The Blessing Stone (44 page)

He took a seat and remained quiet while she worked. Winifred had created an exquisite St. Amelia, radiant and humble, serving the poor, spreading the word of Christ. In the fourth panel of the new altarpiece, St. Amelia was holding a blue crystal, cupped in her hand, to her throat. The abbot could make no sense of it, but it was beautiful and compelling and it took his breath away.

When a novice brought him ale and he sipped it absently, Father Edman not only decided that he would let Winifred finish the altarpiece after all, he was already thinking of future paintings he was going to commission her to paint, and the patrons who were going to pay handsomely for them.

Interim

When the abbot had seen the magnificence of Winifred’s altarpiece, he had done a quick turnabout and claimed all credit for encouraging her, and then commissioned a triptych for his own church. He never made bishop, but died two years later when he choked on a fishbone during his third helping of Easter dinner.

Mother Winifred lived another thirty years, spending her days producing a prodigious number of breathtaking paintings, altarpieces, and miniatures—madonnas, crucifixions, and nativities—all identified as hers by the ubiquitous crystal, for artists did not sign works in those days.

Shortly after the Viking raid, Mr. Ibn-Abu-Aziz-Jaffar returned to St. Amelia’s for one last visit, to thank Mother Winifred for warning him against going to the abbey that day, as his decision to turn inland and journey instead to Mayfield had diverted him from the direct path of the Vikings, thus saving his life. Mother Winifred, forgetting the sight she had inherited from Celtic ancestors, gave all credit to St. Amelia, and invited the itinerant merchant to rest at the priory for as long as he liked. He decided to retire there, in a small cottage on the grounds with his faithful horse Seska living out her days in a paddock. Simon the Levite occasionally helped out around the convent, was popular among visitors and pilgrims, and continued to be Mother Winifred’s friend and adviser. They developed a ritual of meeting every afternoon for a quiet talk—Simon the Jew and Winifred the nun—until his death fourteen years later. Though he never converted to Christianity, she insisted her old friend be given last rites and be buried in hallowed ground.

As Mother Winifred continued to execute her paintings, her hand and eyesight finally fading with age, she sometimes paused in her work to think of the Viking who had picked up the blue stone, and wondered what he had done with St. Amelia’s power.

What had happened was this: when the Vikings returned to their ship, they found it ablaze and surrounded by Oswald of Mercia’s soldiers, who slaughtered the Danes to a man. Oswald himself took part in the pillaging of the bodies, and he found a curious blue stone, beautiful beyond belief. He had it mounted on a sword that later accompanied an ill-fated Crusader to Jerusalem where the stone was pried out of the hilt and carried to Baghdad as a gift to the caliph where it was fitted, for a while, into his favorite turban. In a moment of weakness, the caliph gave the crystal to a temple dancer who wore it in her navel as she danced for him and then fled during the night with her illicit lover. The crystal was carried in pockets and purses, knew masters and mistresses, was sold and bought and stolen again, until it was brought back across the English Channel by a soldier returning from the Crusades. Having been blinded in battle near Jerusalem and hoping to find a cure, he joined a group of pilgrims headed for Canterbury. They were set upon by brigands who sold their booty in the north. Here the crystal was set into the lid of a mother-of-pearl jewel box by a young man who hoped to win a young lady’s affection with such an extravagant gift. But when the young lady rejected her suitor’s marriage proposal, he took himself off to Europe where he vowed to kill himself once he had found a suitable spot. There he met a man from Assisi named Francis, who was founding a new brotherhood based on poverty, and on an impulse the dejected young man joined the order, giving away everything he owned, including the cursed jewel box.

The peasant who found the box in the Franciscans’ pile of charitable offerings pried the blue stone loose from the lid and bought a loaf of bread with it, and when the baker’s wife saw the captivating gem, she exchanged it for another novel invention, a glass mirror, believing that an object that showed her reflection was more precious than one that did not.

In 1349 the Black Death killed one third of the population of Europe, and in that time the blue crystal was blamed for seven deaths and six cures as it passed from deceased to survivor, from patient to doctor. Almost a hundred years later, when a young girl named Joan was burned at the stake in France for heresy, a man in the crowd that was watching was unaware that his pocket was being picked, the thief relieving him of two gold florins and a blue crystal.

In 1480 on a warm summer day, a crowd gathered in the hills near Florence to watch a twenty-eight-year-old artist-inventor demonstrate his newest creation, which he called a parachute. Witnesses merrily placed wagers on whether the young idiot would break his neck, but when Leonardo da Vinci landed without mishap on a grassy field, the blue crystal passed from the hands of a Medici prince to a traveling scholar who took the glittering gem back to Jerusalem as a gift for his beloved daughter, only to find she had died in childbirth during his absence. So bitter was he over her death that he hid the hated crystal away, for it reminded him of his only child, and there it lay, in a gold box, in a beautiful home on a hill overlooking the Dome of the Rock, awaiting its next owner, its next turn of fate.

GERMANY
1520
C.E.

If asked, Katharina Bauer would say she was marrying Hans Roth because she loved him. But in truth, it was her passionate wish to become part of a family.

To call a woman sister, or aunt, or a man brother, or uncle, to hail someone as cousin, niece, or nephew, this was the stuff of Katharina Bauer’s dreams. Seventeen years old and the only child of a widow who lived in a humble room above a
hofbrauhaus,
Katharina wished upon every star, every good-luck piece that she would belong to a large, happy family. And Hans Roth, twenty-two years old with eyes the blue of cornflowers, just happened to possess such a family.

One of three sons and two daughters to Herr Roth, the stein-maker, and his hausfrau, Hans lived in a beehive of a house that was filled with relatives, in-laws, and assorted extended family members, all involved in the making and selling of beer steins. And now that Katharina had been allowed to help out during their busiest time (although she was not paid for it) and made to feel part of the Roth family, she secretly hoped that by this time next year she would be addressing Herr Roth as “Papa.”

This was what true love was like, Katharina told herself as she blissfully helped Hans in the drying room. This feeling of quiet joy, peace, and contentment. She had seen it in older couples, people who had been married
forever.
How lucky for her and Hans that they should start out this way already. What a perfect road lay before them!

As for that other aspect of marriage—the bed and babies—Katharina preferred not to dwell on it, for kissing Hans was as far as she desired to go. During those few stolen moments when they were alone together, in the woods or down by the river out of sight of anyone, and Hans became more eager than usual, Katharina had to stay his hands and remind him that they were not yet wed. But when the proper time came, she would do her duty and suffer the brief physical union necessary for producing children.

As they lifted the newly carved beer steins from the drying shelves, they detected delicious aromas drifting through the open window: pork cutlets sizzling on a fire, cabbage simmering in a pot, potatoes roasting, bread emerging fresh from the oven—Frau Roth was preparing their usual heavy midday meal. Katharina knew she would not be invited; Frau Roth was not noted for her generosity. But Katharina would not have dined with them anyway, not while her mother was at home making do with cheese and an egg. Once in a while a satisfied customer would pay Isabella Bauer in sausages and potatoes, which she would stretch into a week of meals for herself and Katharina. But bread was plentiful, they always had bread, and because they were fortunate to live above the
hofbrauhaus,
and because the owner Herr Müller was smitten with Katharina’s mother, they always had beer.

“These are going to Italy,” Hans said as they placed the dried steins into the burn oven. Katharina did not miss the note of reverence and wonder in his voice as he said “Italy,” for Hans had a yearning to see the world. To Katharina, however, the world was Badendorf, where the central market square was dominated by a fountain and surrounded on two sides by shops and houses with half-timbered facades; on the third side was the
hofbrauhaus
; and on the fourth side, the three-hundred-year-old
rathaus
with its front door on the second story, reached by a stairway that could be removed in case of danger; next to it the Romanesque church that dated back to the fifth century, with foundations, it was said, that went back to the ancient Romans. The
marktplatz
was the venue for annual festivals, weddings, celebrations, fruit and vegetable vendors, and the occasional religious play. As far as Katharina Bauer was concerned, Badendorf
was
the whole world.

She didn’t know what lay around the river’s bend, or at the end of the road, or on the other side of the mountain, nor did she care. She had not heard of a coronation that had just taken place, in a town called Aachen, of a king named Charles V, and that it was the biggest such event since the coronation of Charlemagne. Nor was she aware that another man, an Augustine monk named Martin Luther, had just been branded a heretic by the pope for spreading new and dangerous ideas, and that his protestations were going to spread like wildfire across Europe due to the timely invention of a third man named Johannes Gutenberg. Katharina Bauer knew only her town, the forest, the castle, and the citizens of Badendorf. It was enough.

As Hans took a stein from her, their fingers brushed and she saw a flush rise in his cheeks. No flush rose in hers for the love Katharina felt for the young man was not the “sparking” kind, as she thought of it. She wasn’t even sure that kind of love really existed outside of songs and poems and romantic tales. What counted was fondness, affection, and a deep feeling of being comfortable with someone. Since she had known Hans all her life, this love had slowly grown as they had and when his parents had mentioned marriage, it had seemed only natural to Katharina that the pair should continue their lives together. And it would be a perfect marriage, she knew, with Katharina becoming the most in-demand seamstress in Badendorf and Hans carrying on the famous Roth beer stein manufacture.

Centuries ago natural hot springs had brought Romans to this area for their health. Although the springs had dried up, in their place was a clay that was perfect for making stoneware. And so Badendorf was noted for its beer steins. Each one started as a handful of raw clay that was formed and carved and painted by hand, and then fired and colored with glaze. In order to dry out the clay and give the stein its consistency, the steins were air dried in the drying room for many hours before they went into the burn oven. The overall process took several days and required a lot of patience. This was the secret of the Roth steins: the slower the water was driven out of the clay, the sturdier the final stein became. And so Roth steins were in demand all over Europe and beyond. Which meant that someday, Hans was going to be a very rich man. Then Katharina would be able to buy her mother a grand house and see to it that she didn’t have to work anymore.

Their morning’s labor done, Katharina followed Hans into the atelier where the most recently fired batch was being fitted with pewter tops.

Two hundred years ago, doctors had deduced that the plague was transmitted by flies and so, to prevent the disease from spreading, a law was passed requiring all beverages to be covered. The problem was, a removable lid distracted from the pleasure of drinking beer, for the stein would then require two hands. A one-handed solution was needed and thus the hinged lid was born, allowing people to drink with one hand and still comply with the law. Roth steins were known for their ornate, decorative lids that always complemented the design on the stein itself.

As Katharina helped a pair of Roth cousins with an unwieldy bale of packing straw, Hans came up behind her and, putting his hands on her waist, whispered something in her ear. Katharina giggled and slipped out of his grasp, pretending to have enjoyed the flirtation. But she secretly hoped that once they were married he wouldn’t touch her so much. And anyway, it wouldn’t be seemly, once they were a respectable married couple.

As she was about to comment on the hour and that her mother would be expecting her, they suddenly heard a shout outside. Someone was frantically calling Katharina’s name.

She stepped out to see Manfred, the son of the
hofbraumeister,
running across the square, waving his arms and looking for all the world like a windmill.

“Katharina!” he yelled. “Come quickly! There has been an accident. Your mother—”

Katharina broke into a run. Manfred fell into step beside her. He was out of breath. “She was standing behind the beer wagon when the horse bolted! A barrel rolled off the wagon. It struck your mother. The Arab doctor is with her.”

Katharina silently thanked God for that. The elderly doctor was the man she most trusted in all the world.

Dr. Mahmoud had fled Spain twenty-eight years earlier when the Moors were expelled by Queen Isabella. He had been in the north buying medicines when the news reached him that his entire family had been wiped out and that it was too dangerous for him to return to Granada. After a year of wandering in Europe, he had found haven in Badendorf, where Isabella Bauer, knowing what it was like to be a stranger in a strange town, had shown him kindness and had helped the citizens to accept him.

Now Dr. Mahmoud was the first person Katharina saw when she reached the open door of their room over the
hofbrauhaus
—his aged body, draped in the exotic robes of his culture, a turban on his white hair. Friar Pastorius, a young religious brother with a weak constitution and a clubfoot, was in the corner, praying. When she saw her mother lying on the bed unconscious, a bloody bandage on her forehead, Katharina ran to the bedside and fell to her knees.

Isabella Bauer, the finest seamstress in Badendorf and the surrounding countryside, was thirty-eight years old and although she had known a life of deprivation and hardship, still retained her youthful looks. But now, her eyes closed in a deathly coma, she looked even younger, her face smoothed of the lines of worry and age, her complexion pale and unblemished. “Mama?” Katharina said, taking her mother’s cold, limp hand. “Mama?” she said a little louder. She looked up at Dr. Mahmoud whose expression was grim.

Katharina felt her heart stop. Her mother was the only family she had known. Katharina knew little about her father. She had been just a baby when he had died of a virulent fever that swept through their village in the north. There wasn’t even a grave for her to visit. The dead had had to be burned, to halt the spread of the fever. She and her mother had escaped and come south to settle in Badendorf, and when Katharina grew older, she would every so often turn her green eyes northward, to the bend in the river and the world she had never seen, and picture the village and the handsome smiling man who had been her father.

While Katharina and her mother did not belong to the prospering German merchant class, and their existence was a daily struggle and they often had to do without (Isabella frequently had to go to her patrons and almost beg for the payment they owed her), they did not consider themselves poor. They lived in a small room above the
hofbrauhaus,
the only home Katharina had ever known, and made do with mended dresses and patched shoes, and sometimes went hungry, or without heat in the winter, but they considered themselves blessed for they were not of the peasant class that was overworked and overused by the nobility. Isabella Bauer often told her daughter that while they might not have money, they had their dignity.

And life, on the whole, had been good. There was a small walled garden behind the
hofbrauhaus
where Friar Pastorius taught Latin to boys and Dr. Mahmoud saw patients. It was also where the light was best and so Katharina and her mother did their stitchery there while the elderly Arab consulted with patients behind the privacy of a portable screen that he carried down from his room, and Friar Pastorius hammered rudimentary Latin into the stubborn skulls of merchants’ sons. On any typical morning, as Katharina and Isabella stitched their fine patterns, the air would be filled with birdsong and the chanting of the friar’s pupils,
“Anima bruta, anima divina, anima humana…”
punctuated by an occasional cough from behind the doctor’s screen. Thus did Katharina’s young and agile mind, as she wove roses and leaves into linen, absorb lessons meant for boys,
“Leone fortior fides.”
Now, as Katharina anxiously knelt at her mother’s bedside, she heard birdsong drift up from the garden and through the open window, and she was suddenly struck by a feeling of premonition—that the idyllic days in the garden had come to an end.

Finally, Isabella’s eyelids fluttered open. Her gaze was momentarily unfocused, then she saw Katharina, her golden hair forming a halo of light in the sunshine that poured through the window. Isabella smiled. How beautiful the girl had grown. The hair, once as pale as cornsilk, now a deep gold. Flawless skin. Clear green eyes. Isabella lifted a hand to the smooth cheek and said with great effort, “God has decided to call me to Him, daughter. I had thought I would have more time…”

“Mama,” Katharina sobbed, pressing the cold hand to her face. “You’ll be all right. Dr. Mahmoud will see to it.”

Isabella smiled sadly and rolled her head on the pillow. “I know that there are but minutes left to me. I had hoped for years, but God in His wisdom…”

Katharina waited. Dr. Mahmoud kept keen, dark eyes on his patient, while Friar Pastorius did not cease his murmured chanting. A curious crowd had gathered outside the door but Herr Müller was keeping them out.

Presently Isabella drew in a deep breath and spoke again. “There is something you must know, my child, something I have to tell you…”

Tears fell from Katharina’s eyes onto the bloodstained sheet.

“There,” Isabella whispered, “in the chest.” She pointed to the one piece of good furniture they owned: a wooden chest that held their fabrics and threads, needles, and scissors. “The box of ribbons. Bring it to me.”