Quest of Hope: A Novel (33 page)

Katharina smiled shyly. “All is well.” Her eyes filled with pain and she looked toward the stream. “Might we walk, just for a while?”

Heinrich’s belly tingled and he wanted to shout. He shrugged, feeling strangely guilty. “Oh, of course, but just for a bit. I must get back to the boys and Emma and, well, I…”

“Just for a moment, then.” Katharina smiled sadly. The two walked slowly toward the Laubusbach. Katharina spoke first. “I don’t come to the bakery because Ludwig sends our tenant and makes me fetch the wood at each day’s prime.”

Heinrich nodded. “And y’ve spinning and little Erika and the like … I understand. Marta makes others do her chores when she can. She says she’s oft sick and ought rest more. But she does keep the hovel in good order. Everything in its place, all swept and … and she likes to work at art. She makes a good likeness with charcoal and…” Heinrich wondered why he was speaking of Marta.

Katharina listened respectfully and said little until they were standing by the water’s edge. The two stared into the lively stream and were drawn, almost magically, into its cheerful, sun-tipped joy. The water danced and bubbled clean and bright like liquid crystal over smooth gemstones. “It wonders me some, Heinrich, if heaven shall have its own Laubusbach.”

Heinrich smiled.
She is so very gentle,
he thought. Her voice was calming, like the waters at his feet. Her flaxen hair was neatly braided and laid along the nape of her slender neck. He wanted for all the world to touch it, but his wife’s face suddenly filled his mind’s eye and he felt fresh guilt wash over him.
Marta,
he thought.
So unhappy and hard.
He stared at the lapping stream.
Not wicked, just tiresome … but oh, such a heavy burden.
A lump filled his throat and he turned toward Katharina. “I needs take m’leave.” His voice betrayed a despair that drew tears to Katharina’s eyes.

She smiled and nodded. “I think I shall stay a while longer. Ludwig thinks me gathering walnuts so I must fill this basket and be off… else—”

“Else what?”

Katharina said nothing.

Heinrich nodded and slowly turned away.

Two more years passed. Now twenty-eight, Heinrich was aging beyond the prime of his life. Many of his peers had already been laid in their graves; most from sickness, some by accidents or calamity.

Heinrich kept his curly hair short, as peasants ought, and obliged the new abbot’s command that servile men now be clean-shaven. He had more teeth than many and more silver than most. His fields were still well managed by Herwin and often yielded more than others. He had acquired a small piece of land adjacent to his hovel and fenced it for use as a larger kitchen garden. The baker had built a fowl coop as well. “I want eggs for the poor,” Heinrich said, and, indeed, the man was generous to those in need.

The abbot now ruling the manor was Udo of Brandenburg, a benevolent though stern monk who had every intention of wresting the abbey from the control of the archbishop and submitting it, instead, to the Holy See in Rome. Abbot Stephen had been sent to a larger abbey in the south of France. He had done well to advance the small abbey in the midst of trying times and had proven great skill in his stewardship. It was good fortune that had helped him finally pay the tardy tithe, however, for new rents now flowed to Villmar from lands gifted by the will of Lord Gottwald; lands near Oldenburg that surrounded Emma’s inheritance.

There were seventy-five brethren who received Abbot Udo in Villmar’s growing cloister. The abbey grounds had recently been enlarged with new granaries and workshops, and work had begun on a new chapel and a novice cloister. Udo was delighted to leave his duties in the larger abbey at St. Gall, for he thought in ways that often earned trouble in more prestigious places. He was convinced that his Benedictines, despite the letter of his Rule, ought mingle and minister, talk and weep with the people they served. His ideas were, it seemed, far ahead of their time, though none in Villmar chose to challenge him.

The day of Udo’s endowment was a fine and glorious Sabbath in June. At terce, the black-robed abbot raised a gracious hand over his brethren as they sang to him their psalms and prayers with comforting humility. The cloister’s priests then prayed loudly and with vigor, charging all to “keep God’s holy ways, stray not toward paths of sin, and honor the Virgin in each word and every deed.”

The feast of Lammas was met with dread as the harvest failed once again. The hay crop was poor and the blood-month of November would need to cull a larger number of stock than any wished. The grain fields were dry from drought; they would yield but a fraction of their potential at planting.

Herwin shook his head and groused, “My son and I sweat upon the fields Heinrich, but once more we’ve little to show for our labors! I shall never earn enough to buy even a virgate of m’own!” Indeed, the man’s words were true and they stabbed at Heinrich’s heart. Herwin was more deserving than most. He was hard-working, charitable, kind, and faithful. “He has never once scrumped even a fistful of grain for himself,” grumbled Heinrich. “He ought have better.”

In the larger world, the three-way contest for the empire’s crown continued. Pope Innocent III maintained his support for Otto the Welf, but rumors abounded that he was beginning to speak with some sympathy of Duke Philip’s cause. Some said he was even tempted to support Friederich’s claim due to recent doubts of Otto’s loyalty. The confusing matters of Church and empire went largely unnoticed by the peasants, however, except to the extent they raised taxes or hardened the hand of the abbey’s bailiff.

Old Bailiff Werner raged about the abbey’s manors with surly men-at-arms in tow. In years past, his title ranked him just beneath the abbot in matters of administration. To his dismay, however, the new abbot had granted more and more powers over legal and financial matters to the lay counsel hired from Runkel, even recently conferring the title of “steward” on the man.

Werner’s duties now were more like a constable’s—keeping the peace, collecting taxes, arresting criminals, and the like. Given the perpetual threat of invasion he was instructed to maintain order at any cost to life, limb, or property. And so he did.

On a warm night a few days after the Assumption of the Virgin, the men of Weyer were summoned together by Reeve Dietrich. “I’ve news from Werner,” he began. “Seems the new abbot is severely troubled by all the scrumping. I’ve had grain stolen from the mill barns just this past week. Others have lost pennies here and there. Yeoman Gottshalk had near to a mark taken from his bed… behind a barred door! The church in Emmerich was pilfered of a relic! Abbot Udo says the Devil’s afoot again and needs be stopped.

“He’s begged more Templars’ help in keeping good order. He’s garrisoned more of their mercenaries in the cloister and Heribert’s men are roving about. Now here’s why you’d be called: Lord Heribert’s knights caught a young lad of Niederbrechen thieving the Templars’ strongbox in the abbey. Some say he’s filled with a demon.”

“How old?” came a voice from the crowd.

“Methinks he’s six or so.”

A rumble stirred through the men. “And what of it? Why needs we stand here?”

“Aye … here’s the rub for us. We’ve been ordered at the morrow’s eve-tide to witness the boy’s penalty, we and every boy of the village over three years.”

A loud protest rose from the men. “We’d be in harvest time! They drive us like oxen from light to light and now want us to walk hours for some waif from Niederbrechen?!”

“Aye, ‘tis the command.”

“But why?” shouted another.

“Seems the abbot is weary of the troubles. ‘Tis as simple as that.”

The men cursed and swore, groused, grumbled, and kicked the dust, but by the bells of vespers on the next day they were descending the winding road to Villmar.

Heinrich thought the evening to be eerie and filled with haunts. He and his sons followed his fellows through the waning light into Villmar village where he was led to a flat field adjacent to the abbey’s walls. Here the men and boys of the abbot’s manor crowded into a murmuring mass of some thousand souls—a legion of weary, wool-clad peasants sweating and cursing in the humid summer’s night. The men of Weyer found their place before a large square lined by torches and edged with well-armed footmen. The sight gave pause to all.

Heinrich held one son in each hand. The boys were crushed and pressed on all sides by the hips and elbows of those squeezed against them.
“Vati!”
cried Karl.

“Aye, little lad,” answered Heinrich, “let me lift you here.” The man hoisted his frightened redhead atop his broad shoulders and held one leg tightly. The boy grasped hold of his father’s head and stared at the torches lighting the square. He was a happy child and one apt to giggle before he’d cry. But on this night the weight of dread gave the lad a chill.

Heinrich noticed a column of mounted soldiers with torches snaking their way through the crowd. A wagon was in the center of the procession and it bore a wooden cage. Wil could only hear the comments of those taller than he, so, against his father’s command, the boy forced his way through the crowd and toward the square. He pushed and grunted, squatted and crawled his way to the front and finally found himself peering into the center of the field through the thighs of a wide-legged soldier. His gaze fell upon a platform and on the platform, two posts and a beam.

The wagon and the horsemen slowly made their way to the base of the stage and a company of footmen formed an impenetrable fence between the crowd and the gallows. Wil felt suddenly nervous and imagined the firelight was surely drawn from the furnaces of hell. The almost seven-year-old wished he had not left his father’s side.

A priest, none knew whom, stepped first upon the platform. Behind him followed Werner accompanied by two knights of Runkel and the executioner. The hangman was bare-chested and his head draped in a black woollen hood. At the sight of him the crowd began to murmur. The cart stopped at the steps leading to the gallows and Wil spotted a small, skeletal lad shaking and crying within the cage. Wil had learned to hide his heart but he surely had one, and the sight of the helpless boy released a flood of tears.

“In nomine Paris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,”
the priest began. “Our God deliver us. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.”

Bailiff Werner stepped forward and handed a parchment to a knight of Heribert. The man raised a hand and read:
“Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.
Hear me, subjects of Abbot Udo, the most high Pope Innocent III, and Emperor Otto of our Holy Empire. All order is from the Most High God. His name shall not be blasphemed nor His ways offended. By right of Word and by command of the rightful Protector of this land, Lord Heribert of Runkel, it is so ordered that Albert of Niederbrechen, third living son of Hinrik the cotter also of Niederbrechen is accused and found guilty of stealing bread and cheese from the Templars’ refectory in the abbey at Villmar.”

A rumble rustled through the crowd. The knight lifted his face and scowled. Werner raised his hands and shouted, “Silence! Silence!”

After a brief pause, the knight read on: “As this is his third offense and no penance nor penalty has proven remedy for his unholy ways, it is the sad but just duty of the court of Runkel, under the authority granted by the abbot, to impose sentence worthy of his sins and crimes. Let God have mercy on his soul. Amen.”

Wil and the crowd of his fellows fell silent. The hanging of a peasant boy was rare, though not unheard of, and most thought cruel. As little Albert was dragged from his cage a few voices cried out in protest and a rumble was heard on the far side of the square. A figure suddenly emerged from the dark mass, pointing his fist and shouting. “By all that is right and good, release this poor wretch!” the man cried.