Crusade of Tears: A Novel of the Children's Crusade Read online

  Wil stepped away from the broad trunk of the beech, preparing for his final flight home. He adjusted his leggings, retied the rope-belt which girded his woolen tunic, pushed his hood back to his shoulders, and ran his long fingers through his yellow hair. He took a deep breath and began.

  The quick-footed lad rapidly passed by Oberbrechen, as the sky brightened before him. Nearly home, he laughed as he recalled the exciting moment of Ansel’s collision with the earth. He imagined him lying there with grass and mud stuffed between his teeth, no doubt growling furiously as he fumbled his way upright. But the lad’s memory quickly offered the ember-lit face of poor Lukas and at once the reality of his evening’s affair gripped him. Sobered by sadness and mindful of risk, he set his thoughts to flight and listened only to his callused feet pounding on the damp earth and the jangle of his leather bag.

  Suddenly, his ears filled with the thunder of hooves behind him and he dove to the side of the road. After rolling into a ditch of high weeds he drew his hood tightly over his head and lay flat as three horses bearing bailiff’s soldiers bolted past. Wil released the air he was holding and returned warily to the roadway.

  Karl hurried southwestward toward the home of Father Pious at the eastern reaches of Oberbrechen. Behind him broke the first golden edge of a new sun; a fresh, light breeze tousled his red curls. Cock and songbird announced the advent of a new day as a cool mist gathered close to the dew-laden fields. The boy, now content in his decision, pressed the roadway with conviction.

  Suddenly a group of galloping horsemen rounded a bend and bore hard upon the surprised lad. Startled, Karl lunged to the side of the road to avert certain trampling. The horsemen, equally surprised in the faint light of prime, stood in their saddles to rein their mounts.

  “You there, boy,” one stone-faced soldier barked. “Stand as you are or die.”

  Karl stood, trembling as two others dismounted and charged toward him.

  A sergeant took a firm hold of poor Karl’s tunic and hoisted the speechless boy off his feet. “What mischief be y’bout? Speak. Who has passed you by?”

  The befuddled Karl stammered, “I … I have seen only men beginning for the fields. I am seeking Father Pious … m’mother is taken ill… and …”

  “Say again … any strangers?”

  “None, sire!” cried the boy. “I swear it.”

  The indignant officer thrust the boy to the ground and mounted his horse. “You had best be speaking truth. I know you … you’d be the baker’s son at Weyer, and I’ll have you beat if you be lying.”

  Karl, uninjured and wishing only to please, climbed to his feet cautiously. He called timidly after the man. “M’lord, who should I keep an eye for?”

  The soldier turned in his saddle and answered, “An abbey guard was assaulted and lies near death. We’re looking for any strangers, any at all.”

  Karl offered an agreeable nod to the departing horsemen, but his heart felt a sharp pain. This cannot be Wil’s business—nay, not Wil. What cause would he have? he wondered. A cold dread swam through the boy’s veins and he felt its chill. Oh dear God, let no guilt be on my brother.

  He pressed on to the double-floored home ahead of him. “Good,” he sighed, “there is smoke at the roof… they are about.” As he neared the wood-sided house he saw Father Pious’s housekeeper carrying eggs from the fore-yard and he called to her loudly. “Frau, Frau, I needs see the Father.”

  Startled and not pleased in the least for an unexpected daybreak guest, the indignant woman clutched her egg-laden apron with both hands and scurried through a gaggle of honking geese to the rear of the house.

  Karl, slightly annoyed at her reception, strode to the front door and knocked on it boldly. He waited respectfully and took a moment to look about the gray light of early dawn and smell the fresh morning’s air. With growing impatience he knocked harder. “Father Pious?” His pleas went unanswered and he raised his eyes to the shuttered window above him. “Father Pious, Father Pious. Please … it is Karl, Karl of Weyer… the baker’s son.”

  The shutter flew open and a bleary-eyed priest glared at the early-morning intruder.

  “Why be ye about before lauds, boy? … Ach … never y’mind, I’ll attend you forthright.”

  Karl, relieved for an answer despite its bite, waited for the wide door to open, only to be distracted by what appeared to be a fleeting figure darting near the edges of the winding road. He turned full-face toward the roadway and strained to see what was about when the door flung open behind him. Karl jumped and spun on his heels to face the bulging, red eyes of a most disgruntled and disagreeable Father Pious.

  “What on God’s blessed earth do you demand of me ‘fore lauds, Karl?” bellowed the priest.

  “I’ve urgent need of you, Father.” Karl bowed respectfully and knelt to one knee.

  “Truly? And has the hour poached thy respect, boy?” whined the churchman as he extended his arm. Karl, astonished at his indiscretion, dropped his other knee and kissed the priest’s hand.

  “Father, forgive me, please forgive me….” Had not the vexed priest dragged the boy through the doorway there is little doubt that poor Karl would have continued his repentance ’til terce!

  “Enough … I forgive thee.”

  Pious slammed the heavy door shut and ordered the young boy to stand by the cook-fire that his dour housekeeper was stoking. The priest dragged the woman by the nap of her heavy gown to the far wall and leaned close to her hardened face to instruct her in harsh tones. Karl, uncomfortable and embarrassed, used the delay to study the priest in the light now filtering through the glassed window behind him.

  Father Pious was a balded, corpulent sort caught between the vigor of a younger man and the acumen of an older one. Karl thought his face to be as white as sun-bleached flour and as round as a plough-horse rump. His puffed cheeks squeezed his eyes nearly in half, like those of an overweight boar, and his quivering jowls hung over a broad, uncompromising jaw. His manner seemed to be of perpetual annoyance and pending rage, save an occasional wit that brought welcome relief.

  Frustrated by his parish status and straining for recognition, Father Pious was regarded by most as ambitious and calculating and clearly void of what virtues a true churchman might reflect. The priest’s rash temperament and his inclination toward vengeance silenced those who would be otherwise apt to judge his ways, particularly those aware of his fleshly indiscretions. It would seem his peers and superiors alike were keenly aware of their own secret failings and preferred to avoid risk of their own exposure. So the pitiful man was abandoned to endure his office without the warmth of friendship, the comfort of a colleague’s encouragement, or the maturing sting of a mentor’s loving rebuke.

  Pious finished commanding his housekeeper by thumping a hard fist on her stiffened back and bent in his first attempt to lash shoes to his feet. Karl turned a shy eye toward the man once again, unable to avoid particular notice of the huge legs and the wide bottom that stretched the man’s threadbare linen nightshirt. The lad wrinkled his nose. Man of God or nay … he is hard to look at.

  Seemingly aware of the boy’s eyes on him, Pious hastily wrapped himself in a substantial woolen blanket. Grunting, he dropped himself atop an oaken stool, positioned his thick hands squarely on his bulky knees, and leaned forward over his rotund belly to try the shoes again.

  “So, Johann Karl, speak ‘fore I box thy ears and chase you home. You’re making me defer m’morning’s prayers and neither I nor thy Father in heaven is particularly pleased.”

  Karl fumbled with his hands and nervously placed one set of dusty toes upon the other.

  “I … I … we’ve need of you,” he stammered. “Mother lies sick by fever and likely near death. Wil has taken leave to the abbey for …”

  The priest furrowed his brow, wrinkling the very top of his crown and wobbled on his stubby stool. “By what hour did Wilhelm leave to the abbey?”

  “Evening past, sire, well past compline, perhaps nearer to midn
ight,” answered Karl. “But he sought only aid from the herbalist and …”

  Pious leaned close to the boy. “A detachment of soldiers woke me just before you came and informed me of trouble in the abbey …”

  “Oh, Father, Wil surely had no cause for trouble.”

  Father Pious slapped his hands on his thighs and struggled to his feet. “Sit fast to this stool, boy, and say not another word. I’ll dress and together well seek out this brother of thine … and attend to thy mother.”

  Wil dashed and darted from tree to tree. Ahead of him broke the first light of the rising sun against the silhouette of Father Pious’s home, and behind him curled the thin ribbons of smoke from the rooftops of Oberbrechen. The boy paused behind a bush and snarled. How pleased I’d be to plunge this dagger through the fattened hide of that black-hearted pig of a priest. Oh, to feel the drag of a sharp edge through that baggy throat.

  Wil caught his breath and returned his attention to the task at hand. He sprang from his bush and raced along the cover of some wild hedge rimming the roadway. Clearing Pious’s house, he turned northeastward, proceeding from tree to tree until he found the security of a heavy stand of trees that stretched the distance to his village.

  Nearly in full prime, the manors’ valleys had begun to bustle with their summer morning routines. Carts crowded the narrow road, groaning and heaving, obediently lurching close behind their sluggish oxen. Timbermen shouldering their broadaxes and field serfs handily gripping wooden forks and scythes strode along the roadway, bound for their day’s labors with complacent resolve.

  Yet Wil thought this particular morning seemed strangely different. This day was not bearing itself in its customary ritual, nor observing its sure rhythm. Instead, Wil sensed a peculiar nervousness, an unsettling deportment, like the slow, ominous gathering of black clouds on a summer’s afternoon. He slowed, just a bit, and watched distant shepherds strangely huddled. He looked behind and noticed yeomen staying their wagons to exchange what seemed to be important gossip.

  Could it be? Wil wondered. Could all this be ‘bout Brother Lukas? Sad, I know, but all this heed? And why the urgency of the horsemen? So much for a simple crack on Ansel’s shins?

  The lad reset his quick pace and soon emerged from the wood, sliding slyly into the hollow of Weyer. Unsure of his situation, he crouched behind the back of the chandler’s workshop and examined the hamlet for the slightest hint of risk. Reasonably satisfied, he was about to step into full light when a troop of angry soldiers burst out of the miller’s door and stormed toward the neighboring hut. Wil stalled, carefully pressing his back hard against the mud wall of the workshop. He cocked his head to aim one ear in hopes of hearing something other than the pounding of his own heart.

  Hearing little other than the honking of geese and the cackle of irritated hens scattering in the dusty wake of the grumbling, armed company, he laid one eye at the corner of the building and considered his predicament. He could see nervous housewives standing stiffly at their gates, waiting on the soldiers’ search and the inevitable rough handling of what few treasures they could call their own. Frau Fronica, the broad-girted wife of a yeoman, wrung her hands and stifled tears as she slowly returned to her rummaged dwelling. Frau Erika, the dyer’s wife, stood stone-faced and angry outside her doorway, her eyes wincing slightly at the sound of a pot smashed on the hard earthen floor within.

  Wil, concerned for what tribute might be required of his own home, sprang from his hiding to the blind of a standing oxcart. Unseen, he then bounded over a low garden fence, danced deftly through a cackling flock of hens, and tumbled lightly into his own yard. Maria, surprised but equally delighted, let her egg pail slip to the ground and ran to her brother, clutching his waist. “Oh, Wil, you’re here. Mother is none better … and men are searching the village … and …”

  “And where would Karl be?” hushed Wil, angrily.

  Maria hesitated and looked at her feet. “He … he left to fetch Father Pious.”

  “What! Who told him to do so?” Wil flung his arms in the air and cursed. “By God, I’ll beat that dunce for this.”

  “What should we have done?” Maria began to sob.

  Wil bit his lower lip and relaxed his fists. He took his sister firmly but tenderly by the shoulder and knelt down. He placed the edge of his forefinger her under her chin and lightly raised her wet eyes to meet his own. “Please, sister, no need to cry. You always cry and it helps nothing.”

  “I am afraid.”

  Wil spotted two guards suddenly round the corner of the wheelwright’s shed. “Quick, Maria, quick … inside.”

  Slamming the door shut behind them, Wil’s nimble fingers hurried to loose the bag of Brother Lukas from his belt, and he plunged it and his new dagger deep into the mounded straw of his bed. He ordered his garb, nervously fluffed his hair, and stood erect, waiting in silence for the guards to enter. The soldiers were dreaded mercenaries under short-termed conscriptions to Lord Heribert of Runkel and quartered in the abbey because of concerns for the Empire’s civil war. Dry-mouthed and weak-legged, Wil was determined to be bold.

  Maria leaned hard against her brother, drawing what strength she could. Though expecting it, they both flinched when the door burst open.

  “Move off, waifs. We are about the abbot’s business,” barked an imposing and foul-breathed soldier.

  Wil protested lightly, “Th … the … there is nothing out of order here, sire. Perhaps you’d be better served searching elsewhere.”

  “Off, boy,” groused the man, shoving Wil to the ground with a heavy arm.

  Maria quickly bent to a single knee, tilted her tiny head upward, and addressed the rough men with submissive discretion. “Please, good sires, have a care. Mutti is badly fevered and has need of quiet.”

  The soldiers grunted and brushed past the girl toward Marta’s bedchamber. Wil’s sharp mind recalled a story of his father’s and he called after them. “M’lords, enter if you wish, but be warned of fever.”

  The boy’s words snagged the two men, and they held their advance. Each looked at the other and then toward the darkened room before them. Fortuitously, Marta groaned. “Humph. I say all’s well here,” grumbled one. The other cast a haphazard look around the modest quarters, shrugged, and agreed as he pocketed a wooden ladle. “No mischief here … on to the next.”

  The soldiers stretched several long strides across the common room and bowed out the low door. Glad to leave fever behind, they pressed their search elsewhere.

  Wil set a trembling hand on his sister’s head and smiled weakly. “Perhaps the saints are with us this day.”

  The boy pulled the door almost closed and peered through the available sliver of light. He watched the soldiers complete their search and mount their horses. With a quick command and a cloud of dust, they sped away. Closing the door completely and easing himself against the wall, Wil turned to speak to Maria when a familiar voice bellowed at them from just beyond their gate. Frau Anka, red-faced and flustered, came charging, scolding the abbot’s soul and all the saints above with a wagging forefinger and a shrill voice.

  “So, Kinder,” Anka boomed as Maria let her in. “I see Mother Marta has cheated death for a few more hours and is ready to face another day. Good. So, you there, girl, fetch me eggs, water, and millet for a good gruel. And you, Wilhelm, stack more wood. By the Holy Mother! Work, work, all I do is work and you children stand there gawking at me … now do as you’ve b’told.”

  Karl waited mutely while Father Pious struggled into his black-hooded habit and returned to his awkward position on the stool. The boy stifled a grin as he watched the bloated priest re-assault his footwear without an embarrassing plummet to the floor. Pious leaned back, gulped a gaping mouth of air, and forced his thick body forward, straining to accomplish one foot at a time. Upon reaching his mark, Pious furiously lashed the cords, exhaled, and then leaned back to suck more air and repeat the exhausting maneuver.

  “The cursed cords are too short,” he
gasped. “Maid, get longer cords from the abbey storehouse on your next trip there, or by God … Now, bring that stubborn donkey.”

  The priest’s sullen companion grumbled and glared at her employer, weary of such illregard. She dropped her screaming infant into Karl’s arms. “You, boy, hold her … and hold her right, you idiot … keep her head up with your hand … fool.”

  A very nervous Karl stared helplessly at the crying baby as her mother stormed toward the stable.

  “How long has Marta been with fever?” snapped Pious.

  “Some days … ‘bout three days.”

  The priest nodded and rinsed his face and hands in a bucket of water. He held a polished square of tin close to his face and studied his blurred image. Karl, though shamed by his own thoughts, yielded to them. He is indeed the ugliest man I have ever seen! His smooth head looks like an egg perched on a black mountain of wool.

  The priest lowered the tin to look up his nose, then, satisfied, turned it to examine the dark mole on his left earlobe, picking lightly at the hairs growing from it.

  The maid returned. “You may be ‘bout your business … your donkey is ready enough. This brat had best be bringing all this trouble for good purpose.”

  Sarcasm traced the man’s response. “Well, good wench, the boy’s poor mother lies sick with fever and …”

  “Fever! You give my child to the whelp of some plague-rotted peasant woman!” The woman bit off her words and snatched the infant from Karl, setting the babe unceremoniously in its nearby cradle. She grabbed hold of a stout broom handle and raged, “Mein Gott, how dare you bring fever to my child.” She swung violently at the surprised boy, two hands welded to the broom in a position bearing some evidence of familiarity. “Begone you brat… and you, too, priest… out, out!”

  Karl, flabbergasted and flustered, ran headlong for the door, dodging and ducking the cornstrand flail. Pious was close to the boy’s heels, tripping through the doorsill and doing his best to dodge the broom.