Pilgrims of Promise(67)

“Who would desert the Templars?” quizzed Wil.

The soldier lowered his lance and turned his eyes on the donkey. “Have you any beer?”

Wil shook his head. “No.”

“Then our little chat is done. Begone or swing.” The soldier raised his lance again and set his jaw.

Wil scowled and wheeled about to his fellows. “We’ve no business here! We’re off.”

Otto’s face fell. He marched past the soldiers and called to them. “When’s the feast?”

“Eh?”

“Midsummer’s. When is it?”

The soldiers roared. “‘Twas yesterday, ye fools!”





Feeling discouraged for the first time in many days, the pilgrims marched sluggishly across the wide plain that stretched from Burgdorf to Olten. Behind them rose the great Alps, their rough peaks aligned like sentinels guarding their backs. Ahead, the distant horizon was softened by the gentler mountains that stood between them and Basel.

Murmuring and despondent, they had traveled less than a league when Pieter suddenly stopped, angrily raised his staff, and rebuked his fellows with a scalding reprimand. “Enough!” he cried. “You shuffle along like so many spoiled little lords and ladies. Minstrel, you’ve the look of an angry child. Otto and Helmut, stop your grumbling. By the saints, you turn your heads to the ground for missing a pitiful feast? How quickly you’ve forgotten what sufferings really are! Ahead we’ll soon pass the graves of our friends who drowned; behind we passed the bones of others lost to fever and to violence. Look at yourselves. Well fed, well clothed, carrying gold and silver aplenty and yet wanting more!”

The pilgrims stared at their feet shamefaced. The old man had hit the mark squarely, and each knew it. Since San Fruttuoso they had been restored by mercy and refreshed by grace. How easily they had forgotten.

Pieter sighed, then withdrew from the line toward the shoulder of the highway. A mocking voice followed him from the rear. “Pieter, always rebuking, never rebuked.” It was Tomas.

Ignoring the young man, Pieter bent low to the ground, then lay prostrate in the dust to pray for his beloved. “‘Even when our wounds are scarcely healed, our ungrateful minds forget. If you hear us quickly, we become haughty from mercy. If you are slow, we complain in impatience.’ O Lord, hear our cry. Forgive us our doubts; help our unbelief. Be merciful to all of us, Your ungrateful children.”

Suddenly, the ground began to shake, and it was as the sound of thunder rolling across the landscape. All faces whirled about, wide eyed. “There!” cried Wil. “Soldiers!”

“Quick, everyone. To the cover of the wood!” Heinrich snatched Maria under his arm and led the charge to a patch of woodland about a bowshot east of the highway. As they ran, more horsemen could be seen charging from the opposite direction. “Run!” cried Heinrich. “Run!”

Pieter struggled to his feet, then stumbled and fell. Wil abruptly reversed course to help. With a grunt, he picked up the spindly priest and carried him in his arms as he ran to rejoin the others. “Hurry, Wil!” shrieked Frieda.

Otto snatched Paulus’s lead and pulled with all his might. The stubborn beast would not move! “Damn you, beast!” shouted the boy. “Move!” He pulled and yanked frantically, and with every straining tug the animal leaned farther back, planting his hooves deeply in the dust and nearly laying his rump atop the ground.

“Come on, Otto!” cried Rudolf. “Hurry!”

“I can’t. He won’t move!”

“Then leave him!”

Otto closed his eyes and grimaced as he pulled again. It was Solomon, however, who made the donkey move. With a snarl and a snap, he fixed his bared teeth hard into the beast’s rump! Paulus leapt forward with a loud bray and threw a sideways kick at the nimble dog. With a victorious shout, Otto then dragged the donkey and a lifeline of provisions to the cover of the wood.

About a furlong ahead, a road that transversed the plain from east to west intersected the pilgrim’s north-south highway. From opposing directions, two small armies now roared, and it seemed as though they would collide directly in front of Wil’s company.

Panting and frightened, the pilgrims crouched low in the shadows of their leafy screen. “We ought to go deeper,” counseled Heinrich. “They might join together and scour the whole plain for what they can find. We’ve two females, a high-piled donkey, and satchels heavy with coin.”

Wil had strung Emmanuel and moved his quiver to his hip. He nervously fixed his grip on the handle of his new dagger. “Aye, but see. Both armies are pulling up. Look, their commanders are putting them to order. Methinks they’ll fight one another.”