There Will Be Wolves (16 page)

“He has been well paid. It’s not my fault that he lost it. I can afford no more.”

She didn’t even bother to ask for the silver owing to them—there was nowhere to spend it now. Villagers ran at the sight of them.

The way grew even more wild and mountainous, with dark forests closing in on all sides of them. Walking became more and more difficult; the ground was never level. They were either climbing upward, or descending rocky, narrow trails that at times seemed to barely cling to the sheer mountainsides. They forded icy mountain streams, and picked their way around washouts on the steep paths where one false step or slip would send them hurtling to their death far below. At night they slept huddled in their cloaks and in the remnants of the blankets they had saved. They tried to keep the fire going all night to keep at bay the beasts they could hear hunting in the dark. They had used up the last of their grain, but still had to keep on guard to keep those even more desperate than they from stealing the few things that remained to them. Verity cried
for her mother, but Ursula, although she had asked around and looked for Elizabeth constantly, had not been able to find any trace of her. The other minstrels, including Lemmet, seemed to have vanished as well. Master William grew weaker each day.

One night, when Ursula had just returned from tending to the count, and had checked her father who was sleeping in exhaustion by the fire, a noise in the bushes startled her. Bruno was not there. Samson barked and dashed to her side as she caught up a heavy branch. Verity, who had been trailing after her, took shelter behind her skirts.

“Who’s there?” Ursula demanded. Desperation had given her courage and she felt little fear. Anyone who came to rob them would pay for it dearly.

A figure stumbled, almost falling, into the circle of firelight. Ursula could see the ruins of a blue, woolen cloak hanging in tatters around the woman’s shoulders. Verity suddenly let out a cry and before Ursula could stop her, tore across to her. At the same time Ursula recognized Elizabeth. Her hair was hanging in filthy strands, and her face was mottled with dried blood and dirt. She seemed unable to talk, but she reached out her arms to Verity and enfolded the child within them.

Bruno came back, carrying water. Since the
massacre he had not spoken more than necessary, and Ursula had been too frightened by the grimness of his face to try and find out what he was thinking or how he was feeling. Now, however, the tight, deeply etched lines around his mouth and eyes lightened somewhat. He put the water down hastily and hurried to support the woman.

“Elizabeth,” he cried. “We feared you dead!”

“Come,” Ursula added quickly. “Sit down by the fire. Let me help you.”

She gave her the last bit of thin soup they had been saving for breakfast and then gently began to bathe her face. Elizabeth was bruised and beaten; there was a long gash on her forehead.

“Lemmet …” Ursula began scathingly.

“No,” Elizabeth answered. Her voice was weak and it obviously cost her an effort to speak. “It was not he. Not this time. As soon as rumors began that the soldiers were about to attack us, he and the others disappeared. They just left. I know not where they have gone, nor even if they are still alive.”

“How came you by all this, then?” Ursula asked, but of course she knew the answer.

Elizabeth stroked Verity’s head as the child nestled in her lap. “A soldier,” she said simply. “He caught me as I ran. He beat me, and wounded me when I would not submit to him willingly, but then he got drunk and I escaped as he lay sleeping. I have been searching for you ever since. I
was so afraid for you…. For Verity …” She stopped, her voice breaking. “Then I found a poor woman sitting by the roadside. She told me she had seen a girl of your description traveling with a boy, an old man, a dog—and a child! She told me you had given her your cloak. She said you were an angel.”

“First witch, now angel,” Ursula muttered. “Each about as unlikely as the other. The world has surely gone mad.”

“I followed after as quickly as I could, and then today, after everyone had made camp, I found someone who could tell me where you were.” She bent her head down to her child. “Its a miracle that I’ve found you. A miracle that we’re all still alive.”

  *  *  *  

The next day they camped beside a turnip patch. It was well tended and obviously belonged to someone, but there was no one around. Ursula looked at it. Her father and Verity both desperately needed nourishment. With Elizabeth’s return they had another person to feed. Her own stomach was cramping with hunger, and they had nothing left at all in their camp. She hesitated no more than a minute and then walked into the field. It wasn’t until she had begun digging up the turnips and filling the pocket she had made of her skirt that she realized Elizabeth had followed her.

“You are still weak,” Ursula said shortly. “I can manage this.”

“I want to help,” Elizabeth answered simply. “There is little enough I can do to repay you for that which you have done for my daughter and me.

“There’s no need …” Ursula began, but she was stopped by the look in Elizabeth’s eyes.

“I want to help,” Elizabeth repeated. “And if it’s possible—now—I would be friends.” She smiled.

Ursula felt the iron noose of pain that had been constricting her chest loosen. She straightened up. The burden of turnips suddenly seemed lighter. She looked back at Elizabeth.

“Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, I would like that.” She put out her hand and Elizabeth took it.

They collected enough turnips for their pot that night and as many as they could carry with them on the road. As they emerged, laden down with the stolen vegetables, Ursula saw Bruno looking at her. There was an odd expression on his face. Suddenly, she remembered the young boy they had seen in the market place about to lose his hand.

“If he valued his hand so much, why did he steal?” she had asked, certain that the punishment was just, certain that stealing was unforgivable.

Did he have a child to feed? A father to keep alive? Had his stomach been hurting as much as
hers? She dropped her eyes from Bruno’s and flushed.

Two nights later she knew that her father could go on no longer. Bruno had almost had to carry him that day, and when Ursula had tried to get him to sip a little of the weak soup and hot tea she had made for him, the liquid just dribbled back out of his mouth. By the time she settled him down, wrapped in Bruno’s cloak as well as his own against the night dew, he was delirious with fever and did not recognize her. He sank into a restless, confused slumber. Ursula sat over him, watching.

“Go to the count, Bruno,” she said finally. “Tell him that we will not be able to travel tomorrow. My father cannot go farther and I will not leave him.”

Bruno left. Verity and Elizabeth slept, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms. Ursula tried again to get her father to sip the tea, but again with no success. She settled back to watch over him. Suddenly, without warning, he sat bolt upright and called her name.

“Ursula!”

She was at his side immediately.

“Lie down, father. Do not try to speak.”

“No! I must tell you …” He forced the words out, then gave in to a fit of coughing that seemed to last interminably.

“Hush, Father. You must rest.” Ursula tried to soothe him, but he only became more agitated.

“The wolf … the wolf …” Her father’s eyes stared, he made an enormous effort to speak further.

“What wolf? There’s no wolf, Father.” Ursula held him tightly. The shaking shoulders felt more fragile than Verity’s.

“Calm yourself, Father. Do not disturb yourself so.”

“You must …” The old man would not give up the struggle. His eyes fixed on Ursula with the frantic need to speak. “You must look to the wolf…. The wolf, Daughter …”

His eyes closed and he sank back into Ursula’s arms. He began to mutter incoherently. She lowered him to the ground and rearranged the cloaks snugly around him, but he was deep in delirium again.

“The count will give us no help.”

Bruno came quietly back into the firelight and looked down at Master William. “He says that if your father is too ill to continue he must be left at the next village and you must go on.”

“I will not,” Ursula answered. “I will not leave my father.”

But, in the event, she was forced to. The next morning when she knelt beside him and touched his shoulder to waken him, he was dead. Sometime during the night, while she had dozed fitfully beside him, he had simply stopped the struggle to breathe. For him, now, the journey was over.

Not, however, for Ursula. The count sent them two men so that she and Bruno could bury her father, and a priest to give him absolution. They laid him in the shelter of an ancient elder tree. The elder tree was a magic tree, so many healers believed. The mother under whose protection all herbs grew and thrived. It was a special tree, full of the love of mankind.

“Protect my father’s body,” Ursula prayed, as the dirt gradually covered the shallow grave and the priest murmured his blessing. “Speed his soul to God.”

They packed up their meager belongings. In a very few days, so the count’s men told her, they would be in Constantinople.

Ursula said farewell to her father as she trudged out of sight of his grave and then turned her face forward again. But in her mind she was looking back. Back along the trail they had left behind them, all the way to Cologne. The trail of ruin, destruction, and death.

I
t was a pitiful remnant of the Crusade that finally reached Constantinople. Ursula would never, for the rest of her life, forget her first sight of the famed and fabulous city. They came down from the hills, and the plain upon which the city sat came into view with the sparkling, impossibly blue waters of the Bosphorus shining beyond it. Above the massive city walls, domes and steeples almost too numerous to count were etched against the sky. Beside her, Bruno drew in his breath. The walls stretched endlessly ahead of them. Never had she imagined a city of this vastness.

Emperor Alexius of Constantinople—emperor of all the Byzantine Empire—was in sympathy with the Crusaders, despite their maraudings. He would dearly love to receive Jerusalem back into his realm. He was wary, though, and insisted that the Crusaders camp in sparsely grassed fields on
the slopes outside the city walls. Only manageable, strictly controlled groups of a few people at a time would be allowed inside. Obedient to his orders, the townspeople welcomed them warmly, and supplies were brought out to them. Soldiers were set to guard them, however, and the sun beat down mercilessly. The few trees around gave little or no shade; even the nights were hot beyond endurance. The people suffered with the heat and grew restless and irritable. The news that Alexius had given Peter money toward the rest of the journey failed to appease them. Talk began to grow that they should be given more—that they should be given free access to the city. Soon, discontented members of the Crusade began to sneak in and steal whatever they could lay their hands on. They broke into palaces and villas and took the very lead from the roofs of the churches. The soldiers guarding them became hostile, the shopkeepers and townspeople began to fear them. Not surprisingly, Alexius decided that it was time for them to move on.

“Now I
must
get my silver from the count,” Ursula announced when they heard the news. “This will be our last chance to buy supplies before we leave. The emperor has been generous—the count should be able to afford it now.”

Bruno, however, was dubious. “He has never said he would give it to you, Ursula. You should not count on it.”

“I
will
get it from him,” Ursula repeated stubbornly.

She returned less than an hour later, her face a mask of fury. Elizabeth stared at her in alarm.

“What has happened?” asked Bruno.

Ursula glared at him. She had bitten through her bottom lip and a trickle of blood flowed down her chin.

“He refused! He lied! He swears that he already gave my father the silver. In fact, he accuses me of lying to try and get more!”

“He would give you nothing?”

“He gave me a few copper coins. I threw them back in his face!”

“Oh, no!” Elizabeth gasped.

“Even copper coins would purchase us what we need,” Bruno remonstrated.

“Do you think I would accept that from him? I told him that I would have the full amount or I would not treat him again.”

“And what did he say to that?” Bruno’s voice was unnaturally quiet.

“He laughed! He laughed at me and said, ‘We’ll see about
that
, my witch.’ Then he had his guards practically throw me out of his camp.”

“You were foolish …” Bruno began.

Ursula took a step forward and hit him across the face as hard as she could. In the stunned silence that followed, she turned and fled into the nearby trees.

It wasn’t until much later that night, long after the rest of the camp had gone to sleep, that Ursula crept back to their campsite. Elizabeth and Verity were curled up together in a blanket to one side. The fire was banked low, but still burned. Bruno sat beside it. Ursula approached him. He looked up.

“How can I apologize?” she whispered. “The only reason you are here is because of me. You have done so much for us. What can I do?”

Bruno reached up a hand to her and pulled her down beside him. He held her close. “There’s no need,” he said quietly.

For the first time on the whole journey, Ursula began to cry. She wept, and it seemed that she would never be able to stop.

  *  *  *  

The next evening two of the count’s men appeared at their campsite before they had even finished their evening meal. In spite of herself, Ursula felt a jolt of fear.

“You are to come with us,” one of them said.

Unprotesting, she rose and they led her away. Again, within an hour she was back.

Bruno leaped to his feet when he saw her. Ursula spoke, forestalling any questions. “He still lies,” she said dully. “He will not pay me what he owes in honor.”

“What did he do?” Bruno asked.