Quest of Hope: A Novel (12 page)

Her compassion earned her a stripe of her own, then another. She whimpered and stretched her arms toward Heinrich. The boy mouthed a polite “thank-you” and stood ready for more.

When it was over, Heinrich lay awake all night. He remembered the voice of Emma on the hilltop that wondrous summer day and wished to feel the sunshine warm his face again. He longed to press his bare feet against a soft carpet of tender grass and lift a butterfly to flight. If only he could fly away from Baldric.

To the relief of all, the pillaging knights did not come, and the days passed with the gentle rhythm of the season. The village men labored behind their oxen in the fields, while the women gathered reeds and willow wands, chopped cabbage for the brine, and picked apples and pears from the abbey’s orchards by the stream. Given the poor yield of flax, many of the women were busy wandering the forests in search of nettles for thread making.

Emma rose with Ingelbert early one misty morning and they walked together to the common well before the others would be about. The pair shuffled through the smoky village footpaths, crunching lightly on the leaves now lying thick beneath their feet. Emma was content, as was her usual state, though saddened as she surveyed the poverty all about her. Even in the blue haze of dawn her eyes could see the pall that hung atop the damp huts scattered about her. The loud crow of a cockbird startled her and Ingly giggled.

No sooner had the woman snuggled the little six-year-old to her side when Lenard’s dog began to bark loudly. Emma groaned. “Ah, Ingly, it seems we’ve wakened the poor beast.” In a moment, the reeve could be heard shouting and cursing at the howling dog. No amount of beating would silence the animal. But then Emma heard what the dog had heard. She stood perfectly still and closed her eyes. “Dear God!” She grabbed her son by the arm and raced for Heinrich’s hut, shouting the alarm. “Riders, riders!” she cried.

Baldric leapt to his feet and flung open his door only to see Emma and her son racing toward him.

“Run! Riders are coming!”

At that moment Reeve Lenard began blowing his ox-horn, warning the village of imminent danger. Herwin bolted from his bed and joined Baldric in the doorway while Hedda gathered the frightened children to her side.

Suddenly four riders rounded the bend of the Münster road and pounded up the road. The peasants emerging from their huts panicked and scattered. Emma urged Hedda to escape across the Laubusbach. “Come, Hedda! Run!”

Baldric pushed her aside. “Go, woman! Take your freak and begone! I’ll tend m’own household!”

The soldiers reined in their mounts and stopped to laugh at the chaos in the terrified village. Clad in leather vests and armed with long swords and bows, none wore helmets but each wore a mail hood. Small, triangular shields hung on their forearms, and each fist was set securely in a plate-armored glove. None knew if these were knights, sergeants, squires, or highwaymen, and none cared, for bloodlust was in their eyes.

Again Emma pleaded with Hedda and reached for Heinrich. Baldric’s heavy hand fell hard across Emma’s face and sent her sprawling into the crush of frantic peasants.

With kicks of their spurs and a loud shout the mounted men charged into the heart of the smoky village. The terrified folk scattered before them like dried leaves driven by a gust of wind. The rogue knights lifted their swords and sped after the fleeing peasants. First one, then another fell to the razor-sharp edges of the four flashing blades. Poor Otto, a neighbor to Arnold, fell first, his shoulder split to the center of his chest; then Elsbeth, the kindly wife of a ploughman and Werner the shepherd with his little infant, Ruthard. Others fell atop each other, bellies opened, limbs hacked, faces punctured.

While the soldiers continued their attack, the households of Baldric and Arnold hastened toward the Laubusbach and the safety of the far wood. Baldric paused a moment and turned an angry eye back toward the carnage. There, at the rear of the throng he saw his good friend, Dietrich the miller, stumbling along and holding his infant daughter, Meta. Behind him followed his wife, Gudrun, with the forearms of young twins Sigmund and Marta grasped tightly in her hands. Baldric gasped as Dietrich tripped, spilling baby Meta to the ground. Gudrun let go of her twins and lunged for Meta as Dietrich dodged a blade. An arrow struck the mother’s chest and before Dietrich’s eyes his wife toppled to the ground, baby Meta tumbling beneath the grinding hoofs of the archer’s horse.

Baldric had seen enough. He bellowed for Arnold and grabbed a threshing flail. He tossed Arnold a fodder fork and the two pressed against the swarming tide of wool. Herwin, seeing the men turn, grabbed an axe and joined them. Inspired by the courage of these three, Reeve Lenard, Gunter Ploughman, Edwin the thatcher, and others turned to fight as well.

Dietrich rolled into the safety of an open doorway and tossed his twins deep inside the hovel. Seeing Baldric and his comrades storming toward the horsemen, he leapt from his cover and picked up a hog mallet.

Baldric struck first. He swung his hinged flail squarely into the face of one surprised rider, dropping the man to the ground where two others smashed his head with heavy rocks. Arnold deftly feigned a thrust with his fork at another soldier’s side, then rammed the iron points through the sweated horse’s ribs. The animal buckled and collapsed on its side, spilling its rider into the grasping hands of the raging peasants.

Arnold took the fallen man’s sword and turned against the remaining two, who, shocked by the serfs’ resistance, reined their horses hard. Herwin grabbed one horse’s bridle and held fast against the beast’s urge to rear. In that moment Dietrich leapt onto the horse’s rump and swept the rider to his death. The final soldier threw his sword upon the ground and raised his hands in surrender to the crowd of gray-brown tunics now encircling him. “No quarter!” roared Baldric as he pressed between the shoulders of his fellows. “No quarter!”

With that, he swung a woodsman’s axe into the man’s belly, folding the murderous rake like a stalk of barley struck by a dull sickle. The man gasped as Baldric pulled him to the ground where he crushed his skull.

Weyer fell as silent as a winter’s night. Slowly, those in hiding crept from sanctuary, and those who had fled to the forest returned to join the others in the village center. Emma clutched Ingelbert to her breast and searched the crowd until her eyes fell on Heinrich. Relieved to find him safe, she wept. Wide-eyed and speechless, Heinrich, Richard, and their siblings stared mutely at the scene.

In late March of 1181 the winter wheat sprouted green atop the frosty hills, and the bells of nones tolled loudly above the churchyard where the village council was preparing to conduct business. The men of Weyer sat in a large circle atop pine boughs and bark and waited for Reeve Lenard to begin. Meanwhile, Heinrich and Richard crouched behind some bushes at the far edge of the churchyard. For boys of seven and six this was an adventure indeed. If they’d be caught they would surely feel the hard slap of a willow wand!

The business of the day began, dealing mostly with issues of the fields, taxes, encroaching fences, petty thefts, allotments of firewood, and the like. Dietrich the miller, with the influential support of his friends Baldric and Arnold, was elected as a village elder and had much to say about grain fees and thefts of flour. Little else of any account was discussed, and Heinrich and Richard grew weary and cold.

After a few yawns by those gathered, Reeve Lenard moved on to other matters. A man had been accused of robbing a grave but was judged innocent on the word of three oath-helpers who had sworn, under risk of God’s wrath, to his innocence. A discussion was entertained on the constant problem of firewood and two neighbors disputed a fence. At long last Reeve Lenard came to the final issue. “You’ve heard it said that we’ve had rumors about this woman, Emma. Bring her here.”

Heinrich and Richard jerked to attention and peered from their cover as Emma was pulled out from the church doorway. Her hands were bound and little Ingelbert clung to her side in terror. The tattered woollen cloak Emma wore seemed little defense against the stiff wind, yet she walked upright and proud into the center of the circle.

“Woman, this is no trial. There is none with proof to accuse but we needs ask you things.” Reeve Lenard sounded reasonable in his tone, though Heinrich did not trust any man who would beat a defenseless dog. “It has been said that your spirit flies by night to scrump. Swear by the Virgin it is not so.”

Frau Emma looked about the village men and sighed. A breeze pulled her scarf from her head and wisps of brown hair fell into her eyes. She faced the reeve submissively but answered with a hint of sarcasm. “Good Reeve. Neither me nor my ghost has stolen anything.”

“Do you so swear?”

“My answer is enough.”

“But do you swear it?”

“My ‘aye’ is ‘aye.’”

The reeve began to pace. “Are you a witch?”

“No.”

“Are you heathen?”

“No.”

“You seem … odd. And your freak child bears the mark of evil.”

Emma flushed and her temples pulsed. “With respect, Reeve Lenard, are you a Christian man?”

Lenard was dumfounded. “What? Of course I am a Christian man!” He turned to Father Johannes who nodded, approvingly. His confidence assured, he pressed on. “From whence come you?”

“Quedlinburg.”

“And…”

“And what?”

“And why are you in Weyer?”

“It has a nice stream.”

The villagers chuckled. Lenard was now impatient. “And tell us of the shadows on All-Souls Eve!”

The men grew suddenly quiet and leaned forward. All had heard rumors of strange things around the woman’s hut on that dreaded night, but none had dared venture near. None, that is, save Arnold. The woman was visibly startled by the question. She drew a deep breath and smiled wryly. “I bar m’door well at night. If I be on the inside, I dare say I’d have no idea what those without do see.”

She had barely finished when the men began to grumble. “Nay, ‘tis no answer!” groused one. Another rose with a pointing finger. “You’d be lyin’! You’ve visits from the Devil on the deads’ day … and y’ve this monster as our proof!”

The men approved as the accuser went on. “Y’needs confess to us now, strumpet. Tell us of your harlotry and blasphemes! You’re in league with the witch, as well! Since y’ve come we’ve naught but bad ways and plagues, swords and famine. Methinks y’needs be put out, else flogged for what heresies must go on behind your walls!”

Midst the uproar of the men, poor Emma stood still and silent. Finally, a chunk of muddy snow was hurled at the woman and struck her on the face. The men laughed. Brave Emma held her son under her bound arms as the melting ice slid slowly down her face. The council grew quiet until another ball of snow was thrown, then another. The woman bent over her son and sheltered him as best she could from the ensuing storm of ice and mud until a shrill voice was heard above the din. It was Heinrich.

The boy charged from his cover, his brave cousin at his side. They threw rocks, not snow, into the council, earning a roar of disapproval. They kicked and clawed their way to Emma’s side and stood by her, screaming and cursing at the men now laughing all about them. Father Johannes tripped his way through the jeering crowd and cracked the two atop their heads. He then turned and whispered to Lenard. “You’ve proof of naught. Methinks that if she’s guilty she’s been frightened to stop, if not, ‘tis not pleasing to heaven to do more.”

Reeve Lenard raised his hands and declared the council ended.