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Chapter Twenty-One
The road unfolded as a mystery, though well known for a thousand years, it was fresh and new to them – God creating it just beyond their sight. It took shape as they walked it, its quality cast by their trust. On days when flowing streams journeyed alongside, when crop lands and orchards appeared over the next hill, they assumed their faith in line – God’s reward for fidelity. . . Superstition, they should know better . . . They did. And did not. Who’s to judge? Newness is its own magic. Who knows this better than lovers? That heady leap from practicality. Mary chose the better while Martha toiled. They are lovers, Christ and His Church.
Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth! More delightful is your love than wine! Your name spoken is a spreading perfume . . . that is why the maidens love you. Draw me to you, let us hurry! Bring me, O king, to your chambers . . .
But the chambers did not prove, only misery. Desert heat. This was repentance. They must not forget. Jēsu responds to faith only – that risk to act upon the unknown. Those who know Him know its danger. Blessed are they who have not seen yet believe . . . to be abandoned, to be betrayed, to be made a fool, to lose all and die in anguish. A terrifying glory. The dead at Dorylaeum awash in it. Both sides. Who are these invaders, asked the Sunni, the Rabbinic, the Karaite? So, ask the Christians of the Eastern faith.
They crossed into Cappadocia, fantastic to the eye with chimney rocks and tooth-like peaks standing on their points as if the slightest wind could topple them. All about them crevasses and caves carved into the mountainsides. Forests of rocks jutted into the air stratified with iron and red clay, shaped by winds with forgotten names, phallus-like and pock marked. Devilish pricks, that stone could have the ‘burning sickness’.
“Giants thrown down into the earth,” the priests said.
Aile would’ve laughed if not so weak. It didn’t stop the other women. Nor the men. If giants be tossed down, they’re buried on their back and erect in agony. Nothing so torturous as the moment unfulfilled. And these are Christian lands noted in the Scriptures. No mention of the landscape. Few streams were found. The ground burnt, fit only for madmen and prophets. Faith did not yield fresh water. If only Moses would strike the rock.
They rationed what they had. Seigneurs first. Then pedes and craftsmen. Destriers next along with peasants. Pack animals last, though a number of seigneurs rode donkeys and oxen. Animals tried to drink from salt springs, but the brine turned them away. Those who drank anyway died poorly, charging down the column in pain. The soldiers butchered them for the evening fires. God provides in His peculiar way. Dogs and goats were ladened with gear. A circus – the Franks who only weeks ago routed Kilij Arslan.
Tìbald sucked on a thorn branch. He walked, the reins of the war horse in one hand and a train of goats in the other. Joceran and his men-at-arms the same. Père Marin and Esmè close by, unremarkable. Odd, Marin no longer needed wine and Esmè not so fat . . . Where was Fulk?
Aile walked too, sweating in her iron – she and her palfrey. Ysobel had died of fever. An ugly death, Aile her servant in the final hours. Sisters in Christ. Marin gave her the final rite. Aile wanted to strike her in the head with a rock to free her from her misery but knew better. Jēsu took no gall on the cross. We must suffer to the end.
Tìbald buried her. Joceran wanted the men to do it. Tìbald refused. Now gravedigger. Aile watched him put her in the ground. Her body covered with linen, a softer cloth than in her living days. She need not stay warm. He shoveled the dry soil on her, going back to the earth.
Aile stoic until she winced.
Tìbald saw it and knew . . . Or thought he knew till her lips pulled back in a grimace. Her shoulders arched and released. She gaped. It happened again. She looked to Tìbald, her heart betraying her? Her jaw flexed. Is such the connection between body and soul that the corporeal should mourn while the spirit feels nothing? Her jaw tightened more. She swayed into an awkward gate and the top of her head prickled.
A little girl vomited on the side of the road, crouching on all fours with her forehead pressed to the dirt. The sick and dying were suddenly about her. They begged for water from any passerby. Priests offered what comfort they could, many just as miserable.
Aile’s wound was hot. She ran to Tìbald, her hauberk jiggling. Called his name but her jaw froze and collapsed in a spasm.
“I have you. I have you,” Tìbald said, knowing the condition. “It will pass. Look at me. It will pass. It’s from your wound.” She flailed. He cupped her cheeks and felt the rigor. “Look at me.” Her face a fright. “I know what this is.” She nodded.
“Did the pain come on sudden?”
‘Yes.’
“Does your belly hurt? A tightness down there?”
‘No.’
“This should be the worst of it. Have trust and pray.” He knew she was in danger and folded her into his arms. Her brain afire. She closed her eyes and fell into a fever dream. That device again. Are we Agamemnon? Pharaoh? Joseph instructed to take Mary as his wife? Yet we dream – more than literary ploys, the bicameral mind. Half of us is hid and we’re surprised at what we wish. Dream you tonight and wonder . . .
She sat at her sewing on a winter’s day. Out the loophole Sainte Cecelia blanketed in snow. The room warm from the burning hearth. And Tìbald off to Holy War . . . Where he belonged. Then Bayard coming down the stairs, dead these years in the state of youth when God took him. Why dream of him now, she rarely did. Was he locked up in her heart, or in truth, just unmotherly? She was never one to feel. Repent Tìbald fils de Gosselin, her tacit thinking. Do your penance well. Much to repent for . . . Bayard came down the steps, Tìbald at his side (such are fever dreams). The boy tripped, and fell, dead (not that’s how it happened, only as remembered – a memory made now – flecks of truth like magic dust. How many of escape or swing on magic dust? She ran, racing through the woods after her first husband. Was it the stillborns? She was cold. Hungry. Afraid.
She woke Tìbald with her thrashing. He’d laid next to her near a firepit having watched her breaths, knowing the stiffness could coil around her chest. Marin was there as was Esmè. They seemed, to Tìbald, like ethereal buzzards, waiting with their unctions and washings for her life to be done . . . until Marin place a hand on Tìbald’s shoulder, and with the human touch, he was undone.
“I ran,” Tìbald said of Dorylaeum. “I ran.” He dropped his head as if Marin’s hand had brought it on. “She cannot die. She must not.” His cowardliness at last destroying her. “Help me, Père. What do I do?”
“Your penance,” Marin’s candid yet compassionate response. “Be not swayed by crucial matters regardless of their importance. Bear your cross . . .”
"How much hardship can I bear?”
“O’, dómini,” his painful sigh. “The cross is not hardship . . . It’s death.”
“Damn you.” Tìbald said exhausted and turned to Aile thrashing. “You will live,” he whispered. “I’ll serve the Basileus and we’ll live in a fine house. And if not, I’ll rise in Curthose’s service and be granted better lands. Or we can go to England where there are estates to be won. Our lives will be better, I promise. Do not die . . . Give me belief, oh God,” he prayed. Did someone pray for Ysobel? “Give me Your securing demands. Mark me a sinner, for at least a sinner knows where he stands. Virgin Mother, pray for us. Bayard pray for us. Jēsu in Disguise pray for us.”
He laid next to her, hand on her hip. Even in slumber she turned her back to him. He spooned her with a hand around her belly. She felt rigid. Did she know he was there? Did it matter? He did not sleep, mumbling away the night in prayer.
She awoke as the sun broke over the hills, nothing so much as a bright eastern sunrise seen first in Eden, then on resurrection day. Tìbald’s hand still on her belly like a poultice drawing heat. A magic hand filled with wonders. So, he wished, that hand which split men in two, deformed them, disemboweled them. Aile felt no magic, though grateful it was there.
She rolled over, Tìbald staring at her. What she wanted to see? Yes, but not the Tìbald she needed, so she imagined . . . God is punishing me. Why? The hauberk. Her jaw seized, but in a breath, released. A noxious condition, deadly to be sure, but better than being cut to bits. One with a chance she knew. But chance was little comfort and almost cruel. Disease her reality. First wounds are apprentices to larger ones to come, like lost love, they toughen. Some though are shattering, the body heals but is forever wounded.
Tìbald formed a pillow from his cloak, and rigged a pallet and tied it behind a goat.
Trumpets sounded and the camp shook itself. Duke Robert called for his men to assemble. Tìbald saddled his horse himself and prayed Fulk was miserable for abandoning him. As he mounted, the horse, patched and salved, whirled its head to bite him. Why do our own grieve us? . . .Why do we grieve our own? Where is Fulk? He grabbed the bridle about the horse’s and shook it. He looked it on the eyes. “You are mine.” The beast snorted. Tìbald shook the bridle harder. “Stand.” He pat the destrier’s neck. Its ears flattened and rose. Such the way to harm and comfort.
*****************
They staggered out of the salt desert. The city of Iconium, Kilij Arslan’s newly designated capital, lay before them in the Meram Valley. A sweet valley. Sainte Paul and Barnabas began their preaching here, risking their lives drawing the first gentiles to Christ. Now a city of minarets. No summoning of church bells, their song silent . . . But the Adhan, the beautiful, mysterious Adhan. Such a call to prayer:
ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ
أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ. أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ
أَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ. أَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ0
حَيَّ عَلَى ٱلصَّلَاةِ. حَيَّ عَلَى ٱلْفَلَاحِ
ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ.
لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ
God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest.
I bear witness that there is no god but the one God. I bear witness that there is no god but the one God.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messager of God.
Hasten to the prayer. Hasten to the prayer.
Hasten to the salvation. Hasten to the salvation.
Hasten to the best deeds. Hasten to the best deeds. (Shiia)
God is the Greatest.
There is no god but God!
To swoon. To sigh. Simplicity. The beauty of a single voice. The shofar sounds. The bells ring. But the one voice heard throughout the city, over tilled fields, calling not man but creation to bow down. Is God pleased? How could He not? It is noble and beautiful. Bloody noble. The slaves. The stonings. The heads . . . How they love. How they hate. Are they Christians? Nay, Christians are an errant people. They have Isa (Jēsu) wrong. True, he was born of Maryam, a virgin. True, he performed miracles and raised the dead. True, he is the Jewish Mashiach and will return in glory to judge the world – he said so as an infant. He is not God, nor the Son of God. He did not come as a sacrifice for sin. He did not resurrect from the dead because he was never crucified; God whisked him up to heaven before the event. To believe other is apostasy, and apostasy is death . . .
Digression.
Despite all the beauty of prayer, Kilij Arslan fled into the mountains with what valuables he had. God be praised, the Franks were in no condition for a fight. A miracle: the Lord would give them no burden they could not carry. Is that the saying? How many perished by that saying?
They rushed to the freshwater ponds. If the Seljuks had stay, they would have slaughtered them. The pilgrims gulped like madmen until they collapse, their bellies aching, wretched from the lowest pede to the greatest prince. Duke Godfrey had been injured by a bear either out hunting or saving a Christian villein it chased, regardless, he was near death. Count Raymond heaved white vomit and near the end himself. Exhausted, the army laid down in orchards and slept, assured God had delivered them. Aile slept hard.
In the morning, Christians from the city approached with caution, having heard tales of these wild western men, who cross themselves with all fingers from left to right and were unaware of the order of things. “You have delivered the city without bloodshed,” they said to the Franks. “We are your brothers in the Lord and praise Him and His saints with you. Come and take your rest.” That they would think it and not plunder.
Tìbald sat beneath a date tree polishing his sword when he glanced up to see some local boys staring. They were young and reminded him of Ugo and Fulk at that age. They watched him curiously. Were they Turk or Syrian? Armenian boys? He didn’t care. Watched them though. He could end up with a knife in his back. They’re all the same – father hands son a knife before a tied-up prisoner – cut his throat, father says. Father urges son for he must learn. The boy is afraid but kills. Then he’s thrust into the saddle with bow and spear to learn the martial art. And Norman boys ape their fathers when they play: sword-and-shield, boxing, wrestling, inventing their own cruelties . . .
It is manhood . . .
Must I explain? The man kills not for himself but for the tribe. And is killed in defense of the tribe . . . Demolish tribes you say. They make monsters. But the outsider, be he boy or man, kills because they’re damaged. They kill to make suffering. They kill because their soul’s gone awry with the devil to coo and coddle them. The outsider . . . We make war on monsters . . .
Tìbald worked the blade, shifting his eyes towards them. Why let them in camp?
One of the boys pointed at him and said in Greek, “Stratiótis tou Christoú.”
Tìbald shook his head.
“Stratiótis tou Christoú,” he repeated.
Tìbald shrugged.
The boy shook his head. “Me-éls . . .” he struggled, “Christoú.”
“Ah.” Tìbald nodded. “Naí.” His one word of Greek and tapped his chest. “Naí, Miles Christi.”
They nodded too, happy, and bowed with toothy grins and moved on just like that.
Tìbald smiled as well. They made him. Young Christian boys roaming the camp. Maybe shepherd boys being foolish, or farm boys shirking chores. Young boys make men smile . . . if not trying to kill them. Would these two mites put a knife in a Saracen’s ribs given the opportunity? But theirs, a true smile. As Saracen boys must smile . . . But something strange. Of the thousands in camp, why Tìbald? What in him? He was no prince. No grand seigneur. That he oiled his sword? Swords attract young boys. For what lad, battered and bruised as they all are, would shrink from a sword’s grip? It is his heart’s boldness and power. There are female warriors with courage and skill who can best any man. But the provenance of the sword is a male organ. How could Tìbald not smile? . . .
Where’d the boys go?
He could not find them in the crowd. He examined the tattered cross sown to his hauberk. Then looked again for the boys in camp. In the waning August sun countless of red crosses – crosses patched together time and again. Replaced. Patched again and replaced – Miles Christi a daily call.
‘Naí, Miles Christi’, sounds like a name. Must seigneur, pede, or sergeant perform every day to wear it? Is it obtained by works or grace? Or does grace bestow it and labours maintained it? Must God be so angry? Isn’t Christ Jēsu the transmission of the Father’s love? Yet, whatever lovely, must be maintained by husbandry.
Husbandry.
Aile.
He prayed: “‘O God, who through the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, dost pour the gift of love into the heart of Thy faithful servant, Aile, grant unto her health, both of mind and body, that she may love Thee with her whole strength, and with entire satisfaction may perform those things which are pleasing unto Thee this day; though Jēsu Christi or Lord. Amen’”. He polished his sword. It gleamed. Miles Christi. ““O God, who through the grace of Thy Holy Spirit . . .’”
******************
Aile rested on soft grass. Clean water and plentiful fruit had done much for her. Iconium’s white walls rose in contrast to the roughhewn highlands surrounding it. Lovely city. Beautiful words sung to her – ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ God is the Greatest. She looked about the small valley, the sky thick with clouds, tight and narrow. A denseness near the world’s center. Jerusalem not so far, she imagined. Her body hurt, though her shoulder little less afire. And a weakness, she pined for the fringes of the world. Frivolous places (wayward Aile, up and down, up and down) where God’s Hand is sought in a blade of grass rather than history. And the haunting refrain from the minaret:
ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ. ٱللَّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ
أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ. أَشْهَدُ أَن لَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ
أَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ. أَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ0
God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest.
I bear witness that there is no god but the one God. I bear witness that there is no god but the one God.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messager of God.
But with the resonance of the strange and beautiful words, a hum started in her, a theretofore unheard language, a glossolalia harmonizing yet competing, not by force, but by pre-eminence:
εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐγήγερται, κενὸν ἄρα [καὶ] τὸ κήρυγμα ἡμῶν, κενὴ καὶ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν.
If then Christ has not been raised, void than also the preaching of us, void also the faith of you.
It sounded like angelic voices – the cherubim and the muezzin.
Aile reached up and plucked a fig from a tree limb overhead. A fat fruit, luscious and purple. When she bit, it coated her fingers with sticky juice. Nothing was as sweet – the fruit and the duelling voices: one without, one within. A delirium?
Τίς ἡμᾶς χωρίσει ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ?
I was so excited a new chapter was out and could not wait to read it! It did not disappoint!
I love the world that Tim Osner has created in MILES CHRISTI. It's like he has captured the profound MEANINGFULNESS of having such a pure purpose (service to God) while at the same time demonstrating the existential MEANINGLESSNESS of the suffering caused by this service.
"Must I explain? The man kills not for himself but for the tribe. And is killed in defense of the tribe..."
"To swoon. To sigh. Simplicity. The beauty of a single voice. The shofar sounds. The bells ring. But the one voice heard throughout the city, over tilled fields, calling not man but creation to bow down. Is God pleased? How could He not? It is noble and beautiful. Bloody noble."
"Is God pleased?" is the question I think about a lot when I am reading MILES CHRISTI.
Extremely moved by the entire section when Aile sees the children she has lost and her former husband. The imagery was so mesmerizing - I could picture it in my head like a vision. It made me wonder if this is what it would be like at the end of life. And AFTER you die? Would you see the people who meant so much to you in your life and who you lost to death? It made me think of a line from a song I love by Thom Yorke (Suspirium): "When I arrive, will you come and find me? Or in a crowd, be one of them?"
"she pined for the fringes of the world...where God’s Hand is sought in a blade of grass rather than history."
Absolutely beautiful line.