Quest of Hope: A Novel (50 page)

Heinrich drew a deep breath and nodded. “At last,” he grumbled. It was already two days past All Souls’Day and the world had turned gray and cold. He wrapped himself tightly in his cloak as he stepped out from the church that had been his safe haven. He thanked the priests, then followed the silent column of monks through the village streets. In less than a quarter of an hour he stood facing a rough-looking galley filled with sad faces. Heinrich gaped at the eyes peering at him, for though he had heard of slaves before—and even had known a few in Weyer—he had never seen them like this.

Before him sat tight rows of Slavic pagans, “Lithuanians,” some voice muttered, “else eastern Poles.” Dirty, shivering within their thin wraps, the score of broad-faced men and a handful of women sat chained to the ship’s deck. Heinrich thought of his friends, Telek and Varina, and his heart sagged. Christian knights had captured these Slavs in their campaign into the wild and untamed reaches of the Baltic lands and Poland. The wretches would doubtlessly be sold in the popular slave market of Lübeck.

The baker followed his hosts along a wide plank joining the dock and the ship, and he stepped onto the smooth planks with a measure of anxiety. A crewman led Heinrich and the clerics past the hapless cargo of souls to a set of benches in the stern.

Father Baltasar handed the captain a small bag of silver as payment for the passage before sitting next to Heinrich. “So, my son. ‘Tis a chill in the air but the captain promises a smooth sail to Stettin.” The priest had a calming way about him and smiled kindly. Heinrich thought him to be about twenty-five and believed him to be a good and decent man, though somewhat nondescript. He was plain to look at—mild brown eyes, light brown hair, average height, and plain face. It was only his Christian charity that set him apart from other men—that, and a quality of humility that bred an air of quiet confidence.

Heinrich was hesitant to engage the father in conversation and had hoped to sit amongst the silent brethren without uttering a word for the entire journey. Instead, he smiled self-consciously at the loquacious priest and groaned inwardly. It was not that the priest was unpleasant company. On the contrary, the man was cheerful and intelligent. Heinrich was simply fearful of those reasonable questions any leisurely discussion might present.
What if he asks me of m’home … how do I answer him?
he wondered.
And what of m’arm and eye … and my penance—he’s not yet mentioned it! Ach, dare I lie to a priest? And, by the saints, exactly what did Groot tell him?

Chaper 21

ENDLESS GRAY

T
he single-sailed galley rolled atop a gentle sea as it pitched and lurched southward toward the northern shore of the continent. The ship was longer than Groot’s and served by eight oarsmen, a slave-master, a master-of-the-deck, and the captain. The crew was Norwegian, all except the brutish slave-master, a Wend from the nearby island of Rügen.

The captain treated Heinrich and the churchmen well and commanded the ship to a respectful silence whenever the monks conducted their prayers and psalms. The brothers were sober and contemplative. They devoted much of their day to saying the three offices: firstly, the Office of the Day; secondly, the
de Beata,
which is the Office of Our Lady; and finally the Office of the Dead. They ate only one scanty meal per day and repeatedly declined generous offerings offish or cheese from the ship’s crew. Unlike their Benedictine counterparts, these Carthusians were cleanshaven and their habits were white, not black, though they, too, shaved the crowns of their heads in the tonsure. Their willingness to deny themselves even the most meager of personal comforts made them good candidates to bring the Word to the farthest, most uncomfortable reaches of Christendom. Father Baltasar and his monks were being sent to a new monastery in the marshes of Pomerania near the western borders of pagan Prussia.

As Heinrich had dreaded from the outset, Baltasar soon launched a series of questions that brought beads of sweat to the baker’s brow despite the biting cold of the Baltic air. He knew he could neither betray the Stedingers nor lie to a priest of God. The poor fellow did his best to elude and evade, but the dual assault of the father’s curiosity and his own pricked conscience made the experience unbearable. Each new probe evoked a more clever hedge, and with each hedge Heinrich felt all the more like Jacob, the great deceiver. He wished the sky would blacken with a mighty tempest; that the sea would roll giant mountains toward them so the flapping jaw beside him would be stilled!

It was on the third day of Heinrich’s present agony that his verbose companion loosed a bit of news that cornered the simple baker. Father Baltasar did not intend to torment the man so, nor was he aware of the misery that Heinrich now suffered. He was genuinely curious about the stranger and wanted to shepherd the fellow’s soul to good places. So, when he yawned and nonchalantly shared that which Groot had told him, he had no malice.

Heinrich paled and gripped his seat. Huge streams of sweat ran into his beard and he gulped. “What, father? What did you say?”

“Ah, my son. It seems you have barely listened to me all this voyage! I said that your friend Groot told me you are a pious man and are on a pilgrimage to Rome to do a great penance. He said that in your humility you wanted others not to know, hence I have been shy to embarrass you with my knowledge of it. Forgive me for mentioning it, but I do wish to be your encourager in this.”

Heinrich stared at him blankly.
Rome?
he thought.
A penance to the Holy City?

“My son? Are you listening? Have you heard what I said?”

Heinrich’s mind whirled; the news was a shock but suddenly became something of an epiphany.
Rome? Of course Rome!
he thought.
Indeed! Other than Jerusalem, ‘tis no better place. There I might truly free our souls… Rome could forgive me, cleanse me, free m’family from judgment, and put me truly on the proper way again.

“But ‘tis so very far … how would I get there? How long a journey?” Heinrich was mumbling. “Aye? Did you say something, my son?”

“Nay father, I was talking under m’breath.”

“Ah. So, again… forgive me but I should like very much to pray for you and am happy beyond words that a freeman like yourself would walk away from temporal things to serve God.”

Heinrich was barely listening. He fumbled for words. “F-freeman?’

“Aye!” laughed Baltasar. “Of course, a Stedinger man! Groot also says you are a fine baker … and that your arm and eye were lost when your family perished in a great slaughter by rogue knights in your youth.”

“He said that?”

“Ja.
Is it so?”

Heinrich licked his lips. “Groot has a way of … of spinning a tale. He … he makes a big sail of small threads.”

“Ha! Like a good sailor ought!”

Heinrich nodded. His tangled mind was churning and he faced the horizon with tight lips and a tense face. The man ached for his sons and a twinge of doubt suddenly brushed against the idea of Rome’s remedy.

“So tell me about your hopes for Rome.”

The baker’s mouth was dry and he closed his eye.
What to do?
he wondered.
I am caught in a snare. If I speak against Groot’s word, then suspicion is aroused and more questions. Ach … and there … the crew is listening! They’ll take word of suspicion far and wide.

The captain leaned forward. “Father, did I hear y’say this man’s on pilgrimage to Rome?”

“Ja,
my son.”

The old, weathered Norseman looked at Heinrich with piercing blue eyes that chilled the baker. Heinrich was sure the man suspected something. The captain stared for a long moment, then slowly reached into his shirt and pulled a necklace over his head. It was a valuable silver chain bearing a long, curved tooth. “My grandfather’s grandfather took this tooth from a water-dragon in the shoals off Iceland. The silver comes from a Scot pirate who m’grandfather’s father killed near the Shetlands. ‘Tis the only thing of value left to me, besides this leaky ship. My own three sons ‘ave been lost to the sea and I’ve none to pass it to.

“You, stranger, needs take this to the Holy Stairs in Rome; m’mother told me of them from a bishop who once climbed them. Lay it there and have a priest say a prayer for me and for m’lads. I must do something for our souls’ sake. … Judgment is fast coming. Surely the Virgin would look kindly on us for such a gift. Take it, man, and I shall return the monks’ silver for their passage.” He leaned close to Heinrich’s ear, then whispered, “And I’ll say nothing of the runaway rumored ’bout the ports.”

Heinrich groaned. The man knew.

Father Baltasar laid his hands on Heinrich’s shoulders. “My son, serve this man as you have been served; charity for charity. Take his treasure to Rome with you.”

Heinrich turned his eye away from the smiling monks, only to lay it on the beaming face of the hopeful priest. The Norseman bowed and laid his necklace into Heinrich’s opened palm. “Swear to me, stranger, by the Holy Virgin and to her servants on this deck that you shall surely do this and you shall do it directly. I’ve not many years left in me.”

Heinrich knew once he vowed this service to the captain he must surely go. After all, the Virgin and the saints were listening.

He closed his hand around the necklace. He wanted nothing more than to return to his beloved sons and once again smell bread baking in his own ovens. He longed to walk along the Laubusbach and sit beneath the Magi on a summer’s Sabbath day. He sorely missed the comforting counsel of Brother Lukas. Yet he would neither endanger the Stedingers nor return to Weyer with the souls of his family in even greater peril. The sad-eyed peasant had little choice. Like a weary dog entreated to oblige his master, the poor man yielded to his chosen destiny. He moaned within himself, then answered, “I so swear.”

Snow was falling when Heinrich followed the monks along a slippery plank and onto the dock in Stettin. He bade the captain farewell and assented once more to his pledge before hastily following Baltasar to the town’s church. He was heavy-hearted and depressed. His shoulders slumped and he plumbed the dark recesses of his soul in search of reasons for his predicament.

The man trudged thought the town, soon thinking of nothing other than the hurt his further delay would inflict on Wil and Karl.
More than a year!
he moaned within himself.
I’ve been away more than a year… and now I’ve sins enough to send me to Rome! I pledged only forty days to Pious.
The pitiful man realized something else as well. It was November and he would not travel very far before winter would close around him.

It was as if Baltasar could read the man’s mind. “You must spend the gray days with us, my son,” he offered. “We journey overland to a monastery near Posen in the land of the Poles. We plan to winter there before traveling farther east in springtime.”

Heinrich was beaten and knew he had no other choice. He had no money and no means of transport. He grit his teeth and yielded. “I cannot repay you, father. But I can serve in the monks’ bakery if they’ll have me.”

“Aye! So, ‘tis true you are a baker!”

“Ja, father.”

Baltasar nodded compassionately. “It must be hard work with only one arm. Pity, you have lost the other along with your family.”

Heinrich shook his head.
Enough of this,
he thought. He turned to the priest. “Father, it is my wish that you ask me nothing more of my past. I choose to think only of my coming time in Rome and the cleansing of my miserable soul.”

Baltasar nodded and bowed sheepishly. “I humbly ask your pardon, my son. I am content to know you as you wish to be known.”

Heinrich sighed and thanked the father, then reluctantly climbed into a large, four-wheeled wagon. The group traveled for about a week over rough roads and through a flat monotonous wilderness buffeted by blustery winds. They followed the Oder River south until the point at which it converged with the Warthe. There they turned east past countless lonely, desolate villages of German colonists until they were deep within the Kingdom of Poland. At last, on a cold, damp night they arrived at the tiny monastery in Posen.

The Carthusian cloister was little more than a single-naved church surrounded by a pathetic ring of stone and timbered buildings that served as the refectory, infirmary, stable, chapter house, and such. The porter greeted the new arrivals with the customary welcome, and the group was hurried to the chilly chambers of the ruling prior. Tankards of beer and a tray of cheese were offered, but they were presented with neither enthusiasm nor joy. A few dutiful words were exchanged and soon all were directed to their night’s quarters.

Wrapped in his sealskin cloak, Heinrich lay atop a board bed and shivered beneath a thin wool blanket. A small, meaningless fire burned in a smoking hearth at the end of the dormitory, giving as little heat as light. The man stared at the underside of the thatch roof and wondered why and how it was that he was lying in some forgotten place in Poland with only one arm and one eye, penniless, despairing, and cold. He would have wept had not the first tear of self-pity so shamed him that he clenched his jaw.

In the morning of his first day he was assigned to duties in the kitchen as the baker’s helper. The cloister’s baker was a lay monk, one whose vows did not require the piety of the choir monks nor demand the same devotion to either self-denial or charity. He was a sullen, blond-haired Pole named Radoslaw who had no affection for either Germans or their language. With utter disdain, he grunted and directed Heinrich to his tasks with pointed fingers and lips curled like a seething wolf.

Heinrich served his master without complaint. He labored hard, for kneading dough with one hand proved difficult. He was an expert in formulas, however, and meekly showed Radoslaw better techniques for preparing the oven and shaping rolls, pretzels, loaves, and the like. It was a miserable, unrewarding relationship, however, making the harsh winter seem all the more endless.