Amos Oz - Unto Death

It all began with outbreaks of discontent in the

villages.

Day by day bad omens began to appear in the

poorer areas. An old farmer of Galland saw the form

of a fiery chariot in the sky. In Sareaux an ignorant

old woman croaked out oracles couched in the purest

Latin. Rumors went around of a cross in an out-of

the-way church which burned for three days with a

green flame and was not consumed. Our Lady ap

peared to a blind peasant beside a fountain one night,

and when the priests fed him wine he described the

vision in scriptural language.

The faithful seemed to detect a kind of malicious

joy fermenting throughout the winter in the dwellings

of the accursed Jews.

Strange things happened. Bands of dark wander

ers, huge and black as bears, appeared simultaneously

in several places. Even educated folk could sense at

times a murmur gnawing inside them. There was no

peace to be had.

In Clermont, in the year of the Incarnation of Our

Lord Jesus Christ 1095, Pope Urban II summone

he flocks of God to an expedition to liberate the

Holy Land from the hands of the infidel, and to

expiate their sins through the hardships of the journey

-for spiritual joy is achieved through suffering.

Early in the autumn of the following year, four

days after the end of the vintage, the noble Count

Guillaume of Touron set out at the head of a small

troop of peasants, serfs, and outlaws from his estate

near Avignon and headed toward the Holy Land......