I gave him a wink.
Looking up, I noticed a small crucifix on the altar. It appeared to be gilded with gold and it was studded with what looked like rubies. I took it down and stuffed it into my pouch. I had earned this much. A golden cross.
The cries of men dying hit me as I stepped outside. Mayhem was still rampant in the streets. The conquering throng had gone deeper into Antioch, cleansing the city of anything Moslem. Bloody corpses were scattered everywhere. A few latecomers in clean armor rushed by me, eager to share in the spoils.
[67] I heard awful cries of death farther up the hill, but I wasn’t going there. I put the priest’s staff to the ground and took a step-the other way.
Away from the senseless killing. And my regiment. Back toward the city gate.
I would never see Jerusalem in this lifetime.
I was heading home to Sophie.
Part Two . BLACK CROSS
Chapter 21
IT TOOK SIX MONTHS for me to find my way home.
From Antioch, I headed west, toward the coast. I wanted to get as far away from my murderous battalion as I could. I stripped out of my bloody clothing and donned the robes of a pilgrim whose corpse I had stumbled upon. I was a deserter. All promises of freedom made by Raymond of Toulouse were now revoked.
I traveled by night, crossing the barren mountains to St. Simeon, a port held in Christian hands. There, I slept on the docks like a beggar until I managed to convince a Greek captain to let me hitch a ride aboard his ship to Malta. From there, I traded my way onto a Venetian cargo ship carrying sugar and spun cloth back to Europe. Venice … It was still the trek of a lifetime from my little village.
I earned my passage recalling my days as a jongleur with the goliards, reciting tales from La Chanson de Roland and entertaining the crew at their meals with raucous jokes. No doubt the crew had their suspicions of me. Deserters were everywhere, and why else would an able, penniless man be running from the Holy Land?
Every night I had dreams of Sophie, of bringing something precious back to her. Of her blond braids, her delicate, happy [72] laugh. I kept my eyes fixed on the western horizon, her image like a soft trade wind bringing me home.
When we reached Venice, my heart leaped to set foot on European soil. The same soil that led to Veille du Père.
But I was thrown in jail, turned in by the suspicious captain for a fee. I barely had the time to hide my pouch of valuables on the quay before I was tossed in a narrow, stinking hole filled with thieves and smugglers of all nationalities.
The guards all called me Jeremiah, a crazed-looking man in a tattered robe who clung to his staff. I did my best to keep my good humor and pleaded with my jailers that I was only trying to get home to my wife. They laughed. “A lice-filled beast like you has a wife?”
But luck had not run out for me yet. A few weeks later, a local noble paid for the release of ten prisoners as expiation for an offense. One died during the night, so they chose the affable, crazy Jeremiah to round out the number. “Go back to your wife, Frenchie,” the bailiff said as they handed me my staff. “But first, I advise you to find a bath.”
That very night, I found the pouch with my valuables where I had hidden it and began to walk. West across the marshy road to the mainland. Toward home.
I headed across Italy. Every town I came to, I told tales at the local inn for a meal of bread and ale. Farmers and drunks listened spellbound to the siege of Antioch, the ferocity of the Turks, and my friend Nicodemus’s untimely end.
I climbed through the smaller hills and then the Alps. The winds there blew cold and strong. It took a full month to cross them. But finally, as I descended from the peaks, the language that greeted me was French. French! My heart leaped, knowing I was near my home.
The towns became familiar. Digne, Avignon, Nîmes… Veille du Père was only days away. And Sophie.
I started to worry about how it would be. Would she even recognize the haggard mess I had turned into? So often, [73] I pictured her face as I would stand in front of her for that first time. She would be heating soup or making butter, wearing her pretty patterned smock, her blond braids peeking through her. white cap. “Hugh,” she would gasp, too stunned to move. Just Hugh, not another word. Then she would leap into my arms and I would squeeze her as if I had never left. She would touch my face and hands to make sure I was no apparition, then smother me with kisses. One look at my face, my rags, and my sore, bare feet, and Sophie would know immediately what I had been through. “So…” She would do her best to smile. “You have not quite returned a knight after all?”
It was in a damp rain that I finally reached the outskirts of Veille du Père. I went down on my knees.
Chapter 22
THOSE LAST MILES, I almost ran the entire distance. I began to recognize roads I had traveled, sights I was familiar and comfortable with. I tried to put aside everything bad that had happened to me. Nico, Robert, Civetot, Antioch . All of the misery seemed so distant now, unconnected. I was home.
My plight was over. I had arrived, no knight or squire, not even a free man. Yet I felt like the wealthiest noble in the world.
I spotted the familiar bubbly stream and the stone wall that bordered it, which led to town. Gilles’s barley field came into view. Then a bend I knew so well, and the stone bridge up ahead.
Veille du Père …
I stood there, like a beggar over a feast, just a few moments to take it in. I was filled with everything that had happened, the horrors I had put behind me, the many miles and months I had traveled, dreaming only of Sophie’s face, her touch, her smile.
How I wished it were July and I could walk into town bearing a sunflower. I searched out the square. Familiar faces, doing their work. It all seemed just as I remembered. My old friends Odo the smith and Georges the miller… Father Leo’s church…
Our inn…
Our inn! I fixed on it in horror. No, it cannot be…
In the blink of an eye, I knew that everything had changed.
Chapter 23
I BOLTED TOWARD the village square, the pallor of a ghost upon my face.
Children stared at me, then ran toward their houses. “It is Hugh. Hugh De Luc. He’s back from the war,” they shouted.
All that could have seemed familiar about me was my mane of red hair. People rushed up to me, neighbors I recognized, whom I had not set eyes upon in two years, their faces caught between shock and joy. “Hugh, praise God, it is you.”
But I pushed past, barely acknowledging them. I was drawn on a direct path to our inn.
Our home… My heart sank as I came to the spot.
A burned-out hole was left where our inn had once been.
Among the cinders stood a single charred support post that had once held up a two-story structure, built by the hands of my wife’s father.
Our inn had been burned to the ground.
“Where is Sophie?” I muttered, first to the charred ruins of the inn, then to faces in the gathered crowd.
I went from person to person, sure that any moment I would spot her coming back from the well. But everyone stood silently.
My heart began to beat insanely. “Where is Sophie?” I shouted. “Where is my wife?”
[76] Sophie’s older brother, Matthew, finally pushed out of the crowd. When he saw me, his expression shifted-from surprise to a look of deep concern. He stepped forward, hurling his arms around me. “Hugh, I can’t believe it. Thank God you’ve come back.”