Gilbert liked the monks. After the first day camped where he and Gisilbert-vati had killed the raiders Gisilbert-vati called Cumans they didn't avoid looking at him, and they called him Gilbert or – and he really liked this – little brother. That meant belonging and it made him warm inside, nearly as warm as when Gisilbert-vati said he could be a son.
While they were too hurt to move – Gilbert could help them heal by sharing their pain, which hurt him but not as much as being burned hurt and looking after their wounds with the things he'd learned made his own hurts heal faster and cleaner – they were happy to help him learn their words. It wasn't the same as the words his people had, but the monks didn't mind that.
They even told him about their god, who seemed to Gilbert to be a much better god than Peckols, Perkuns, or Potrimp. Those gods didn't want him no matter how many times the criwe sacrificed him to one of them – usually Peckols because they said he was demon, but sometimes they sacrificed him to one of the others – but the monks said their god, whose name was just "God" which was confusing, was for everyone everywhere who would follow him and love him.
Demons, they said, were creatures that denied their god and hated him. He couldn't be demon because he didn't hate the god of the monks and he wanted to know more about him.
Like Gisilbert-vati, Brother Clovis said he was a Land-Soul, and his Father Abbot – Gilbert wasn't sure if that meant really a father or like the way Gisilbert-vati called all the monks brother – at the monk-place would know more.
When the monks were healed enough to travel and they started walking again with the most hurt monks riding the horses the Cumans had, Gilbert was glad. Even though he and Gisilbert-vati had cleaned up as much as they could, there was still too much blood and stuff and it was attracting wolves who weren't his wolves and just wanted food.
Besides, it was nice walking alongside the smith's cart and not having to hide from people. He could look at everything without worrying about how to run if someone decided he was demon, and there was so much to look at. Even the trees were different here, different kinds of tree with leaves that had shapes he didn't recognize and bark that made patterns he didn't know. The big hills, those had been strange and hard when the hills had got so big the trees couldn't stay there and the air was all strange, and the way the land seemed to roll where there weren't trees but there were lots of farms and little villages where people lived, that was nice, too.
It was such a big world and he'd seen only a little piece of it.
The god of the monks must be a very big god to make all of this happen by himself. He'd never heard of that before: all the gods his people worshiped had servants and only looked after one part of the world. Maybe that was why they didn't want him?
Brother Clovis said he didn't know why Gilbert's people didn't want him. He knew only a little bit about Land-Souls, he said, and he'd never heard of there being one who wasn't wanted.
Gilbert hoped that didn't mean there was something wrong with him, something that made his people hate him. It didn't make sense that Gisilbert-vati and the monks would think he was good but his people, the ones he was supposed to be, somehow, they called him demon and hated him.
Maybe he was supposed to be some other people's Land-Soul, and he just hadn't found them yet?
That wasn't right, either. Gilbert could still feel his land, his people. They echoed inside and if he closed his eyes and started walking, he'd turn to the north and start walking back to them even though he knew they'd burn him again. At night when he looked up at the stars he'd open his pouch with the little bit of his soil, and take a deep breath, so he could smell his land again. He didn't know why that helped him to feel better. It just did.
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The monk-place was the biggest building Gilbert had ever seen. Pieces of rock cut into big blocks sat on each other to make something that made the great temple where the master criwe made sacrifices to the gods look tiny. He didn't know how something so big could have been made, or how anyone could live with so much rock waiting to fall on them.
He shivered when they went through the gate – a heavy wood thing with iron straps that would keep people in just as well as it would keep people out – and the weight of all that stone seemed to press down on his shoulders.
A hand rested lightly on his shoulder, and Brother Clovis murmured, "Peace, little brother. There are none here who will harm you."
Gilbert couldn't stop himself from looking up, seeing yet more stone above him in the shadows.
"Oh." The monk sounded odd. "I forget: you have never been inside, have you?"
Gilbert shook his head. He wasn't sure what the right words for this feeling were, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to make them come out right even if he knew them.
"The stone will not fall," Brother Clovis said. "God has given the gift of knowledge to the master masons who built this monastery: they know how to make everything stay in place even though it seems there be no support beneath."
He wasn't nervous: Gilbert could feel that, almost like Brother Clovis was his people. The monk was actually happy, even relieved to be in a safe place. Gisilbert-vati was the same, and so were the other monks. Only Gilbert was worried.
He looked at the floor, feeling that hot unhappy thing the monks called blushing on his face. He'd got it wrong again.
Then Gisilbert-vati's warm strong presence was beside him and his arm around Gilbert's shoulders. "There's no shame in being nervous, Gilbert."
He leaned closer to Gisilbert-vati, relaxing a little when they left the heavy shadow for a large open place fenced in by high stone walls. Some of the walls were buildings, and some of the buildings had shiny stuff in the higher openings. There were even stone trees? No, stone tree trunks because they were straight and had no branches, but they held up some of the buildings and made shady walking places that the monks seemed to use a lot rather than the dusty open space.
Gilbert wasn't sure how many people there were, all of them in monk robes, and all of them busy with something. He'd never seen so many people in one place before.
They all used different words, too, words Gilbert didn't understand at all, even when they spoke slow to Brother Clovis, who seemed to speak those words but not the same way. They understood Brother Clovis, though, and he understood them, because he nodded and walked off with them, sparing Gilbert a smile before he went.
Monks came to take the horses and take Gisilbert-vati's cart. Gilbert thought this was all right because Gisilbert-vati didn't look upset, and he held Gilbert's hand and followed the monks who led them to a big room with lots of long table things covered with cloth.
Gilbert tried hard not to look surprised when the new monks helped his and Gisilbert-vati's monks to lie on the table things, pulling back cloth to show more cloth.
"Beds." Gisilbert-vati spoke softly. "Those are beds. People sleep in them."
He'd never seen inside his people's houses. Maybe they had beds too? They couldn't have them like this, because they didn't have big rooms like this, but one of them would fit in the houses they made.
Another monk came into the room, one who was littler than the others and had simpler robes. To Gilbert he looked like boys did, a little before they grew fast and turned into men. Gilbert didn't know any of his words.
The older monks did: one of them bowed to Gisilbert-vati and said, "Father Abbot would speak with you now if you are willing."
Gisilbert-vati bowed and made prayer hands. "We would be honored."
#
The monks must get lost all the time, Gilbert thought. There were so many rooms and buildings and all of them were so much like each other he couldn't tell them apart. By the time he and Gisilbert-vati were waved through another big, solid door, he would have liked nothing more than to be outside again, where at least he could feel everything properly.
His bird peeped softly in agreement from its place in his hood.
"Brother Gisilbert Ax-Smith," said a new voice. "You and your son are most welcome here."
"Thank you, Father Abbot."
Gilbert looked up, cautious. He'd kept his head down since they'd entered the monk-place, because new people always thought bad things about him. He was too pale, and when they saw his eyes...
The Father Abbot was an old man, with hair nearly as white as Gilbert's and tired blue eyes. He went pale when he saw Gilbert's eyes, and swallowed. Then he smiled. It was a thin, strained kind of smile, but it was still a smile. "You might do well to wear your hood, young Gilbert," he said. "Lest you disturb those who have not heard of your deeds aiding our brothers."
Gisilbert-vati squeezed his hand, a gentle reminder that he wasn't on his own and the monks were good people. "Yes, Father Abbot." He wasn't sure what else he should say.
It must have been the right thing, because Father Abbot asked Gisilbert-vati something about his home lands – Gilbert didn't understand exactly what the question was, and he really didn't understand Gisilbert-vati's answer. What was 'plague'? It had to be a bad thing, because both men looked sad, and when Gisilbert-vati talked about 'losing' people, he meant them going away to the dead people place.
The monks had a much nicer dead people place, where everyone was happy, but the people who didn't die still missed their friends and family. It must be nice to know people who would miss you even when they knew you'd gone to a nice place and they knew they'd go there too when they died.
He'd miss Gisilbert-vati a lot, but he didn't think Gisilbert-vati would miss him like that.
This 'plague' thing seemed to be one of those sick things he'd seen happen to his people: they'd feel all wrong then they'd start to die. After a while it would go away and the ones who didn't die started doing all their usual things again. He left them gifts of meat when it happened because they were all too sick to hunt for themselves, but he didn't stay close enough to know if they ate it. With them sick and dying they'd be sure to burn him if he got close enough.
After a while, they started to talk about the monks going to the Holy Land, where Brother Clovis said his god's son had been born nearly a thousand years ago – that was what made it holy, Gilbert guessed - and how they'd need someone to protect them from bandits and possibly from the Saracens as well. He didn't know who Saracens were, but they seemed to have a different god, and had taken the Holy Land away from the monks and their people a long time ago, so they weren't happy about Crusaders – they seemed to be a kind of special warrior for the god of the monks – taking it back.
There were so many places and peoples Gilbert had never heard of that his head ached trying to work out which was what and who were good peoples and who weren't.
The important thing was, he was going to the Holy Land with Gisilbert-vati to ask the god there who he was supposed to be and – the most important thing to Gilbert – ask for Gisilbert-vati's leg and shoulder to heal properly. If the monks didn't mind the two of them traveling with them, that was good.
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