Quest of Hope: A Novel (20 page)

“Excommunicated,” answered Baldric. He was familiar with the term.

“Aye, sir. I do not wish any to burn and—”

“Enough! That dolt Johannes speaks out his arse! Someone ought tell him that lyin’ earns a few years in the purge. The Book also says “an eye for an eye.” Have you no heart for the memory of yer own father? And the aunt you never knew, good Sieghild, suffered at the hands of Gunnars as well. They’ve ne’er been avenged in full.”

Heinrich thought of his father. He had been a small lad when Kurt died, but he remembered something about the man’s laugh and the easy touch of his calloused hands. He nodded.

“Good,” said Baldric. “Now all, listen well. The Gunnars bring their sheep to Arfurt in a fortnight.”

Dietrich rose on his squat legs. “We needs not risk venturing over the Lahn again.” He lowered his tone. “Would be better to draw them. Arnold, you’ve ways to spread a rumor?”

“Aye.”

“Good. Make it known we’ve a mind to come for them. That ought draw the vermin to us like moths to a flame.”

Baldric extended his hand for silence. He stared into the low fire of his hearth. Heinrich thought him to be an old man now, etched and shadowed by the firelight. “Aye. Methinks it to be a good plan. They would most likely set their strike on the night before Sabbath. The Lahn’s high, so they shall cross into Villmar on the bridge. They’ll skirt the abbey walls and go wide round Villmar village. Then they’ll come upslope toward our ridge. We needs meet them at the crest… we can take their bodies into the heavy wood in the east.”

Chapter 9

GUILT AND MYSTERY

T
wo weeks later, at the bells of compline, Baldric, Arnold, Dietrich, Heinrich, Herwin, and Telek were lying prone in a wet ditch. Despite the April evening’s rainstorm, they waited patiently, certain that their enemies would be moving that very night. Arnold had passed a false report to a peddler of when he and his kin would be crossing the Lahn to strike the Gunnars. It was surely hoped that the fools would take the bait and think themselves clever in striking the night before.

It was hard to see the wide, gentle valley that spread before them, for the setting sun was hidden by heavy, gray clouds and the rain was falling hard. Behind the six men the steep slope dropped into smoky Weyer. From time to time young Heinrich cast a woeful glance backward.

The lad was shivering and near tears; totally unprepared to fight. He now knew it was the Gunnars that had killed his father and raped his aunt, but he was told that his own kin had robbed, burned, and murdered Gunnars as well. Furthermore, Heinrich had met an oblate named Alwin who was the son of a Gunnar killed on the same night of Kurt’s death.
Perhaps m’own father slayed his,
he thought. Heinrich knew Alwin to be a good lad. He did not seem like the demon-possessed monsters his kin were portrayed to be. Lying in the rain, he once more wondered if his family’s cause was a righteous one. He wanted to turn and run, yet that would add to the shame already heavy on his heart, and he wanted desperately to be free from such misery. He could only hope the Gunnars never came.

As darkness fell the Weyer men began to worry. “They’d yet be coming,” argued Dietrich. “We needs wait till matins. Arnold, be sure yer wagon’s still tied tight.”

“Ja?
If by the bells they’ve not come, we’re out of this cursed rain!” grumbled Arnold. He had no sooner spoken, however, when voices were heard on the roadway some thirty rods ahead. A small, swinging lantern illuminated a short column of men emerging from the cover of rain and mist.

Heinrich and his fellows nervously checked their weapons. Most had knives or hammers; Baldric a swine-mallet. The Weyer men quickly divided to cover both sides of the narrow road as the voices drew steadily closer. None knew yet if they were Gunnars or simple passersby.

Baldric and his company listened carefully. The rain slowed to a drizzle and the muffled voices grew louder. They were within five rods when one of them could be heard plainly. “We’ve eight to their three! Ha, ‘tis time to avenge Cousin Manfred.”

The Weyer men coiled their legs—it was nearly time. An agonizing moment passed, then another, and finally Baldric’s cry pierced the night air. Shouting like mad hellions bursting from the confines of Hades, Baldric’s men sprang forward at the unsuspecting Gunnars. With Arnold on one side and Herwin on the other, the woodward swung his mallet into two silhouettes. From the other ditch Dietrich led Telek and Heinrich into the mêlée.

Poor, confused Heinrich heeded Baldric’s cry and sprinted toward his foes on legs leading where his heart could not. But something rose quickly within him; a sudden fury filled his chest and he rushed at a shadow like a boar barrelling toward its prey. Perhaps it was fifteen years of rage that now boiled over, or perhaps it was the blood of the ancient Celts and Franks that flowed in his veins. Whatever the cause, the lad fought like a man possessed. He stuck his first foe hard with a slaughter knife. The man cried out as Heinrich yanked free his short blade and swiped at another, then another. For a few moments the young man felt nothing but violent anger, then it was over.

None of the Gunnars escaped the ambush. They lay strewn about the muddy roadway, some groaning, others still and lifeless. “Ha!” boomed Baldric as he embraced his brother. “And you, Dietrich, good friend!” The three clasped hands and cheered their victory under sheets of rain. But Herwin was on his knees weeping and rocking atop the huge body of Telek. None had expected such a giant of a man to be felled, but the deep slash across his throat was more than any mortal could survive.

Baldric turned to Heinrich and laid his huge palm on the youth’s shoulder. “You’ve made me proud this day, nephew. Proud, indeed! No more talk of ‘Scrump Worm’ for you!”

Heinrich stared vacantly in the darkness, suddenly empty of fury and void of all joy.

“Now, help me send these bleeders to hell.” To Heinrich’s horror, the man took his mallet and began smashing the heads of the wounded. The young man vomited.

Heinrich clenched his jaw as he helped drag the fallen to the hidden cart still harnessed to Arnold’s horse. He felt dizzy and sick as each lifeless body was heaped atop the others. He trudged behind his comrades toward the deep forest with his mind’s eye still seeing Baldric’s hammer smashing the helpless wounded. A thought knifed through his heart and he groaned.
And now I am a murderer!

The young man stumbled through that awful, wet night weeping. “Never again,” he swore to himself, “never again shall I raise my arm for evil!” Then, in the inky blackness of predawn, eight faceless strangers and good Telek were dumped into a shallow pit in the forests of the Laubusbach.

Nearly a year passed, and Heinrich remained burdened by the guilt of that terrible night on the Villmar road. Lord Klothar had raised quite a stir when his shepherds were “gone missing.” He was certain they had escaped to Limburg en route to their freedom and he had sent Lord Simon, page Richard, and five sergeants to search the town. It had been over a decade since the Gunnar-Jost feud had boiled to the surface, and in that time the village had a new priest, the abbey a new abbot, and the lands of the Gunnars a new lord. Few even considered the notion of foul play, and except for the whispers in Weyer and the oaths in distant Gunnar hovels, the matter of feud went largely unnoticed.

Since the time of the killings most thought Baldric had mellowed. His blue eyes flashed with less fury than they had and his drunken stupors were now more pathetic than dangerous. The thirty-four-year-old had not laid a fist on Heinrich since that night, and to some it seemed he was treating the young man with a certain grudging respect. But vengeance only satisfies for a season, and his heart was still as black as his rotting gums.

Heinrich no longer needed the shame of Baldric to weigh on his weary heart, for he had learned to add his own. He now saw himself as a thief and a murderer, a liar and a coward. Despite the encouraging words of Emma, he further accused himself of sloth and—given his happiness at baking—pride. His only relief, it seemed, was his knowledge that he had, at the very least, remained true to his vow.

Yet, unlike so many whose troubles leave them hard and bitter, the young man was still soft and tender in spirit. He was quick to see the sadness in another’s eye and suffer the sorrow of another’s plight. Though few would do the same for him, he was apt to shed a tear for man or beast and offer mercy where none was deserved.

Heinrich, now sixteen by a month and a few days, was settled in Weyer’s new bakery. Katharina’s father had done a magnificent job overseeing its construction and on the tenth day of March, Father Pious had blessed the bricks and the baker. Bread, all had been reminded, was the source of life. “Each time bread is broken,” whined Pious, “we must needs remember the Savior’s goodness to us all. ‘Tis He who provides, for He is ‘the bread of life.’”

The words inspired Heinrich, as did those of the monks who had trained him. “Boy,” said one, “it is you who brings purpose to the labors of the field! When the men sweat and grunt behind their plough, then weed and harrow, and harvest and flail, it is so you can turn their tasks to food fit to swallow!”

At the north end of the bakery, a stone wall housed two chimneys of equal size. They extended several feet into the bakery where a brick-domed oven was attached with a hood and proper vents. Access to the brick-lined oven floor was gained through a waist-high, arched opening that was closed by an iron door.

The open room itself was well ordered with proper racks and shelving. Long-handled wooden paddles stood by each oven and within convenient reach of two trestle tables and two dough-breakers. In the center of the room was a wooden dough trough for mixing, and on one end stood a rack of shelves for raising dough. Along another wall stood flour bins to hold the rye, barley, spelt, or wheat flours. On the same wall was placed a salt box, spice boxes for onions, caraway, rosemary and the like, as well as two lidded barrels for sourdough. Since flour was measured, not weighed, a variety of measuring bowls and baskets were set neatly on a shelf, along with stamps for various feast-days. A firewood room was attached to the outside of the bakery and joined by a door near the ovens.

The second story was accessed from the inside by a short flight of wide, oak steps. Outside, a large double door could be opened, and a pulley above was hung on an extended beam. This would serve to hoist sacks of flour from the miller’s wagon for storage.

Heinrich strutted through his new bakery and his chest swelled with more pride than he later confessed to Father Johannes. He also felt some disappointment. He had secretly hoped for a bake-house separate from the ovens; it would be so much cooler in the heat of summer. However, Prior Mattias insisted a single, half-timber, two-story building was adequate to serve. Johannes would later assure him that the discomfort might keep pride at bay.

During Pious’s blessing, Heinrich could not help but fix his eyes on Katharina. As heavy as his heart so often was, it was she that brought a flutter and a song. He thought her like a butterfly from Emma’s garden, or a light-winged bird soaring within his soul. And when she smiled at him, her green eyes sparkled with the warmth and hope of a summer sun. “Katharina, I am so pleased you’ve come!”

The maiden smiled shyly.

“Your father did a good thing here. ‘Tis the best bakery in all the realm!”

Katharina was pleased. “Ja, methinks so. He’s a good papa, smart and hard-working.” She looked about the room. “Seems there is much to do as a baker. Have you no helpers?”

Heinrich beamed. “Well, the monks send me workers from time to time, but we’ve no need for an apprentice as yet. Actually, ‘tis important I watch all that happens here. You know, Katharina, bad things can happen if the bake is bad.”

Katharina drew close.

“The monks warned me and Dietrich, our miller, of the poisons and hexes on the grains. It seems thousands in France were burned from the inside; their flesh pulled from their bones by an invisible fire! Some went mad, rolling about their huts. We needs watch for black or sweet-tasting grains, especially any with tiny drops that taste like honey. They say it is a fearsome temptation, like the forbidden fruit. They told me if bread is ever cut and ‘tis black inside, though it may be sweet, ‘tis surely cursed. Some think the witch or her daughter may try to hex our fields, so the priests bless each planting and harvest.”

Katharina was spellbound, or at least appeared to be. She was happy to be near the young man. The two brushed hands as Heinrich led her to the door. Neither said a word, but for each the light touch was a gift from heaven.