Luther and Katharina

by Jody Hedlund

  “If he loves you, what would it matter?” Jonas regarded her with a raised brow.

  She shook her head. It was too much to ask of her, too radical. She stepped around the desk and clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. “I shall continue to trust that God will provide the right husband for me at the right time. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  She couldn’t listen to another word. She needed to get away. The urge rose with such swiftness she would embarrass herself with an outburst if she didn’t leave immediately.

  “Take all the time you need, Liebchen,” Barbara called after her as she settled her sleeping child against her bosom.

  Katharina walked with measured steps, the carpet muting the heaviness. She passed Jonas without another word or glance in his direction. And when she reached the thickly carved door and entered the dark hallway, she wanted nothing more than to lift her skirts and run. But she had nowhere to go other than the small dormer room she shared with another woman now that Margaret was gone. The herb beds were dead and the day too cold to lose herself in the garden.

  Even though she’d already resigned herself to the probability that Jerome wasn’t coming back for her, the news that he was marrying a fourteen-year-old girl with a sizable dowry made the ache in her chest burn as if someone had tied her to the stake and set her on fire.

  She had no dowry. That had been her problem long ago, and apparently it still haunted her. Now that she was out of the cloister, nothing had changed. She still didn’t have anything to offer. And as Jonas had said, what nobleman would want her?

  The burning in her chest rose to her throat.

  She would end up old and alone…without the one thing she wanted most.

  A family.

  Katharina stood behind the cluttered counter next to a gangly apprentice with only a few facial hairs to claim and watched him crush the dried herbs with a pestle and mortar. She’d been organizing the many dusty, overcrowded shelves that lined the wall, but her fingers twitched to snatch the tools away from the boy and grind the herbs properly. Instead she took a deep breath to steady herself, inhaling the scents of the Cranach apothecary shop, which reminded her of the cloister garden at Marienthron. The sweetness of lavender, marigold, and rosemary made her heart constrict with a sudden pain.

  What would her life have been like if she’d never read Doctor Luther’s pamphlets? Before her exposure to the seditious material, she’d lived a contented life at the abbey. She hadn’t felt the dullness of the routines, the constriction of the silence, or the severity of the rules because she’d had nothing to which she could compare that life. She’d valued the protection of a cloistered life. At times she’d even agreed with the others that at least there she didn’t have to worry about an arranged marriage to a temperamental man twice her age or about the real possibility that she would die during childbirth. She’d lived in quiet and gentility with uninterrupted time to devote to prayers.

  But even as Katharina longed for the oblivion of cloistered life, another part of her rebelled. She knew deep in her heart that the peace and protection were really a mirage, that they masked the deeper flaws that existed in abbeys and monasteries all across the Roman Empire. In fact, shouldn’t she work, as Doctor Luther had, to rescue other victims of such a system? How could she turn a blind eye to women who were possibly suffering the same fate as Aunt Lena and Greta?

  “I shall finish for you.” She reached for the pestle.

  The young apprentice relinquished it without a word.

  She pounded the pestle against the mortar and crushed the marigold with a swiftness that made the boy stand back, bumping the shelves and rattling the lids on the clay pots. She’d told Barbara she’d make a healing broth for Ursula’s lingering chills, and although the apprentice had insisted on making the concoction for her, Katharina missed the luxury of doing so herself.

  The front door of the shop opened, and a gust of cold air whirled into the small room, shaking the bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. Two men entered. Their heavy, loose-fitting Schaubes were trimmed in wide collars of fur and ornamental chains.

  When they glanced to the counter, they grew silent.

  The shorter man cocked his head toward Katharina. “The very girl of whom we were speaking.”

  The man’s companion surveyed her. “She’s comely enough. A bit thin perhaps but still young enough to bear children.”

  Katharina bristled. “I beg your pardon.”

  The shorter man took off his beret, revealing his stark white hair that now rose in a fuzzy disarray of static. “We’ve met before. I’m Dr. Glatz, rector of the parish of Orlamünde.”

  As soon as he mentioned his name, she remembered him, though she hadn’t seen him since autumn. In the dim light of the shop, she could distinguish the sharpness of his gaze. It pierced through her and made her stiffen.

  “May I help you?” she asked, surveying his square face and the fleshy chin. The first time she’d met him, she hadn’t wanted to consider the possibility of a union. Her initial impressions hadn’t been favorable, largely because she’d still been clinging to the slight chance of having Jerome. But now with that hope gone, ought she to consider the possibility of marrying Dr. Glatz? Aside from being older, he met all the other standards she held—wealth, title, and power.

  As she mentally posed the option, Jonas’s rebuke earlier in the week came back to her. He’d told her not to put so much stock in outward qualifications. She wasn’t that shallow, was she? To care more about a person’s wealth and nobility than his character?

  In fact, she had despised the way the noblemen were doing that very thing to her—considering her outward qualifications rather than the strength of her character. Was she guilty of the same?

  Dr. Glatz ambled toward the counter. When he stood across from her, he coughed, and the movement shook his bulky body. “I need something for my cough,” he told the apprentice.

  “You’ll want betony mixed with pure honey.” She turned to the boy. “Mix a tonic for Dr. Glatz.”

  The apprentice hopped up on a stool and squinted at the labels on the jars that lined one of the high shelves.

  “Where’s your master?” Dr. Glatz asked the boy. “What does a nun know about directing the business of an apothecary shop?”

  “She knows more than me.” The apprentice shoved aside several jars.

  “Go get your master. If I’m to pay for the medicine, I want to make sure it’s what I really need.”

  Katharina resumed crushing the marigold. “He’ll tell you the same thing I have.”

  “Then you think you’re always right?” His tone had a bite.

  She didn’t look up from her work. His question didn’t deserve an answer.

  “I suppose you thought you were right about Jerome Baumgartner?”

  Her heartbeat seemed to stutter to a stop, and her hands ceased their work. Over the past few days since Jonas had delivered the news, she’d surmised she’d been one of the last to learn of his engagement to Sibylle Dichtel von Tutzing. The entire town and surrounding community had apparently heard of the slight before she had.

  “I guess he won’t be coming back to Wittenberg for you after all.” Dr. Glatz pulled a crusty linen from his pocket and blew his nose into it with the reverberation of a lumbering cart. “What a shame he ignored the great Doctor Luther’s letter.”

  “I don’t see that the matter is any of your concern.”

  Dr. Glatz loosened the strap of his cloak and then leaned against the counter, clearly getting himself comfortable. “In young Baumgartner’s university days, the students were much wilder than they are now. They were known for their drinking and dancing with the daughters of Wittenberg.”

  “Dr. Glatz, I don’t wish to listen to any gossip.”

  “Baumgartner had earned quite a reputation by the time he finished, hadn’t he?” The rector tossed a smile at his companion, who stood behind him, waiting patiently. “Quite a number of the local
girls ended up wearing Baumgartner’s hat and he their chaplets. In fact, he wore many a girl’s chaplet, if you catch my meaning.” Dr. Glatz and his friend both chuckled.

  But Katharina could only stare in mortification at the man’s audacity to speak of such matters around a lady. No matter his title, wealth, and position, how could she marry him?

  Maybe Jerome hadn’t made her swoon, but at least she’d known she could enjoy amiable companionship with him. But with Dr. Glatz…She could hardly carry on a simple conversation without it turning her stomach. How could she spend the rest of her earthly life with such a man?

  She turned to the apprentice. “Are you almost ready with Dr. Glatz’s concoction?” She would get it ready herself if it would speed the man’s departure.

  The apprentice nodded and finished measuring the betony.

  Dr. Glatz leaned more heavily on the counter. “Of course our great Doctor Luther put an end to the drunken parties once he returned from Wartburg Castle—”

  “I don’t care to hear any more,” she interrupted.

  “Word around the town is that Baumgartner got your chaplet too.”

  “How dare you—”

  “Of course I’d prefer a virgin.” He leaned close enough that she could catch the leftover sourness of a cabbage dinner on his breath. His eyes had a look that made her want to hug her arms across her bosom. “But I’ve hardly ever met a nun who is.”

  Mortification was swirling through her stomach as fast as the Elbe River at spring thaw. “You’ve completely overstepped your bounds.”

  He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Sometimes I like a woman with a little experience too.”

  The conversation had gone from bad to worse. Burning with embarrassment, she grabbed the pestle and mortar and turned away from him. “You’re entirely inappropriate, Dr. Glatz,” she said over her shoulder. “I shall not subject myself to any more of your lewdness.” She rapidly retreated into the closet-like back room of the apothecary, closed the door, and shuddered.

  She hoped the Blessed Virgin would help her should she ever have to be in the same room with that man again.

  “This is the perfect place for another garden.” Barbara leaned against the oak that identified the plot outside the walls of Wittenberg. “Once it’s cleared, we could fit ten, if not twelve raised beds. Don’t you agree?”

  “You’re likely correct.” Katharina studied the shriveled plants surrounded by soggy leaves left from winter. They reflected the melancholy of her heart as did the gray sky overhead.

  Barbara nodded at the edge of the plot. “We could cultivate an orchard on the far end by those apple trees.”

  “You would do better to cut down the old ones and transplant younger trees.” The spring breeze was chilly and penetrated Katharina’s cloak. The edges of winter still lingered in the dampness of the air, in the barren gray branches overhead, and in the yellowed grass that was matted from recent thaws.

  “Why don’t you do it, Katharina?” Barbara watched her two youngest children playing chase through the remnants of the gnarled orchard. “If I convince Master Cranach to buy this plot, will you take charge of the planting?”

  Katharina knew what Barbara was trying to do—help her forget about her bleak marriage situation. Over the past weeks she had done little else but think about how she was nearing two years since leaving the abbey and was still utterly single. In fact, she was the only Marienthron nun who hadn’t found a marriage partner or at least a home.

  She was grateful to Barbara for befriending her and for elevating her position beyond that of a servant. But lately she couldn’t summon the energy to find enthusiasm for the pastimes that had once delighted her, especially after receiving the news from Margaret that she was expecting a baby. Her friend hadn’t written much, but Katharina had read between the lines. Margaret was learning to accept her new life, and having a baby would make it easier.

  Katharina slid a hand over her flat stomach. The emptiness ached with the barrenness of lost dreams. Not only should she have been married by now, but she also should have been holding a baby with perhaps another on the way. What had happened to all her hopes? Where had they gone?

  “We’ll have to get to work on it right away.” Barbara stepped into the tangled growth and tugged at one of the plants, pulling it easily from the soil. She shook off clumps of dirt clinging to the dead roots and then tossed it aside. “I don’t believe we’ll have too much trouble clearing it.”

  “Probably not.”

  “We just can’t supply all we need anymore with our little garden at Marktplatz.”

  Katharina looked away in the direction of the Elbe and the circling of swallows above it. Her presence in their household had not made things easier. She was just one more person to feed and clothe.

  “Apprentices. We have too many apprentices,” Barbara rushed to explain, as though sensing the direction of Katharina’s thoughts. “With the apothecary shop, the printing presses, and the art studios, we have more than enough apprentices. And now Master Cranach plans to open a bookshop…”

  “I’m sorry. I must be a burden on you as well—”

  “You are not a burden, Liebchen.” Barbara reached for her hands. “You’re my friend.”

  Katharina looked at Barbara’s chapped, red fingers and then at her face, to the creases at her eyes and across her forehead. The woman was Katharina’s elder by only ten years, but the aged and tired face had the appearance of an older woman. Lucas Cranach was one of the wealthiest men in Wittenberg. Katharina couldn’t understand why Barbara did so much of the work when she had servants to do her bidding.

  “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you need.” Barbara squeezed her hands. The reassurance poured over Katharina; it soaked into her and softened her like goat’s milk over hard rye bread.

  “You’ve been so kind to me. I cannot thank you enough.” Katharina pressed the hands holding hers, wishing she could summon a smile, but there was nothing inside except a tangle of wilted weeds.

  Compared with her time at the Reichenbachs’, her months with the Cranachs had suited her much better. They recognized her as a noblewoman and treated her with the consideration due her status. In fact, Barbara had taken it upon herself to educate Katharina in the various tasks required to run a large household, assuming Katharina would someday have an estate of her own to manage.

  But doubts had clamored increasingly louder along with the despair. Katharina couldn’t keep from thinking that perhaps she was destined for singleness after all. Perhaps all the teaching on managing a household was for naught.

  The clomping of horse hoofs on the rutted lane nearby drew their attention.

  “Good afternoon!” Pastor Bugenhagen called from atop a mare. He lifted a hand in greeting, his shaggy beard and hair and his flowing robe giving him the appearance of one of the holy apostles returning from a missionary journey.

  “Why, Pastor, we didn’t expect to see you.” Barbara smiled warmly.

  “I’m returning from Orlamünde.” Pastor steered his horse through the weeds and tangled plants. “In fact, I was planning to ride past your residence to deliver news to Katharina.”

  “Well, then we’ve saved you the effort.” Barbara bent and dislodged another tall weed. “We’ve ventured outside the city walls because I’m considering buying a field for Master Cranach’s ever-growing household.”

  Pastor Bugenhagen reined next to them. “You’ll very soon have one less in your household to worry about.”

  Katharina didn’t like the way his eyes narrowed on her as if she was a problem he was about to solve.

  “Not this one, I hope.” Barbara grabbed her arm. “Katharina has just promised to oversee the planting of my new garden. Haven’t you?”

  “Of course.” Katharina’s insides tightened with a growing sense of unease.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to find someone else,” Pastor replied.

  “I couldn’t,” Barbara insisted. “Katharina know
s so much about herbs, more than the apothecary or any of the apprentices.”

  Pastor Bugenhagen slid from his horse and pulled a withered apple from the leather pouch at his waist. He held it out to the mare, and she neighed softly before taking the treat. “I’ve just returned from visiting with Dr. Glatz.”

  Katharina had tried not to think about Dr. Glatz over the weeks since talking to him in the apothecary shop. But his insinuations about Jerome’s past behavior had taunted her. She realized now that Doctor Luther had been justified in disliking Jerome. It was no wonder he’d grown angry every time she mentioned Jerome’s name, especially if the rumors about Jerome’s promiscuity were true. In fact, she could see now that Doctor Luther had hinted at Jerome’s less-than-stellar reputation, but she’d been too enamored to pay heed.

  “Doctor Luther has put off settling the matter with Dr. Glatz for far too long,” Pastor Bugenhagen continued. “So I finally took the situation into my own hands.”

  “What matter, Pastor?” Katharina asked, although she had the sinking feeling that she already knew.

  “He’s agreed to marry you in two weeks’ time.”

  Even though the news was unwelcome, it didn’t entirely surprise her.

  Barbara’s brows furrowed. “Is this what you want, Katharina?”

  She started to shake her head, but Pastor Bugenhagen cut her off. “The arrangements have already been made.”

  “It seems so soon,” Barbara said. “There’s certainly no rush—”

  “He doesn’t want to wait. With all the peasant uprisings and all the unrest—”

  “What do such things have to do with a marriage?” Barbara looked at Katharina, and the concern in her eyes reached out to her. “Give Katharina more time.”

  “I shall be fine.” Katharina forced herself to smile, fighting a swell of irritation. “It doesn’t matter how much time I have. I’m not planning to marry Dr. Glatz.”

  Pastor Bugenhagen folded his arms across his rounded chest. “Dr. Glatz has finally consented to marry you. You should be relieved and honored that such a prominent man will have you, considering all the gossip that follows you.”