The Blessing Stone

by Barbara Wood

  When Katharina returned to the bed with the ribbon box, Isabella said, “Now I must…tell you. Katharina. Be strong. Ask God for strength. It is time for you to know the truth.”

  The girl waited. Dr. Mahmoud leaned forward. A bee flew in through the open window, buzzed about as if searching for something, and then flew out.

  “What is it, Mama?” Katharina prompted gently.

  Tears sprouted in Isabella’s eyes as she said, “I am not your true mother. You are not my true daughter.”

  Katharina stared at her. Then she frowned. She looked up at Dr. Mahmoud, and at Friar Pastorius, who had halted his chanting. Had she heard correctly?

  “It is true, Katharina,” Isabella said with great effort. “You are not a child of my body. You came from another woman.”

  “Mama, you are not well. Dr. Mahmoud said you had a nasty blow to your head.”

  “I am in my right mind, Katharina. Now listen to me for I haven’t much time.” Isabella drew in a labored breath, released it, drew another. “Nineteen years ago a plague wiped out my village in the north, taking my husband and two babies, leaving me alone. We few survivors scattered. I ended up at an inn where I worked as a maid and also did some needlework. A family came one night, the wife was pregnant. They commissioned me to embroider a christening robe for the baby. But the mother died in childbirth. The husband came to me—he was so grief-stricken. I had never seen a man weep so.”

  Another labored breath. “He told me that he was on a journey…that he and his sons were going far away and could not take an infant with them. He came in the middle of the night, Katharina, and wept like a child and asked me to keep his baby for him, promising that he would come back for her. That baby was you, Katharina.”

  The crowd outside the door murmured until Herr Müller raised his arms for silence. Dr. Mahmoud took Isabella’s wrist and felt her pulse. His expression grew even grimmer. His look told Katharina that there wasn’t much time.

  Isabella continued: “So I took the baby for him, promising to take good care of her until he returned. Afterward, I left the inn. I didn’t trust the owners and thought they might steal from me, for the stranger had given me gold coins for your care. I made my way here to Badendorf where I told everyone I was a widow, which was true, and that the baby was mine, which was not true. I thought your father could still find me, for I hadn’t gone too far…”

  Isabella’s voice died and she ran her tongue over dry lips. Gently, Dr. Mahmoud slipped his hand under her head and held a cup of water to her mouth, but she was unable to drink.

  After a long moment, she spoke again. “The man…your father, Katharina, gave me something…. Open the box now and lift out the ribbons. The bottom of the box…lift it up. There is something in there. It belongs to you.”

  Katharina was surprised to find a false bottom in the ribbon box, and when she lifted it, found an object wrapped in a handkerchief. Unwrapping it, she saw through eyes filled with tears a miniature religious painting the size of her hand.

  “This is one of a pair—a diptych, like the one above the altar of our church. But so much smaller, as you can see. Do you see the blue stone in the picture, daughter? It is in the other painting as well. Together they tell a story.”

  “Mother—” Katharina’s voice broke. “I don’t understand.”

  “Your father…he had a pair of small paintings…a miniature diptych joined by a hinge. He broke it in half…” Isabella closed her eyes, picturing the solemn ritual that had taken place in the middle of the night seventeen years before. “…and gave me this half, this little painting, saying that in case he himself could not come back for you, if he was unable to travel and had to send an agent for you, the man would present the other half, and when they matched, I would know.”

  Katharina looked at her mother in confusion, then she frowned at the small painting in her hands. “Is this the Blessed Virgin?” In the panel, a woman dressed in medieval clothes was holding a blue crystal to her throat. A mysterious gesture. But there was no mistaking the value of the stone, for it was glorious in its color and transparency.

  Isabella’s voice came from far away, as if her spirit were already taking its leave. “He showed me the other painting…. In Latin, across the top, it said, ‘Sancta Amelia, ora pro nobis.’ ”

  “ ‘St. Amelia, pray for us,’ ” Katharina murmured, unable to take her eyes off the miniature painting that had belonged to her father.

  “He said…the blue crystal in the painting is St. Amelia’s Stone and has magical healing properties because it was given to Amelia by Jesus himself.”

  Katharina was mesmerized by the painting. How to describe the color of the stone? Not sky blue, for that was too pale, nor ocean blue for that was too deep. And it wasn’t just one hue but layer upon layer, as if it weren’t a painting of a stone but the actual stone itself. Katharina had no way of knowing that the painting had been executed in England by a prioress named Mother Winifred five hundred years ago.

  “Your father was dressed like a rich man,” Isabella said in a whisper. “He might have been a noble. He left a bag of gold coins. I spent only a few, just to get us established here in Badendorf. After that, I never touched the money for it is your legacy. Each year, on your birthday…I promised myself that I would tell you the truth. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You came into my life at a time when I was filled with grief and pain over the loss of my own babies. God forgive me, but part of me hoped the man would never come back for you. But now that I am dying, you have a right to know the truth.”

  “Hush, Mama. Save your strength. We can talk later.”

  Isabella shook her head, a gesture that took great effort. “You were never mine to keep, Katharina. I was to take care of you until he came back. But he hasn’t returned and it might only be because he is injured, or ill, or is in prison somewhere. Perhaps even now he is praying to God to bring you to him.” She reached up and touched Katharina’s golden braids. “His hair is the color of yours. He had a magnificent yellow beard, like a sunburst. Look on the back of the painting.”

  Katharina turned it over and read the inscription: “Von Grünewald.”

  “That is your family name,” Isabella said. “You see…you were never meant to be mine. Your destiny lies elsewhere. You must find your father, Katharina. He could be hurt. Perhaps he is ill. You must go to him.”

  “But I cannot leave you!” Katharina cried.

  “Child, all this was not meant to be. Perhaps, if I had told you the truth long ago, things would be different. But in my selfishness I kept silent. Now I must make restitution. The stranger…he deserves to have his daughter.”

  Katharina began to sob. “But how will I find him?”

  “He said he was going in search of the blue stone that is in that little painting. He told me he was going to Jerusalem, where he thought the stone was. Find it…” Isabella said, struggling for breath. “Find the blue stone, and you will find your father. When you match this miniature painting to its mate, you will have found him, God willing.”

  Her frail hand, that had stitched so many beautiful flowers and birds and butterflies, trembled against her daughter’s cheek. “Promise me you will go, Katharina. For wherever this blue stone takes you, there you will find your destiny.”

  With those words, Isabella breathed her last breath. Katharina threw herself across her mother’s body and wept while Dr. Mahmoud and Friar Pastorius saw that the crowd and Herr Müller were quietly dispersed. Isabella Bauer was buried in the local churchyard after a funeral, during which her many customers praised her skill and boasted owning many of the fine collars and handkerchiefs and linens decorated by her talented hand. They especially offered condolences to Katharina, men and women who had once made Isabella Bauer and her daughter wait for hours at the service entrance of their homes, and who often did not pay the seamstress for her weeks of work, but who now, once they had heard that the girl might be of noble blood and had come into a small fortune, t
reated her with great respect and deference.

  Katharina moved woodenly through the days that followed, numb with shock over this sudden and unexpected turn in her life. And when she began to emerge a little from her grief, she started to wonder about the incredible story her mother had told her, wondered if it was true. So, with Dr. Mahmoud and Hans Roth accompanying her for protection, Katharina left Badendorf for the first time in her life, traveling north to a village that was only ten miles away but felt like another world to the seventeen-year-old girl.

  There she found the inn where she had been born. Then she went to the nearby church and the elderly priest remembered a woman dying in childbirth, a noble lady, not of this district. She was buried in the graveyard. Katharina found the gravestone: the date of death was Katharina’s birthday. And the last name was von Grünewald.

  As Katharina knelt beside the grave she tried to feel something for the woman buried there but she could not. Her sorrow was for the seamstress who had been her real mother. Nonetheless, here lay the bones and dust of the woman who had given her life, and Katharina felt a strange new emotion flood her. As she laid her hands on the gravestone of Maria von Grünewald, dead at the age of twenty-six, Katharina vowed to search for her father—this poor woman’s husband—and that no matter what obstacles might lie before her, she would be reunited with her true family.

  It was the talk of Badendorf. Katharina Bauer was going to Jerusalem!

  Hans was less than happy. “Why must you go?”

  As it was unthinkable she should travel alone, Katharina had first asked Hans to go with her but of course he could not; he was indispensable to the running of the stein factory. And then she had asked Friar Pastorius, but the poor young man was not of strong enough constitution to make such a journey, as dearly as he would have loved to see the holy city. Finally she had gone to Dr. Mahmoud for advice who had responded by saying that knowing one’s father, and paying respect to him, was very important. He had gone on to say that by coincidence he had been thinking of going to Cairo, where he wished to die, and that he must not put it off too much longer as he was already an old man. And so it was decided that they would travel together.

  “I made a promise, Hans,” Katharina said resolutely as they returned from their last walk together in the woods that surrounded Badendorf. “I must find my family.”

  “But I am your family. When you marry me—”

  She took hold of his hands and smiled sadly as she said, “Yes, I know, Hans. But my father intended to come back for me. It can only be because of great calamity that he did not. I have dreams—I see him in prison, alone and forgotten, or sick in a village far from here. I must find him. I owe it to him. And to my mother. My two mothers. When I have done this, I shall come back to you.”

  Frau Roth, who never believed anyone was good enough to marry her children and who had only grudgingly witnessed their vows at the altar, had always harbored the secret hope that Hans, her baby, would never marry. It was common knowledge that Herr Roth suffered from a heart ailment and that Frau Roth, being of robust constitution and iron will, would most likely outlive him by many years. She had no intention of being alone, and certainly none of being at the mercy of a daughter-in-law—let alone the daughter of a mere seamstress (Frau Roth did not for a moment believe the story of a rich nobleman). “Katharina must go, my son,” she said in the warmest tone she could muster. “She was meant to be with her father.”

  “Then promise you will come back to me,” Hans said with such passion that it embarrassed Katharina. “Do what you must, find your father, make peace with your past. And then come back and be my wife.”

  And so, on top of the two weighty promises Katharina had made to her mothers—one at a deathbed, the other at a graveside—she added another: to return to Badendorf and be Hans Roth’s wife.

  The merchant train arrived and all of Badendorf turned out to see Katharina off. Frau Roth made a great display of the purse filled with silver talers and pfennigs she was giving to Katharina as a surprise gift. The bag was passed around as everyone looked in and remarked upon Frau Roth’s generosity, and then, when no one was looking, she removed half the coins, secretly pocketed them, and handed the lightened purse to Katharina.

  The massive merchant train had been formed by a league of merchants and investors who pooled their resources to protect their goods on the road: furs and amber from the north coast to be exchanged in the south for fruit, oil, and spices, which would then be taken back up north. The train was heavily guarded by hired soldiers, who rode alongside the huge wagons drawn by massive horses. Along the way, certain fierce brigands would receive “insurance” payments, and they in turn would keep other thieves away. Civilians joined such enormous trains, for it was the only safe way to travel.

  Katharina and Dr. Mahmoud were to travel with Herr Roth’s latest export shipment of beer steins, and as they said their tearful goodbyes, Hans gave Katharina a special stein: the centerpiece was a mountain scene with a small cameo of the town of Badendorf, meticulously crafted and painted by Herr Roth himself. Friar Pastorius, shy and red-faced with embarrassment, also gave Katharina a gift: a flat leather pouch, oiled and waxed so that it was waterproof, and strung on a leather thong to wear concealed under one’s clothes. It was a perfect size for the miniature of St. Amelia.

  And then they were off, a mile-long caravan that had originated in Antwerp and would continue on through Nuremberg, the financial trade center of Europe. It followed one of the major overland trade routes and expected to arrive at the Alps in the summer, when the passes were clear. The trail was known as the Amber Route and had been established long before even the Romans had invaded Europe, thousands of years ago when Stone Age people in the far north collected precious amber and transported it overland from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and Adriatic coasts. Roman legions had added roads and bridges and made the Alps passable. The Crusades and the sudden popularity of pilgrimages in the Middle Ages increased traffic on the route, and by the time Katharina and Dr. Mahmoud set out, they were part of a parade of merchants, wayfarers, pilgrims, beggars, vagrants, knights, and even royal postal wagons. It was a colorful procession with men playing pipes, women carrying bread and babies, children chasing dogs, a noisy group hauling creaking wagons, carts, and drays, some on horseback but most on foot, changing constantly at each crossroads where travelers left and others joined. Their way was impeded by many stops, as each new frontier and border crossing required an inspection of papers and proof that the traveler was free of the plague. Nightly stops were either in the open or at crude hostelries that charged exorbitant prices. At the Alpine passes they were helped by local people trained especially for the strenuous cartage.

  Katharina thought it a wonderful adventure, for she enjoyed the safety of traveling under the protection of prosperous merchants who hired archers to guard them, and she enjoyed the comfort of traveling in an enclosed wagon that was also her bed at night. And in the evenings, quietly by the campfire, Dr. Mahmoud taught her his native tongue, for he believed knowledge of Arabic would be an asset to her in the Holy Land. As he told her stories of his youth, his memories were all literally sweet for he spoke of a golden fruit in Spain called an orange, and a rich fruit in Egypt called a date, neither of which Katharina had ever tasted. But the relative ease of their southward journey ended when she and Dr. Mahmoud had to part company with their fellow travelers in Milan, for the Roths’ export agency was in Genoa, and they were advised not to sail from Genoa for it would take weeks longer and they ran the risk of being attacked by Barbary pirates. So they joined a merchant train carrying French textiles to be exchanged in Venice for Venetian glass, and followed the fertile plain of the Po River until they turned north to Padua, and from there to the Adriatic coast. Although from Badendorf to the Alps they had been among friends, now they were with strangers, and so they kept to themselves. Dr. Mahmoud had learned long ago that there was survival in silence. He never let on that he was Muslim, for i
n this day and age he was the enemy, especially as they drew closer to the Mediterranean where the hated Turks ruled the seas.

  Venice came as a shock. Although along the way they had passed through larger towns, and even the breathtaking metropolis of Nuremberg, these had been but passing spectacles compared to Venice. Katharina had never seen a town so flat. There wasn’t a mountain or hill in sight; people lived on canals and got about in small boats with curious curved prows; and the citizens were more sumptuously dressed than any she had seen in the northern towns. Upper-class women tottered about on tall platform shoes and did not cover their hair, as was the fashion in Germany, but proudly displayed their locks and tresses with gold nets and ribbons. Katharina had never seen such long hair on men, especially the young men who seemed to Katharina to be very feminine. But there was nothing feminine about the way they cast suggestive glances her way. Her own hair was also an attraction. Even though her golden coloring was somewhat distinctive in Badendorf, it wasn’t unusual. But the farther south she went, the more unique it became. Although she did see women with blond hair, it was dyed and obviously artificial, so that Katharina frequently drew the admiring glances of strange men. She stayed close to Dr. Mahmoud keeping a grip on their bundles, and they made their way to the harbor in the vast lagoon.

  As they progressed through narrow streets and along canals, they chanced upon a wedding party in progress in one of the magnificent mansions. From a balcony, the bride and groom were merrily throwing food to the crowd below: Katharina saw whole roasted pheasants, golden loaves of bread, candied fruits, and sugared almonds rain down upon the happy recipients. At Dr. Mahmoud’s quick thinking, they joined the crowd and grabbed a small wheel of cheese and a cluster of purple grapes, which they feasted on as they continued their trek toward the harbor. Such displays of wealth and largesse, they were later to learn, were typical of this powerful maritime city. Equally excessive, Katharina and Dr. Mahmoud learned, was the Venetians’ sense of justice. For as they rounded a corner they came upon an angry mob that had moments earlier set upon a pair of men. The victims’ chests were ripped open and their steaming hearts nailed to the doors of a small church. It was an act of revenge, Katharina was told by one of the bystanders. The two men had just the week before assassinated the head of one of Venice’s most powerful families.