks
attacked last, she went out to them. She broke through the turtle
and walked straight out toward the archers."

Albrecht's eyes frantically searched the
country back the way they had come. "Why?"

The older woman put in, "Her child was dying.
She wanted to get her water and food."

"She gave herself to a heathen. He rode to
her and leaned down and gathered her and the child up onto his
horse." The boy hesitated.

Catching the hesitation, Albrecht looked from
the boy to the woman. "What happened?" he asked with dread.

Tears started to course down the woman's
cheeks. "The archer . . . he tore the child from her arms and flung
it on the ground. I heard her scream. We wanted to go save the
little mite, but the archers swooped down again."

"I saw a horseman ride over the child." The
young boy's voice caught on the words.

Albrecht stood before them unable to move or
speak. He slowly sank to his knees and lifted his hands to cover
his face. A sound like a tortured animal came from him as he shook
all over. The boy and woman exchanged looks and backed away.

Elisabeth knelt by him and put her hands on
his shoulders while they shook.

Conrad rode to where his knights stood about
a campfire, miserably contemplating the lack of any sort of food
but hard bread full of weevils. He dismounted as they stood to
salute, waving them to sit again. He sighed as he saw all eyes
turned on him, waiting for the inevitable.

"Lads, this has become intolerable. Something
has to give. The commanders are meeting tonight to make a decision.
The Count of Toulouse is going to recommend that we break through
as directly as we can to the sea. There is a road along the shore
back to Constantinople, and some may find ship's passage."

"Back to Constantinople?" one man questioned.
"In disgrace? What then?"

"I know what I will do when we get back to
Constantinople. That bastard, Alexios, will hear about . . . ," a
voice from among the knights vowed.

Conrad broke in, "Nay, it is too tempting to
try to assign blame. We should not turn on the Basileus. He is a
Christian. We should leave all recriminations for . . . "

"The Lombard rabble! And that fat Archdeacon
leading them!" another voice shouted.

Conrad shook his head. "The Turks. They and
they alone have brought us to this."

Elisabeth, her chainmailed arms resting on
chainmailed leg coverings, looked to her left when she heard
Ranulf's derisive snort.

He saw her look and explained, "I would be
hard-pressed to find a soul here not fit to blame. This has been a
sorry mess from the start."

She kept her eyes level on him, wanting to
argue but unable to form a case in her mind. She looked back at
Conrad. He was still standing before them, in heated debate with
several knights.

She turned back to the mercenary. "How is
Ruggiero?"

The big Italian was a casualty of the most
recent attack by Turkish archers. An arrow had made it through the
shield wall when a man next to him had stumbled. The wound was in
his thigh, the arrow removed cleanly, but he grew ever weaker no
matter what was done for him.

Ranulf grimaced and shook his head. "The
arrow was poisoned, I think. The leech cleaned the wound as best he
could, then we got a healing woman from the Lombard contingent to
look at it. It smells like bloody hell and is red and hot. There
are blotches that the woman said show the poison is working its way
down his leg."

She sat up, slapped her hands on her knees
and rose. "Where is he?"

Glancing at Conrad, Ranulf stood. It was
clear no more would be imparted until the leaders made their
decision, that all Conrad was doing now was canvassing the men for
his part in the deliberations. He gestured away from the fire with
his head. "Over here." He led her a short distance away to another
campfire. Albrecht, she saw, was there, as were Ragnar and Thomas.
In their midst, shivering under several cloaks next to the fire,
lay the Italian mercenary. His face, all that she could see of him,
was ruddy, and sweat stood out on his forehead. His dark, curly
hair was plastered with sweat to his scalp. There was an
unmistakable smell of putrefaction. She went to his side and knelt.
"Ruggiero, my friend," she murmured. She put her hand on his where
she could tell they lay on his chest. She knew better than to make
empty reassurances. Ruggiero was dying.

He opened his eyes, which had been squeezed
shut against the pain that centered in his leg but was spreading up
and down it and into his groin. He looked at her, and then
stretched his head to find Ranulf's face looming above. "What . . .
?" was all he could get out.

Ranulf's lips curled sardonically. "They are
giving up. They are meeting this evening to decide what to do.
Conrad said Toulouse wants to make a break for the sea."

Ruggiero nodded. "About time," he rasped.
"Too late for me."

No one contradicted him. They were all
soldiers. Even the two from Winterkirche could not pretend the
wound was not mortal. The poison already overwhelmed the man's
remaining strength.

"Ranulf, make me a promise," the prone man
said with a note of pleading in his voice. "When you move on, leave
me where I can prop myself against something with my sword in my
hand. At least I can try to go out taking one of the hell spawn
with me."

"I will stay with you," Ragnar began, his
voice tight with the effort to keep grief out of it.

"No, you won't," Ruggiero said. "If you do,
who will keep Thomas from talking everyone's ears off?" He looked
at the silent crossbowman. He saw the tears in the Englishman's
eyes. He reached out a feeble hand to try to grasp his. Thomas
reached out to meet him halfway. Ruggiero clasped the man's hand.
He looked back to Ranulf. "Will you get me a priest?"

Ranulf nodded. Ragnar stood and stalked
away.

"I'll go," Elisabeth said, getting to her
feet. "You stay with your friend."

She found Father Cyril, a Serbian priest,
threading his way through the Lombard peasants, taking confession,
soothing fears, his face twisted with the anger he felt at the
misery all about him. When she asked him to come, he finished what
he was doing and followed her. He knelt by Ruggiero's head. "I have
no consecrated wine or bread," he admitted. "But I have trouble
believing the Lord would deny you your place in Heaven over such
trivialities." He leaned forward so Ruggiero could make his
confession and receive extreme unction in privacy.

Elisabeth could see the Italian's lips move,
speaking into Cyril's ear, and Cyril nodding his head and making
the sign of the cross.

She looked up at Ranulf, whose face was
haggard. Thomas knelt nearby with his head bowed so low his long
dark hair covered his face. She put a hand on his shoulder and
squeezed, then did the same for Ranulf. He gazed back at her, his
jaw taut, his eyes fiery, but he nodded. She and Albrecht walked
away.

In the morning Ruggiero was dead. "We will
not have to leave him behind, not alive at least," Ranulf
commented. "Let's get him buried. I do not want his body desecrated
like the others we had to leave behind." He glanced at Ragnar. "Is
that the ring?" he asked, gesturing to a heavy object in the Dane's
hand.