“Who?” the sleepy count demanded.
“The ones I told you about.”
“The rabble?”
“I didn’t call them that.”
“If they’re rabble, why wake me?”
“You should see them, sir. They’re a miracle.”
“You go back to bed,” the drowsy count ordered, “and I’ll do the same.” But as he spoke he heard in the morning air a rustle. It sounded like the waves of the sea against his boat when he was returning from the war in Sicily, and as he listened it grew. A rooster crowed, dogs began barking and he heard the sound of feet running through the narrow streets of his city. And then he heard the sound itself, outside the walls: a rushing of many bodies, the soft swirling of dust and the slow creaking of wagons drawn not by horses but by men.
“What is it?” he asked his priest.
“The ones from Cologne,” Wenzel replied.
“I’d better see them,” the count surrendered, and while the priest watched he threw off his robe, revealing a powerful, hairy body, and slipped into his woolen clothes, ending with a pair of rough leather boots. The priest led him through the chapel and onto a battlement from which they could see below them, coming up the road that led from Cologne to Mainz, a huge collection of moving objects not fully discernible in the dawning light.
“What’s that in front?” Count Volkmar asked.
“Children,” the priest answered. “They run ahead from town to town, but they don’t belong.”
Volkmar leaned against the battlement and watched in amazement as through the dust raised by the scrambling children came file after file of men and women, undisciplined and unarmed. They moved through the cold early light like ghosts, their eyes transfixed and their feet shuffling with no apparent purpose but with a constant forward impulse. Volkmar cast his eyes backward along the interminable lines until the marchers were lost in dust.
“How many?” he asked his priest.
“At Cologne they estimated twenty thousand.”
“They have no arms! No knights!”
“They propose to have none,” Wenzel replied. “They say that with God’s aid they will conquer.”
Volkmar stood silent in the face of this strange army, marching forward as no other had done in the remembered history of the Rhine. Men and women loomed out of the darkness, shuffled silently past and others took their places. At times the procession was modified by clusters of wagons drawn by men or miserable horses, and each vehicle was piled with bags of clothing or remnants of food. On some, babies rode or old women, while in the wake marched a group of children much different from the wild ones who led the procession. These were tired. They had been marching for many days and no longer found energy for play or make-believe.
“Are those children …” Count Volkmar didn’t know how to finish his sentence.
“Those are the ones who belong,” the priest explained.
“They look starved,” Volkmar grumbled.
“They are.”
The count made a hasty decision. “Wenzel, when they enter the city, see that the children are fed.”
“They’re not stopping here, sir,” the priest told him, and Volkmar looked toward the head of the procession and saw that this was correct. The gates of the city were closed and the marchers were heading silently toward Mainz.
“Stop them!” the count ordered, and he dashed back into the castle to alert his wife and children so that they could see the amazing sight.
Wenzel, a thin man nearing sixty, hurried through the city, calling for the watchmen to open the city gates, and when the huge iron hinges had creaked in their sockets and the wooden slabs had swung aside, the priest moved into the midst of the marchers, waving his arms. The first part of the procession paid no heed, and passed on, but the marchers in the middle area saw the priest and came slowly to a halt. As they did so Count Volkmar and his wife, accompanied by a son and daughter in their teens, came purposefully through the gate, dressed in the fine garb of city dwellers. In a loud voice Volkmar announced, “We will feed all children.”
The crowd cheered and mothers began shoving forward twice the number of children Volkmar had anticipated, until more than a thousand were clustered about the gates of Gretz. Matwilda, the count’s pretty wife, was touched by the obvious hunger showing in the little faces and bent down to talk with some of the older girls, but they spoke no German.
“Can we feed so many?” the priest inquired.
“Feed them,” the count snapped, and men inside the city were summoned to bring out what food could be made quickly available. Volkmar tried to speak with the younger children but found that they also knew no German.
As he knelt to question one small boy he saw for the first time, sewed onto the shoulder of the child’s blouse, a pair of rudely cut strips of red cloth put together to make a cross. Pointing to the emblem he asked Wenzel, “Is this it?”
“Yes,” the priest replied, and Volkmar looked about him to find that most of the crowd pressing upon him were similarly decorated. The cross was usually small, the cloth ragged and of many colors, but the effect was impressive.
Count Volkmar was about to query a husband and wife regarding their insignia, when there came a shouting from the rear and the motley crowd opened a path for someone of apparent importance. It was a scrawny priest riding barefoot on a gray donkey. The little man had piercing eyes, sunken cheeks and matted hair. He wore a dirty black robe over which he had thrown a brown surplice lacking sleeves but marked with a flaming cross in red. Sensing from experience that Volkmar was the essential man in Gretz, the little priest kicked his donkey and rode directly to the count, crying in a cracked voice, “God wills it! You are to ride with us, for your salvation is in the balance.”
Suspiciously Volkmar asked his own priest, “Does this one represent the False Pope?”
“Yes,” Wenzel nodded.
“Get away from me,” Volkmar cried, drawing back from the man on the donkey.
“God wills it!” the little priest shouted, urging his tired animal forward.
The big German knight looked down at the inconsequential rider and said scornfully, “You serve the False Pope.”
“But the true God, and He commands you to ride with us.”
Not only did Volkmar refuse to ride with this rabble; he was sorry that he had volunteered to feed the children who now pressed in from all sides. If the little man on the donkey were indeed a servant of the False Pope it could be embarrassing for the Count of Gretz to be caught assisting him, and he seriously considered canceling the order so as not to implicate himself. But at this moment events were swept out of his hands, for from the gates of his city a mob of his town folk began rushing out to greet the little priest.
“Peter! Peter!” they shouted as one wave after another crowded to touch his robe or to caress the donkey. Some tried to pull hairs from the beast’s coat, but these were driven back by men protecting the priest.
“It is God’s will,” the priest shrieked in his high, cracked voice. He was a thin wisp of a man, about forty-five years old, driven by some tremendous inner compulsion which flashed in his eyes. “I have been sent to call you to your duty.”
The people of Gretz listened in wonder as he told them that they could be saved from the impending end of the world only if they marched with him. Listening to his wild words Count Volkmar became more convinced that the man must be avoided, and he led his family back through the ranks of his own townsmen until he was safe within the city wall. “Let none of that mob enter Gretz,” he commanded the guards.
His bailiff now came up. “Sir, if you want food for all those children you’ll have to give me extra money.” Volkmar considered this for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.
“We said we’d feed them,” he replied with no enthusiasm. He left the gate, where the children were making a fearful noise, and retreated in some confusion to his castle, from which he continued to look down on the growing mob. “There’s a l
ot more than twenty thousand people down there,” he told his wife, after which he prudently summoned the captain of his guard and instructed him: “Without attracting attention, close the gates, and if any should try to force entrance your bowmen are to shoot them down.” It would not be said of him that he had trafficked with the False Pope.
Since food had already appeared, the pilgrims did not protest when the gates swung shut. Posterns were opened through which more food was passed, and finally the feeding of the children was completed. Parents, obviously starved, were allowed to grab the last scraps, while the cooks—looking over their shoulders lest the count see them—passed bundles of food to the little priest and his immediate entourage, whereupon the great mass started to move slowly onward toward the towns of Mainz and Worms and Speyer.
“It’s surprising how well the little priest maintains order,” Volkmar said grudgingly to his wife as they watched the dusty mob move off, but Matwilda uttered a sharp cry when the carts bearing families appeared at the rear of the procession, for she could see the privation under which the women and babies attached to this congregation moved. Surrounded by scrawny cattle, only a few of which were giving milk, these unfortunates lived in dust and danger.
“I’m sorry for them,” she sighed. “They shouldn’t be attempting such a journey.”
“Damn!” her husband shouted. “Who’s that at the end?” His wife followed his pointing finger and saw six or eight families from Gretz taking their places among the pilgrims.
“They’re our people,” she confirmed.
Thundering down the castle stairs Volkmar rushed to the gates, ordered the guards to follow him, and ran bareheaded out to intercept his travelers. “Hans!” he asked one. “Where are you going?”
“To Jerusalem,” the slow-witted field hand replied.
“Do you know where Jerusalem is?” the count demanded.
“Over there,” the man replied, pointing toward Paris.
“You get back behind the walls,” Volkmar growled impatiently. He summoned his guards, who cut the would-be pilgrims off from the disappearing mob. “What’s that on your shoulder?” the count asked one of the men.
“The cross of Jesus Christ our Saviour,” the man replied.
“Take it off,” Volkmar said, brushing at the offensive bits of frayed cloth, but his hand was stayed by that of Wenzel, who had followed the count to check on what might happen.
“Sir, if these men wish to follow the way of our Lord, they must be permitted.”
Volkmar wheeled to confront his priest, shorter by a head than he. “These men and women are needed to work my fields. Guards, get them back inside the walls.” The guards started to do so, but the priest continued his argument.
“Would you oppose the will of God?” he asked.
The question stunned Volkmar, for he was a man obedient to the law of Christ, but now his priest was asking him to reach conclusions on matters which he did not comprehend and he reacted roughly. “Inside the walls!” he shouted, and placing himself in the roadway with his arms spread wide like the branches of a cross, he barred the way. Grudgingly the would-be Crusaders filed back through the gates as Priest Wenzel blessed them for their holy effort, and when the gray-haired churchman finally turned to reprove the count, Volkmar growled, “No people of mine will follow the commands of a False Pope.”
But his voice carried little conviction, for he had begun to weigh the words of Wenzel: were his peasants, in trying to join the marchers, acting in accordance with Christ’s wish? Perplexed, he was about to retreat to his castle when he saw his bailiff dragging back into the city the pots that had been used for feeding. “How much did it cost?” the count asked.
“We’ll need six gold pieces to pay the merchants,” the red-faced bailiff estimated.
“I should have watched my tongue,” Volkmar commented ruefully, and as he spoke he saw in the square near the gates a group of people obviously agitated by something that one of their members held, and he elbowed his way into the mob. “What’s this?” he demanded.
“Klaus caught a hair from the priest’s donkey,” a woman explained, pointing with local pride to a man who stood with his hands cupped as if they contained gold.
“Let me see,” Volkmar commanded, and the man moved forward and slowly opened his hands, disclosing one gray donkey’s hair. The count was about to sweep away the blasphemous relic, but he saw the joy it had brought Klaus and the admiration it elicited from the mob. Disturbed, he turned his back on the stupid peasants and their donkey’s hair.
He walked to the southeastern corner of his city in search of someone with common sense with whom he could discuss the perplexing events of the morning, and he came at last to a fine house, cross-timbered in front and four stories high, nestled against the protecting wall of the city. “Anybody awake?” he shouted outside the front door, and in a moment a young girl, obviously pregnant and contented with that fact, threw open the heavily barred door and cried, “Count Volkmar! Come in. Father’s here.” She led the count through a hallway containing massive pieces of furniture and into an inner room where a remarkable man sat waiting in a long robe of Venetian material edged by a fur collar. He was in his mid-forties, a congenial, quick-eyed Jew with a black beard and a gold-embroidered cap, and the impression he created was one of unusual competence: in negotiation this one would be alert, in discussion judicious, and in physical crisis courageous. He nodded to Volkmar as the girl announced, “Father, it’s the count.”
To this impressive room, lined with folios, Volkmar was no stranger. Often he had come here to borrow money, more often to discuss gossip or to pick up bits of political information, for the man in the gold cap could read and write and in his earlier years had traveled to many lands. “Hagarzi,” Volkmar said, speaking as friend to equal. “I need six pieces of gold until the crops are in.” To this proposal the moneylender nodded, as if that part of the visit concerned him little.
“For that you could have sent your bailiff. What really brings you here?”
“I need to know whether a rabble like the one that passed Gretz this morning has any chance of reaching Jerusalem?” The Jew made no reply, and Volkmar asked, “Did you see them?”
“Of course,” Hagarzi said, implying that it was his business to see whatever passed Gretz at dawn. Then he added slowly, like a general reviewing his ancient battles, “I’ve never been all the way to Jerusalem. To Antioch, yes.”
“You went to Constantinople?”
“Several times. While the Hungarians and Bulgarians were still pagan I used to captain companies of traders on their way from Gretz to Constantinople, and we got there with only a few battles.” He leaned back and traced signs in the air, reconstructing the travel routes to the east. “It can be done. If you don’t arouse the Hungarians … or the Bulgarians.”
“Then you think there’s a chance the foolish priest on the gray donkey may succeed?”
“All the way to Jerusalem?” The cautious trader pondered this. “I saw no knights to protect them,” he said. “They carried few provisions.”
“What road will they take?” Volkmar asked.
“When we went,” the former captain replied, closing his eyes and holding his beard with both hands, “we followed the Danube to the point where the road turns north to Novgorod.” He began to reminisce about the vigorous days of his youth, when he had led his caravans to Smolensk, Kiev … “We traded with them all.”
“Suppose the rabble reaches Constantinople,” Volkmar interrupted, and the trader opened his eyes. “Could they possibly continue to Jerusalem?”
“They could start,” the moneylender replied. Obviously he did not care to discuss this aspect of the problem, so he launched a diversion: “I remember one year when we tried to go from Kiev to Constantinople …”
“You don’t think they’ll reach Jerusalem?” the count persisted.
“Volkmar,” Hagarzi said, laughing brusquely as he used the count’s familiar name, “this is a
venture summoned by the Christian church. Would it be proper for a Jew to comment on its progress?”
“You and I are the oldest of friends, Simon,” and he also used the familiar name.
“They won’t get there,” the banker said. “When I was last in the east the Turks were becoming very strong. I wanted to revisit Antioch. Goods from Cyprus and Egypt. Impossible.” Quickly he added, “However, if I’d had a thousand well-armed men … knights … like you.”
Volkmar did not want Hagarzi to think that he was contemplating any crusade to Jerusalem, so he changed the discussion abruptly: “Which Pope will prevail?”
Again the Jew closed his eyes. “Only a close friend would deem it proper,” he reflected, “to ask a Jew’s opinion on that problem.”
“Only an old friend would know that you’ve been trading with Rome and probably have the answer.”
“From what the merchants in Rome tell us, Our German emperor has backed the wrong man. His German Pope Clement is not going to gain acceptance. The French Pope Urban will.”
This was not what Volkmar had wanted to hear. For some time he had assumed that his emperor would get his headstrong way and that of the two contenders Pope Clement would be declared the rightful pontiff; but Volkmar had much respect for the opinions of the well-informed Jew and had rarely found him to be in error, and what Hagarzi was saying disturbed him.
“How can the French Pope win,” he argued, “if England, Germany and much of Italy are against him and if our Pope Clement holds Rome?”
“This idea of a crusade, which Pope Urban proposed …”
“You saw the mob, Hagarzi. What could it accomplish?”
“That mob, nothing. But my news from Normandy and Toulouse is quite different. Real leaders are sewing the cross to their tunics.”
Before the men could discuss the matter Hagarzi looked to his door, where his daughter appeared with a salver of spiced drinks and German cakes. Volkmar pointed to her belly and asked, “When?”
“In four weeks.”
“Am I supposed to give the little wretch a present?”