by C. D. Baker
Vincenzo introduced each by name. “Father Arturo of Rome, Father Florian of Lombardy, and Sister Anoush of Armenia. Only sister speaks your tongue well.”
Heinrich nodded to each, then turned to the aged nun. He bowed respectfully.
Anoush wore a simple nun’s gown, a homespun white habit with a plain black apron. Her hair was covered by a black hood. Nearly bent in two by more than eighty years of life, the kindly sister smiled and took Heinrich’s hand in her own—one curled and knotted by years of difficult labor. “Dear boy,” she began, “sit with us.” Heinrich felt good; he hadn’t been called “boy” for a very long time! The sister’s voice was as clear as her shining brown eyes. “Don Vincenzo has shown us your letter, and we spent the New Year’s Eve in fasting and prayers of thanksgiving.” She was pious, but not pretentious. She leaned close to Heinrich and wiggled her finger for him to lower his ear. She whispered, “Truth is they spent most of their time speaking of today’s Feast of Fools at the Ruffini’s!” She chuckled.
Heinrich smiled. He felt safe with the aged nun. Her face was wrinkled and spongy, her smiling mouth vacant of all teeth. She was tiny and frail and her expression wistful, yet she exuded a quality of love that struck Heinrich as heaven-sent.
“Dear boy,” she said slowly. “I am instructed by Don Vincenzo to entreat your cause for penance. It is time to bare all to these three priests.”
Heinrich had dreaded this moment from the day he left Stettin. The litany of his sins and failings was one that he was weary of recounting. Yet duty was now upon him and it was time to sit before God’s chosen to receive their wisdom. The judgment was imminent and he must not falter.
The man lowered his head in shame and told his story. He began with Baldric’s scorn for his sloth as a child, then spoke of his release of the reeve’s dog, the vow, the slaughter of the Gunnars, his hatred of Baldric, his hatred of Marta, and his affections for Katharina. He wandered through his life backward and forward. He confessed his temptations to break his vow, the confusions of his faith, and finally admitted to the killing of Richard’s murderer and the striking of Father Pious.
That done, he went on to acknowledge his treason on behalf of the Stedingers; of lies and ill-will, of selfishness, pride, and of undeserved joy. The man groaned and wept for the better part of an hour, earnestly descending into each dark chamber of his heart in a desperate search to fling open every door. He feared to forget a single act, lest his penance be futile.
When finished, he stood exhausted and trembling. Anoush wiped tears from the deep furrows of her cheeks and held the man’s arm with her two hands. She leaned against him and prayed while the priests huddled.
After a half hour of low murmurs, Father Vincenzo announced they had come to a decision, and Anoush was asked to interpret as he spoke the pronouncement.
Heinrich stiffened and waited bravely. The priests folded their hands and bowed. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, I begin.”
Anoush held Heinrich’s sweating hand in her own. She looked up at him sadly over a shoulder now stooped even farther as if the weight of the man’s melancholy had come upon her as well. Her voice was strong and soothing as she translated the edict of the priests: “As the relic-bearer you have earned a right to our charity and we are here to return you to the fold of God’s beloved. By your own witness your sins are both mortal and venial. Your words accuse you rightly as an evil man in grave peril. But our Lord is not without mercy, nor the Virgin Mother.
“First, this very day you shall enter into the confessional to receive absolution.
“Second, for your temporal indulgence hear this. We concur that eighteen months is a fitting time for you to serve God and man in penance. Now hear us: you must wear the hair shirt and breeches each day and each night. You shall be the bell ringer for this church at every ringing of every day, bar none other than if excused for other labors. Whether by sickness or by injury, by weariness or distress, you are without excuse. In mornings, you shall assist in the baking of bread for the poor children we serve. In afternoons, you shall serve this humble church as courier, transporter, wagoner, and the like. In evenings, you shall lie prostrate before the altar and recite two Pater Nosters for each known sin committed, and one Ave Maria for each known sin yet harbored in your heart. At the bells of matins, you shall awaken and walk barefoot to St. Giovani’s. There you shall lie prostrate at the base of the Sclara Santa and recite alternating Aves and Paters for each of its twenty-eight steps.”
To Anoush’s horror, Vincenzo then yawned and sighed. He shrugged as he continued. “These are our commands; these are the words of your Holy Church. Kneel before me and swear now that you shall keep this penance and the vow of your own past. Swear to keep it whole.”
Heinrich’s mouth was dry and he was sweating. He felt bound again, trapped within the order he had hoped would save him. He wanted to run away. For no apparent reason, a vision of Katharina and the Christmas star falling through the night’s sky at Weyer’s church suddenly filled his mind. For all its pleasure, the simple memory damned him all the more. With a groan the man bent slowly to his knee and yielded. “I… I so swear.”
“Strength and mercy to you, my son. Come to us on the thirtieth day of June in the year 1212 and swear on the relic that you have brought that you have so obeyed your penance, and we shall bless your return home, you and your family absolved in heaven and on earth from all your wicked past.”
Heinrich could not speak. He lifted his head and swallowed hard on the lump clogging his throat. He looked to Anoush whose eyes were filled with compassion and whose cheeks were wet with tears. She led the poor wretch from Vincenzo’s chamber and toward his cell. Somewhere in the dark corridors he heard her murmur softly, “This is not the way.”
At dawn, Heinrich exchanged his own clothing for a shirt and breeches made of unscraped leather worn hair-side against his own skin. Thin sandals were bound to his feet and a threadbare, woollen, hooded cape hung atop his shoulders. Anoush escorted him quickly through the church’s dormant gardens and hurried him toward the sanctuary. She paused outside the door as the bells of prime rang, waiting patiently to present him with a gift. She smiled. “The sun is just right!”
Santa Maria in Domnica was a simple rectangle some thirty-five paces long and twenty-two wide. It had been built of gray stone blocks nearly four hundred years prior to Heinrich’s arrival. Its modest exterior belied a nave of rare beauty, for the stones of the interior walls were alternating pastels of pink and gray, some further graced by borders of blue or gold. It was designed like a small basilica in that it had a broad nave separated from side aisles by ten columned archways that rose to form the outer wall of a second story. The rear western wall was built as a large, semi-circular apse which contained the altar.
“Come, Heinrich, my boy. Enter with me. I should be pleased, however, if you would drop your eye to the floor until I ask you to raise it.” She was giddy as a young girl on May Day morn.
Heinrich had about enough of head-bending, and the hair itching at his skin was making him irritable. He obliged the tittering woman, nonetheless, and let her lead him like a blind man down the center aisle toward the altar.
The woman positioned him carefully and took a deep breath. “Now, Heinrich, look up!”
Heinrich lifted his head and as he did his mouth dropped open. His throat immediately swelled and tears formed. The morning sun of the new year was pouring through the windows of the wall behind him and splashing its light across a glittering mosaic that filled the concave apse. Shimmering before him were the colors of the Creation: green and blue, red, gold, and white. But there was more. It was a mosaic like none other in all Christendom, for in the concave hollow of the apse it displayed the Virgin and the Holy Child surrounded by angels and seated in a garden of flowers! “Flowers! Mein Gott… ‘tis Emma’s garden!” he cried.
Slowly, Heinrich moved closer. The vault was bordered by strips of gold and flowers of blue and red. To one
side stood Moses, on the other, Elijah, both with flowers at their feet. Above the arch sat the Christ on a rainbow “Ach, a rainbow!” exclaimed Heinrich. “And look … are they the apostles approaching him from either side?”
Anoush was weeping for joy. “Ja, good Heinrich.” She had sensed something special about the melancholy pilgrim from the moment she had first seen him. The way his spirit rose to the beauty of the mosaic affirmed her hopes. She was sure that he, like her, might understand what such light and color said about the true heart of the God they served.
The stoop-shouldered sister and the shaggy German stood silently before the glory of the ancient display until Don Vincenzo grumbled his way into the nave. “To work!” he commanded. The two hesitated, then, with sighs and obedient nods, they parted. Sister Anoush bade Heinrich a reluctant farewell and scurried to her beloved children. For his part, Heinrich pulled his lingering eye away from the enchanting vision and followed Vincenzo to the bakehouse in the garden behind the church. He began his first day of penance with his hand deep in dough.
After ringing the bells of midnight matins, Heinrich took the Norse sea captain’s necklace from the bottom of his satchel and began the quarter hour jaunt to the Palace of St. John Lateran. St. John’s, or St. Giovanni as the Romans called it, was known as the “Mother and Head of All Churches in the City and the World.” The first basilica built in Rome, it was the official church of the early Roman Christians. The infants of these ancient Christian families had been baptized beneath the waters of its black tub for centuries.
In the palace attached to the basilica, the pope maintained his residence as his predecessors had done for nearly a thousand years before. And on the second story of the eastern end of the massive complex was the pope’s private chapel, the Sancta Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies.
That dark night, Pope Innocent III prayed in the Sancta Sanctorum while, unbeknownst to him, Heinrich of Weyer stood trembling in a nearby courtyard. The pope had recently excommunicated Lord Otto, his original choice for emperor of the Germans. Surrounded by relics such as the thorny crown of the Christ, nails from the cross, and, as some had sworn, the very heads of Saints Peter and Paul, Innocent now prayed earnestly for his new choice for emperor, the child, Friederich II.
Heinrich fidgeted with the Norseman’s simple, silver necklace while he followed directions to the Scala Santa. The Holy Stairs once led to Pilate’s judgment hall in Jerusalem; it was the very same stairway that Jesus had tread upon on the way to his trial before his crucifixion. Removed to Rome some eight hundred years before, they now brought comfort and assurance to the many souls wishing to follow in their Savior’s steps. Penitents through the ages had climbed the deep-set, twenty-eight marble stairs upon their knees, pausing at each to pray or recite an Ave or Pater Noster. Some fortunate few would be greeted with a holy kiss by the pope himself, to whose residence this stairway climbed.
Heinrich would not be so fortunate, but he felt awed and humbled in the cold night’s air as he bent his knee to the first step. Pausing to recite his words, he then climbed upward, one at time, slowly and carefully. He was told the blood of Jesus still stained the gray marble, but in the torchlight the man could not see to kiss the marks. Upon reaching the top, he laid the silver chain on the last step and recited both an Ave and a Pater. A grumbling guard snatched the necklace and put it promptly into his pocket. He muttered something in his own tongue and motioned for Heinrich to descend.
The pilgrim paused, certain the old sailor would have been disappointed, then obeyed by backing slowly downward on his aching knees. He reached the bottom and stood quietly, then turned and walked the long slope up to his little cell in Santa Maria in Domnica.
The weeks that followed proved to be difficult for the baker of Weyer. His skin was badly broken by the hair garments. Rashes became oozing sores, especially over his shoulders and thighs. But he reasoned that such agony was fitting for a season of penance and refused the pleas of Sister Anoush for treatment. Finally, however, on Holy Saturday, the twenty-fourth of March, the miserable man relented. He reached into his hidden rucksack and sprinkled salt upon his miseries and did so for the fortnight to follow.
By May Day his sores had healed and his skin had roughened in a way that it no longer suffered the abrasions of the clothes. Though the man was relieved for it, he felt ashamed as well. He had come to pay for his past, to immerse himself in a baptism of misery that might wash away his failings. It was the way of his order and he clung with desperate resolve to the notions it had planted so deeply within his soul.
But Heinrich could scarcely bear the frustration he felt and the growing contempt in which he held himself. “I come to pay a penance, yet I yearn for comfort and healing. I do duties that become easier each day. Woe to me … woe to me!”
On a rainy day near May’s end he handed old Anoush his remaining salt. “For the children. I have been greedy and selfish … I should have given it before.” He then reached into his satchel and retrieved his gold coins and what silver pennies he still had. “And take these idols from me. I’ve no right to them. Feed the poor, clothe the naked.” He set the pouch into the astonished nun’s palms and turned away.
On the first of June he announced an added penance. To Anoush’s horror and the priests’ affirmation, he would begin to crawl on his belly to St. John’s each night; it seemed a way to suffer more. So for weeks on end the man did just that. In the dark hours past each midnight he dragged himself through the rough rubble and fouled gutters of Rome to the Holy Stairs where he muttered his repetitions. He then crawled home to lie alone in his cell until prime when a new day of hard labor would began.
Heinrich lived this way through the months of June and July, but after ringing the bells of prime on a glorious August dawn, the man collapsed in tears. He moaned like a wounded bull as he railed against himself with yet more failings. “Methinks me mad! I hate this penance and in m’hatred I sin again!” He lay trembling and confused until the gentle hand of Sister Anoush startled him.
Sister Anoush had spent hours in her gardens reflecting on her friend’s misery and in earnest prayer on his behalf. “Dear, dear Heinrich. How can I help you?”
The haggard, gaunt penitent sat up, hollow-eyed and drawn. His beard was long, his hair unkempt. He had lost his bulk, his clothing smelled, and his breath was hard. “I … I fear I am beyond hope.”
“Nay, never.” Anoush took him firmly by the hand. “Poor wretch, you are bound to something other than wisdom’s way. You must find the courage to change … the courage to turn outside of yourself.”
Heinrich looked away.
The old woman embraced the man. “I pray this caterpillar bursts from his bondage … I pray you become a butterfly and fly away from the gutters of Rome!” Her words chilled the man.
By St. Michael’s Day, Anoush’s prayer was not yet answered. Heinrich stubbornly held to his vow and sank ever further into an abyss of melancholy and despair. He sought new ways to purge whatever undeserved respite tempted him from his path, and to Anoush’s great sadness, he finally refused to look upon the mosaic, once cursing it for the gladness it had given him.
His obsession became entangled with depression which, in turn, gave way to indolence. His sluggish ways did not go unnoticed, and on a cold Advent evening Father Vincenzo lost all patience with the man. “Sloth is a vice!” he shouted. “And sins require penance!” Heinrich groaned.
Vincenzo, of course, was surely a poor model. Content to mutter his liturgy and slump about his chambers, the man had little business crushing reeds already bruised. No longer a zealot who simply misused the faith, he had become indifferent to the pursuit of truth altogether.
“Give no more heed to Don Vincenzo … or Father Arturo for that matter,” pleaded Anoush. She now admitted a deep and secret heartache long denied. “They suffer a worse terror than you. They are miserable, cruel men who serve a meaningless god. They are men of religion and not of faith.”
Poor Anoush was
exasperated with Heinrich. She pleaded and consoled, admonished and instructed. She urged the man to abandon his penance and save his life. She urged him to listen to the counsel of songbirds instead of priests, and to hear the wind whispering for change. But, alas, January had passed and February was upon them. The songbirds were silent and the winds blew damp and cold. She could do no more than help the stubborn sufferer to his bed and weep for him in the dark of night.
Chapter 24
ANFECHTUNG AND PURPOSE
He is being called the ‘Worm of Santa Maria’s! ‘” Father Vincenzo laughed. “I think the name is good. Look at the fool.”
Sister Anoush laid a hard eye on her superior. “This ‘worm’ is an uncommon man, Pater. He has taken your ways deep within himself… far to excess, perhaps to their natural end.” She doubted that Vincenzo had the courage to do the same.
“Ah, the ways,” scoffed Vincenzo. “The blessed ways.”
Anoush helped Heinrich to his feet after he crawled the final few rods to the church door. It was a cold night, the sixth of February in 1212. Though it was three hours past midnight, the priests and nuns were gathering for prayer to begin the Great Lent. “Dear boy, dear boy,” groaned Anoush. “You must end this penance before you die. I hear you in the night, wheezing and coughing.” She held a smoky torch over her head. “And I see you’ve lost more teeth.”
Heinrich could say little. He was weak and desperate, obsessed with purging every vestige of comfort or island of strength that might yet be found within. Even glimmers of hope needed to be extinguished, for he imagined the very sense of any good thing was undeserved. Each night’s painful crawl to the Holy Stairs was a tortuous punishment, yet with every sharp edge that cut into his belly the man felt relief. Even his relief, however, caused him shame, for he was certain that such odd pleasure was, itself, a joy that voided the very purpose of his penance.