Quest of Hope: A Novel

by C. D. Baker

  The traveling mason brought with him a household of six, as well as news of Axel. Heinrich eagerly questioned him about his younger brother and was pleased to learn that the apprentice was doing well at trade, as he was naturally adept at calculating distance and weight, and agile atop the scaffolds of Limburg. His master could be heavy-handed, but was known to be a good teacher.

  As Heinrich bade the mason farewell, a young girl stepped from the man’s modest quarters. The young man stopped and stared—captured by the girl’s bright green eyes and smiling face. He tried to speak. “G-g-good day, s–strange … good strange maiden … I mean …” The lad took a deep, rasping breath. “I mean, good day, stranger.”

  “And good day to you, sir.” The lass smiled kindly.

  Heinrich’s heart soared. He studied the girl carefully and guessed her to be near his own age. She was willowy and had the soft curves of a young woman. Her hair was blonde, and her face strong, yet gentle. “My name is Heinrich and I live there.” He pointed toward the village center. “I am a baker,” he continued proudly, “and will be the village baker as soon as the building is done.”

  “Oh,” she answered softly. “My name is Katharina, of Limburg. My father is the mason for your bake-house. He’s worked on a bakery in Mainz and the ovens in Runkel.”

  But Heinrich was not listening. He could only hear his heart hammering hard within his heaving chest. Ach! he thought. Could it be that I might claim her for a wife? She is quiet and lovely, well-shaped and clean-smelling.

  “Heinrich … Heinr—”

  “Oh … yes?” the startled boy replied.

  Katharina giggled. “For a moment I thought you were not listening.”

  “Oh, no! You said your papa is a brick layer from Mainz.”

  Katharina smiled and nodded. “He is. But, I—” She shrugged and winced as her mother barked her name. “I must go now, Heinrich, but perhaps I shall see you at your bakery. We shall speak again?”

  Heinrich sighed and smiled. He turned and closed his eyes. “My bakery”… she said “my” bakery. Oh that it could be so!

  “Frau Emma!” cried Heinrich. “Frau Emma?”

  Ingelbert came racing from the wood. He was smiling, as usual, and Heinrich laughed as his friend drew near. Poor creature, he thought. Now a man but, oh, what a sight. Indeed, Ingelbert was nearly sixteen and able to be wed, but neither his mind nor his body would be anything but a burden for even the most tender of young women. His broken bones had healed from Lord Tomas’s beating, but he was as thin and white as ever. Some imagined he was little more than a skeleton wrapped in parchment. His distorted features were more pronounced than ever, but a great heart still beat within his gangly frame.

  Heinrich clasped hands with Ingly and followed him to his mother waiting patiently by the stream. “Good Sabbath afternoon, Frau Emma!”

  “Ah, lad, and to you.” The woman chuckled. She rubbed her round belly and laughed. “Well, we’ve eaten more mush than what’s fitting, and we can barely wait for Easter feast next week. And you, boy, have you eaten?”

  “Aye, we’ve mush as well, but Varina put some dried herb in it and it tasted better than before. I cannot remember its name.”

  “Hmm. Perhaps rosemary? Nay? Well, I needs ask her. She’s a delight.”

  “Aye.”

  “And what brings you to us?”

  “Ah, ‘tis a good day for me and I thought I’d spend it with you and Ingly.”

  “Oh? And why such a good day?”

  Heinrich blushed and looked at his feet.

  “Come, boy! Y’needs tell me!”

  “I… I met a stranger in the village.”

  “Ah, the mason?”

  Heinrich shrugged.

  Emma put a finger under her chin and pretended to think hard. Her eyes then brightened. “And you’ve met his daughter, Katharina?”

  Heinrich reddened and squirmed, delighted to be found out.

  “Ah, good lad! I thought as much!” Emma laughed and gave the boy a hug. “She seems to be of good stock.” She winked. “Wonderful! Well then, Ingly and I were about to sit by the Magi. We’ve been summoned there by Lukas. Might you join us?”

  Heinrich eagerly agreed, and before long the three crossed a newly built bridge and were walking along the bubbling Laubusbach. The trees were bare but budded, the sky blue, and the sun warm.

  The monk was waiting patiently at the three trees, casually plinking stones into the clear water rushing past. He turned and waved as his friends approached. “God’s peace to you, sister and young lads!” he called.

  “And to you!” panted Emma as she pulled herself over a fallen log. “How do you escape these days?”

  “I bribe Egidius.” Lukas grinned.

  “Well, blessed brother,” Emma chuckled, “I am just thankful to God for your company.”

  The four spread pine boughs across the ground and lounged about their oasis with no care in the world. The Laubusbach was dancing and sparkling in the bright light of midafternoon and a warm breeze moved softly through the trees. The three Magi towered high above the forest keeping a faithful vigil; their sturdy trunks stood straight and wide like the marble columns in the cathedral of Milan.

  Neither Emma nor Lukas were much for frivolous speech, so, after a few pleasantries, Lukas came to the point of his meeting. “Emma, I do not yet know all your secrets, nor you mine, but I have seen your gifts in illuminating. That parchment I saw was among the finest I have ever seen.”

  Emma colored.

  “Now hear me. I do not know by what means you pay your rents or fees, but I presume you must sell your work to someone?”

  Emma did not answer.

  “No matter, your work needs to be offered for God’s glory. The abbot has filled his new scriptorium with idiots and trembling hands! I’ve seen their work; ‘tis a pitiful sight, an abomination and insult to art! I’ve heard it whispered in the refectory that the Father Abbot is anxious over it. He fears his profits shall soon dwindle. So … what if I proposed to Mattias that we hire you?”

  “Me?” Emma laughed in disbelief. “He would never hire a peasant and surely not a woman!”

  “Ah!” Lukas’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “Scribes and illuminators are placed in the towns now, working for pay to do what only monks had done not so long ago. I could say I found a skilled person who wants to remain unnamed. Aye! A person who is modest and has vowed against pride so he wants none to know his identity!”

  Heinrich interrupted. “It sounds like a deception.”

  Lukas sighed.

  “She took no vow against pride, and she is no ‘he.’”

  Lukas mumbled under his breath. “Listen, lad. Frau Emma is in need and we can help her. Have you no charity?”

  Heinrich was confused. He was Emma’s faithful friend—he would do anything for her. But deceiving the Church seemed too much. He wanted a better way. “Can y’not help her without sin?”

  “Perhaps not helping is the sin!” challenged the monk, impatiently.

  Heinrich was not convinced. “Can y’not just say the person is modest and fears pride?”

  Lukas thought for a moment, then sighed. “Ah, well said, lad. ‘Tis much better, indeed. And you, sister, is this agreed?”

  Emma smiled. “Yes! ‘Tis good!”

  “Then you shall be the illuminator for the abbey! Can you believe it? The odd woman of Weyer serving a chapter of shavelings? It is marvelous, sweet as honey! And the old fools shall never know!”

  Lukas turned to Heinrich. “You’ve a tender conscience, lad, and that is a good thing. But heed my words: beware of virtues, for they easily become the objects of arrogance. ‘Do not be overrighteous, lest you destroy yourself—wise words from the Holy Scripture, lad. Heed them!”

  Emma was still reflecting on her newfound opportunity. “Methinks you are God’s most willing servant, brother. This is a great gift from a loving God. Gloria Dei!”

  Heinrich’s jaw dropped. “Y-you speak the lang
uage of heaven, Frau Emma?”

  Emma grew quiet and nodded.

  Lukas leaned toward the woman. “Verba mea auribus percipe, Domine, intellege clamorem meum … Give thine ear, O Lord, to my words, understand my cry…”

  Emma finished the verse. “Intende voci orationis meae, Rex meus et Deus meus. Hearken to the voice of my prayer, O my King and my God.”

  Silence filled the chapel of the Magi. Emma’s life contained a wealth of secrets, and for her it felt strangely comforting to release another.

  Brother Lukas smiled at her and waited for a few moments. Ingelbert was content to toss pebbles in the stream, while Heinrich held his tongue.

  With tears in her eyes, Emma decided to reveal more. “I was born of high birth,” she began. “It is called ‘high birth’ for no proper reason, for my father was a knight who was wont to slaughter whom he willed. My mother was widowed when I was but two, and she chose retreat in the nunnery at Quedlinburg. Here she lived well, free from the ‘burdens of beastly men’ she would oft say. But she died of fever when I was nearly ten.

  “To my great wonder, the abbess showed a special kindness to me and taught me with great patience. She led me through the Holy Scriptures and trained me in rhetoric and mathematics, philosophy, and, of course, the doctrines of the Holy Church. And, having noticed my keen eye for the gardens and the kitchen, she assigned me duties with our lay-cellarer and the kitchener. I learned to prepare meals for the abbess and her guests who ofttimes passed our way. I became familiar with saffron and spices from the east, with ginger and salts. I learned to roast pheasant and venison, duck and quail. I could stew cherries with wine and tempt the angels with honey cakes and cinnamon!

  “She, too, loved the gardens and taught me of butterflies and flowers. I think my time with her there was my favorite, indeed. I remember one summer day after a brief rain shower we both looked up to marvel at a glorious rainbow arching over the whole world. I remember how she clapped and wept for joy. She said she could picture the Christ seated atop that rainbow while the saints and angels slid down both sides like happy children! Ah, dear woman, what a wondrous vision!

  “But all too soon it all passed.” Emma sighed. “I had not yet taken my vows when I … I strayed. It was then necessary for me to take my leave, and it was the archbishop, through a bequest from my superior, who found me this good home for which I am most thankful.”

  Lukas listened with amazement and laid a gentle hand on the woman’s arm. He looked at Ingelbert but asked no more questions. With a sincere prayer of blessing for the woman and her son, the monk disappeared into the forest.

  Heinrich returned home to find Effi waiting for him outside the hovel. Effi hushed him as he approached the door. “Shh.” Effi was nearly thirteen and beginning to show the shape of a woman. In three years or certainly four, she would be married. Heinrich often groaned in pity for whichever poor village lad was so sentenced! She was spindly and full of “spit,” as Aunt Gisela was apt to say. Her hair was long and fiery red, braided down the center of her back. “Those dung-heads are planning feud again!”

  Heinrich stiffened. “Feud!” he groaned. An uncontrollable shiver passed through him.

  Effi opened her mouth. “Heinrich … they’ll be taking you …I heard them!”

  The door of the hovel flew open and Baldric stumbled into the twilight. “Heinrich!” he belched. “Get in here. You, girl, get to Arnold’s with Varina and the new brat… and be quick about it. Tell the women to stir the mush; we’ll be eating there in short.”

  Heinrich stepped into his hovel, trembling like a rabbit in the sight of a wolf. Against the far wall sat his uncle Arnold, Dietrich, Telek, and Herwin. Arnold’s dark eyes flashed in the hearth’s firelight. “We’ve good news for you, boy,” he began. “Your father fought for his kin, now ‘tis your time.”

  Heinrich licked his dry lips and cast a nervous glance at poor Herwin. The man stared at his feet; there was nothing he could do. Heinrich lifted his chin and choked his reply. “The feud is outlawed by the Holy Church. Father Johannes has said any who raise an arm against another Christian shall be exc … exc …”

  “Excommunicated,” answered Baldric. He was familiar with the term.

  “Aye, sir. I do not wish any to burn and—”

  “Enough! That dolt Johannes speaks out his arse! Someone ought tell him that lyin’ earns a few years in the purge. The Book also says “an eye for an eye.” Have you no heart for the memory of yer own father? And the aunt you never knew, good Sieghild, suffered at the hands of Gunnars as well. They’ve ne’er been avenged in full.”

  Heinrich thought of his father. He had been a small lad when Kurt died, but he remembered something about the man’s laugh and the easy touch of his calloused hands. He nodded.

  “Good,” said Baldric. “Now all, listen well. The Gunnars bring their sheep to Arfurt in a fortnight.”

  Dietrich rose on his squat legs. “We needs not risk venturing over the Lahn again.” He lowered his tone. “Would be better to draw them. Arnold, you’ve ways to spread a rumor?”

  “Aye.”

  “Good. Make it known we’ve a mind to come for them. That ought draw the vermin to us like moths to a flame.”

  Baldric extended his hand for silence. He stared into the low fire of his hearth. Heinrich thought him to be an old man now, etched and shadowed by the firelight. “Aye. Methinks it to be a good plan. They would most likely set their strike on the night before Sabbath. The Lahn’s high, so they shall cross into Villmar on the bridge. They’ll skirt the abbey walls and go wide round Villmar village. Then they’ll come upslope toward our ridge. We needs meet them at the crest… we can take their bodies into the heavy wood in the east.”

  Chapter 9

  GUILT AND MYSTERY

  Two weeks later, at the bells of compline, Baldric, Arnold, Dietrich, Heinrich, Herwin, and Telek were lying prone in a wet ditch. Despite the April evening’s rainstorm, they waited patiently, certain that their enemies would be moving that very night. Arnold had passed a false report to a peddler of when he and his kin would be crossing the Lahn to strike the Gunnars. It was surely hoped that the fools would take the bait and think themselves clever in striking the night before.

  It was hard to see the wide, gentle valley that spread before them, for the setting sun was hidden by heavy, gray clouds and the rain was falling hard. Behind the six men the steep slope dropped into smoky Weyer. From time to time young Heinrich cast a woeful glance backward.

  The lad was shivering and near tears; totally unprepared to fight. He now knew it was the Gunnars that had killed his father and raped his aunt, but he was told that his own kin had robbed, burned, and murdered Gunnars as well. Furthermore, Heinrich had met an oblate named Alwin who was the son of a Gunnar killed on the same night of Kurt’s death. Perhaps m’own father slayed his, he thought. Heinrich knew Alwin to be a good lad. He did not seem like the demon-possessed monsters his kin were portrayed to be. Lying in the rain, he once more wondered if his family’s cause was a righteous one. He wanted to turn and run, yet that would add to the shame already heavy on his heart, and he wanted desperately to be free from such misery. He could only hope the Gunnars never came.

  As darkness fell the Weyer men began to worry. “They’d yet be coming,” argued Dietrich. “We needs wait till matins. Arnold, be sure yer wagon’s still tied tight.”

  “Ja? If by the bells they’ve not come, we’re out of this cursed rain!” grumbled Arnold. He had no sooner spoken, however, when voices were heard on the roadway some thirty rods ahead. A small, swinging lantern illuminated a short column of men emerging from the cover of rain and mist.

  Heinrich and his fellows nervously checked their weapons. Most had knives or hammers; Baldric a swine-mallet. The Weyer men quickly divided to cover both sides of the narrow road as the voices drew steadily closer. None knew yet if they were Gunnars or simple passersby.

  Baldric and his company listened carefully. The rain slowed to a drizzle
and the muffled voices grew louder. They were within five rods when one of them could be heard plainly. “We’ve eight to their three! Ha, ‘tis time to avenge Cousin Manfred.”

  The Weyer men coiled their legs—it was nearly time. An agonizing moment passed, then another, and finally Baldric’s cry pierced the night air. Shouting like mad hellions bursting from the confines of Hades, Baldric’s men sprang forward at the unsuspecting Gunnars. With Arnold on one side and Herwin on the other, the woodward swung his mallet into two silhouettes. From the other ditch Dietrich led Telek and Heinrich into the mêlée.

  Poor, confused Heinrich heeded Baldric’s cry and sprinted toward his foes on legs leading where his heart could not. But something rose quickly within him; a sudden fury filled his chest and he rushed at a shadow like a boar barrelling toward its prey. Perhaps it was fifteen years of rage that now boiled over, or perhaps it was the blood of the ancient Celts and Franks that flowed in his veins. Whatever the cause, the lad fought like a man possessed. He stuck his first foe hard with a slaughter knife. The man cried out as Heinrich yanked free his short blade and swiped at another, then another. For a few moments the young man felt nothing but violent anger, then it was over.

  None of the Gunnars escaped the ambush. They lay strewn about the muddy roadway, some groaning, others still and lifeless. “Ha!” boomed Baldric as he embraced his brother. “And you, Dietrich, good friend!” The three clasped hands and cheered their victory under sheets of rain. But Herwin was on his knees weeping and rocking atop the huge body of Telek. None had expected such a giant of a man to be felled, but the deep slash across his throat was more than any mortal could survive.

  Baldric turned to Heinrich and laid his huge palm on the youth’s shoulder. “You’ve made me proud this day, nephew. Proud, indeed! No more talk of ‘Scrump Worm’ for you!”