‘Why are you here, Eleanor?’ Godefroi abruptly asked as they stopped before her tent.
‘Because of you,’ she quipped, ‘and you because of me?’
Godefroi laughed self-consciously and shuffled his mud-caked boots.
‘Our life, as Brother Norbert said,’ broke in Hugh, eager to save any embarrassment, ‘is about what we have to do, or not do.’ He stood, hands on hips, staring up at the sky. ‘I know why I am not here,’ he continued quietly. ‘I am not here to kill innocent men, women and children. I am not here to plunder and pillage, ravage and rape.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I am here because I am here. True, I want to see the wonders on the other side of the world. I want to walk the streets of Jerusalem as Our Beloved Lord did, yet there’s something else…’ He shrugged, grasped Eleanor by the arms and kissed her gently on each cheek. Godefroi followed suit, though more awkwardly, then they were gone, their voices shouting farewells through the dark.
Eleanor undid the tent flaps. The lad guarding the tent was fast asleep beside the makeshift brazier. Eleanor roused him and gave him some slices of cheese in a linen rag. Once he was gone, she built up the brazier, tidied the tent and waited for Imogene to arrive. She’d glimpsed the widow woman deep in conversation with Norbert after the meeting had ended. Eleanor recalled Imogene’s words about the Jews. She sat down on a coffer and watched a wisp of mist curl into the tent, thinking about Godefroi’s question. Why was she here? To plead for pardon for the death of her drunken husband? To shake off the guilt of his death and that of her boy child, that glorious little spark of life, that flame that burnt so fiercely yet so briefly in her soul? For Hugh, the brother she adored, father and mother to her? Was it one of these or all of them? Was she part of something she would come to regret? The stories of Count Emicho, William the Carpenter and others revealed terrible savagery. She shuddered at the fate of those poor Jews, yet was she any different from the killers who had butchered them? Surely she was! Nevertheless, Hugh and Godefroi had assured her that once they crossed into the valleys of Sclavonia, fighting would break out, and they too would have to kill.
Eleanor stared at the tent flap. She felt deeply uneasy about Hugh and Godefroi’s reasons for taking the cross. True, they had been crucesignati in Iberia. They revelled in the legends of Roland. They sought absolution for past sins and were tired of the jousting and the tourneying between neighbours, but was there something else? The journey to Jerusalem could be understood, but since leaving the Auvergne, her suspicion had deepened that both knights nursed secrets. What date was it now? The middle of December in the Year of Our Lord 1096. Urban had delivered his sermon at Clermont over a year ago. Yes, that was right! She and Hugh had been in Compiègne when dusty messengers brought the news. She remembered one in particular, cowl thrust back, standing in their smoke-filled hall talking about an evil Turkish prince, Al-Hakim, who had razed the Holy Sepulchre church, inflicting indignities on his own people as well as Christians. Hugh had taken up the summons fervently, but when Norbert the monk had appeared, he began to change, becoming more sombre and reflective.
Eleanor chewed on her lip and quietly rebuked herself. She should have thought of this earlier. The seeds of her suspicions had been sown ten months ago, but she’d ignored them, taken up with the excitement, the frenetic preparations and the journey south to Auvergne. Godefroi’s warm friendship had been most welcome, but again, events had been veiled by a mêlée of preparations. Yes, and something else. Alberic had been a constant visitor, often meeting Hugh and Godefroi by themselves. She recalled what she knew of the parish priest. He was undoubtedly a mysterious man, much better educated than the priests who usually served the village churches. He and Norbert appeared to be old friends. The Benedictine seemed much travelled. Was he an excommunicate monk? Someone expelled by his monastery for making trouble? Jerusalem linked them all, but what bound Hugh, Godefroi, Norbert and Alberic so closely? She had been swept up in the preparations yet she had always sensed something amiss. Hugh had become more austere, praying more often, not so responsive to the laughing glances of the ladies and village girls. Moreover, since they had left the Auvergne, he had tightened the discipline of the Poor Brethren, publishing a divine office of hours, drawing up rules about meetings, dress and even diet. But why?
The march to the borders of Sclavonia had, despite the sheer glory of the mountains, been a tiresome trudge along muddy trackways. Eleanor had had plenty of time to reflect, to become more aware of the growing secrecy around her brother. In many ways Hugh reminded her of those knights from the great romances, who pursued some glorious, mystical vision. One thing she had discovered was Hugh and Godefroi’s absorption with one particular chivalric poem: ‘La Chanson de Voyage de Charlemagne à Jerusalem’. Hugh read this constantly. On several occasions Eleanor had asked to borrow his copy, and Hugh promised he would lend it to her, but he always found an excuse not to. This poem, together with a list of relics, seemed to absorb him whenever he was not busy with the Poor Brethren or conferring with Count Raymond. Eleanor had discovered the list of relics by sheer accident. A memorandum drawn up in Count Raymond’s hand was delivered by accident to her tent rather than Hugh’s. She had asked her brother about its importance but he had dismissed it, declaring that it was simply a list of sacred items he would like to see. So much mystery!
Eleanor shivered against the cold and pulled her wrap closer about her shoulders. She was tired, eager for her narrow cot bed on the far side of the tent, yet she was determined to wait for the widow woman and resolve at least one mystery. She packed a few belongings for tomorrow’s departure. She now regretted the few luxuries she had brought. She dressed the same every day: a linen shift under a brown serge gown with a leather strap around her waist; a deep cowl sheltering her head, whilst her legs and feet were warmed and protected by woollen stockings and ox-hide boots. She also carried a short stabbing sword in a sheath, Hugh had insisted on that. She was just finishing her preparations when Imogene, escorted by Beltran, reached the tent. They whispered their farewells and Imogene slipped in through the flap. As always she carried the battered leather bag containing her precious box. Eleanor smiled; Imogene nodded and crouched over the brazier. Eleanor shook off her tiredness.
‘You were harsh against the Jews.’
Imogene simply shrugged.
‘I mean,’ Eleanor continued, ‘you are, were, of the Jewish faith.’
Imogene’s head came up; her mouth opened and shut.
‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Eleanor smiled. ‘I do not mean to threaten; you just talk in your sleep! Most of it is the jabbering of dreams, but I’ve heard you pray the Shema. You mention the name Rachel, and sometimes you chatter in a patois I cannot understand.’ She came and knelt beside Imogene. ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘no pretence, not now. You are no longer with the rest; there is no need to chant the common hymn. I am not a threat to you. Does Norbert know?’
Imogene nodded, her dark eyes never leaving Eleanor’s face.
‘He knows so much, our wandering monk.’
‘He has been to Constantinople,’ Imogene replied. ‘He and Alberic are more than what they seem; they search for something.’
‘Yes, yes, I have realised that myself, but you…’
Imogene squatted on the floor and pushed back her hood, snatching off the coarse veil beneath. ‘My birth name is Rachel. I am from Iberia on the borders of Andalus. The usual story,’ she continued in a dry monotone. ‘Portents and signs, a bad harvest, loans that could not be repaid. Of course the Jews were to blame, the usual scapegoats. My father was a merchant. He and my mother were trapped in their own house. They were burned to death along with my brothers and two sisters. I was six.’ She smiled nervously. ‘Small for my age. I escaped through a window. Night had fallen. I fled to a neighbour’s house; they were kindly. My father had always told me to trust them. They took me in and sheltered me. I later found they were Jews who’d converted. I became one of them, given a new name and a new life. The couple were still Jewish and secretly continued to practise our religion. They kept the sacred vessels and their copy of the Torah hidden away. They secretly celebrated Yom Kippur, Passover, the Feast of the Tabernacles and the other festivals. They also returned to my parents’ house and gathered what they believed to be their ashes.’