The Scarlet Cross
Authors: Karleen Bradford
Karleen Bradford
For my Uncle Cubby, who is always there for me
“God wills it!”
This was the cry of the crusaders that echoed throughout Europe and the Middle East for over four hundred years. The cry that inspired kings to abandon their kingdoms, knights to leave their families and holdings, priests and monks to desert their churches and abbeys, peasants to forsake their fields, and, finally, even children to run away from their fathers and mothers.
The crusading frenzy began in 1096, when Pope Urban II called for a quest to liberate Jerusalem from the Turkish Muslims. It was unthinkable to Christians at the time that Jerusalem could be as holy a city to those whom they considered to be heathen as it was to them. But probably not even the pope knew what obsession and fanaticism he was about to unleash.
The great princes and nobles of Europe responded to his call to take up the cross and restore Jerusalem to Christianity. They began to assemble their armies and make ready to
journey to the Holy Land in the fall of that year, but Peter, a monk from Amiens, whom many called mad, could not wait. He preached crusade
now
. Peasants, priests, and minor nobles flocked to join him. The pope had promised pardon for their sins to all who went on crusade—the prisons of the Empire emptied out and thieves, rapists, and murderers swelled his ranks. Peter welcomed them all. This People’s Crusade swept across Europe like a horde of ravening wolves, but made it no farther than the town of Civetot, in Turkey, where the Turkish forces swept down upon them and overwhelmed them.
The army that the pope had called for finally set out in September. In 1099, after almost three years of hardship and war, this first legitimate crusade succeeded in recapturing Jerusalem. The Christian kings of Jerusalem ruled for only eighty-eight years, however. In 1187, the great Muslim leader Salah-ud-Din, known to Christians as Saladin, retook the city.
A second crusade failed to reach Jerusalem. In 1192, a third crusade, led by King Richard Lionheart of England and King Philip of France, ended in a short-lived truce with Salah-ud-Din. A fourth crusade ended in disgrace with the sacking of Constantinople, a Christian city, in 1204.
By the year 1212, the crusading fervour had waned. In spite of the continuing zeal of the priests, people had become discouraged. The crusades had taken an enormous toll of men, women, and children. Homes and properties had been neglected or lost. People were turning more and more to their own affairs rather than venturing forth on what seemed an increasingly impossible war.
Then a shepherd boy, Stephen of Cloyes, had a vision in a field while tending his sheep. A man appeared to him, bearing a letter, which he bade Stephen take to King Philip of France. It was a missive commanding Stephen to raise
an army of children to march on Jerusalem. These children were to accomplish what men had failed to do. By their faith alone, they would restore Jerusalem to Christendom. It was God’s will, the mysterious stranger proclaimed.
Twenty thousand children answered Stephen’s call, some as young as seven years old. He led them on a terrible journey across France to Marseilles. There, he believed, God would part the waters for them as he had for Moses, and they would walk through to the Holy Land.
The clang and clash of sword upon sword was deafening. War cries. Shouts of agony. Stephen could hear nothing else, see nothing but horses thundering toward him, their riders turbaned with brightly coloured robes flowing. He could feel the weight of his own weapon as he hefted it and swung once, and again, and yet again.
“God wills it!” he cried, and heard his own voice echoed ten times over by the multitude of mail-clad knights around him. He tossed a lock of hair out of his eyes. He surged forward…
Baa, baah.
Only a small part of his mind heard the frantic bleating.
Baah! Baah!
Impossible to ignore.
The noise and haze of battle died away. The knights faded into ghosts, the raging stallions disappeared. The sun shone brightly down onto a field studded with rocks and quietly nibbling sheep.
Stephen walked over to a steep-sided gully, looked down, and sighed. Not for him, the excitement of battle. Not for him, the honour of a knight fighting for the glory of God. It was the third time this week that this same ewe had managed to get into trouble. How the foolish sheep had managed to fall down there was a mystery; he could only hope she wasn’t hurt.
All thoughts of glory and battle driven from his mind now, the sound tore at him. Each one of these sheep was precious to him. He had cared for them for most of his fifteen years—long enough that he knew their every quirk and eccentricity. He heaved another sigh. His sheep were not too astute and they were often stubborn. They could not see very well, either—probably one of the reasons why they got into so much trouble and then seemed incapable of getting out of it. But they were
his
sheep and he was responsible for them. There was nothing for it, he would have to climb down after this one.
“Hold your wailing, I’m coming!” he called to no effect. The ewe only intensified her cries.
He looked up at the darkening sky. Spring thunderclouds threatened; a flash of lightning lit up the field where he stood. It was late. He had left the rounding up of the flock much too long because of his daydreaming, but he could not help it. The village priests told such wondrous tales of the marvellous crusades to liberate the Holy Land from the heathen who occupied it that his mind was filled with the stories. The new, young priest, Father Martin, had even met a knight who had been part of King Philip’s crusade, and he recounted the knight’s exploits over and over every Sunday. The old priest, Father Jean-Paul, was as entranced with the tales as the rest of the village folk. At night Stephen dreamed of nothing else. His father and brother scoffed at him, of course.
“Only an idiot would leave a comfortable life to go traipsing off to the ends of the earth,” his father said. He repeated it every time Stephen dared to bring up the subject.
Stephen shook his head to clear it. He was as simple-minded as his sheep. Time was passing, and he was sure of a beating from his father for bringing them back so late.
He started tentatively down into the gully, clasping bushes to keep from falling. One foot slipped out from under him and he tumbled. Bushes tore at him, stones gouged his hands and legs. By the time he came to a stop, one knee was scraped raw.
“
Par Dieu!
” he swore. It was one of his brother Gil’s favourite oaths.
The ewe was stuck deep within a copse of furze. When she saw him she redoubled her bleating. Of course, she wasn’t making the slightest effort to get herself out. Cursing yet again, Stephen plowed into the deceptively pretty, yellow-flowered bushes, and grasped the animal by an ear. He knew well the flowers hid thorns, and sure enough, one particularly vicious spine raked across his arm, drawing blood.
Now, even more terrified, the ewe bucked and kicked as Stephen got a better hold around her neck and pulled her out. The minute she was free she took off, leaping up the gully-side as nimbly as a goat. Stephen was left to clamber up behind her. By the time he reached the top, she was long gone to join the flock that was calling to her, and Stephen had used up every curse he had ever heard, and invented a few more. The village church bell called across the valley, tolling vespers as he made ready to herd his charges home.
It was dark by the time Stephen wended his way down from the pasture. His father and brother had long since returned from their work in the fields of Lord Belanger, the seigneur of their small village of Cloyes, to whom the
villagers owed their feudal loyalty. Their work in his fields guaranteed them his protection and care, as well as providing them with a hut to live in.
Stephen herded his sheep into their pen for the night and latched the gate securely. A few chickens grumbled sleepily as he scuffed his way across the dirt yard. He paused by the door of his hut, listening. It was always wise to gauge what temper his father was in before entering.
As he strained to hear what might be going on inside, the door was flung open. His brother, Gil, burst out, almost knocking Stephen off his feet.
“Late you are, then,” Gil growled. “You’re in for a beating now, whelp.” Without another word he strode off.
To the hostel, of course,
Stephen thought bitterly.
My great lump of a brother does nothing but drink all night and work as little as possible, while I tend the sheep no matter how foul the weather. Yet it is me who my father beats, not him.
He knew why, but it did not help. His mother had died birthing him, and his father had never forgiven him for it. His father cursed the day he was born with every blow.
He tarried still, loath to go in, but his rumbling belly was not to be denied. He had taken only a crust of bread and a rind of hard cheese to eat that day. No matter that a beating was a certainty. If food was to be had afterwards, it would be worth it. He took a deep breath and stepped through the door that his brother had left ajar.
His father, Mattieu, sat at the table, red-faced and scowling. He was scooping up the last vestiges of a watery soup from his bowl with a crust of bread. He rose to his feet as Stephen entered.
“Where were you?” he growled. “Have I not told you the sheep must be penned before sunset? How many did you lose, you useless wretch?”
“None, Father,” Stephen said. “I brought them all home safely. One did stray, but I found her. It was searching for her that made me late.”
“And why did you lose her? Sleeping, I warrant.”
“No, Father…” Stephen began, but Mattieu stepped forward and silenced him with a cuff on the ear.
For a moment anger rose hot within Stephen. He clenched his hand into a fist and drew back his arm before he could stop himself. Mattieu’s face swam in front of his eyes.
“Strike me, would you?” Mattieu roared. “Strike
me
!” He snatched up a stick from the hearth.
Once, twice, three times he whipped Stephen. Across his shoulders, across his back. Stephen bowed his head and raised his hands to protect his face. When his father had finished, Stephen stood, shuddering, willing himself not to weep. He had not cried out. He would not give his father that satisfaction.
Mattieu glared at him a moment longer, then turned away. Beneath the pain, Stephen felt a small surge of triumph, but it was not until Mattieu had climbed the ladder into the loft above and thrown himself down to sleep that he dared help himself to food.
The fire had died down to a few smouldering embers. There was nothing but a cupful of the thin soup left in the pot, and that was cold as stone. Stephen gulped it down. He found a heel of barley bread and stuffed that into his mouth as well. A flagon of ale stood by the hearth, but he knew better than to drink that. His father would flay him alive if it were not there for the drinking in the morning. Instead, when he went outside to piss, he slaked his thirst with a drink from the stream that ran behind their hut.
He was ashamed of himself for giving in to his anger. He was becoming as hot-tempered and stupid as his father and
his brother. He scuffed his way back to their hut and crept into the darkness.
What would his life have been like if his mother had lived? He could not help but believe that it would have been better than this. He knelt to whisper his paternoster into the darkness, then stumbled over the words of the Ave Maria. He had never learned them properly. A mother’s job, that was, to teach her children their prayers.
When he was finished, he rose to stoke the fire so that it would last the night, and curled up on the mat beside it to take advantage of the last lingering bit of warmth. Now, in the dark stillness of the night, he could let his thoughts wander again. In his mind, Stephen could see a procession of helmed knights riding off to war, sitting tall in their saddles, shields held before them, lances at the ready. He could hear the creaking of their leather saddles, the footfalls of the horses. He could smell the sweat of men and beasts. On every knight’s shoulder blazed a scarlet cross. A cross as red as blood.
“God wills it,” he muttered to himself as sleep overtook him.
Gil staggered in much later. Stephen heard his brother throw himself down on his pallet, but he did not open his eyes. It took but little to enrage Gil when he was drunk, and one beating a night was enough.
The next morning Stephen rose as the church bell announced prime, the early morning prayers. Carefully, he stepped over Gil’s snoring body. He snatched up another crust of barley bread and a round of cheese that was only slightly mouldy, then he opened the door and stepped out. It was early April, and the day was still fresh and heavy with dew. He followed the clucking of a hen and pulled back the branches of a bush to find a newly laid egg. A treasure! He
cradled it, still warm in his hand, then carefully put it in the pouch that dangled from the rope at his waist. He would make a fire and cook it when he reached the field. A feast, it would be, with the bread and cheese.
He opened the pen and hustled the sheep out. They were stupid with sleep and he had to throw clods of mud at them to get them moving. A dog. That was what he should have. A dog would be a great help, but his father had cuffed him even harder when he had suggested getting one.
“A dog!” he had cried. “Do you think us so rich that we could afford to feed such a beast? No, you wastrel. Tending the sheep is your job. Do not try to squirm out of it.”
Stephen had known better than to argue. Still, a dog would have helped. He would gladly have shared his own food with it. Perhaps he would not daydream so much if he had a dog to keep him company, to talk to during the long hours of the day.
He shrugged. It was not to be.
Several boys his own age passed by him, hoes and scythes over their shoulders. They would be on their way to the fields to work, but Stephen knew better than to call out a greeting to them. Nor did they acknowledge him. Such was his father’s reputation for meanness, and his brother’s for bullying and thieving, that Stephen had never had any friends in the village. The tallest of the boys turned back. He was a lout named Yves, who had delighted in harassing Stephen ever since childhood.
“A chicken was missing from our henhouse this morning,” he spat out. “And Pierre, here, saw your filthy brother hanging around our cottage after he left the tavern last night. You wouldn’t be having chicken in your pot this evening, now would you?”
Stephen flushed, but before he could answer, the boy turned away. Stephen bit his lip until he tasted blood. The
worst of it was that the accusation might be true. Not that he would have even a sniff of the bird if it were. Gil and his father would finish it off long before he returned. His father would never question where it came from, either. It had happened before.
Stephen threw another clod of mud at the sheep, a little too hard. It hit the lead sheep, the bellwether, on her flanks. She looked back over her shoulder and gave him a black look.
“My apologies, my maid,” Stephen called out, then looked quickly after his tormentors. All he needed was for them to hear him apologizing to a sheep, but by great good fortune they were too far ahead by now.
Stephen decided to take the sheep up to the high field this day. It was farther and a steep climb and the pasture was not as good, but this field inevitably drew him. Stories were told of a great battle that had taken place there between their own King Philip and the beast of England, King Richard, whom they called Lionheart. Once they had fought on the same side, those two great men, on one of the crusades that had failed to reclaim the holy city of Jerusalem for Christianity. But then, only a few years before Stephen had been born, they had fallen out and fought against each other in this very place.
The grass was littered with helms that were battered beyond use, bent and twisted pieces of swords, broken lances, bits of rusted chain mail. And bones, too. Bones of horses. Bones of men. Stephen could almost imagine the scarlet flowers that bloomed in and around them to be drops of blood. He had often felt the presence of ghosts around him in that field.
As he climbed, the sun warmed him. The sheep followed the bellwether on the narrow trail with hardly any urging
on Stephen’s part. The bell on the ewe’s neck rang out with each step the animal took. The air here was clear and the sound was sharp and clean. Stephen’s spirits began to lift. It was always thus when he climbed to these heights. He turned to look back. The village below seemed so small. Smoke curled from chimneys, here and there a tiny figure moved—to the stream to fetch water, to the church to hear Mass. From this distance it looked peaceful and safe.
He turned away and drew a deep breath. The sky was bright blue with the hint of summer in it. Only a few clouds scudded by. Beneath his feet some herb released a sharp, pungent smell.
His mother would have known the name for that herb, he thought. On the rare occasions when Mattieu spoke of her, he nearly always told how knowledgeable she had been about herbs.
“The village women came to her for their remedies,” he said. “There was no illness she could not cure.”
From his father’s words and how he spoke, Stephen could almost believe that his father had not had such a temper before his mother’s death. Certainly it seemed as if the women of the village had no fear of him then. And Gil, of course, would have been just a babe. It was hard for Stephen to think of his loutish brother as a small child, hanging onto his mother’s skirts. Perhaps he had even been shy.