Well in Time (7 page)

“We of this century, who hold nothing sacred but our bank accounts, are hard put to imagine the furor this caused and the fighting spirit it aroused. Wave after wave of English, French, and German armies embarked on the futile mission of reclaiming holy soil.

“It was an age of faith, not reason. Yet, religion was at a low ebb and while men fought under the banner of the Cross, few knew the true teachings of that emblem. The instruction they received from the church of the time was a system of absurd superstitions, laced with the questionable deeds of the saints and martyrs.”

The Count stopped to poke the fire and to add another log. Glancing to make sure Maria-Elena was still conscious, he smiled encouragingly and sank back within the wings of his chair. He cleared his throat briefly and began again to speak.

§

“Consider for example, if I may digress, the Feast of the Fools observed each year in all the cathedral cities of France. On that day, the priests and clerks met and elected from among themselves an archbishop and a bishop. They were arrayed in great pomp and taken by procession through the streets to the cathedral.

“Once inside, these solemn men of the cloth began orgies of the most sacrilegious nature. They wore masks and dressed in the skins of animals or as women or buffoons, and then cavorted about, screaming blasphemies and singing obscene songs. They ate, drank, and played dice, using the altar as their table.

“They vied with one another, exerting their ingenuity to devise desecrations of the place, such as burning their sandals for incense. They sometimes dressed a donkey as the pope. The debauch was not suitably ended until drunkenness, nakedness, and lewdness of all sorts had taken the day. This was the state of the church in those times—and great must have been the credulity of a people who would follow such leaders!

§

“The whole idea of the Crusades and the reconquest of Jerusalem was really a kind of collective myth and a mass delusion. And no event of that time was more deluded than the mass movement into which Godfrey and Blanche de Muret were about to be swept.

“It seems that in that same spring of their flight to safety in 1212, a young shepherd named Stephen from the village of Cloyes, just west of Orleans, heard the call. That is, he claimed to have had a divine vision that he was to lead a great crusade to retake the Holy Land.

“What was unique in this was that Stephen was only twelve years old, and the army he intended to lead was to be made up not of soldiers but of unarmed children, who would not conquer the Infidel by force but convert him through the strength and sweetness of their faith. He claimed as well to have met Jesus, face to face, while idling in the fields with his flocks. Jesus had brought him a letter proclaiming the validity of this mission, which Stephen was to show to the King.

“No one knows for sure where it came from, but the child did have in his possession a well-written letter on fine parchment, to that effect. Since neither he nor anyone else of his acquaintance in the miserable hamlet of Cloyes could either read or write, his claim was taken, locally at least, for truth.

“There are two interesting theories about how he came to be in possession of that letter and of the grandiose ideas to which it pertained. Neither, I might add, have to do with divine intervention!

“One is that emissaries of the pope, seeking to stir up still another crusade to liberate the Levant—that being the prime foreign policy of Rome at the time—duped this simple shepherd into believing he had been divinely visited and provided him with a letter to prove it.

“A second, even less plausible tale held that The Old Man of the Mountain, the mysterious Chief of the Assassins who lived in an impregnable castle in Syria, had sent two released Crusader hostages to France. The price of their liberty was to send an entire army of children to him for his use as slaves and future assassins.

“Both of these explanations seem impossibly far-fetched. The fact remains, however, that this Stephen, a lad with no education and no background or training, became, following this supposed incident, a highly skilled orator.

“He began locally, stirring up the children with his ideas. Then moving into a larger arena, he went to the great cathedral town of Chartres and preached there, challenging the children to go with him and to take, through saintliness, what adults had not been able to gain through force.

“He passed from Chartres to Paris, stopping briefly to preach there, and then moved on to the greatest pilgrimage site of the time, St. Denys. There, as you may know, the martyr Dionysius, one of the seven founders of the Church in Gaul, was buried. In his behalf, since the time of Dagobert, all the kings and many of the royal family have been buried there. Additionally, this is the city where the sacred Oriflamme, the holy standard of the realm, was kept. All these attractions made it a much-visited pilgrimage spot.

“In St. Denys, Stephen proclaimed his holy mission and was heard by pilgrims from many parts of the country, who returned home fired with his zeal. Minor prophets arose among children everywhere, who claimed also to have had visions and instructions regarding the crusade of the children. The news ran through the cities and villages of the country like a flash flood.

“Suddenly, without warning, children were deserting their homes, collecting into bands, and heading off toward St. Denys. All attempts to stop them were futile. Today, I suppose, it would be called mass hysteria. Then, it could be explained only as a holy calling. Children who were detained from joining their fellows often fell ill and the only remedy was to allow them to go.

“By early summer of 1212, thirty-thousand children had gathered under the banner of Stephen of Cloyes in the city of Vendôme. Finally, near the end of July, the army of unarmed Christian soldiers took to the road, moving southward. The amazing thing about this phenomenon was, the vast majority of these souls were under twelve years of age! And among them, as you already may have guessed, were Blanche and Godfrey de Muret.

“I cannot say I am proud that members of my own family were involved in such mass delusion. I have puzzled over it all my life and can find no corresponding urge in myself that might help me to understand it. Perhaps it’s a little like those young women in America who tear their blouses open and scream like lunatics when they see that popular singer of theirs, Sinatra. I don’t know.

“But, that they were in this train there can be no doubt. The children went striding out, singing songs, southward toward Marseilles. There, they had been informed by Stephen, the Mediterranean Sea would part and they all would walk to Palestine on the dry ocean floor. There was a terrible drought that summer, which was burning the crops and drying up the streams, and this he took as confirmation that God had already undertaken the great work of drying up the Sea so that the task would be complete by the time they arrived.

The Count reached for a log and tossed it on the fire, saying, “That this sort of thing could happen is unimaginable to us, in this age, when we have all manner of protective agencies to both monitor and defend children. But it is a fact of history that these thirty thousand children walked the entire three hundred miles to Marseilles in the space of about a month, begging and foraging as they went.

“The shepherd Stephen was now elevated to new estate and rode in a carriage decked in colored flags, surrounded by the minor prophets on horseback. The children of the nobility were mounted, as well, some with retainers to guard them and carry their belongings. But the vast majority, including my two forebears, were afoot.

“It was sometime in August when their army, greatly thinned through discouragement, malnutrition, kidnap, and death, arrived in Marseilles, still singing songs, carrying their crosses high and waving their cross-embroidered banners. And still, according to contemporary accounts, at least twenty thousand strong.

“The city of Marseilles was in amazement and granted the children only one night’s stay there, fearing they might riot or cause some other untoward civil disturbance. But this fitted perfectly with Stephen’s plans as, he explained, they needed but a night’s rest before the sea parted and they began their walk to Jerusalem.

“And so they slept that night at their jumping-off point, in the streets, in monasteries, or in the private homes of friends, depending on their social status, and the money they could afford to spend. Blanche and Godfrey, we are told, spent that night in a church, though which one I do not know. Nor, I imagine, did they. These children had absolutely no understanding of the simplest geography. Many of them, in fact, while en route, would ask as each new town was approached, “Is
this
Jerusalem?”

“In the morning, these innocents assembled on the shore in the patient expectation that the sea was about to open before them. They waited the entire day and when their spirits flagged, they were exhorted to further faith by Stephen and the minor prophets,
Dieu le vaut!
God wills it!

“As night fell and the sea still had not parted, a great disgruntlement befell the assembly. Many of the children, weary as they were from the long and arduous trek, left the company never to return. Many thousands, however, stayed on to return to the shore the next day. And the next. And the next.

“It was into this atmosphere of patient faith and growing dissatisfaction that news of a miracle came, and the troops who remained revived. It seems that two good Christian men of Marseilles, wealthy merchants named Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, had taken pity on these faithful children and announced that they were willing to supply passage for the entire army across the Mediterranean Sea to Palestine!

“In their sympathy for the children and their interest in the defiled Sepulchre, they intended to ask no money of the passengers. This deed was, they said,
causa Dei, absque pretio
, for the cause of God, and without price.

“As you can imagine, the rejoicing among the ranks was great and Stephen and his lieutenant prophets went about in triumph, proclaiming that this was the miracle that was intended all along and that God had indeed opened a way through the sea for them.

“Being the stubborn stock that we are, Blanche and Godfrey were among this remaining throng, still holding out for the miracle. So within days they were put aboard a ship in preparation for embarkation.

“Accounts from the time say that there were about seven hundred souls per ship and that ten ships in all set out for the Holy Land. There was great waving of banners and voices were raised so loudly in singing that they could be heard even after the ships had disappeared over the horizon.

“This is, I suppose, an exaggeration. But there can be no doubt—the two children and their fellows were on their way across the open sea, embarked on an adventure even greater than the one they imagined.

“The first thing that befell them was a terrible storm on the second day out, which drove two of the ships onto the rocks of a small island off the coast of Sardinia. Over a thousand children were spilled into the stormy surf and perished before the horrified eyes of children aboard the vessel, which managed to slip by the obstacle unscathed.

“I know this because it is written in a first-person account by Blanche herself, which is still in my possession. In fact, it lies in my safe at this moment. She wrote this statement when she finally returned to France, and she swore an oath before God as to its veracity when she presented it as testimony to the archbishop in St. Denys in 1215.

“I have here a copy of it in modern French, and I would like to read you a fragment of it, so that you can hear for yourself the earnest voice of this young woman. It will move you greatly, I think, if you remember that at the time she experienced these things, she was only eleven years old. And when she wrote of them, she was but fourteen.”

The Count stopped his long narrative for a moment and emerged from the shadows of his chair to rummage for his glasses on the table beside him. Then he picked up a small volume bound in maroon leather and opening to a spot where an embossed leather marker was inserted, commenced to read.

All were frightened beyond consolation. Our tears were mixed with our prayers to the Virgin, but Our Lady seemed deaf to our pleas. Night fell and the storm worsened. Lucky were they who, tossed violently in the hold, struck their heads and lay insensible, for they were the only ones to pass that night unconscious.

As for me, I clung to my brother Godfrey and would not have released him even had the ship overturned and deposited us in the deep sea. I made it my one goal to survive that night with my brother still in my arms and by the Grace of God, I accomplished it.

Morning came, if such a dark day could be so called, and our situation was not improved. Still, the storm raged and now but two of our nine sister ships were visible through the ragged mists and flying spray. What became of the other seven I shall never know. God grant that the souls therein found happier ports than those of the three beating through that morning’s storm!

About midday, we sighted land very close off the leeward bow. The storm had only worsened during the morning, and the wind howled so loudly that we could not hear our own prayers as they issued from our lips. Godfrey and I were on deck, as I could no longer bear the stench below and preferred death by drowning to another moment in that infernal region.

I was, therefore, in plain view of our two sister ships and could see that their situation was perilous. The wind was becoming ever more powerful, and despite the desperate scurrying of their crews about the decks and riggings, I could see that they were set on a collision course with the rocky shores of a small island.

With what terrible fascination did I watch the fates of our comrades played out! What toys in the hands of God are we all! If ever the vanity of Man claims for itself Supremacy, let this story be read as testimony to the contrary.

All that happened was inevitable, and yet, it happened without hurry, as if all of Time had slowed to show this terrible scene in all its vividness. Slowly but steadily, the two ships yielded to the thundering winds and gripping tides. At last, with a final hesitation on the very brink of disaster, first one and then the other of the ships reared on the waves, hovered over the rocks as if suspended on strings, and then crashed down.

Their hulls were broken like eggs against the side of a bowl. Like yolks, out flooded the hoarded treasure from within, the fourteen hundred souls who, until that moment, had been our comrades in this great adventure.

I watched, helpless and stupefied with horror, as the hulls again and again were dashed upon the rocks, until they broke up completely and sank. For many minutes, the water was filled with the flailing bodies of my friends. And then, as if these two ships and their passengers had never been, the sea became once more a faceless cauldron of boiling waters and all trace of the wrecks was washed away.

I have but one prayer of thanks to offer regarding this incident—that my little brother Godfrey saw nothing of it. He passed the entire time with his face buried in my lap, or I doubt not that his little brain of only nine years experience also would have broken like an egg, and he should have been from that time forward a lunatic from having witnessed so great a grief.

It was not until nightfall that the storm began at last to abate. So desperately ill, bruised, hungry, and exhausted were we all that we were beyond thought of giving prayers of thanksgiving for our deliverance from that fearful day. We simply lay down where we were, and as we no longer had to hold onto something in order not to be thrown about, went instantly and soundly asleep, I with Godfrey still wrapped firmly in my arms.

It took several days to recover from the storm. The ship’s crew was busy all the day, making necessary repairs to the rigging. Below in the hold, the situation continued desperate. Many of the children had terrible injuries from having been dashed about during the storm. I saw one poor girl with the bone of her forearm sticking through her skin. Some remained sick despite the calming of the seas, and a few, God rest their souls, had given up their lives during that terrible cataclysm, whether from fear or injury I know not. These we sewed into simple shrouds. The men of God who accompanied us prayed over them, and they then were committed to the deeps.

Because of these confusions and complications, I do not now remember for how many days we sailed following the storm. It was with surprise then, as much as relief, when I went one day to the deck and spied land ahead. Perhaps I had come to believe that we would journey on that hellish vessel for all eternity!

News of landfall spread among our ranks. Then what great rejoicing there was that we had survived our terrible sea voyage and come at last to our sacred goal, the land of the Holy Sepulcher of Our Lord!

§

How cruelly shortlived was our joy! For no sooner had we docked in this foreign port, which we soon discovered was not in Palestine but in Egypt, than we were herded together like so many sheep and removed from the docks as prisoners!

Many among us were hopeful, assuming the officials had made a mistake that would soon be rectified. But one of the men of God who accompanied us confided to me that he feared something much worse had befallen us, and in short time he was proven correct.

What our captors now revealed to us was so cruel that it seemed it must break our hearts and kill us all, there in the streets of that strange land. For they could no longer contain their boastful secret but rather jeered at us, making a mockery of our faith. For what do you imagine could be more dispiriting than to learn that our good mentors, Porcus and Ferreus, who had so kindly supplied us with ships for our passage to the Holy Land, had actually sold us into slavery!

Their intentions all along had been to divide the fleet, sending some to Constantinople, some to Alexandria, and some to Morocco. The captains, too, had conspired in this. I was stunned with the coldness and callousness of this plan and of the hearts of these so-called Christian men. May God have mercy on their souls.

§

Now our poor band that had suffered so greatly and with such courage had still mightier sufferings to bear. So exhausted were we and so shocked by our fate, that we no longer could weep for ourselves but stood huddled together like miserable sheep awaiting slaughter.

We were not even allowed water to drink much less to bathe in but were hurried straight from the docks through the streets of a stinking city, which I did not learn until later was the ancient port of Alexandria. You might imagine that merely to be on terra firma again would be cause for rejoicing after so terrible a voyage, but this was not so. The enormity of our plight was just beginning to dawn on us, and our hearts were nearly stopped with fear and grief.

So in this sadly degenerate and filthy state, we arrived by winding ways at a square in the heart of the city. All about us were buildings of antique manufacture, such as one sees at home in the south of France where the Romans have been. At one end of the square, a high platform of stone was raised. It, too, was of ancient construction and the priests among us recognized this place all too soon. We had been brought to the ancient slave market, there to be auctioned off like cattle!

Only then did my true terror begin. I had thought that the sea voyage could never be surpassed but I was mistaken. For now I realized the greatest horror of all: that in all likelihood, I would be parted from my brother, never to see him again. This was a cruelty too heavy to bear. I collapsed in the street insensible.

How long I lay thus, I do not know. When I returned unto myself, however, I knew I had been carried to a different place, for now the high auction platform was to my left, not straight ahead. And what did my miserable eyes fall upon the moment they blinked open upon this cruel world again but my brother, my precious Godfrey, standing upon that block, stripped naked as the day he was born, his head hanging down in misery, humiliation and terror!

I shrieked a sound such as Hell Itself must make. I lost complete sense of myself as a highborn lady and became in that instant a clawing animal. I had but one thought and that was to reach his side. But all my efforts were in vain, for while I lay in stupor, manacles had been placed about my ankles and I was chained to a long line of my miserable fellows.

That the mind does not simply break at such a moment is truly a testament to the human spirit, its strength, and will to live. As for me, my spirit did not break but it bent almost to cracking there in the slave market of Alexandria.

I watched in shock too deep for thought as my brother, my precious friend and my holy charge, was carried off into slavery by an Arab in a flowing white gown. A more vigilant person than I would have attempted to remember every detail of that scene, in hopes of later gaining information of his whereabouts. But I, a hopeless girl of tormented spirit, saw only my sweet brother’s face, filled with terror and longing. He looked straight at me, reaching out his little arms, as he was picked up and carried away into the crowd.

§

How long I awaited my turn on the auction block I cannot say. It may have been only minutes or it may have been hours. I had become utterly insensible to my own person. Horror had blocked every part of my mind. I only know that I came out of a dull stupor to find myself being led, free at last of manacles, onto the stone porch.

I was one of ten girls who were sold as a lot. The bidding did not last long and I assume we went for a low price. And small wonder! I cannot conceive that a more unpromising lot of young women existed in all of Christendom! We had not bathed since long before embarking from Marseilles. We had been ill, rolled about in our own vomit, battered and blown until every hair was knotted like fine lace, and our fair skin was chapped and besmeared. Perhaps one can forgive the Infidel for treating us like animals, for that certainly is how we must have looked!

§

We again were chained together, this time by our wrists, and herded through the streets of that most foul and unwelcoming city. The stench of rotting garbage and feces in the streets might have overpowered us had we not, by this time, become indifferent to such horrors.

At the bottom of a particularly foul street, we came to the quays. There we were thrust rudely into a small boat, which set sail immediately up river, the wind and tide being right at that evening hour.

I do not remember a single moment of that voyage up the great River Nile to Cairo. We remained collapsed in a heap in the bottom of the boat, too exhausted and too dispirited to move. How we passed the night, whether moored or moving with the wind, I know not. Nor how many days we passed in the journey upriver. I remember nothing of this time but the terrible ache of my heart, as if I had been mortally wounded there, and the picture, repeated many times an hour in my fevered brain, of my brother’s face as he was torn away from me forever.

At last, we came to the great city of Cairo and were loaded without ceremony into a two-wheeled cart drawn by two sturdy donkeys. Again, we were paraded through the streets of the city. Even in my disarray, I could not help but notice that this was a very different city from Alexandria.

Here were prosperous shops and the great bustle that comes with a city involved in successful commerce. The people on the streets in their long Musulman garb were clean and handsomely groomed. As we advanced further into the city, I became aware that the buildings were becoming ever grander and more beautiful. Yet I was beyond wondering whence I was being delivered.

At last we were dumped unceremoniously before great gates set in a high wall. Our jailor paid the carter and turned to speak with the gatekeeper. Then we were led along the wall to a small side door and there admitted.

§

Imagine my surprise, for I had expected to be thrust into a dingy cell, there to rot away captive as so many stories of captured Crusaders had told. When the door opened, however, and we were herded through it, I found myself in an earthly Paradise!

Not since the heavenly beauty of my native Languedoc had I seen such lush and fruitful gardens. In very fact, these gardens were more beautiful than the most perfect garden of France. Here were green grass, flowering shrubs and vines, and palm trees casting deep shaggy shade upon promenades tiled in brightest blue and yellow. Fountains splashed invitingly at every turn. Beds of flowers were mathematically laid out to form geometric designs in brilliant colors. Birds, both in cages and free in the trees, made a merry din amidst the lush foliage.

For all that I was tired beyond measure and hungry beyond caring, I could not keep my amazement captive. Despite myself, I smiled with delight.

I speculated that we might have been sold into the household of the great Sultan of Egypt himself, Caliph Malek Kamel. This, I reasoned, would be a great blessing as he was rumored in France, even among his enemies, to be a man of learning. It was even said that he had studied during many years of his youth in the University of Paris, but I do not know if this is so.

We were brought through this paradisiacal garden to a beautiful building of white stone, graced by a long arcade of low, pointed arches. We passed through doors carved with delicate designs, down corridors paved in cut stones in many precious colors. At the end, we were presented to a guard who stood before polished doors and there, having removed our iron cuffs, our jailor left us.

The guard removed a large key from the folds of his garment and this he inserted into a huge antique lock that turned effortlessly and silently. Slowly the big doors swung open to reveal an antechamber of great sumptuousness. Here stood another man as guard. We were passed into his keeping and the doors were shut and locked behind us.