The Scarlet Cross (11 page)

It was time for Mass. Father Martin would be waiting. This morning Stephen would preach after the Mass. He pushed all other thoughts out of his mind.

Although it took only two days to reach the next large village—Blois—it was almost the end of July. The weather continued clear and unbearably hot, with not a drop of rain. The sun shone down upon them without ceasing. They had not found any water along the way and, although the monks of Vendôme had been as generous as they could, there was such a vast number of followers that food was running out yet again. Heat shimmered over the dusty road; children stumbled as they walked. They had passed a swamp, and despite Stephen’s warnings, many children could not resist drinking from it and became ill, some of them so severely that they had to be left by the wayside.

“We will get water and sustenance here,” Stephen said with relief as Renard drew the cart up by a river that ran through the fields around Blois, but many were so sick and exhausted, they could not drink. They curled up where they stopped and lay there, unmoving.

“We must help them,” Angeline said. She encouraged those of her charges who were not too weak to help her fill waterskins and bring them back to the others. When all of her own children had been taken care of, she began to tend to others. Stephen joined her. They worked side by side for the rest of the afternoon.

When the village bells tolled vespers, Stephen paused and looked around. “This is strange,” he said. “No one from the village has appeared to help us.” He turned to Father Martin. “Come with me, Father, and we will go see why no one has come. We must have food.”

But when they walked into the village, they found doors closed against them. The few people they met on the streets turned away.

“We have no food for you,” one villager called from within a boarded-up shop. “We have had no rain at all this spring, our crops are withering. There is no food to spare.”

“Especially not for an army such as yours,” another called. “Move on! There are too many of you! Move on!”

More voices joined them.

“Move on!” they shouted. “Away with you!”

“But we are on God’s crusade,” Stephen called back. “We are doing the work of the Lord!”

“Then ask the Lord to feed you,” a voice behind him cried out. “We have nothing to spare.”

Stephen whirled around, but whoever had shouted had disappeared.

Father Martin made the sign of the cross.

“We have many children with us,” he called. “Some are ill. They need food. For God’s sake, you must help us!”

At that a priest appeared at the end of the street.

“Go back to your camp,” he said. “We will see what we can do. But it will not be much. We truly do not have food to spare here. We barely have enough for our own people.”

“Thank you,” Father Martin said. “God bless you.”

But there was not enough to feed even half the number of children who lay sprawled on the stubble of the fields.

“Not even my masters have food,” Alys told Stephen. “But they are too proud to line up for this pittance.”

“Nor should they,” Angeline replied shortly.

That evening Angeline came to Stephen, her face tight.

“Dominic is ill,” she said. “He drank of the swamp water and burns now with fever. I have found herbs and tried every remedy my mother ever taught me, but I can do naught.”

Stephen followed her to where Dominic lay huddled by a bush. He dropped to his knees and gathered the small body to him. The child was so thin and tiny that he felt almost weightless. Angeline brought a cup of thin broth. Stephen tried to coax Dominic to take a sip, but he could not swallow it. Throughout all the long hours of that night, Stephen held him. Angeline bathed him with water, Stephen dripped water onto his lips, but nothing eased the blazing fever. Toward morning they realized that they would lose him.

“Our littlest one!” Angeline whispered. “The one dearest to my heart! How can I bear it, Stephen?”

“He was one of the first to follow me,” Stephen said. He brushed a strand of hair out of Dominic’s unseeing eyes. His voice choked. The child had believed in him. Had trusted that Stephen would lead him to a better life.

Stephen looked around at the children sprawled in the fields around him.
How many more will I fail? How many more will I lose?
The questions, black and heavy, swelled inside his head until he thought his skull would burst with the pain.

Dominic died just as the sun rose. Father Martin gave him the last rites, then helped Stephen dig a grave under a tree. Angeline wrapped the small body in her own cloak
and laid him carefully in the grave. She stood with head bowed while Stephen and Father Martin filled it in. Father Martin said a short prayer. The other children crowded around—for once even Yves and Marc were silenced.

“He is with God,” Father Martin said. But his face was bleak and there was no comfort in his words.

Angeline walked abruptly away. Stephen went after her. Wordlessly, she held out her hand to him and he took it in his. In his burned hand. Scarred and leathery now. He felt her fingers press his, trace the path of the scars, then she gave a terrible sob and turned to bury her face in his shoulder.

The villagers were adamant. Stephen and his followers were given no more food. Stephen preached, but few listened. Most lay curled on the grass, listless from the heat and hunger. Flies tormented them incessantly; they did not even have will enough to brush the insects off their faces. With no food to cook, few had bothered to make fires. The men and women in the group, for the most part, still seemed sullen and surly. They kept themselves apart.

“We cannot stay here, Stephen,” Father Martin said after Mass the following day. “We must go on, and we must make a choice. I have been told that we can follow this river, which is called the Loire, to the town of Sancerre,” Father Martin went on, “or we can leave the river and follow the old road to the town.”

“Which is the shortest way?” Stephen asked.

“The old road,” Father Martin answered. “But we would be leaving our source of water.”

“Let us take the short way,” Stephen answered. His desperation made him answer quickly, without thinking. “We will take as much water as we can with us, but we need food. Perhaps the townsfolk of Sancerre will be more generous.”

Father Martin looked as if he would argue, then he rolled up his map. “Very well,” he said. “Truly one way is as good as the other.”

Or as bad,
Stephen could not help thinking.

They had not marched more than half a day when they came upon a small stream. It was almost dry, but a trickle of water ran down it. At the head of the procession, Stephen ordered Renard to draw the cart to a halt.

“We will wait here until everyone has refilled their waterskins,” he said.

But as soon as the children saw the water, they made a mad dash for it.

“Wait! One at a time!” Stephen cried, but to no avail. Within minutes the bed of the stream had been churned into mud, and what little water there was, rendered undrinkable.

That evening they arrived at another small village. The gates of this village were barred as well. They made camp in the fields, but moved on the next morning when not one person had emerged to offer them food or water, not even a priest.

The day after that they found another stream bed. This one was completely dry. By this time many of the waterskins and containers that they had filled in Blois were empty. Some of the older men dug to see if they could find water, but there was none. The sun beat down upon them, hour after hour, out of a hard blue sky. They made camp there anyway, too exhausted to go on.

“Have the children look for wild berries and roots,” Angeline said.

The children brought back what they could find, but it was pitifully little. Stephen feared that they were raiding the fields through which they passed as well, but he chose not to see it. The more resourceful boys snared rabbits. Finally, even Renard was forced by the hunger in his belly to help. He brought back two rangy hares. Angeline took
them from him immediately and skewered them on sticks over the fire. She placed a pot under them to catch the fat and juices that dripped out as the animals cooked.

“The children first,” she said. “They need these more than we do.”

Renard’s share was so small that he threw it back at her.

“When next I hunt, you will not see the results of it,” he snarled and stomped back into the woods.

“He is more trouble than he is worth,” Angeline said. She beckoned to a small girl and spooned the extra bite of meat into the child’s mouth. “I could wish he had never joined us.”

Stephen said nothing, but in his heart he could not help but agree. But what could he do? Renard had answered his call—he could not force him to leave.

In his prayers that night he could find no solace, and deep within him, a furtive, terrifying fear was taking root. Had he somehow sinned? Had God deserted them?

The following day, when they found yet another village barred against them, Stephen could bear it no longer.

“Drive the cart hard against the walls,” he ordered Renard. Then he leaped down and beat upon the gate.

“We are God’s army!” he yelled. “You
must
help us!” But the only answer was a solitary voice from behind the wall.

“We have no food for you. Go away!”

“There is a good-sized river just a half-day’s journey from here,” Father Martin said, smoothing his map with hands that shook. “Surely there will be water there.”

They could see dusty trees lining the river as they drew near. Renard urged the donkey into a limping trot, but when they reached the riverbank it was to see a dry bed covered with stones.

“We must camp here anyway,” Stephen said. “The children have not the strength to go on.” He eased himself down
from the cart, his own knees weak from hunger. Renard saw to unhitching the donkey, who began scrabbling for grass and any moisture it could find.

Would that we could eat grass,
Stephen thought.

“Your two noble knights have water enough,” Angeline said bitterly. “I saw them giving some to their horses.”

Stephen made the rounds the next morning, sharing the water that he had husbanded so carefully, and ensuring to the best of his ability that those who still had some shared it as well, but he knew that many of the men and women who had joined them hid what they had.

Stephen’s fears grew with regards to some of the older people. Many of the men were rough and cruel-looking and several of the women were coarse and vulgar. They looked to be cast up from the very dregs of the cities and towns through which they passed.

“Their motives for joining us cannot be good,” Father Martin grumbled. “They will not swear the oath, most do not even bother to wear the cross.”

“They worry me, too, Father,” Stephen said.

That night Stephen could not sleep. He was losing control. Things were happening that he could do nothing about. How long would this go on? He prayed for relief for his followers. Surely God would hear him.

By the fifth day after they had left Blois, they had still not found water. When they stopped for a rest at midday, Stephen sank down on the dried-out grass. He shook his waterskin. A small gurgle. Beside him, Father Martin sank down as well. Stephen held out the waterskin to the priest, but Father Martin shook his head.

“Give it to the children,” he whispered.

Stephen looked at him. Father Martin’s face was gaunt, his eyes huge and staring. His hair was matted and hanging over his eyes.

He looks half-crazed,
Stephen thought.
And so must I.

More children died that day. There was no thought of burying them; they could only be left by the roadside. The ground was too hard and dry; no one had the strength in any case. If they were fortunate, a priest or a monk would see them fall and give them a final blessing, but all were left where they dropped as the others trudged on.

Around the middle of the day, when they stopped to rest, Robert and Geoffrey accosted Stephen.

“We have run out of water for our horses,” Robert said.

“They are fine beasts,” Geoffrey put in. “The finest in our father’s stables. You cannot allow them to be so mistreated.”

“I cannot give them water when children are dying for the lack of it,” Stephen said. “What little I have remaining must be for them. My donkey suffers also.”

“Donkey!” Robert exclaimed. “What is a donkey compared to our horses?”

At that, Stephen could take no more.

“Did not our Lord ride into Jerusalem on a donkey?” he cried. “Do you dare call yourselves Christians?”

He was rewarded by seeing them look ashamed and they said no more, but the next morning his last goatskin of water was missing.

The next day yet another village barred their gates to them.

“I must do something!” Stephen said. He rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. Then he turned to Robert and Geoffrey.

“Leave me,” he ordered. “Go and make your camp.” As they rode off, he turned to Renard. “Give me the reins,” he said.

Renard handed the reins over, puzzled.

Stephen urged the donkey forward. The poor beast could hardly move. Stephen flapped the reins at it again, but it stopped in its tracks. Nothing Stephen could do would persuade it to go forward again.

“Lead it,” Stephen ordered Renard. “To the village gate.”

“But they have already turned us away,” Renard protested.

“Do as I say,” Stephen repeated. He had not the energy to argue.

Renard took the donkey’s reins without further argument and pulled it toward the village.

At the gate, a keeper barred their way.

“I have told you, there is no food for you,” the gatekeeper snarled. “Get your horde away from here!”

“I am not begging for food now,” Stephen said. “I am bartering. I will trade the donkey and the cart for any food and water that you can give me”

Renard stared at Stephen in dismay, but a greedy light lit up the gatekeeper’s eyes.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Anything,” Stephen answered. He passed over the empty waterskins.

The keeper disappeared.

“Surely you cannot mean this?” Renard demanded. “You would give away our cart? Our donkey?”