Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“Even though I may infuriate my own emperor?”

“Governments are made to be infuriated,” the Jew replied, but in spite of this daring advice Volkmar decided to wait.

Before a reply could reach Gretz, Gunter and his six knights rode back from their foray up the Rhine, and the party had grown to fourteen enthusiasts, including an attractive girl whom Gunter had acquired in Speyer. At the castle of Gretz he indicated that from now on the girl would be sleeping with him, in one of Matwilda’s rooms, and his sister was outraged, but Gunter ignored her.

“Wherever we rode,” he cried in flushed excitement, “men of great reputation signified that they would join us at the end of the month. Volkmar, you’ve got to come.”

The count refused comment, but Wenzel confided, “At least he’s written to the emperor for a judgment.”

“Volkmar!” the excited young knight cried. “You’re one of us. The emperor gave Conrad of Mainz permission to go.”

“He did?” Volkmar asked cautiously.

“Yes! Conrad’s bringing a troop of nine hundred.”

The words stunned Volkmar. How could the city of Mainz, no larger than Gretz, spare nine hundred men? Who would tend the fields? And for the first time he realized that a sweeping, all-embracing movement was afoot, one which ignored plow fields and ordinary husbandry.

“From Gretz we’ll take away twelve hundred men,” Gunter predicted. “I’ve got Klaus circulating tonight. We’ll need horses and carts, too.” He had discarded his mail suit and appeared in light robes, covered by the tunic which bore the large blue cross, and as he spoke he kept his left arm about the pretty girl whose name no one knew. “It’s an enterprise of great danger, and perhaps I have spoken too much of the principality I intend carving for myself with this right arm. For there is also the matter of God’s will, and Wenzel here can tell you that it is shameful to have the holy places of our Lord in infidel hands. By God,” he cried, striking the table, “it shall not continue.”

He led his strange girl to bed and in the morning assembled his group and rode off, taking with him three more horsemen from Gretz. He had been gone only a short time when from the south a messenger rode in with the emperor’s reply: “We have passed far beyond the matter of Popes. We must win Jerusalem for our Lord Jesus Christ. So if you find it in your heart to fight for the recovery of His homeland, proceed.” When Volkmar heard the words he knelt on the stone and asked Wenzel to bless him; for if his brother-in-law was marching to the Holy Land for a broad mixture of reasons, Volkmar would go for one only: to strike the infidel and drive him from the holy places. Looking up, he laid hold of his priest’s hands and swore, “I take the cross. It is God’s will.”

But when he came to ask Matwilda to sew upon his tunic a red cross he found himself confronted by a problem which he was quite unable to solve, and he walked through the city to Hagarzi’s house, where he was again greeted by the Jew’s pregnant daughter. As soon as he was closeted with the moneylender he burst out, “Hagarzi, I need help.”

“Money?” his friend asked.

“Much more difficult.”

“The only thing more difficult is a man’s wife.”

“Correct. I’ve pledged myself to go crusading …”

“I hope you reach Jerusalem,” Hagarzi replied solemnly.

“We’ve a good army,” Volkmar assured him.

“Then you have a chance.”

“But when I informed my wife I found her sewing the cross on her own garments and on those of our children.”

The moneylender leaned back in his chair and opened his eyes very wide. “She intends going too?”

“Yes, her brother has infected her with his strange dreams.”

“Volkmar,” the banker said earnestly. “I’ve been four times to Constantinople and never were we able to take a woman. It’s a hundred days through dangerous country.”

“She insists.”

God’s Man looked with compassion at his count. The two had worked together on numerous projects and the amount of gold that Hagarzi had contributed to works initiated by the count could not be calculated, for the Jew had long since stopped keeping accounts. Of Volkmar’s friends only Hagarzi could appreciate what decisions the count was now facing. In such crises the experienced Jew had found it was best to speak frankly: “Volkmar, if a hundred men leave Gretz headed for Jerusalem and back, fighting Hungarians, Bulgarians, Turks …”

“Last time you said that Hungarians and Bulgarians are now Christians.”

“They are, but you’ll still have to fight them.”

“It’s the infidel we intend fighting,” Volkmar protested.

“Of a hundred men who leave, nine will be lucky if they return.”

Volkmar was stunned. He had thought that fighting the infidels in Jerusalem would be much like fighting the Normans in Sicily. A few would die on each side, but most would come home with here and there a scar. The Jew continued, “So if you leave us, there is little chance that I’ll ever see you again.” He hesitated. “Or that your countess will, either.”

“You would take her?” Volkmar asked.

“Yes. But not your son. We’ll need a count in Gretz.”

Volkmar sighed and looked at the row of folios above the moneylender’s head; the castle owned not one. He asked, “Could you lend me gold on the fields across the river?”

“Of course. But if you go you must leave a will protecting me.”

Without deciding then, the count left the banker’s house and walked through the market, where women sold the first fruits of spring—fine onions and beans—and when he reached the castle he did something that he had not done for a long time. He kissed his son, then ripped from the boy’s shoulder the red cross which his mother had that morning sewed to the tunic. “You are not going.” The boy began to weep and Volkmar summoned his family. They gathered in a cold, bare room, for the German castle of that period was little better than a commodious barn with stone flooring. The chairs were rough, the table unsmoothed and the linen coarse. A damp smell of horses and urine permeated the place and there were no fabrics to soften the effect of the sweating walls. Painting and music were unknown, but an open fire kept the dank rooms reasonably comfortable in winter, and there was plentiful food, cooked pretty much as barbarian forefathers had cooked it six centuries before.

“Matwilda and Fulda will ride with me,” Volkmar announced, “Otto will stay home to hold the castle with his uncle.” He drew his son to him and held the boy’s chin to keep it from trembling.

Matwilda, then in her middle thirties and as attractive as when Volkmar had ridden north to court her, was pleased with the news that she could make the trip, and she understood why Otto had better stay at home. She consoled her son, then listened as her husband summoned Wenzel and a scribe: “If I should not return, the fields across the river are to become the property of the monastery at Worms, which shall first discharge the debt I owe to the Jew, Hagarzi, known in Gretz as God’s Man. The castle, the town and all lands pertaining to both shall become the property of my good wife Matwilda, or if she do not return, to my son Otto.” The detailed description continued, the thoughtful words of a man who loved God, his family and his fief, concluding with a final paragraph that was to be much quoted in later years when men tried to penetrate the motives which had inspired the Crusaders: “Let it be known that I am marching to Jerusalem because the will of God should be respected in this world and because the scenes in which our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, lived should not remain in pagan hands. I am marching with a goodly band, and we have placed ourselves entirely in the hands of God, for we go forth as His servants to accomplish His will.” When the words were read aloud to him he nodded and made his mark, which as it appears on the document today resembles the red cross he was wearing as he signed.