Ruben: A Journey's Beginning

Chapter 2: Newfound purpose

The templar and I walked together in silence heading who knows where. Only the crickets and the clanking of the Templars armor and the soft and fading chatter of the townsfolk broke the silence. We gradually made our way outside the town and soon enough arrived at the third wall and gate. My kingdom had three walls, the first and strongest surrounded the superiors of the land, the second being a little smaller and filled with artisans and traders, and the last "wall" was basically about five feet of piled cobblestone and included all of the simple farm folk. Though my shoe store was in the second wall I chose the calm and vast beauty of the third wall rather than the second wall which seemed to never sleep. Now thinking about it, it's been a few weeks since I had adventured outside the walls, I never was much of a traveler and took it all in as I looked around me, only a fourth of the sun could be seen over the vast plains of wheat fields. Magnificent. Once again I looked upon the Templar, contemplating what to say, but before I could get a word out he blurted out, "Are you just gonna look at me or are you gonna say something?" he said in an annoyed, gruff tone. "Well, all I am curious about is what exactly are we doing? Where are we going? Am I in trouble? What war is being fought? Has it even started? Your not really going to recruit me to fight... right?" I chucked nervously at the end. The knight took off his helmet and rubbed his glistening bald forehead as he let out a sigh, for such a massive man he had quite the baby face as some would call it, being it was just as round as his hemet and had absolutely no hair on it, not even stubble. "Look Sir Ruben, mind if I just call you Ruben?" "Not a problem, Sir..." I trailed off because I had yet to know his name. "William, just William, nothing more, nothing less." "gotcha" I said. William continued, "You go to your local church, right?" "Yes" "so you must have heard at least something about war and Muslims?" "yes, yes, yes, that's right, and?" I urged him on desperate for answers. "The pope has set out a decree under the name of himself and King Philip IV that all men that believe in catholic hood, or the Christian faith in general, must fight for God to crusade His land and slay all of the Muslims and retake Jerusalem." "So... Templars are slaying all Muslims in that particular area of Israel?" I asked, thinking maybe it'll be a short and quick war. "No, Ruben, all muslims, every last one of them." His eye twitched and he pressed his teeth together as he said that, and his voice grew raspy and seemed to talk with a tone filled with hatred. "And what does that have to do with me exactly?" "We tried to gather volunteers at first, but all the people that came were poor, malnourished, old, and other conditions of that sort. Have you heard of the peasants crusade?" William asked me. "I'm not sure if I recall." I said, thinking back to my books. "Well, about a decade or two ago there was a crusade set out that wasn't ordered by the pope or king and it failed miserably. Those poor people marched to Jerusalem with leather garments and farm tools and were slayed before reaching the Holy land. So, with the peasants crusade as inspiration and somewhat of an excuse, another decree was sent that all believers of the Christian faith under the age of 40 must fight and walk the same path as the peasants to accomplish their same goal." I was enjoying the brief history lesson until I became cognizant of his words. While chuckling to myself with a hint of nervousness I asked, "And you think I'm fit to fight?" Willam shrugged to my words and said, "I never said that, there was a ton of names that were listed for people in the kingdom that were eligible to fight, and your name was pulled out of the hat." "what an honor." I said sarcastically while rolling my eyes. "But yes, there is no way I'm going to fight. I'll cook, I'll clean, I'll make shoes for the soldiers! Though I am not fit to fight, especially when I'm a 5'10 boy having to oppose men like you." He smirked my regard and said, "Don't get too excited, the worst is yet to come." he threw back on his helmet and pointed forward towards a small, old chapel. By this time I realized just how far we've walked out of town, about 400 plus yards away from the third gate. I've never seen this chapel anywhere, though it was tucked behind and base of a large hill that had a watchtower. The chapel was dark all around it besides the inside of it which candles could be seen flickering behind the stained glass in the night. We approached the steps and William held the door open as I entered. Instantly I was hit with the stench of body odor, sweat, and metal. I didn't want to be rude and hold my nose to the smell. So I bore it as best as I could and entered the chapel.