The Dale Cycle
Part One: Road to Santiago
This is part one of a multi-story cycle, set in and around the Fourth Crusade (1201 - 1204 CE). I'll probably write and post them in order, but as this is intended as a mood break from Profs!AU, I have no set schedule as to when. Each one will be reasonably self-contained, and not end on extreme cliffhangers.
Each story in this cycle is inspired by (some more loosely than others) a particular song from Canadian folk singer/songwriter Heather Dale. She is phenomenal, and I strongly recommend you check her out. She has a free album available for download on her website ("Perpetual Gift"), and I think pretty much all of her songs are on YouTube in some form or another. I'll link to particular ones as I go.
(Or rather I would, but ffnet is stripping out all my coding. Argh. Find me on AO3 under this screen name for the full version with links.)
This is a medieval AU, and has been researched-within-reason. That is to say, I know quite a bit about the middle ages and the Crusades, I've done the reading on the basics of this particular Crusade and figured out how to fit these guys in, and hopefully the environment will ring true. If I've gotten some details wrong I beg for your forgiveness and indulgence.
While it's highly unlikely that everyone would be able to communicate with everybody in the real world, I've chosen to give all the main characters a language in common (French, here rendered as English) in order to make the story about the characters rather than strict historical veracity. Please don't stone me.
That being said, this series will likely contain language that is period-appropriate but distressing, specifically toward non-Christians, women and homosexual behaviour. Needless to say, as a queer Jewish woman, these are absolutely not my own personal views.
If anti-semitic (to both Jews and other semites), misogynist and homophobic language in specific context, and/or internalized period-appropriate homophobia distress you, be aware that all of the above may well appear here. I've toned it down from the period rhetoric for my own comfort levels, but.
Oh my god, is this author's note long enough?
(Apparently not. More at the end.)
Onward.
Inspired by The Road to Santiago, by Heather Dale.
Rated: T for language. Future parts will be higher for violence and sexual situations (awww yeah)
August, 1201. The south of France.
"You have no proof that this 'Magda' of yours even exists."
William ignored his brother. He let the familiar words of argument wash over and around him, a refrain almost soothing in the late summer heat. Sweat stung the backs of his knees and his neck under his coarse wool robe, the broad-brimmed hat keeping off the worst of the sun. His scrip thumped against his hip in rhythm with his steps, the pewter shrine badges stitched to the bag's flap jingling in time. The road was a clear one this time, the deep cart-ruts that ran down the centre of the hard-packed earth easily avoided.
"She exists. The legends say that the shrine of the Virgin at Siena has always been tended by a seer, from a family of seers and miracle workers." He made his usual reply, because Thomas expected it. His walking stick slid in his hand, the wood smooth from use and warm from his skin and the sun. "If even half the stories are true, then one of them will be able to help me." The gentle buzzing of insects filled in the silence when he stopped speaking.
"They could have chosen a better location for their shrine. We could have been halfway to Compostela by now. Think of it, Will-" Thomas spread his arms wide, his hand narrowly missing William's ear as he dodged. "Sand beaches, ripe peaches and figs falling off the trees, warm sun..." and he was off again, treading the well-worn paths of the debate.
"You've had more than enough sun already," William snorted. "It's gone to your head." He leaned away from his brother as Thomas gesticulated wildly once more.
As close as they had always been, twins born of the same womb, this journey of his had brought them closer together yet, every word predictable and action comforting in its sameness. And they had another month and a half to go, the Via Francigena winding before and behind them in equal measure.
William picked uneasily at the red linen cross stitched on to the brown homespun of his pilgrim's robe, the blazon marking him as part of a faith he didn't share. The dark blue of Thomas' hose flashed beneath the hem of his tunic, vestiges of a world they'd left behind.
"Stop fussing with your clothes; anyone would think you didn't feel comfortable in your holy vows." Thomas' voice held a warning and a sneer at the same time, a trick that he seemed to have learned in infancy.
"They're not comfortable," William retorted, but he forced his hand to drop, resting uneasily on the leather strap of his scrip. "And I wish there was some other way to pass safely. I always feel like we're going to be struck down for heretics and liars." He cast a suspicious glance heavenward, but no lightning came from the clear blue sky. A bird circled lazily overhead, caught an updraft and was gone. Was that a good omen?
Thomas shrugged, unconcerned. He twirled his hat in his hand, the sun shining silver off his hair, still so pale blond that it could pass for white. William had been born the same way, another white-blond twin, twenty minutes after his brother. The only distinction between them had been the caul that had covered William's face in a translucent shroud.
William's hair and eyes had darkened almost immediately, until now, twenty-one years later, the twins were like block-print reversals of each other; mirrored souls. As opposite as they were, one could not exist without the other.
"Then you have three choices, little brother," Tom suggested, glancing sideways with a sardonic smile.
Fine; let him be cryptic. William could play along. "And what are those?"
Thomas grinned wide, turned on his heel so he was half-walking half-dancing backward along the ridge between the cart-ruts. "Be burned for a heretic, a witch or a sodomite. And if any of those come to pass," he pointed at William, his eyes laughing, "you're on your own."
"Do you mind?" The point of fear lanced through him, sharp and bright. William whipped his head around, but no-one was visible, either on the road or in the trees that lined either side. "You can't just go saying those things."
Thomas was already gone, restless as ever, jogging ahead to peer around the sharp bend in the road. "There's a town just ahead," he reported as he came back, bouncing on his toes, the dust spotted yellow on the dark leather of his well-worn shoes. "What does your precious guidebook say to that? We should stop here," Thomas decided with a firm nod. "Think of it. They'll have cheese, fresh bread, good beer – all we've got left are apples and water, and that's beginning to give me gutrot."
It was dangerous, especially since they were on a quiet section of the Via. They'd not be used to taking in pilgrims like the larger cities, and that meant curiosity. Where are you from? Where are you going? Tell us about your travels. Too many chances to slip and make a mistake.
"It would be better to keep going," William said. "We've no money to pay for all your cheese and beer, and the Codex said that the next hospice is no more than two more hours' walk. We can be there by nightfall easily."
"Damn your all-holy book," Thomas cursed with casual ease. "Why eat pilgrims' alms and sleep on boards when we can spend the night in a real bed if we play this properly? We go in, you work a miracle, we get a chance to shake off the road dust for the night and sleep on a mattress away from the rats. It's simple." He clapped William companionably on the shoulder. As if things were that easy.
"I think taking advantage of honest townsfolk defeats the purpose of a pilgrimage," William replied dryly. His blood chilled a little at the thought of 'working a miracle,' as he so casually put it.
It wasn't as though he could control it the way Thomas wanted him to. The power surged under his skin at the thought, hungered to be released. It bubbled and sparked under his skin sometimes, seemed like a living thing as it coiled through his dreams.
What would it do if he gave in one day, let go all his control and simply let it ... out? The idea sent chills through him as much as it did fire, the longing and fear twined together and inseparable.
"Then it's a good thing we're not real pilgrims, isn't it?" Thomas grabbed him by the hand and laced his fingers between Will's as he pulled him along, tight and secure. The gloom that had begun to settle over the world lifted, the contact grounding him back down to the earth, connecting him to something solid and real.
Tom would never let him fall.
Tom would, however, manage to introduce him as a 'holy man' within five minutes of their arrival, and in less than an hour he found himself at a child's bedside, her face flushed red with fever where she lay on the straw-ticked pallet. Her parents stood in the door, the farmer's face deeply lined with suspicion and his wife's hands shaking. The wet cloth she had been using to salve her daughter's forehead lay forgotten on the sideboard. The late afternoon sun slanted brokenly through cracks in the closed shutters, dust motes dancing in the slivers of light. It highlighted rather than relieved the oppressive stillness of the sickroom.
He couldn't do this. What if something went wrong? She was a tiny little mite, maybe six years old. All he could see when he looked down was Jacob, his brow beaded with sweat and his eyes dark with fear, hands trembling between Mother's as the fever had taken him. This little one was blonde, not dark, a girl and not a boy, but the rest of it was so very familiar.
His magic had burst forth for Jacob as well, but in the end it hadn't mattered.
He couldn't do this.
Tom laid a hand on William's shoulder, squeezed it firmly. "You can," he murmured. "Remember what Samson said. It's not you. It's God working through you."
It would have helped more if he thought Thomas believed a word of it.
William took a breath. The second one came easier on the heels of the first, and then the third unlocked the knot sitting in the centre of his chest. He nodded.
He crossed himself because it was what they expected to see, a gesture that was as meaningless as all the Latin incantations he'd memorized years ago.
The girl's chest heaved as he pressed his palms down against her sweat-drenched body, the linen of her shift stuck to her fever-wracked form. He sank deep into himself where his curse ran and sparked and licked at his bones, the words of his prayers silent on his moving lips.
- Mi Sheberakh Avoteinu: Avraham, Yitzhak, v'Yaakov / May the Holy Blessed One overflow with compassion / I want her to heal. IwanthertohealIwant-
Blue light flared behind and before his eyes, fire consuming his bones and the world shattered and reformed.
There was a gasp, not his own, and when he opened his eyes the girl was looking back up at him with an expression of surprise and delight. Her forehead was still beaded with sweat but her eyes were clear, the pink fading from her cheeks even as they watched. She smiled and Tom let out a breath that he would never admit he had been holding and the farmer and his wife were alight with joy.
For a moment before the exhaustion claimed him it seemed that he was not cursed at all, but blessed.
There was an inn in the town, amazingly enough, a small house at one end of the small collections of buildings that made up the town. Thomas had 'the miracle man' ensconced in a chair in the common room in short order. William slumped in his corner, hood pulled low over his brow to block the worst of the light. It would take a little time for the strength to return to his limbs and the bee-buzzing to fade from his mind. Would that be something the shrine-maid could help him overcome?
And did he want to overcome the problems, or be rid of his curse altogether and have a vague chance at a normal life?
"And what sins have you committed, pilgrim, to put you on the road seeking an indulgence?" The dark-haired daughter of the innkeeper leaned over the bar as she spoke to Thomas, her tunic laced snug across her full chest. She was pretty enough, if you cared for that sort of thing, and Thomas obviously did. William folded his arms and sank lower in his chair.
"I am as pure and innocent as a newborn," Thomas teased her back, resting his elbows on the bar and leaning in himself. "My vows were purely for practical reasons."
"Have you not taken the cross, then?" She eyed him with curiosity and sparked interest.
"I? No, certainly not. I've taken up the robe and staff to accompany my brother. He travels to a shrine in the east and I've come along to make sure he doesn't hurt himself along the way. As you can see, he needs all the help that he can find."
She laughed, the tinkling of bells. William rolled his eyes beneath the folds of his hood.
Thomas' voice was sharper when he replied, a shift only William would notice. He shifted in his chair a little and tried not to look as though he were listening. "Why do you ask?"
"Only because there is a camp of them not far from here; father thought you might be en route to join their march." She slid a pair of mugs across the bar and Thomas wrapped his hands around one to take a deep draught.
"How far?" He asked, setting down the mug and wiping the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"About ten miles; Jehan brought the news this morning. I expect they'll be further on their way by tomorrow. Perhaps their company plans to pass by Siena? Surely it will be safer to travel with many than with two. They say the roads in Burgundy are thick with bandits who prey upon the unwary."
A dark curl had slipped loose from under the girl's linen cap; Thomas reached out to tangle it between two fingers. She glanced at the door, but didn't pull away. "Don't worry about our safety; we've skill enough between us to take on any comers."
"Now there's a fair offer-" Her voice dropped and William stopped paying attention.
Crusaders on the road; that could mean anything from twenty riders and squires up to an encampment of twenty thousand, and all of them fired with zealotry and battle-lust. England had been spared the worst, but everyone had heard the stories. The flashing of stone-sharpened steel and the bludgeoning of stones; synagogues and homes set to the torch; the women – god, the women, and girls barely old enough to understand – the pounding of horses' hooves and shouts of 'Christ-killers' that pierced the blackness of night and left nothing but bleeding corpses and ash behind.
Crusaders were to be avoided at all costs.
And Thomas was still flirting. "Don't tip your eyes his way, fair one; my brother's taken orders and will have no woman's touch. But I have not."
Oh, for the love of-
She didn't seem terribly put out by his implications, and when William glanced up in vague disdain, she was turning for the stairs with a crooked finger in beckon.
"Then come, fair pilgrim; let us pray…"
The sun had hit the horizon by the time the barmaid reappeared at her post and William was thoroughly fed up with the press of eyes upon him, the endless circling around of the curious in the common room. And if he had to continue to feign sleep or invent one more excuse as to why he could neither cure a bunion nor ensure a good dry autumn, he was going to find the nearest well and pitch Thomas down it.
He made his fast excuses and headed for their room, but not before the townsfolk had extracted a promise from him to bless their fields before they left the next morning. It couldn't do any harm to say a prayer, he supposed; it would give them hope, and hope was a precious commodity in times like this.
Thomas was sitting on the bed retying the points of his hose when William let the door swing closed behind him. William glared at him, more for the principle of the thing than anything else; Tom's self-satisfied smile did not slip an iota.
"At least tell me we can come back this way without finding a surprise next year?" William asked, dropping to sit beside his brother on the bed. He pulled his knees up to his chest, an old habit, and Thomas snickered as he stood.
"There are ways to please a fair lady without running that sort of risk, brother dear. If I thought you'd any interest in learning, I'd be happy to explain…"
"Go to hell." William groaned without venom, the feel of the bed beneath him a seduction he couldn't resist. He dropped his staff and hat, flopped backward with a low and thorough groan. The ends of the straw ticking poked him through the thin bedding and his robe, but it gave way beneath his body and the low droning ache in his muscles relaxed in glorious relief.
"Leave me some space, brat," Thomas ordered from the other side of the room, his robe and shirt loose around his waist as he washed in the basin. William muttered, too tired now to link together words in an order that made much sense.
The last thing he felt before darkness rose up to claim him was the mattress settling beside him under Tom's weight. Safe here. Sleep now.
Rain had not been in the sky when they left the town in the morning, but it had found them now. The clouds had covered the sky by mid-afternoon, and by the time the sun sank toward the horizon the road had become a muddy cesspool, every step taking twice the effort that it should. The cold water beat down upon them, running in rivulets off the brims of their hats and pooling the folds of their robes, splashing up their legs and soaking through even the tough boot leather.
"This is your fault, somehow," Thomas moaned as he trudged through the mud, dashing water from his face and peering into the storm-darkened gloom.
"It's not my fault," William retorted. The crossroads couldn't be that far ahead; it was supposed to be eight miles from the town, and while they'd been slowed by the rain it couldn't have been by that much. The crossroads, and there would be a sign to show them the way to turn, and there was a chapel only a little ways further that would give them shelter for the night. "I've never been able to bring down a storm, you know that."
"What I know is that you blessed their fields, and now it's raining for the first time in weeks. Your fault."
"That makes no sense," William shot back, and there – the sign for the crossroads loomed out of the darkness. Was he imagining things or was the rain letting up? He paused, lifted his face to the sky for a moment to test. Yes; the dark clouds were moving on, scuttling out of the way in the wind, and the hard rain faded to a gentler sprinkle.
"Whatever you just did," Thomas snorted, "keep doing it."
"I keep telling you, it doesn't work that way."
The crossroads was right before them, and William's heart lifted at the sight. Now to find the sign that marked the Via, and they would be on their way to shelter and possibly a chance to dry their clothes and eat something. Things were improving markedly already.
"Is this the sign?" Thomas crouched at the edge of the road, poking at something in the ditch there. A post lay half-covered in the small tree that had fallen across it, both cracked and the marker pointing haphazardly into the woods. "Any idea which way it was supposed to go?"
Damnation! William gnawed on his lip as he looked down one way, and then the other; the gathering darkness made it difficult to tell. One way led to the chapel, the other – where?
There was a glow low on the horizon off to the right; would that be torches in the window of the chapel? Either way, the light promised fire and fire promised warmth and dry feet, and that was enough to make up his mind. "That way," William pointed.
"Are you certain?"
"No, but we have to pick something. Unless you want to sleep in the mud tonight."
"That way it is."
It took less than a quarter of an hour for William to realize that he had made a very bad, very wrong decision. The light had come from fires, yes, but not torches in a window or a brazier in a great hall. No, it came from a campfire in the middle of a circle of tents, each one with banners hanging beside. The encampment was a riot of colour and cheer, boys barely old enough to be apprenticed running about with armour pieces and polishing rags, with strapping and harnesses, or bashing at each other with wooden swords. If the count of the tethered horses meant anything, there were twenty knights here, perhaps a few more, foot soldiers, squires and followers rounding out the group to nigh-on one hundred.
And all of them bore the cross upon their breasts.
Crusaders.
Thomas, incautious as always, stepped into the light before William could take hold of him, cornered the first man he saw and made his reverences.
"Whose camp is this, good man?"
"Come and be welcome, pilgrim." The knight eyed them both with a speculative gleam that changed to vague dismissal at their poverty of garb and gear. "We are pledged to the Count of Methingau, young Gregory. He has taken the cross and rides for Venice."
William swallowed hard against the lump of fear in his throat, even as Thomas moved further into the camp, drawn by the light and warmth of the fire. He grabbed for Tom's sleeve, drew him close even as curious eyes turned to watch their approach. "We should go, Tom," he hissed as quietly as he could.
"And sleep in the mud?" Thomas turned his words back on him, and gestured at the sun, now vanishing below the horizon entirely. "I'd rather take my chances with wolves at the fire than wolves in the forest. At least these ones are obliged to offer us shelter, and there's a chance to get dry."
The grand tent opened before William could reply. A man strode out, about their age, but wholly unlike any man William had ever seen before.
His hair shone as gold, red reflecting off it from the light cast by the fire and the torches that surrounded the tent. He was clean-shaven, a jaw that could only have been carved from marble by the loving hand of a besotted artist. His surcote was the green of summer, rich and deep, a red cross sewn to the left breast. The gold of his brooch and the chasing on his scabbard marked him as a man of wealth. He held the flap of the tent for a moment and surveyed the camp, everything in the set of his broad shoulders and easy movements suggesting a bearing of confidence and surety that William could only dream about.
He would dream about this man tonight, and tomorrow, and possibly every night thereafter.
William stood transfixed, even as Thomas moved around him and began speaking with the men about the fire. He was still, the steam starting to curl from the bottom of his robe where the heat of the flames dried them, his hair dark and dripping, plastered to his head. And then this man, this golden idol who could only be Count Gregory –
Or perhaps not. The man turned to speak to someone still inside the tent, and bowed his head in reverence. The banners around the great tent were red with a yellow lattice, not green, and his surcote had a golden dragon blazoned on the back. The dragon moved and shimmered in the reflection of the fire, seemed almost to spread its wings and yearn for flight.
It was a distortion of the darkness and William's own exhaustion; nothing more.
Then the Crusader looked. He looked across the fire and he saw William, and his eyes were blue.
Oh.
A jolt surged through William's body, more powerful than any use of his curse, an energy that wracked and wrecked him and left him utterly dumb.
Later, much later, after tears and blood had been spilled in equal measure and the bodies of good men fertilized the fields of war, he would still remember that moment and swear it was true. That he had heard the words deep within him, clearer than church bells or thought or even the swelling crescendos of his magic.
I am for you.
End notes:
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- Being "born in the caul" meant that an infant was born with a piece of the amniotic membrane covering his or her face. In medieval Europe, this was believed to be a good omen, a sign of future greatness, and to grant the infant powers against the forces of evil. The dried caul itself was believed to be an extremely powerful good-luck charm, and a talisman that would protect the bearer from drowning.
- The Via Francigena is a set of interlinked roads and highways between Kent, in England, and the city of Rome. Sections of the Via have been used as pilgrimage roads to holy sites of Catholicism since at least the 9th century CE.
- Regulations protecting pilgrims grew with the explosions of popularity of the pilgrimage in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Pilgrims wore visibly identifiable marks of their vows – a wool robe and a walking stick, and later on, wide-brimmed hats and pilgrim's badges from the shrines they'd visited. In return, towns along pilgrimage roads were obliged to provide base levels of hospitality and shelter, pilgrims were exempt from tolls on toll roads, and had various other unique freedoms of passage.
- The 'codex' is the Codex Calixtinus, a twelfth-century travel guide for those walking on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Book five of this codex listed all the hazards pilgrims were likely to run into on their travels, including which rivers were safest to drink from, where hospices and shrines could be found, and which roads were heaviest with bandit activity.
- The shrine of the Virgin at Siena is fictional. Siena is along the Francigena, but I made up the specific church. As far as I know, anyway!
- The closest date I've been able to find for the development of the Mi Sheberach prayer (the prayer for healing) was "the Geonic Period," which dates between the sixth and eleventh centuries CE.
- Persecution of Jews rose sharply in Europe during the time of the Crusades, resulting in destruction of communities and mass slaughter. These persecutions included special clothing as determined by local sumptuary law, and restricted movements within and between regions. The Jews were not formally expelled from England, however, until 1290 CE (the first European expulsion).
- The earliest dates I've been able to find for the institution of identification badges for Jews outside of the Muslim world were 1215 (Spain), and 1217 (France).
- I stole Methingau – it existed as a county within the Holy Roman Empire, but was not an an independent one after 998 CE. This way, I'm not impinging too badly on real history by messing with the line of succession.
