Quest of Hope: A Novel

by C. D. Baker

  “Ha, ha!” howled Richard from the shadows. It was a disrespect that would not soon be forgotten.

  Blasius withdrew his sword and reached a hand to his fallen foe. Lord Niklas dismissed the monk’s chivalry with a sneer and climbed to his feet. Midst words of congratulations and newfound respect, the Templar bowed to his fellows and walked away quietly.

  It was nearly an hour before the camp knew of the girls’ disappearance. Lord Wolfrum ordered a search of the wagons and the forest, but took Blasius aside and studied him with a suspicious eye. “Do you know something of this?”

  Heinrich was standing nearby and listened carefully. He wondered if a Templar dared lie. Blasius set his jaw and leaned close enough to Wolfram’s craggy face for their beards to tangle. “Nay, sire,” he answered calmly.

  Lord Wolfrum was not convinced. He paused for a moment—a long moment for Blasius, as the aging knight’s breath reeked of garlic and beer. The old knight blinked first. “Humph! I’ve little choice but believe you.”

  The next two days brought some relief to Heinrich and Richard. A brightening November sky washed the column in sunlight, though the cool air kept the roadways from drying very quickly. Despite wrestling the wagons through the mud, however, Heinrich found his journey rather pleasurable. The sky seemed larger to him here than at home, and the sprawling landscape was rich and fertile.

  Osnabrück was a wealthy city renowned for its linen trade. Its mayor and resident bishop offered generous provisions to the weary men and provided a gracious feast. Wanting to hurry on, Lord Wolfram permitted only one night’s stay, however, so at dawn of the next day the bishop blessed the kneeling army in front of the doors to his three-towered cathedral. With the sun shining overhead, the rested column then bade a grateful farewell and was soon traveling along an improving highway leading to the moated gate of Oldenburg.

  The knights became ever-more pleased with Heinrich’s baking. He fired his wagon-mounted, clay, domed oven each night about matins, and then began his bake in the hours before dawn. Now that he was better acquainted with his new oven, at each daybreak he delivered baskets of hot, fluffy wheat rolls, salted, hard-baked pretzels, and large loaves of wheat or rye. A friendly archer from Ulm taught him a recipe for honey-laced flat loaves, spread with cherry preserves, and rolled into a treat that won a roar of approval from the lords. Heinrich had earned a place of value and it felt so very good.

  Richard, on the other hand, was more interested in adventure than service. He found himself always at the edges of a circle of drunken, gambling knights, or conniving with his fellows on wagers and contests. He had won a flask of liquor from a staggering footman and a flagon of Rhine wine from a carter, and was quick to drink them both. His drunkenness simply oiled his wagging tongue and numbed his better judgment. It did nothing to endear him to either friend or foe.

  The night before the column would enter Oldenburg the men-at-arms had filled their bellies and lay about the camp comfortable and groggy. The servants were gathered in huddles by small fires and Heinrich was propped against the trunk of a large spruce thinking of home.

  “Ah, good baker,” announced Blasius as he joined the sleepy man.

  “Aye, sit.”

  “’Tis a wonderful night and your bread was light as angel’s wings!”

  Heinrich chuckled. “I like m’oven. It heats good and loves m’doughs.”

  Blasius nodded. “You speak of it as though it were alive!”

  The two sat quietly and listened to the snores and grunts of sleeping soldiers. A few horses snorted and the fires snapped lightly. “Blasius, I confess I do not really know why we are here. I’ve been told of a rebellion of peasants but I know nothing else.”

  “Aye. ’Tis so. Seems the land we travel to is now called Stedingerland. It was settled by Frisians and Dutch Saxons some hundred years ago or more. They came from the Low Countries over by the sea in the west. I am told they are a wild lot; hard-fisted, stubborn as rocks … barely Christian in their ways.

  “Of course, this Stedingerland needs folk of special strength. It is low and flat; a marsh that wars with the Weser River year by year. The waters flood and freeze, they make the whole earth a sucking pit, yet these Stedingers know how to tame it. They build dikes to drain water from the marshes and claim new earth to graze their cattle.”

  Heinrich was fascinated. “And what is their crime?”

  “Ah. Seems they were promised much. The archbishop of former times wanted this wasteland to be civilized; turned into something more than marsh-grass and bogs. He offered them freedom and low taxes. So, they came … and who could blame them? They’ve formed a close bond among themselves. They’ve a militia and courts, even a name. They call themselves the Communitas terre Stedingorum.

  “I am told they have resisted all authority from their rightful lord, Archbishop Hartwig in Bremen. Just two years ago they claimed their laws were abused and they attacked and destroyed the bishop’s castles at Lechtenburg and Lineburg. They’ve built bulwarks and defenses, they’ve even resurrected the ancient Germanic gathering called ‘The Thing’—where the chiefs and the people make their own laws. Under such claimed liberties they now refuse to pay taxes and tithes beyond what they accept as fair.”

  Heinrich was astonished. “They overthrew the bishop’s castles?”

  “Ja. They say their women were taken in the night by soldiers and their property raided. But rather than petition the Church court, they rose in rebellion and now threaten to undo the order of things. Seems Archbishop Hartwig fears for the whole of the northland if these Stedingers are not put into their proper place. The count in Oldenburg is equally nervous of such notions spreading through his nearby manors.”

  Heinrich was quiet. He could barely imagine peasants defeating the knights of the realm. He remembered his uncle Baldric unseating and dispatching a handful of rogue soldiers in Weyer so long ago, but he could hardly fathom an organized army of farmers.

  Indeed, the legions of Stedingers posed a serious threat to the whole of the empire’s northland. Their ranks had been swelled with escaping German peasants who yearned for the liberty of their tribal forefathers. Stedinger villages and farms had become united in a spirit of common wealth and common purpose. They were becoming more than a population of free farmers, they were becoming a realm unto themselves, and more dangerous than even that—a symbol.

  Such intransigence troubled the ecclesiastical and lay lords, for throughout all Christendom storm clouds were gathering. Peasants in Düdeldorf, Pickliessem, and Himmenrode had attacked their masters. The unhappy serfs of St. Pantaleon had planned a mass escape in the dark of night. The folk of the lord of Oberzel rebelled with the torch, the peasants of Gindorf with rocks, those of Goslar with organized sloth.

  Blasius stared into the darkness. “I do confess some sympathy for these brave souls. I believe they have suffered abuses, nor do I doubt that they are entitled to special privilege on account of the archbishop’s promises.”

  “So why do you come to fight them?” asked Heinrich.

  Blasius was quiet again. “I never said I’ve come to fight them. My preceptor sends me to ensure that Templar silver is properly managed. Seems the count and the archbishop owe us a sum of one hundred and forty-seven pounds. They both claim they cannot pay until the Stedingers satisfy their debt of taxes and tithe. I am to witness their collection, then be paid our rightful sum. Afterward I am to arrange an escort of the silver to our representatives in Cologne.”

  “Will you fight against them?”

  Blasius drew a deep breath. “I have suffered over that question since our journey began. I am not convinced they are in the wrong, yet they are in rebellion. I do swear, good friend, that I am caught in a dilemma. The Stedingers have just claims and grievances, yet their reactions violate all laws of God and man. If… if I must raise my sword against these folk, I shall do so with pain in my heart.” The soldier stared at his feet, blank-faced for a long moment.

  Heinrich lai
d a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Brother Lukas once told me the only way to resolve such snares is to yield to the highest virtue.”

  Blasius nodded. “Ah, good Lukas. But it is just that which vexes me. Tell me, which is the higher virtue, Heinrich—order or mercy?”

  The baker became very quiet. He drew a deep breath. “I once thought I followed the order of proper cause … and I took another’s life … unjustly.” He trembled and lowered his eyes.

  Bright sunshine and merry spirits brought laughter and glad hearts to the high, rounded walls of Oldenburg Castle. The fortress sat squarely on the banks of the Hunte River, where its waters were diverted to serve as a moat. Beyond lay the growing city of Wasserburg, soon to take the name of the castle. With trumpet blasts and welcoming drums, the mounted knights led their column over a drawbridge and through the arched gateway leading into the smoky castle courtyard where the count and a company of his elite men spread their arms in welcome. The mail-clad knights of Heribert embraced their fellows with hearty hugs, and in moments brown ales and foaming beers were splashing into eager tankards.

  Heinrich scampered about the castle with the other servants as they hurried the horses to the livery, carried stocks and provisions to the warehouses, and delivered the knights’ personal trunks and barrels to valets. The knights would be bedded in stone-walled chambers within the castle walls and towers. The servants would be chased to timbered, thatch-roofed warehouses, stables, and sheds scattered haphazardly about the muddy bailey.

  When Heinrich was finally directed to his own straw-filled cot he rested for a while. Uncomfortable and restless, he sat up, however, and gazed vacantly at the sorry lot of fellows crowding his low-roofed building. Weary, gaunt, and unkempt, his comrades were in stark contrast to the well-dressed, bold, fire-eyed knights they served. Heinrich sighed. He knew he was one of them.

  “Heinrich!” barked Richard from the yard.

  “Eh?”

  “We’ve needs go. They’ve summoned all from Heribert’s column.”

  The two soon stood in a long line of servants with their backs pressed against a cold wall. They faced their new foreman with dread and waited breathlessly as a broad-chested young man with an upturned nose and a well-fitted cloak strutted before them. “I am Falko of Wasserburg and I have news.” He smiled wickedly and tapped his thigh with a heavy stick. “Yer lords have assigned me as yer master. I’m to fetch you when one of ‘em needs you. In the meanwhile, you’ll ‘ave yer daily duties that I’ll set you to.” He gave them a hard look and raised his stick. “Keep in good order or you’ll be meetin’ m’friend here. Yer first duty is to get yourselves shorn and shaved.” He walked to Emil, the lad from Runkel. “Y’ve runny eyes.”

  “Ja, sir master. And fever.”

  “Humph.” He knocked the boy hard to the ground. “Get in yer bed and be ready on the morrow for fair day’s work. Now, the rest of you hear me. Yer lords won’t be warring against the Stedingers just yet; they’ve needs wait for more troops. Seems the Thurungians are late and the archbishop’s troops are in a fight with Otto’s men far to the east. The archbishop orders the count to hold fast until springtime.”

  Astonished, Heinrich groaned and he squeezed his fists angrily. Springtime! he thought. Forty days, indeed!

  Forty days became ninety and many more would come. The biting cold winds of late January had frozen the castle into a dismal stone cage. To the north, blinding snows sculpted the flat landscape into a blue-tipped desert of rippled white as far as shivering Heinrich could see. Each day the sky grayed with low clouds sagging southward from the nearby, ice-laden sea. Inside, the castle grounds were hazy with smoke trapped by heavy air within the high walls where peasants huddled around pitiful fires stoked with meager rations of firewood.

  Within the halls of the nobles, great fires roared in ample hearths and drunken men indulged their vices in boredom. Soon after the Epiphany, the more refined and civil pleasures of reading, fencing, chess, or backgammon had given way to heavy drinking, dice, bloodletting swordplay, lasciviousness, and brawling.

  Brother Blasius was aghast at the blasphemous indulgences and spent long, lonesome days and nights praying in the chapel or breaking bread with the three timid priests who served Oldenburg Castle with dubious devotion. Joined by four faithful, Christian knights who also found the wanton behavior of their comrades too disheartening to bear, he stared at each morning’s sky yearning for some harbinger of spring to offer hope in the winter’s desolation. From time to time he visited Heinrich and Richard in their respective bakery or stable. Yet he dared not linger for fear of what penalties Falko might exact from his good friends.

  Richard was grateful for the hours he labored in the pungent stables. The many horses kept the buildings warm, and he found comfort in the gentle eyes of the beasts. It was the days he was sent with forage teams into the barren, frozen landscape that he dreaded. Wrapped in fur cloaks and heavy boots, he and others would lead sleighs into a far-off western forest where they rang their steel-head axes against the frozen trunks of tall spruce. By the pink-hued light of dusk, they then hurried their heavy loads back across deepening snows into the confines of the castle where they stood before their small fires with numb fingers and toes.

  Richard’s crippled hand had adapted to the handle of an axe once again. Though awkward to the eye, the man had regained some measure of skill and quickly recalled the martial training of his youth. On Sabbaths he would race about the bailey feigning combat with his own shadow!

  By March, the knights and other men-at-arms were nearly at their wits’ end. They had blatantly disregarded the forty days of Lent. Their months of self-indulged excess had predictably failed to satisfy, so they were irritable, explosive, and seething for blood. The servants, too, were despairing. Day after endless day of cold and gray, of aches and chills and monotony had left them miserable and short-tempered. A few had died from fights within their quarters. Six had frozen to death, having slept at the farthest reach of the fires. Four had been killed in the forest and another went missing. Samuel, the Jew from Limburg, had been found murdered during Advent though it was of little interest to any. Eighteen had perished with maladies such as bloody flux, cramp colic, congestive chill, and St. Vitus’s dance. Among the dead from fever was young Emil of Runkel.

  The servants were not the only ones to suffer. Six footmen had died of putrid fever, one sergeant from milk leg, and Richard’s former master, Lord Simon, from an infected wound.

  It was Holy Thursday, the nineteenth of April, 1207, when Richard faced Lord Niklas once again. The knight was drunk with brandy cider and was accompanied by two escorts as he struggled across the castle bailey. The courtyard was a quagmire of mud and manure, and terribly rutted, so it was not uncommon for a pedestrian to lose a boot or find himself floundering, ankle deep in the brown muck. It was in just such a state that Lord Niklas was discovered by Richard as he passed by atop a cart of firewood. Having spent a winter of utter melancholy, having passed months with nary a smile or a grin, the blond peasant roared in delight. The loud laughter boiled the blood of the chagrined knight, and he responded with a string of oaths and blasphemies, scourges, insults, and mockeries that hushed the whole of the castleyard.

  Richard seized his teamster by the shoulder and bade he hold fast. He turned and faced Niklas squarely. “Eh?” he cried.

  “You heard me, y’son of Satan’s brothel. You one-handed simpleton, you’d be playin’ the fool your whole life, y’worthless coward!”

  Richard stared silently at the knight who was shaking a fist at him. The disappointment of his life’s dream had never truly left him. Despite all efforts to break free, his lame hand still held him within its grasp; like others, he suffered a wound of life that he permitted to define him. He suddenly pictured his father’s face staring at his hand. He heard the man’s words ringing in his ears: “Worthless!” Richard wanted nothing more than to release his itching anger and avenge his shattered hopes. He scrambled thr
ough the logs until he laid his hands on the axe he had wielded all that dreadful winter. He snatched it and held it high. “I challenge you, Niklas! Have you the courage to face a simpleton and his axe?”

  With a haughty laugh and a snarl, Lord Niklas agreed.

  Word spread quickly throughout the castle sheds that a duel was about to begin, and the combatants barely had time to face each other before a circle of foul-smelling, black-toothed peasants were cheering and mocking the both of them.

  Niklas was clearly drunk, and he stumbled this way and that as Richard cut the air with his swinging axe. Yet the knight had been well-seasoned by combat and quickly sharpened his senses with each near miss.

  Heinrich pushed his way to the front of the circle and closed his eyes. “Oh, Richard! Poor fool … poor hopeless fool.” He clenched his teeth and grimaced and groaned as his friend and kinsman lunged about the mud, red-faced and furious.

  At thirty-one, Richard surprised most, particularly Lord Niklas. For an aging peasant with a lame hand, the impudent rebel gave a good account of himself. He had not forgotten his training under Lord Simon, and years of repressed bitterness now uncoiled into a fierce assault. He blocked Niklas’s sword with skill, then swept his axe smoothly toward the knight’s dodging belly; he followed with a savage swipe at Niklas’s head, then swung another, and another.