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  Urban paused, leaning against the dais. He watched the assembled mass. Men burst into tears, faces in their hands, women turned away, and then the cry came. ‘Deus vult!’ The shout rose to a roar as men drew sword and dagger in a clash of steel, bellowing their war cry to the skies. Urban lifted his hands and motioned for silence.

  ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,’ he intoned. ‘Unless the Lord God had been in your minds, you would not have cried “Deus vult!” So I say to you, God himself has drawn this cry from you. Let that be your battle cry when you go out against the enemy. Let this war cry be shouted: God wills it! Moreover, whoever shall offer himself upon the journey must make a vow, and wear a sign of the cross on his head or his breast. The old and sick should not go, nor those unfit to bear arms. Women should not set out upon this holy pilgrimage without husbands, brothers or guardians, for such are a hindrance rather than an aid. Let the rich help the poor. Do not let possessions detain you, nor the love you have for children, parents or homes. Remember what the Gospel says: “You must forsake all to follow Christ.” So go forth upon your path to the Holy Sepulchre, wrest that land from the invaders and keep it for yourselves, a land that flows with milk and honey! Jerusalem, fruitful above all other lands, where the Lord lived and died for us. In His Holy Sepulchre kneel and give thanks for your faith. Go, and fear not. Your possessions here will be safely guarded, whilst you will take from your enemy even greater treasures. Why fear death in a land where Christ laid down his life for you? If any should lose their lives, even on the journey by sea or land in this battle against the Turks, their sins will be forgiven. I grant this to all who go, by the power invested in me by God. Do not fear torture or pain, for that is the crown of martyrdom. The way will be short, the reward everlasting. Yes, I speak with the voice of a prophet. Take up your arms; it is better to fall in battle than see the sorrow of your people and the desecration of the Holy Places . . .’

  And so the summons went out. Adhémar, bishop of nearby Le Puy, Urban’s envoy, was appointed to take the Voice of God and turn it into the Voice of the People. Urban was of Cluny, and his black-robed Benedictine brethren also carried the message out into the fields, villages and cities. They painted a picture of heavenly delight awaiting all who took the cross: Jerusalem, the eternal city, guarded by lofty towers, with foundations of precious stones, protected by gates brighter than the stars; even its battlements glowed with pure crystal. Inside, the streets were paved with gold and silver, its palaces of gleaming marble, lapis lazuli and precious gems. Crystal waters spurted through golden-mouthed fountains and silver-edged pipes to water health-giving trees, fragrant flowers and medicinal herbs. During a cruel winter, with the meat smelling rancid, the fruit and vegetables turning black and rotting, the bread rock-hard, not to mention the prospect of worse to come, the vision of such a heavenly city was more powerful than any psalm or hymn. Young men left horse and plough to prostrate themselves before the rood screen of their church. Two slivers of red cloth, sewn in the form of a cross, were clasped on their shoulders. A few days later they would stand in the same stone-flagged, hollow-sounding nave to receive the purse and staff, symbols of being a pilgrim as well as a cross-bearer.

  Winter passed bleak and hard. Berries and roots became the staple of life, whilst the soft breads, fresh meats and plump fruits of summer grew to be only a distant memory. Many more began to envy the crucesignati, or cross-bearers. The prospect of bathing in the warm waters of the Jordan, of walking amongst a paradise of fruit trees and feasting on sweet, tender meats and the softest manna was almost as tantalising as that of everlasting life. Such dreams warmed the freezing cold of winter in draughty rooms filled with peat-smoke, which curled and cured the stale meat hanging from rafters or shoved into crevices above the hearth. God wills it. The message went out, seeping through the rain-soaked villages and frost-imprisoned hamlets with their rutted tracks, stinking animal pens and dingy houses. The cross, two slivers of red cloth, would transform all this.

  God wills it – the refrain was taken up in halls and solars where the smoke-darkened tapestries ruffled and flapped against limestone walls in a vain attempt to keep out the sneaky icy draughts. Deus vult. A glorious path had been opened to salvation in this world and redemption in the next. Why, men wondered, wait for spring to break the hard soil, to stare up at the clouds and pray desperately for good weather? Why not journey east to the marvels of Jerusalem, destroy God’s enemies, seize back the Holy Places and win the Lord’s friendship for all eternity? No more hardship, no more war between neighbours, no more back-breaking work on the land or perilous journeys from one place to another as darkness descended and the wood-mists swirled. Other glories beckoned: the gold, silver and precious stones that adorned the fabulous cities of the Byzantines. Conversion to the call was swift. Even professional men of war hurried to take the oath. They too prostrated themselves before the altars of a thousand churches. They pledged their estates wherever they could, settled debts, made peace with enemies, drew up wills and turned to the business in hand. How many spears, how many arrows were needed? What armour? How many pack horses? They drew in others as former opponents invoked the Truce of God, which meant that a warrior dedicated to the cross was sacred – and that included his property and family.

  The great lords were also lured, amongst these Raymond, the sixty-year-old Count of Toulouse, Lord St Gilles, or Sanctus Aegidius, to whom he had a special devotion. Raymond became a fervent cross-bearer. Small and wiry, his hard head shaved close as well as his grey beard and moustache, he had a warrior’s face. Some said he had lost an eye fighting the infidel in Iberia. Others claimed he had been on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and had his eye plucked out for refusing to pay the tax the Turks levied on all who wished to worship in the Holy Sepulchre. These same people whispered how Raymond kept the eye in a special pouch and had pledged vengeance for it. Raymond of Toulouse mortgaged his estates, settled his debts, took the oath and sent out his messengers. The Provençals, the count’s subjects, listened and marvelled at the portents that accompanied his proclamations. One night the moon turned blood-red. A shepherd saw a mighty city in the air. A star appeared and advanced by leaps and bounds towards the east. Torches of fire swept the sky. A sword of wonderful length was suspended from heaven and hosts of stars fell, each one representing the death of an infidel. Springs ceased to give water and spouted blood instead, indicating how the blood of their enemies was about to flow. Twins were born joined to each other; could that mean that east and west were to be united? The cross was seen everywhere. The stars themselves were congregating into one gigantic cross. A priest reported that the heavens had opened before his eyes and a huge cross had been displayed before him. Another priest maintained he had seen a vision of a knight and a Turk in combat in the sky. After a desperate battle, the infidel had been thrown from his horse and killed by the knight, who delivered his fatal blow with a cross. A sure sign that heaven was with them. God wills it!

  Better still, they argued in taverns and alehouses, life would improve. They would be liberated from tilling the harsh fields in endless, grinding monotony. The journey to Jerusalem was an escape not only from evil-smelling dark alleyways and damp hovels but from the strictures of life. Women dressed in men’s clothing and flourished spears with warlike threats. Priests, caught up in the frenzy, assumed the cross without consulting their bishops. Monks emerged from monasteries; some of them had not seen outside life since their youth and yet their abbots could not restrain them. Those who engaged in the sacred cause were, by papal decree, exempt from all taxation and relieved from duties if their lord did not take the cross. Debtors could not be held to account as long as they were a cross-bearer. No legal suit could be started against one who wore the sacred sign, whilst the cross was protection against almost any criminal action. Prisoners were released on the understanding that they would fight the Turks. Robbers who had been a terror to their neighbourhood for years were rec
eived into the peace with open arms. No man was so sin-laden that he could not be purged by merely assuming the cross and carrying out his vow. Women urged husbands, lovers and sons to enlist in the sacred cause. The man who held back was looked upon as a traitor to Christ and a coward to his community. Women’s garments were sent to him. Men and women burned and cut the sign of the cross on their own bodies and even branded their children, including infants at the breast, with the all-important symbol. A priest appeared with a cross burned deep on his forehead and confirmed it had been accorded to him by heaven.

  Nowhere did the word of God move so deeply as in the village of St Nectaire, close to Clermont where Urban had preached. It was a wild countryside dotted with extinct volcanoes now covered by craters full of wild flowers and grassy clumps, its limestone gorges washed by turbulent streams. A landscape of contrasting colours like the different shades of dark on a pigeon’s wing. The hymn to the Crusade had blown strong and clear here. The tensions of life would be released, all dissolved in the glorious journey to Jerusalem, which according to some was only five hundred miles away, or was it five thousand?

  On the eve of the Feast of St Ignatius of Antioch, the Year of Our Lord’s Incarnation 1096, the people of the manor of St Nectaire met in the chilly nave of their parish church. All assembled. Folk memory, as well as the records of the time, clearly establishes that, as does the chronicle written by Eleanor de Payens. They took the oath. They prostrated themselves on the freezing-cold floor of that haunted, sombre nave so recently polluted by spilt blood, its sanctuary violated as the witch Anstritha had been dragged out screaming to be hanged above a roaring fire. Those who had witnessed that, even participated in such a violent act, now tried to forget it as they concentrated on their own secret sins reeking of evil, their souls full of an insatiable hunger for absolution. The villagers of St Nectaire took the cross, the staff and the wallet. Jerusalem beckoned. They would exult when their feet trod the sacred streets behind its holy walls and heaven-built gates. Satan would be no more. The Lord of Hosts would encamp with them. They chanted the lines of the psalm:

  One thing I have asked of the Lord,

  For this, I long.

  To live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

  To savour the sweetness of the Lord.

  And behold His Holy Temple . . .

  Once this finished in a resounding ‘Amen’, Father Alberic asked them, as they sat on the rough benches before the rood screen, to look on the ravaged face of their crucified Christ, reflect on their sins and seek absolution. One by one they were to move across to the shriving pew where Father Alberic, in his dusty black gown, sat in the mercy chair to listen, exhort and bestow absolution.

  The place of penance was in a shadowy transept concealed behind a squat, drum-like pillar. One candle of pure beeswax, a pledge by Hugh de Payens, glowed invitingly; its dancing flame illuminated the vivid wall-painting nearby: a scene from the Apocalypse, Satan’s persecution of the elect, a river of torment that the Lord of Hell vomited against the Church. The widow Eleanor de Payens was the first to cross to this shadowy place of repentance and absolution. She had followed her brother from the green fields of Compiègne on the left bank of the Seine outside Paris: like him she had taken the cross and so must be shriven. Eleanor’s graceful, strong face was shrouded by a veil, her skin unpainted, her bright grey eyes clearly troubled, her full lips slightly parted, firm chin jutting forward. She found confession difficult; she always did. She knelt before the shriving pew, whispered her list of petty sins, then paused, head down.

  ‘And?’ Father Alberic whispered. There was always an ‘and’.

  ‘Father, I am a widow. My husband Odo . . .’ Eleanor paused, ‘he fell one night and killed himself.’

  ‘I have heard of this.’

  ‘But not the full truth, Father. He was deep in his cups. I encouraged him in that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To keep him from me, but he came searching. At Compiègne,’ Eleanor continued in a rush, ‘in our castle, a tower built of stone with a wooden hall alongside, my chambers lie high in the turret.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He came up, Father. I was alone. His mouth was full of foul oaths, his heart bubbling with malice, his belly swilling with cheap wine. I met him on the stairwell. We fought. I pushed him, Father, he fell, striking his head against the walls, the sharp stone steps . . .’

  ‘You were defending yourself?’

  ‘Father, I was pleased to see him fall.’ Eleanor could say no more. She could not confess those last sins, her secret pleasure at Odo’s death, those long hours she stayed in her chamber, neglectful about what had happened to him.

  However, Father Alberic was nodding understandingly, hand already going up, lips mouthing the “Absolvo te”.

  Eleanor left the shriving pew. She had leaned so tensely against the mercy chair that her arms and wrists ached. Alberic had said that her penance would be her pilgrimage. She crossed the nave and knelt in the Lady Chapel, staring up at the carved face of the Virgin. Eleanor closed her eyes and once again whispered the Confiteor.

  ‘I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned exceedingly . . .’

  Would she, Eleanor wondered, gain peace and absolution in Outremer? Would she kneel in the Holy Sepulchre and ask forgiveness? Or would Odo’s angry, hate-filled face, full of fury at his own impotence, come like a shadow of the night to haunt her? No one knew the full truth, not even her beloved brother Hugh, or his close comrade Godefroi of St Omer, to whom she was so attracted. Was that also a sin, her secret thoughts and desires? Little wonder she was determined to journey to Jerusalem. She had brushed aside her brother’s objections, whilst meeting Godefroi of St Omer was only further encouragement to take the cross. Moreover, to stay in that rain-washed manor at Compiègne, alone and vulnerable, waiting for the ghosts to return . . . Eleanor caught herself and sighed. Her pilgrimage was certainly not for selfless reasons. She chewed her lip and wondered about her brother’s . . .

  At the mercy chair, Hugh de Payens was also seeking absolution, for the drunkenness that followed his wife’s death in childbirth, his consolation with the occasional whore, and above all, his constant absorption with the tourney or the mêlée, his need, even hunger, for a life of fighting. If he could only sweep this up, purify it and place his sword at the feet of the Lord and Holy Mother Church . . . Father Alberic heard him out. The priest was glad Hugh was their leader. He was an accomplished knight, skilled in war and swordplay, who had purified himself through service in Iberia against the infidels. A fanatic? Alberic wondered. Hugh’s face was lean; his dark eyes, thin lips and slightly hooked nose gave him a rather cruel, predatory look. He was tall and slim, with the long, powerful arms of a swordsman, a soul looking for a song, Alberic concluded as he raised his hand in absolution. Yes, the priest was glad Hugh de Payens was to be the leader of their company as well as an ally in Alberic’s own secret search for the truth.

  The same applied to Godefroi of St Omer, who came next. In contrast to Hugh, Godefroi was a rather stout, short young man with a smooth, smiling face beneath a mop of flaxen hair. His clear blue eyes gazed out on the world like those of a confused child. Godefroi of St Omer, the only beloved son of his parents, gave the impression that nothing in life was too serious. As he began to list his sins, Alberic realised that Godefroi, his manor lord with advowson to this church, was like a forest pool: a placid surface hiding a veritable tangle beneath. Despite his looks and easygoing ways, Godefroi had also taken part in the chevauchées into Iberia. Fired by the Chanson de Roland, the epic deeds of Charlemagne and his paladins, he had fought the infidels along the rocky gorges of the mountain passes. Nonetheless, he had become a deeply troubled man, a knight who now realised war was not glory. He talked of dark, despairing days, freezing cold in the mountains. How the rain and hail slashed down, smashing tents, spreading infection amongst the horses and rotting the already mouldering pork and the weevil-infested biscu
its. How the rain had turned their shirts of mail to heavy rust. He also described massacres on dusty plains, wells and river beds being choked with corpses. Godefroi had returned from such wars wondering what all that had to do with the love of Christ. He asked the same question now and received the usual answer: God’s will! Urban had preached this and the Church upheld it. After all, hadn’t God in the Old Testament raised David the warrior to defend his people? Moreover, in the New Testament, Christ had told Peter to simply put up his sword, not throw it away. Father Alberic quietly congratulated himself on this clever piece of casuistry, taught to him by a canon lawyer from Avranches. He was about to administer absolution when Godefroi’s head came up, and he stared full and frank at the priest.

  ‘And there’s Anstritha, Father. She was involved in our secret quest. Her death troubles us.’

  ‘Our quest remains. They claim she was a witch.’

  ‘Who sought refuge in our church.’

  ‘I could not help her,’ Alberic hissed, ‘nor could any of you. The Lady Eleanor and the Lord Hugh were visiting Clermont. You were with them. It happened so swiftly, her blood does not stain our hands.’

  Godefroi nodded, rose and walked away. Alberic put his face in his hands as if in prayer, a sign to the next penitent that he was not yet ready.