Джеймс Миченер - The Source

As always, when Count Volkmar left Hagarzi he had his money, which he handed over to his bailiff. He then walked disconsolately to his castle and slowly climbed the stairs to where his wife sat at breakfast with the children, but he had not had time to tell her of Hagarzi’s prediction about the competing Popes when a servant ran in to inform him that strangers were riding down the road from Cologne. The family went onto the battlements, from which they saw a cloud of dust sweeping energetically toward the city. “It must be half a dozen horsemen,” Volkmar estimated, and as he studied the approaching cyclone he craned his neck forward to see who might be causing it.

At last, as the men drew close to the wall, he discerned that the foremost rider was dressed in a light suit of mail, his helmet and shield at his side. Over the metal suit he wore a long tunic of white upon which had been stitched a large cross in blue. Then the man’s head became discernible, a handsome, commanding blond head with clean-shaven chin and blue eyes.

“It’s Gunter!” Matwilda cried happily as she ran down to greet her brother.

When the seven knights from Cologne were seated in the hall, with Gunter clanking his metaled feet, the exciting news was broken. “We’ve taken the cross,” the young German announced. “Within the month we’ll march to Jerusalem. When we leave we’ll have fifteen thousand men with us, and you’re going along.”

“Me!” Volkmar ejaculated.

“You! And Conrad of Mainz and Henry of Worms. Everyone.”

“I do not follow the commands of a False Pope,” Volkmar protested.

“To hell with the Pope!” Gunter shouted. “Clement, Urban? Who gives a damn? Brother, in the Holy Land there are kingdoms to be won, and no quarrel about Popes must separate us from such booty.”

The knights who had ridden forth with Gunter on his conscripting tour nodded, and one asked Matwilda, “Wouldn’t you like to be Queen of Antioch or Princess of Jerusalem?”

“I’d like to see Gunter with such lands,” she replied, for she knew how strenuously her younger brother wanted a fief of his own.

“But I’m quite content here in Gretz,” Volkmar insisted.

“Don’t you want to go crusading?” his brother-in-law shouted. “Everyone else in the Rhineland does.” He dashed to the platform overlooking the public square and bellowed, “You down there? How many of you want to march to Jerusalem and rescue it from the heathen?”

A shout welled up and echoed through the castle. One man cried, “Klaus has a hair from the donkey of Peter the Hermit.”

At mention of the little priest’s name Gunter scowled, then yelled to the crowd, “In one week all able-bodied men who want to march with me to Jerusalem …” Now the shouting grew frenzied and the blond knight waved his arms, but when he returned to the table he slumped noisily into his chair and muttered, “That damned monk. He hasn’t a chance of getting to Jerusalem.”

“You think not?” Volkmar asked.

“You saw him. Were there ten men in his twenty thousand capable of fighting? Peasants, old women.” The young man rose and stamped about the room, his mailed feet clanging on the stones. “Volkmar, to recapture Jerusalem for Jesus Christ we need soldiers, men trained to war. The Turks are terrible fighters …”

“And you are determined to go against them?” Matwilda asked.

Gunter leaped across the room and knelt beside her. “Sister! Some fighting man who leaves Europe this month is going to be crowned King of Jerusalem. Half a dozen others are going to hack out great marches for themselves. I intend to be one of those men.” Then, somewhat ashamed of his personal outburst, he pointed to one of his companions, adding, “And Gottfried here will gain another.” Volkmar and his wife looked at Gottfried, a chinless fool. The knight grinned and nodded. He, too, intended to win a barony in the Holy Land.

Then Gunter’s wild ambition again surged to the fore and he cried, “One month from today, on May 24, we shall march forth from Gretz, fifteen thousand, twenty. And you shall be with us.” He kissed his sister good-bye and swept down the castle stairs, eager to spread the word of his crusade to the other Rhenish cities. At the gate he saw Klaus still clutching his donkey hair, and he shouted, “Can you get a horse, man?”

“Yes,” Klaus called back.

“Then ride with us,” Gunter cried. “I need a servant who is lucky.” And when the seven knights rode off to the south Klaus of Gretz rode with them.

When they were gone, and the excitement had subsided, Wenzel of Trier came quietly to his lord and said, “It is my opinion, sir, that you should take the cross.”

“Why?” Volkmar asked in deep seriousness.

“Because it is the will of God,” Wenzel replied.

“Those are the words of the False Pope’s man,” Volkmar countered.

“In this great matter, believe me, Volkmar, there is no false Pope, there is no true. There is only the call of God. The holy city, the land of our Lord Jesus Christ, is held by the infidel and we are summoned to redeem it.”

Count Volkmar leaned back, disturbed. “You speak as if you …”

“One month from today,” the hard-eyed priest announced, “I shall ride with the others.”

“But why?” Volkmar pressed. “You have a chapel here. We need you.”

“And we need you in Jerusalem.”

For a week Count Volkmar pondered the invitation that Gunter had so forcefully laid before him, and each day Wenzel of Trier, his stern face staring out from beneath the gray hair he wore in bangs, added his priestly pressure; a spiritual movement without comparison was under way and any man of courage who missed it would be forever ashamed. Wenzel never spoke of kingdoms or principalities; in his heart was the call of God and he did not want his master to ignore that call.

On the succeeding Saturday, Count Volkmar, who could neither read nor write, summoned Wenzel to draft a cautious letter of inquiry to the German emperor, asking whether a Rhenish knight could properly respond to the crusading summons of the False Pope, who also happened to be French; and this was a more delicate question than it might have seemed, since the French Pope had recently excommunicated the German emperor and there was personal bitterness between them, and while Volkmar waited for a reply he went to discuss the matter with Hagarzi, God’s Man, and the Jew listened as the big, awkward count explained his dilemma: “I want to serve God, but I do not want to anger my emperor. How can a German emperor give permission to his knights to follow the orders of a French Pope, who isn’t even legal?”

The moneylender laughed, and grasping the edges of his robe with both hands, said: “Count Volkmar, if you’ve decided to go on the Crusade …”

“I have no intention of going,” the count protested.

Ignoring the disclaimer Hagarzi continued, “Be guided by the story of one of our great rabbis, Akiba. The question arose of blowing the ram’s horn in a new city, because Jerusalem, which alone had the right to sound such a horn, had been destroyed by the Romans, What to do? Akiba and his liberals argued, ‘Let us sound the horn here and establish a new Jerusalem.’ But the conservatives countered, ‘Only in Jerusalem may the horn be sounded. And Jerusalem is no more.’ So Akiba made this proposal: ‘The hour is upon us. Let us blow the horn now and resume the argument later.’ So they blew the horn. Then came the conservatives to argue, but Akiba pointed out, ‘What’s to discuss? The horn has been blown. A precedent has been set. In the future we must like good Jews observe that precedent.’”

The two men laughed, and Hagarzi said, “Believe me, Volkmar. Don’t wait for the emperor’s reply. Decide now what must be done, then do it.”