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The Pilgrimage: A Novel

Chapter 2

I watch the horsemen has they gallop towards us, streaking long billowing clouds of dust behind them. They separate as they approach the long line of soldiers, one peels and heads towards Duke Godfrey, up ahead, the others race past me and onwards to the other princes stretched out behind: Raymond, Hugh and Robert. The whole army comes to a halt as people cast around for some clue as to the nature of these messengers, and Lord Baldwin is already racing ahead to seek out Godfrey’s household.

Suddenly the trumpeters sound the call to arms and everything is in turmoil. Knights shout for their servants, their servants rush to unpack weapons and armour from the saddlebags of the warhorses, and in the meantime thunderous-looking messengers are flying up and down the lines of soldiers.

I look up the dry, dusty valley to try to find out the cause of the commotion, then look across to the valley walls, over half a mile away on either side, but I see nothing. Someone in the vanguard, I guess, has spotted the enemy and has sent back for reinforcements before launching an attack.

I watch the preparations with a growing sense of unease, because it seems obvious to me that something more desperate is afoot. These are not the rigorous preparations I have seen the knights indulge in before previous battles. The panic is screaming through the air and it sets the horses on edge. The servants struggle to hold them and calm them while the soldiers don their coifs, then grab their shields and their lances before hauling themselves onto their chargers. Maybe we are under attack, although I can see no sign of the enemy, nor hear the sounds of battle.

Now the knights are grouping to the right of the line of the army, calling and shouting as they struggle to form into lines around their standards and banners. As I look up and down the line it seems that several thousand of them are now in formation, all of our knights I guess, preparing to ride off to meet whatever threat faces our van.

As soon as the knights are in rough order the trumpeters begin calling again, calling to each other across the valley like deep-throated song birds. This is the signal the knights have been waiting for, and they spur their steeds into life, moving slowly at first in the crush and confusion, but then faster and faster and gaps open up between the lines.

I spur my horse too and she responds willingly, stampeding away with the rest of the charge. I don’t know where we are going, but I know it is into danger and I know that I must be there, to support the warriors with intercessory prayer and supplication to the Lord.

*********************

Run.

I see them come towards me.

Run.

Where are the soldiers?

Run, for Christ’s sake, run.

I can’t even see the Turks but I can see the hysterical crowd of men and women and their children, a desperate, screaming mass of people running for their lives back down the valley, back towards me. Why are they coming this way?

I can’t see the Turks but I can hear them, their drums pounding, they are coming, they are chasing the others back down the valley, bringing them towards me. My heart stops, bile rises into my mouth and I nearly fall, but then I turn my back on terror and I run.

There are no soldiers. The valley behind is deserted... dear God, we are separated from the rest of the army. The Turks are between us and the soldiers ahead, and I cannot see the soldiers behind us. What has happened to them? Where are they?

I can hear the Turks now, shouting. And I can hear the screams of the dying too. A horse bolts past me, I see its wild eyes and foaming mouth. Then I see its rider, slumped over in the saddle, arrows plunged deep into his back.

I cannot feel my legs anymore, and I cannot hear the screams anymore, and I cannot hear the Turks anymore. I know am still running because my breath is heavy, but I don’t know whether I’m still moving.

In front of me the valley spreads like a deep furrow, and the crests of the hills are made golden by the early morning sun. I gaze at the frowning shadows cast by the ridges, and feel myself drift towards them. Maybe I’m dead. As I watch, the hills melt and fuse into a golden path that stretches into the sky, and the air is clean and fresh.

A cloud of mist descends the heavenly road, and I drift onwards to meet it. The heralds of the lord trumpet a triumphal welcome for me, and St Michael rides on a white stead at the head of an army of angels.

My legs give way, I fall to the ground curl up, hugging my knees to my chest, and I sob.

*********************

Here they come again. I take my place, the trumpeters are sounding the ‘stand fast’ and the message is repeated in rippled shouts up and down the line. I, too, shout the message, as much to reassure myself as to encourage the footmen on either side. Now the foot soldiers add to the cacophony of shouted and trumpeted commands by drumming their shields with the flat of their swords.

The Turks are storming towards us, closer and closer. I hold my shield high, trying to protect my eyes. Soon the arrows will come. The Turks begin their shout. Allachibar! Allachibar! We reply, hurling foul curses and chanting our cry, God wills it! God wills it!

And then the fury of arrows begins. The sky is blackened as the Turks shoot from horseback, still flooding towards us. On either side of me men stagger, and some fall. An arrow strikes my shield, and then another, and another. The Turks are so close to our line now I can almost feel the breath of their horses. But then the drums sound out and they wheel away at the last moment and race back out of the range of our bowmen, still shooting as they go.

The line has held.

There will be a respite for us now while the Turkish knights test another portion of the line from a different direction. All day this has been the sequence, ever since the first attack at dawn until now, nearly midday. The Turks charge at us, firing arrows as they come and then, if the line holds, wheeling their dextrous horses around and riding back to safety – something that is quite incredible to behold.

I turn to Edwin, the soldier’s captain who has been on my right throughout the onslaught, and tell him that I am going back to pick up water for the others, and to find out any news. I also want to check on my horses, although I don’t tell him that. Edwin is to engrossed in organising help for the new wounded to pay much attention to me.

‘Bring back a priest’, he tells me.

The string of upturned carts is only about fifty yards behind our line now, and I head to the one were I left Berengar. The carts were turned over to provide shelter from the arrows of the Turks and the heat of the sun, but the angle was set to block the morning sun, and now the fierce heat of midday blazes down on the wounded men sheltering behind. The arrows that earlier had adorned the cart like bristles from a Titans broom have been removed, I guess by bowmen desperate for ammunition.

Berengar is still there. His breathing is shallow, and he asks for some water but I’ve got none to give him. The blood is still cascading over his face and I wonder whether removing the arrow from his eye has helped or made things worse. It wasn’t too deep, I think, because the Turk’s arrows are only short, but, still, I reckon he won’t survive it.

I call one of the women over and ask her for some water. She brings over a pitcher and mug, and I drink greedily and then thank her profusely. The women have been running water up to us all day, and we’d be all dead by now if they hadn’t. I ask her for news of the camp, and it’s bad. The Turks have broken through several times, she says, once they even made their way across the marsh which we’d hoped would protect our rear. Each time they have been beaten off, but each time many of the unarmed Christians who shelter there are killed.

I take the pitcher and kneel down to Berengar. He seems to be blind now, he certainly does not seem to see me. I tell him that have brought water and, holding the mug to his lips, I try to pour some water into his mouth, but he coughs and splutters it up.

He asks me whether there is any news of the relief force, and I tell him no. I still haven’t been able to find out how and why the army came to be split in this way, according to the rumour the rear of the army was many miles behind us this morning.

The line is holding steady though, I tell him, and we are sure to hold out until they come. This is a lie, although I pray that God would forgive me.

I see the banner on Tancred’s tent, fifty yards or so further up the line, has been raised. There is nothing more I can do for Berengar, so I head over to see if I can find more news. The sides of the tent have been rolled up to allow what breeze there is to take the edge off the stifling heat, and inside I can see several armoured figures silhouetted against the backdrop of the dry hills.

I reach the tent, look inside, and call to Rainald who is talking to Tancred.

They both turn and great me, and Tancred asks if the line is holding. I tell him the truth, we give ground constantly under the force of the Turkish arrows. There are many dead or hurt, and the ones who are not hurt are tired and thirsty, but that while their faith remains strong they will not falter, so long as those on either side do not run.

Tancred nods his head, expressionless. He tells me that the other parts of the line are holding, though unsteady, but there are still sufficient reserves to breach any gaps. I’ve seen it happen several times now today, the courage of the men on the line gives way and they flee before the onslaught. First one men turns and runs, then those on either side of him follow, and then the whole line crumbles. When this happens, the Turkish knights don’t stop their charge. They pour into the gap, pursuing the fleeing men and forcing the flanks, in turn, to flee.

Each time so far the rout has been stopped by the knights Bohemond has held in reserve. They charge at the Turks, an unstoppable mass of thunderous metal, and the charge breaks up the Turkish assault buying enough time for the line to reform. But each time the line reforms further back towards the camp, and as the day wears on our situation becomes ever more desperate.

Tancred tells me that the Turks have been forced from the camp, so at least we will not be attacked from behind but, because the Turks have found a way to force the marsh, many of the reserves have been posted to defend the baggage train.

I ask him if there is any news of the rearguard, and he tells me that they cannot be far away. The best guess, he says, is that they were maybe ten miles behind us, so that they cannot take much longer to reach us. I hope he is right, because as they day goes on the Turkish attacks get stronger while we get ever weaker, and there are so many imponderables. Maybe the messengers didn’t get through, maybe the rearguard too is under attack, and waiting desperately for us to come to them. I try to reassure myself, we know there aren’t that many Turks in Romania, the Emperor told us that. But then, when the scouts saw the Turkish outliers late last night, they had no idea that as we rounded the bend in the valley this morning we would be attacked by such a multitude. Thank God for the prudence of our Bohemond, who ordered that the camp be pitched a the first sign of the attackers this morning, and who set us up in at least some vestige of a defensible position, with the marsh to our rear and a stream running through the camp which has supplies us with water.

If God wills it, the heralds had called this morning, we will all be rich when this battle is over. None of us, except Tancred and Bohemond, realised what we were in for.

It seems to me that standing here is suicide, and I put it to them that we should maybe make a break for it. Wait for a lull in the fighting and then form up and try to fight our way back down the valley, try to rejoin the others. At least some of us might escape then. As it is, we’re going to be slowly forced back on the camp, and then be panic, and that will be the end of us.

There’s too many civilians, Rainald says. We could never form up into a column, the Turks would never allow it. As soon as you try to move men away from the front line, they won’t go orderly. Oh, it’ll start off that way, but then there’ll be someone will start to run, and that’ll set everyone off.

But we’ve got to do something! I turn to Tancred, let me lead a charge, I tell him. One of their generals is camped out not far from our part of the line. I’ve been watching them sending out messengers, you can even see the drummers perched nearby. We could reach it easily, especially because they wouldn’t be expecting it. Kill him, get rid of the drummers, and they would open right up. We’d be forcing them back, taking the initiative. We could use the time to organise the camp, get ready for a retreat.

You’ve seen what happened to the others, says Rainald, you saw Herluin cut down. Their horses are to fleet, it’s a moving target.

Yes, but this is different. I’ve been watching them all morning,

We’ve got to hold the line, says Rainald. We simply got to hold on as long as we can.

No, says Tancred.

The drums have stopped.

We pause, listening. The drums have stopped, for a few, heart stopping moments the battle field falls silent, the thundering hooves, the yelling and screaming, stopped. We run outside, and suddenly the noise begins again, but there is cheering, wild ecstatic cheering from our men. There to the west, thundering up the valley, the banners of Duke Godfrey!

Tancred is shouting at the messengers – send word to the camp, bring up the battle horses, nobody leave their positions, bring word from Bohemond – and they leap to their horses and are away.

********************

The horses trot in ranks, full on, shining metal, pennants streaming and fluttering from the standards. The valley, which slopes gently downhill to where the van, Robert and Bohemond, are embattled, and Baldwin is more circumspect now that we can see the enemy. The stride is short and rolling, and I find it hard to keep Sheba to the pace, I alternate between trotting and walking so as not to get in front of the knights!

There is tense silence in the air, the only noise from the muttered prayers of the other priests who have joined the attack, some with the households, the others strewn out among the ranks. We must be careful of ambushes, the bodies of the villeins who were strung out between the two armies lie strewn along the valley, although some of them are still alive and cheer us as we pass. Godfrey must also judge the charge right. Too soon, and the horses will be exhausted before we come to blows with the enemy, too late and we will give the enemy a chance to form up and defend themselves.

The trumpets sound, and all around me the knights spur their horses into the charge. Sheba goes willingly, cantering away the others. Trumpeters from further behind us reply, calling out acknowledgements and responses.

The horses eat up the ground, the knights ready themselves, and so do I, I hold my oakwood crucifix in my hand and repeat the pater noster, a supplication. Above the din of the horses now I can hear something else, the howling cacophony of a hundred thousand men, cheering us on. I look for the enemy and my heart is gladdened to see them fleeing like startled geese, some running back down the valley which stretches out to the south, some heading for the hills, some, in the madness of their misbegotten souls, charging towards us.

One group of Godfrey’s knights takes the lead, heading straight into the thickest part of the enemy’s forces. I going to go with them, I’m some way behind them now but I can catch up to the thickset warhorses, so I spur Sheba on, past the knights of Baldwin’s retinue, until I am riding behind them.

They head for a huge tent, festooned with banners and streamers of silk. A drummer, scornful of his own life, beats out madly a repetitive rhythm while others among them, now on horseback, fire their deadly arrows towards us. I see some of them strike the knights ahead of me, who contemptuously brush them away when they lodge in their armour. Some arrows strike their horses too, fixing themselves like bloodsucking insects to the flanks of those mighty beasts. My shield is my crucifix, my armour is God’s word.

Now the enemy gives, turning their horses in an effort to escape the wroth of the knight’s lances, and the knights swerve too, and the charge breaks into an individual melee as the Turks are run down, and like dogs chased by bears, when they find themselves trapped they turn and put on a fierce display but are smashed to the ground

But suddenly Sheba stumbles and falls and I am thrown down in front of the enemy tent. I get up hastily but Sheba struggles to her feet before me and flees. I look around for the knights but they are dispersed, only maybe half a dozen are near me – one of them unhorsed and struggling with a pagan at the tent opening. We breathe for a few moments.

On knight calls out to me. Priest, he says, sing for us. And I open my mouth but the words catch in my throat because as I watch he is struck in the neck by an arrow. I turn and look in the direction of the flight and see that the enemy is upon us, twenty of their black-hearted knights! I fall to my knees and clench my eyes, holding my crucifix before me and I pray. I pray earnestly and devoutly for God’s help. I pray not for my own miserable soul but for those of the knights, God’s arm against the pagans.

The pagans prevail! They cut down the first of the knights, five are left to hold off the enemy as they bear down upon us. Has God abandoned us? No, praise Him, praise Him! More of Christ’s soldiers ride to our rescue, charging at the enemy even as they charge us. There are only few, but it is enough. Oh, the slaughter! One of the enemy flees, his arm half severed, another turns to fight this new onslaught but is cut down in his turn. They are Norman knights come to save use, the fiercest and most noble of all Christians. I have never seen such a beautiful sight as the enemies of God are either struck down or flee.

But one of the Normans is down, a fierce spear flung by a departing pagan has hit him with such force that it penetrates his mail byrnie, and he hangs, sagging sideways, with that evil weapon embedded in his bowels. His horse, well trained, comes to a standstill at the behest of his feeble command, and the knight slithers to the ground and lays there like a child’s doll. I race over to him, unsure whether to administer healing or extreme unction.

The pagan’s dart is planted in his belly, just to the left of the navel. I know I must remove it if he is to be saved, but he lies awkwardly on his side. I roll him gently over to...

Oh heavenly and most merciful God, it is Arnulf!

********************

I feel hands on me, a gentle caress, like a woman’s. A man talks. Be calm, he says, do not cry out, I am here. He feels at my belly, and I look down at the javelin, still lodged in my flesh. His hands move to it, and I watch fascinated as he gently draws it out. I feel no pain, just a sickly wet sensation and the cold heat of the sun. I know the wound is serious, I wonder how serious, how deep have I been hurt?

I close my eyes, and open them again. The man begins to rip up his cloak, making bandages, dabbing at my belly. He tells me that he’s going to try to staunch the flow. He will have to turn me, and then steps back and I yell with pain.

He jumps as if bitten, before looking down to see where the stub of the broken off arrow still protrudes from my calf. The pain of it now shrieks at me, an intolerable stabbing, tearing, cramping pain. Your leg, your leg, he effuses, but still he turns me, cradling me in his arms, passing bandages around me until they hold the compress in place.

My belly aches now, a dull, distant throb that stand on the edge of my consciousness like a dark sentinel. I feel the cold sweat dripping from my brow and chest and running in rivulets to my armpit. The man is hunched over me, talking to me, trying to tell me something. No, wait he is praying.

I try to join him, he recites the pater noster and some other prayers I do not know, but as I try to open my mouth to speak my belly convulses and I shriek as suddenly it seems like Satan’s demons are in me, stirring their hands about, wrenching at my guts.

He reaches out his hand, still praying, and through clenched eyes I see that other holds a wooden crucifix above me. I take his hand a squeeze hard, hard enough to make him stumble in his prayer, but then the convulsion subsides and I relax.

I’m thirsty, I tell him. He does not respond. Again, I say I’m thirsty. Again, nothing. I look at him, and realise how distant he seems, as though he is drifting away. Everything around me, the whole world, has been enveloped in mist. A fear grips me, I feel that I am sliding, my soul is being taken to purgatory, or, God forbid, maybe hell. I shout, scream at him, try to raise myself on my elbow, try to get through.

********************

Again Arnulf grunts, and now he starts to move his arms, pushing against the grass with his shivering fingers. I lean over him, putting my arm on his shoulder, admonish him to be still, tell him to rest. His lips move, I think he’s trying to tell me something.

Thirsty, he says, he needs water, and I am surprised at this for his whole body is sweating, indicating, one would think, and excess rather than a lack of moisture. I mop his brow, and tell him I will get him water. His eyes are shut, and he seems to sleep.

I stand and look around the battlefield, strewn with the dead and dying, and marvel at the quiet. Horses without riders stand disconsolately, dispersed around the field as though each dare not approach the other. The distant sounds of battle echo from the further valley where the soldiers of Christ still pursue the vanquished. All around me the silent waifs of the poor scavenge what they can from the fallen, snatching food, money, weapons from the tortured bodies. I look towards the stream, which cuts a green slice along the valley to the south. I will get Arnulf water, if he is thirsty.

I walk fingering the crucifix which hangs around my neck. There are many of the enemy’s dead here, along the line upon which they strived to hold back the tide. I look at the corpses, crumpled in disarticulated heaps with their deformed features scarring their faces in death as in life. They are revolting, and I wonder at their women who could fornicate with such beasts.

One of the corpses moves and I stop. He moves again, he is not two yards from my feet and his eyes are open and I pause, transfixed, watching in horror as he stretches a thin bony hand towards me. Then his mouth opens and a grating, babbling noise spews forth, like the draining of sewers and the grating of stones. I flee. I clamp my hands over my ears and scurry onwards, glancing neither left nor right, all the way to the river. Even when dead the heathen are full of menace.

I pause at the riverside, my mind races. God has saved my body from death at the hands of the pagans, but the deed which brought about my mortal salvation has brought this noble knight to the very edge of death. But God does not allow such things by happenstance, there is a reason for everything, and by God’s grace a man may often fathom out the meaning of God’s actions. Now this occurrence, I reason, is most definitely a sign, and God’s signs may be interpreted by those learned and wise enough to understand them.

In Nikiae, the Lord brought Arnulf to me, and allowed me to see into his bleeding, wounded soul – Oh, how I longed to reach out and heal that soul – and now God has once more brought Arnulf to me, injured, and placed him under my protection. I am bonded now to Arnulf by the most the deepest of debts, that of my mortal life, and I shall repay that debt, by using such of the healing arts as I have learned from the library at Rebais. But the Lord’s plans run deeper than that, of this I am now sure. He has placed Arnulf this knight under my care and made me indebted to him. But I must repay that debt not simply by healing his wounded body, He must surely want me to heal his wounded soul.

I walk through the trampled reeds and into the marshy, foul-smelling water at the stream’s edge, clouded with mud stirred up by the soldiers and knights who fought here. I wade out further, towards the sweeter, faster-running midstream. A body glides past face down, the body of a peasant I suspect for it is unarmoured, indeed nearly nude. When it has passed I stoop to fill the bottle, and I am suddenly reminded of home.

The bottle was a gift to me from the Abbott on my departure from Rebais, small but delicately made from cured sheep’s bladder, a gift to me from the Abbot on my departure. I tie a knot in the top and turn to head back through the reeds. I wonder what the Abbott is doing now, and I think too of brother Alex, who introduced me to the Physic of Galen. I rack my mind, trying to remember everything that he told me, trying to remember the herbal classifications, heating and cooling, cleansing and attenuating. I remember betony, sweet betony, the wound herb. I remember how Brother Alex once used betony to treat one of the lay brothers who had stumbled and torn his chest open on field boundary stake. I was a young boy then, and I watched has his as his arthritic hands tore the broad round leaves and crushed them into a small bronze pot filled with boiling water, and strained the decoction of and used it to wipe the wound clean.

I haven’t any betony, but I remember now how he told me also about brown wort, which he called water betony, and said was even better than betony as a cure for wounds. He took me out later that summer, searching for the herbs in the Monastery grounds. Here, he said, growing at the edge of a drainage ditch, here is water betony, with its dark red flowers, and here again, by the brook, with its sting-like tendrils lapped by the cold water.

Now I, too, search for the wound herb by the side of this filthy stream in this foreign land, and I find it, the hard brown stalks thrusting up from a low bank set at the inflexion of a meander. I shiver, the land darkens as a cloud scuds across the sun, and I look down from the bank where the corpses of men from my homeland lie washed against the sandy shallows. Brother Alex is by my side as I gather the leaves, as I discuss with the methods of their preparation, how, in the absence of decoction, I intended to crush the leaves and place them over the wound so that they may draw out the filth within and cleanse the wound. For the moment that it takes for the sun to pass from behind the cloud and burn down once more, I am at home again.

I stand and look up and around, and I’m startled by how low the sun now seems to be. I am a fool, Arnulf has been on his own for nearly an hour now, and I hurriedly look around for the ruined tent that marks the spot where he lies. It is nearly fifteen minutes walk away, I judge, and I set off at a vigorous pace, picking my way once more through the devastation. There are many more people around now, I notice, and I guess that the rest of the army must have caught up with us, although I see that a few of the knights have also returned from the pursuit. Some of them, the most merciful I suppose, are leading strings of pagan captives, though what they will do with them I do not know.

The tent, when I reach it, is nothing but a broken remnant, with a pauper picking at it like a carrion crow searching for the last flecks of flesh. I head for spot, just beyond, where Arnulf lay. Empty. The broken spear lies on the ground near the patch of earth stained black with his blood but both Arnulf and his horse have gone. Someone has taken him – the fools, the damnable fools! I look around, down the valley and then up towards the marshy banks towards the Norman camp, but I can see no sign of him in the orange glow of dusk.

I run towards the pauper, and as I approach I shout to him and he looks at me with startled eyes and backs away.

– Where is Arnulf, I ask. Where is the wounded knight?

– They took him, he says, they loaded him onto a cart and they took him away.

– Where?

– To the camp, I think.

The fools.

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Copyright © 1999 Dr Tom J Rees. All rights reserved.