Quest of Hope: A Novel (The Journey of Souls Series)

by C. D. Baker

  Next followed the ladies of Runkel’s court. Adorned in all the colors of the rainbow, they were dressed in flowing silk over-gowns, rippling and folding gracefully to the ground at their dainty feet. Their hair was braided and bound by jeweled hairclasps. Most covered their heads with gauzy wimples; others with the hoods of their mantles. Atop their saddles lounged all manner of cats who glanced about the parade with aloof indifference.

  About the ladies clambered the children. As with the villagers, these came in all sorts, but the children of this class were scrubbed and finely dressed. The girls were dressed as miniature women, complete with shiny accessories and jewels. The younger boys wore tunics to the ankles, more like the women, while the older boys wore them to the knees, where hose followed into leather shoes. Younger or older, the male children’s hair was long, like their fathers, but neat and often capped by plumed hats.

  Klothar arrived at the mill pond first and dismounted. Smiling, he stretched in the sun and embraced his courtiers as they arrived. The lord was then escorted to a place at the edge of the grass and from here he raised his arms and graced the awestruck villagers of Weyer with a smile.

  The simple folk of that weary hamlet fell to their knees and bowed as the man acknowledged them. “Good people of Weyer!” he roared. “I am Klothar, Lord of Runkel, son of Hugo of Oldenburg, father of Heribert. God has willed our fortunes to be joined with your abbot, Stephen. May God’s blessings be upon us all, this Lammas Day!”

  With that, the village folk stood to their feet and cheered. With a brush of his hand and a condescending smile, Lord Klothar then dismissed them to their separate celebration as he turned to his own. A large, high-backed chair was set at the head of a long set of oak plank tables, each covered by colorful cloths and bending with the weight of the feast’s bounty. Lord Klothar welcomed his wife, Mechtilde, to his side and seated her on a wooden chair not unlike his own. She was attractive, especially given her age. The daughter of Rolf, King of Saxony, she had borne her husband a healthy son, Heribert, the future lord of Runkel.

  Along the sides of the tables were set benches where the guests of Villmar would be seated. To Klothar’s right, the row began with the papal legate, followed by the abbot, the prior, and a long stream of merchants, lesser lords, and knights. To Klothar’s left sat Hagan, various visiting guests, and finally Bailiff Werner and Woodward Arnold. With the slighted Father Pious scowling in the background, a priest of the abbey offered a blessing and a psalm.

  Chefs from Runkel had worked hard to present a fine display, one fitting the guests and the season. They stood to one side as servants gathered in a long column from their cauldrons and pits, portable ovens, and mixing troughs. With great ceremony and the accompanying sounds of lutes and pipes, the parade of servers was quickly ordered toward the cheering entourage with a steaming, sloshing line of pots, trays, kettles, and platters.

  Lord Klothar, his family, the abbot, and two or three esteemed lords were presented with their personal trenchers. The rest of the guests would share a platter with two or more of their fellows. Carvers scurried along the tables, deftly slicing slabs of meat and removing bones from juicy roasts. Other servants rushed to fill impatient tankards with wine from the sunny slopes of the empire’s lands near Rome, or with Swabian beer, or local cider. And, while the lords and ladies plunged their fingers, spoons, and daggers into fatty meats and soft stews, their hearts were gladdened by the voices of minstrels, the strings of psalters, and the screeching reeds of Düdelsacks.

  Scraps the peasants would have happily sucked or gnawed were tossed indifferently to the many pampered dogs which drooled overstuffed and haughty at their masters’ feet. Heinrich stared from his appointed place and shook his head. Those dogs, he thought, know their place and are fattened for it. He turned to look at the gray horde of dim-eyed peasants gawking at their masters. And we know ours but are the worse for it. He studied the lords, then his fellows. A voice suddenly whispered in his ear and he turned to see Brother Lukas standing behind a nearby tree. Heinrich laughed. “You’ve escaped again!”

  Lukas smiled. “Aye, I could not help but come … it is all the talk of the cloister and I’d be in hopes of some food and drink that might be left.”

  “Humph, methinks the dogs are eating your share!”

  “Ah, the dogs. I forgot about the dogs.” Lukas watched the abbot toss a lunging mastiff a plate of scraps before he surveyed the gaunt faces of the peasants around him. “The lords of war and the lords of the Church; they rule the earth together and hoard its plenty. We have strayed, m’friend.”

  There never had been, nor would there ever be again a Lammas feast in Weyer like the one now passed. For Heinrich, it was a remarkable success, and his reputation as a skilled baker had quickly spread across the realm of the abbey and beyond. The man had other reasons for joy as well. His wife, Marta, was again heavy with child and Heinrich beamed with pride as he awaited the happy day.

  News came just past the bells of nones on a hot afternoon on the tenth day of August. Heinrich had just finished wiping the ovens and was about to inspect the harvest with Herwin, when Irma, Herwin’s eldest daughter, rushed down the path to beckon him home.

  “Methinks there to be trouble!” squealed the girl.

  Panicked and fearful, Heinrich charged ahead to arrive at the barred door of his hovel. Not permitted to enter, Heinrich paced the croft behind his hut. He stopped and listened to hear a faint whimper, then a scream—then the cry of a baby. The man smiled and raced to his door. “Hello?”

  The midwife stepped out of the bedchamber and beckoned Heinrich to enter. “Marta is good, but weary. The child is crying but methinks it seems too blue and … is … odd to look upon.”

  “‘Odd’? What do you mean, ‘odd?”

  The woman shrugged as Heinrich brushed past her and hurried to Marta’s side. Marta lay sobbing, holding the newborn with limp, disinterested arms. At the sight of her husband, Marta cried, “You! You cursed me and the child … you … some sin… have you some secret sin?”

  Heinrich stood openmouthed and speechless. Sin? he thought. “What sin? What—” He looked at his girl-child and his heart sank. She was of poor color and misshapen.

  Varina’s daughter had been summoned to fetch the priest but it seemed forever before Father Johannes appeared at the door. He was annoyed and sweating. He had been working with the harvesters as far south as the balk at the Oberbrechen border and was not pleased to trudge all the way to Weyer on such a steamy day. As he entered the hovel he stomped the dirt clotted on his sandals and grunted. “Does the child yet live?”

  Heinrich nodded.

  “And where is it?”

  Heinrich pointed toward his bedchamber.

  The priest took the child from her mother’s arms. He was in a hurry to return to his duties in the field. “The name?”

  Marta answered clearly. “I wanted a girl-child to be Margaretha … after my mother’s mother, but—”

  “Then so it is,” interrupted Johannes.

  Heinrich nodded.

  “And the godparents?”

  Marta scowled at Heinrich. She was not one to forget an offense. “I’ll not burden my kin with this … this cursed thing. Herwin and Varina shall be named again.”

  Varina looked sympathetically at Heinrich and the baby. She had long ago forgiven him the mystery of her brother and had grown to love him. Her heart now broke for him and the pitiful infant.

  Heinrich nodded. Father Johannes hurried the sacrament. “We’ve no time for other things … I’ve no salt and—”

  “Father, I do!” exclaimed Heinrich. He was anxious that his daughter have every advantage against the wiles of the Evil One, and he withdrew a precious pinch from his apron.

  Johannes touched a fingertip of salt to the child’s mouth and poured water over her head. “Et Filii …in nomine Patris … et Spiritus Sancti…”

  Wide-eyed and suddenly terrified, Marta shrieked. “Nay! Oh, blessed Virgin Mary! He sp
oke out of proper order … the child’s cursed and damned to be sure!”

  Indeed, the aging priest had pronounced the baptism in error and the poor serfs were now in terror for the baby’s soul. A great wail was raised to heaven.

  “My God, father!” shrieked Heinrich, “You’ve sent my daughter’s soul to hell!”

  “It surely does not matter, my son. If it gives you peace I shall pronounce it again.”

  Marta screeched. “Not him! Get Pious!”

  Confused and uncertain, Heinrich ordered the dumbstruck Johannes away and went to Margaretha’s side to kiss her wet head. Then, angry and fearful, he stormed out-of-doors in search of Father Pious. In an hour he returned with Pious in tow. The corpulent priest was all too pleased to feign outrage for his superior’s shortcoming and quickly rebaptized the infant. To the great relief of the household, he then assured all that he had salvaged her little soul from the ever-straining reach of Lucifer’s evil grasp. “Pope Gregory had made it so very clear that all sacraments must be kept in perfect order. You were wise to call me.”

  Exhausted and grateful, Heinrich offered a half-shilling for the parish alms tin and a tankard of ale for the smiling priest.

  The day quickly passed into night and sleep came easy to the weary baker. But sometime in the predawn darkness of the next day, baby Margaretha found her rest as well. Her teary-eyed father bathed and wrapped her in a tiny linen shroud and laid her in an infant’s grave by the cold stone wall of Weyer’s church.

  It was late September, a few days past St. Michael’s Day, when Heinrich confirmed the betrothal of Effi to Jan, a merchant of Frankfurt who traveled the region each season. Jan was a freeman, a city dweller of good report. Two years older than Heinrich, he was twenty-two and a widower without children. Effi, it seems, had served him water from Weyer’s well in the spring of the year prior and the two had met on several of his passings since that first meeting.

  For his part, Jan was drawn to the little redhead’s feisty spirit and twinkling eyes. He loved her banter and her barbs and saw the tender heart of mercy beneath the bluster. In fact, so great was his affection that he had reached far into his strong box to pay the manumission for her freedom. Prior Mattias had charged a heavy fee. “We need healthy women to bear us more good men for Weyer and we needs be paid well.” He hoped to discourage others from snatching young wives from his village, though he was wondering if the villages were not beginning to become overcrowded.

  Jan added a generous dowry to secure the woman’s future. “Two pounds and a mark,” he said, “are on deposit in the Templar’s preceptory in nearby Lauken. Should I die, Effi may return here to claim it. Otherwise I shall surely provide for her as a Christian man ought.”

  Effi, weeping with joy, embraced the man as Heinrich offered his blessing on the two. To avoid much talk, the prior insisted the wedding be in Frankfurt. None of Effi’s household would be permitted to attend—the risk of peasants leaving the manor was too great and the abbot thought it better to “spare them the sight of things they are not ordained to have.”

  The harvest season brought other news as well. Though the time for war and conquest most commonly occurred in spring, some lords had begun to realize that the time just after harvest was of some advantage; the knights would have their own fields scythed and their grains in storehouses, yet the weather would be suitable for travel. A quick conquest of nearby land could be accomplished before the Advent and winter would prevent a counterassault.

  With this in mind, the abbot of Villmar was suddenly nervous about the plans of his southern neighbor, Lord Tomas. The ambitious lord was rumored to have an increasing appetite for an alliance with the abbey. By challenging and defeating Lord Klothar, the abbot’s present protector, Tomas would be in a position to demand a contract of defense for himself.

  In response to these rumors, Lord Klothar had presented his picnic on the border. But rather than dissuade Tomas, it was learned that the event had been seen as a provocation. Riders were now often spotted along the far banks of the Laubusbach. In fact, on one particular day a yeoman swore on the relics of his church that he had witnessed a company of armed men cross the stream at night and disappear into the forests toward Villmar. It was this testimony that prompted the prior to order Werner to begin leading scouting parties of his own.

  The protection alliance between Villmar and Lord Klothar of Runkel required the lord to furnish “whatever arms deemed right and necessary to provide order and safety to the lands, buildings, chattel, roadways, beasts, stores, and subjects of the manors of the Abbey of Villmar.” Klothar, however, had problems of his own. Another alliance had drawn his soldiers into Saxony in support of imperial forces under assault. So Klothar was forced to do what he had hoped to avoid—hire the Templars to protect his contract with the abbot.

  With certainty and precision, the Knights Templar had slowly developed their own lands into prosperous manors. Based to the west of Villmar’s abbey, in Lauken, their borders extended from the Lahn at Limburg in nearly a straight line southeastward until it joined the Emsbach. From there it continued to a point just south of the village of Selters. Their entire manor was nearly twice the size of Villmar’s lands and contained six villages. The Templars, however, had an appetite for more, including a contested wedge of land between themselves and the abbey’s manor.

  Lord Klothar feared the Templars. Many of these warrior-monks had been seasoned on the bloodied sands of Palestine and were nearly invincible in battle. Because of their vast network scattered across most of Christendom, they could summon companies of knights or sergeants in support from nearly every quarter. One could not offend a single knight-brother without risking the wrath of the others. Furthermore, they had become the single largest benefactor of dying lords whose last wish was to secure an eternal reward by granting large tracts of land and treasure to these devout warriors of the Cross. With such assets they had become the bankers of the Christian world and had the means to buy whatever supplies, mercenaries, or other advantages any situation might require.

  It was early in October when Heinrich saw a group of four Templars and a squire enter Weyer on horseback. Three of the men were lesser brethren and wore their brown robes over chain mail. They each wore steel caps and carried long-swords and shields. With them was one of the knights, easily identified by his white, sleeveless gown draped over his mail. His left breast boasted an embroidered crimson cross, and atop his head was a steel helm. Heinrich stood in awe, for as the knight turned the baker saw a second red cross stitched on the knight’s back—a sign he had served God in the great Crusades.

  It was midday and the bells of sext rang out as the Templars approached the bakery. At the order of the knight, the group dismounted and aligned themselves into a perfect row, facing east. They bent on their knees and prayed, and when they were finished the knight led them to the bakery door. “God be with you, baker.”

  Heinrich bowed. “And to you, sir knight.”

  “Have you a bit of bread we might buy?”

  “Of course, sire. But it would please the abbot, methinks, to grant our poor bread as a gift.”

  “With thanks, good man, but the abbot provides for us in other ways. Take this penny and we’d be forever in your debt.”

  Heinrich took the silver Pfennig and filled a basket with bread and two pretzels. “I… I am so very sorry, brother, but I have naught but rye bread.”

  The knight grunted and stared at the dark rolls. “Rye,” he sighed. “But, lad, it could be worse … it could’ve been oats!” The man laughed and slapped Heinrich on the shoulder. “’Tis good, son, good enough.”

  Heinrich smiled and turned his eye to the squire who had finished hitching the horses to a nearby rail. It was Alwin, the Gunnar. Heinrich watched the lad as he recited words in Latin. Then, the novice began to walk about in a large circle, stopping to act out some strange movements. His odd behavior captured Heinrich’s attention.

  “He’s doing a penance for losing a sh
oe,” offered one of the brothers.

  “But… what is he doing?”

  “Each day at the bells of sext he is required to act the fourteen Stations of the Cross. There … he’s at number seven, the second fall of the Savior. Next he shall bless the women of Jerusalem, then … there … he falls for the third time.”

  Heinrich watched, spellbound. The lad seemed to suffer the very emotions of Christ at each act. “The man is truly devout.”

  “Aye. There, he is dying on the Cross.”

  Alwin’s face twisted as he stretched his arms wide. He groaned as if he felt the very anguish of Jesus, then turned his head upright toward heaven and cried, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!”He fell to the ground, paused, then rolled to lie still as if shrouded in his tomb.

  “There, the fourteenth station.”

  Heinrich was speechless, taken as much by Alwin’s sincerity as he was by his precision and drama.

  Finished, Alwin was summoned to greet Heinrich. “Good baker, this is Alwin, a squire-novice in training and soon to take his vows.”

  “Hello again, Heinrich.” Alwin smiled and extended his hand.

  Heinrich was uncomfortable. His own many hours of penance suddenly seemed pitifully lacking. He took the lad’s hand and released it quickly. Heinrich ventured a quick look into the squire’s face. Touched by God, he thought. Indeed, there was an intelligence and a charity in the lad’s eyes that set him apart from others. He was about fifteen, Heinrich guessed. Five years younger than Heinrich, the young man was tall, strong, dark-eyed and blond. He was devoted to his faith and to his masters in the preceptory, and would, no doubt, take his vows soon. Eager and faithful, he was beloved by his brethren and the favored friend to all.

  Alwin smiled. “We have not met since the bailiff was searching for your uncle’s murderer.”

  “Aye.”

  “All agreed it was a poacher.”

  Heinrich shrugged and shuffled. He could not free himself from the images of the dead Gunnars dumped in that muddy grave. His cousins … perhaps uncles to him? A brother? he wondered.