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                             ================
Copyright 1993 by Lysander

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                             ================
                             DROIT DU SIGNEUR
                                by Lysander

Part Five

Heinrich's Tale:
     I was knighted at a very young age and was very proud of myself.
I had even managed to beat my closest friend, Lothair, by a week.
However, it was a time of peace, and there are few ways a young knight
can prove himself save on the battlefield.  There was not even a
renegade robber knight.  Naturally I was very disappointed, and
despaired of ever matching lance and steel against an opponent who
wanted my blood.
     Until, that is, the pope called on all Christian nobles to go to
Palestine and liberate the Holy Lands from the heathen Saracens, as he
called them.  Every young knight tearing at the bit to be in battle
scrambled to raise enough gold to outfit himself properly and be off
to retake the land where Christ was born and lived.  Fortunately for
me, my father's lands were prosperous enough for him to afford armor
and steed and provisions for me, as well as provide a loan for
Lothair, and his brother, Rolfe.
     We three set out for Venice, where the Crusade was gathering.  We
were eager to see fabled Byzantium and then to kill every Saracen who
was defiling Palestine.
     The overland trip was uneventful (who would try to rob three
young men with blood in their eyes, after all?) and the voyage to
Byzantium even less so.  If only I could show you Byzantium, my loves.
You would have thought God had placed some of his mansions on Earth,
and put them all in one city.  No Florentine merchant in his wildest
fantasies could imagine building the least of the Byzantine palaces.
     We lingered in the city until spring, and then we set off through
the land of the Turk, down the coast, capturing strategic cities here
and there to use as bases.  I saw many men die, mostly Saracens, on
that journey;  and I relished every drop of blood spilled before me.
More's the pity for my soul.
     By the time we reached the border of the Holy Lands, autumn was
upon us.  Most of the nobles wanted to halt the advance and settle in
for winter, when the rains would make the roads impassable.  My
patron, Lord Lothair (no relation to my friend) was eager to be back
on the offensive while we still had momentum and before the enemy
could consolidate his forces.  Myself, I was in no hurry.  Although I
was not tired of the blood -- not at all -- there was still whoring
and drinking and gambling.  The soldier's life certainly agreed with
me, I thought.
     It turned out that Lord Lothair was probably right.  When we set
out again the following spring, we met fierce resistance, and every
foot of ground took as much time to seize as a league had taken the
previous year.  I was bloodied for the first time during that
campaign, and I lost many friends.  But I was foolish enough to still
love the life Providence had given me.
     Jerusalem was our goal, but we were not going to reach it, we
knew.  Lord Lothair suggested a bold plan.  Instead of following the
coast as the enemy expected, we would go east through the mountains,
flanking the enemy and severing his supply lines.  Of course, our own
position would be even more tenuous, but morale was low.  We needed a
bold victory desperately.
     There was an old Roman fortress up in the mountains.  That would
be the anchor for our lines.  Lord Lothair detailed a small army of
five hundred men, myself, Lothair and Rolfe among them.  Our commander
would be Count Helmut, a mediocre warrior at best, but one of the
largest contributors to the Crusade.  Lord Lothair was counting on the
fort being lightly defended, and considered five hundred men to be an
acceptable loss if it wasn't.
     We set out in great spirits for our objective, knowing that the
fortress would fall to us like an overripe apple.  We were entirely
successful in sneaking up on the fortress.  The area was lightly
patrolled and we managed to ambush the ones we came across.  The
Saracens had no idea we were coming.
     They didn't need to.  There were only about a hundred men in the
fortress, as Lothair and I saw from a ridge overlooking the structure.
It had sheer cliffs on either side and a clear view of the north and
south approaches.  The walls were easily ten feet thick and made of
stone.  Wide trenches were cut on the open sides and ran from cliff to
cliff.  The only way past the fortress was through the fortress.  A
hundred men could hold that place forever, or at least until their
supplies ran out.  It was impossible, and we all knew it.
     What could not be taken by force, however, might be taken by
guile.  Lothair and I had spotted a narrow cut in the cliff that
looked like it might lead down to the fortress.  It was a treacherous
climb down, but we saw that, yes, there was a small door in the wall
not twenty yards from the cliff face.  I had no idea why someone would
have cut their way through that cliff (for there were definite
toolmarks in the stone), but Lothair surmised that the Romans had done
it, possibly as a way to get messages past the enemy.
     Whatever the reason for its existence, that cut would be our
passkey into the enemy hold.  Lothair's plan was brilliant.  Our
physician and priest, Father Marco, was an Italian, and looked much
like a Saracen, and his Arabic was very good.  We outfitted him in
turban and robes and told him to run up to the northern wall,
screaming that a mighty Christian army was close behind him.  A
hundred knights riding as hard as they could and dragging bushes would
give proof to Marco's claims.  While all the Saracens would naturally
be gathered at the northern wall, the rest of us knights and common
soldiers would storm the small door Lothair and I had found, taking
the enemy by surprise and putting him in complete disarray.
     Lothair's plan worked perfectly.  Only a few Saracens managed to
free their blades before we were upon them.  Some managed to unbar the
gate and escape us, only to be run down and spitted on the lances of
our horsed contingent.  We gloried in the bloody victory.
     Not one Saracen escaped.  All were swiftly buried in the sandy
ground and the cross was soon flying over the mighty fortress.
Perhaps it would have been better to let some of the enemy escape,
because then perhaps they could have warned their brothers to find
another way through the mountains.
     As it was, a few days after the capture, an army of Saracens was
at the gate.  They looked battle-weary and bedraggled.  Obviously,
they were on their way home after a long season of campaigning.  And
now we were in their way.  Both sides set in for a long siege, but we
were confident.  After all, we had this strong fortress and we knew
that we were soon to be reinforced.  And while we had taken the
stronghold easily, we would not fall for the same deception.  All we
had to do was hold our place until relief came.
     We did not count on the deadly archery of the Saracens.  They
went up to the high cliffs and rained arrows down upon us.  Every
archer of ours had to have another man with him to hold a shield above
their heads.  We managed to get a few, but only by chance.  Our bows
were just not strong enough.  I have heard that the English free
farmers have bows that can kill a man at a thousand yards.  How I wish
we had had a troop of them with us.
     It was the arrows that proved to be the death of us, the arrows
and cursed bad luck.  Flame arrows managed to set the casks of
fortified wine afire, burning much of our supplies.  Count Helmut was
foolish enough to want to parade the walls in front of the Saracen
host.  A lucky arrow shot took him through the top of the skull.  It
was the only wound he ever received in battle.  That was how I became
commander.  We were a young bunch, and only Lothair and I had been
knights for any length of time.
     Not many of us went unwounded.  After the arrows had softened us
up, the assaults on the walls began.  I had never seen so many
swordsmen.  They rushed upon us so fast.  It seemed like they ignored
the causeway altogether and simply ran across the air of the trenches.
Ladders sprang up along the wall like bees out of a hive.  We pushed
one down and two more arose.  The top of the wall, and then the
courtyard was full of Saracens screaming for our blood.  I took two
cuts, but I don't remember them.  My own sword was bloody from point
to guard, but I don't remember using it.  To that point, I knew
exactly how many men I had killed.  I have no idea how many lives I
took that first day.
     The assaults continued every day, sometimes two or three times a
day, for weeks.  I'll never figure out where they got the wood for all
the ladders they set against that bloody north wall.  They always took
more casualties than we did.  But then, they were desperate.  They
knew that another army was coming to relieve us, and they were trapped
against our walls.  I knew relief was coming, and I was eager for it.
If I could have left my sword sheathed forever, I would have given up
my soul.  All of us who survived, and there seemed to be damned few of
us, felt the same way.  We had come to Palestine full of bloodlust,
but we spent it all within those walls.
     As I said, many of our supplies had been burned, but we lost more
men every day.  The only thing we had plenty of was water.  Water, ha!
The most precious commodity in the desert, and we were practically
drowning in it, thanks to those seemingly bottomless Roman cisterns.
I would have traded all of it for a single day of rest.
     How many times did I come close to losing my life?  I don't know.
A score of men must have taken arrows while standing right next to me.
A Saracen sword nearly took off the top of my head, if not for a
someone cleaving off his arm.  I don't know who that man was, or
whether he was noble or common, and he probably didn't know who I was,
either.  All we ever knew was that someone in a turban and desert
robes was trying to kill someone, and that someone was probably a
friend.  A Saracen trying to kill Satan himself would have been in
danger from Christian steel.
     I'm not sure how long it was before we were down to only two
hundred walking wounded.  There were none among us who were not
wounded.  Any day now, I kept telling myself, Lord Lothair would come
down that valley and roll our tormentors up before him.  But he did
not show, and still he did not show.
     Father Marco and I were talking about the men too weak from their
wounds to hold a sword.  There were twenty now, and Marco was
exhausted from caring for them in addition to keeping enough men well
enough to hold the walls.  Lothair came running into the sickroom, his
armor clanking; we all slept in our armor, and it was heavier every
day.  "Heinrich," he said.  "A messenger got through.  His back was
full of arrows, but he managed to give us his message before he died."
     I could see his face, but I asked anyway.  "Good news, I hope?"
     Lothair shook his head.  "Lord Lothair was ambushed.  He had to
retreat back to Sidon.  We'll have no relief until spring."
     "Spring?" I repeated, unbelieving.  "We'll never hold out until
spring."
     Lothair only nodded.  He knew that as well as I.
     I tried to put on a brave face.  I told Lothair and Marco to meet
me in my quarters after I had made my inspection rounds.  "Between the
three of us, we'll think of something."  They didn't believe me, and
neither did I, but they agreed not to call my bluff.  The men had
heard about the ambush.  Bad news travels faster than fever in an army
camp.  I kept my face jovial and told them we'd get out of this
scrape.  They didn't believe me either.
     A knight went over to one of the cisterns for water.  Halfway
there, he fell, an arrow in his side.  I rushed over to him, calling
for Marco.  We reached the fallen man at the same time.  He convulsed
a few seconds, then stopped.  He was dead, from a relatively minor
wound.  Marco jerked the arrow free.  He examined the gory head
closely, then sniffed at it.  He spat in disgust and threw it away.
"Poison!"
     Poison!  Now, of all things, I had to deal with poisoned arrows.
     "You and Lothair and Rolfe to my quarters, now.  We're getting
out of here."
     Marco showed obvious relief.  I could understand it.  He had been
responsible for the lives, for the souls, of five hundred men.  Now
almost three hundred of them were dead.  With this new evil, he knew
as well as I that the other two hundred would soon join them if we
remained in that accursed hold.
     "We cannot stand here any longer."  Lothair made a good show of
staying to the end as his duty demanded, but underneath, he was as
eager as Marco to be rid of that place.  Rolfe was even more obvious.
I ordered Lothair to gather as many men as he thought capable for a
charge out of the gate and through the enemy ranks.  That charge would
be a distraction for Rolfe to lead the more badly wounded up through
our secret path.  They were to load the packhorses with a week's
rations and as much water as they could carry.  Then they were to
empty the middens into the cisterns.  I would not leave the enemy as
strong a fortress as we had taken from him.
     "What about me, Heinrich?" Marco asked.  "Am I to go with Rolfe,
or can I stay here to care for those too weak to move."
     I covered my face with my hands, gathering strength.  "Father
Marco," I said, with none of my emotion rising from my heart to my
mouth.  "Father Marco, you will give those men as much poppy juice as
it takes to put them to sleep.  Then you will perform last rites for
them.  Then I will send them into the next world as painlessly as I
can.  Then I hope you will absolve me.  I will not leave those men to
the mercy of heathens who have found the water here undrinkable."
     Lothair and Rolfe were soldiers, like myself.  They knew how
things stood.  Marco was a priest, for all that he had spent life and
death with men of war.  But even he nodded his understanding.
     By nightfall, all was ready.  In the meantime, we had lost ten
more men to those arrows.  Rolfe set off first, led by a handful of
scouts.  The rest were with Lothair.  I wished them luck at the gate.
They gave a mighty cry and charged out into the night.  I heard the
screams of men and horses as I helped Marco shut and bar the cedar
gates.  Since then I have always thought of horses' screams when I
smell cedar.  They make a haunting sound when they are in pain, you
know.  It is even sadder to hear a horse die in pain than it is a man.
Man has bred the rebellion out of horses, so they go through life
completely trusting us.  I think the screams are cries of betrayal
more than anything else.
     Well, I am just putting off the inevitable.  It happened years
ago, so I should have put it behind me.  But sometimes I wake up at
night, my palms sweating, and I swear it feels like blood soaking my
hands.  Marco had given them all heavy doses of poppy, and as he
walked down the line of beds, performing last rites, I followed close
behind.  I grasped their wrists in one hand and slit their throats
with the other.  Marco never looked at me; he just moved along -- one
man after the other.  It was so... efficient, the killing.  It is
something that no German, no man, should ever have to do.
     When the bloodletting was done, I stripped off my tunic, threw it
into one of the cisterns.  The sounds of battle were receding.  I
knelt at Marco's feet and took his hands in my bloody ones.  "Bless
me, Father for I have sinned.  It has been an hour since my last
confession.  Since that time I have killed twenty men."  I listened to
the battle outside the walls.  "That I know of.  Will you absolve me?"
     "My son," he said with a quivering voice.  "His Holiness absolved
you of any sin you may have need to commit on this Crusade.  But I do
not think even he could absolve you of this, no matter how grave the
need.  No, I cannot absolve you, but I do give you penance.  It is
this: that you live, that you live a long life, and that every day you
remember those twenty men.  Now let me go.  I must wash my hands."
     He went to a cistern to clean the blood from his hands, just as
the gate broke apart.  The Saracens cut him down between one step and
the next.  I don't think he ever saw them.  Twenty-one.
     I turned and ran for the side door and the secret pass, soon to
be a secret no longer.  I ran up the steep incline, to find my horse
tethered at the top.  I quickly blessed Rolfe as I mounted and sped
away.  I could see down into the valley.  A track of white robes lay
still in the moonlight.  The moon also glinted off many armored
bodies.  How many deaths was I responsible for this night?
     I didn't see the patrol.  They must have been going to their
posts to fire down on the now-Saracen fort.  All I knew was that my
shoulder and thigh suddenly went numb just before a pair of screams
were cut off by my gelding's hooves.
     By the time I reached the rendezvous, my shoulder and thigh were
on fire.  Lothair and Rolfe were clasping one another, so I assumed
they had just joined up and were glad to see each other alive.  I,
too, was happy to see my old friends.  But my joy was tempered by the
sight that greeted me.  About a hundred men remained alive, and more
were slumped in their saddles than sat straight.  To be honest, more
had survived than I expected.  The Saracens were more interested in
the fort than they were in us.  But when I thought of how many had
died... it withered my heart.
     Of course, I smiled at Lothair and Rolfe when they ran up to me.
They were concerned about my wounds, but the arrows were not deeply
embedded.  I told them I would be able to sit my horse fine once they
were removed.  This was done in short and painful order.  We set off
west, toward the sea.  We had deserted our post.  We could not return
to Sidon.  I hoped to hire a vessel to Egypt and then back to Germany.
We had no hope of travelling overland very far.
     We were almost out of the mountains when the next calamity struck
(curse the day I ever set foot in Palestine!).  Lothair and I were
walking our horses.  Actually, I was riding Lothair's horse, and he
was leading mine.  He had caught a stone in his hoof and was limping
badly.  I heard a horrible roar and was thrown to the ground as my
mount reared.  A terrible searing pain ran down my back.  The breath
was knocked out of me as I hit the ground, hard.  I think I must have
blacked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, a huge lion
was standing over my body.  I should have been dead, but God must have
blessed me.  Or, considering the penance Marco had given, cursed me.
     My gelding lay nearby, dead, blood trickling from his opened
throat.  Black and white and brown fur hovered above me.  The ribs
were plainly showing through taut muscles.  The hunting must have been
poor; I hoped we -- the men -- had enough food.  I turned my head and
saw a wall of men with drawn bows.  "Put those away," I said in what I
hoped was a quiet but commanding voice.  They hesitated, but finally
obeyed.  "Lothair, help me up."  My friend and his brother crawled
toward me and took my outstretched hands.  They pulled me from beneath
the unmoving cat.  When we were clear, I ordered the men to leave the
canyon.  We all backed out, I last of all.
     The lion tore into the flesh of my horse and was quickly joined
by a female and three cubs, all as thin as he was.  Lothair stepped up
behind me and told me I had been injured again.  My tunic was slashed
by four long scratches down and across my back.  The blood was flowing
more heavily than I liked, but I shrugged him off as I watched another
faithful companion disappear by the mouthful.
     "Heinrich," Lothair said, gently.  "We have to go through this
pass."
     "No." I turned to the men standing and sitting astride their
steeds, all watching me, their commander.  "No.  That lion is only
doing what we ourselves have done, defending his hold until he can
defend it no more.  He is my brother, as much as the rest of you.  And
I am tired of seeing my brothers die.  We'll find another way through
these mountains.  Somebody unload one of the packhorses and saddle it
for me."
     Two days later, we had reached the sea after dodging many Saracen
patrols and a Christian one.  Fortune finally smiled upon us.  Moored
offshore were two small ships... and they were riding high in the
water, empty.  Two small boats were pulled up on the beach, guarded by
two men.  They were as black as night, the first black men I had ever
seen (though they were fairly common in Cordoba).  We walked down to
them, swords sheathed and bows cased to show our friendliness.
     Their hands went to their swords, but the blades stayed in their
belts.  I hailed them in Arabic.  One stepped forward.  He crossed his
arms across his bare muscular chest.  "What do you want?  You've
destroyed the trade up and down the coast; you'll get nothing more
from us, for we have nothing more."
     "All we want from you is passage.  And we will pay."
     He opened his arms and his mouth opened in a wide grin.  "Ah,
yes.  I should have known Allah would not make our water go bad
without a reason!  Know that I am Abdul Mohammed al Saff, captain and
owner of the Ivory Dolphin and owner of the Nile Emerald.  And I am at
your service -- for a very reasonable price, of course."
     I was tired, we were all tired, but this Abdul's levity was
infectious.  Despite myself, I smiled for the first time in ages; it
felt good.  "I need passage for a hundred men as to as near the Holy
Roman Empire as you can take us."
     "Germans, eh?  Well, I suppose I can take you as far as the
Caliphate of Cordoba.  You can make it overland from there."
     "Fine.  What is your price?"
     He considered for a moment, looking over us, as though counting
the coins in our purses.  "Your horses," he said at last and with
finality.
     Now, a knight without a horse is not a knight, any more than a
king with no crown is still a king.  But when I looked at his face, I
knew he would take no other price.
     "Look, my friend.  I cannot carry those horses, and none of you
looks like you can ride all the way back to Germany.  Keep your coin
and let me sell the horses."
     I went back to my men and told them Mohammed's price.  As I
expected, all the knights, who now made up most of our band thanks to
their superior armor, were against the notion, and they were vocal in
their protests.  I held up my hand to cut them off.  "I like it no
more than any of you.  But we have no choice.  Some of us will die if
we try to go overland.  The wounded must have a chance to rest without
having to worry about accidents or Saracens or lions."  A few men
laughed at that.
     "I promise you this.  We will all be going home.  I will not rest
until that promise is fulfilled, but I need your help.  Take an oath
with me.  An oath that, like that lion, we will persevere together.
That we will support one another, to the death.  We must rely on each
other, my friends, my brothers, for there is no one else."
     My companions all formed a tight circle around me.  As one, we
raised our left arms to the sun and held our right hands clasped to
our hearts.  I said the words which honor demands I never say again,
and a hundred throats repeated them.  We were bound together more
closely than before.  I thanked them all and kissed a few.  Then, with
tears streaking the dirt on my face, I, told them to unsaddle their
mounts and tie them in a picket line.
     While my brothers did as I bade, I went back to the captain.
"They're yours."  I held my hand out to him to seal the bargain and
gave my name only as Sir Heinrich.
     Abdul Mohammed leaned forward slightly.  "You have no other
name?" he asked.
     "Were I in a position to give you my full name, I wouldn't have
to give over those horses."
     The black man moved in even closer, conspiratorially.  "Deserters,
eh?"
     "Some might say," I replied, coldly.  I would not let a mere
trader know my shame.  "Others would say we were the ones who had been
deserted."
     The other waved a hand.  "No matter.  The gold from your horses
would be no better were you true sons of the Prophet.  As soon as my
men sell your horses in Jerusalem, we can depart."
     I had not considered that our mounts would soon see battle again,
but against fellow Christians.  But what was done was done.  "Captain,
I'm afraid many of my men are badly wounded.  I would like to leave as
soon as possible, for their sake."
     Abdul pulled on his lip in thought.  "Very well.  The more
grievous wounded can board the Emerald and we will sail immediately.
The rest can wait a few days, I suppose?"
     "Yes, thank you, Captain."
     "Fine.  Divide your men while I go to explain things to the
Emerald's captain.  But first, here comes my water party."
     Finally, thank God, we had left Palestine.  I would like to say
that the voyage to Iberia was uneventful, but it was not.  Lothair and
I travelled with the first group, so as to arrange for care of the
wounded once we made land, and to find employment for the rest of us.
Not long after we sailed, the wound in my shoulder began to fester.
Every treatment we tried did no good.  The wound got worse and worse.
It swelled to the size of a man's head and was so tender the slightest
touch sent me into convulsions of pain.
     Thankfully, I succumbed to the fever and fell into a delirium, so
I remember little of most of the voyage.  Lothair later told me I
issued orders to ghosts as though I were still fighting the Saracens.
The best physicians in Venice looked at me, to the detriment of our
purse.  All they could say was that it was a poison, but what kind,
they had no idea.  They provided potions that would keep me alive
until we reached Cordoba.  Since it was a Saracen poison, they were
confident that the Moorish physicians would be able to cure me.  When
I later recovered, I thanked God we had escaped when we did, otherwise
my men would have all died slow painful deaths.  But for me, my wound
was fortunate, for I met my love as a result.


Copyright 1993 by Lysander
                             ================
                             DROIT DU SIGNEUR
                                by Lysander
                                 Part Five
                                   -30-


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