THE FEW SURVIVORS HUDDLED AROUND fires that night, sucking in precious food, and told of the fate of Peter the Hermit’s army.

There were some early successes, they recounted. “The Turks fled like rabbits,” an old knight said. “They left us their towns. Their temples. ‘We’ll be in Jerusalem by summer,’ everyone cheered. We split up our forces. A detachment, six thousand strong, pushed east to seize the Turkish fortress at Xerigordon. Rumor had it some holy relics were held ransom there. The balance of us stayed behind.

“After a month, word reached us that the fortress had fallen. Spoils and booty were being divvied up among the men. Saint Peter’s sandals, we were told. The rest of us set out for there, eager not to miss out on the loot.”

“It was all lies,” said another in a parched, sorry voice, “from infidel spies. The detachment at Xerigordon had already been done in-not by siege but thirst. The fortress lacked all water. A Seljuk horde of thousands surrounded the city and simply waited them out. And when our troops finally opened the gates in desperation, mad with thirst, they were overrun and slaughtered to a man. Six thousand, gone. Then the devils moved on to us.”

[33] “At first, there was this howl from the surrounding hills…” another survivor recounted, “of such chilling proportion that we thought we had entered a valley of demons. We stood in our tracks and scanned the hills. Then, suddenly, daylight darkened, the sun blocked by a hail of arrows.

“I will never forget that deafening whoosh. Every next man clutching at his limbs and throat, falling to his knees. Then turbaned horsemen charged-wave after wave, hacking away at limbs and heads, our ranks shredded. Hardened knights fled terror stricken back to camp, horsemen at their tails. Women, children, the feeble and sick, unprotected-chopped to bits in their tents. The lucky among us were slain where they stood, the rest were seized, raped, cut apart limb by limb. What’s left of us, I am sure, were spared just so we could bear the tale.”

My throat went dry. Gone … All of them …? It could not be! My mind flashed back to the cheerful faces and joyous voices of the hermit’s army as it marched through Veille du Père. Matt, the miller’s son. Jean the smith… all the young who had so eagerly signed up. There was nothing left of them?

A nauseating anger boiled up in my stomach. Whatever I had come for-freedom, fortune-all that left me as if it had never been there. For the first time, I wanted not just to fight for my own gain, but to kill these curs. Pay them back!

I had to leave. I ran, past Robert and Nico, past the fires to the edge of the camp.

Why had I ever come to this place? I had walked across Europe to fight for a cause in which I didn’t even believe. The love of my life, all that I held true and good, was a million miles away. How could all those faces-all that hope-be gone?

WE BURIED THE DEAD for six days straight. Then our dispirited army headed farther south.

In Caesarea, we joined forces with Count Robert of Flanders and Bohemond of Antioch, a heralded fighter. They had recently taken Nicaea. Our spirits were bolstered by the tales of Turks fleeing at full run, their towns now under Christian flags. Our once fledgling troop was now an army forty thousand strong.

Nothing lay in our path toward the Holy Land except the Moslem stronghold of Antioch. There, it was said, believers were being nailed to the city’s walls, and the most precious relics in all of Christendom, a shroud stained by the tears of Mary and the very lance that had pierced the Savior’s side on the cross, were being held for ransom.

Yet nothing so far could prepare us for the hell we were about to face.

First it was the heat, the most hostile I had ever felt in my life.

The sun became a raging, red-eyed demon that, never sheltered, we grew to hate and curse. Hardened knights, praised for valor in battle, howled in anguish, literally roasting in their armor, their skin blistered from the touch of the metal. Men simply dropped as they marched, overcome, and were left, uncared for, where they fell.

[35] And the thirst… Each town we got to was scorched and empty, run dry of provision by the Turks themselves. What little water we carried we consumed like drunken fools. I saw men clearly over the edge guzzle their own urine as if it were ale.

“If this is the Holy Land,” the Spaniard Mouse remarked, “God can keep it.”

Our bodies cried, yet we trudged on; our hearts and wills, like the water, slowly depleting. Along the way, I picked up a few Turkish arrow- and spearheads that I knew would be worth much back home. I did my best to try to cheer other men up, but there was little to find amusing.

“Hold your tears,” Nico warned, keeping up with his shuffling stride. “When we hit the mountains, you will think this was Paradise.”

Nico was right. Jagged mountains appeared in our path, chillingly steep and dry of all life. Narrow passes, barely wide enough for a cart and a horse, cut through the rising peaks. At first we were glad to leave the inferno behind, but as we climbed, a new hell awaited.

The higher we got, the slower and more treacherous every step became. Sheep, horses, carts overladen with supplies, had to be dragged single file up the steep way. A mere stumble, a sudden rock slide, and a man disappeared over the edge, sometimes dragging a companion along with him.

“Press on,” the nobles urged. “In Antioch, God will reward you.”

But every summit we surmounted brought the sight of a new peak, trails more nerve wracking than the last. Once-proud knights trudged humbly, their chargers useless, dragging their armor, alongside foot soldiers like Robert and me.

Somewhere in the heights, Hortense disappeared, a few of her feathers left in a cart. It was never known what became of her. Many felt the nobles had themselves a meal at Robert’s expense. Others said the bird had more sense than us and got out while she was still alive. The boy was heartbroken. That [36] bird had walked across Europe with him! Many felt our luck had run out along with hers.

Yet still we climbed, one step at a time, sweltering in our tunics and armor, knowing that on the other side lay Antioch.

And beyond that, the Holy Land. Jerusalem!

“TELL US A STORY, Hugh?” Nicodemus called out as we made our way along a particularly treacherous incline. “The more blasphemous the better.”

The trail seemed cut out of the mountain’s edge, teetering over an immense chasm. One false step would mean a grisly death. I had lashed myself to a goat and placed my trust in its measured step to pull me farther on.

“There is the one about the convent and the whorehouse,” I said, delving back to my days as an innkeeper. “A traveler is walking down a quiet road when he notices a sign scratched onto a tree: ‘Sisters of St. Brigit Convent, House of Prostitution, two miles.’ ”

“Yes, I saw it myself,” a soldier exclaimed. “A ways back on that last ridge.” The peril of the climb was broken by a few welcome laughs.

“The traveler assumes it is a joke,” I resumed, “and continues along. Soon he comes to another sign. ‘Sisters of St. Brigit, House of Prostitution, one mile.’ Now his curiosity is piqued. A ways ahead, there is a third sign. This time: ‘Convent, Brothel, next right.’

“ ‘Why not?’ the traveler thinks, and turns down the road until he arrives at an old stone church marked St. Brigit. He [38] steps up and rings the bell, and an abbess answers. ‘What may we do for you, my son?’

“ ‘I saw your signs along the road,’ the traveler says. ‘Very well, my son,’ the abbess replies. ‘Please, follow me.’