Pilgrims of Promise: A Novel (The Journey of Souls Series) Page 4

  “Listen, children, listen well,” cried Pieter. “We shall pray for God’s grace to protect you and guide you, to teach you, and to feed you in body and spirit. In the end, we may not take you home, but it is our humble prayer that we shall deliver you to the place where you belong.”

  The children were silent and suddenly content. A voice cried out, “God bless you, Father!” Soon the whole of them crowded around their guardians and rejoiced. Hope was sprouting where trust had been planted.

  Later the same night, Pieter wandered between the two separate camps that were assembled by the sea. While walking about, however, he caught sight of three figures standing quite still at the farthest reach of firelight. Each was wearing a hood over his head, and the figure in the center stood the height of a man; the other two were much smaller. The priest watched for several moments until the trio shuffled to the margins of another campfire, then another. He narrowed his gaze and moved beyond the reach of any light to draw closer.

  The three skulked suspiciously near Wil’s litter and toward Frieda sitting nearby. Pieter followed, but the cheery voice of Ava distracted the priest for a costly moment. She had screamed loudly as some boys tickled her. Pieter turned his face back to the place where the three had been standing, only to find them gone.

  The priest hurried forward and arrived at Frieda’s side. “Did you see them?”

  “Who?”

  “Three shadows under hood.”

  Frieda looked about. “No.”

  Pieter made a hasty circle of the whole field, driving his staff hard into the stony soil. “They must be here!” he grumbled. But, alas, they were not to be found. The old man sought Paul and upon finding him, drew him aside. “Listen, lad. Methinks spies have been about the camp. Have y’seen three figures under hood?”

  Paul looked about carefully. “Ja. One of m’lads said he thought he saw three moving in the shadows like they didn’t belong. He followed them, but they disappeared.”

  Pieter took a deep breath. “Ja, ‘tis spies. I can feel it. Now listen to me. Your plan for tomorrow night must be changed. They’ll surely report what they’ve heard to the city guard, and there will surely be an ambush.”

  Paul’s face tightened. “No, Father. We’ve delayed long enough. Tomorrow we beg, tomorrow night we steal. Besides, we kept our talk in whispers.”

  Pieter yielded. “Then, at prime I’ll lead my column into the city along with yours. I will try to meet with the podesta or his magistrate. If I get the ear of one of them, we might be given provisions enough. If I’m refused, I’ll preach in the squares until the stones cry out for mercy.”

  “You seem uncertain,” said Paul.

  Pieter nodded. “Tis true, I am. This city has a chill about it; it lacks the joy of goodwill. Wealth has turned the people inward. But I should not be surprised; greed is oft found in proportion to gain. My hope, however, is in this other sad truth: that oft the promises of a priest will do more to prompt alms than a hungry child’s face.”

  At first light, the camp assembled for a final day’s begging. Pieter rose and scanned the milling throng with Heinrich standing near. “There, Ava, and there, my own Heinz and those over there and these.” He pointed to this one and called to another and soon gathered a score of bony urchins around him. He laid his hands on Ava and Heinz with a chuckle. “Who could deny either of you?”

  Indeed, only the hardest of hearts could resist their delightful charms. Ava, a tiny, feisty girl of seven captured all with the twinkle in her devilish green eyes. She with the elfish Heinz would make a memorable pair, particularly when joined with their snaggletoothed, spindly companion! The old priest called for Solomon and laid hold of his staff as he turned to Heinrich. “Pity for these, charity for me … ‘tis my hope for Genoa! I do pray, baker, that we return with a whole caravan of Christian kindness in tow! Now, children, follow me!”

  Heinrich watched with some amusement as Pieter’s company hurried through the field and to the roadway beyond. Pieter’s rolling gait reminded him of a lame ox he had once plowed behind, and he laughed out loud. A breeze toyed with the old man’s wispy white hair and bent his beard sideways. The baker smiled and remembered stories of Moses. Perhaps the old Hebrew had returned to the earth!

  The baker returned to his son’s side, where he sat by Frieda for nearly an hour. Wil awakened from time to time, took sips of water drawn from a nearby well, and then returned to sleep. Frieda had kept a faithful vigil, changing the lad’s poultices regularly and washing his wounds in salt water. Pieter had instructed her to let the sun shine on the wounds for short spells, and so she obeyed. The young woman had been softened by many sorrows and now served others gladly.

  Wil had endured so very much as well, and he had endured it in a matter befitting one saved through blood and water, being healed by salt and light. The ghosts of past shame and failure were fast fading into his fever’s dreams, rendered weak by others’ love and soon to drift to the margins of his memory. But sadly, some old hurts had not yet been healed, and the lad was not able to turn a kindly eye toward his contrite father.

  Heinrich stood and sighed. His failings had made him a wiser, though sadder, man. His heart, exposed through time to the frailty of others and of himself, was often heavy with the felt knowledge of a world gone mad. Such sadness, Brother Lukas had once told him, was the cost of wisdom.

  “He’s doing some better, Herr Heinrich,” said Frieda softly.

  The man nodded. “You are his angel of mercy, m’dear. Thank you for your good care of him.” He turned and walked toward the comforting sounds of the surf. He looked thoughtfully across the deep blue and drew a long breath through his nose. The sun felt warm, the air delightful. Finally, the weary baker looked up and stared at the puffed white clouds hovering high above. His eye moved from one to another, tracing their shapes. At last he smiled. A plump one near the horizon had made him remember someone very dear.

  Pieter and his company followed the harbor road as it arced its way along the water’s edge. Back toward the city they marched, past the jetty of death and deliverance, past the brawling tavern, the sailmaker’s shop, along the wharves and the wall until they stood staring hopefully at the twin, cylindrical stone towers of the eastern gate, the Porta Soprana. Pieter winked at his companions and joined a throng of well-dressed merchantmen, coarse teamsters and their wagons, and a colorful procession of nobles, men-at-arms, and seamen funneling through the sixty-year-old portal. As they passed by, Pieter’s eyes fell upon an inscription: “If you come peacefully, you may touch these gates; if you come in war, you will leave defeated.” The old man grinned and dragged his hands along the rough stone. “I’m not sure yet!” he mused.

  Inside the city’s four hundred-year-old walls the group paused to stare. Otto called from the rear of the group, “It stinks like Basel!”

  “Aye! What city doesn’t?” answered Pieter with a laugh. The ancient city reeked of human waste and manure, of urine and garbage. But despite its terrible odor, wealth had begun to reshape the bawdy port. Competing with Venice and with Pisa, the Genoese had pilfered the Christian East as well as the coffers of Islam during various crusades. Their first patron saint, St. George, had been joined by St. John the Baptist, St. Lawrence, and the Virgin Mary in the city’s protection, and these new saintly alliances seemed to have provided every advantage to its residents. The old city of fieldstone and timber had fast given way to marble from Carrara and Promontorio. Master masons from Milan, sculptors, painters, and architects from Byzantium had joined with the finest Genoese craftsmen to form powerful guilds that had reborn the city as a vital, artistic jewel of the Christian Mediterranean.

  Pieter and his companions wasted no time in searching for city officials. The priest hoped to have an audience with the governor—the podesta. What he could not have known was that the Brescian-born governor, Manegoldo of Tettoccio, was unpopular enough already and had no tolerance for the stray waifs annoying his city.

  “Children, ge
t in good order!” snapped Pieter. With his threadbare crusaders in queue and Solomon trotting at his side, he began approaching numbers of guards, strolling men-at-arms, and other minor officials. “Si, si, I understand,” pleaded the old man, “but we must be taken to the podesta or a magistrate … perhaps the captain of the city guard?”

  Again and again his pleas were met with scoffs and threats and even one awful wad of spittle in the face. Discouraged, Pieter climbed the hills of the city until he finally led his trudging company to the gates of the governor’s palace. He had barely opened his mouth before lowered lances chased him away. Returned to the streets, Pieter pointed to a wall. “See, there? A fresco of incredible value! Yet they will not spare a pittance in charity.”

  “Should we forgive them, Father?” cried a voice.

  The old man spat. Reproved by a child! he said to himself. He leaned on his staff and faced his column. “What say you?”

  The children shrugged, most wrinkling their noses.

  “Our Lord said, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ Think about that in this place.” He turned and whispered to Solomon, “And if they can forgive the devils, I hope they teach me how!”

  Thoroughly discouraged, Pieter led his weary children on a wandering trail through the alleys and byways of Genoa. Eventually the frustrated crusaders became utterly lost among the arcades and markets, the courtyards and gardens of the city. They tramped through the neighborhoods of the nobles, past marble portals, lovely colonnades, and arched windows of colored glass. They trudged by fountains and into a spectacular piazza where Pieter finally paused to preach.

  A growing group of curious onlookers listened to the old man crow in his poor Italian, pleading with them to offer one last gesture of Christian virtue for the welfare of the little ones. He preached of the compassion of Jesus, the love of Mary, the faithfulness of the saints, and the hope of the angels. He promised them that he would lead his broken lambs far away, that the foreign children would “no longer stain the beauty of fair Genoa with their wretched presence”—if only some could fill their baskets and their opened palms with pennies or scraps of food or even rags for their bleeding feet.

  With arms spread wide and his face tilted toward heaven, the old man begged the gathered citizens on behalf of his starving waifs. He entreated, he implored, he beseeched, coaxed, petitioned, and finally fell to his knees weeping in a final, desperate supplication.

  He then fell silent, exhausted and without words.

  The audience murmured, then tittered, and then returned to the tables of wine, cheese, and fruits scattered about the piazza, a few tossing pennies for the pleasure of seeing the desperate children scramble for them. Pieter stood quietly and finally gathered his little ones. “Come, my lambs, follow me.” The old priest smiled at his flock and took his position at the fore of their column. With a firm grip on his staff, he lifted his head proudly and led his young crusaders through the square, elbowing his way past ample women adorned in all their finery, past protesting gentlemen in velvet doublets, and past gaping churchmen boasting fine vestments.

  With little more than a shilling for their troubles, the company stumbled upon a kindly cluster of nuns who pointed them to the monastery of St. Andrea, where they fared a little better, leaving with baskets now half-filled with bread and some cheese.

  Croaking like a veteran beggar, Pieter strained through the narrow streets of the city, passing by countless ruins of imperial Rome, along the crowded edges of piazzas and under the watch of the city’s many towers. He scolded one of his young boys for pilfering a blind man’s basket but ignored the quick hands of a little girl who plucked a lemon from a passing cart.

  Pieter’s crusaders passed the palaces of noble families with names such as Alessi, del Popolo, Sale, and De Martini. Begging as they went, they marched through the rutted streets along the ancient wall until they arrived at the city’s cathedral—the Cattedrale di S. Lorenzo—where they paused to gawk. “Inside, children, are the wonders of conquest. I am told it is filled with gold and silver chalices, jewel-studded crosses, the finest vestments, and breathtaking reliefs. Crusaders have filled its reliquaries with miracle-working icons, including the ashes of St. John the Baptist. Humph, pity to have all that yet no food for the poor.”

  Turned away by an impatient clerk, the discouraged crusaders finally made their way to the shade of a squat tree. A wealthy woman strutted past and tossed a penny with her nose lifted high. Pieter caught the coin and called after her, “Danke!” The word prompted a loud “humph.”

  “Papa Pieter, why won’t any help us?” asked Ava.

  Pieter shrugged. “I feared it would be so. Look at us. Our skin is pink, our tongue is different. Look at our clothes…. We are poor and dirty. We come here uninvited, unwelcome. We do not belong.”

  Chapter Three

  THE SEARCH FOR EDEN’S GATE

  How is he?” asked Heinrich as he crouched by Frieda’s side.

  “Somewhat better. He was awake until moments ago. I told him of all that has happened.”

  Heinrich nodded and lightly touched Wil’s face. “Seems the fever’s broken.”

  “Ja, but we must allow the wounds to dry.”

  The man studied Wil’s bandages and lifted a few to check his stitched wounds. “The red worries me some.”

  Frieda nodded. “The deep cut along his belly is the worst. It gives pus and the redness has spread.”

  Heinrich gently lifted the bandage off the lad’s left cheek. “He’ll have a scar from nearly eye bone to chin.”

  “There is no better scar in all Christendom, m’lord. ‘Twas earned in saving others, and I’ll see it always as his mark of honor.”

  “Ah, my dear. Well said. The boy has the heart of a knight.”

  At that moment Otto appeared with a couple of younger boys. They were the first of Pieter’s column to return from the city, and they dumped a pitiful collection of crusts, garlics, cracked eggs, and onions on the ground. “They deserve to be robbed,” he grumbled.

  As the rest of the crusaders returned to camp, the bells of the city pealed loudly, announcing the prayers of nones. The children had been given little, though the monasteries had provided what they could. Soon the day’s collections were combined, and after a few words of thanksgiving, Pieter, Paul, and Heinrich summoned eager hands to begin the distribution.

  By compline, what had been gathered was eaten, a few pennies counted, and feet were wrapped in the city’s rags. Pieter made one final attempt to dissuade Paul from either his plot to rob the city that night or to take his crusade to Rome. Failing once more, he returned to Heinrich, and the two men surveyed their new company.

  Forty children had chosen to follow Pieter and Heinrich. Most of the children were younger, as the majority of older ones had chosen to follow Paul. They were small and bony, and though a fortunate few wore shoes, none carried a blanket. About a third of the group were girls of varying ages, most being under twelve. Their ankle-length gowns were torn and tattered, their hair tied with weedy vines or loosely braided.

  Heinrich looked about his group. “You, lad, your name again?”

  A broad-faced boy of nearly fifteen stepped forward. “I am Rudolf of parts by Liestal.”

  Heinrich nodded. The fellow seemed pleasant enough, respectful and proud. “It was your parents who gave help to Wil’s company in the mountains of the north?”

  “Ja.”

  The two chatted for a few moments before Heinrich said, “You’ll be a captain.” The man called another forward. “And your name, lad?”

  “I am Helmut from parts near Bremen.” The narrow-faced boy was about the same age as Rudolf.

  “Bremen?” The familiar name caused Heinrich’s face to tighten. “You live far to the east to join the crusade in Cologne.”

  “Ja, sir. My father is a free merchant in the lands of Lord Ohrsbach. He took me to the fair in Cologne when Nicholas was preaching of crusade.”


  The baker nodded. “I see. Very well then. You’re to be the other captain.”

  Heinrich raised his hand over the quieting assembly. “Hear me, all of you. We shall divide you into two groups of twenty. Each group will report to one captain. Over the captains is Otto, whom we shall call ‘Master,’ and over Otto is Wil, Father Pieter, and m’self. When Wil is healed, he shall be your leader, while Father Pieter and me will be his counselors. Is that understood?”

  The children whispered amongst themselves. Most thought it a reasonable order of things. What Pieter lacked in menace, Heinrich had; what Heinrich lacked in wit, Pieter had. Wil, of course, was one of them and, as such, their true leader.

  “Master Otto!” called Heinrich. “See that the groups are arranged. Keep the girls and little ones divided evenly.”

  The thirteen-year-old puffed his chest. Master! he said to himself. I like the sound of that!

  Pieter drew Heinrich aside. “Tis time we were leaving. Paul will not be dissuaded, and his group will enter the city about an hour past compline. If my memory holds, the monastery I spoke of is about six leagues south. With this bunch I fear it is a three-day march.”

  “You think Wil can travel safely?”

  “I do. His litter is sturdy.”

  “And what about food along the way?”

  “I’ve no idea. We’ll pray for mercy.”

  Heinrich sighed. “Forty of us and barely more than a turnip or a pea! I’ve some gold that should help and some silver pennies.”

  “Ja, my son. But we must not forget we’ve a long journey north when winter’s past. We should use your gold coins sparingly. How many have you?”

  The two walked out of view, where Heinrich reached into his badly worn satchel and retrieved the pouch once presented by the old tinker of Salzburg—the gift from poor Dietmar of Gratz. He lifted it and handed it to Pieter.