Pilgrims of Promise(90)

“Oh, not that poor man—”

“Liar!” The knight threw the fellow to the ground. “Another sound and I shall cut your tongue from your blasphemous head m’self.” He ordered men to search the ruins of the stable. “We shall see what we find, Cathar, and if you lied to us, you and yours will perish this day.”

“Kill him now,” roared Roland as his horse trotted to the scene. “Kill them all now. What’s the wait?”

“First we see what’s in the stable. Then proper justice shall be served.”

Within a quarter hour, a sooty soldier ran out of the stable and to the commanders. Whispering to both men, he led them to the place where the charred remains of a faceless body lay near a blackened Templar sword. “As I thought!” growled the Templar as he covered his nose. “Search him.”

A footman delicately picked his fingers within the burned remains of the victim’s clothing looking for any sign or symbol of identity. He found nothing in the man’s shirt or sleeves or around his neck. But when he came to a pouch sewn on the side of the man’s leggings, he paused.

“Well, what is it?”

The soldier reached carefully inside the yet-intact pouch and retrieved two blackened eggs.

“Ha! It must be he!” shouted the Templar. “He is not a Cathar, for they are forbidden eggs. The sword, the eggs, the black clothing on those youths … ‘tis quite enough. Slaughter them all!”





Once word of slaughter had echoed throughout Olten, drunken soldiers carousing the taverns abandoned their tankards to join in the holy dispatch. It was during that horrid distraction that Wil’s company realized its opportunity.

Heinrich and Maria had rescued Paulus just moments before the disaster and had led the beast warily to the gardens behind Dorothea’s hall. “Maria,” whispered Heinrich, “no doubt Wil shall come soon. When he does, you’ll flee with Frieda. Your brother and I will get Alwin and Benedetto. Do you understand?” He had barely finished speaking when Wil and Frieda came crashing through the bushes, flushed and wide eyed. “The gate is still open… the town’s guards are helping many escape. Seems the army is busy elsewhere. We must go—now!”

“Aye, lad.”

Solomon leapt through an open window and pounced happily on Maria. “Oh, we almost forgot him!” she gasped.

“Frieda, take Maria… and Solomon … and go now. Pieter is at the right side of the gate by a barrel. Hurry and keep an eye for him. When you see him, move quickly through the gate. Do not come back… not for anything!”

As the two girls and the two animals hurried away, Heinrich followed Wil in a wild race to the subceliar, where Benedetto was trembling behind a barrel. “Here!” he cried.

“Good. You’ve been spared. And Alwin?”

“He’s awake and not very happy.”

“Alwin?”

From behind his screen of sacks, the man grunted angrily through the cloth binding his mouth.

Heinrich informed the man of matters at hand as he and Wil released him from his bonds. The four men then climbed up the short ladder to the main cellar, then up the tight stairway leading to the main floor.

“Hurry, Father. Listen to the screams. The soldiers are drawing near.”

The pilgrims joined a stream of others fleeing the hapless town. Smoke now billowed from all sides, and the sounds of clanging steel suggested the town’s guard was attempting to defend its own. “We should help!” cried Wil.

“Our first duty is to our fellows,” answered Heinrich. “Frieda and Maria need us.”

Pieter was pacing near the gatehouse, the air filled with a blinding, choking black smoke. Less than a bowshot away, a furious battle raged between a large company of the army and a brave band of the town guard. Pieter knew the army had intended to close the gate and trap everyone within its grasp. He had accounted for all his company except for the four he now spotted pressing desperately through the panicked crowd mobbing the gate. “Oh, hurry, lads! Hurry!”

A mounted troop suddenly appeared to the other side, and in the lead was the Templar and Sir Roland. Shouting, the pair demanded the gate be closed. “Kill the guard!” bellowed Roland. “Kill them all!”

Wil saw them and heard the order. The young man’s eyes swept the scene, and he quickly deduced that without the Templar and Roland, the army would be headless for a time and that, left to its own devices, chaos would surely follow. “Keep going,” he shouted to his father. “I’ll see you on the other side!”

Wil raced to a corner and drew his bow. Without hesitation, he released his first arrow toward its target, and the shaft hit its mark. The Templar fell from his horse, mortally wounded in the neck. But before the young man could reset, Sir Roland reined his horse hard toward Wil and dug his spurs into the stallion’s flanks with a loud cry. Trampling his way through the shrieking, scattering crowd, he charged directly toward the lad.