7 The Holy Land
Gilbert's first impression of the Holy Land was blessedly still hot earth: the ship the monks had taken to speed their journey and avoid the Roman Empire – something about how they worshiped there – made him horribly sick and he couldn't feel the land or his people or anything and even his little bag of earth didn't help. He didn't want to be in a ship ever again.
Just touching the hot, sandy soil helped: once his hand made contact the far distant pulse of his lands and people was there, and everything stopped trying to dance around his head.
He didn't like the heat much, but his robes, which were like a smaller simpler version of the black robes the monks wore, stopped the fierce sun from burning his pale skin. He kept the hood up: everyone he saw in the town, and then on the dusty roads they traveled, had skin burned brown by the constant sun, and he was sure they'd think he was a demon or a ghost.
Mostly he stayed close to Gisilbert-Vati, practicing talking in his words, or to the Brothers he'd helped to save, practicing with their words. When he could, he used the waxed slate Brother Ludovicus had given him to practice writing and reading whenever Brother Clovis made words on the slate for him to practice. He was getting better: he could write and read the Lord's Prayer now, and knew all the letters to make words in the monk-words – Latin – and Gisilbert-Vati's words – Germanic. He didn't practice as much with Germanic because only Brother Clovis could read that, where most of the monks could read Latin even if they couldn't write it.
The Holy City itself was big, very big, and so full of people Gilbert shrank close to Gisilbert-Vati. He'd never seen so many peoples in one place before, and all of them shouting things in words he'd never heard. Unfamiliar smells were everywhere: spices, food, all sorts of things. It was completely overwhelming, and he almost cried with relief when they entered a narrow archway and passed into what seemed to be a different world.
The heat was still there, of course, but now Gilbert and the monks stood in a shaded courtyard, smaller than the one in the monastery in Hungary, but still quite big enough for all of them. An old stone well in the middle of the courtyard was surrounded by a herb garden, and there were stalls for the mules on one side, and most of all it felt peaceful, almost like he'd come home, and that was silly because Gilbert had never had a real home, not like people did.
Maybe the monks from here would let him stay for a while.
Black-robed monks emerged from the shadows, welcoming Brother Clovis and the others, and – if Gilbert understood the rapid Latin right – welcoming them to the House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem. When Brother Clovis told them about Gisilbert-Vati and Gilbert, the monks welcomed them too, in Germanic this time, and said that this place was a hospice and a hospital, where travelers from the Germanic lands of the Holy Roman Empire could rest and be welcomed.
The oldest of the monks sounded happy when he learned that Gisilbert-Vati was a smith, and could turn his hand to any form of metalsmithing though his main expertise was in axes. It sounded like they had no smith here, and it was expensive to get their metal tools and pots and things fixed.
Before long, the smith's cart stood in an empty corner of the courtyard, closer to the animal pens than where the people stayed so the smoke wouldn't bother the sick people in the hospital, and Gilbert followed Gisilbert-Vati through shaded arches to a big room with lots of beds: the hospice, where travelers stayed.
The monk who showed them there said he was sorry that they only had one bed to spare, and Gisilbert-Vati thanked him and said he was as happy sleeping with his cart if others had greater need; and Gilbert would of course stay with his father.
It all seemed wrong to Gilbert. He shouldn't feel like he belonged here, like this place was his. He was a Land-Soul, and his land and people were far to the north. But everything he saw felt familiar, as though he was coming back to it, and when a sharp pang went down his spine and he knew without anyone telling him that there were other Land-Souls here, on his land he stopped trying to make sense of it all and just clutched Gisilbert-Vati's hand tight.
"Is your son well, Master Axe-smith?" the monk asked.
Gisilbert-Vati pulled Gilbert close, wrapping his free arm around him. "He has never been among so many people before, good Brother."
"Ah." The monk smiled. "Perhaps you would like to rest in the garden, young one, where there are fewer folk about."
Gilbert had to make himself speak. "Yes, please, Brother."
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Being in the garden did help, even though Gilbert didn't recognize any of the herbs. The mingled scents told him most were medicinal, and he could probably have guessed which did what if he had to, but mostly all they did was make the knot of tension between his shoulders a little less tight.
When a monk came close leading two… they weren't men, but they weren't really boys either, and they had the special all-metal armor that only really important people wore, and they were…
Gilbert's hands clenched tight into the coarse linen of his robes. These were the Land-Souls he'd felt, and they were so much stronger than he was they'd do much worse than his people ever did, and there was nowhere to run or hide.
One of them looked like he'd been born here, with light brown hair and dark eyes, and he had a black tunic with a white cross that looked a bit like four arrows pointing to the middle. He was taller than the other one, who had pale yellow hair and blue eyes, and his hair made a bird's wing over his face. His tunic was white, with a bright red cross.
The dark one's voice was cheerful and rang across the courtyard. "It would seem your new House already has a personification, Lord Prior!" he said. "This young one is the presence we sensed."
Gilbert stayed where he was, torn between cautious hope and the tight knot of fear between his shoulders.
The one with the bird-wing hair made a tsking sound. "Hospitaller, you are making our little brother nervous." With an ease that seemed odd for someone wearing so much metal, he dropped to one knee in front of Gilbert. "Hello little brother." He spoke softly, using Latin. "I am the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, but that is a mouthful, so everyone calls me Templar. My loud brother Knight is the Order of the Knights of Saint John in Jerusalem, but we call him Hospitaller because he runs so many hospices and hospitals."
Gilbert blinked, not sure he understood all of that, or why these two Knights were calling him brother. Was it like the monks called each other brother, or something else?
"You need not fear us, little brother," Templar said. "Our kind must look to each other: we Orders and Houses are not full Nations, and the Nations never cease to remind us of the fact."
Gilbert couldn't follow the quick thread of emotion in Templar's voice. Sometimes he sounded amused, but other times almost angry. And what did all this make him? If he was a House belonging to an Order, the way Templar seemed to think, what did that mean for his people and lands far away?
His bird chirped irritably, and darted out from his hiding place in Gilbert's hood, then pulled the hood back, making Gilbert squint in too-bright light.
Hospitaller and the monk – prior? - crossed themselves. Templar only smiled. "Well. So young and already you have your guardian angel. I think you will do well, little brother."
Gilbert stroked the bird's head, even more confused. His bird wasn't an angel: it was him, sort of. Him and not-him, a friend and helper and part of his soul in the same way his lands and people were. He didn't see how that made the bird an angel, but if it meant the two knights – who were nearly twice as big as he was and probably that much stronger, too – wouldn't hurt him, he wasn't going to say anything.
"Come, Prior," Hospitaller said. "A personification with a guardian angel can't be demon-possessed." He sounded almost like he was laughing at himself. "You must meet your House, and the House of the Germans must meet his Prior."
Gilbert tried to repeat the Latin: Domus Theutonicorum. His tongue stumbled over the words. They didn't seem right, somehow, as if they fit but not quite.
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