Death and the Devil

“Of course not. Again there were letters of indulgence, sold like quack remedies, papal bulls sanctioned murder and more murder. And the knights! Life in a castle can get pretty boring when there’s no call for your skills, so they put their armor on and went out crying Deus lo volt! again. But it was no use. They couldn’t repeat the pathetic success of the first Crusade. Lured by the promise of fabulous treasure, they went to the Holy Land to be defeated and die, fighting for power among themselves, with the Church trying to consolidate its leading role. Honorable reasons, as you can see. And then the Crusade came to Cologne. Or rather, its vile breath blew through the streets and touched a boy named Nicholas and one or two other ten-year-olds. This Nicholas stood up in the streets and called on all the children to follow him to Jerusalem and defeat the Saracens by the power of faith alone. They intended to part the Mediterranean as Moses had parted the Red Sea, this infantile horde, and even priests and pilgrims didn’t think it beneath them to join it, not to mention maids and servants. God knows how they managed to cross the Alps, the youngest not even six years old, but by the time they reached Genoa most were dead and they were reduced to a pitiful handful. And what happened? What happened, eh?”

Jaspar’s fist hammered on the stone floor. “Nothing! Nothing at all! The sea didn’t give a shit for them. Part? What, me? I need a prophet for that, or at least a Bernard of Clairvaux. There they stood, the lost children, exhausted, robbed of everything they had, weeping and wailing. In St. Denis there was another such lost child, Stephen. He’d not yet grown a beard, but they still followed him by the thousand and they marched to Marseilles. Suffer the little children to come unto me, said the Lord, but in Marseilles it was two merchants who said that. They packed the children on ships and sold them as slaves to the very men they had set out to conquer, Egyptians and Algerians. Now do you wonder why the people of Cologne of all places have good reason to be suspicious of Crusades?”

Jaspar’s voice had started to go around and around Jacob, like a dog yapping at his heels. He put his mug down. It fell over. “They should have just boxed the children around the ears,” he babbled.

“They should have. But they didn’t. Do you know what the pope said? These children shame us. For while they hasten to win back the Holy Land, we lie asleep. That is what he said. But one year later, when the disaster was there for all to see, they hanged Nicholas’s father in Cologne. Suddenly it was all his fault; he had sent his son off out of a desire for glory. Suddenly everyone thought it had been madness. Funny, isn’t it? And now? Conrad von Hochstaden has announced a sermon against the unbelievers for the day after tomorrow. He’s going to deliver it in one of the chapels of his new cathedral. In Rome recently a new Crusade was proclaimed against the Tartars. Does anything strike you?”

Jacob was finding thinking difficult. Did anything strike him? “No,” he decided.

Jaspar reached over and grabbed him by the jerkin. “Yes! It’s starting again. I talk of brotherly love and the Christian life, and they talk of Crusades. God knows, I’m not overendowed with morality, I drink, I swear, and, yes, as Goddert quite rightly pointed out, I fornicate, and I think the Waldenses should be punished, and a few other heretical curs along with them—but a Crusade can’t be God’s will. It’s too cruel. It makes a mockery of the cross on which Christ died. He damn well didn’t die so we could start a bloodbath in Jerusalem, or anywhere else in the world for that matter.”

Jacob stared at him. Jaspar’s chin was slowly merging with his forehead, while a second nose had appeared. He burped.

Then Jaspar’s face dropped from view to be gradually replaced by the patterns of shadow on the cellar ceiling. Incapable of thinking of anything but sleep, Jacob slid to the floor.

Jaspar’s hand tugged at his breeches. “Hey, just a minute, Fox-cub, I’ve just remembered. There’s something I wanted to ask. You forgot to mention it this morning.”

“I know nothing about politics,” mumbled Jacob, eyes closed.

“Forget politics. Jacob? Hey, Fox-cub?”

“Mmm?”

“What did he say?”

“What did wh-who say?”

“Gerhard, dammit. What did he say to you? His last words?”

“Last—?” What had Gerhard said? Who was this Gerhard?

Then he remembered. “He—said—”

“Yes?”

For a while there was silence.

Then Jacob began to snore gently.

RHEINGASSE

The mood was as gloomy as the evening.