by C. D. Baker
“Enough, boy. ‘Tis quite enough. I cannot accept this … this gift from you. What do you think, Heinrich?”
Heinrich was speechless. He stared at Richard and stammered, “I … I … methinks you ought keep it, Frau. We’ve no idea where …”
“And are Richard’s words true?”
Heinrich turned white. “I must not lie again! But if I say that it is not so, then I betray my kin as a liar… another sin, methinks.” He turned to Emma and answered, “I did not hear Richard talk with … the thief, sol … I cannot say in truth.”
Emma paused. She looked at smiling Ingelbert and tapped her finger on her chin. “And what use have I of these things?”
Richard shrugged. “Methinks Ingly has said something about you writing.”
Emma took a deep breath. “I see. Well, I shall keep this for a season and I shall listen for any talk of it. If it is not claimed after a reasonable time, I suppose it might be God’s will for me to keep.” She winked.
Richard cheered loudly and joyful voices filled the room as all began talking at once—all, that is, except solemn Heinrich.
“Heinrich,” Emma said. “You seem a little sad.”
The boy nodded.
“Is it shame you feel?”
He nodded again.
“I hope you know how proud I am that you loosed that poor beast!”
Heinrich brightened somewhat. “You are? But I stole a man’s property and was prideful.”
Emma sighed. “There is also the law of love. Methinks you loved that animal.”
“But I stole it.”
“Perhaps it was the only way to obey the highest law.”
Heinrich sat by the woman. “I am told I am swine dung… that I have shamed myself and my kin.”
“Good lad, none of us are perfect!” Emma chuckled.
“I wish to face the sun.”
Emma stiffened. She desperately wanted to point the lad to wisdom without breaking him of faith. She was angry that the priest had set the two virtues in opposition. “Heinrich, the Holy Church calls us to seek truth, but to find it I fear we must sometimes look higher than its spires.”
Heinrich seemed confused. “But there is more. Sometimes I feel good when I keep this vow I hate.”
Emma slowly released an understanding sigh.
“And Baldric hates me and he burned a parchment,” the eight-year-old suddenly blurted.
Emma’s face tightened and she flushed red-hot with anger. She closed her eyes for a moment, then held the boy tightly. “Heinrich, my son, I fear you’ve much to learn and shall suffer much to learn it. You’ve been shackled sooner than most. For now, hear this one thing: knowing who hates you can teach you much about yourself.”
The years turned and crept, dragged and weathered their way along for the weary, ever-somber village. To be sure, the loving sun urged some days of temperate warmth, and the promise of the seasons’ feasts bore brief and cheery respite. But for the simple peasants of Weyer, life was defined by the dreary rhythm of dull constancy and dread.
In the larger world, in 1183 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had made his peace in Lombardy where he had been waging war against stubborn foes. With his southern lands in order he had recently returned to his wife, Beatrix, and had begun a tour of feasts throughout his realm.
In the spring of 1184, a courier advised Abbot Malchus that the emperor’s entourage had chosen to spread their great tents on the banks of the Lahn between Villmar and the castle of Runkel. Here they planned to lounge for three days in June. Barbarossa would be traveling north from his wondrous castle on the high summit of Hohenstaufen. It was rumored that he had spent many a night in the arms of a washwoman from nearby Lorch Castle, the sandstone residence of his own Staufen ancestors. So smitten was his heart, it was whispered, that he recently bequeathed the ancient home to the same mysterious woman. For the folk of Villmar’s manors, however, the pending arrival of Red Beard brought hope, if only for three days.
On a comfortable June day word quickly spread amongst the villagers that the Emperor was bathing in the Lahn—their Lahn! And more; he was traveling with a company of Norman knights who bore the bones of St. Aurelius of Rome. Beheaded by Nero centuries before, the saint was now believed to heal all manner of afflictions. One needed only to touch a bone of the relic upon one’s body, or touch one who had touched a bone, or touch a cloth that had been touched by one who had touched a bone. Such was the hope that suddenly cheered the abbot’s dreary land.
As throngs of peasants pressed the margins of the emperor’s camp, Arnold begged a priest to let him touch the saint. His scabbed and itchy skin had tormented him both day and night for years and he was, in that moment, willing to bow and scrape like the others of his kind. But the size of the crowds was great, and few were permitted entrance to the canvas shrine. For his part, the emperor took pity on the peasants waiting on bended knees and, against the pleadings of the papal legate, instructed the imperial guard to carry the relic through the growing mob. So, St. Aurelius was held high above the straining fingers of the clamoring serfs. Unable to touch the bones themselves, the crowd was content to reach for the patient soldiers whose shoulders bore the bier.
Unfortunately for Arnold, he had touched neither the bones, nor another who had touched the bones, nor one who had touched someone who had touched the bones. He returned to Weyer more miserable than when he had left. But ten-year-old Heinrich had climbed amongst the legs of his fellows and managed to thrust a hand between some knees to touch the boot of a soldier whose shoulder had brushed the bronze litter bearing the holy relic. It was good enough, the boy was certain, to claim power from the saint, and he was happy.
Heinrich had other reasons for joy, as well. His friend and secret counselor at the Magi, Brother Lukas, had urged the prior to consider the lad for the position of baker’s apprentice. To everyone’s surprise, the repentant “Scrump Worm” was accepted to the abbey’s bakery and began his career amid the scoffs and envy of his peers.
Under orders from the abbot, Prior Paulus had demanded the villages buy their bread from the monks and from the monks alone. He had unwisely closed the communal ovens that had served the villages so very well for generations. Now, each morning, bread was carted to the villages with their day’s allotment. Paulus argued that this control would provide needed revenues to the abbey and “protect our good people from the risks of the ‘corn witch,’ the cheats of the millers, and the poisons of ergot.”
While Heinrich enjoyed his good fortune, his brother Axel soon enjoyed his own. Baldric, now a village elder, was eager to make room for cash-paying tenants in his hovel. He was paid well as the overseer of the manor’s hunting, fencing, timbering, and assarting, but was eager for more silver. While the hovel was yet his own, he was determined to squeeze every penny he could from within its walls. Since blood kin paid no rents, it would serve Baldric well to make room for those who would. So, after a brief visit with a hired carpenter from Limburg and with the reluctant approval of the prior, Baldric arranged for young Axel to join the craftsman’s household as his apprentice. Axel, for his part, was happy to leave the labors of the fields to Heinrich.
It was Herwin, good and faithful Herwin, who still remained to shelter Effi and Heinrich from their uncle. But he would no longer stand guard alone, for to his great joy he had married the Slav, Varina. Considering the immediate increase in rents, Baldric was a willing creditor and loaned the happy man what pennies were required to pay the merchet. And so, into the household of Baldric moved Herwin’s new wife, her baby son, Wulf, and her twelve-fingered, twelve-toed, giant of a brother, Telek. The marriage proved fruitful, for in another year Varina bore Herwin a child of his own, a daughter, baptized Irma.
Meanwhile Emma, the Butterfly Frau, had aged with grace. She did her best to offer patient kindness to the village women who seemed ever disposed to disparage and deride her. Perhaps it was her very grace that earned her scorn and such contempt. Or, perhaps it was the unfortunate a
ppearance of poor Ingelbert. Many, it seemed, remained convinced the woman was somehow connected to the witch of Münster’s forest. After all, she had come from another land with the freak child, she lived apart in her cottage by the stream, and she seemed to be of mysterious means. But more than all of these, rumors now abounded that she was visited each All Souls’ Eve by fearful shadows in the night.
For Lukas these years had proven difficult. His herbarium was grand, airy, and large, and his gardens had been fruitful in each season. Yet his heart was heavy and his mind oft troubled. It was his joy to serve his fellow man, like in the healing of little Alwin—the orphaned Gunnar oblate with fever, or even Pious—the pompous novice at Weyer. Many of his brothers in the abbey, to whom he brought infusions and balms, tinctures and ointments, thrilled at his duties, for he was skilled in the gifts of Creation and tender of spirit. But despite his competence, the man was often angry with his masters and sometimes doubtful of his faith. The man saw more than most and dared heed the call to brighter light.
On February the tenth in the Year of Grace 1186, Abbot Malchus yielded his body to plague and his spirit to the Almighty. It was fitting that he should die on the first day of Lent; his tenure had been characterized by self-denial and all within his shadow had been denied things temporal. Nevertheless, he had served his chapter vigorously and was mourned by most. The abbey’s priest blessed his soul and his remains were laid to rest in the monks’ graveyard to await the Resurrection.
The abbey had grown and prospered in Malchus’s final years. He had built a small scriptorium, complete with its own separate cloister, and he had been quite pleased with its construction. He had added storehouses and granaries to the perimeter walls; a herbarium, chapter house, and stable were built, as well as a dormitory for the men-at-arms that were occasionally quartered as guests. His only failure was that of not wresting the abbey from control of the archbishop.
After Malchus’s death, Pope Urban III, near death himself and railing against Emperor Barbarossa, sent his legate to Mainz recommending a friend, Stephen of Ghent, as a candidate for Villmar’s growing abbey. Stephen had a worthy pedigree, himself once a lord in Flanders. He had earned a fortune shipping textiles down the Skelt River and just four years prior had been feasting in the huge hall of Count Phillip’s castle.
Stephen had set aside his earthly treasures and took the vows of St. Benedict in order to serve as a brother in the vast French complex of Cluny. It seemed an odd decision at first, at least to his fellows. Many lords left their fortunes in old age to join a monastery, but it was clear they were simply guarding their souls as they faced death. Stephen, however, was not an old lord. He had just seen his thirty-third year, and some wondered what crime he was evading. “Christ,” he claimed, “gave His life at precisely this same age,” and Stephen chose to follow in kind.
The new abbot had learned the Rule quickly and rose in stature among his humble brethren—a paradox that earned the cynical eye of his superiors. However, as his peers feared, it seemed his former life had, indeed, reflected advantage into his new one, and he had been sent first to St. Bertin as prior, and now to Villmar as abbot.
Abbot Stephen addressed his brethren with grave humility and serious deportment. His reputation had preceded his arrival on Holy Saturday, the twenty-eighth of March, 1186, and the sixty monks and twelve novices gathered on the gradines of their new chapter house listened with respect. He instructed them on the virtues of the Rule, of the need for discipline, of the virtue of prudence, the necessity of industry, the vice of sloth, and the wrath of God. When he had finished he washed their feet, prayed over each head, and blessed every soul with a psalm.
On the Monday following, the new abbot invited Prior Paulus to his ample table. As he spread honey on fresh-baked wheat bread, Stephen shared God’s will for the aging prior. “Good Paulus,” he began, “you have served Almighty God humbly and with great effect.”
Paulus bowed, outwardly modest, but secretly pleased.
“I am told by the archbishop that you have filled the treasury of God’s kingdom here in Villmar.”
Again, Paulus bowed.
“It is my wish, good brother, that you shall serve us yet.”
Paulus smiled, relieved and encouraged.
Stephen paused. He leaned into his chair comfortably and stroked his beard. “Brother … might I ask your age?”
Paulus was suddenly uneasy. “Though I am uncertain, brother Stephen, I do believe I am near to fifty and five.”
“Hmm. And what of your health?”
Paulus became nervous. “I… I am fit of mind and body… if I may say so humbly.” The man bowed his head.
“Brother, I have taken you before God’s throne and have asked His wisdom for thy welfare.” Stephen laid a hand firmly on the prior’s shoulder. “And He has spoken.”
Paulus waited, now anxious. He closed his eyes.
“You can, this very day, rejoice! You shall retire thyself to the dormitory for our blessed aged ones. Go with God’s blessing, my brother.”
Early April was soggy and muddy as usual. The footpaths of the damp village were rutted and puddled, the road to Villmar riddled with washouts and trenches. The sky seemed eternally gray and the barren trees were still stripped of life, save the stubborn buds now swelling on their dreary branches.
In Weyer, the foretokens of spring had not yet nudged the folk to joy. Though the thrush had begun to sing in the wood and swallows danced along the wind, the peasants of the village were huddled in fear. It was not because the neighboring borders of Mensfelden had been granted to Tomas of Goslar. None knew of this vassal and none cared, so long as he had no lust for the abbey’s land. Indeed, the leagues and alliances of lords and kings meant little unless they brought the sword.
Instead, the simple people of the village trembled in dread of a plague that had swept upon them in the weeks of Lent. Many now suffered with fever, racking coughs, and horrible eruptions of the skin. Dozens had died despite the heroic efforts of Brother Lukas. The monk was, himself, under the weight of reprimand, for his superior had forbidden him to serve beyond the monastery’s walls. Nevertheless, the man had been determined to suffer what penance would be later required in order to give what comfort he could to body and to soul. “Scrofula,” he muttered in a quaking prayer. “May God have mercy on us all.”
The households of Arnold and Baldric were spared the plague—or at least the agonies it savaged upon others. Though none of them were bedbound, each was required to shoulder the burden of their village fellows and perform both their own labors as well as those of the stricken. Herwin and Telek spent long, difficult days ploughing the stubborn earth and sowing the precious seed.
The women also strained beneath the additional burden. Gisela and Varina spent their days bent in half, planting demesne peas with sharp sticks, churning sheep milk for cheese, or carding wool. At day’s end they hoed, manured, and planted their own gardens; and as charity demanded, they did the same for the gardens of their neighbors. The reward would be green rows of peas and beans, garlic, leeks, lentils, cabbage, onions, and the like—all desperately needed food in the months to come.
For his part, twelve-year-old Heinrich rose at matins each day and rode to Villmar with the brewer to begin his work in the bakery. Then, before the bells of prime, he returned to Weyer with the peasants’ bread that he sold in the commons for pennies, or for eggs, fowl, or herbs. By terce, with three hours of sunlight already gone, he presented the fees to Reeve Lenard who, in turn, held them safe until the next morning’s ride to the abbey. Then, though having already worked nine hours, the lad joined Herwin and Telek in the fields.
By the end of April the barley and oats were sown, the fallow fields turned and fertilized, and peasants’ crofts planted and waiting on the faithful sun of May. Baldric’s friend Dietrich was now the monks’ miller for Weyer, and their mill, located along the Laubusbach at the village edge, was in desperate need of attention. So, in addition to all ot
her tasks, all able-bodied men and boys were forced to work on repairing the mill, for in a few short months its service would give purpose to all the labors of spring.
At twelve and a half, Heinrich was beginning to take the shape of a man. His growth lagged behind others of his age, though his shoulders were beginning to broaden. Most thought he resembled his round-faced father, Kurt, though the boy had not yet gained his father’s burly bulk. His hair was now reddish brown—some might call it auburn. It curled and looped and shone in the sun. His manner reminded some of his mother’s father, for he was calm and gentle, sensitive to the suffering of others, and friendly to all. Yet the lad could be angered and stubborn, and was given to hiding his feelings. He spent much time in melancholy and reflection, and suffered the superstitious fears of his mother. He gave great weight to things of heaven and hell and was given to night torments and dreams. Baldric boasted the boy was finally “well-shamed,” and, indeed, the lad had grown to be ever more bound and fettered by the demands and expectations of others. Little did he know how his world was shaping him for things to come.
On a Sabbath in June, Heinrich raced from Mass with cousin Richard toward the beloved gardens of Frau Emma and her son. Ingly worked long days with the cotters in the monks’ demesne—ploughing, sowing, harrowing, weeding, and serving at whatever task the season called him to perform. He was gentle, still slow of mind, but grand of heart. He bore the jeers and taunts of others with a grace he learned from his mother’s godly ways and offered kindness for insult at every turn.
The boys charged to the woman’s wattled fence and leapt over it like happy deer. Forgetting their manners, they burst through her door without warning and stumbled across her earthen floor. Emma screamed with a start. “Ach! Boys! Can y’not knock on m’door!”
The two stood perfectly still, embarrassed and surprised by her anger. Richard spoke first. “Beggin’ pardon, Frau Emma. We’d no right to rush in like that.” His eyes moved away from her and fell upon what appeared to be a parchment setting atop her scribe’s table.