Pilgrims of Promise (16 page)

The man’s gaze rested on the simple apple-wood cross as Wil and Frieda slowly set it upright. He could only imagine what sorrows that cross had witnessed, what sufferings it had borne along his sons’ crusade of tears. He then laid his hand atop the grave and groaned woefully. It was a painful thing to be separated from his beloved boy by such a thin screen of dirt and rock. He only wished he could hug the happy lad one last time. Heinrich fell to the ground alongside the mound and cried out for heaven’s mercy.

Wil drew short, shallow breaths and tried for all the world to hold back his tears. Unable to bear the raw agony of his father’s grief, he retreated to the far side of the road and leaned against a tree, very much alone. Alas, there in his solitude he could not hold the flood tide of sorrow any longer. He covered his face with his hands and was soon weeping.

Large salty droplets also fell from Frieda’s cheeks as she cleaned every bit of bramble off the grave. Humming softly as a mother would when tending one she loves, she smiled lovingly as she pictured the boy’s red curls and ready smile. “Ah, Karl,” she whispered, “you know the answer to the riddle now, don’t you?” She reached for a few early blooms and sprinkled them atop the mound.

In time, Wil composed himself and started for the grave again. He stopped, however, and stared at his father, who was yet lying on the ground, still as death. The lad watched and considered this final evidence of the man’s heart.
“Uncaring?” It hardly seems so. “Dangerous?” I remember how he was so easily tricked by the steward. “Selfish?” Perhaps. But I don’t recall the times he was, other than his leaving us, and I’ve not seen a sign of it in all these months.

Wil’s thoughts took him to the Weyer of his childhood, and memories of his father began to take a more pleasant place alongside those of Karl.
He liked to laugh but was too easily shamed by others
, he remembered.
Ah, the Magi and the Laubusbach … he and Karl loved them so. And old Emma and Lukas…. Odd they should be such friends to the man he was said to be.

Frieda’s touch returned him to the present. “Wil, perhaps ‘tis time?”

The young man nodded. He walked to his father and nudged him with his boot. Heinrich lurched with a start. “What?”

“‘Tis time.”

The man’s eye lingered on the well-groomed grave for another moment. It was hard for him to leave it, harder than he had imagined. He stared, emptied of all joy, drained of things happy. At last, he rolled to his knees and bowed his head. He prayed loudly and without reservation, pleading with the saints, the Holy Mother, and the Christ to share the bounty of heaven “with my good boy, Karl,” to “show the boy mercy at the Judgment to come,” and to “grant him all joy until the day I see him again.” Then, knowing he could do no more, he stood slowly to his feet. With a heavy sigh, he turned to Wil and waited to press his journey home.

The April air was noticeably cooler in the Appenines than it had been by the sea, but it was comfortable in the daytime hours and surprisingly dry. Wil’s company pressed through the mountains under the watch of numerous castle keeps perched on ledges high above their path. The Ligurian lords who ruled them were in ever-changing tangles of alliances that kept their lives and fortunes in perpetual jeopardy.

The six pilgrims camped at the eastern base of the mountains on a stony shore of the narrow Scrivia, and in the morning they bathed in the river’s rushing water. It was cold and bracing—almost sacramental. Few words were spoken, but somehow they believed they needed to be refreshed in body and in spirit. It was as though the chilly dip in running water might wash away the salty stains of heavy tears.

Renewed and refreshed, they then journeyed northward along the Scrivia toward the crossroads town of Tortona, where they detoured westward in the direction of Allesandria. The days were mercifully dry, and the sky was blue. The highways were not crowded, and the pilgrims made good time.

They forded the shallow Po, then made their way to the stone walls of Vercelli, where they set up camp alongside a small caravan of merchants crossing the Piedmont from Milan to Turin. The caravan was made up of some score of merchants led by their elected doyen—a gruff, former Norman crusader named Robert Fitzhugh. The band, or “guild,” included several spice purveyors delivering seasonings from the eastern Mediterranean, a wine seller, an oil merchant, a few potters, several cloth merchants, and sundry others all riding in wagons groaning under the weight of a bounty of goods purchased from the lands of Islam.

That evening the band enjoyed a lively feast of good beer and tasty foods. By midnight, however, Tomas had indulged far beyond his limit and was sick in the alleys of Vercelli, leaving his fellows to settle into easy conversation with a silk merchant born in Oppenheim. “
Ja
, I’ve heard things of your crusade. Seems your leader’s father was hanged in Cologne.”

“Our leader?” quizzed Helmut.

“Nicholas of Cologne,” answered Frieda.

“Devil’s son,” answered Helmut. “I hope he’s dead!”

The merchant raised his brows. “
Ja
? Well, I have heard nothing of Nicholas, but well before Advent, methinks, an angry mob dragged his father into the streets of the city. They said the scoundrel had deceived them all. Then they hanged him and promised to do the same to Nicholas.”

Wil grumbled. Nicholas was not
his
leader, but Nicholas’s vision in the springtime past had certainly inspired the whole of the Christian world and affected the destinies of countless children, himself included. Thinking of being seduced by madness was troubling. ‘
Tis bad enough we failed,
he thought.
But now to know we were dolts as well!

Somehow sensing his thoughts, Frieda leaned close and whispered, “The vision
could
have been true. How were we to know?”

Wil shrugged. He felt foolish no matter how it might be explained.

“Your hearts were good in the crusade, son. ‘Tis the heart that matters,” Heinrich offered.

“Well, a bounty of good hearts are not beating now,” muttered Wil. “Next time methinks the heart and the head ought consider one another.”

“Ha! Well said, lad,” roared the merchant. “Well said, indeed! Would that
all
might see the world that way. Now, to other things. Where be y’travelin’?”

“North,” answered Heinrich. “Home.”

The man nodded. “Home is a worthy destination. I left my Oppenheim many years ago to fight the infidels. I served well, but my desires were fired by two things: a dark-haired beauty and the magic of silk—the both of them smooth and soft.
Ja!
Well, time came for me to make a choice. I found the woman to be quickly bothersome … in truth, a vicious shrew! So I chose the silk!” He laughed and poured himself more wine.

“Now I spend my life traveling south of the mountains in wintertime and north in summer. I buy silk from the Venetians, sell it at the fairs, and then hide my money in the nearest Templar strongbox. They keep a fair accounting. We dare not carry much with us, of course. We’ve hired soldiers as you see, but sometimes the highwaymen come in whole armies. Here especially, what with the Visconti from Milan. They would seize all of Lombardy and the Piedmont if they could. Perhaps they shall in time.”

At the sound of the word
Visconti
, Wil and Frieda chilled. The memories of their horrid days in the Verdi castle at Domodossola would never leave either of them. There, many had perished in awful ways, including three of their comrades. There, too, were other losses. For Wil, it was there where the Visconti had exposed his cowardice and the Verdi damsel his pride. It was there where Frieda had lost respect for him.

The two looked at each other until Wil turned away and stared at the ground. Frieda reached her hand forward and touched his. Refusing to look up, he mumbled, “Now I really am ashamed. First to be so easily fooled by a false vision, then to be reminded again of my deeds in that cursed castle.”

“No more of that,” answered the maiden. “We’ve all something to regret, but we must not let our regrets rule us, else they become who we are. Your father taught me that.”

Wil said nothing. He was surprised by her remark and wondered what other things she had learned from his father. He cast a look at Heinrich, who was chatting with the merchant. “Well, ‘tis time for sleep,” he muttered.

The night passed quickly, and soon the pilgrims were enjoying a first meal of porridge and honey, fresh bread and red wine. “So now we part,” the generous merchant said with a satisfied smile. He belched. “Was a pleasure to meet fellow survivors from crusade! I wish you all Godspeed.”

With hails and grateful waves, the pilgrims then left Vercelli, soon to travel north across lands dotted with poor villages. Throughout the day Wil rolled the name “survivor” over and over in his mind. He liked the sound of it; it had redeemed his sense of failure in some small way. “Strange how a name can change a way of thinking,” he blurted.

“What?” answered Frieda.

“A name. I say it’s odd how calling someone something can change things. The merchant called us ‘survivors.’ Now I look at all of us differently.”

Tomas sneered. He was often apt to sneer, for he took delight in casting shadows. “Ha! Wil, y’think to be honored by ‘surviving’? Ha! Cowards are survivors, too!” He laughed and pointed his finger. “Tis easy to see that you’re desperate to claim something good from all this!”

“Shut yer mouth,” snapped Wil.

“Aye, Tomas!” blurted Helmut. “Shut it, or I’ll shut it with m’fist!”

The group stopped walking. Tomas leaned his face close to Helmut’s and, daring the other to make good on his threat, he opened his mouth as wide as he could. With both forefingers he pointed to the gaping black cavern, goading the other with some indiscernible grunts.

To Tomas’s great surprise, Helmut struck and struck hard, knocking the startled boy to the ground. He lay flat on his back, stunned and dizzy.

“Up, y’dung-breathed dolt!” challenged Helmut. “I’ve tired of yer whining, yer troublemaking talk. Stand up so I can beat you down again!”

“Enough, lads!” boomed Heinrich as he separated the pair. “Tomas, you’d be bleeding.” He uncorked a flask. “Wash your face with this.”

Tomas poured warm beer over his swelling lips. He glared at the lanky Helmut and then muttered a few oaths and wandered off the road.

Wil nodded his thanks to his ally but assured him that he was perfectly capable of handling Tomas on his own. “Now, are we ready?”

A chorus of “ayes” answered, and the pilgrims were off again. They now marched quietly with Tomas some distance in the rear. They crossed the Piedmont under stormy skies, and it seemed that the weather grew more foul with each passing league.

Finally, at twilight on the twenty-fourth day of April, the six arrived at the southern shoreline of Lago Maggiore, where they made camp under a grove of trees. For the whole of the past ten days, Frieda and Wil had been restrained in their anxiety over the likely news of Maria. Neither wanted to mention the matter, each choosing to wrestle privately with their own expectations. Frieda retreated to her quill and parchment whenever she might steal the time. It was her way of escape. For his part, Wil found solace with Emmanuel, practicing with the bow at eventide and dawn.

As for Heinrich, the matter was more troubling than sad.
Who?
he had oft wondered.
Who sired this
girl
? It was said that Maria was born in late May. According to Heinrich’s rough counting, that would mean Marta would have conceived in late August—many weeks prior to his departure. Knowing that his wife had banned his touch long before then, the frustrated man was left to speculate. His mind struggled to recall the men of Weyer.
She hated all men
, he thought.
Who?
Such tortuous thoughts cost him his sleep, and he left the camp one night to roam under a clearing sky.
Who? Ach! All her boasts of right living, and all her charges against me and my “secret sins”!
The man pounded his fist against his thigh. “Mem
Gott!”
he cried.

Despite the dark, brooding cloud of dread hovering over the weary travelers, morning delivered sunshine and mist. The band arose quickly and followed a clench-jawed Wil as he led them on a hurried march along the western shore of the lake. Before noon, the town walls and clay roofs of Arona were in full view along with the silhouettes of the rising Alps beyond.