There had been a hiatus in hostilities over the past few years, partly because both sides were exhausted, physically and emotionally, and partly because both Edward
and the French king, John, had been trying to hammer out a truce.
Evidently, Edward had become impatient and, just as evidently, had managed to raise funds from somewhere for a renewed foreign campaign.
“Not from any of my colleagues, I hope,” Marcoaldi had remarked darkly one evening when the war was being discussed over their evening meal. When he was a young man, Edward had obtained the funds for his first French campaign by raising a massive loan from the Florentine bankers Bardi and Peruzzi. When it came time to repay the debt, Edward declared he had no intention of ever doing so. Not only were the Bardi and Peruzzi families ruined, so also were many other Florentine families who relied on them.
Edward had not won himself many Italian or banking friends with that action.
Marcoaldi may have been concerned about the financial aspects of a renewed English campaign, but Marcel and Karle were horrified at the thought of what deprivations might await the French people this time.
“And Paris … Paris!” Marcel had remarked. “No doubt the English will again lay siege to it! Thomas, do you have any idea what—”
Thomas had interrupted him at that point, again declaring his allegiance to God rather than to the English king, or even his own family. “I take no part in the war,” he said.
And yet… yet… hadn’t he once been a part of those marauding English armies?
Hadn’t he himself set the torch time after time to the thatched roofs of peasant homes?
Hadn’t he taken sword to husbands … before wrenching their wives to the ground for his own pleasure? Lord Jesu forgive him for the terror he had visited on others.
Thomas stared at the mountains, and wondered if he would ever be able to atone for his sins. The last campaign he had taken part in had been the worst, and the blood and pain and misery caused had, finally, made him pause for thought.
And yet how he still lusted for those days: the fellowship of the battle, the warm companionship of his brothers-in-arms.
“Thomas? Thomas? What’s wrong?”
“Ah, I was lost in memories. Forgive me. Johan … tell me, have you ever been through the Brenner before?”
“Yes. Three times—and once during spring! I swear to God—”
“Johan!”
“Forgive me. I mean, um, I mean it was more dangerous than you can imagine!
The last day such a great gust of snow threatened to fall on us that I swear that—sorry—that my father was in fear for his life. You should have been with us then, Thomas, for my father cried out desperately for a priest to take his last confession.”
“Well,” Thomas said mildly, “I shall with be you on the morrow, should the need arise.”
For a moment or two they remained silent, watching the sun set behind one of the taller peaks.
“They are so wondrous,” Johan eventually said.
Thomas looked at him, puzzled. “Wondrous? What?”
“The mountains … their beauty… their danger…”
Thomas stared at the mountains, then turned back to Johan.
“That is not ‘beauty,’ Johan. The Alps are vile things, useless accumulations of rock that serve no useful purpose to mankind. Indeed, they hinder mankind’s effort to tame this world and make it serve him, as was God’s commandment to Adam.”
Johan turned an earnest face to Thomas. “But don’t they call to you, Thomas?
Don’t you feel their pull in your blood?”
“Call?”
“Sometimes,” Johan said in a low voice, “when I gaze at them, or travel through their passes, I am overcome with an inexpressible yearning.”
“A yearning for what, Johan?” Thomas was watching the younger man’s face very carefully. Were demons calling to him? Was he in the grip of the evil that St. Michael had warned him about?
Johan sighed. “It is so difficult to explain, to put into mere words what I feel. The sight of these majestic peaks—”
Majestic?
” —makes me yearn to leave behind my life as a merchant, and to take to the seas as a roving captain, to explore and discover the world that waits out there,” he flung an arm wide, “beyond the known waters and continents—”
“Johan, why feel this way? We have all we need within Christendom, there is no need— and surely no desire—to explore the lands of infidels.” Thomas laid a firm hand on Johan’s chest, forcing the man to meet his eyes. “Johan, better to explore your own soul to ensure your eventual salvation. It is the next world which holds all importance, not this one. This is but a wasteland full of evil, here to tempt us away from our true journey, that of the spirit toward salvation in the next life.”
Johan flushed at the reprimand. “I know that, Brother Thomas. Do forgive me. It’s just… it’s just that…” He turned his face back to the mountains, and Thomas could see their peaks reflected in his eyes. “It is just that one day… one day I wish I could summon the skill and the courage to climb to their very pinnacles and survey the entire world.”
Johan looked back to Thomas, and now there was no contrition in his face at all.
“Imagine, Thomas, finding the courage within yourself to be able to conquer the greatest peaks in the world.”
And with that, he turned and walked back down the road toward the monastery, leaving Thomas to stare, disturbed, after him.
ON HIS own return to the monastery, Thomas was even more disturbed to find that, to a man, the German mercenaries were nowhere to be found. When he inquired as to their whereabouts, Marcel had shrugged, and looked a little nonplussed.
“‘Tis Midsummer’s Eve, brother. The Germans have gone to join the revels of the villagers in that little hamlet we passed through a mile before the monastery.”
At that, Thomas’ mouth thinned. Peasants made far too much of the midsummer
solstice, believing that if they didn’t mark it with fire festivals and dances, then the sun would not recover from its long slide toward its winter nadir. The Church had long tried to halt the festivals, but with little success. All across Christendom, people walked up hills and to the tops of cliffs, and there rolled down the slopes burning wheels of hay and straw to mark the solstice.
Marcel watched Thomas’ face carefully, then said: “Do not judge them too harshly, Thomas. A little color in their lives, a little fun, is hardly harmful.”
“What is harm, Marcel, is when they engage in un-Christian rites that allow demons a stronger hold among us.”
“Well,” Marcel said slowly, “the older and wiser among us are still here, and I have planned a small gathering tonight to give thanks for our continued freedom from the entrap-ments of evil. I,” he hesitated, “and mine always mark Midsummer in this fashion. I will be delighted and grateful if you would lead us in prayer tonight. Come, Thomas, what do you say?”
Thomas sighed, and nodded. “Of course I will. I am sorry, Marcel. Sometimes I think that mankind should all be perfect, and, of course, they are hardly so.”
“But there are many good men working within society, brother, trying day by day to bring order to chaos. You must trust in them.”
“Yes. You are right.”
THAT NIGHT, safe m his clean bed, Thomas dreamed of the mountains overrun with demons scampering over their peaks. He shivered, fearing, then he rejoiced, for behind the mountains appeared the glowing form of the archangel Michael.
But, just as he thought St. Michael would smite the demons from the mountains, the archangel put a hand to his face, as if afraid, and fled.
Then, as Thomas struggled to wake himself from the nightmare, the demons came after him, surrounding him, and poking him as if he were a piece of meat being inspected for the table.
Have you come to join us, Thomas? they whispered, again and again. Have you come to join us? Don’t ever think that you can Off eat us, not now. Not now.
Thomas wrenched himself awake, staring wide-eyed about the quiet, darkened chamber. The sense of evil felt very close now, and Thomas wondered if it were because he lay so close to the mountains, or if Midsummer’s Eve itself had allowed the demons access to his dreams.
And why had St. Michael fled? Of the entire dream, that was what disturbed Thomas the greatest. The false whispers of demons he more than expected—they would be sure to try and divert him, or confuse him—but St. Michael? Running as if so afraid he dare not face the demons?
Thomas rose and spent the remainder of the night on his knees in prayer, seeking guidance and courage for what lay ahead.