“Forgiven, Martin?” The priest rose and clapped the dirt from his hands. “Come, let’s walk.”
At first Martin could not find the words, and they walked silently, away from the church, through the city, and out by the Rheintor, the city gate nearest the river. As they left Worms, they walked along a hillside that overlooked the Rhine. The swift waters bustled with fishermen, travelers, and traders. Martin began to talk about Thomas.
“I hated being his brother.”
The priest nodded.
“I cannot remember not wishing him dead. I wished he had never lived at all. He made me so angry.”
“Angry? ”
“Yes, angry. It was the same for Mother. I knew that.”
“Did you hurt your brother?”
“Sometimes. Yes. Often. Little things—trips, pinches, tricks.”
“Martin, my older brother did nothing less. I doubt he will be damned for that. Heaven would be empty.”
Martin’s voice began to break. “I think Thomas was lost because my mother—I think my mother—” Martin put his fist to his mouth and stared below to the river.
“Yes?”
Martin told about the day in November. The priest stepped in front of him.
“Martin, you don’t know what really happened in the woods? ”
“No, not really. But I was so glad when Thomas was gone.”
The priest winced. “Is that why you thought you had to had to go to Jerusalem? ”
Martin nodded, “That was part of it, Father. I thought that somehow I could become someone my family would be proud of.”
“As a soldier?” The priest paused for a while and then said, “Saint Martin was a soldier. Fierce and brave, but soldiers rarely become saints,” said the priest.
“I didn’t want to be a saint, Father. I wanted to be a hero. And I wanted to be forgiven. Each soldier in this war will be forgiven for all his sins,” said Martin.
“You thought this holy war was the answer to your prayers? ”
Martin nodded.
“And now? ”
Martin shrugged. “I don’t know, Father.”
“You were not the brother you should have been. But you didn’t bring about Thomas’s death; you don’t even know what happened to him. Take this wisdom with you. Saint Martin was glorified for kindness, not heroism. In the cold of winter, he came across a naked beggar and tore his soldier’s cape in two and shared it with the poor man. When our Lord appeared to Martin, what do you think he had wrapped across his holy shoulders? Come let’s return to church. I want to show you something before evening prayer.”
The priest took Martin to the sacristy where there was a carved egg of rock crystal, set on a stand of gold encrusted with pearls. Inside, Martin saw a tiny scrap of cloth.
“Now you have seen a piece of his cape. Saint Martin left the Roman army in this very city many centuries ago. Your soldiering days have ended here as well. You’ve been with us for one whole season; now it’s time to go home. Confess your sins and ask for God’s forgiveness. Then forgive yourself. And forgive your mother. You will always have a place here with us. I don’t think this is your calling, Martin, but you have a gift with people. You always will be in my prayers.”
They fell asleep listening to Martin’s tale, and the next morning Anna awoke early to a heavy dawn with a thick east wind. When she went for water, she noticed that the fir trees showed silver. The sky was yellow, and the the air smelled metallic. Anna made it home just before a fast-moving storm brought sheets of rain and screaming wind. Lightening turned the house white and was quickly followed by deafening thunder. But by midday the sky was bright again, and the wind was hot and dry. Anna took Martin’s clothes to the stream to scour with white clay, wood ash, and fat. She knew that Lukas planned to bring Agnes to the house while she was out. When she returned, she found Martin very quiet.
“Are you all right, Martin? ”
He nodded and pushed a loaf of bread and some cheese toward Anna.
“Mother was furious that I came here. There is no love lost between these two houses.”
“No.” Anna broke off a piece of bread for Martin and one for herself.
“Thanks. When Mother saw my hand, she began to rant, but after I told her how it happened, she was quiet. She thinks I’m a coward.”
“You’re not!”
“She also said a one-handed man is useless in a forge.”
“Your mother is not easy on anyone.”
“No,” said Martin very sadly. “But she’s right about me. I can’t play my pipe anymore. I can’t even cut a piece of cheese for myself.”
Anna cut a chunk of cheese and handed it to Martin saying, “You’ll learn, and until then, you’ll have me. I can’t play your pipe, but I can sing. And besides, hands do little in Father’s trade.”
Karl visited in the evening, and he cried when he saw his son’s injury. After hearing Martin’s story, he said, “You’ve filled our lives with mischief and stories. I knew the forge would never have held you. I’ll visit you in Worms, Son, and I look forward to the man you will become.”
“Father there is something I’d like to take with me to Worms.”
“Yes, Martin?”
“Do you remember the wooden dog you carved for Thomas? ”
Karl nodded and said hoarsely, “I still have it.”
“May I have it? I’d like to keep something of my brother with me.”
Karl nodded but could say nothing, and so he left. Anna looked at her cousin and swallowed against her own thickening throat.
32
AN ENDING
September 1, 1096
It was dark when Anna eased herself from the bed, picking strands of straw from her damp hair. Her father slept fitfully. Martin was gone from the bed, but his shoes were by the door, and his clothes hung from the peg. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that the door to the garden was ajar. She drew a cup of water from the bucket and poured it slowly over her shoulders and neck. The air was still and hot, but for a moment she shivered under the cool water. Anna filled another cup and brought it out to Martin, whom she found sitting on the ground with his back against the house.
“Can’t you sleep? ”
“It’s too hot. Remind me of this night in January. Smudge has the best spot.”
Anna’s dog had dug a deep hole and was sleeping soundly in the damp earth. The moon was full and lit the garden. She lowered herself to the ground and sat next her cousin.
“You were missed.”
“By whom?”
“By Father, certainly. And by Lukas. Even by me, at least sometimes.”
“Just sometimes?” He laughed. “It’s good to be back. I was a half-wit to think I would be a soldier.”
“You were brave to try.”
“Stupid. Stupid. Anyway, that dream is dead.”
“Now what? ”
Martin shrugged. “We go to Worms. The place that changed each of our lives.” Martin tried to grip a small stone in his injured hand, working his thumb as a pincer and pressing the pebble against his palm. He dropped it again and picked it up.
“I love this garden,” said Anna sadly. “I don’t think I will like living in Worms.”
“What do you know of Worms? ”
“Don’t start telling me how little I know, Martin.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Was I really awful to you? ”
Anna turned to Martin and nodded. “Rotten. But not all the time. Hold still!” she said, and she emptied the cup of water over his head.
“You dog-hearted wretch!” sputtered Martin with water streaming down his hair and face.
“Doesn’t that feel better?”
“You might have warned me.”
“It’s more fun this way.”
“For you perhaps. ” He shook his head, spraying Anna with his wet curls. “I suppose I do feel cooler now. It’s good to be back with you and Gunther. Lukas said you were a hero in Worms.”
“Lukas is generous.”
“Yes, he is. I never valued that in him, but I never understood what makes a hero, either. My idea of a hero was a knight. I guess some are brave but not the ones who killed all those people in Worms. Not your noble cousin, Magnus. Noble? I keep thinking of a story I heard when I first joined up. About King Heinrich’s grandfather, Konrad, a man celebrated for his courage. Konrad wanted to understand fear, so he took a man, probably some poor peasant like me, and had his face smeared with honey. The man was bound to a tree, and they brought in a bear. Konrad watched as a bear licked the man’s face. I think I laughed when I heard the story.”
“Do you still find it funny?”
“No, Anna. I feel differently about a lot of things.”
“Like Thomas.”
“Yes, that, and more,” he said, tossing the pebble into the garden with his wounded hand. “Different.” He nodded and said, “Don’t you think your father is changed? He’s much less sad; he even tries to joke sometimes. He’s not very funny, but still. And you seem older.”
“I feel older, Martin. Nothing is the same. At least you will be with us in Worms.”
“You’ll like your new life. Your father’s trade grows each day. He’s already a rich man; he’ll be richer than his brother soon. You’ll remember this home as a hovel before winter. And neither of us will miss my mother or sisters.”
“No. They still hate me,” Anna said. “I can’t believe this is our last night here.”
“Worms will be a new start for all of us. And I’m sure you’ll find the Flemish boy to your liking.”
“What Flemish boy?” asked Anna.
“The son of your father’s new partner in the wool trade. His name is Hugh. I met him in Cologne last spring. He is going to live with us in Worms.”
“Father never told me.”
“He will, so act surprised.”
Anna shook her head. “What’s he like?”
“A quiet sort, but smart enough. He made me laugh.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry. Hugh isn’t mean.”
“What does he look like?”
“You’d trust my description after all those years of telling you how homely you were?”
“I should have said more nasty things about you.”
“You threw things. But at least you never bit me.”
Anna punched Martin’s arm, but not very hard.
“Anyway, Hugh is tall, like your father.”
“Is he blond like you or dark?”
“Interested?” He laughed. “Dark hair. And oh yes, now I remember. He has very blue eyes. And both your father and I liked him. I think we may have finally found you a husband.”
“What?” cried Anna, pouring drops from the empty cup over Martin’s head.
He laughed and said, “You two will like each other. That’s to be my newest wager. And I will be ‘uncle’ to a long line of little Hughs and Annas.”
Anna laughed. “No, I think I’ll grow old just caring for Father and you. Not so bad, really.”
“Hold on. I’m going to be the second richest man in Worms. Someone will marry me, even with my repulsive claw,” said Martin cheerfully.
By now it was just before sunrise; the night grew noisy with birdsong and the sounds of other households awakening. The cousins watched as the treetops turned from gray to gold. The last night of their old life drew to a close. Martin fetched water while Anna fed the chickens for the last time.
When Lukas appeared, he and Anna embraced. He hugged Martin and told him how glad he was to be his brother. Saying good-bye, Lukas promised to visit Worms before the moon was again full. Anna was gathering her things, when Karl appeared with a wooden box, bound with iron fittings. On its lid was a carving of a pear tree in full blossom. Each side of the box was decorated with a different season of pear sprigs: snow-covered, budding, flowering, and with fruit.
“I made this for you, Anna.”
Anna cried, stretching to reach her arms around her giant uncle’s neck.
“I will see you in the city,” said Karl lifting Anna in a great bear hug. “Your father will still trade for me, though I think cloth will be first, not so much iron.” Then Karl turned to Martin and gave him the carving of Thomas’s toy dog, and said, “I would have liked you to stay here with us, but I know you will do well in Gunther’s work. You will bring honor to us.” When Karl turned to go to the forge, Martin went out to the garden.
“Are you ready?” Gunther asked Anna.
“Almost.”
“Are you still afraid?”
“I don’t know.”
Anna sat down on the threshold, hugging the carved box to her chest. Gunther sat down next to her.
“When your mother died, I thought I had lost everything. I was wrong. We shall have a better life in Worms, Anna,” said Gunther putting his arm around his daughter and pulling her toward him. “You’ll love the house. It has something very special that I had made just for you—a round window covered with panes of horn so thin that even in the cold of winter, you shall have light from the sun. No more complaining about the darkness. You’ve done a woman’s work since you were a small girl. What did Leah say? That you work as hard as three women? Well, no more. There will be servants.”
“Servants?” asked Anna, very surprised.
“Yes, Anna. A different life for you, for Martin, and for me. The son of one of my Flemish partners will join our household. He is a fine young man. Maybe almost fine enough for you. He will live with us in Worms. He is called Hugh.”
“What more changes can there be, Father?”
“I don’t know. But I am sure that you will have the strength for anything. They say my great-great-grandmother had Viking blood. I think you may be the proof.”
“Do you insult or compliment me, Father? ”
“What do you think? ” asked Gunther, kissing his daughter’s forehead.
As they removed their belongings and themselves from the only home that Anna had known, no one called out a farewell. Neighbors watched wordlessly as they made their way in the horse drawn wagon, with Smudge trotting alongside.
Sitting between her father and Martin, Anna opened the carved box. She lifted Leah’s cup, and the summer sunlight turned the silver gold. One fall, one winter, one spring, one summer: each season had yielded to the next, and nothing was the same.
To life.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book started with a compelling picture I discovered as I leafed through a book my son was using to write a paper on the crusades. It was a photograph of an overgrown field, scattered with ancient grave stones marked with Hebrew letters. Spires of a medieval European church pricked the sky in the background. The caption read “Jewish Cemetery at Worms- the Rhineland town where 800 Jews were massacred by the crusaders in 1096. While my son tried to figure out why so many simple European peasants answered Pope Urban’s 1096 call to rescue the unimaginably distant holy lands, I wanted to learn about these Jewish people and why they were killed.
I began reading everything I could find on the First Crusade, and then on life in the middle ages. Somewhere in my reading of history, I began to imagine characters. I saw a story of lives set in this time and place. The research was hard. The eleventh century was a largely illiterate time—what is known of daily life is reconstructed from archeology and from shards of evidence and scraps of commentary. I used subtraction. I found when things were invented or came into use in Western Europe; my characters would have to do without paper, chimneys, forks, potatoes and even pockets. They probably never saw a piece of glass or a mirror. I accumulated historic details, recipes, folk tales, and superstitions. I sifted through discrepancies differing chronologies of the massacres in Speyer, Worms and Mainz, the many versions of the lives of early saints. I read about Jewish life in medieval Europe. Since Roman times, there had been sizable Jewish settlements in the cities and larger towns along the Rhine River. These Jews remained outsiders by choice and
by local custom and prejudice. As mistrusted resident strangers in these German cities of the Holy Roman Empire, the Jews maintained their own widespread communities that were not based on geography but on family, culture, and tradition. Because of their relationships with nearby and distant Jewish communities, much of the trade in exotic and valuable commodities—spices, furs, precious jewels was in the hands of Jewish merchants who prospered. The Jews of early Europe used a common language drawn from dialects of all the lands where Jews had settled: French, German, Italian, Aramaic and Hebrew. This language would become the basis for modern Yiddish.
Mostly I imagined Anna and Martin, Leah and Lukas. I tried to give them medieval outlooks, but more than anything, I tried to make them real so that you, my reader, might befriend these characters who have rattled around in this humble writer’s head. Will you share Anna’s disgust as she skins an eel? Can you smell Martin’s feet? Will you be moved when Leah speaks her name? I hope so. Do you think anyone in the German spring of 1096 was as strong as Leah or as brave and kind as Anna? I like to think so.
HISTORICAL NOTE
In 1096, there were German people but no country known as Germany. There were soldiers of Christ and a Holy War, but no one had ever heard of a Crusader or of the Crusades. Much of Europe was forested, and life was spare and often harsh in the villages along the waterways where people gathered in walled settlements. Everything and everyone was tied to the land, and time was marked by events and measured in seasons. Paper, cotton, chimneys, forks, potatoes, and even pockets were unknown. Glass was rarely seen, and no one had a mirror.
A time of relative peace followed the first millennium. The Barbarians and the Vikings had ceased to invade. Agricultural advances led to higher yields, even surpluses, and so, trade and roads improved. Towns became cities, and feudal society began to reorder. In many cities along the Rhine, one group held itself separate from the Germans. Sizable Jewish settlements existed in all the major cities. Many traced their arrival to Roman times, and during the intervening centuries, they had remained a rare and valuable link to other parts of the continent and even to the rest of the ancient world, with extensive trading networks.
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