Quest of Hope: A Novel (10 page)

Winter now lay across the manor like a heavy white woollen. Biting cold, privation, darkness, and despair were the demons of the season and little could bring comfort. In this gloom even the beasts of the forests shivered and hid deep in their caves or far below the frozen sod. But despite the natural lethargy, there was much work to do. Baldric was particularly busy working long, cold days overseeing the sawing of timber in the forests, the making of charcoal in the wood near the Lahn, and the management offences for the swine now foraging for mast in the great stands of oak. Herwin was commissioned to work at repairing the roof of the mill in Oberbrechen and the walls of Weyer’s ewe-house. Arnold’s cart was shed-bound by snow, but he was assigned the task of hauling bundles of chopped stubble and straw by sleigh.

Within each hovel the peasant women were hard at work as well. Some, like Arnold’s wife, kept busy carving bowls and forks, platters and spoons, or pleating baskets with rushes gathered in the autumn. Berta spent much of her time spinning. This year she was skillfully turning coarse flax into good linen thread. The prior had ordered higher taxes to offset a poor grain harvest, and Berta’s spinning helped provide for her obligations.

It was just two days past mid-March, less than two weeks before Easter, when Berta became ill. She had suffered aches and an unusual weakness in her legs through much of Lent, but she had attributed it to the added privations of the season as she readied her soul for Holy Week. For days Heinrich stood faithfully by his mother’s bed, often dabbing her brow, so he was surprised when she silently slipped from her bed and out the door into the freezing rain, only to return a few hours later with a small satchel stuffed beneath her cloak. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Ask nothing, boy, to bed with you.”

Baldric rose just before prime of the next morning, and as he was tearing at some stale bread he heard Berta calling his name. “What is it, woman?”

“Baldric… a word?”

Baldric ambled into the woman’s room. Now a burly man of nearly twenty-three, he filled the doorway. He stared at her with his narrow-set eyes and picked at his brown beard. “So what is it?”

“I am dying.”

“Aye. And what of it?”

“You shall have charge of my children. The law shall let you have the harvest until Heinrich is of proper age. Methinks a half-hide’s harvest a fair payment for their care till then.”

“Humph!” scoffed Baldric. “You’ve three brats and I’ve no wife to mind them.” He leaned close to the woman. “Add your dowry, then I shall agree.”

Berta was too weak to argue and handed Baldric a box she had set beside her. “The day I wed I was given two ewes and a boar hog, three shillings and this table. The ewes have dropped lambs and the shepherds say they now mark twelve ewes and one ram for us. The boar yielded and we’ve credit for ten pigs in the swineherd … six due for taxes. Kurt added a shilling for his work with the carpenters and from one good harvest. Your father gave ten shillings, though Kurt spent some on woollens, thatching, and some harvest tools. Here’d be all the coins that are left, ‘tis no more.”

Baldric took the little chest and counted the silver. He looked hard at Berta. He knew she feared for her soul and he leaned close to her face. “So, on the Virgin you do swear this to be all?”

Berta felt suddenly nauseous. She had no intention to give Baldric all. That would mean she’d need to give him her golden relic. Surely, she imagined, she would burn forever if she gave it to the likes of Baldric! Yet, if she swore a lie on the Virgin would she not also perish? Her mind and heart raced. She closed her eyes.

Finally certain she was damned for either choice, Berta chose the sin that did not advantage Baldric. “Aye, Baldric, ‘tis all.” She shuddered. All her life she had worked so very hard to avoid the Pit, and in this one moment all had been lost! She groaned.

The man smiled smugly, but before he could speak, Berta hissed. “Hear me: the monks know all. Should you try to cheat my children, they will serve you justice.”

Baldric grinned. “There’d be one more thing.”

Berta closed her eyes.

“I needs honor m’father’s gift to Heinrich’s sons-to-be. You remember—the parchment with the abbot’s promise?”

Berta lay motionless. She said nothing for nearly a minute while Baldric waited. Then she slowly dug her hand deep into the recesses of her straw mattress and retrieved a flattened roll. She handed it to him without a word.

The gray sky hung heavy beneath the noon sun of the next day. Effi was playing with a ball of linen thread like a bored kitten and Axel was busy jabbing the hearth with a smoking stick. Berta called hoarsely for her eldest son. “Boy … come here,” she whispered.

Heinrich entered his mother’s bedchamber. She nodded weakly and bade him sit by her side. “I needs speak of things. I’ve asked for Arnold to fetch the bailiff and Father Gregor. You must be here when they come. Now, hear me.” The woman raised herself up on one elbow. “Honor the ways and make me proud. Make your father proud.” She fell back. “Do you remember my story of the ox that coveted the saddle, and the horse the plough?”

Heinrich nodded solemnly.

“Good. Do not seek change, allow what is, to be.” She sighed a little, then her tone changed. “Obey your uncle. I have given him charge over you all. Care for your sister…”

Berta closed her eyes and listened to the wind now howling from the east. The door of the common room suddenly burst open and a chilly air blew through the hovel. Three men in heavy wraps tramped across the room and crowded into Berta’s bedchamber.

Arnold pushed Heinrich aside and bent over the woman. She was now breathing quickly and her skin was pale. “Woman,” he blurted. “Here’s the bailiff and the priest. Now, what’s this about?”

Berta peered through the room’s gloom into the haunting dark eyes of Arnold. “My thanks,” she whispered. The woman leaned upward on her elbow. “Can y’give me leave with these two?”

Arnold grumbled and left the room, leaving a perplexed Father Gregor and the stiff-eyed Bailiff Herold staring at the bed. Herold picked at his long nose and tapped his foot impatiently. The woman then reached beneath her and pulled a pouch from the straw. “Bailiff, thanks be to God you’ve come with the father. Listen, I beg you. I am about to die. M’papa taught me to keep things to good order.” She paused. “I’ve needs to know m’sons and Effi shall be watched. And I needs to know that Heinrich’s land will be safe for him as well as this house and—”

Herold cursed the woman. “You’d drag me through the mud and ice for this!”

“Hold, good sir,” pleaded Berta. Her lips trembled. “There’s more … but please swear on the Virgin you’ll tell no other.” She held her hand open on her belly. Heinrich, wide-eyed and dumbstruck, leaned between the hips of Gregor and Herold as his mother whispered, “This … this is a relic. ‘Tis no common gold piece. I do swear on my soul this comes from Jerusalem. It was touched to the Holy Sepulchre by the Grand Master of the Templars.”

Herold snatched the piece and held it to the dim light of the room’s smoky candle. The priest gawked. “Relic? Hmm, look here, it’s been bit! Have you ever heard of a relic that’s been gnawed?”

The men laughed. Indeed, the gold coin bore a long dash and a short one—marks made from a good tooth next to a broken one. Heinrich squared his shoulders bravely. “If m
’Mutti
says it to be a relic, it is! She’s never spoken a lie, she’s—”

Herold cracked the five-year-old boy hard across the face. “Shut yer mouth, ye dim little fool!”

Father Gregor spoke firmly to Berta. “Woman, your soul is in peril of the Pit this day; you needs speak truth.”

Berta’s eyes fluttered. “What, what did you say, father?”

“You ought not be lying to your priest whil’st in death’s valley!”

“Lying? Oh, I’m not lying, father. I prayed to it when the Templars came to save us, I…”

“Enough, woman!”

Desperate tears fell from Berta’s widened eyes. She spoke with hoarse urgency. “Father, I am not lying. I needs beg forgiveness for m’sin, I’ve…”

Herold laughed out loud. “Woman, you’re a fool!”

Young Heinrich had enough. He leapt from his corner with a shriek and swung his little fists at the bailiffs legs. Herold kicked the boy away and Father Gregor slapped him hard to the ground. “Lie there, Heinrich, and do not move! Do not look up, stare at the ground to which you shall someday be returned!”

This was all too much for poor Berta. She gave up her ghost while no one noticed.

The household of Berta became the household of Baldric. Heinrich, Axel, Effi, and Herwin now spent each day in constant terror of the man who raged about his little empire like a tyrant. Void of affection, vacant of joy, filled only with heavy shadows and rage, the hovel that had once been full of love and warmth now did little more than shelter them from the harsh elements.

But for Baldric, life seemed suddenly improved. He now had charge of four lessers on whom he could vent his wrath. His position with the monks was envied, and his soul was about to be rescued by the coming of Easter. He had learned that Father Gregor had received an edict from the archbishop’s nuncio ordering the priest to administer the sacrament of Eucharist to the folk of Weyer. The Eucharist was taken weekly, sometimes even daily, by the parish priests on behalf of their flock but was rarely offered directly to laymen. For those bearing the increasing weight of life’s sins it would be a relief beyond measure. Baldric hid his torment well, but he suffered an increasing fear of the Judgment. The blood and flesh of Christ followed by an Easter penance would make him feel clean again.

The whole village was enlivened by the Easter Mass, and they looked toward spring with new hope. On May Day’s dawn, Effi gathered dew on a bunch of wildflowers and wiped it on her brothers for good luck. Heinrich thanked her, then climbed the churchyard steps to sit by his mother’s grave and mourn. It was a ritual he had followed each day since her death. From time to time he ambled to his father’s grave and stared. He had never understood the mystery of his father’s passing. Some, including his uncles and the priest, told him Kurt had died from infection, yet his mother had blamed him somehow. And so, with such heavy thoughts as these weighing on him, Heinrich considered his predicament and that of his siblings and he wept. After all, it was easy to reason that their current misery was on account of his failures as well.

May Day gave way to six weeks of hard labors before Midsummer’s feast. And this particular year’s feast presented the village with something of a surprise, for midst the afternoon’s celebrations, Baldric reluctantly wed. In a ceremony that lasted less than a rich man’s confession, the brute was married, ironically, to Hedda, the widow of Paul the dyer who was slain that awful night. Baldric was not particularly pleased with the choice, but he had been pressured to take her by the abbey’s prior who had little patience for the problems of widows. After claiming her by ceremonially stomping on her foot, he introduced the limping bride to a circle of applauding witnesses.

Heinrich bowed politely and introduced himself to his stepmother. “I am Heinrich.” He looked carefully at Hedda. The lad was insightful for a boy of five. He saw the brown-eyed woman as sympathetic and caring, but weary and withdrawn.

Hedda smiled and reached a hand toward the boy, but Baldric grabbed her by the wrist and twisted her arm cruelly. “Fetch me beer!” he growled.

Herwin shook his head as Baldric belched and turned away. “Children,” Herwin whispered quickly, “follow me.” He led the three through the footpaths of Weyer to the village well. There, to Heinrich’s great joy, were Ingelbert and Emma. While the children played, Herwin entreated Emma to keep the boys and their sister overnight.