Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [147]
With a glad cry, the children fell upon the food like a swarm of starveling birds.
“Are you from the village?” Gerold asked the woman, pointing to the blackened ruin behind them.
The woman nodded. “My husband is the miller.”
Gerold hid his surprise. The ragged figure before him appeared to be anything but a prosperous miller’s wife. “What happened?”
“Three days ago, after the spring planting, soldiers came. The Emperor’s men. They said we had to swear allegiance to Lothar or die immediately by their swords. So of course we swore.”
Gerold nodded. Lothar’s doubts about this part of Lombardy were not entirely unjustified, for it was a relatively new addition to the Empire, acquired by Lothar’s grandfather, the great Emperor Karolus.
“If you took the oath of loyalty,” he asked, “how did your village come to be destroyed?”
“They didn’t believe us. Liars, they called us, and threw torches onto our roofs. When we tried to put the fires out, they held us back with their swords. Our stores of grain they torched as well, though we begged them not to, for the children’s sake. They laughed and called them traitors’ spawn, who deserved to starve.”
“Villains!” Gerold exclaimed angrily. He had tried many times to convince Lothar that he could not win his subjects’ loyalty with the use of force but only through just dealing and the rule of law. As usual, his words had fallen on deaf ears.
“They took all our men,” the woman continued, “except the very young and the very old. The Emperor was marching to Rome, they said, and needed men to swell the foot ranks.” She started to weep. “They took my husband and two of my sons—the younger is only eleven!”
Gerold scowled. Things had come to a sorry pass when Lothar needed children to fight his battles.
“My lord, what does it mean?” the woman asked anxiously. “Is the Emperor going to make war against the Holy City?”
“I don’t know.” Until this moment, Gerold had thought Lothar meant only to intimidate Pope Sergius and the Romans with a show of force. But the destruction of this village was an ominous sign; in so vengeful a mood, Lothar was capable of anything.
“Come, good mother,” Gerold said. “We will take you with us to the next town. This is no safe place for you and the children.”
She shook her head fiercely. “I’ll not budge from this spot. How will my husband and sons find us when they return?”
If they return, Gerold thought grimly. To the black-haired girl he said, “Tell your mother to come with us, for the sake of the little ones.”
The girl stared mutely at Gerold.
“She means no discourtesy, lord,” her mother apologized. “She would answer if she could, but she cannot speak.”
“Cannot speak?” Gerold said, surprised. The girl looked sound and showed no sign of being simple.
“Her tongue’s cut out.”
“Great God!” The loss of a tongue was a common punishment for thieves and other miscreants not quick enough to dodge the law’s harsh justice. But surely this innocent young girl was guiltless of any crime. “Who did this? Surely it was not—”
The woman nodded grimly. “Lothar’s men used her unlawfully, then cut out her tongue so she could not accuse them of the shameful deed.”
Gerold was stunned. Such atrocities were to be expected of heathen Norsemen or Saracens—not of the Emperor’s soldiers, defenders of Christian law and justice.
Brusquely Gerold gave orders. His men went to the wagons and took out a sack of biscuits and a small barrel of wine, which they placed on the ground before the little family.
“God bless you,” the miller’s wife said feelingly.
“And you, good mother,” Gerold said.
They rode on, passing other plundered and deserted settlements along the way. Lothar had left ruin behind him wherever he passed.
Fidelis adjutor. As sworn fidelis to the imperial crown, Gerold was bound in honor to serve the Emperor faithfully. But what honor was there