But when Anna was in her tenth spring, her mother died in childbirth, and so did the baby. Everything changed. Anna was largely left in the care of her mother’s sister, while Gunther spent his days on the road. Though his trade and his wealth grew, Gunther’s heart was empty, and so was their home, until Anna’s cousin Martin moved in.
Only the first two sons of Aunt Agnes and Uncle Karl were training to be smiths. Their third son, Lukas, was in training to become a priest, and when Martin, the fourth son, reached his tenth autumn, he had been apprenticed to Gunther. Thereafter, Martin, who talked more than all his brothers combined, lived and traveled with Gunther, learning the roads and the trade. Martin brought noise to their very quiet household.
“What are you dreaming about Anna? ” said Martin holding up his mug for more ale. “Jewish riches? You’d love their silks—colors as bright as bluebells and poppies, dandelions and violets. From the East, they bring splendid furs—softer and much warmer than the best rabbit.” Then Martin leaned forward and added menacingly, “I’ve also heard that they steal children and sell them to the dark-skinned Arabs.”
Gunther protested, “That is untrue.”
“But they trade in slaves.”
“Yes, but so do others,” sighed Gunther. “Anyway, I’ve only seen them selling pagan Slav people from the East. The Jews don’t steal children.”
“I’ve heard stories, Uncle.”
“You’ve heard tales,” corrected Gunther.
“I’ve seen their tails, Uncle,” Martin said with a wicked grin.
“Clever and impossible boy.”
Gunther rose and went into the house. When he returned to the garden, he handed Martin the small wooden box and said, “I have a new commission for your father from a rich Jewish merchant. Three knife blades for this.”
Martin slipped the small latch; inside he found cinnamon bark, cardamom seedpods, and dried buds of clove. He raised his eyebrows and gave the box to Anna who carefully lifted each spice and held it gently under her nose, closing her eyes.
“This must be what heaven smells like,” said Anna holding a piece of cinnamon.
“Close the box,” said Martin, rolling his eyes and taking the box back. “This surely is not heaven.”
“No,” said Anna glumly. Then she brightened and added, “But when your mother cooks with these treasures, we’ll eat as well as the angels in heaven. That is, of course, unless you’re afraid to eat the Jew’s spices!”
3
AGNES
September 21, 1095
Anna awakened before her father or her cousin, to the caw of crows and the sweetness of wood smoke seeping through the shutters and beneath the door. The earthen floor was cool, powdery soft under her feet, as she moved about the dim room. She raked the ashes, added twigs and straw, and blew the embers on the hearth. Soon a curl of smoke was threading its way from the stones on the floor, up through the hole at the peak of the roof. She unfastened the oak door and shutters to let in light and the freshness of the September morning. The household stirred with the new day.
As Anna stood blinking at the pearl sky from the opened door, she was greeted by her aunt, who was already returning to her adjoining house with two full buckets of water, sloshing, but not spilling a drop.
“So you’re awake finally, Anna? The Lord grants you another day, and you squander his light? ”
“Good morning, Aunt Agnes.”
Anna smiled at her aunt, ducked back inside, and waited for her to pass. Aunt Agnes has to be the most perfect and the most unpleasant woman anywhere, she thought. Six years earlier, the newly motherless Anna had been added to her aunt’s responsibilities, and Aunt Agnes had stepped into the duties of motherhood but not the caring.
Aunt Agnes was ten years older than Anna’s mother, and within a month of Anna’s mother’s death, she gave birth to Thomas, her seventh child. Everyone said it was a miracle. Her straw-colored hair was laced with white, and she squinted and struggled to thread a needle, yet she had found herself with child for the seventh time. No woman had ever survived seven births. Everyone believed Agnes was blessed. She already had four strapping sons and two beautiful daughters, but baby Thomas was not like the four older sons. When her sister died and when Thomas was not perfect, poor Agnes felt something she had never experienced: the pity of her neighbors. And it froze her soul.
Suddenly Anna was aware of her aunt standing in the middle of the room, with her hands on her hips, glaring.
“What are you doing, you useless snail? Just staring at nothing? The chickens are hungry. This house is a mess! And you call that a fire? Just because your father’s father was a knight, do you think you can sleep all morning? Get to work, you! You’re not some frittering noblewoman!” said Agnes, kicking up a cloud of ash at the hearth and leaving with a slam of the door.
Anna looked down at her worn dress and rough hands and thought, I’m half noble, which is more than you’ll ever be.
She scooped some grain into a basket and went to feed the chickens. Before long she heard Martin whistling happily. He had just returned from fetching the water, a chore he always left for Anna, but she knew he was bursting to finish the chores so he could present his mother with the spice treasures. When mid morning’s Tierce bells tolled the third hour since sunrise, Martin grabbed Anna’s hand and began pleading with Gunther.
“Please Uncle! Anna and I have finished our chores. May we go to Mother’s now? Perhaps she’ll even ask us to stay for dinner,” said Martin.
Gunther nodded, and the three walked next door, where they found Agnes filleting a large, sharp-toothed pike. Gunther handed her the spice merchant’s box.
When Agnes opened the lid, she smiled proudly.
“What riches! You see what fine craftsmen my smiths are? What a reputation they have in the city of Worms!”
“Don’t forget the traders, Mother,” said Martin with a bit of disappointment.
“I suppose,” said Agnes looking at Martin and Gunther. “But of course you are only as good as the goods you carry.” She put down the box and finished boning the fish.
“I wager I could trade fleas to a dog,” boasted Martin, and when Agnes scoffed, he grinned and added, “Mother, cook me a feast that I can dream about when I’m far from here.”
“No one could better use these,” said Gunther graciously.
“Thank you, Gunther. Will you stay for dinner? ”
“We would love to!” answered Martin immediately. “Now let’s go to the forge and tell Father about the new work, Uncle.”
Gunther and Martin left, and Agnes began to skin the filleted fish. No one cooked as well as Agnes. Even Anna had to agree that no family ate as well as they. Karl and the boys snared all sorts of birds to cook on the spit fire—buntings and starlings, wild geese, mallards, and pigeons. Agnes’s house was always perfumed with baking biscuits and bubbling stews, and when they were very fortunate, with a whiff of spice from far away.
When Agnes looked up from her work, she saw Anna tickling Thomas, and her mood changed. “Leave the boy alone, lazy girl! You’ve wasted enough time today. If you expect to eat here, you’ll help your cousins.”
Anna turned to her cousins Elisabeth and Margarete. First, she helped Elisabeth who was gathering soiled rushes from the floor while Margarete swept. Then Anna used a wooden maul to tamp the earth. Elisabeth began to spread fresh rushes.
“Ouch. Watch the broom!” said Anna as Margarete scratched the birch twigs across her bare feet.
“Margarete, what have you done? ” squawked Agnes. “If you sweep over Anna’s feet, she’ll never marry.”
Anna was horrified, but Margarete just smirked.
“My cousin was in the way. Besides, it’s her big feet she should blame, not me.”
Anna whispered to Thomas, “If nastiness caused ugliness, Margarete’s face would make you cry. Let’s hope her nose turns green and her ears fall off,” but Thomas did not understand a word she said. He was gleefully scraping sma
ll piles of dirt with a stick, then flattening them with his palm. Anna crouched beside him and pushed more dirt into a hill that he delighted in squashing. He looked at her and smiled with his grimy face; she rubbed his head, and he held open his arms for a hug.
The family gathered for the midday meal, and as they finished, Martin said, “Yesterday, my friend Dieter caught a perch as long as his forearm. How would you like some more fish, Mother? ”
“More fish? You didn’t have enough for dinner? And am I to do the cleaning again?” Agnes sighed loudly. “Well, if you’re going fishing, make yourself useful,” she replied. “Take Thomas. He’s underfoot.”
Scowling, Martin took Thomas by the sleeve and pulled him along. Thomas stumbled behind, bewildered but obedient.
Agnes had sewn little sacks from scraps of worn cloth, and Margarete and Elisabeth began filling the sacks with dried lavender buds mixed with rosemary and tansy leaves. The sacks and fresh straw were added to all the bedding to make it sweet and hold down the fleas. Anna watched her aunt and thought, I know our bed has fleas, but Martin deserves his flea bites. Anyway, I clean and clean, and all anyone notices is what I forget to do. I’ll never be like Agnes.
When Anna returned to her empty cottage, she sighed to fill the silence, and then she gasped. A rust-chested robin stood on the table, pecking at a crust of bread. And Anna knew what every one knew: when a robin flies into a house, death will follow. She shooed the bird out the garden door and tossed the pecked bread to the chickens in the yard.
Spreading a blanket on the floor, Anna collected the bedding straw, which she bundled into the blanket and heaved near the garden. A few days earlier, Gunther had left a pile of fresh rye straw in a corner of the house, and now she gathered and packed the straw into the bed. She tucked a large piece of hemp cloth around the corners, using sharp wooden pegs to hold it in place. She had neither lavender nor tansy, but Gunther had a basket of soothing mugwort leaves that he often put in his shoes. Anna hoped the leaves might keep the fleas at bay. Besides, mugwort was plentiful, and she had nothing better, so she slipped a few leaves under each corner of the woven cover.
Anna swept the floor, spread fresh rushes, and was resting in the doorway, leaning on her broom. The afternoon had turned raw, and the sky was leaden. The trees murmured and creaked in the wind; damp from her work, Anna felt a chill as she gazed at the speeding clouds. Her daydreaming ended when Martin came striding along. He was dragging Thomas by a rope tied around the little boy’s waist. Thomas was as pale as wax and soaking wet. His hair was caked with mud, and his knees and hands were scratched and bleeding.
“Look what I caught!” said Martin, proudly displaying a string of three silvery fish with bright orange fins. “Won’t Mother be delighted?”
“What happened to Thomas?” cried Anna rushing to untie the dazed little boy.
“Him?” Martin shrugged. “I suppose he fell in the stream. Stinks like dung doesn’t he? You’d better clean him up, or Mother will beat him.”
Anna hurried Thomas into the house and sat him by the hearth. He was shivering. She added wood to the fire and heated some water for washing. He whimpered and hiccuped, so she hummed a soothing lullaby and gently cleaned the scrapes. After the heat dried most of the mud, she brushed his clothes and combed his downy hair. While Thomas sipped a cup of warm milk, rocking back and forth, Anna turned to Martin.
“Martin, what happened?”
“He has the sense of a muck worm. I told him to sit still while Dieter and I fished.”
“Dieter was with you?” asked Anna, wrinkling her nose.
Martin nodded. “I always fish with Dieter. Dieter bet Thomas would float, because he’s innocent.”
“You didn’t!”
Martin shrugged. “I didn’t throw him in, but he didn’t float, and I had to pull him out. He can’t swim as well as a newborn rabbit. He’d drown in bucket,” he said with disgust. “He’s hopeless.”
“No. You are.”
“Well, you’re not perfect either,” said Martin grabbing the boy and the string of fish and slamming the door.
No, I am far from perfect, thought Anna, glumly. But as this autumn receded, Anna would begin to suspect that perfection was a terrible flaw.
4
A DEEPER SOUND
October 10, 1095
The morning was almost green in its grayness, and a cold fog hid the hills and muted the dying fields. Anna and Martin sorted firewood. She had broken and bundled branches and was separating logs for him to split. The ax was sharp, and the timber danced apart as the metal edge bit easily into the sour-smelling wood. Martin chopped and talked. He had a broad, open face with the square chin of his mother and a crown of her straw-colored curls, and he had his father’s warm brown eyes and his own half smile which dimpled one cheek.
“Lukas will be at your mother’s for dinner,” said Anna.
Lukas was Martin’s brother who had chosen to become a priest. Even as a small boy, Lukas was a misfit in the forge; slight and kind, he had the voice of an angel, and everyone always knew he belonged in the church. Karl and Agnes had been proud of this son, who would learn to read, and at nine, Lukas had begun living with the priest of their church. Indeed, with two other sons, there were more than enough boys in the family. His parents had no need to make him or the next son, Martin, another smith.
“I won’t eat at Mother’s today. I’m off with Dieter when we finish here,”
Anna curled her lip in distaste. “Lukas will be sorry to miss you.”
“Doubtful. But I’ll pray that someday I’ll be good enough for my brother Saint Lukas,” replied Martin, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “I swear, I have too many brothers. I won’t be missed by anyone at that table.”
“I wish Lukas lived with us instead of you,” said Anna.
“You would,” replied Martin, not looking up from his work. “But you’re stuck with me.”
“Lukas is my favorite cousin.”
“That’s because he’s so perfect, like you, Anna,” he said sarcastically. “Except for the muddy splatter of freckles across your face. You have these two really dark ones just under your nose. They look like—”
Anna’s eyes began to sting with tears as she said,“I hate you Martin!”
“No one hates me,” said Martin, smiling and putting down the ax and turning his palms skyward. “I am the boy with the stories. Silly Anna! You care too much. Besides, you are my very favorite cousin. In fact, I wish you were my sister instead of mousy Elisabeth and Margarete, that bald-faced hornet. At least you can sing.”
“You’re the meanest boy alive!” said Anna, but inside, she was pleased by the insult to her cousins and by the compliment to her voice. Life with Martin was unpredictable; in an instant, nastiness often was displaced by charm.
“Listen to what I just heard from Dieter. His uncle’s oldest boy, Rudy, has had the worst misfortune. Last spring, Rudy’s wife gave birth to a son. Then, less than a week after the baby was born, Rudy went out one morning. His wife worked in the garden while the child slept in its cradle.”
“What happened? ” asked Anna, putting the wood down.
“Nothing. Or so they thought. They soon knew otherwise. That very night they began to suspect that the baby in the cradle wasn’t theirs. Within days, it was clear: The Ones from Underground had stolen their lovely baby and left . . . a changeling!”
Anna swallowed and shook her head. “They say you must never leave a baby in its first weeks. Not even for a breath.”
“Yes. The changeling was a thickheaded creature who cried and grew more ugly with each day. Spring and summer passed, and it lay flat in its crib, screaming and puling, but it never smiled. The thing was unlike any baby, so they called Father Rupert.” Martin lowered his voice to a whisper, and Anna leaned closer. “As Father Rupert prayed over the cradle, a flock of black crows settled beneath the window and began to screech, swallowing his prayers. Caaaw! Caaaw! The old priest threw up his hands and fled, s
aying that the creature was no Christian baby. Not the child that he had baptized, but indeed a changeling.”
By now, neither Anna nor Martin was attending to the wood. They sat on unsplit logs, and Martin peeled the bark from a twig and rolled the silky green wood between his thumb and his forefinger as he spoke. Anna braided a handful of her thick, bronze-colored hair as she listened.
“Then what happened?”
“Rudy tied the changeling in a sack with river stones and threw it into the deepest part of the mill pond.”
“Did the Evil Ones return Rudy’s baby?” asked Anna.
“No, Rudy still waits. And hopes, but the cradle has been empty a week now,” answered Martin, making the sign of the cross.
Anna sighed. “I shall never leave my babies, not for a sneeze.”
“What babies, Cousin? Who says you’ll ever be a bride?”
He had done it again. Anna glared at her cousin, but before she could speak, Martin asked an unthinkable question.
“Do you think Thomas might be a changeling?”
“No Martin! He’s your brother. What an evil thought!”
“Perhaps. But he is nothing like the rest of us.”
A thick-fingered hand grabbed Martin by his shirt. “No, Martin, you are nothing like the rest of us. Thomas is your brother and my son. How dare you?” spat his father, Karl. Neither Anna nor Martin had noticed Karl who had arrived to see Gunther and had overheard his son’s question. Furious, the father turned from his son and returned to the forge without seeing Gunther.
At dinner that afternoon, Gunther asked if Karl had come for his ash-wood handles.
“Odd, he’s been impatient for these,” he observed when no one replied.
“Let me take them to Uncle Karl,” said Anna, quickly flashing a smile at Martin who looked relieved.
The Silver Cup Page 2