Even the men!

I had traveled across Europe in my youth and had played most of the large cathedral towns, but never had I seen a place like this! Gold was like tin here. Stalls and markets were crammed with the most exotic goods. I traded for a gilded perfume box to take back home for Sophie. “A relic already!” Nico laughed. New aromas entranced me, cumin and ginger, and there were fruits I had never tasted before: oranges and figs.

I savored every exotic image, thinking of how I would describe it all to Sophie. We were hailed as heroes and we had [30] fought almost no one. If this was how it would be, I would return both sweet smelling and free!

Then the knights and nobles rallied us. “Crusaders, you are here for God’s work, not for silver and soap.” We said good-bye to Constantinople, crossing the Bosporus on wooden pontoons.

At last we stood in the land of the dreaded Turk!

The first fortresses we encountered were empty and abandoned, towns scorched and plundered dry.

“The pagan is a coward,” the soldiers mocked. “He hides in his hole like a squirrel.”

We spotted red crosses painted everywhere, pagan towns now consecrated in the name of God. All signs that Peter’s army had been through.

The nobles pushed us hard. “Hurry, you lazy louts, or the little hermit will take all the spoils.”

And we did hurry, though our new enemy became the blistering heat and thirst. We baked like hogs, sucking our water skins dry. The pious among us dreamed of their holy mission; the nobles, no doubt, of relics and glory; the innocent of finally proving their worth.

Outside Civetot we had our first taste of the enemy. A few straggly horsemen, turbaned and cloaked in robes, ringed our ranks, lofting some harmless arrows at us, then fled into the hills like children hurling stones.

“Look, they run like grandmothers,” Robert cackled.