Death and the Devil

Jaspar smiled. “You’re not so muddleheaded as that mat of red hair would suggest. Right then. Back in Rome things were improving. Both the pope and the antipope died and a new one was elected. He called himself Urban II and if I said before he was a blockhead, that was only half the story. He certainly wasn’t stupid, but his indolence was nothing short of blasphemous. He simply had no desire to quarrel with anyone at all. The first thing he did was to lift the excommunication from Alexios, fighting with his back to the wall in far-off Byzantium, and conclude a treaty of friendship with him. Two crooks who deserved each other, ha! Alexios immediately tried to think up ways of winkling a few pious warriors out of his new friend, to help him win back some of the occupied territory, Anatolia in particular. But there were limits to this friendship, since Urban just wasn’t interested in war. He ran his church and that was that. Alexios was unhappy with that. What was the point of an ally who did nothing? So he sent an embassy of twelve ambassadors to Piacenza, where Urban was holding a council, and they went on at great length about the sufferings of the Christians under the yoke of Islam, wailed and gnashed their teeth at the siege of the Holy City, and made a great to-do about pilgrims on their way to Palestine being hung by the feet and chopped into little pieces while still alive and God knows what other nonsense. All hugely exaggerated and full of oriental rhetoric, which they learned down there. But effective. Urban promised help. Promising was one thing Urban was good at.”

“And? Did he send help?”

“Urban? Not straightaway.” Jaspar giggled. “As I said, he was a cleric through and through, and preferred to spend his time in the usual ecclesiastical pursuits. Canonizations, witch trials, that kind of thing. But at least he’d promised. Alexios was rubbing his hands at the prospect of a hundred well-armed knights, and Urban would certainly have sent them, sooner or later—if he hadn’t had that blasted dream.”

Jacob, who was listening fascinated, went to fill his mug, but there was nothing to fill it with.

“Oh,” said Jaspar and teetered off toward the back of the room.

“I’m not bothered,” Jacob called out after him.

“But I am.”

“You can’t just stop like that.”

“Why not?” Jaspar’s voice was already coming from outside. “The story took hundreds of years to become history, but you can’t wait.”

“I want to know what happened next. And you still haven’t told me about the lost children.”

Jaspar was trying to open the trapdoor in the yard. “Well, if you insist, come out here.”

Jacob jumped up and went out into the dark yard. Jaspar had lit a candle and indicated he should go down first. Cautiously they negotiated the slippery steps. Jacob was plunged into the damp, musty smell once more and a strange feeling of timelessness came over him. The darkness in front echoed with the drip of water. Then candlelight filled the immediate surroundings. Jaspar was standing beside him.

“Could you imagine spending the rest of your life here?” he asked. “Not out of choice, but if you had to?”

“Not even by choice.”

Jaspar gave a dry laugh. “And yet this is paradise. What do we know about the Crusades anyway?” He went over to a barrel and drew off two or three pints. As he followed him, Jacob seemed to be floating. He wasn’t used to the stuff. He spun around, arms outstretched, and felt himself sink to the ground like a feather.

Jaspar gave him a searching look and placed the candle on the ground in front of him. Then he sat down opposite and filled the mugs. “This is a better place to talk about the Crusades,” he said, taking a draught.

Jacob followed suit. “Agreed.”

“No, you misunderstand. This cellar is a hole in the ground. It’s unhealthy and oppressive. It’s my penitential chamber.”

“Nice penance.” Jacob grinned.

“I could just as easily drink up there, in the warm. But that’s what I don’t do. To sit in a cozy, well-heated room talking about injustice and suffering seems to me tantamount to mocking those who really suffer. You want to know what Urban dreamed? He claimed the Lord appeared to him and commanded him to take up arms in the name of the Cross against the heathen and unbelievers. In November of the year of our Lord 1095 he preached the Crusade at the Council of Clermont, beseeching rich and poor to wipe out the Turks in a massive campaign, a holy, just war the like of which had never been seen. And everyone who was there—and there were lots, too many—burghers, merchants, clerics, and soldiers, tore their clothes into crosses, screaming Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!

He was silent for a while. Jacob didn’t ask what the war-cry meant. He could guess.