Part II - The Road to Awe and Wonder

[twasadark]

 

-*-

Tristan spent the next week scrounging bread from the baker, hoeing gardens for the priests, and watching Jensen as he came and went from his inn to the Morden villa each day. He had some vague notion of revenging himself against the knight, but somehow he never gathered the courage to do anything about it. Instead, he watched, without really understanding his fascination with the man.

The bells signaling morning prayers had just rung when Jensen passed by, dodging people on the street, head bowed and an attitude of contemplation in the set of his shoulders. Tristan jerked upright from where he had been leaning against a shop wall, tossing a knucklebone in the air and wondering if he could find a game of chance somewhere. He slipped into the flowing crowd, walking swiftly to keep sight of Jensen. It wasn’t hard to follow him – he was taller than most save Tristan himself.

He changed direction suddenly, turning left down an anonymous street. Tristan ducked after him, wondering where he was going – the route to Jensen’s inn was not this direction. He had no sooner rounded the corner than a pair of strong hands grabbed him by the collar and yanked him forward, dangerously close to Jensen’s annoyed face.

“Are you planning on knifing me in the back, or is there another reason you are trailing me?” His voice was low and tight.

 “I, uh … I have no ill intent. I was just on my way to the apothecary and I saw you walking by—“

“And yesterday, when you followed me as well? And the day prior to that?”

Tristan swallowed, tried to think. It didn’t work. He just stood there, gaping, his face heating up.

Jensen considered him briefly, took in the stumbling words and the dull red flush of embarrassment crawling up his neck. “Are you willing to work or is your energy spent entirely on trying to bite the hand that feeds you?”

“W-Work?” Tristan stammered, confused and addled. He cleared his throat, tried to think. “During high season I ran the bellows for the blacksmith back in Toulouse …”

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “That is all? A healthy young fellow like yourself?”

“No, of course not. I helped him shoe horses and carried kindling, and oiled the weapons. I’ve dug ditches and hauled bricks and –“

Jensen waved him off. “Enough. Now tell me, can you take an order without backtalk?”

“When I need to.”

“And the stealing? Is that something you make a habit of as well or was our first encounter a solitary event?”

“No!” Tristan stopped himself. “Well, yes, but I am sorry for the stealing. I confessed my sins and accepted penance.”

Jensen gave a little grin. “Yes, I’m sure you did.” He turned on his heel and strode off down the street, saying over his shoulder, “Come on, then. I have a task for you.”

Tristan practically tripped over his own feet scrambling after Jensen, who headed straightway to his inn on the east side of the city, near the river.  There, he motioned for Tristan to follow him up the cramped stairway to his room on the second floor. Without warning, Jensen snatched his gauntlets, helmet, and chain mail from their hiding place beneath his sagging straw bed and piled them up in Tristan’s arms. The weight made his arms droop.

 “Bring me these oiled and polished in the morning, and perhaps I will have a job for you,” Jensen said.

Tristan felt his face split open in a grin. “Yes, sir! I know just how to treat these – I do.”

“Yes, well, we shall see about that.”

“I will do you proud, my lord.”

“Now, none of that. I’m no lord. Not any longer. You may call me Jensen, or sir, should you please.”

“Yes, Jensen sir.” Tristan could scarcely believe his luck – how stupid was this warrior who had bested him? His natural skepticism reared up.  “Why trust me?” he asked.

“Why not?”

That rather stumped Tristan, who did not know how to respond, and instead just turned away.

“Oh, and Tristan? Should I be forced to hunt you down because you sold them to some passing merchant, I shall be most displeased.”

Tristan gave a quick bow, trying to look trustworthy and eager to please. “I will make you proud, sir.”

-*-

Jensen could not say why, later, but he slept well that night, released from the dreams that normally haunted each evening. He thought of the road ahead, the many privations and hardships that were to come, and the wonders he would see, the towering mountains and still glassy lakes, the varied peoples that walked the earth. Marvels, all.

Tristan was nowhere to be seen the next morning, dew frozen overnight and the sharp chill of dawn matching the bright light through the oaks. Jensen wondered if he was wrong about the boy, the longing he had thought he saw in Tristan’s eyes. Yes, he probably was.

He set off to Morden’s decayed Roman villa at a swift pace, the chill of the morning reddening his fingers and making them cramp. On the way he was hindered by a funeral procession, complete with wailing women and black-garbed mourners carrying a flimsy-looking wooden casket through the streets, incense smoking and thick in their wake. 

When he arrived at Morden’s place he was surprised to see Lady Alona in the courtyard, directing the delivery of hay to the stables. She looked at him, eyes bright and cheeks red, and said merrily, “Early again, Jensen? I’m afraid the master of the house is yet asleep. Won’t you come inside and break your fast with me?”

There was much to be done yet. Supplies to be ordered. Maps to be commissioned. Street urchins to hunt down … but, time enough for those later.  He followed Alona’s slight figure into the kitchen, and sat on the wooden bench at a table filled with meats, cheeses, and thick dark bread. She served him from her own hand, her movements brisk and confident, her brown eyes alight with humor as they had not been at their initial meeting. Servants jostled one another as they came and went, some drawing water and others carrying wood or tools or laundry to be washed at the well in the center of town.

Alona was dainty as she ate, pale fingers plucking at the bread and dividing it into small morsels before it disappeared past her plump red lips. He tried not to look, and thought instead of pleasantries he might speak of. She watched him, frank and quiet, and just as he opened his mouth she said, “You are curious, are you not? About my purpose in this pilgrimage.”

About a woman so young and so determined. Yes, he was. But he thought it was not polite to say. “I imagine it has the same purpose as a thousand other pilgrims. Devotion, duty, the request of a matter of body or soul.”

“You care not which?”

“I know not which. Each is a laudable goal.”

“Laudable …” she said, as if speculating on that possibility. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We shall see if my petition is granted.”

He inclined his head in agreement. Who was he to say what God might do for those who took the pilgrim’s route?

“Your face is brown,” she observed. “Your arms as well. You’ve been outside the cloudy lands of your forebears for some time.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “Years.” He calculated in his head, said with surprise, “Two, now, since I’ve been gone.”

“Irish monks have come here before, when I was a child. Three of them, with stringy long hair and priests’ habits and wild eyes. I remember their fervor, and their hope. They were on a peregrinatio, a wandering, they knew not where day by day, but only went as the spirit of God directed them.”

Jensen thought of the hermits in the desert, the saints sitting atop poles or rooted in the earth, the signs and wonders he had seen in the glittering cities of Byzantium. The golden icons and sweet perfume, the filth and illness and degradation that affects the poor everywhere. He had been fed by nuns and nursed in sickness by monks who lived atop a hill overlooking the ocean, in Italy. He had watched peasants stomping grapes at harvest-time, had seen others eating juicy oranges as they rested and laughed like life was merry and full of jest.

“There are many such along the roads, wanderers for the faith,” he volunteered.

“I have lived my entire life traveling no farther than the ten miles from the place of my birth,” she said. “But on the day after Easter I am off to the other side of the world.”

It was a fearsome journey, he knew. Many perished on the road, as many as those who went a little ways and turned back because of the hardships.

“I will see you there,” he said. “You will be sheltered as much as I can manage.”

She laughed – a delighted sound that was sweet and short. When she looked at him, her cheeks shone with happiness, her dark eyes lively and intelligent. “Then I am blessed, Jensen of Ackerely.”

“Indeed,” he responded. “It seems so.”

The door swung open to admit Geoffrey, hair freshly combed, fingers straightening his jerkin as he went. His face lit up with pleasure at seeing Jensen. “You are earlier each day, Jensen! Come, the Reggio Brothers’ messenger came yesterday after you left. I have many missals to show you.”

Alona smiled fondly at her husband, and made a shooing motion to Jensen. “Go, please, the days grow short before Easter comes.”

Jensen nodded farewell to her and followed Morden to his private study, where scrolls and vellum and inkpots lay scattered about. Despite the fact that he did not like rising from his bed early, Morden was filled with energy in the mornings, and he chattered on tirelessly for at least an hour about supply depots and banking arrangements, urging Jensen to commit the names of contacts and their positions in the clergy or government to his memory. It had been a long time since Jensen had needed to remember so many details, and he looked with trepidation on the expanding leather pouch filled with seals, letters, scrolls, and maps that was his responsibility to oversee.

Morden paused in his ramblings at one point, took a breath as though to say more, and then paused again. Jensen watched him, curious. Morden was not a man to mince words.

“You have wondered, perhaps, why I do not take my lady wife on this pilgrimage myself?” Morden said.

Jensen shrugged, trying not to look too interested. “You mentioned that your estates would suffer. And, I wager, you must be present to direct the business of your warehouses?”

Morden owned a number of warehouses that housed a smooth red wine shipped from the surrounding countryside. He then worked with merchants and agents to ship that wine across the sea from Corsica and Ravenna to Constantinople itself.

“You know also that I am a Saxon lord. There are those hereabouts who do not wish for a foreigner to have such sway with the long-haired kings here. Were I to leave for any length of time they would conspire with the mayor of the palace to have me sent back to English shores. My wife is Frankish – my home is Frankish – I would rather prefer to remain Frankish as well. You understand, then, why I cannot go?”

“Yes, of course,” Jensen replied.

Morden went to the small table that served as his desk and brushed aside some scrolls, revealing a wooden box the length of a forearm. His knuckles showed white as he stood gripping it, looking at Jensen with serious dark eyes.

“I have heard tales of the fate of some pilgrims, overwhelmed by the Saracens, the way the women have been brought low and defiled, used or sold to the slave traders for work in brothels. I cannot bear the thought of that happening to Alona. I beg of you to do all in your power to protect her.”

“I will, I swear it,” Jensen replied.

“And should your efforts fail, then I expect you to keep her from such a fate.” He took the lid off the box and showed Jensen a gleaming dagger, wickedly sharp. His eyes met Jensen’s. “Take it.”

Jensen did as he was commanded, sliding his palm around the cool metal. It was a well weighted piece. As expensive as it was deadly.

“Should the time come that there is no other choice but to surrender or die, then I beg of you to deal with my wife mercifully.”

Jensen met Morden’s eyes and swallowed. The thought of slicing Alona’s beautiful pale throat made his stomach twist like an eel.

“You have sworn to me that you will protect her and honor her. Will you swear to me also that you will be merciful should fate turn ill?” Jensen had never seen Morden so grave.

Jensen felt his face pale and his lips harden, felt his heart thump in wild, erratic beats. He bowed his head and pledged.

-*-

Tristan approached Jensen that afternoon, as the knight stood in the courtyard of Morden’s villa, taking leave of the man himself. He noticed Tristan right away; an expression of wary pleasure broke upon his face.  The skin at his eyes crinkled when he smiled.  “I thought I must need hunt you down,” he said in greeting.

Tristan shrugged, moody and embarrassed and angry. In truth, he had taken the fine armor to the nearest blacksmith to sell for what denars he could pocket. But something had kept him from it. He could not say what, though it troubled him. He thrust out the armor, which shone after hours spent polishing it.

Jensen took it, held the chain mail up, examined the gauntlets and the seams and tiny places of the helmet, the metal making little clinking noises, counterpoint to his grunts of acceptance.

“Well done,” he said. “Even if it is somewhat late.”

The pleasure Tristan felt at the compliment warmed him unexpectedly.

“I have need of a servant to travel to the Holy Land with me. I will see that you are fed and clothed, and that you work no harder than I, and have the Sabbath to do with as you please, on the days that we stop. What do you say?”

Tristan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why would you want me around every day?”

Jensen gave a short laugh. “For sure, it is your sunny demeanor and trusting nature.”

“I don’t—my what?”

“You are in need of honest work, are you not?”

Tristan shrugged. “Well, yes, but why would you wish for my companionship?”

“It was you who followed me these past weeks. I suggest only that we make our arrangement more official. Besides, for some reason that I cannot fathom, I think you are not entirely a bad sort.”

Tristan looked out at the city streets where laborers and housewives and clerics passed by, each on their own separate ways to separate lives, none of which involved him. He thought of his existence, so hard and scrabbling and dirty, of the alley beside the church where he had slept these past months, in the rain and in the cold, and how his mother would want him to make something of himself, something more than what he was right now.

“I think I would--” he paused, and cleared his throat so that his voice came out stronger, more confident. “I think I would like that very much.”

“Good!” Jensen said with a smile. “Together we will make a fine pair.”

“I will make it so,” Tristan promised. And only now was the haze clearing from his mind and genuine pleasure lightening his heart.

Jensen paused, his smile fleeing. “But Tristan, I warn you, I will brook no thievery, no sloth and no cruelty.”

He was taken aback for a moment, then defiant as he so often was. “Nor shall I of you,” Tristan said boldly.

Jensen looked at him sidewise as he slipped his hands inside the gauntlets. “Then you shall be a living reminder of my need to walk a righteous path in life.”

Tristan could not help but be stunned at Jensen’s response. What would Mother say now, to hear that her son would be responsible for the moral guidance of a knight? He thought of the trouble he was continually getting in as a child, and, truthfully, as a youth as well, and imagined that she would laugh aloud at the notion. The thought made him smile at first. Then it bothered him to realize that he could not remember the sound of her laughter any longer, though it had been only six months since the fever had come upon her and she withered away to a cold dead thing.

 Jensen was talking, striding through the stables and explaining what Tristan’s duties were in clipped, expectant tones. He hurried after the knight, resolving to remember the directions after but one telling.

Tristan pushed the thought of his mother to the side, to dwell upon in the wee hours of the night when he rested, and perhaps then to weep over her as he had not yet done.

Later, when the time came for quiet, and solitude, he felt her loss burning a deep hole in his gut, but no tears came.

Not then and not for a long time after.

-*-

Jensen rose before dawn, and dressed by the light of a single candle, the armor heavy and familiar upon his frame. He was too anxious and preoccupied about the day ahead to eat, so he merely gathered his pack and left the inn in silence, the breath ghosting out from him as he walked the route to Morden’s villa one last time, the dull glow of oil lamps in some of the dwelling places and shops a sign that the world was awakening around him.

He followed the darkened alleyway near the church to its termination in a brick wall. A shapeless dark bulk in the corner stirred a bit. He went to the form and hunkered down next to Tristan, wrapped in a ratty blanket that smelled of garbage, whose dark hair fell in his face. Jensen nudged Tristan in the shoulder, and the boy made a querulous reply, low and wordless.

“Come, it is time,” Jensen said lowly, and rose with a grunt, tugging Tristan with him.

Tristan came slowly, stiffly, and poked about in the garbage heap that was apparently his dwelling place before rising to his full height and smoothing back the tangled mass of his hair. A battered old rucksack hung from his shoulder, all the possessions he had in the world.

Jensen looked about with a frown. He had not expected that Tristan lived in a palace, to be sure, but this was hardly more than a den, stinking and cold and pitiful. Tristan’s mouth flattened in a tight line when he noticed Jensen’s gaze, and he turned aside and headed toward Morden’s villa. Jensen followed him, secure in the knowledge that at least Tristan would sleep more comfortably tonight, on the road.

When morning dawned not long after it was cold and bright, and as beautiful as any Jensen could recall. He sat astride the white gelding called Purity at the head of the entire caravan. They stood poised on a hill directly out of the town’s walls as the bishop himself led the ceremony, the low chants of the mass rising like mist and comforting Jensen’s anxious heart. Truly it was as Solomon said – there is nothing new under the sun. God would have mercy on them and see them to their destination, or not. Life was really not so complicated, when one got down to the bones of it.

Alona sat still and comely on a bay gelding, swathed in sky blue robes to protect her skin from the sun and the cold. Morden stood next to his wife, his broad shoulders straight. He glanced at her frequently, anxious, as though looking at her for the last time. Jensen glanced away as the two clasped hands and whispered to one another.

When the time came, he saluted Morden, and nudged Purity forward on a gentle walk, the creak of the saddle low and whispering. Tristan walked beside him, wearing a floppy brimmed hat that one of the house servants had given him. Behind came the group of twenty-odd pilgrims – Alona, her two lady’s maids, the twelve guardsmen and eight servants. The gentle clomp of the twelve horses and six mules, and the squeaking wheels from the three supply wagons resounded off the hillsides. Most of the group walked, silent and thoughtful at first and then chattering gaily as the morning stretched on and warmed up.

They traveled ten miles that first day, slow miles over gentle country, rolling hills and along the rock paving on the old Roman road. Tristan led a long-eared mule that he called Henry.

“Henry?” Jensen asked, dubious and amused.

“Henry is a strong name,” Tristan said, patting Henry’s gray, strong neck.

“It is well that you have such affection for him, since you are responsible for his care,” Jensen pointed out.

“So it is,” Tristan agreed. “Would that I had such affection for all my duties.” He slid a sly glance at Jensen.

“Hmmph,” Jensen replied, then aimed a light kick at the back of Tristan’s head, the doing of which caused a minor scuffle as they swatted at one another, laughing, until Jensen remembered that his place as leader of this expedition probably did not allow for such foolishness.

Part III