Free Well in Time by Suzan Still

remedy was to allow them to go.
    “By early summer of 1212, thirty-thousand children had gathered under the banner of Stephen of Cloyes in the city of Vendôme. Finally, near the end of July, the army of unarmed Christian soldiers took to the road, moving southward. The amazing thing about this phenomenon was, the vast majority of these souls were under twelve years of age! And among them, as you already may have guessed, were Blanche and Godfrey de Muret.
    “I cannot say I am proud that members of my own family were involved in such mass delusion. I have puzzled over it all my life and can find no corresponding urge in myself that might help me to understand it. Perhaps it’s a little like those young women in America who tear their blouses open and scream like lunatics when they see that popular singer of theirs, Sinatra. I don’t know.
    “But, that they were in this train there can be no doubt. The children went striding out, singing songs, southward toward Marseilles. There, they had been informed by Stephen, the Mediterranean Sea would part and they all would walk to Palestine on the dry ocean floor. There was a terrible drought that summer, which was burning the crops and drying up the streams, and this he took as confirmation that God had already undertaken the great work of drying up the Sea so that the task would be complete by the time they arrived.
    The Count reached for a log and tossed it on the fire, saying, “That this sort of thing could happen is unimaginable to us, in this age, when we have all manner of protective agencies to both monitor and defend children. But it is a fact of history that these thirty thousand children walked the entire three hundred miles to Marseilles in the space of about a month, begging and foraging as they went.
    “The shepherd Stephen was now elevated to new estate and rode in a carriage decked in colored flags, surrounded by the minor prophets on horseback. The children of the nobility were mounted, as well, some with retainers to guard them and carry their belongings. But the vast majority, including my two forebears, were afoot.
    “It was sometime in August when their army, greatly thinned through discouragement, malnutrition, kidnap, and death, arrived in Marseilles, still singing songs, carrying their crosses high and waving their cross-embroidered banners. And still, according to contemporary accounts, at least twenty thousand strong.
    “The city of Marseilles was in amazement and granted the children only one night’s stay there, fearing they might riot or cause some other untoward civil disturbance. But this fitted perfectly with Stephen’s plans as, he explained, they needed but a night’s rest before the sea parted and they began their walk to Jerusalem.
    “And so they slept that night at their jumping-off point, in the streets, in monasteries, or in the private homes of friends, depending on their social status, and the money they could afford to spend. Blanche and Godfrey, we are told, spent that night in a church, though which one I do not know. Nor, I imagine, did they. These children had absolutely no understanding of the simplest geography. Many of them, in fact, while en route, would ask as each new town was approached, “Is
this
Jerusalem?”
    “In the morning, these innocents assembled on the shore in the patient expectation that the sea was about to open before them. They waited the entire day and when their spirits flagged, they were exhorted to further faith by Stephen and the minor prophets,
Dieu le vaut!
God wills it!
    “As night fell and the sea still had not parted, a great disgruntlement befell the assembly. Many of the children, weary as they were from the long and arduous trek, left the company never to return. Many thousands, however, stayed on to return to the shore the next day. And the next. And the next.
    “It was into this atmosphere of patient faith and growing dissatisfaction that news of a miracle came, and the troops who