Quest of Hope: A Novel (49 page)

Heinrich was feeling a little better and smiled halfheartedly. “Aye, sir, methinks so, but can y’not keep the sea still for me?” He leaned across the smooth rail of the rolling ship and stared at the blue horizon. Somewhere in the distance the sky and the sea merged into one and the man marveled. He scanned the distant view and watched the water shimmer, reflecting all the colors of the rainbow. “Ah,
Frau
Emma,” he sighed, “if only you could see this!”

The ship rose and fell rhythmically on the North Sea’s waves and Heinrich sat comfortably with his back against the salt-worn walls of the ship’s deck. He closed his eye to enjoy the music of the groaning hull, the sailcloth in the wind, and the rub of ropes. But thoughts began to creep over him like an army of shadows consuming a fragile light. His mind began to fill with the images of Weyer and his past. He suddenly saw Baldric’s face and he chilled. He saw the stern faces of abbots and monks, priests, stewards—and Marta, staring at him with contempt and cruelty. It was as if he could hear them shaming him for his betrayal. The man felt sick. He was so very confused, so very disoriented that he did not know which world was real and which was not.

He opened his eye with a start.
Sins and penance,
he groaned inwardly.
I’ve yet to know how to save m’lads or Marta from m’wicked past. Oh, dear saints! I’ve truly forfeited all I’ve come for. My soul and theirs may he in greater jeopardy now than when I left!
A nervous flutter tickled his empty belly and his mouth went dry.
I raised m’arm against the army of the Church! I am a runaway; I have coveted the freedom of the Stedingers, filled my heart with pride; I’ve indulged m’self with joy… Oh wicked man that I am! Surely, I must find a great penance.
A grumble from Groot distracted Heinrich from his internal diatribe.

The captain’s face was turned to the west; his round nose was lifted like that of a hound scenting the air. Heinrich climbed to his feet and followed the captain’s gaze to a menacing bank of clouds mounting in the western horizon. What he did not see, however, was what only a seaworthy Frisian could see. Some distance behind the ship a darting wedge of wind had ruffled the sea’s surface. To port another patch was stirred, then another. A pocket of cold air swelled the sail and the ship lurched a little.

“All hands tighten the ropes aft! Prepare to set two oars; you, sailor, lend me your back at the rudder.”

Heinrich sensed something was about. He groaned aloud. “Only one more day to dry land!”

Groot knew what was coming and within the hour his wooden ship was riding the white-capped sea like a squire tossing atop an unbroken colt. A howling western wind drove hard into the stretching sail while ropes and timbers groaned. Stinging salt water broke over the high bow and crashed atop the struggling crew.

The sturdy craft heaved and plunged atop the sea all through that afternoon while Heinrich trembled deep in the hold. It was sometime just past dusk when the cloth sail ripped. It split into two ragged pieces and, like the rending of the temple’s holy veil, its cleave changed everything. Cries sounded from the deck and the ship suddenly spun. Groot and his seamen grasped and grunted at the rudder, straining against the mighty waves. Unable to have its bow turned toward the wind, the ship drifted sideways to the storm. Water poured onto its deck and the hold began to fill.

Heinrich clambered up from his flooding refuge and sprawled on the slippery deck. With only one arm he could do little more than lie helpless and terrified in the darkness. A desperate sailor hollered in his ear, “Follow me!” The baker obeyed and slid on his belly back to the hold.

“Groot says heave the cargo!” shouted the sailor.

Heinrich nodded and helped drag bushel after bushel of Cornelis’s precious harvest to the deck above. The man strained and groaned and used his back and legs to help his aching arm lift what he could. He wrestled wooden casks, wicker baskets, carts, and crates to the deck while other hands tossed one after the other into the angry sea. It would prove to be a futile effort.

The night’s storm redoubled its bluster like a zephyr gone mad. The wind that had formerly only howled now raged with bitter squalls of raw and unyielding malice as if blown from the fearsome lungs of a leviathan. Groot’s ship was quickly filling with water and listing farther with each crashing wave. No human hands could hold the rudder, and the captain finally bellowed to his crew, “The ship is lost! Find a barrel or plank!”

Heinrich had no time for fear. He could not swim, of course, and knew he was in grave peril. His mind worked quickly. He removed his eye patch and dagger and placed them deep within the satchel he secured over his shoulder. He bound his cloak with a belt and grabbed hold of a wide plank he had secretly prepared for such an unlikely moment. The baker slipped along the tilting deck and followed the sounds of voices until he was huddled with his fellows. A mighty, black wave suddenly lifted and rolled the squat merchant ship high. Then, as if a mighty hand pushed hard from port, the ship tumbled over on its starboard side, plunging all hands into the foaming sea.

Heinrich held his board with all his strength and sucked a mighty breath of air into his lungs before he disappeared beneath the water. For an awful moment the baker’s world was black and suffocating, strangely quiet and nearly still. The oak was not meant to sink, however, and the man rode it on a vertical shot to the surface. Heinrich’s face broke the water with a gasp. Sputtering in the salty spray and with all the might his arm and legs could muster, he pulled and kicked until his upper body lay draped atop the bobbing board.

With legs dangling in the cold water, Heinrich peered desperately into the night’s darkness for his fellows. The man strained to hear, but his ears were filled only with the whistling of wind and the wash of water. Unable to do more, he spent the rest of that awful night hanging desperately to his plank.

By daybreak the wind had eased and a cold rain pelted the flattening sea below. The six men were scattered across a wide area but were within view of one another. In a few hours they managed to kick and paddle their way together. Groot knew he needed to find either a ship or landfall soon, and he strained to see through the cold rain that now washed over them. For hours, the hapless seamen floated aimlessly at the mercy of the sea’s currents until Groot’s ears finally cocked. “Shh.” The six bobbed quietly. “There! Can y’hear it?” A church bell was ringing. “The blessed bells of sext! ‘Tis noontime, lads, and we’re drifting toward land! Tide’s up … that’s good. Now kick and paddle!” His eyes brightened and a huge smile crossed his face. Ahead was a flat ribbon of land, and as the rain eased all could see the spire of a church.

“Prijzen God?”
they cried.

By midafternoon a rolling tide tumbled the shipwrecked party onto the sandy beach of the large Danish island of Slotshlomen. The men stumbled out of the surf and collapsed, shivering and numb but grateful beyond words to reach land alive. Groot stared toward the distant town. “Heinrich, I’m not sure where we are. Seems like we’d be near to the mouth of the sound. That would make Havn some two days away by land.”

“Havn?”

“Aye. Some call it Copenhagen. ‘Tis a good port built on the marshes. The Bishop of Roskilde owns it from the other side. ‘Tis where all Christendom gets its salted herring for Lent! We needs get help in this town, then maybe walk to Havn.”

“I needs get to Götheborg and winter with the Swede.” Heinrich shivered.

Groot shook his head. “Nay, sir. I’ll not be going there now. I’ll get m’men to Havn where we’ll ferry our way south, ‘round the islands to Schleswig. Then I’ll needs overland them to home.”

Heinrich stared blankly. “But, I …” He was exhausted, cold, hungry, and confused.

“First, y’needs get dry and warm, be fed, and see where we are. And y’needs cover that hole in your face!” Groot roared.

Heinrich nodded, slowly. He reached into his satchel and put his patch back over his eye. He was relieved to find his dagger safe and he secured it in his belt. He pinched the Laubusbach stone between his finger and his thumb. Then he smiled. “Here.” He offered his fellows a generous portion of the food that Edda had sent with him. The six feasted on his cheese, fish, and salted pork, and in a few moments the company was hurrying toward the belltower of the church.

Groot’s instincts were correct. His crew had washed ashore at the north end of an island some two or three days’ journey from Copenhagen, and they were now the guests of a hospitable Danish fishing village. The local priest fed the six and led them to a roaring hearth where they sat naked under wool blankets held wide to capture the heat of the snapping blaze. Three weeks later the same priest arranged their transport with a wagonload of sympathetic monks from a monastery in Sweden who were traveling to an outpost in eastern Pomerania, just north of Poland.

The six were introduced to a Swedish priest, one Father Baltasar, who was escorting the monks. The gracious young father insisted Heinrich and the sailors take positions in the tall wagon while he and his white-robed Carthusian brethren walked alongside the wagon’s solid wheels. Looking over the side at the hooded heads bowed and bobbing beneath him drew Heinrich back to visions of the monks in Villmar. He stared at these men, quite aware that their gesture was an act of true Christian piety. Amazed and profoundly moved, he was suddenly disturbed by their kindness. He closed his eye and groaned within himself, now certain he had betrayed the good that yet was in the world of his past.

As promised, the priest and his monks finally delivered the sailors to Havn where they bade a humble farewell. Groot and his men would need to find a ferry back to the Jutland peninsula before marching overland to home. The churchmen, on the other hand, would ferry southeastward to the mainland at Stettin by the mouth of the Oder River near the eastern borders of the German Empire.

Heinrich had reasoned that he would follow the monks to Stettin and then travel south through the Oder River valley until such time as he might make a move westward toward home. It was a plan counseled by Groot and not without wisdom. Heinrich dared not venture into any of the lands influenced by news from knights returning from Oldenburg, and numbers of them had come from manors all over nearby Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thurungia. Nor did he dare wander farther east into the perilous lands of the Poles. By transversing the Oder Valley he should be safe in between both dangers and hidden in the wilderness until he was far enough south to make his turn.

The sailors could offer the monks nothing more than their heartfelt thanks. For their part, the brethren seemed genuinely pleased to have served their fellow man. Groot and his companions then turned to Heinrich and embraced him. Each offered him a hearty “Godspeed” and Groot whispered a final word of advice: “Say nothing to the brothers or their priest. Do not tell them of your past… of where you come from, or how you lost your arm and eye. Even the tongue of a good monk can slip … and one slip might surely be your doom. I’ve told them all that they needs know about you.”

“What did you say?” asked Heinrich.

“I said you were a pilgrim doing penance. Godspeed, Heinrich. Perhaps we meet again!”

“But… but, Groot… wait—” With a saddened look to the men that had become so quickly familiar, he waved a final farewell. It was a painful moment for the baker. Though he had known the sailors for only a short time, he had grown close to them. Sharing the terror of the shipwreck and the joy of survival had knit the six together in a way only such a shared adventure can. “Ah, indeed. Perhaps we meet again.”

It would be several more days before Heinrich finally boarded the ferry with the monks. He had done his best to keep a polite but necessary distance from the priest and the brothers, for he was uneasy about what questions might be posed. “Follow us—we are ready to sail, good pilgrim!” cried Father Baltasar.