It was the day after the sea didn’t part.
Jaques sat on the wharf watching the bright merchant boats load and unload in
the Marseille harbour and wondered what to do next.
Marie came and sat next to him, hunching up cross-legged
and passing him a heel of loaf that someone in the crowd had given her
yesterday. Like her brother she wore a scruffy smock, ragged after weeks on the
road. Like his, her feet were blistered from the march.
“Renaud and Anseau have gone home,” she aid
at last. “I think Ferry’s slipped away as well.”
Jaques didn’t answer. He gnawed on the bread
as the tide washed under the pier beneath him.
“Hervé asked one of the priests why it
didn’t happen,” Marie went on. “Why the waves didn’t part like they did for
Moses. He said maybe our faith wavered.”
Jacques finished the last of the food and
licked the crumbs from his fingers. People had been generous on their march.
The children been famous. Now that the sea hadn’t opened people might not be so
quick to offer aid.
“What did Stephen say?” the boy asked at
last. “He was so sure when he preached.”
“Nobody can get close to Stephen now,” Marie
answered. “Those sons of rich knights surround him all the time. He rides in
his cart with the bright canopy. But from what I could see this morning I think
he’d been crying. So many of us have gone home. Some called him names.”
“What do you expect?” Jaques challenged.
“How far have we walked to get here? How far is it from Vendôme? Far enough for
Aubert and Odelina to drop dead as we travelled. Have you forgotten how tired
we were?”
“Of course not,” his sister scorned. She
remembered the day Odelina hadn’t woken up, somewhere after Lyons. It had been
the day after Marie had shed her first woman’s blood. “But we knew it would be
hard. We are crusaders. We suffer to free the Holy Land from the heathen. Only
suffering will bring about the Kingdom of God.”
Jaques gestured over the azure sea. “Well
the Holy Land’s somewhere out there. We can’t preach to the heathen and convert
him to the ways of Christ if we can’t get to it. Stephen promised he’d get us
there.”
“Well maybe he still will? Maybe this is
just another test, like the walking? Maybe that’s why the miracle was delayed
and the sea hasn’t opened yet?”
Marie could still remember how Stephen of
Cloyes had preached it that day in Vendôme, when the children had gathered from
all over France carrying Oriflamme banners.
The boy prophet, twelve years old, the same
age as Jaques, had been given a letter by Christ himself to deliver to the King
of France. King Philip had dismissed the former shepherd-lad but Stephen had
begun to preach that a crusade of children would do what all the armed might of
Christendom had not: they would convert the Moslem and regain the Holy City,
not by the sword but by the Word.
Jaques had heard him on the steps of the
abbey of Saint-Denis, and he’d brought his sister to hear too. They’d run away
that very night, like hundreds of others, like thousands of children who’d gone
to join the crusade. Nobody knew how many had marched with Stephen; some said
seven thousand, some said thirty thousand. But the children marched.
The crowds had cheered them in Tours and
Lyon. More had joined them, with the blessings of parents who were anxious but
proud. Sons of noble houses had left their homes like their crusader fathers
and had formed Stephen’s honour guard. Even some young priests had joined the
pilgrimage, trekking with the rest to save the Holy Land. The people from the
towns and villages turned out to praise the children, offering gifts of food
and clothing to speed them on their way, but it was the hottest summer anyone
could remember and there was little to spare. Some of the child-crusaders had
fallen on the march. Others had deserted. Most had arrived to see the waters
part yesterday – except the waters had not opened.
“Maybe we should go home too?” said Jaques.
He wasn’t sure of the way but he missed his parents. His father might beat him
for running away but he’d forgive him.
“I don’t know,” admitted Marie. “It doesn’t
make any sense. Why would God give Stephen that letter, those visions, then
leave us here on the shore?”
Jaques rubbed his feet. “I’m kind of glad we
don’t have to walk any further,” he confessed. “It was an awful long way this
far. I bet it’s as least as far again to Jerusalem. And the bottom of the sea
is probably all squishy and slippy, with dead fish and things. It would have
been the worst part of the march.”
Marie laid her head on his shoulder. “Well then,
what shall we do? Shall we pray some more, or try for home?”
Jaques considered their options. The sun
beat down on them. It would be a hard journey back, harder because now the
great crusade was split up. People would mock them. Nobody would help them. But
he had his sister to consider, and Marseille was already turning against the
child-pilgrims.
We have to go home, he decided.
He was about to speak, to tell Marie that it
was all over, when ragged-kneed Gobert raced up, red-faced and panting with excitement.
“The miracle!” he called to Jaques and Marie. “It’s come!”
Brother and sister looked out into the
bustling harbour. The sea was still there.
Gobert shook his head. “That vision was
symbolic! That was our mistake. When Stephen saw the sea parting it meant we
were to be given passage. The waves won’t part, but there are two merchants,
two holy men, and they’ve offered their ships to take us to Jerusalem! Free!
Seven big ships, we can pack on hundreds of us, thousands. God spoke to them
and now we’re to sail for the Holy Land!”
Jaques touched his road-cracked feet and
praised God. The Holy Land – without walking!
Marie jumped up and danced. “We’re going to
save the heathen!” She burst into the marching song the children had sung along
the way: “Lord God, exalt Christianity. Lord God, restore to us the true cross!”
“We’re… we’re going to Jerusalem!” Jaques
realised. A big stupid smile spread across his face, a grin of amazed
wonderment. “We’re going! We’re going
save the Holy Land after all!”
The children skipped down to the wharf where
more and more of the pilgrims were clustering for access to the merchant ships.
The kindly captains, Hugh the Iron and William the Pig, were trying to explain
to the youngsters that it would take time to ready the vessels for so long a
voyage by sea.
Marie and Jaques didn’t care about the wait
now. They held hands and sang songs with the others and they waited for the
Promised Land.
***
Original concepts,
characters, and situations copyright © 2011 reserved by Ian Watson. The right
of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by
him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All
rights reserved.