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

by C. D. Baker

  Each was eyed from head to toe, turned around, and poked and prodded like livestock at the market. “You’ve more teeth than most,” growled Lord Niklas as he yanked Heinrich’s jaw open.

  “Huh-uh,” offered the baker.

  The knight stared at Heinrich. “Can y’back bread that shan’t kill us?”

  “Aye, sire.”

  “Humph. And can y’cook other things?”

  “Aye.”

  “You’re a bit old … you’ve some gray on that red head and gray stubble on yer jaw.”

  “Aye, sire.” Heinrich nearly laughed out loud, for the knight was about the same age!

  Niklas moved on to Richard. The two locked eyes. The knight grabbed hold of Richard’s short-cropped hair with a laugh. “Glad to see y’found yer proper place!”

  Richard pushed the knight’s hand away and growled. With that, Lord Niklas jerked his sword from its sheath. He pinned Richard’s head against the wall with the palm of one hand as he laid his blade’s edge against the peasant’s exposed throat. “You’d like to avenge yer hand, wouldn’t ye? Eh? Speak, man!” Niklas grabbed Richard’s crippled hand and held it high. “If your right hand offends you, cut it off!” he shouted.

  Lord Simon joined the two. The aging knight was leathery and worn. Gray hair fell to his shoulders and a long, gray beard framed a face wrinkled by war and weather. “Enough, sir! He’s a good man and shall serve well. I stake my honor on it.” The fire in Simon’s dark eyes was enough to still the impetuous Lord Niklas.

  Niklas leaned close to Richard. “Let the past stay there!” he muttered. “I meant you no harm then … or now.”

  Richard’s blue eyes never moved from Niklas’s face. The knight sheathed his sword and moved on to inspect his other servants.

  “Y’needs be more careful!” scolded Heinrich.

  Richard was still bristling. “Put a stopper in y’mouth, cousin. ‘Tis my fight, not yours.”

  A familiar voice turned their heads. “Peace be unto you!”

  “Ah, and to you!” shouted Heinrich. He was smiling from ear to ear as his friend, Blasius, the Templar, approached. The two embraced and the warrior-monk turned to greet Richard.

  “A wonderful day!” cried Heinrich. “Look at us! Together in a common cause, serving our Church and each other.” The baker suddenly beamed with joy. It was an amazing thing for him to feel more than a simple tradesman. Instead he felt important and he delighted in the new sense of purpose.

  A black hood peeked from around a corner. From deep within its recesses spread a huge smile. “Brother Lukas!” roared Richard.

  “Shhhh!” hushed the jovial old monk as he trotted toward his friends. “I’ve been caught thrice out of the monastery and am supposed to be in prayer! Ha! I’d rather see m’dearest friends off on their adventure.” Lukas gave each a mighty hug. “My prayers shall follow you where e’er this journey takes you. Now, on your knees, each of you.”

  Heinrich, Richard, and Blasius obediently bent and bowed as the monk laid his age-marked hands on each of them. He prayed loudly and boldly, urging the kingdom of God to offer them “shield and buckler from the wiles of Satan and the ignorance of man.” When he finished he kissed Blasius and Richard on each cheek, but took Heinrich by the elbow.

  Lukas walked the baker some distance from the others and paused by a dozing ox. Lukas looked deeply into Heinrich’s patient face and began to speak with a gentle, pleading voice. “Good man,” he began, “my heart aches as I behold you here, in this place, about to leave in this service. My son, for all the many years I have loved you, I have prayed you might leave your darkened path. Your captive conscience binds the man that bears God’s image deep within. You have allowed others to chain you to the madness that rules our world because you turn your eyes away from truth and have closed your ears to wisdom!

  “You have denied yourself the joy of the butterfly. You have yet to pleasure in the glory of a wildflower. You’ve not warmed your face in the sun, nor washed your eyes in the colors of a rainbow since you were a mere boy! You have ne’er danced to the music of the Scriptures, nor delighted in your Maker. Listen, dear friend, I beg you. Abandon your wicked vow; oppose the deception of this empty world that is so terribly familiar to you. Dare to look beyond what you know! Truth is outside yourself, man, and is searching for you. Seek it with your eyes, listen for it; quiet your mind and let it find you, let it free you!”

  The baker stiffened. “Lukas, I am in no mood for this! Look, there.” He pointed to a knot of knights receiving their blessing from a priest. “And there.” He pointed to a large wooden crucifix mounted against the courtyard wall. “And listen.” The bells of sext began to ring. “All around us is the way I know. Is it so terrible? Is it so pointless?”

  Brother Lukas paused for a moment. He laid a gentle hand atop the baker’s shoulder. “Listen, good, faithful, devout Heinrich. It seems you truly believe that your way, your Ordnung, is neither binding nor blinding nor dark. Nor do you believe it is contrary to either Scripture or the way of nature.”

  Heinrich waited.

  “So I ask you this as your old friend: if your eyes are ever opened to its terror or your heart ever iced by the draught of its empty void … would you then turn and look beyond?”

  Heinrich relaxed and thought for a moment. “I readily admit m’world is not perfect.”

  “Agreed, perfection is not yet come. But what if you discovered that your way is more than just imperfect? What if you find that it is so very imperfect as to offer little more than poor shadows of truth? Would you then turn from it to find a better way?”

  The baker stood silently for a long pause as the knights readied their column. “Has the sound of Emma’s song.”

  Lukas smiled at the memory of the blessed woman. “Ja, my son.”

  Heinrich looked about the castle grounds at the knights, the kneeling priests, the banners fluttering under the scattering clouds. He felt good to belong to such a world. From this vantage, all seemed true enough. He hummed Emma’s tune and smiled. “… Come flutter ‘tween flowers, sail o’er the trees, or light on m’finger or dance in the breeze ….”

  The baker looked at old Brother Lukas waiting breathlessly for an answer. He remembered watching the black-robed rascal sneaking through the forests to gather his herbs before spending a day of laughter with his friends at the Magi. Heinrich knew he could not deprive the old man hope, not for all the world. Heinrich took Lukas by the shoulders and looked at him kindly. “Aye, good friend. If I find the Ordnung to be terrible or wickedly empty, I shall leave this way of things and let another find me. It is then, Brother, I shall break my vow and face the sun.”

  It was a full fortnight before Lord Heribert’s column was finally ready to make its journey northward. Several of his knights had traveled from manorlands in the Duchy of Bavaria, a few from lower Swabia, and one from Styria far to the southeast corner of the empire. The latter was delayed in the Brenner Pass and had suffered the loss of several servants to the swords of some highwaymen. Finally, however, on the twenty-third of October, Heinrich, Richard, Blasius, and a column of thirteen mounted knights, four mounted archers, twenty-two well-armed footmen and an assortment of some forty servants began their journey northward under the command of Lord Simon.

  Heinrich’s heart fluttered like the standards snapping in the wind above his head. He had never stepped foot on another’s land, save for the time he helped rescue Blasius with Brother Lukas some years prior. Now he was about to march into a new world, one he had only imagined. He smiled at the knights’ ladies who waved their colorful kerchiefs from tiny windows high within the castle walls and waved to the peasants staring enviously at him as he passed them by. Yet, despite his jubilance, he shared the fears of the knights who had earlier complained that they had no priest to accompany them. Without the protection of a priest they’d pass through dark forests and cross deep waters void of God’s protection. The priest, it seemed, had fallen ill the night before and none
others could be spared. It was an omen that troubled the whole of the column and fear hung as heavy over the company as the dark clouds above. Only Blasius, the warrior-monk, might serve to forestall the wiles of Satan’s minions.

  Since seventeen days had already passed since he had left Weyer, the baker also wondered about the “forty-day” contract. Blasius told him he had heard the march to be about seventy leagues. Considering they’d be transversing popular highways through a flattening landscape, the Templar reckoned their travel time to be about six or more leagues per day. According to his calculation, the company should arrive in Oldenburg within a fortnight. Leaving a week for battle, and another fortnight to return, he assured Heinrich they should all be safe in Weyer before Christmas.

  Things rarely go as planned, however. Under a blinding torrent of rain, the column followed the swollen Lahn River toward Marburg where additional provisions were waiting with another small company of men-at-arms. Simon’s army lost two wagons and an unfortunate servant in the currents of a flooded ford. The knights were now more certain than ever that this was the beginning of a doomed campaign.

  After a brief rest in Marburg’s hilltop castle the army returned to the highway that would lead them roughly northward toward the growing Hanseatic city of Soest. The meandering road was sometimes shin-deep in mud, creating a special hardship for the servants, like Heinrich and Richard, who were forced to push heavy wagon wheels through sucking ruts. Agitated and wet, the travelers slogged forward along the normally pleasant and crowded route.

  Several miserable days later they entered the gates of Soest, where Lord Simon directed his cold, soaked troops, past the Petrikirch and into the warmth of the burghers’ halls. It was a great relief to all and the generous addition of roasted meats and countless kegs of Westphalian ale soothed the men and lifted their spirits. Two days later and very much drier, the army resumed its journey.

  It was Simon’s hope that his sluggish column might hurry through Westphalia without further delay. His army was imposing enough to give pause to the roving bands of knights known to ambush many on this route, and no mere highwaymen would dare an adventure against them. Yet the cursed rain seemed to be the one enemy he could not dissuade, and the frustrated commander could do little more than turn his face against the gray sky and grumble.

  The rolling land just north of Soest was covered in dripping pines and bothersome streams. Numerous moated castles were hidden in the center of forest villages, like the octagon keep at Bad Iburg, which sent a party of menacing knights to the shoulder of the road. Runkel’s little army had no heart for drawing swords; they’d rather be drinking beer in the city of Munster some four leagues to the east. They paid a modest toll and pressed on.

  The thought of Münster’s warm hearths had been tempting, indeed, and as they neared the city the knights craved them all the more. Their fear, however, was the uncertainty of its position in the empire’s civil war. Heribert’s men had followed the pope’s new choice, Duke Philip, but it was rumored that Münster was still supporting Otto.

  Simon led his company toward the city with reluctance. Then, with the Budden Tower in view, he balked. He decided he would turn away from Münster after all, and despite the loud objections of his captains, he pointed his army toward a more certain reception in Osnabrück. Longing for a dry bed and hot soup, the knights complained bitterly as they followed their leader north through a lowering landscape and to the banks of the swollen Ems River.

  “Old fool!” barked Niklas. “We can’t cross here! We’ll lose all.”

  Normally narrow and lazy, the Ems was typically a sluggish, easily forded river. Given the unusual rains of the season, however, it had risen over its banks and brown water now swirled at the ankles of the frustrated knights. Simon gathered his captains to review their situation. In the last week, two servants had perished from fever and one knight had turned back from the discomforts he claimed were beneath his station. The cold rain had kept the men limited to the warmth of a few smoky fires contained within some iron kettles. The baker’s clay oven could not maintain its heat so no bread had been baked, and without boiled water the men could not even eat a peasant’s mush. The impatient, pampered lords were accustomed to roaring hearths and hearty foods in their great halls and lodges. To the secret delight of their servants, they had been reduced to eating cold, salted pork and a few dried fish.

  The conversation by the riverbank became heated. All finally agreed that Münster was a risk, but Simon’s indecision had been inexcusable and had cost them valuable time. So, in less than half an hour, Simon’s good friend, Lord Wolfrum, spearheaded a mutiny and assumed command. Crafty, fleshy-faced, and brutal, Lord Wolfrum had been favored all along. The new leader abruptly ordered the small army westward along village roads near the Ems until they found a creaking bridge near Warendorf. Once across the river he quickly directed his column to the trade route leading to Osnabrück.

  The shivering, wet army set up camp each night, with the exception of two small monasteries that hosted them briefly. The wagons were pulled close together, the horses tethered to trees. Each servant scampered about his duties—except for poor Rosa and Ita who did their best to hide in the dark recesses. Since they feared the terrors of the spirit-filled forests even more than the soldiers, they rarely dared venture far from the camp’s edge. Unfortunately, they were stripped of the dignity nature had kindly given them and suffered the sad consequences of their gender.

  Heinrich shook his head each night. The glory he had felt in Runkel had slowly faded into a seething disgust as he watched the knights denigrate the women, or savage other servants with straps or sticks. It was Blasius, however, who gave Heinrich hope. The devout warrior-monk had not missed a single prayer in the weeks they had traveled. Each morning he dutifully recited twenty-eight Pater Nosters, and at each approximated canonical hour he sang or recited other prayers or psalms.

  Yet Brother Blasius was distressed at heart. Outwardly he seemed strong-willed, resolute, and devout. Over chain-mail tunic and breeches, he proudly wore his white robe embroidered at the left breast with a vivid red, Templar cross—easily recognized from afar with its distinctive blunt, wedge-shaped arms. He dutifully bound his robe with a braided, leather cord, which signified his vow of charity. However, since Templars were to avoid the proximity of women, Blasius was uncomfortable with the presence of those accompanying the column. More than that, he was enraged at the wicked attention foisted upon them, and he had risen in defense of Ita on the first night of the journey. Blasius’s master, Brother Phillipe de Blanqfort, had commanded the man’s sworn obedience to the authority vested to the lay knights, and Lord Simon had ordered Blasius’s silence on the matter. So, despite the cruelty he witnessed, he was trapped in a dilemma that worsened with each passing day.

  At last, to the great relief of all, the nagging rain subsided. Heinrich and a dozen other servants were ordered into the forest to forage for wood. They dragged fallen boughs to the campsite where axe-wielding men shaved away the wet bark, exposing the dry heartwood beneath. By compline of one long day a series of small fires were beginning to snap to the cheers and hurrahs of the chilled travelers. The cooks were then set to task and midst the happy cries of the men-at-arms, cauldrons of bubbling gravies soon churned dried vegetables and chunks of pork and bacon. Finally, at long last, the famished knights were slurping hot stews.

  The servants shivered in the cold as they waited their turn to eat. Rosa and Ita huddled close by Leo and Linz, the young brothers from Lindenholz. Richard noticed the four whispering and he shifted close enough to hear Rosa’s voice choked with tears and anguish.

  “What do you want?” barked Leo.

  “Why, naught … nay, I just was coming to see you,” answered Richard. He looked at Rosa in the dim, yellow light of a distant fire. He could see bruises on her face and she cupped one elbow in pain. “Can I help?”

  “Help in what?”

  Richard lowered his voice. “Look at them.
We can’t let this keep happening any longer.”

  “Aye,” muttered Leo. “But what do we do?”

  “’Tis simple.” The five were startled by a new voice. It was Heinrich.

  “Münster’s but a few days’ quick-step behind us. None would bother follow back through those swamps.” The girls looked so helpless to Heinrich. He nearly wept for them. He thought of the bruises on Katharina. “The men are drunk already. They’d be finishing their meals and coming for you soon enough. You’d best hurry.”

  The girls began to cry and Linz took Ita by the hand. “Leo, you and I shall take them! One year and a day in Münster and we shall all be free!”

  “What of your family at home?” asked Richard.

  “We’ve none. All died by plague this summer past.”

  “And what of you?” Richard asked the girls.

  The two shrugged.

  “Rosa! Ita!” It was drunken Lord Niklas calling from the camp.

  “By God, you needs go quick!”

  “How can I help?” Blasius’s voice whispered from the darkness.

  Startled, Heinrich nearly dropped at the sound. “Uh, brother, these four are escaping.”

  “Aye. If they are caught they shall be slain on the spot.”

  “We’d rather die than stay,” answered Linz.

  Blasius thought for a moment. More men began to cry out for the girls. “Get ready to run, and go with God.” With that, the Templar burst into the firelight. He raised his sword above his head and roared, “I challenge any man!”

  The camp grew quiet as the Templar circled round and round. He grabbed a shield and banged his sword against it until Lord Niklas took the bait.

  “I challenge!” roared the drunken knight. “Prepare yourself, fool monk!”

  As Lord Wolfrum reviewed the rules of the contest and his knights eagerly circled the combatants, Leo, Linz, Rosa, and Ita slipped away unseen into the forests of Saxony. Heinrich and Richard, having bade them a heartfelt “Godspeed,” crept to the edges of the camp’s firelight and watched as Brother Blasius skilfully attracted all attention to himself.