to find the Teutonic knights again. They had gone to Transylvania to fight against the hordes from the east — an enemy of which I had no knowledge. I could kill these infidels, I thought, because they were strange to me. During my journey, I fell in with a party traveling to Petraathen, the citadel of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae. They took me in instead, and after years of training, I took their vows — pledging myself to serve the Order and the Virgin.”
Brother Mante returned, a bottle in either hand. “Ho,” he said. “A bounty has been provided.” Piro crowded behind him, carrying an armful of wooden cups.
As one of the bottles was opened and the cups were filled, Raphael sighed. “God is testing me, isn’t he?” he asked.
Brother Leo hesitated. God tests all of us was the thought he had, but he feared such language would not assuage the young man’s despair. He wished Brother Francis were with them. He would have words that would soothe the knight; he could tell Raphael of his own trials as a knight of Assisi. He had been commanded to fight against his own people when Assisi went to war with Perugia.
But Brother Leo had not had such experience. Nor, he quickly admitted to himself, will I ever know what it is like to take up a sword against another man. Battle changed men; that was part of why Francis preached so strenuously for nonviolent resolutions to conflict. Fighting your fellow man was bestial behavior — worse than beasts, in fact, for no wolf or bear assaulted kin for the specious reasons many nobleman and king clung to as their rationale for going to war.
He accepted a cup from Piro and swallowed a mouthful of the warm liquid, wincing at the bitterness of the young wine. “God is inexplicable,” he said, moving his tongue around his mouth in a vain effort to clear the taste. “He gives us both anger and compassion in equal portions,” he continued, trying to recall one of Brother Francis’s sermons. “Which of those two we choose to live our lives by is how we demonstrate whether we are worthy of His grace.”
Raphael had accepted a cup from Piro as well, but he rested it on his thigh as if he was unaware of its presence. Brother Leo could not entirely blame him. A cup of wine was a rare luxury at the hermitage, but even his dull palate could tell this wine could have benefited from another season in its barrel.
Patience was a virtue, especially among vintners.
Brother Leo waited for Raphael to continue. The young man’s burden had been carried a long distance, and it would take him a little while to shrug it off his shoulders.
“I killed men in Egypt,” Raphael said, finally stirring himself to speak again. “Shortly after I took my vows, we were ordered to join the Crusade to take Egypt from the Sultan, Saphadin. I went with my brothers, eager to make the right choice. I had been instructed, over and over again until it was the only thing I seemed to know, that the Virg — that God — wanted me to defend Him. I must uphold God’s law, and to do so, I must defeat those who wish to subvert His law. And that is what I did. I killed men in the name of God. Men, who, in another time and place, might have been kind to me as a child. Why were they my enemy? Because they believed that Jesus Christ was just a man and not the Son of God? Does that make them any less deserving of my compassion?”
Brother Leo tried to think of a suitable response, but nothing came to mind.
“I arrive at your sanctuary, and even though you do not know me, you greet me with affection. ‘May the Lord give you peace,’ is what you said.” Raphael twisted his body so that he could look at Brother Leo. “And how do I return your blessing? Your lay brothers ply me with requests to tell them of my exploits, and I agree to their request.” His voice was agitated, rising from deep within his throat. “The Crusade was a failure, and yet I am looked upon as a hero for what I did. I speak of my actions not with shame and revulsion but with pride. How can my spirit be so…so broken? How can a man suffer to live with this desire to please God — to train and take up arms in His name — and yet still live a compassionate life?”
Mark Teppo
DAMIETTA, 1219
Almost a year had passed since the Crusaders had taken the tower in the Nile, and still Damietta remained inviolate. The catapults on the walls hurled their deadly payloads less frequently, and most of what came tumbling out of the sky was loose rock — the stores of the alchemical fire had long been emptied. The defenders hurled rocks at the Christian war parties without much enthusiasm, as if their efforts were expected as part of the dialogue of war, but they had no heart for it any longer.
The Crusaders had little heart left for the siege either. Over the last six months, it had become apparent to John of Brienne and the few noblemen who stood with him that Damietta held little military value. As difficult as it was for the Christians to get in, it would be equally difficult for them to get out again, especially if the Sultan’s armies filled up the flood plain behind them.
Saphadin, the man who had been Sultan when the Crusade began, had died shortly after the tower assault. His son, Al-Kamil, who had been ruler of Egypt when the Crusade began, now held sway over the entirety of the Muslim domain. While his father remembered some of the atrocities of the previous Crusade and never relented in his desire to drive the Christians out of the Levant, his son appeared to have a different perspective. He had offered, more than once, terms of peace that seemed too good to be true.
The legate from Rome, Pelagius, believed this offer of peace was a lie, facile words offered by a heathen who could not be trusted. Rome wanted Damietta, he insisted, and Rome would have the city.
Of the original company of Shield-Brethren who had joined the Crusade at Acre, only eighteen remained. Of those, four could still carry arms — and would do so at a moment’s notice — but they would not ride to meet the enemy. The enemy would have to come to them.
Eptor, the farmer’s son who had charged across the narrow bridge with Raphael, was one of those four. The wounds still plaguing him were not physical. His body had healed and his spirit remained resolute, but his mind was dimmed by the presence of a shadow. At first he had merely been prone to fevers, but as the winter passed, his bouts of night sweats gave way to more disturbing signs. Eptor began to speak of their dead brothers as if they were still alive.
Raphael, with whom the stricken farmer’s son had formed an unshakeable bond, was tasked with keeping his ailing comrade within the clutch of Shield-Brethren tents. While the Shield-Brethren did not abandon one of their own, regardless of his mental condition, there would be others in the Christian camp who would not be as tolerant of their brother’s disturbed speech. The last thing this morale-stricken camp needs is a rumor of witchcraft and demonic possession, Calpurnius had instructed Raphael. Keep him — and us — safe.
The task had been fairly simple at first, in that Eptor was more than happy to follow Raphael like a faithful dog. And then the priest — Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Ordo Fratrum Minorum — arrived, and his revolutionary exhortation for peace changed everything.
It was not uncommon to see John of Brienne walking through the Christian camp. Though he was King of Jerusalem, he had never sat in its throne. His marriage to Maria of Montferrat had been one of political expediency, and his dowry had been the privilege of leading the Christian Crusaders in their vain effort to retake the Holy Land. Sir John governed from the ranks: listening to complaints of the men-at-arms; attending to the needs of the landed nobility who made up the bulk of the Christian cavalry; sitting and discussing tactics with the noble lords from France, Frisia, and England; and strategizing the best use of the diminishing number of knights from the three military orders. The Crusaders all knew him by sight, and while he allowed them to show some deference, he insisted on no title other than the one warranted by his numerous feats of arms.
It was curious then for him to present himself anonymously at the Shield-Brethren camp, wrapped in a nondescript cloak and hood. Most of the Shield-Brethren were drilling with the Templars, a mock display of martial readiness meant to confuse any Muslim scouts that might be observing the Christian camp from the south. Raphael and Eptor were engaged in the tedious but necessary task of repairing maille when the mysterious figure approached. Setting aside his tools, Raphael rose to greet the visitor and was shocked to recognize the face peering out from within the shadows of the hood.
“I am but a poor penitent,” Sir John admonished him in a low voice. “A nameless wanderer, seeking to bless your company.”
“Of course,” Raphael recovered smoothly. He made the sign of the cross toward John.
