by C. D. Baker
But, despite the cries of the angry folk, the sentence was quickly executed. Little Albert was hoisted four feet off the ground where he flailed on the end of the rope for nearly a quarter of an hour. Little by little the throng of peasants fell silent and stood stupefied until, at long last, the boy hung limp and lifeless.
As Albert’s body was lowered into a waiting cart, the disgusted crowd began to grumble, then to shout. They shook their fists impotently against the dark sky and cursed the order before them. Indeed, something good had happened in that awful place: mercy had been awakened in the hearts of the simple folk. And more, they had learned how much greater mercy was than justice—if only they would remember.
Visions of the hanging kept Wil awake at night for months. The boy tossed and turned and whimpered in the darkness. Heinrich lay by his side through the blackest hours of those nights and gently rubbed his forearms, stroked his hair, or hummed a gentle rhyme.
Karl was spared the trauma of the hanging, as Heinrich had wisely hidden the boy’s eyes from the horror of the sight. He was ever cheerful and chattered about each bright imagination that filled his happy mind at any given moment. The boy was endearing to all and eager to win the approval of anyone within sight of his smiling face. He was a blessed gift in a dreary place.
In the passing seasons Marta grew more distant, ever more miserable, and unbearably demanding. Her children were all that was dear to her, though she was often impatient with their troubles and annoyed with their unordered ways. Nevertheless, she wanted to receive their love and affection and she longed for their companionship. It was the weight of her expectations, however, that so often snuffed out the natural warmth the young hearts yearned to tender. So, unable or unwilling to see her own failings, the woman exacted penalties of increasing proportion. Fearful of God, disappointed in her world, and ashamed of herself, the poor woman hardened with every new sorrow that life delivered to her door.
“Wife,” offered Heinrich one autumn evening, “you seem so unhappy. You …”
“’Tis you! ‘Tis you and the children, you are making me mad! Methinks I shall surely lose m’mind!” Marta glared at Heinrich with scalding eyes.
The man detected more pain than evil and his heart grew sad at her suffering. “I … I wish y’to be more at peace, more—”
“You’ve brought naught but ruin to me. You’d not be the man I thought you to be; the children are not what they ought. None thinks of me and m’work. You never please me. And you’d be no man of business as is m’father … nay … not at all. If I could manage that bakery I’d show all how it’s better done! You’ve no ambition. Y’spend your time in thinking and daydreaming with that old hag.” Marta laughed a sneering, wicked laugh, and put her finger in her husband’s face. “And I know you’ve secret sins … ‘tis why we’ve buried three!”
Her words found their mark and Heinrich stood mute and ashamed. Indeed, he thought, he was a sinner to be sure. Marta was right, he did harbor secret sins. How often had he wished his wife would die? What about the Gunnar blood he spilt that horrid night? Were they not two charges of murder? How he coveted the bakery for his own. And his dreams of Katharina, another’s wife, were images that accused his pricked and knotted conscience. But more than all these, he knew his heart was filled with a secret hate for those who had bound his eyes to the ground. Oh, how he longed to break his vow and face the sun—a temptation that twisted through him on every blue-skied day. Yet his hatred for the vow and the God he thought demanded it filled him with guilt all the more, and in despair he nearly wept aloud. He closed his eyes. I am a wicked man! he thought. I am a coward as well, for I will not confess these to any. My heart is filled with murder, hatred, idolatry, adultery, covetousness, theft, envy, and pride. I shall surely burn-—and these others with me as well. Heinrich stared blankly at Marta’s back as she stormed away. She, a woman bound in fear, and he, a man bound in shame. Together they suffered the firstfruits of Adam’s fall.
The weary man turned and faced the gaze of his two sons sitting cross-legged by the hearth. He sighed and sat beside them, poking mindlessly at the fire.
“Father,” said Wil, “I fear to sleep again. I fear I shall dream of poor Albert on the rope.”
Heinrich put his finger under the lad’s chin. He looked at Wil for a moment. Handsome, he thought. Strong features like his mother. Melancholy and troubled like both his mother and m’self. The man smiled kindly at his son. “Ah, lad, dreams are often what we make them to be. When you dream this night, dream of Blasius with his long, yellow hair. Dream that you are he. Then mount a big-chested steed and gallop from the darkness toward the torches. Then, as you come by Albert, swing your sword with all your might and cut that cursed rope! Ha… won’t that anger the bailiff! Then catch the lad and set him behind you on your horse. With a yell turn and charge toward your brother and me. We shall open a path midst your fellows and off you shall ride to a place far away and safe!”
Wil brightened. “Ja, I shall save him! And then I shall save others!”
Heinrich nodded and lifted Wil high toward the smoke hole in the ceiling. “Fly, lad, fly like the embers, far, far away … and be free!”
Chapter 15
LOSSES
Since Gottwald’s death Heinrich had spent each All Souls’ Eve with Emma. The night was one of great sadness for the woman and she treasured the company of her friend. As Heinrich walked to her home on this particular November night, he sensed her time was short. Emma had battled her illness bravely and without complaint for the past several years. In the summer just past she was barely fit enough to walk in the garden and had spent only a few precious hours at the Magi with Heinrich and his boys. Of late she had become bedridden, ashen, and pale. No potion helped, though Brother Lukas tried many.
“Greetings!” Heinrich offered as he closed the door behind himself. A lump filled his throat as he tried to smile. His Butterfly Frau was lying atop her straw mattress with her head resting on a goose feather pillow. Lukas sat quietly by her side. He had arrived at Emma’s cottage just after vespers with a flask of chicken broth smuggled from the refectory. The two friends had spent a quiet hour together before Heinrich joined them.
Above Emma’s head hung a season’s worth of dried flowers and herbs that filled her home with a musky scent more potent than the sweet smoke of her spruce-log hearth. She breathed lightly and was half-asleep but smiled as Heinrich came to her side.
“Ah, good and dear friend,” she said slowly, “I am so … so very thankful to God that you have come to see me on this night.”
Heinrich knelt by her. “Dear Emma. I am thankful to be here.”
Lukas wiped her head with a scented napkin. “Rosemary and flower of thistle.”
“What does that do?” asked Heinrich.
Lukas shrugged. “I don’t really know, but I like the sound of it.”
Emma laughed weakly until her eyes watered. “Ach, Lukas! Do not ever change!”
The monk grinned. “Now, sister. It is you who taught we must always change!”
Emma coughed and chuckled. “Ah, and so I did, so I did.” Her voice faded a little. “Heinrich, all is in order with your land. I’ve received the rents and I’ve given them to Blasius, that wondrous Templar.” She grimaced and clutched her chest. The pain passed quickly and she went on. “The prior is furious … I must confess, I like that somewhat.” She smiled. “He wants your land very badly. It seems Gottwald …” Another pain gripped her and this time she cried out.
Heinrich backed away and let Lukas comfort the woman. The monk held her to his chest and entreated God’s mercy with a desperate prayer. The two were still for a few moments until the pain eased, and the woman wiped the tears off the brother’s kind face. She smiled at him and turned to Heinrich once more. “Gottwald granted your land in the very center of what he gave to the abbey! He was an old fox, ha! An old, gray fox indeed. He knew the abbey would offer a heavy price for it.”
“But Emma, I want it t
o be your land, always. I…”
“Ah, dear boy. You know that cannot be. I am ready to die, quite ready, indeed. Brother Lukas brought a priest from the abbey for my final confession just an hour before you came. I think he was angry I did not die right away; he thinks he wasted a trip!” She chuckled, then paused. “I told him the suffering of Christ was the only penance I need look to. I told him the perfection of Christ was all the goodness I might claim. He said I was strident.” The woman sighed peacefully, then closed her eyes in sleep.
The monk and the baker sat quietly alongside Emma’s bed for an hour or so, when a sudden pain awakened her. She grimaced. Lukas bathed her head and prayed with her. She then fixed a glassy stare on Heinrich. “Hear me, lad, m’precious little Heinz, look past what you see, and truth shall find you.”
Heinrich glanced anxiously at Lukas as tears blurred his red eyes. He held the woman’s cooling hands in his. Emma’s face whitened and her lips began to lose their color. She drew a halting breath, then slowly whispered, “Spread your wings, m’dear one, lift your head and turn toward the—”
The blessed woman lurched in her bed and cried out. A cold wind suddenly draughted the hearth smoke downward through the smoke-hole, and Emma’s room instantly filled with a choking smoke. The weeping baker lunged to the door and flung it open. It was then, as the cold, clean air of All Souls’ Eve poured into the good woman’s cottage, that Emma’s spirit fluttered away, like a summer’s butterfly to her Maker’s wondrous gardens now readied and waiting on the far side of the sun.
Emma’s burial was as her life had been: simple and unassuming but touched by an unearthly beauty. Father Albert, Pious’s new assistant, prayed earnestly for her soul while Heinrich, Wil, Karl, Brother Lukas, Richard, Herwin, and Varina stood solemnly around her grave. A warm southern breeze caressed the tear-stained faces staring sadly at the shrouded remains of their good friend. A few songbirds then lighted atop the sturdy tower of the ancient church and sang as though sent by the angels to soothe the aching hearts below. But when the final words were spoken and the last shovel of brown earth fell atop Emma’s mounded grave, the birds flew away, and with them their sweet tidings.
With wet cheeks the mourners returned to the tasks and burdens of the day. Each faced the labors of autumn as they had every year before. Herwin joined the men in the forests setting fences for the swineherd. Varina returned to her children and sat in her damp, smoke-choked hut to spin the fleeces of spring-sheared wool. Lukas slipped away to the banks of the Laubusbach, and Heinrich walked his boys home.
The baker led his lads slowly along the footpaths of the village and said little. Karl, however, babbled on and on in his cheerful way, chattering of the simple, happy times spent with Emma. “Vati! She made me laugh and she taught me riddles!”
Heinrich smiled. “Aye, boy. I’ve yet to solve the one of the rooster and the chick!”
Karl laughed. He was sharp as a saddler’s needle. “Ha, Vati, and if you do, I’ve another!”
“Your riddles are stupid,” grumbled Wil. “And this is no day to laugh, you dolt.”
“Boys, no fights. Wil, the prior says you shall start school on Monday next. You’ll join a group of fine young lords from other parts and a few oblates. ‘Tis a wondrous thing. Frau Emma was so happy for it. Karl, in a few more years you’ll have the promise too.”
Wil wrinkled his nose. “I shall be with oblates?”
“Aye, mostly.”
“But the oblates are most of good blood.”
Heinrich nodded. “You and your brother are of good stock as well.”
“The son of a baker and the grandson of a miller? Everyone hates Grandpapa, and you … you are plain and …”
Heinrich drew a deep breath. “Aye, lad. I am a simple man, but you and Karl are blessed with a special gift from a great-grandpapa who even I never knew.”
The three then talked of other things until reaching their hovel where they entered the door to find Marta and Dietrich deep in conversation. “Father,” Marta said dispassionately, “you know I shall care for you. I shall—”
“What is the matter?” asked Heinrich.
“The prior has ordered Father from the mill. Too old,’ he says. But Father is yet strong and the mill is working well and—”
“Enough, daughter,” groaned Dietrich. “It is true, Heinrich. Others have been sent to run the mill. But I’ve other news as well.” He looked at Marta nervously.
Heinrich sat on a stool and his boys leaned curiously against the cottage walls. “Yes, go on.” Dietrich looked old to Heinrich. Indeed, the man was now in his fifties. What hair edged the sides of his head was white and sparse, his teeth were gone, and he had become bony and feeble.
“I’ve a bit of a problem. I’ve lost a wager with that devil Horst, the brother of Friedal. I thought sure of the thing and pledged m’house and chattels as good faith. I only wanted to win some shillings for a day such as this so you’d need not care for me and—”
“You lost your house and all what’s in it?” cried Marta.
Dietrich hung his head. “Ja, ‘tis so.”
Marta stared at her father in disbelief. “If Mother were alive she’d … she’d … how could you—”
“Marta,” interrupted Heinrich, “perhaps we can plead to Horst for charity and—”
“Charity? Nay! Never! My good word is all I’ve left to me and I shall not lose that as well, no, I shall not!”
Heinrich looked at Marta and at his sons with a stomach turning like a pail of curdling milk. “M’brother, Axel is to move out, methinks during the Advent. You shall live here and we shall provide for you.” The words fell from the man’s lips like heavy bricks. But Heinrich knew his duty.
Dietrich nodded and reached for his daughter. “Marta, Marta, I knew you would help. May heaven bless you.”
The woman stiffened and stared at him hard-eyed and bitter. She had not forgiven him for little Lukas’s death, though she was pleased he had suffered at least a bit for it. Ach! she thought. Another sorrow to endure…
The man embraced her for a moment, then he turned to Heinrich. “I shall help you in the bake-house.”
A pang cut through Heinrich’s chest. “I’ve apprentices from the monks and m’lboys, I’ve hands enough, I …” A sharp look from Marta finished his sentence. “I … might always use another, though.”
Dietrich smiled. “Of course you can.”
Advent brought its usual cheer to what was otherwise a dismal time of year. The air was cold and damp, the slaughter finished. Taxes and fines were paid and the village now waited expectantly for the feasts of Christmas. The labors of this season were easier than many, for little could be done other than the repair of workshops, roofs, and fences. For both serf and monk it was a time of blessed respite, but for Wil it was a time for work to begin.
The cloister fast had started on the fifteenth of November and the monks were about one third through their suffering when young Wil was brought to the eastern gate. A cranky, hungry porter greeted the lad and his father with a curt and insincere, “Deo gratias. Thanks be to God.”
Heinrich bowed. “I’ve my son to see the school.”
The porter stared at the two in disbelief, but he gave them entrance and led them to the prior’s chamber. Wil had seen the inside of the abbey only once before. He marveled at the busy workshops and granaries lining the wall, and gawked at the tall stacks of beer barrels. The gray-stoned church loomed large and ominous at the very center of the abbey grounds, its stout bell tower facing the east. Wil paused to stare at the church for a moment before looking beyond it into the maze of garden walls and orchards that lay beyond. He then looked to his right to study the collection of stone-and-timber buildings forming the cloister itself.
“Over there,” Heinrich said, “is the refectory where the monks eat, the infirmary for their sick, the dormitories, kitchen, scriptorium, covered walkways, and, of course, the latrine.”
“Where does Lukas live?”
>
“There, in that dormitory.” Heinrich lowered his voice. “Lukas says he is going to take a vow of solitude with hopes of being put in a private cell. He says he finds the brethren a bit of a bother!”
Wil laughed, earning a stern glance from their escort. Heinrich pointed to Lukas’s new herbarium standing in the center of a huge, cross-shaped garden to their left. “That is where our friend spends most of his day.”
The porter led the pair along a well-worn, stone footpath past the gardens, a fish pond, and toward the abbot’s grand residence and another set of buildings near the southern wall. He said nothing until they reached the prior’s chamber. “In nomine Patris …” The monk knelt before the two and washed their feet as he prayed for them. When the man was done he recited, “God, we have received Your mercy in the midst of Your temple.”
Wil was wide-eyed and uncomfortable when the brother gave him a kiss of peace, but when he offered a sweet roll and a strip of salted fish, the boy grinned from ear to ear!
“Please, sit yourselves here. Brother Mattias shall join you shortly.” The porter showed the two to a couple of comfortable wooden chairs setting adjacent to a blazing hearth and quickly stepped away.
The room was plain, damp, and shadowed, lit only by firelight and what sunbeams pressed their way through two shuttered windows on the southern wall. A large desk sat opposite the hearth and a smaller scribe’s table was placed next to it. A few simple chairs and a stool were arranged on top of a woven carpet.
“Peace be unto you,” a voice suddenly said.
Wil and Heinrich turned to see Prior Mattias and his clerk. “And to you,” answered Heinrich as he and his son stood.
“You have been greeted and fed?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, if it please you, I shall sit by my desk.”