Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“But the true God, and He commands you to ride with us.”

Not only did Volkmar refuse to ride with this rabble; he was sorry that he had volunteered to feed the children who now pressed in from all sides. If the little man on the donkey were indeed a servant of the False Pope it could be embarrassing for the Count of Gretz to be caught assisting him, and he seriously considered canceling the order so as not to implicate himself. But at this moment events were swept out of his hands, for from the gates of his city a mob of his town folk began rushing out to greet the little priest.

“Peter! Peter!” they shouted as one wave after another crowded to touch his robe or to caress the donkey. Some tried to pull hairs from the beast’s coat, but these were driven back by men protecting the priest.

“It is God’s will,” the priest shrieked in his high, cracked voice. He was a thin wisp of a man, about forty-five years old, driven by some tremendous inner compulsion which flashed in his eyes. “I have been sent to call you to your duty.”

The people of Gretz listened in wonder as he told them that they could be saved from the impending end of the world only if they marched with him. Listening to his wild words Count Volkmar became more convinced that the man must be avoided, and he led his family back through the ranks of his own townsmen until he was safe within the city wall. “Let none of that mob enter Gretz,” he commanded the guards.

His bailiff now came up. “Sir, if you want food for all those children you’ll have to give me extra money.” Volkmar considered this for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.

“We said we’d feed them,” he replied with no enthusiasm. He left the gate, where the children were making a fearful noise, and retreated in some confusion to his castle, from which he continued to look down on the growing mob. “There’s a lot more than twenty thousand people down there,” he told his wife, after which he prudently summoned the captain of his guard and instructed him: “Without attracting attention, close the gates, and if any should try to force entrance you bowmen are to shoot them down.” It would not be said of him that he had trafficked with the False Pope.

Since food had already appeared, the pilgrims did not protest when the gates swung shut. Posterns were opened through which more food was passed, and finally the feeding of the children was completed. Parents, obviously starved, were allowed to grab the last scraps, while the cooks—looking over their shoulders lest the count see them—passed bundles of food to the little priest and his immediate entourage, whereupon the great mass started to move slowly onward toward the towns of Mainz and Worms and Speyer.

“It’s surprising how well the little priest maintains order,” Volkmar said grudgingly to his wife as they watched the dusty mob move off, but Matwilda uttered a sharp cry when the carts bearing families appeared at the rear of the procession, for she could see the privation under which the women and babies attached to this congregation moved. Surrounded by scrawny cattle, only a few of which were giving milk, these unfortunates lived in dust and danger.

“I’m sorry for them,” she sighed. “They shouldn’t be attempting such a journey.”

“Damn!” her husband shouted. “Who’s that at the end?” His wife followed his pointing finger and saw six or eight families from Gretz taking their places among the pilgrims.

“They’re our people,” she confirmed.

Thundering down the castle stairs Volkmar rushed to the gates, ordered the guards to follow him, and ran bareheaded out to intercept his travelers. “Hans!” he asked one. “Where are you going?”

“To Jerusalem,” the slow-witted field hand replied.

“Do you know where Jerusalem is?” the count demanded.

“Over there,” the man replied, pointing toward Paris.

“You get back behind the walls,” Volkmar growled impatiently. He summoned his guards, who cut the would-be pilgrims off from the disappearing mob. “What’s that on your shoulder?” the count asked one of the men.

“The cross of Jesus Christ our Saviour,” the man replied.

“Take it off,” Volkmar said, brushing at the offensive bits of frayed cloth, but his hand was stayed by that of Wenzel, who had followed the count to check on what might happen.

“Sir, if these men wish to follow the way of our Lord, they must be permitted.”

Volkmar wheeled to confront his priest, shorter by a head than he. “These men and women are needed to work my fields. Guards, get them back inside the walls.” The guards started to do so, but the priest continued his argument.

“Would you oppose the will of God?” he asked.

The question stunned Volkmar, for he was a man obedient to the law of Christ, but now his priest was asking him to reach conclusions on matters which he did not comprehend and he reacted roughly. “Inside the walls!” he shouted, and placing himself in the roadway with his arms spread wide like the branches of a cross, he barred the way. Grudgingly the would-be Crusaders filed back through the gates as Priest Wenzel blessed them for their holy effort, and when the gray-haired churchman finally turned to reprove the count, Volkmar growled, “No people of mine will follow the commands of a False Pope.”

But his voice carried little conviction, for he had begun to weigh the words of Wenzel: were his peasants, in trying to join the marchers, acting in accordance with Christ’s wish? Perplexed, he was about to retreat to his castle when he saw his bailiff dragging back into the city the pots that had been used for feeding. “How much did it cost?” the count asked.

“We’ll need six gold pieces to pay the merchants,” the red-faced bailiff estimated.

“I should have watched my tongue,” Volkmar commented ruefully, and as he spoke he saw in the square near the gates a group of people obviously agitated by something that one of their members held, and he elbowed his way into the mob. “What’s this?” he demanded.

“Klaus caught a hair from the priest’s donkey,” a woman explained, pointing with local pride to a man who stood with his hands cupped as if they contained gold.

“Let me see,” Volkmar commanded, and the man moved forward and slowly opened his hands, disclosing one gray donkey’s hair. The count was about to sweep away the blasphemous relic, but he saw the joy it had brought Klaus and the admiration it elicited from the mob. Disturbed, he turned his back on the stupid peasants and their donkey’s hair.

He walked to the southeastern corner of his city in search of someone with common sense with whom he could discuss the perplexing events of the morning, and he came at last to a fine house, cross-timbered in front and four stories high, nestled against the protecting wall of the city. “Anybody awake?” he shouted outside the front door, and in a moment a young girl, obviously pregnant and contented with that fact, threw open the heavily barred door and cried, “Count Volkmar! Come in. Father’s here.” She led the count through a hallway containing massive pieces of furniture and into an inner room where a remarkable man sat waiting in a long robe of Venetian material edged by a fur collar. He was in his mid-forties, a congenial, quick-eyed Jew with a black beard and a gold-embroidered cap, and the impression he created was one of unusual competence: in negotiation this one would be alert, in discussion judicious, and in physical crisis courageous. He nodded to Volkmar as the girl announced, “Father, it’s the count.”

To this impressive room, lined with folios, Volkmar was no stranger. Often he had come here to borrow money, more often to discuss gossip or to pick up bits of political information, for the man in the gold cap could read and write and in his earlier years had traveled to many lands. “Hagarzi,” Volkmar said, speaking as friend to equal. “I need six pieces of gold until the crops are in.” To this proposal the moneylender nodded, as if that part of the visit concerned him little.