Until we were free.
“Sophie, I have something important to talk to you about.” I snuggled into the smooth curve of her back.
She had nearly drifted off to sleep. “Can’t it wait, Hugh? What could be more important than what we’ve just shared?”
I swallowed. “Raymond of Toulouse is forming an army. Paul the carter told me. They leave for the Holy Land in a few days.”
Sophie turned in my arms and faced me with a blank, unsure look.
[22] “I have to go,” I said.
Sophie sat up, almost dumbfounded. “You want to take the Cross?”
“Not the Cross: I wouldn’t fight for that. But Raymond has promised freedom to anyone who joins. Freedom, Sophie… You saw what happened today.”
She sat up straight. “I did see, Hugh. And I saw that Baldwin will never free you from your pledge. Or any of us.”
“In this he has no choice,” I protested. “Raymond and Baldwin are aligned. He has to accept. Sophie, think of how our lives could change. Who knows what I might find there? There are tales of riches just for the taking. And holy relics worth more than a thousand inns like ours.”
“You’re leaving,” she said, turning her eyes from me, “because I have not given you a child.”
“I am not! You mustn’t think that, not even for a moment. I love you more than anything. When I see you each day, working around the inn, or even amid the grease and smoke of the kitchen, I thank God for how lucky I am. We were meant to be together. I’ll be back before you know it.”
She nodded, unconvinced. “You are no soldier, Hugh. You could die.”
“I’m strong. And agile. No one around can do the tricks I do.”
“No one wants to hear your silly jokes, Hugh.” Sophie sniffed. “Except me.”
“Then I’ll scare the infidels off with my bright red hair.”
I saw the outline of a smile from her. I held her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “I will be back. I swear it. Just like when we were children. I always told you I’d return. I always did.”
She nodded, a bit reluctantly. I could see that she was scared, but so was I. I held her and stroked her hair.
Sophie lifted her head and kissed me, a mixture of ardor and tears.
[23] A stirring rose in me. I couldn’t hold it down. I could see in Sophie’s eyes that she felt it too. I held her by the waist and she moved on top of me. Her legs parted and I gently eased myself inside. My body lit with her warmth.
“My Sophie …” I whispered.
She moved with me in perfect rhythm, softly moaning with pleasure and love. How could I leave her? How could I be such a fool?
“You’ll come back, Hugh?” Her eyes locked on mine.
“I swear.” I reached and wiped a glistening tear from her eye. “Who knows?” I smiled. “Maybe I’ll come back a knight. With untold treasure and fame.”
“My knight,” she whispered. “And I, your queen…”
Chapter 6
THE MORNING OF THE DAY I was to leave was bright and clear. I rose early, even before the sun. The town had bid me godspeed with a festive roast the night before. All the toasts had been made and farewells said.
All but one.
In the doorway of the inn, Sophie handed me my pouch. In it was a change of clothes, bread to eat, a hazel twig to clean my teeth. “It may be cold,” she said. “You have to cross the mountains. Let me get your skin.”
I stopped her. “Sophie, it’s summer. I’ll need it more when I come back.”
“Then I should pack some more food for you.”
“I’ll find food.” I pumped out my chest. “People will be eager to feed a Crusader.”
She stopped and smiled at my plain flax tunic and calfskin vest. “You don’t look like much of a Crusader.”
I stood before her, ready to leave, and smiled too.
“There’s one more thing,” Sophie said with a start. She hurried to the table by the hearth. She came back a moment later with her treasured comb, a thin band of beech wood painted with flowers. It had belonged to her mother. Other than the inn, I knew she valued it more than anything in her life. “Take this with you, Hugh.”
[25] “Thanks,” I tried to joke, “but where I’m headed a woman’s comb may be looked at strangely.”
“Where you’re headed, my love, you will need it all the more.”
To my surprise, she snapped her prized comb in two. She handed half to me. Then she held her half out and we touched the jagged edges together, neatly fitting it back into a whole.
“I never thought I would ever say good-bye to you,” she whispered, doing her best not to cry. “I thought we would live out our lives together.”
“We will,” I said. “See?” One more time, we fitted the comb’s halves together and made a whole.
I drew Sophie close and kissed her. I felt her thin body tremble in my arms. I knew she was trying to be brave. There was nothing more to say.
“So…” I took a breath and smiled.
We looked at each other for a long while, then I remembered my own gift. From my vest pocket I took out a small sunflower. I had gone into the hills to pick it early that morning. “I’ll be back, Sophie, to pick sunflowers for you.”
She took it. Her bright blue eyes were moist with tears.
I threw my pouch over my shoulder and tried to drink in the last sight of her beautiful, glistening eyes. “I love you, Sophie.”
“I love you too, Hugh. I can’t wait for my next sunflower.”
I started toward the road. West, to Toulouse. At the stone bridge on the edge of town, I turned and took a long last look at the inn. It had been my home for the past three years. The happiest days of my life.
I gave a last wave to Sophie. She stood there, holding the sunflower, and reached out the jagged edge of her comb one last time.
Then I did a little hop, like a jig, to break the mood, and started to walk, spinning around a final time to catch her laugh.
Her golden hair down to her waist. That brave smile. Her tinkling little-girl laugh.
It was the image I carried for the next two years.
Chapter 7
A year later, somewhere in Macedonia
The heavy-bearded knight reared his mount over us on the steep ridge. “March, you princesses, or the only Turkish blood you’ll see will be at the end of a mop.”
March … We had been marching for months now. Months so long and grueling, so lacking in all provision, I could mark them only by the sores oozing on my feet, or the lice crawling in my beard.
We had marched across Europe and through the Alps. At first in tight formation, cheered in every town we passed, our tunics clean, with bright red crosses, helmets gleaming in the sun.
Then, into the craggy mountains of Serbia -each step slow and treacherous, every ridge ripe with ambush. I watched as many a loyal soul, eager to fight for the glory of God, was swept screaming into vast crevices or dropped in his tracks by Serb or Magyar arrows a thousand miles before the first sign of a Turk.
All along we were told that Peter’s army was months ahead of us, slaughtering infidels and hoarding all the spoils, while our nobles fought and bickered among themselves, and the rest of us trudged like beaten livestock in the blistering heat and bargained for what little food there was.
[27] I’ll be back in a y ear, I had promised Sophie. Now that was just a mocking refrain in my dreams. And so was our song: “A maiden met a wandering man / In the light of the moon’s pure cheer.”