Crusade of Tears: A Novel of the Children's Crusade Page 3

  This time he slipped through the night’s shadows to the safety of a large chestnut tree a mere ten paces from the snorting guard. He surveyed the wall, the massive wooden gate—and the alarm bell high in the guard tower. He set his eyes on the thick rope of the old bell hanging limply near Ansel’s head and he smiled. He positioned his leggings, pulled nervously at the hem of his thigh-long tunic, and began to steal his way toward the gate.

  Wil moved across the ground like a half-starved cat stalking its prey, his teeth gritted and fists clenched; every sense was piqued. He was oblivious to the pain in his belly and the aching bruises on his welted back. Instead, he thought of nothing other than wrapping his hands around the stout stretch of rope silhouetted against the stone wall.

  Five paces yet, now four, now three. He whispered two quick prayers, one to whatever benevolent angels might be hovering overhead and the other to whatever spirits might be drifting through the woodland. Two paces left. Suddenly the half-conscious Ansel jerked and twisted, wrestling with himself and the old stool. Wil stood paralyzed, one leg lifted in the air. His heart raced and he dared not draw breath. At last, the guard resettled himself and belched.

  Then, as if directed by some unseen hand, Wil flung himself forward to seize the rope. He grasped the worn hemp with both of his hands and strained at it with all the power his young arms could muster. But the rusty bell barely gave way. Its wooden supports simply moaned and creaked as if annoyed at such a late-night intrusion. The alarmed lad stood and stared up at the high tower, panic seizing his chest. He squeezed his sweating hands hard around the prickly rope and cast a quick, nervous glance at Ansel, still comfortably asleep.

  This time Wil pulled harder, as hard as he thought possible. But again, the stubborn clapper refused to strike its iron, and the obstinate bell yielded no sound other than the rubbing of old rope on smooth wood. Desperate, brave Wil squeezed the stubborn hemp one last time, now lifting his legs off the ground and summoning the spirits of his ancestors to pull with him. This time a deafening clang resounded from the tower above and echoed loudly through the valley!

  Poor Ansel rolled off his stool and fell to the ground, howling in confusion as Wil strained on the rope one more time. The sentry clambered to his feet, thrashing his arms like a flustered windmill in a raging storm. He spotted Wil and furiously jerked his long-sword from his belt. Wil, all plans now abandoned, scampered along the abbey wall like a frightened rabbit darting from a mad dog.

  The terrified lad raced toward the murky shadows of the distant southwest corner. He paid no mind to the alarm within the awakened abbey, for he could only hear the angry shouts of the pursuing Ansel. He neared the corner of the wall at full speed but suddenly tripped across a fresh-sawed firelog that lay in the darkness of his path. He sprawled into the grass with a gasp.

  Oh God, he’ll surely kill me now. He heard Ansel’s pounding footfalls growing louder and louder. Without another thought, Wil seized the log and stumbled around the corner. There he waited, his back pressed against the cold stone, his chest heaving, and his nostrils flared. Braced in the darkness, Wil clenched his new weapon with both his hands.

  The quick-footed soldier dashed around the corner with his sword half raised. His legs took a mere three steps westward when the strong arms of young Wilhelm swung the stout stick across his shins. With a loud cry, Ansel fell facedown into a massive heap of leather and steel, his head striking hard on the earth and his small helmet bouncing impotently forward.

  Wil, overtaken more by instinct than reason, bounded over the fallen soldier. His heart, once fluttering in fear, now surged with a strange, pleasing rush of new life. “There, I’ve the better of you.” The boy bolted several paces toward the gate but then stopped, still mysteriously drawn to the pride of conquest. He turned back toward the man lying motionless and silent. He stood over his fallen foe and smiled victoriously. His eyes caught a shimmer of a worthy token tucked securely in the man’s belt at the middle of his back. Wil bent forward curiously, and then snatched a dagger from its silver sheath. He stood erect and held his treasure carefully in both hands. He knew at once that he had indeed won a prize befitting the moment. He abruptly stuffed it in his belt and hastily backtracked the wall toward the chaos by the gate.

  The peal of the alarm bell had created bedlam within the abbey and without. A small detachment of light-arms was trumpeted to their assigned posts, and nervous monks scurried about in the moonlight slamming and bolting portals and hatches. The whinny of startled horses, the cries of angry sentries, and the distressed complaints of monks mingled poorly. The smoky flames of newly lit torches cast an ill-timed glow over the dark edge of the high wall while young Wil pondered his dilemma.

  A column of hooded monks and men-at-arms suddenly burst through the gate and into the darkness in angry pursuit of the mysterious cause of their night’s confusion. Wil quickly drew his brown hood over his golden hair and pressed himself hard against the black shadow of the wall as the anxious party snaked past him. Releasing a quivering sigh, the lad moved swiftly toward the open, unguarded gate and slipped, unnoticed, onto the abbey grounds.

  I hope him fast asleep…oh God, let it be so! Wil thought as he flitted deftly through the monks’ graveyard and over the short wall by the infirmary. He crouched his way along the refectory and through the shadows of the novices’ cloister, scampered quickly by the latrine, and stepped gingerly into a dark corner to allow a group of nervous guards to trot by before slipping quietly into the hollow corridor of the musty dormitory.

  By now the garrison was fully engaged and order was taking hold. Mounted soldiers loped across the courtyard in proper form, and the steadier commands of sergeant and churchman alike began to restore calm. Wil listened nervously, fully aware that no matter how merciful Brother Lukas might be, he could expect nothing less than a terrible flogging if he fell into the harsh hands of the monks’ lay bailiff.

  The determined lad crept carefully through the long dormitory corridor toward the sleep cell Lukas had been exiled to years before. His superiors had mistakenly decided that such nightly banishment from the community might shame the free-thinking brother’s rebellious spirit into submission. Wil could hear his heart pounding and felt a cold sweat spread over his body. Good Brother Lukas, he thought, I hope you drank your sleep potion tonight. A hopeful smile twitched the corners of the lad’s mouth as he thought of the monk—his father’s friend and once the faithful companion of the beloved old woman by the stream.

  In another moment his hand was resting squarely on the iron latch of the narrow door and Wil lifted it. The door gave way with an unsettling creak and the boy stepped lightly inside. He peered anxiously into the darkness at the monk’s cot and, to his relief, found Lukas rolled securely in his blanket. The boy carefully picked up the tongs and raised a coal from the small, iron hearth. He touched it to the wick of the candle on the tiny table alongside the monk’s rope bed.

  “Wake, Brother Lukas,” whispered Wil to the monk’s back. “Please.” The silent monk failed to stir. Wil took a gentle hold of the man’s shoulder and shook it lightly. “Wake, please. Wake, please, I need you.” The boy, now growing impatient, whispered in more urgent tone. “Brother Lukas, this is Wil of Weyer.”

  But the man lay motionless. Wil, aware of footsteps in the dormitory, now shook Lukas more violently. “Wake, I say. Wake.”

  Desperate and nearly frantic, Wil pulled the man on his back and raised the candle just over the monk’s face. Straightaway, all speech left the lad and he stood stupefied and numb, too stunned to react. His eyes stretched in horror and he let out his air slowly. He stepped a quick-pace backward. He had seen those eyes before—the dry, vacant eyes of the dead.

  The boy’s heart fluttered and his legs felt weak. Nausea filled his innards and he collapsed to the straw-covered floor. His mind raced. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, clenching his jaw and tightening his fists. What to do … what to do?

  He jumped to his feet and rummaged
savagely through the monk’s tiny cell. On the floor by the far side of the bed Wil spotted three uncorked bottles of herbs, two opened root jars, and a spilled wooden bowl. He grabbed the bowl and quickly sniffed the residue clinging to the inside. “Ach, what a foul stink. By heaven, Lukas, we told you to stop trying things on yourself.”

  A group of men could be heard rummaging about the dormitory just beyond Lukas’s cell. Now I’m in quite the fix—no help for Mother and none for me. Wil’s legs went weak. I’ll surely be accused of Lukas’s murder. He listened to the guards nearby. They seemed preoccupied with something else.

  Then it was as if some unseen presence urged him from task to task. His eyes raced about, suddenly steadying on a small cabinet standing open in the corner, and he quickly held the candle to it. Inside he found dozens and dozens of Brother Lukas’s treatments on rows of narrow shelves, and on a peg hung the leather satchel the man had used for so many years to gather wild herbs. The boy hastily collected what cruets, ampoules, tins, and wallets he could grab and stuffed the satchel full. He tied the bag to his rope belt, wisely snuffed the candle, and bade Brother Lukas a sad farewell.

  Wil eased open the narrow door and peeked warily into the corridor. The sentries were still rummaging about the main dormitory. The lad tarried in Lukas’s shadowed doorway for just a moment, then slipped into the darkness. He ran along the corridor, ducked down a short flight of damp-slickened stone stairs, and stooped into an oft-forgotten tunnel leading to an abandoned root cellar. He crept across the dark, dirt floor, then ran his fingers over the cobwebbed ceiling overhead, feeling for the trap door which led to the courtyard above. There … yes, I’ve found it.

  The hatch gave way stubbornly, its edges bound by the creep of sod from years of neglect. With a good, hearty heave, however, it gave way and the lad pushed his head into the starlight. He peered cautiously into the courtyard and, seeing no one near, slithered up and out the hole, placing himself flat in the wet grass. He quietly lowered the trap door and crawled on his stomach toward a small pile of neatly stacked beer barrels stored against the eastern wall.

  Wil was perspiring and his mouth was dry, but he felt a strange calm as he arrived at the barrels. He glanced about, eyes sharp, ears cocked, and, seeing no one, ascended the barrels with ease. After scaling the final barrel, he reached his hands to the top of the wall and pulled himself upward. His arms strained and he stifled his grunts as he hauled himself to his forearms, then to his armpits and finally to his waist. He swung his lanky legs onto the top and, with a final heave, rolled himself onto the wide brim.

  The panting lad crouched in the shadows, pausing briefly to recover his breath. He looked to the sky, where a bank of new clouds drifted slowly toward the setting full moon. Wanting every advantage, he squatted under his hood and waited for the clouds to obscure the waning silver light. At last the moon was darkened and Wil abruptly swung his body over the outside of the wall. He hung on his fingertips, then closed his eyes and released himself into the arms of the angels he hoped would carry him lightly to the earth below.

  As misfortune would have it, however, his body plummeted like an acorn from a high branch and the helpless boy landed with a heavy thud on the sun-baked clay at the base of the wall. Wil rolled on the ground, whimpering and grimacing in pain, but quickly composed himself and dashed through the village to the cover of the nearby wood. He rubbed his ankles and feet and made a hasty note of his surroundings. Content that he was safe enough for the moment, Wil took time to consider his predicament and to listen to the sounds now ebbing within the abbey. While certain he had escaped the first net, he knew the ways of the abbey’s lay bailiff. Surely he’s sent riders along the roads in every direction. The lad knew he would need to move warily and circuitously home, but he also thought it best to wait just a while longer.

  After an hour Wil reckoned his hunters to be spread thinly through the manors. So, with a deep breath he began. Taking no chances, he maneuvered from tree to tree, careful to check over his shoulder from time to time. Leaving the wood he chose a wide route home by way of fallow fields. After struggling through hard furrows for an hour, Wil finally took a brief rest by an enormous beech tree near the road leading to the village of Oberbrechen. He set his tired back against the smooth bark and slid down to calculate his condition.

  As he breathed the summer night’s clean air, he felt a quiet defiance take root in his young heart—a potent and invigorating sense of self-reliance and independence that was quite pleasing. Like the feeling he had when he dropped Ansel, Wil became aware of an even deeper change, a powerful metamorphosis that was spreading through him. A sense of newfound manhood washed over him and he liked it.

  Wil plucked his hard-won trophy from his belt. He held the deer-foot handle in the palm of his hand and lightly caressed the sharp, serrated edges of its finely crafted blade with his fingers. He smiled. But the sound of approaching horsemen startled the boy and he quickly tucked his dagger away. He pressed his back hard against the wide tree, snickering as his would-be captors galloped past. This quarry you shall not take. He retied Lukas’s leather bag tightly by its cowhide thong and lashed it to his belt as he looked to the nearly moonless sky. The gentle chirps of waking birds reminded him that he must hurry.

  Chapter 2

  FLIGHT AND FATHER PIOUS

  Karl and Maria were awakened by their mother’s incessant coughing, and their fears now kept them anxious and alert. Impatiently, Karl stood in the low doorway and stared at the night’s sky sometime after matins’ bells. He thought he heard the alarm bell from the distant abbey and strained to hear again. He stepped to the fence gate, ears cocked. Why the alarm?

  Maria came to Karl’s side and looked helplessly into his face.

  “I tell you she’ll be fine,” Karl assured his sister, though he wasn’t so sure. But, always preferring hope to reality, he nodded confidently and quoted Brother Lukas: “Dawn follows the darkest hour of the night.”

  The pair went to their mother’s room where Marta now lay gasping for breath. Karl dipped the rag into the water bowl and wiped his mother’s face and neck. He steeled his heart against the darkness, insisting to himself that he was quite content in his expectations of a miracle. How good God is … how good God shall surely be, he mused a little desperately.

  Marta rose to an elbow. “Where is Wil?” she cried. “Where is my son? Never, never is he by my side when I am in need of him.”

  Karl was suddenly not sure how to answer, yet he dare not lie. “Wil has gone for Brother Lukas and …”

  “I ordered no help other than Frau Anka, and I do not want that mad monk near me!” she rasped. At that, her body shuddered and blood spewed out her mouth and nose, spraying the throat of her flaxen robe and the ragged quilt clutched tightly in her hands. Karl, terrified and suddenly unnerved, hastily reached an awkward hand to help her, knocking the bowl of water off its stand and spilling its contents on his mother’s bed. “Enough of this,” Marta scolded. “You children have failed me again.”

  Maria’s eyes betrayed her hurt and she hid, trembling in the darkness. Karl followed her and leaned close to whisper, “You know how she oft is. She never really means it, and…”

  “I heard that, little man,” rumbled Marta. “You think you have loved me well, do you? You and your brother and that… that sister of yours have borne me sorrow in childbirth and now sorrow in m’death. ’Tis your sins and the sins of your father that I must now bear and ’tis your penalties that I must pay.” Her acrid charge had barely struck its targets when the bitter woman rolled to the edge of her bed, coughing and vomiting and retching in pain.

  Karl’s face was flushed and his eyes dammed with tears. He dashed outside with the empty water bowl, desperate to regain his mother’s favor. He dipped it into the fresh water and flew back to her side. “Mama, I have clean water for…”

  “Fool,” hissed Marta as she struck the bowl from the boy’s shaking hand. “Always the fool. You’ve been little more than
a buffoon, a stupid hop-toad jumping about my feet day by cursed day! A clutter follows your every step … clutter and disorder wherever you go. I’ll have no more of it… least of all at my death.” The angry woman trembled as she stole another breath. “Now leave m’room and … and take that daughter of the Devil with you.”

  Marta swung her hand at the children. “Begone from me. If I must die, leave me die in peace, away from you both…. Oh, would that you had been the children I raised you to be.” The woman groaned and her voice filled with self-pity. “There once were times when I thought, ‘Perhaps … perhaps yet there is hope.’ But I’ve always known otherwise … always deep in my soul…. Now, let me leave this miserable life the way I have lived it … alone.” Marta closed her yellowed eyes and began to sob. “My life is nothing … nothing as it should have been.”

  Karl and Maria stared at their mother, stunned and shattered. They backed out of the bedchamber, side-by-side, and huddled before the hearth. “I wish Wil were here,” whispered Karl. The boy tucked his knees up tight to his chest and buried his tear-stained face in his folded arms.

  “Perhaps we should fetch the priest?” Maria offered with some reservation.

  Karl paused for a moment, equally reluctant. “Well, he did say anytime we needed him we should fetch him.”

  Maria nodded. “Mother hates him so, and Wil, too.”

  Karl nodded. “But how could fetching a priest ever be a bad thing?” He turned toward the door slowly. Maria, sensing his sudden uncertainty, squeezed Karl’s hand and kissed his cheek.

  “I… I’ll hurry back, Maria.” Looking sadly at his little sister, he forced a feeble smile and vanished in the darkness.