Crusader - novel, chapter 3

3

It all felt wrong when I pulled aside the covers. It should have drained away my burden. All of it should have gone. It should have drained deep within me. But instead all of that blackness stood still; motionless on my shoulders only to slide back into my head. Charlotte stood before me and saw what I never was to show her. She saw the blackness entwined within me – she saw what only God’s enemies should see and what only God can relieve on my day of reckoning. What have I done?

Bohemond crossed the three steps between Charlotte and himself and knelt beside her raking body curled upon the heavy fur rugs of the tent floor. He reached out tentatively, wanting nothing more than to hold close the woman whom he loved, but he was acutely aware of the battle accumulated mess that clung to his body. Charlotte felt his careful closeness and the hesitation in his actions. She pulled herself away from the empty embrace of the ground and looked at her husband through tear streaming eyes.

“Charlotte…” he began.

Charlotte squeezed the tears from her eyes with a long blink and watched him forming soundless words of apology. Her reply was to reach out to his still outstretched arms and pull them tight around her until Bohemond understood her need and wrapped her in the warmth of his body. Together they sat each holding the other, only moving to breathe.

The sun was reaching the lip of the hills around the camp when Charlotte and Bohemond stirred from the cocoon that had enveloped them. The reality of their closeness prodded Charlotte into full consciousness. “We need to clean you up.”

Bohemond’s eyes opened and focused on his filth crusted arms that he held around her. He stood up and looked down at his condition in open disgust. “Yes, we do. You should never have had to see me like this. And you equally should never have to help clean this,” he said gesturing with revulsion at his current state.

“Don’t be foolish Bohemond; I knew what to expect when I convinced you to bring me with you.”

He looked up at her with incredulity.

“Well fine, when I forced you to bring me with you. And despite me expecting you like this afterwards… I wasn’t prepared for it.”

She looked at his downcast face at her admission and added with a grin, “Though I certainly wasn’t prepared for the foul-smelling drivel you and your soldiers call a meal. I can smell that stuff brewing on the camp fire from here!”

Bohemond attempted to stifle his laugh and failed dismally much to the pleasure of Charlotte. “Will you ever allow me the sad comforts of my bad moods or will you forever bring me cheer?”

Charlotte grinned as she narrowed her eyes and replied, “I will do what I wish to suit me as you are a miserable bore in your bad moods and overly… amorous at your most cheerful. Keeping the balance between the two is an endless source of work for me, you know?”

“Miserable bore? Overly amorous? Endless work?” Bohemond stood in only partial mock surprise.

“Don’t look so shocked and take off you armour while I fetch some water.”

Bohemond stared in outright adoration at his wife as she let the entrance cover drop back into place, leaving him alone in the tent and missing her presence already.

Charlotte returned with two pails of water, one Bohemond could clearly see had been filled from a heated vat. She saw him observing the steaming wooden bucket as he pulled his heavy mail armour over his head and let it drop to the ground. “You would not believe how long it took me to convince Robert to let me put some water on to heat. He didn’t seem to be able to understand that I wanted it so you could bathe when you returned. He kept wanting to make a broth with it. Look there is still some cabbage left in there from his first attempts!”

“Thank you. And I can believe how difficult it was to convince Robert to do anything that would allow what he would call ‘unnecessary comforts’,” Bohemond said smiling. He chose not to add that probably all the men outside his Baronial field tent had never bathed with heated water in their lives. Firewood was a labour-intensive commodity and to waste it on heating bathing water when food needed cooking was a prospect for only the wealthy.

Bohemond finished stripping off and Charlotte began to wash his body clean as he sat on a small stool. The water collected the physical remains of the day’s battle and dropped them to the ground. With each droplet of sullied water that fell so too did Bohemond's thoughts. All of it washed away by the warmth of the water and the care with which it was administered. He dozed listlessly.

It was with slight regret that he realised that Charlotte had finished bathing him and was now standing by the entrance with a lit taper. The night had grown dark and only a faint glow from the camp torches outside shone through to light the tent. Bohemond watched her move progressively around the enclosed space; lighting the lanterns hanging from the tent frame. He traced the lines of her body with his eyes as she lit each lantern in turn and remarked to himself how beautiful she was. Her dark-brown chest-length curls highlighted by the naked yellow flames of the lanterns. Her close fitted tunic, tights and riding boots that caused such scandal in his father’s court. Her ease of movement as she navigated the crude furniture of the tent. Her deep brown eyes and heavy lashes giving a returning stare with a mixture of love and worry.

“What troubles you?” she asked as she blew out the taper.

Bohemond stood without a reply, suddenly wanting to escape this person looking at the deep recesses of his soul, the place where he held his shadow. “I have to see to the men and the camp – make sure all is in order.”

She smiled at him as she started collecting his strewn armour. “Bo, you may want some clothes before you join the men, we aren’t Greeks you know. Besides, Robert has already been to say that the men are fed and the night watch set. He said all will be ready for the march in the morning.”

Bohemond looked incensed. “When did he come?” he demanded, suddenly on edge and confused.

“Just as I put out the pails and lit the taper from the torches outside,” she replied; her eyes wide at his sudden uncharacteristic anger.

Silence fell upon them, both statuesque as they faced each other from across the tent. Then Bohemond crumpled. Tears formed and fell with rapid succession and a heaving sob brought him to his knees. What he thought had been buried deep within escaped and wrought havoc. All of the pain, violence, hate, anger and fear that was only meant to visit his dreams thundered through his waking body. Charlotte raced to him as Bohemond’s soul and mind spewed forth the pent up misery of a man contorted by actions in utter opposition to his being. He wept in her arms until exhaustion brought on sleep.

Bohemond was dragged into the sun lathered courtyard by many hands. There it lay in the hard packed gravely sand. No he cried. Again he cried no. He thrashed against his human shackles as they pulled him towards it with awkward ease. And again he cried no. He could see the dry cloudless sky as he was rolled onto his back; still suspended above the ground, and now, above it. No he cried once more. His clothes were ripped from his body until only his skin remained. Then he felt it. It was pressed hard against his back as he was thrust down by the faceless blur of pinning arms. Yet again he cried no. His arms were stretched and pulled out as his torso was weighed down without sympathy. It was still there, pressed hard against him, and more noticeable with each passing second. His legs were the only part unbarred and he pushed against it with all his terror-filled fury. Wood splinters bit and burrowed with all his exertion against it as he cried no. His legs were captured and his resistance faltered…

The clouds swept him up and encircled him, pulling him up, but out and through. The greyness of the clouds fell apart below him into their substantial nothingness. He was stood upon them by another, exalted in light. All before him was about to begin and all behind him already forgotten. He was new. Before him was the figure of light. He bowed his head and dropped his knee. He was neither worthy to behold the figure’s visage nor stand its equal in stature. You are my Warrior it told him. You will cut down those who are my enemies it told him. You are born my Warrior, it told him…

Bohemond’s eyes opened wide and bloodshot. His pupils contracted against the faint light in the tent. The ingrained familiarity of his field tent instantly dispelled his awakening disorientation in place and time. Lying still he realised that Charlotte had directed him to the sleeping pallet at some point and he was grateful for the soft furs between himself and the ground. Her slow, deep breathing rose and fell beside him and he carefully rolled away. Bohemond stood silently and mentally chastised himself as he looked at the neglect strewn around the tent.  The chain mail slumped in a mass of steel links on the ground beside discarded and dirty bracers, greaves, boots, and padded leather gambeson. Hose pants and surcoat, soiled and stained, lay stinking alongside the armour. Only the sword revealed a cursory attempt at care; clean and leaning up against the table. Bohemond’s conscience had not been clouded by feeling foolish and irresponsible in years. The memories of his father’s strict tutelage, scathing judgement, and harsh punishment for failure sparked and flared. He attempted to extract order from within his chaos.

Ten minutes later Bohemond stepped out from his tent in hastily oiled and polished armour and boots – wearing new, unblemished surcoat and hose – and buckled on his sword belt. He inhaled the sweet dawn air greedily and looked to the horizon where a tiny sliver of the sun crested the hills; lightly coating the grey-blue sky with a golden and rose film. He cast his eyes around the camp, pleased to see the assigned sentries awake and alert, and grinned inwardly at realising he had still arisen before Robert despite his rushed efforts at equipment maintenance. Bohemond again cursed himself for not completing the duties he expected of himself the night before. The night before. He instantly jumped and skipped his thoughts away from those memories; not forgotten, but avoided with every effort possible. Acknowledging what happened last night meant exposing those deep, unclean creases in his soul. And Bohemond could not do that.

He scowled and pushed all the fog and rubbish in his head back and begun turning the mental checklist of tasks that needed completing before his men could march. As he stepped away with his business ahead, Charlotte lay awake on the pallet. Her thoughts churned as she attempted to understand how a man could fall asleep in her arms, weeping for an unknown sadness; only to awake in the morning, oil his armour and leave her without even trying to share his pain.