IT IS ALL AGREED!
Seven days of consultations, seven days of gallopings up and down the island and crossings between Saint Nicholas and the Rialto. Then at noon today Marquis Boniface and our envoys met the Doge and his councillors in the basilica of Saint Mark’s to solemnize our new understanding, and Lord Stephen and I accompanied them.
The Grand Council even provided us with a translator. She’s called Simona, and she’s twenty-one. She told me she quite often translates for English merchants visiting Venice. When she was seventeen, she got betrothed to an English cloth-trader from Norfolk and learned English from him, but before they could marry he and his companions were attacked and killed by bandits near Verona.
Not only was Saint Mark’s packed, but the huge garden in front of it was swarming with people as well. So many people were sitting or standing up in the olive trees that I thought the branches might break.
“No, no!” said Simona. “Olives seldom break. Gli albicocchi… apricots! They break.”
Simona looks rather like an apricot herself: Her skin’s sandypink and slightly furry, and she’s small and smiling and round.
“In our garden,” she told us, “we have albicocchi. Last year the fruit was so heavy, two branches broke.”
Saint Mark’s must be the most beautiful church in the world because the walls and the cupola and the roof are covered in burnt gold and you walk on mosaics. Thousands and thousands of tiny colored stone squares, no bigger than my fingernails. Patterned in squares and semicircles and triangles. Bishop’s purple and cornflower blue and olive green and rust and orange.
Before high mass, the Doge tripped while climbing the steps to the lectern, and almost fell.
What if he had? What if he’d quickly wasted and died? And what if Cardinal Capuano hadn’t eaten a bad oyster, but had come with us to meet the Doge? Sometimes it seems that great decisions are the result not of careful intention but of sheer accident.
The Doge stood at the lectern. “My people!” he called out in his reedy voice. “I nearly fell! I nearly fell, and our crusade nearly failed. The greatest undertaking ever undertaken by Christian men. But we have grasped it with both hands!”
To emphasize his point, the Doge grasped the lectern, and the Venetians in the basilica laughed.
The Doge waited until he could be heard again, and that was good because he was speaking in Venetian, and Simona had to translate for us. “My people!” he called out. “These crusaders are the best, bravest men in the world. Venice is proud to be part of this crusade.” The Doge paused. “I am old,” he said, “and my health is failing. Like a cat, I often doze…” The Doge rapped the lectern. “And I’m instantly awake! I’ve been your leader for longer than most of you have been alive. Will you allow me to take the Cross? To lead you and look after you on our pilgrimage?”
Now the whole basilica waved and roared like the sea.
I looked at Marquis Boniface. He didn’t look troubled; he just looked thoughtful.
“Will you allow me to live or die with you?”
There were tears in Simona’s eyes. “He is blind and sees. He is old and always young,” she said. She took Lord Stephen’s right hand and squeezed it.
Lord Stephen bent towards me. “And he’s wily!” he said. “Extremely wily!”
The Doge proceeded to the altar, flanked by priests. Then one priest sewed the scarlet cross onto the front of his cotton cap, and around me everyone was cheering.
“Why his cap?” I asked Simona. “Why not his tunic?”
“So everyone can see it,” Simona replied.
After this, the priests rang handbells; they swung incense burners, and many other Venetians came forward and took the Cross.
“I swear…I swear…I swear by Almighty God that I will serve Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice, and be loyal to him in Zara and wheresoever he leads me.”
Most of the Venetians seemed to know we’re going to Zara before we fight the Saracens, and they were glad about it, but what will all the crusaders do when they find out? And what will Cardinal Capuano say?
“I swear…I swear…I swear and acknowledge Enrico Dandolo as my true and only lord. Let everyone bear witness!”
The Venetians did bear witness! Each time a knight completed his vows, he was greeted with a shout, and around me many faces were shining with tears.
And then the Doge held up his thin hands. “Release the ships!” he called out. “Untether them! Point their prows east!”
There was such cheering and crying and stamping of feet that you might have thought the whole world was breaking into bits.
“So now our crusade has two leaders,” I said.
“A recipe for disaster!” Lord Stephen replied grimly.
Tonight, bonfires blazed in each camp on Saint Nicholas.
Lord Stephen and my father both chose to sleep, so Serle and I walked down to Milon’s camp with Rhys and Turold.
As far as we know, we are still the only Englishmen to have joined this crusade. That’s very surprising and disappointing because when Fulk came to the March and preached the crusade, it seemed certain many people would take the Cross. Sir Josquin des Bois said he would come, and so did hundreds from other parts of England.
“You can blame King John for that,” said Lord Stephen. “If he’d chosen to come himself, or even encouraged others, many would have followed.”
Milon’s men had tied torches to the ends of their lances. They ran around in the dark, waving them and giving strange, short little shouts. Crossing and quartering the Provins camp. Beating its bounds.
Then we all gathered in a fire-circle. Pagan gave thanks that our crusade can sail at last, and we prayed for our own safety, for our families and everyone at home.…
The wind was from the west, and as it blew over the camp, it snatched sparks from the torches, and tossed them; it carried them off, so fleeting, down to the dark sea.