Diary of a Christian Dog
a Novella
excerpted from Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion
by Mary C. Findley
copyright by Mary C. Findley 2012
Published by Findley Family Video Smashwords Edition
Diary of a Christian Dog
by Mary C. Findley
Findley Family Video Smashwords Edition
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Exception is made for short excerpts used in reviews.
“Speaking the truth in love.”
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.
This work is excerpted from the Novel Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion. Information on all Findley Family Video titles can be found at the end of this work.
Please see the “Notes for the Reader” and "Use of the Arab Language" sections after the text of the story for aids to understanding the background and language references of this story.
This book shall be the record of my rise. Now that I am out from under my father's heel I can begin. University is behind me and the world before me. The Friar Alain, who pretends to be my bosom friend, would have me take Holy Orders directly. Aye, well do I know that the real power in this world is to be had serving the Holy Mother Church.
Still, I have had enough of schooling for now. I want to travel, and not in Europe. It bores me. Perhaps I shall go to Cathay and see the wonders there. But I cannot lose my connections in the Church. I have worked too hard to impress them all with my zeal and to show them how useful I can be to them.
Perhaps what my patrons need is a show of religious fervor. Perhaps what I need is an adventure. I have heard the Crusades have made many a man's fortune, both in gold and in favor with the powers in Rome. They like to see us devote ourselves to Christ and Our Lady, and they like to see us bring back Muslim treasures – and Jewish ones too – even if we do not free the Holy Sepulchre just yet.
If my father hears of this decision, he might think I have truly come to believe in the Romanist dogma. I suppose he will weep for me again. He should not waste his tears. I subscribe to no faith – Not the Church, not his peculiar heresies about salvation by faith alone, not anything. I believe in power, and if the Church can give it to me, then I will swear allegiance to her and use her to my ends. I do not regard my father's pleas that I not consign my soul to Hell, for I cannot believe in Hell. I have read the Vulgate backward and forward, memorized most of it, and still I cannot see God. I sing all the hymns – People say I have a voice to rival the archangels. I conduct a mass no one can sleep through. But I see only that people give me what I want when they think I can feed souls. What fools they are.
Yes, I have decided to join Louis IX's Crusade. It will be a powerful gesture, I think. No door will be closed to one who has returned from the Holy Land in triumph with a palm branch and a coffer of Saracen gold. I have signed on to board a ship in one week's time. The wenches have wept to hear I am going away. Even they do not think it hypocrisy if I drink with them tonight and sing the mass tomorrow. It is not so in my father's household of sour sheep.
Nay, never could I follow his creed. But he would not let me go until I spat in his face and told him I would never be his son again. Why did he have to look at me so? He is another fool. I will not think of him again. I will tell Eva good-bye tonight, and make her cry again. She weeps so prettily. I might even hear her confession afterward. She likes to think of me as her private priest.
I wanted to write much of this land and sea voyage from Paris to Cyprus to Alexandria, but it has been a nightmare of misery and I have torn out every page I began. My fellow travelers seemed zealous enough at first, howling out the Te Deum and Thibaul's and de Bethune's rousing lyrics:
He
who does not leave at once
For the land where Christ loved and
died
And take the Cross
Will hardly go to paradise.
It
is good to be God's servant,
And not be touched by danger or
chance.
Serve well and be rewarded well.
The tunes have changed somewhat since the five men died and most others are sick with scurvy or something else. No one has escaped the seasickness, the pests, and the heat. My dreams of power seem petty and stupid in the face of this suffering for a wrong-headed cause. Now it is another Thibaul air that is sung by those who still have breath for singing.
God
why did you create foreign countries?
It has parted many
lovers
Who have lost comfort of love
And forgotten its joy.
Why did I ever put this cross upon my shoulder? Some of these fools are still utterly zealous and cry that as soon as we get our land legs back we shall do well. We shall certainly be a fine lot when we reach our destination. Those who still live shall best the Saracens by retching upon them.
Aye, it has been a long time since I took up pen to write herein. I found this book among the things I buried in the cave of Manzala Ridge where I hid the bodies of those I killed from my former comrades. Here are my Christian trappings, sunk in the sand and mold at the back of the cave these two years.
My pretty mail and shiny helmet have rusted with the gouges of Christian swords and the blood of Christian zealots still clinging to them. My fine surcoat does not look so white and pure, nor its bloody cross so bright and red. It has rotted into brown tatters and one can barely tell what it once was. But I must write of the day we "Christians" landed. Otherwise no one will understand how it is that I wear the robes and carry the sword of the "Saracens" whom I swore to drive out of this land. They will not know why now I live under a new vow – to rout the Christians out of this land.
We landed, I say, muddled and wobbly-legged, only barely alive, the ship having wracked in the storm that scattered the fleet and, as I heard later, drove them off course from Alexandria to Damietta. Our ship was commissioned late and it may have been that no one realized it was lost.
The ship smashed off the land spit surrounding the Lake Manzala and spewed us into the sea off a desert coast. We struggled to get on land and knew only that we were far from Alexandria. None of us knew where to go. The sun broiled us and the salt dried on our skins and filled us with wretchedness. There was no fresh water in sight, no game, only a few prickly plants we had no idea contained reservoirs of nectar. There were about twenty of us in all.
The knight who was to have commanded us lay on the beach at my feet, his head smashed in when a wave dashed him onto the rocks. We had no heart even to bury him. Then we heard voices and bleatings of sheep.
"Look! There are Saracens!" someone shouted. I looked up and saw shepherds driving their flocks over the rocks beyond the beach. They had stopped and were looking curiously down at us.
"Let us fight them!" cried someone else. "For Christ and Our Lady!"
I stared at my comrades and disbelief. "These are only herdsmen," I protested. "They are not even armed."
"Nay, they are the enemy," one of my fellows insisted. "If they are not of the Church, they are against it. Kill them! Let us kill them!"
No power, no wealth on earth was worth being a part of this mad destruction. What possible profit could there be in slaughtering helpless shepherds? "Stop!" I roared, getting between them and the rocky slope. "You shall not pass to do this thing."
They looked so feeble it never occurred to me that they would do otherwise than curse me and back away. Even among my own people I am a giant. My strength was something of a legend at school where there were many fights between gown and town. I raised my sword and motioned them to back away. They did not. A noise like angry bees or the low growl of a baited bear rolled out of them and they came toward me.
"Stop!" I warned. "I do not wish to kill you."
"Traitor! Blasphemer! Kill him!" The growl became words and my heart sank. On they came. I glanced backward. The shepherds could not comprehend what was passing. They did not even scatter or hide. I could not back down or I would be killed with them.
A few times in my life I have felt a power come over me that is hardly from within my own body. Some spirit takes hold of me and afterward I learn I have done some mighty feat of strength. So it was when my fellow crusaders experienced the killing hailstorm I became. My broadsword drew more Christian blood in one day than ever did the scimitar I carry now.
If I did not kill the full score of my comrades it was not because they did not give me opportunity. Even as they cried out in fear of my wrath they seemed to believe if they did not go on fighting they would be damned. The Arab shepherds fled in panic, not knowing whether I would turn upon them.
They could not know the decision I had made that moment, the change my whole heart and mind had undergone in those two or three moments when I saw what the Holy Mother Church could do to a man and made up my mind to go a different way. Of course the conviction had been growing on me throughout the journey and only came out in this resolve.
Suddenly I found myself in the middle of a party of horsemen who were not mere shepherds. Their curved swords and spears dispatched the last of my dying comrades, and then they turned to me. If I had expected gratitude for killing my fellow Crusaders I did not find it in the faces of the Arab warriors who surrounded me. I hesitated a moment, thinking they would just kill me. I had no means of preventing it.
I seized hold of the cross sewn upon the shoulder of my tunic and ripped it loose. I threw it on the ground and stamped upon it, and then I spat on it where it lay in the dust.
The Arabs stopped their charge and milled around me, chattering in that language which seemed so foreign to me at the time, but now is easier for my tongue to speak than my own. I had no thought that they would understand my speech. I hardly knew what I would say to them if I could make them understand me. I certainly wanted to talk them out of killing me somehow.
Though I was head and shoulders above any of them and I had certainly not neglected my battle training in the midst of my book learning I doubted I could beat the whole lot of them. I saw no other option but to somehow persuade them to let me join them.
One of the riders broke away from the group and rode off. The others ringed me with spears and I had to stand motionless the better part of an hour before the one who had left returned carrying a boy in a short, rough tunic and bare feet behind him. The slim, handsome lad slid off and came warily up to me.
"Why do you kill your own men?" he asked in perfectly good English.
"Because they were wrong," I answered, equally wary. "The men they wanted to attack were shepherds, not soldiers. And they had not harmed us. It was cowardly and I had to stop them."
"What of the Cross?" he asked, pointing to the emblem I had left lying at my feet.
"I will wear it no more," I said. "Let me join you, and fight these murdering cowards who have invaded your land." I wondered afterward how that resolve had gotten into my head and out of my mouth. It was so foreign to me. I saw no hope of money or power or influence following such a decision, but never before had I been so sure of a thing. I hated this Crusade and those who had started these butchers on their way to slaughter helpless sheepherders. I meant to cut myself off utterly from it or die rather than go on being called a Christian.
The boy was clearly astonished by my words. The others who surrounded me babbled at him, wanting to know what I had said. Some probably just wanting him to get out of the way so they could get on with skewering me. It was several minutes before he was able to form speech to answer their demands. They all seemed just as amazed as he was when he told them what I had said. The boy looked up at me after speaking with his companions for a time.
"You are a mighty warrior," he said. "Never have any of them seen a Christian who can fight like you. They would surely drive the others back into the sea if you fought with them. But how can they know you speak the truth? Some of these men say you lie to save your life, and you will betray them as soon as they take you where some of your own people are."
"I will never betray you," I said.
"You betrayed your own people," the boy reminded me. I realized suddenly that he was terrified of me. He stood there, unarmed, unprotected, and he knew that if I chose to cleave his head off his shoulders his comrades could only kill me after the fact. He stood straight and spoke firmly but his eyes revealed his terror. I cast my sword down on the ground and began to strip off my tunic and armor. I kept on till I wore nothing but my braes. My armor – all my Christian trappings – lay in the dust beside my Crusader's cross.
"I renounced my people," I corrected him. They were wrong – everything they believe and practice is wrong. The Christians come to take what is not even theirs. I never believed in their God. You fight to save your land and your homes and your people. That is the right cause to fight for. I will fight for you, and I will help you drive out the Christians."
The boy communicated this to the horsemen, apparently, and another buzz of conversation went on. They looked at me again and again, their eyes traveling up and down me. They were all so small and slender I am sure my giant frame was something they could scarcely understand.
"They will test you," the boy said at last. "I am going to tie your hands – you must submit – and one of these men will lead you down to the beach." I held out my hands without replying. A rider tossed one end of a braided leather rope to the boy and he tied it tightly around my wrists.
He must have thought I could snap ropes like Samson but I could not have broken those bonds. The man on horseback spurred his mount and led me a merry chase down to the beach. I fell twice and they all laughed except the boy. He ran along beside me, helped me to rise when I stumbled, and kept his lips shut tight.
On the beach the boy bound my hands behind me and my arms tight against my sides. The sun blazed on my fair English skin and the leather bit into my wrists and arms but I did not think it would do any good to say I was uncomfortable. The horsemen seemed to argue among themselves a bit, and then all fell back except five spearmen. The boy stepped away from me, but I saw what I thought might be reluctance in his eyes.
"Do not move no matter what," he whispered as one of the men pulled him away. "It is to see if you have enough courage. Just stand straight and still."
The five Arabs gave a weird, savage cry and spurred their horses. They rode in a tight ring around me and suddenly one unleashed his spear and sent it singing past my ear. I swallowed hard and stayed still. Another spear hissed by my shoulder. The shouting grew louder, the horses ran faster, and the spears flew thick.