Crusade of Tears: A Novel of the Children's Crusade (29 page)

The man’s face relaxed a little. “You’d be crusaders, say not?”

“Aye,” answered Pieter.

The farmer paused again before speaking. “And I should think you to be more than two … are y’not?”

Pieter nodded.

“And I should think you to be in search of food and a roof for the night?”

Pieter bobbed his head respectfully.

“And what gives you to think I’ve either?”

Pieter answered simply, “We presume nothing, my lord. May the Lord bless you whether you offer charity or nay.”

The eyes of the farmer softened and he looked at his wife. Yielding to the old man he set his flail aside and bent down to pick up his little child. “God has been merciful to this family and ’tis right for us to offer charity. Come, enter my house.”

Pieter’s heart lifted as he followed Karl and the family into their living chamber. The house smelled of field and forest, of manure and wool and lard and cheese and baked bread. The odors took Karl to his own home and he swallowed hard on the lump filling his throat.
Oh,
he thought,
if only I could lie down on mine own bed.
He so very much wanted to smell the good smells of his bakery and to see his mother fuss and hurry about his little hovel so very far away.

Pieter and Karl were led across the dirt-floored kitchen lined with baskets of fresh-cut dock, sorrel, madder, and woad. They followed their hosts into a small parlor at the front of the house where their eyes widened at seeing something very new. Dieder spotted their interest and proudly stepped alongside his new heat-oven. His wife, now comfortable with her guests, smiled proudly and chattered about her warm, smokeless parlor.

“No more smoke,” she exclaimed. “We’ve a room to gather without the reek of green wood! I swear to you we passed the winter last with no smoke in the house. And I can cook atop the oven and dry wet leggings on it and …”

“Enough, woman. Be silent.
Ach
, Father, they can go on so. But ’tis true enough. We sit together along our table most content to sit by our stove as the snow piles heavy. Ah, a stout table, a sound roof, a warm room, a plump wife, quiet children, and a tankard of mead! What more might a man want?”

Pieter smiled.

“Now look here,” pointed the yeoman. “Gerta stokes the oven from outside … not inside. Ha. Then, now look here, the smoke follows this stone chimney and out the house. No more smoke-hole.”

Dieder beamed with pride and pulled his blushing wife hard against him. “We’ve never been warmer, aye, wife? Save the winter we first wed!” The man roared as poor Gerta reddened. “Ah,
ja,
and our little beauty, Beatrix, is not sick so much anymore.”

“My husband is the first of all parts by Liestal to have one,” boasted Gerta. Her blue eyes pinched and twinkled from within her beaming cheeks. “Aye. He was the first to produce two hundred cheeses to the count and …”

“Nay, nay, my Gerta, my little round gourd, you speak too much again.” The farmer seemed truly embarrassed by such public veneration, but the joyful smile straining to escape the constraints of his humility was evidence enough of his delight! “I… I was blessed with good sheep and good cows and God gave us the cheeses as were needed. I worked no harder than any other man, but m’Gerta worked harder than all. She churned from prime to compline. And she carded wool for others to buy extra milk for yet more churning. Nay, ‘twas not these hands that won the prize … ‘twas m’little mutton chop.”

Gerta turned purple. She, too, was not accustomed to such a display and, by Pieter’s amused eye, she loved it. Karl was intrigued with the new contraption and interrupted the two. “So, sire, where does this come from?”

“Basel,” answered Dieder.

“And you say you’ve no smoke in the house, no embers flying through the roof?”

“
Ja
.”

“’Tis a wondrous thing. I think you must be an obedient servant of the Holy Church to be so blessed!”

The farmer leveled a hard gaze at the boy. “What mean y’boy? I’d be no more obedient than my fellows.”

Pieter sat by the table and grimaced as Karl explained. “Well, my lord, clearly God’s blessings are for those who obey His Church and His curses are for those who fail. You are much blessed, so methinks y’to be a good Christian.”

Pieter groaned inwardly as Dieder’s mood darkened. The yeoman crossed his thick arms and wrinkled his weathered brow. “Three years past m’two sons died of fever. Would y’be claiming them to be unworthy Christians? Was this house beset with sin then but not now? Perhaps we’d be better for their passing. Four years ago, our baby Maria was torn apart by a wild boar just out that very door…. Tell me, boy, tell me about her sin.”

Pieter remained silent as Karl’s eyes begged for help. The objection was unexpected and the boy’s mind whirled. “Uh, well…”

Dieder set his fists hard on his hips and leaned his broad face close to Karl’s. “Listen, and listen well, y’cocked whelp. You’d be no judge of good and evil under this roof.”

Again, Karl looked desperately for help from Pieter. But the old man wisely allowed the lad to spend a few painful moments wiggling in his own snare. The boy stared blankly at the angry farmer and his hushed wife and then finally at his own shoes.

At last Pieter mercifully broke the silence. “Indeed, Herr Dieder and Frau Gerta, indeed. Our God prospers and plagues those whom He will and for what He will, according to His own purposes. ‘I have seen everything during my lifetime … there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.’ I confess to you that I, in all my years, am not so certain in these matters as my young friend … I hope you shall forgive him of his … youth.”

Gerta cast a longing look at her husband who reluctantly assented.

“You speak good words, priest. Now, how can I serve you?”

Pieter answered with neither hesitation nor constraint. “We are in desperate want of food, blankets, a hunting bow, some herbs, and a good night’s rest under a roof such as this.”

Dieder’s demeanor changed slightly and he cast an awkward glance at his quiet wife. “You seem to be a kind and gracious old man,
Vater
,” he said slowly. “But I tell you that children have been crossing these ways for nearly a moon. They’ve come in bunches and in scores. Many by Liestal have sent their own in this Holy Crusade … we’ve sent our own stout-heart, Rudolf.”

Gerta began to tear. “We have been told that many have died and many are sick and we are not sure if we’ll ever see our Rudi again.” Her voice trembled and Dieder held her close.

“We’ll help you as we can for the cause of our boy.” The farmer took his wife’s hand. “But hear me, Father, some of these children have poached manorlands and some have brought fever. The miller and all his brood were stricken a fortnight past and some in the count’s household are now near death.”

Pieter nodded but remained silent.

Dieder picked some chaff from his long, brown beard. “You and your children shall not be welcomed by many. Those who have gone before have brought much misery. We have been spared the drought which we hear of in the north but it has not rained since the children began to come. There are some who believe these crusaders to bring such troubles with them.”

The man patted his wife who was now sobbing in her apron. “How many are with you?”

Pieter answered, “Just a few more than a score.”

“And how many sick?”

“None that I have seen, though some are very weak.”

The farmer looked carefully at Gerta and then at his daughter, Beatrix. He thought for a moment, then said firmly, “You’ll not bring any here, but I am happy to send you away with some food. You must be gone from my hectares by prime. And I ask this in return: Should God mercifully lead you to our Rudolf, tell him we love him, and his mother and I miss him very much.”

Gerta choked and scurried out of the parlor, weeping all the more. Pieter stood with tears welling in his eyes and grasped Dieder’s callused hands in his own. “Gratias
tibi,
my son. I’ll not forget to pray for your Rudolf and for his safe return.”

Quickly brushing a tear from his own eye, Dieder went to the kitchen where he reached into the barrels and baskets stacked neatly along the walls. His large hands then piled generous gifts onto Pieter’s and Karl’s opened blankets. He gave them cheeses and some fatty pork, a few leeks, several loaves of spelt bread, a wooden pail of millet and oats for gruel, and his own favorite flask of mead. Pieter smelled the fermented honey-water and winked. “You are too kind, my lord!”

After loading Pieter’s blanket, Dieder turned to Karl. “Beware your expectations, boy. They’ll surely confound you and burden others.”

Karl nodded.

“Now, wife, hand me those woolens … no, not those, the ones on the short peg.”

Gerta scurried to the parlor wall and retrieved two blankets, each a bit worn, though a welcome sight nonetheless to the two crusaders. “These belonged to my sons,” said Gerta softly. “You’ll have need of them in the cold nights ahead.” She stroked Karl’s red curls and cradled his cheeks in her hands. “God protect you from the spirits of the forest.”

Night was falling and the cool mountain air chilled Karl and Pieter as they bade a thank-filled farewell and struck a path toward camp. The sky had become dark and the stars sparkled like fine jewels on rich, black velvet by the time the pair spotted the familiar fire-glow in a wide clearing just ahead. They entered the campsite and the children cheered gleefully as the yeoman’s gifts were spread before them. Pieter looked carefully at the circle of faces and measured the need as prudence would incline. He handed a blanket to Jost. “Share this with Albert,” he ordered firmly, “and you shall thank God above for sending it to you.”

He studied the yearning eyes of the others huddled close to a snapping fire. All were cold and others shivering; many had no blankets and those who did were doing their best to wrap two or three others with them. Pieter held the remaining woolen and looked closely at each longing face. At last he walked to Gertrude, Frieda’s long-suffering sister, and draped it over her quivering shoulders. “Here, little one, share this with another.”

Morning brought its usual routine of grunting and burping, yawning and complaints. Frieda, Gertrude, Anna, and Maria were stirring a watery gruel of millet. “I never said so,” snapped Anna. Her pale skin suddenly flushed a bright pink.

“Gertrude swore an oath you did,” quipped Frieda.

“Well, ’tis not so, I have never thought so, and I do not say what I’m not wont to think.”

“Nay. Methinks you to think it, else you’d not have so said.”

“No! I do not think you to be fairer than Gertrude, so I would not have said such. There.”

“Then why did Gertrude say it?”

“Gertrude, did you say I said so?”

Gertrude blushed. “Well, I remember little about it and…”

“What? Liar. You said you were angry at Anna for hurting your feelings. You said she ought not be your friend anymore.”

“What? Gertrude? You don’t want to be m’friend? Just evening past you spoke of liking me better than Frieda!”

Jon II had covered his ears but now reached his end. “Girls, girls! Shut yer mouths. Every morning, ’tis more of the same. I hear, ‘She said so and she said not’; ‘I like Wil’; or ‘Ain’t Conrad a delight?’”

“Who said me that?”

The girls froze.

“Uh … methinks … oh, never y’mind. Wil’s hollering for us to hurry.”

And then, like so many mornings gone by, the crusaders lined up in their customary order, received Pieter’s blessing, and dutifully tramped behind Wil toward the next mountain.

This morning’s rising sun brought warmth and hope, and Karl and Georg chattered endlessly of Burgdorf and the Feast of the Assumption about one week hence. “’Tis surely to be better than any we’ve ever seen, Georg. The drought hasn’t hurt these folk; their harvest is good and food shall be plenty and …”

“Do you truly believe the food to be plenty?” interrupted Georg with a grin. “I should be most happy to see tables full of food again!”

Karl laughed and poked Georg in his belly. Before long, their enthusiasm spread and the whole company began jabbering about feast days and minstrels, jugglers and dancing. It was good medicine for their hearts, a better remedy than an apothecary’s cupboard could ever offer.