During the days that followed, Alys and her brother often recalled the tense excitement of that occasion. First Gil, the Captain-at-Arms, and then Dickon, a rough Englishman who had taken service under the Lord of Beauregard, had come storming along the dusty road, kneeing their horses forward among the crowds of children, pushing them aside and threatening to lay a whip lash on any who stood in their way.
Gil passed so close to Geoffrey that the boy could have taken hold of his stirrup-iron if he had wished. But it was Dickon who first reached the lumbering wagon and pulled his great chestnut stallion across the path of the slavering oxen. Alys, under the straw, did not need to be told that the man was near at hand—there was no mistaking his terrible accent!
‘Holà, mes braves!’ he shouted, holding up his gauntleted hand and bristling his reddish beard. ‘Where are the two runaways, the lad and the lass of Beauregard? I know they be somewhere among you here.’
There was a silence while the man reined in his pawing stallion.
‘Come now,’ he called again, ‘you in the wagon there, you with the crucifix! Have ye seen the two runaways?’
Suddenly Stephen of Cloyes seemed to awake from a dream. He stood up in the wagon and pointed a gaunt finger at the soldier.
‘Go your ways, red-beard,’ he said quietly, ‘there are no runaways in this company. Those who are with us have been called by God to fight against the Saracen; they are no runaways.’
For a moment it seemed that Dickon the Englishman would spur his horse up to the wagon and drag Stephen down; but Gil, the Captain, rode forward and signed to the man to withdraw. Then, fixing Stephen with his fierce eye, he said gravely, ‘You understand, Stephen, do you not, that the Seigneur of Beauregard has a long arm, and a long whip to go with it?’
The boy stared back fearlessly at the soldier.
‘I know that my master, Christ, has a longer arm,’ he said. ‘And I know that His arm will defend me against the whip of the Seigneur of Beauregard, however long it may be. That is my answer.’
Gil the Captain flushed and bit his lower lip angrily, but there was nothing he could say in answer to the boy’s simple words, and it was while he sat there, undecided, that the piper put his flute to his lips and began to play a tune, a tune so gentle, so dainty, that it seemed to come into existence by itself, without the aid of man; but, once in being, it seemed to fill the head, the heart, the understanding. . . . In it were the strength of the oak, the fury of the North wind, the sly trickery of the grapes of Bordeaux. It captured the legs no less than the brain, and soon the children who stood about Stephen’s wagon began to laugh as the horses on which the men-at-arms were mounted began to prance, to nod their heads, and at last, taking the law into their own control, to turn and amble away, along the road by which they had come only a few minutes before.
Gil and Dickon tugged, helplessly, at the reins and struck with their spurred heels at their horses’ flanks. And so, at last, they disappeared among the surging masses of children, masked by the high clouds of dust which rose from the dry highway.
And when they had gone, Alys came from under the heap of straw where she had been hiding and said, ‘I give you my thanks, Stephen, for protecting us so.’
But the lad looked away from her as though in disgust. ‘May God forgive me for speaking a little less than the truth,’ he said. ‘And may He make you and your brother worth the price I must pay for you when the last reckoning is told.’
Alys did not understand what he meant, but just then the piper gave her a nudge, and winking merrily at her behind Stephen’s back, started up with a jolly marching song that drove away the girl’s seriousness and set the feet of all tramping as though in time to a great drum.
And that was always the way it was. Whenever a difficulty arose of any sort, the piper seemed to be there to soothe it away and to smooth everything out with his flute. Through woodland, fresh cornfields, above vineyards, the great army of children went, sometimes laughing, but more often trudging wearily in the heat of the day, with the silver sounds of the flute in their ears.
And though, as June became July, and they drew nearer the City of Lyons, the countryfolk seemed to have less and less to spare for them, always after the piper had thrown the net of his magic over a hamlet, or village, or even a town, kindly women would come out of their houses with gifts of bread, or meat, wooden bowls of broth, or trays of honey-cakes. Not that there was ever enough food to satisfy that avid multitude.
Yet strange things happened on that weary march south. Once, not more than a league from the Rhone, in a little valley where the stream had shrunk so much in the summer that even a child of three could stride across it, the piper blew a queer little tune as a covey of partridge was passing, and four of the birds seemed to collide in mid-air and fell like stones to the ground.
On another occasion the hurrying children came upon a stag, caught by the antlers in a holly thicket. . . . And yet again, when many of them whimpered aloud with hunger, the piper played his gayest gigue, and round the next bend of the sunken road they came upon a baker’s wagon, on its side, an axle broken. Neither baker nor horse was to be seen and the loaves, some of them still warm, were scattered here and there upon the grass.
Each night, as the children lit their fires, clustering about the glowing twigs as hunched as Tartars, thinking of the cosy homes they had left, consoling themselves with the glory that was to be theirs when they had freed Jerusalem from the Infidel, Stephen would walk among them, stopping here and there, his right hand raised, to call his followers to prayer. Though most of them were of his own age, and some of them considerably older, there were among them many little ones who could hardly understand what Stephen was saying, or even why they were there, listening to him.
It was one of these little children that came near to changing the course of Alys’ life.
One night, as she sat at Stephen’s feet, in the glow of the campfire, listening to the shepherd lad’s impassioned words, Alys noticed a small girl of about five years, sitting opposite her. The child, whose clothes hung in tatters about her thin body, was whimpering with hunger and swayed with exhaustion as she rubbed her dark-rimmed eyes with fragile knuckles.
‘Look, Geoffrey,’ said Alys. ‘The poor little one is suffering. She needs someone to care for her.’
But Geoffrey’s attention was caught by the words and gestures of the preacher and he gestured impatiently to silence his sister.
‘Be quiet, Alys,’ he said. ‘Listen to Stephen of Cloyes. There is such magic in his words as may not be heard anywhere else in France.’
Alys was silent then, but Stephen’s words gradually lost their meaning for her, and all she knew was a great tenderness for the little child.
Quickly, she rose and, skirting the fire, went to the small girl. Bending over her, she placed a hand on the pale forehead. It was feverishly hot. The little girl lowered her hands and gazed up at Alys with great dark eyes.
‘Take me home, Madame,’ she whimpered, the tears running down her cheeks. ‘I want to go back to Maman and the chickens.’
Alys was close to tears herself at the words, but putting her arms about the crying child, she picked her up and rocked her gently, trying to soothe her.
Stephen’s light eyes seemed to focus on Alys for an instant and, in the midst of his exhortations, he said thickly, ‘They who would serve God must be prepared to suffer. Let him who complains of such suffering return to the unrighteous comforts, the slothful pleasures of his home. There is no place here for those who weep at the task they have undertaken.’
For a moment Alys stood aghast, staring at the boy prophet. Then her anger with him burst forth, before she could control her words.
‘Shepherd,’ she heard herself saying, amazed at the contempt in her voice, ‘the Master whom you profess to follow counselled greater kindness to his little ones than you do, in your arrogant pride. This child is sick, and all because she followed you, poor witless mite! If your heart is so miserable that it can contain no pity for such a one, then I for my part want no more of your Crusade!’
The children clustering round the fire gasped at these words, and one of the noble youths who rode beside the wagon and was now holding up a red banner bearing the symbol of the Oriflamme, stepped forward, his hand raised to strike Alys for her forwardness.
But suddenly there was a scuffling sound from the shadows beyond the fire, as Geoffrey sprang between his sister and the angry youth, his hand already on the pommel of his dagger.
‘Stand off, clown!’ he shouted. ‘Wave your flag against blackamoors, not against young women of good birth! I warrant you, if you come a pace nearer I’ll save you the trouble of walking to the Holy Land, that I swear!’
This was too much for the young nobleman. With a cry of fury, he flung down the banner and sprang back a yard as he tugged at the short sword in his belt. Then, teeth bared white in the fireglow, he stood on guard, the blade of his sword pointing at Geoffrey’s throat, glinting wickedly in the starlight.
‘Come on then, scullion,’ he said. ‘Make good your boast. No one has ever threatened Jean de Parchet and gone scot free! Come on, I say!’