Quest of Hope: A Novel

by C. D. Baker

  Heinrich stared vacantly in the darkness, suddenly empty of fury and void of all joy.

  “Now, help me send these bleeders to hell.” To Heinrich’s horror, the man took his mallet and began smashing the heads of the wounded. The young man vomited.

  Heinrich clenched his jaw as he helped drag the fallen to the hidden cart still harnessed to Arnold’s horse. He felt dizzy and sick as each lifeless body was heaped atop the others. He trudged behind his comrades toward the deep forest with his mind’s eye still seeing Baldric’s hammer smashing the helpless wounded. A thought knifed through his heart and he groaned. And now I am a murderer!

  The young man stumbled through that awful, wet night weeping. “Never again,” he swore to himself, “never again shall I raise my arm for evil!” Then, in the inky blackness of predawn, eight faceless strangers and good Telek were dumped into a shallow pit in the forests of the Laubusbach.

  Nearly a year passed, and Heinrich remained burdened by the guilt of that terrible night on the Villmar road. Lord Klothar had raised quite a stir when his shepherds were “gone missing.” He was certain they had escaped to Limburg en route to their freedom and he had sent Lord Simon, page Richard, and five sergeants to search the town. It had been over a decade since the Gunnar-Jost feud had boiled to the surface, and in that time the village had a new priest, the abbey a new abbot, and the lands of the Gunnars a new lord. Few even considered the notion of foul play, and except for the whispers in Weyer and the oaths in distant Gunnar hovels, the matter of feud went largely unnoticed.

  Since the time of the killings most thought Baldric had mellowed. His blue eyes flashed with less fury than they had and his drunken stupors were now more pathetic than dangerous. The thirty-four-year-old had not laid a fist on Heinrich since that night, and to some it seemed he was treating the young man with a certain grudging respect. But vengeance only satisfies for a season, and his heart was still as black as his rotting gums.

  Heinrich no longer needed the shame of Baldric to weigh on his weary heart, for he had learned to add his own. He now saw himself as a thief and a murderer, a liar and a coward. Despite the encouraging words of Emma, he further accused himself of sloth and—given his happiness at baking—pride. His only relief, it seemed, was his knowledge that he had, at the very least, remained true to his vow.

  Yet, unlike so many whose troubles leave them hard and bitter, the young man was still soft and tender in spirit. He was quick to see the sadness in another’s eye and suffer the sorrow of another’s plight. Though few would do the same for him, he was apt to shed a tear for man or beast and offer mercy where none was deserved.

  Heinrich, now sixteen by a month and a few days, was settled in Weyer’s new bakery. Katharina’s father had done a magnificent job overseeing its construction and on the tenth day of March, Father Pious had blessed the bricks and the baker. Bread, all had been reminded, was the source of life. “Each time bread is broken,” whined Pious, “we must needs remember the Savior’s goodness to us all. ‘Tis He who provides, for He is ‘the bread of life.’”

  The words inspired Heinrich, as did those of the monks who had trained him. “Boy,” said one, “it is you who brings purpose to the labors of the field! When the men sweat and grunt behind their plough, then weed and harrow, and harvest and flail, it is so you can turn their tasks to food fit to swallow!”

  At the north end of the bakery, a stone wall housed two chimneys of equal size. They extended several feet into the bakery where a brick-domed oven was attached with a hood and proper vents. Access to the brick-lined oven floor was gained through a waist-high, arched opening that was closed by an iron door.

  The open room itself was well ordered with proper racks and shelving. Long-handled wooden paddles stood by each oven and within convenient reach of two trestle tables and two dough-breakers. In the center of the room was a wooden dough trough for mixing, and on one end stood a rack of shelves for raising dough. Along another wall stood flour bins to hold the rye, barley, spelt, or wheat flours. On the same wall was placed a salt box, spice boxes for onions, caraway, rosemary and the like, as well as two lidded barrels for sourdough. Since flour was measured, not weighed, a variety of measuring bowls and baskets were set neatly on a shelf, along with stamps for various feast-days. A firewood room was attached to the outside of the bakery and joined by a door near the ovens.

  The second story was accessed from the inside by a short flight of wide, oak steps. Outside, a large double door could be opened, and a pulley above was hung on an extended beam. This would serve to hoist sacks of flour from the miller’s wagon for storage.

  Heinrich strutted through his new bakery and his chest swelled with more pride than he later confessed to Father Johannes. He also felt some disappointment. He had secretly hoped for a bake-house separate from the ovens; it would be so much cooler in the heat of summer. However, Prior Mattias insisted a single, half-timber, two-story building was adequate to serve. Johannes would later assure him that the discomfort might keep pride at bay.

  During Pious’s blessing, Heinrich could not help but fix his eyes on Katharina. As heavy as his heart so often was, it was she that brought a flutter and a song. He thought her like a butterfly from Emma’s garden, or a light-winged bird soaring within his soul. And when she smiled at him, her green eyes sparkled with the warmth and hope of a summer sun. “Katharina, I am so pleased you’ve come!”

  The maiden smiled shyly.

  “Your father did a good thing here. ‘Tis the best bakery in all the realm!”

  Katharina was pleased. “Ja, methinks so. He’s a good papa, smart and hard-working.” She looked about the room. “Seems there is much to do as a baker. Have you no helpers?”

  Heinrich beamed. “Well, the monks send me workers from time to time, but we’ve no need for an apprentice as yet. Actually, ‘tis important I watch all that happens here. You know, Katharina, bad things can happen if the bake is bad.”

  Katharina drew close.

  “The monks warned me and Dietrich, our miller, of the poisons and hexes on the grains. It seems thousands in France were burned from the inside; their flesh pulled from their bones by an invisible fire! Some went mad, rolling about their huts. We needs watch for black or sweet-tasting grains, especially any with tiny drops that taste like honey. They say it is a fearsome temptation, like the forbidden fruit. They told me if bread is ever cut and ‘tis black inside, though it may be sweet, ‘tis surely cursed. Some think the witch or her daughter may try to hex our fields, so the priests bless each planting and harvest.”

  Katharina was spellbound, or at least appeared to be. She was happy to be near the young man. The two brushed hands as Heinrich led her to the door. Neither said a word, but for each the light touch was a gift from heaven.

  Abbot Stephen ordered the villages to hold councils on the afternoon of the Ides of March, and Weyer’s Reeve Lenard placed his elders in the fore of the crowd on the blustery, sunny day. Father Johannes and his assistant, Father Pious, shouted a blessing over the wind and maintained a visible presence in the center of the gathering. Of course, it was particularly difficult for Pious to be obscure no matter where he stood! The eighteen-year-old priest was a rolling mound of indulgence and gluttony. His face was puffed and doughy and his skin white as sun-bleached parchment.

  Old Lenard motioned for silence and beckoned Baldric to his side. As woodward for the whole of the abbey’s lands he was well versed in the issues at hand. “We’ve items of some importance this day,” began Baldric. He was now completely toothless and weatherworn. Heinrich thought him to look grizzled and mean, huge and foreboding, but also stiff-jointed and weary. “First order for a vote is for a new reeve.”

  Lenard stiffened and soured. He had not been warned of this! He opened his mouth to object, but a blazing glare from Baldric quieted him. In moments, Lenard was out and another was in. “We’ve more things,” continued Baldric. “The bakery is at work each day, save the Sabbath. Any caught baking their own
bread shall be fined. Any dough found in your huts gets you a fine and a flogging.”

  A grumble rolled through those gathered.

  “Forester Arnold identified Rolf, son of Hugo, poaching deer in the beech near Oberbrechen. I had him bound and taken to the abbey where he is being held for trial by the bailiff. Listen to me, men. You may take no fish from the stream, no hares, no deer, no fox, bear, boars … not even a squirrel! No acorns, beechnuts, hazelnuts, wild plums, berries … nothing without the approval of Forester Arnold or me!

  “Further, the new abbot wants care taken in the fields. Any caught moving a marker shall be whipped, fined, and subject to hard penance. At a second offense he shall forfeit land rights. None shall block drainage, deepen a furrow, dam a spring. None shall move a fence, cut an orchard limb, or take firewood without the permission of the reeve or hayward. None shall marry in secret, none shall bury in secret—the taxes shall be paid. None shall refuse a man-at-arms food or quarters as needed. Lord Klothar is now in alliance with the Templars to our west and is quartering their sergeants as required. Fathers Johannes and Pious shall be keeping watch over all.”

  Baldric scratched his head. He couldn’t remember much else except the matter he had saved for last. “Now, to the main business. Hayward, step forward.”

  A young hayward had been elected last year, though none knew the manner of his thinking. He and Herwin often discussed better ways to plant and harvest. He ran to the fore of the assembly and began to speak in a hopeful tone. “I met with Prior Mattias, the steward, and the abbot, himself. We met together with other haywards and reeves from all the villages of the abbey and learned of some new ways.”

  Another grumble passed through the village men.

  “Nay, nay, y’ought not fear. Firstly, let me remind all we needs sickle our crops no more than a palm height off the ground. Some are wasting thatch by cutting too high. ‘Tis easier on the back to be sure, but we can ill afford the waste.”

  He swigged some ale and raised his hands over the murmuring crowd. “Now hear me. The old ways are not working. We divide our fields in two and of all the land we have, we only keep a sixth part for ourselves. In France and England, and even in parts of our own Holy Empire it is now being done a different way. Take your strips of land and mark them so that we have three parts, not two. One part is fallow, another planted with a spring seed and the third in an autumn seed. Each year the parts are changed about so the land does not weary.” He paused.

  Herwin called out. “Ja! Would mean two of three parts would be yielding, and the work is spread over more time.”

  Another objected. “Nay! The old ways be good enough. They are tested with time and serve us well.”

  The crowd grumbled questions and complaints until Baldric raised his hands. The men quieted. “Listen, men, and hear me. What the young hayward says is what is to be. I’ll have not a single word against it.” He set his jaw and stared at the villagers until there was absolute silence—and submission.

  The men were quiet, confused, and fearful of the new way. But for Herwin and the hayward this day was one of great hope, for they had always believed what manors across Christendom were learning: the land was a sure and constant servant, yearning to yield and gifted with plenty—if only men had the courage to change.

  News did not travel quickly unless it was of such gravity as that which weighed upon the subjects of Emperor Friederich Barbarossa in the late spring of 1190. The emperor had risen to rally the armies of the German states in a third crusade against the infidels who yet defiled Palestine. He had led a consecrated column of knights, priests, and footmen from their rendezvous in Ratisbon, through the lands of the Huns, the realm of the great lord of the East, Isaac Angelus, and finally into Asia Minor. But, while pausing to bathe in the icy waters of the Calycadnus River, the seventy-year-old guardian of the Germans drowned.

  A pilgrim bore the sad news to Weyer on a summer’s night. He and a small company were passing through the village on their way home to Cologne in the north. Most travelers hurried past the dreary village in hopes of finding comfort in the guesthouse of the abbey, but darkness had fallen and they sought shelter in Weyer’s church.

  Strangers were rarely welcomed, for they were generally feared. These pilgrims, however, walked with a large, wooden cross at the head of their short column and the symbol gave Weyer’s peasants a sense of safety. So, before they settled into the sanctuary of the nave, the reeve begged their indulgence and invited them to address the village folk in the village common by the well.

  Sitting beneath the linden, the pilgrims were served a gracious meal of boiled pork, some precious wheat rolls, a pottage of lentils, leeks, and dried peas, and a flask of mud-colored ale. Heinrich and the other village men sat round about, spellbound as the leader told tales of Palestine, crusaders, and the dark-eyed demons corrupting the holy places.

  “My name, good people, was once Gerhard of Cologne. I have taken the name of Balean, after Commander Balean of Ibelin.” The man paused and licked pork fat off his fingers. He guzzled some ale and continued. “I left my city ten years prior as a man of means, a trader in cloth and furs, a freeman in a free city. But I was a man touched by the love of God in such a way that I thought my petty treasures to be vanity. I had lived a charitable life, was educated in the university, and became a man of letters. Ah, but I thought it to be of no end, ‘a chasing after the wind.’”

  Balean reached for a wheat roll and acknowledged the baker. Heinrich beamed. “Believing it would suit my soul, I began to wander the banks of the Rhine, and I recited the psalms to the squirrels and rabbits scampering about!”

  The men laughed.

  “Ha. I began to think of myself as a bit foolish until some aging monk surprised me from behind a tree. We’ll done!’ he says. ‘Your memory is far better than mine!’ I stared at him in wonder, for he looked like no other churchman I had seen. ‘What are you?’ I asked. ‘Ah,’ answers he, I’ve oft wondered that m’self!’ Well, I shan’t forget the man. He was a bit reluctant to speak of himself, but it seems he was once a warrior, a priest, and a monk. He claimed to be a fellow priest, as it were, for he claims we Christian men to all be priests!”

  The men of Weyer murmured, and Father Pious, sitting at the darkest edge of the ring, groused. “Fool! Heretic!”

  Balean stared into the bowl of lentils cupped in his hands. He waited for a few moments, then continued. “Ah, father, I know less of these things than I once imagined, but whatever he was, he moved me closer to God.”

  Heinrich spoke from the shadows. “Have you his name?”

  “His name? Nay, I shall sink in m’grave wishing I had thought to ask it. Nay, I’ve not his name but shall surely remember him. He was a bit vulgar, though his kindness and the twinkle in his eyes urged me somehow. He disappeared into the wood, but something of him remained within me. I bade my former life farewell and I vowed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

  “My journey was joined by countless others: men, women, and even a few children, and I found them full of piety, Christian charity, and a zeal I thought only could be found in the chambers of Rome. I had hoped to find passage from Genoa, but upon my arrival was told the seas were filled with pirates. Other pilgrims assured me it would be to my great gain to follow the steps of the first crusaders. Their sacred ghosts would lead me through the sunny cities of Greece, through the realm of the eastern Church, then across the sands of the Turks, past the citadels of Antioch and Acre, and finally into Christian Jerusalem.

  “Ah, my new friends, it was a most wondrous penance. For my feet did bleed, like Christ’s, and I thirsted as I had never thirsted before. I was naked and I was cold, I was hungry and in danger. I, like Christ, did suffer for sins and I paid for them. Then, when I saw the white walls of the Holy City, it was as though I were entering Zion!

  “Here I dwelt near the Holy Sepulchre and I prayed at Golgotha. I served the Hospitallers in feeding the poor and tending the wounded. The infidel pressed against
our lands all the while and we were in constant danger. Our young king, Baldwin, died of leprosy and we began to wonder if God’s grace was about to be withdrawn. Many of us continued in fasting and prayer for many days when news came that Christian knights had plundered a caravan in which the mother of the great heathen sultan, Saladin, was a member.

  “Saladin is a mighty warrior dressed in flowing white robes and a shining headdress. It is said he rallied legions to his side with but a nod. Somehow, I soon found myself a servant to both Templars and Hospitaller knights at the springs of Saffuria as they gathered for battle. I remember well the hard eyes of the Norman archers, the set jaws of the French and English axe-men, and the songs the mounted knights sang to their horses on the eve of that awful day.”

  Heinrich sat still as an owl in a summertime tree. He blinked his eyes in wonder and waited for more. His mind swirled and spun, and he only wished poor Ingly could grasp the magnificence of it all.

  “We moved at dawn, hurrying toward Tiberius, where Saladin had gathered a great army. Our knights attacked the infidel with great courage, but a terrible slaughter ensued, and by evening we were driven back to Hittin, the place where Christ preached His Sermon on the Mount. The infidels charged our armies with their cursed light horses, dashing and darting about, weaving between our brave knights like a shuttle on a loom. In and out they came, forward and back, left and right, slashing and chopping away at our broken lines until the ground was littered with the bodies of our dead.

  “When night came our conquered knights huddled in gallant expectation of their coming death. I was sent to water the wounded, and I spent the next hours of my life in some horrid level of hell. With my torch in hand, I stepped between the severed bodies, the split heads, the broken joints of men dead and dying. Our priests bobbed through the eerie light, bending on and off their knees, praying for the souls of their butchered sheep.”