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

by C. D. Baker

  Somehow knowing that Wil was right, Heinrich hung his head.

  The two finally arrived home in the dark hours of that most difficult day. Wil knew only that he hated everyone he had met and was in dread of the morning’s hike to his first day of school. Heinrich stared at his hovel door as nervous as a cat approaching an angry hound. He knew his wife would demand an explanation for all that had transpired, and he knew that his answers would likely be derided no matter what they were. He entered his home with trepidation.

  “And where have you two been? The mush is stiff and cold; you’ve a few dried peas and a hard-boiled egg. ‘Tis more than you deserve for coming home like this!”

  Dietrich was half-asleep on the floor. He sat up to his elbows and groused, “What kind of man comes to his meal at this hour. I tell you, Marta, I wouldn’t put up with it!”

  Heinrich closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. “We’ve much to tell, wife,” he began. He sat at the trestle table by the cook-fire and dipped his fingers in the mush bowl. “First, your son begins his instruction tomorrow by terce. His master is a young man from—”

  “Cologne,” interjected Wil. “And he’s a brute. He hates me; I can see it in his eyes.”

  “Nay, nay, Wil,” said Marta. “He needs keep good order. ‘Tis no hate in that.”

  Wil grunted and looked carefully at his father, wondering how he would share the rest.

  “And there’s other news.” All eyes turned toward Heinrich as Karl climbed playfully into his lap. The man hesitated. He would need to be more clever now than he had been a few hours earlier. “Wife,” he began slowly, “what say you to bartering our land from Emma for our freedom?”

  “Freedom? Nay! Better to stay safe in these times. I’d rather be rich and safe than poor and free!” She suddenly fixed a hard eye on her husband. “What did you do, Heinrich? What sort of fool thing did you do?” Her voice was shrill and loud. Heinrich wanted to stuff his ears with wool. Instead, he drew a deep breath and sighed.

  “No, fear not, you are not free.” Wil noted a subtle hint of sarcasm in his father’s voice. The man continued. “What say you to keeping the lands for their rents?”

  “Nay!” the woman growled suspiciously. “Your head is thick and filled with dung. I’ve told you time and time again we cannot trust land on the other side of the world, and I do not trust that Templar!”

  Dietrich grumbled as he climbed to his feet. “You’ve always been a dolt, Heinrich. Your uncles, ja, those are men who are men! But you? Ha, you learned nothing from them. Your papa, Kurt, he was—”

  “Enough, Father,” ordered Marta. “Heinrich, what have you done?”

  Heinrich would have liked nothing better than to throw the old intruder out the door. He bit his tongue, then answered his wife. “Would you have me barter the land for more land here, by Weyer?”

  Marta paused. “Anka says we ought take silver, so when we’ve a bad harvest, all’s not lost.”

  “But where would we hide so much silver?”

  “The Templars.”

  “Aye, but, wife, you’ve said you do not trust the Templars.”

  Marta grew quiet. Heinrich found the brief interlude refreshing and he took a few bites. Finally, the woman pressed again. “So, tell me.”

  Heinrich wiped his mouth on his sleeve and sat cross-legged by the fire crackling in the center of the room. “I’ve bartered our lands, not the Weyer lands of course.”

  At this news Marta began pacing around the room. “You bartered them! For what?”

  “I, dear wife, now own the bakery; the buildings, ovens, tools, flours and spices, and the sole rights to bake for Wey—”

  “The bakery?”

  “Ja.”

  “We own the bakery?”

  “Ja.” Heinrich began to perspire.

  Astonished, Marta sat down slowly on a three-legged stool and stared at her speechless father. None in either family had ever owned an enterprise. She was dumbstruck and struggled to say what came next. “Heinrich, I think it a … a good thing you’ve done.”

  Wil grinned at his father and giggled as he burrowed into his straw bed. Heinrich smiled back, surprised at the unexpected and unprecedented approval of his wife. The feeling was delicious and he suddenly felt like a giant among men. His round face glowed and it stretched with a smile as he walked toward Marta in hope of a kind embrace.

  News of Heinrich’s gain followed the man like flies to the dunghauler. At every hut he passed, a curse or an oath, a jeer or an insult, reached his ears. Marta, too, suffered the jealousies of small souls. Few, however, were as outraged as Father Pious. The abbot had clearly outmaneuvered the ambitious priest, and the man was humiliated by the defeat. For Pious, Heinrich’s simple bakery had suddenly become more than a coveted asset; it had, instead, become a symbol of personal pride. And symbols, of course, are given power greater than their substance.

  The day before Christmas, Father Pious arrived at Marta’s door. The woman was surprised to see the overstuffed priest and invited him inside.

  “Greetings to you and your father,” grunted the churchman.

  “And to you,” grumbled Dietrich from a corner.

  Marta scurried to gather some beer, bread, and an egg for the priest. She is a rare beauty, indeed, Pious thought. He pursed his lips. “Good woman, I thank you for your kindness. I have learned of your happy news. Your husband now owns the bakery, a worthy prize for a servile man. Forgive me, sister, for my tardy well-wishes.”

  “Yes, father. Of course.”

  “It is duty that calls me here. I must take this joyous occasion to remind you that ‘to whom much is given, much is required.’ So says the Holy Scripture.”

  Marta wiped her hands and sat down to listen.

  “Firstly, you needs be ever mindful of your tithe. God’s blessings follow sacrifice and faithfulness. His wrath, however, follows unrighteousness and pride. Which brings me to my fear for you. I’ve heard from another that Heinrich is suspect of secret sins.”

  “I do believe so as well,” answered Marta, “though I know not of what sort.”

  “Ah, with pardon, woman, I cannot divulge. I’ve simply come to warn you that God is not mocked. As long as Heinrich hides his sins, your gain is at great risk. It is my joy to shelter you from sorrow, so I beg you heed my words. “The priest said nothing else, for he had sown his seeds of fear—seeds destined to sprout misery and discontent—tools of opportunity, indeed.

  Wil suffered greatly through his first week in school. As his instincts had forewarned, Master Laurentius did hate the peasant boy. “No right!” he was heard screaming to any who would listen. “The peasant scum has no right to learn with these others.” Indeed, Wil sat on the granite gradine alongside oblates of high birth destined to serve the Church or to rule petty kingdoms all over Christendom. His classmates hailed from castles up and down the Rhine and from manor houses from Staufenland to Saxony. Eleven in all, these were offered by their parents with a pledge that granted them to the cloister. It was hoped these young and promising gifts to the abbey would secure the salvation of both child and parent alike.

  Wil was the only servile child and was not pledged to the monks. He sat stone-faced and proud through five days of taunts and mockery. His rough-spun tunic and close-cropped hair earned him more than a few fists in the face. His only joy at week’s end was the knowledge that for every bruise he tended, another nursed a lump!

  The baker’s son began his training with three new oblates, each slightly older than himself. The four sat in the corner of the cold novices’ chapter house atop long stone benches. The group was first taught to respect the Rule of St. Benedict. They were not to engage in conversation or activity with the monks until or unless they were admitted as novices.

  “Boys,” began the master the first morning, “the brothers spend their lives in service to God and others. They live by the strict code of the Rule and most of you shall follow them in their way of life. What they do is always for a rea
son. They scurry about with bowed heads because the Rule says, Whether sitting, walking, or standing, our heads must be bowed and our eyes cast down. Judging ourselves always guilty on account of our sins, we should consider that we are already at the fearful Judgment, and constantly say in our hearts what the publican in the Gospel said with downcast eyes, “I am a sinner, not worthy to look up to the heavens.’””

  Wil thought of his father.

  Master Laurentius continued. “The Rule further reads, ‘we speak gently and without laughter … without raising our voices.’ You boys need to respect this. No feigning of bad ears just to hear a brother yell. I shall beat any who does such a thing.

  “They are joyfully sworn to obedience, to chastity, to poverty, and someday you may be honored to take their vow. Do not tempt them with idle talk, with trinkets in your purses, with whispering deeds. The Rule says, ‘every exaltation is a kind of pride.’ Do not praise them for their flowers in springtime, their food, their piety… nothing! The Rule and their customaries guide them in all they do. You shall treat them with respect, I say, or you shall be beaten until you do. Have you questions?”

  “Do they bathe?”

  “Three times a year.”

  “Where do they sleep?”

  “They’ve a dormitory, like you. All must sleep in a separate bed, but the Rule calls for them to sleep in large rooms. The abbot has approved one corridor of private cells to be used for brothers who seek solitude during fasting or penance.”

  “Do they sleep dressed or naked?” The boys tittered. A stern warning from the master called them to silence.

  “According to the Rule they—and you—must sleep dressed, but without knives.”

  The boys wondered about the knives. They looked at each other and shrugged. “I’ve heard they must eat in silence.”

  “It is so, and so it shall be with you.”

  “And when do they eat?”

  “From Easter to Pentecost they eat at noon, with a light supper in the evening. From Pentecost and through the summer they fast until midafternoon on Wednesday and Friday. On other days they eat at noon. From the thirteenth of September to the beginning of Lent they eat in the midafternoon, and from Lent to Easter they eat in the evening.”

  “What do they do beside pray and sing?”

  “They read, then they work in their fields or in their workshops. Some are copyists; others work at the brewery or the mill. Look around you, lads. It is a world within the world.”

  “Master, how is it you know so much of this place?”

  “They are all near to the same, some larger, though none, I think, smaller. I was offered to a monastery as a young boy. Like you, I remember holding my parents’ document in my hand and my hand wrapped in an altar cloth. Then some words were said by my father and a monk, and at that moment I belonged to a cloister near Aachen.”

  “But you took no vows?”

  “Nay. I was weak-willed and proud of heart as a younger man. I have entered here to try again. So, in accordance with the Rule, I have endured much to be received as a novice once more, but ‘brother’ I am not… as yet. Now, that is enough questions.

  “You shall learn by phonics and by repetition. You shall learn the abacus … for you, Wilhelm, a string of peas may do. We shall study the alphabet with the beginner’s reader, the Disticha Catonis, which you shall read and copy over and over on your wax tablets. I am sure your right knees shall be well-calloused by winter’s end!

  “When you can read and write to my satisfaction—in about three years—you shall then study the trivium; grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Then, when these are mastered, you shall learn the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Then, little men, you shall have mastered the seven liberal arts, after which you shall then study Donatus and Priscian; you shall learn more Latin. You shall learn Cato’s Moral Sayings, at heart, and shall recite Virgil and Ovid.

  “And, while you are studying these things, it is my desire to have you learn chess and backgammon and a bit of law. We want our future abbots to be able to converse with guests and pilgrims.

  “Your instruction shall take many years.” He paused and stared at them sternly. “We begin our journey together now and with this first truth: Christian mankind is divided into three estates: those that rule, those that pray, and those that toil. As learned men you shall serve God in the first or second estate. Whatever your call, it is for the glory of God, amen.

  On the twenty-fifth of April, 1204, the folk of Weyer gathered at the stone church to celebrate Mass. Having confessed their sins in a responsive, penitential prayer, the simple folk then received the Holy Eucharist through their priests. Ably assisted by Father Albert, Father Pious faced his flock with a face hardened for the precision required of the sacrament. Pious was draped in a white mantle for the season and confidently followed the Roman Rite to near perfection. His unscrupulous attention to detail provided great confidence to his ever-increasing congregations.

  Marta was always apt to stand close to the altar. She ground the soles of her shoes hard into the earthen floor in hopes of drawing power and protection from the relics of bone recently buried beneath. She drew deep breaths as Albert incensed the air above the pyx, the paten, and the chalice and nearly swooned as the bread was set upon the tongue of Pious. Her sins now purged, she felt clean again, and so very grateful to her revered priest.

  Heinrich also felt some burdens lift from his weighted shoulders. Unlike his wife, however, he preferred offering his confession to Father Albert, who allowed Heinrich the comfort of confession without the embarrassment of specificity. Heinrich believed Albert to be genuine and earnest—simple, yet thorough in his faith. His counsel was thought wise though less rigorous than that of Pious, and his demands for penance were generally eased by a quality of mercy. Ironically, however, it was the young priest’s tender heart that gave pause to poor Heinrich, for the baker often wondered if he ought not suffer harsher penances than the gentle cleric called him to perform.

  Marta provided an Easter feast that drew high praise from her household. She beamed as Wil and Karl applauded her presentation of fatty pork and boiled goose. To this she added a bowl of tripe, a loaf of her husband’s wheat bread, a small saucer of honey she had bought from the monks, and a dish of cheese. Since Easter was late this year, she had picked a quarterpeck of early peas and added them to a pottage of wild scallions, ground acorns, and early herbs.

  To Heinrich’s delight and mild alarm, she then retrieved a gift from behind the table in her room. It was a flask of wine she purchased from a Frenchman on a pilgrimage through the village. He had stopped to pray at the abbey’s new Kappelle built by the roadway to Münster. For an undisclosed price, the woman had wrangled the precious beverage for her family, and she beamed with delight as smiles spread around the table.

  She poured the wine slowly, almost ceremonially into each waiting cup. She served her father first—a choice that did not escape the notice of Heinrich. Then came Karl, Wil, and her husband in turn.

  Dietrich smiled and winked at his daughter as he stared into his cup. “Ah, now you’ve proved your success! You’ve the means to buy wine! I’d often wished I could run off with the priest’s chalice.” He laughed. “Thanks to you, daughter, and God’s blessings to all. Now, all drink!”

  Heinrich again wished he could toss the old man out, this time into the April mud. It was his own role to offer his household the blessing of the season; it was the money he had earned that bought the cursed wine, not Dietrich’s. But Heinrich also wanted peace, so, with another sigh he took a swallow of the cherry-red drink. It felt warm and smooth as it rolled over his tongue, bursting with life and flavor.

  Karl and Wil smiled and rolled their eyes in ecstasy as the last drops were tapped from the recesses of their wooden cups. “Mother, ‘twas like nothing I’ve e’er tasted,” said Wil.

  “Aye, Mutti, ist wunderbar. Have you more?” chirped Karl.

  Marta basked in her glory. She
turned to Heinrich. “Well, husband, have we the means to buy more?”

  Heinrich was surprised to hear a tone that was somewhat deferential. He answered with a smile. “Ah, I do surely hope for it. You’d be a hard worker, Marta, and it gives me joy to see you pleased. More wine and someday a cloak of otter or a headdress of silk?”

  Marta immediately suspected him of sarcasm and she tightened her face. It was a sad moment, for the man had been earnest, and when he saw her face harden his heart sank. Before Heinrich could respond, Dietrich stood up and hobbled to his daughter. His legs were failing and his back was now stooped. But his face was lit as he presented a gift to the curious woman. “Here, I’ve made you something.”

  Marta received a chain necklace and laid it across her palms. Her father had spent his evenings at the smith’s, most thought spinning tales or drinking beer, but it seemed he had learned to fashion links of steel. “Father, I … I can hardly speak!”

  “No need to answer,” boasted Dietrich. “You’ve tended me well in my late years. You’ve done well for me. Yer not like your cursed brother! I want you to have this gift of m’own hands.”

  Marta embraced her father and she clasped the links around her neck. “I shall treasure it always.”

  May Day eve found Marta gathering bushels of flowers and greens for the next day’s celebration. She closed her eyes for a moment and wished nothing more than to be chosen the Queen of May. At her last confession, Father Pious had assured her that she was more than worthy of the honor. As a young girl the woman had been selected thrice for her beauty. Perhaps she was not the youngest any longer, but she hoped the village men might see her as still attractive. She had kept most of her teeth and her hair shined silky and smooth in the springtime sun. Her shape was broadened some by the births of five but was still pleasing to the eye, at least according to the whispers of Father Pious.

  In the morning, the priest rose in the new house near Oberbrechen that the carpenters had built for him. Placed conveniently between Oberbrechen and Weyer, it afforded him both privacy and access to his two little empires. Furthermore, it gave him discreet access to the housemaid he kept in residence.