Quest of Hope: A Novel (53 page)

Heinrich’s mouth was dry. “Uh, nay, sire. None said anything of them … except they’ve gone missing.”

The man stared hard. He was blustery and red-eyed. The town’s mayor had guaranteed the slave-master the safekeeping of his cargo and the magistrate would be held accountable for their disappearance. The man pressed his face close to Heinrich’s. “Swear to me before this priest that you’ve no knowledge of the slaves.”

Heinrich groaned within. He glanced at the priest standing stern and impatient by the bailiffs side. He hesitated, then remembered the happy faces in the glade. “I do so swear.”

Chapter 22

SALT AND LIGHT

I
t was a bright and sunny day, the first of November,
Annos Dominus
1209 when Heinrich of Weyer stood in wonder before the city of Salzburg. He crossed a timbered bridge, pausing for a few moments to marvel at the icy, blue-green of the curving Salzach River running swiftly beneath the man’s feet. He gazed into the crystal waters and imagined he was staring into a heavensent liquid poured out of angels’ golden pitchers. “Oh, my blessed Laubusbach! Pitiful copy of this!”

He lifted his face to the dark stone-and-timber walls of the city, then above them to the imposing fortress perched atop a steep cliff. His eye lingered on the castle’s heavy walls and battlements until it was drawn across the southern landscape. There the mountains stood watch as the first rank of the realm’s most glorious sentries. For many days Heinrich had marveled at their distant silhouette and had often stopped to stare in awe.
They rise from the land like great, jagged teeth from the bottom jaw of a sleeping Colossus!
he thought. He felt a chill of wonder run along his spine. Another thought then gripped him. The mountains rose higher than the spire of any church in view—he had broken his vow!

Cursing himself, Heinrich crossed the bridge and marched through the crowded south gate struggling and confused. Mercifully, the city’s sights quickly stole his attention. He passed rows of tidy homes and shops, wagons filled with winter stores and well-dressed folk busy at task. He paused before an open fire to warm his hand and answered a few greetings. He looked about and suddenly felt better; he liked Salzburg.

Salzburg was named for the salt, or “Salz” that had blessed the entire region with uncommon wealth for centuries. Ancient Celts had once mined the mountains to the south and built a large settlement where the city now stood. The city endured much hardship in its earliest days. Converted to Christianity in the fourth century after Christ, it later was ruined by the onslaught of pagan barbarians from all sides. By the eighth century, Salzburg had been restored to Christendom and St. Peter’s Cathedral was erected to serve its archbishop. A monastery was built and filled with Irish monks. Soon the lucrative business of mining salt had assured all the city’s citizens the most agreeable of temporal comforts.

For Heinrich, this “salt city” was like nothing he had ever seen. He walked through its snow-whitened streets dumbstruck and astonished at the endless stalls of guildsmen and merchants. He passed a row of cobblers, a strip of fowlers, four goldsmiths, then a tinker. His head turned this way and that; tanners and weavers, grocers and wheelwrights. His eye studied the mysterious banners and signs that hung above the doors. Had the man been more learned he might have known it was the name of St. Catherine that graced the shops of wheelwrights. After all, Catherine’s body had been broken on a wheel. The needlemakers were marked by signs of St. Sebastian, the martyr slain by arrows, and the image of St. Mary-Magdalene hung above the perfumers’ doors.

Heinrich walked slowly until he came to a bookmaker’s shop. He paused and peered inside. The proprietor smiled and bade Heinrich enter. The baker ducked through the low door and greeted the man politely. He gazed about the dim-lit shop and felt a lump grow in his throat. “Wouldn’t Emma be pleased?”

“Eh?”

“Ah, good sir, m’pardon. I was remembering an old friend that worked in parchment.” Heinrich surveyed the shelves of ink, raven quills, knives, binding stitch, and the choirs of folded pages, and the leather stretched on drying racks. It was a shop for people of wealth. He smiled and nodded approvingly at this and that until he discovered a colored page of such beauty and astonishing craft that his very breath stopped.

The proprietor smiled. “Ah, the blessed knots and links of the Irish!
Gloria tibi, Domine!”

Heinrich’s eye remained fixed on the artwork as though a prisoner of its comforting sublimate.

“God’s Word honored with a bit of heaven’s glory, I say,” added the proprietor. “Color and light… the Irishman who does this work says it is the very essence of our hope.”

Heinrich nodded without speaking. He stared at the parchment’s hues: dark reds and blues, yellows and greens. Within the artist’s curls and graceful turns, gold leaf glittered and shimmered. It was as though the colors of Creation’s rainbow were lit by the sun and offered in all their glory on this single page of Scripture. The man began to weep.

Heinrich hurried from the shop and leaned against the cold stone of the three-story building. He covered his face to hide his tears and in the blackness of his palm he saw Emma smiling at him, pointing him heavenward. “Oh, Emma,” he groaned. His mind carried him to her garden of wildflowers and butterflies. He imagined lying within the blooms of June, staring at the bright blue sky with Richard at his side.

“Are you in need, man?”

Heinrich was startled.

“May I help?” a sickly young man pressed further.

“Uh, nay, good sir. But m’thanks to you.”

The man nodded. He was leaning on a makeshift crutch and his leg was bandaged with a discolored wrap.

Heinrich would have preferred to hurry away but his heart held him fast. The young man was thin and drawn, slightly yellowed and hollow-eyed. “Methinks you’d be the one in need,” observed the baker.

“Ah, my leg’s been shattered in the archbishop’s mine and it seems my time is short. My name is Dietmar of Gratz.” He coughed and shivered.

“Gratz?”

“’Tis in the Duchy of Styria near the Kingdom of the Huns.”

“The Huns. Ne’er met one.”

“You needs hope you don’t. They raid the borders from time to time. I lost my lands to their treachery three years prior.”

“You are a freeman?”

“Aye. You?”

Heinrich wasn’t sure any longer. He no longer felt like the property of Villmar’s monks, yet he assumed the law would say he was. His delay caught the notice of Dietmar.

“A runaway?”

The title snagged Heinrich. His heart skipped and his belly fluttered. “Runaway? Nay, sir. I am a pilgrim from … from Stedingerland in the far north.”

Dietmar nodded approvingly. “I have heard of your people. Seems word of your ways is troubling many a lord’s court throughout all the realms.” He paused to gather strength. “When I was a lord, I was troubled by the likes of you as well. Now, it seems, I find your rebellious ways delicious!”

Heinrich smiled. The young man seemed earnest and honest. “You say you were injured in the mines?”

“Ja. I worked for the archbishop’s steward, Laszlo. The man’s a Christian Hun. He’s a clever devil from Pest along the Danube. I was one of his clerks. He sent me to the new mine at Hallein to do a reckoning of charcoal.” Dietmar paused and sat atop a keg. He coughed and wiped some spittle off his chin with his sleeve. “A timber fell from a cart and broke my leg … hasn’t even begun to heal in near a month and now I fear I’ve mormal in the wound.”

“Mormal? You’ll die for sure.” Heinrich grimaced at his words.

“Aye. We all die for sure.” Dietmar chuckled lightly, then became faint.

Heinrich steadied the man and handed him a flask he had bought for himself. Dietmar drained a long draught of air-chilled ale.

“Many thanks, stranger. What is your name?”

“Heinrich. Heinrich of… Stedingerland.” He hated to lie.

“Well, Heinrich, your pilgrimage is to where?”

“Rome.”

“Ah, the Holy See. For a penance?”

“Aye. Have you been there?”

Dietmar shook his head. “You plan to winter in Salzburg?”

“Yes. But I hope to leave as early in the spring as possible. I hope before Easter.”

“The mountain passes are often closed until Pentecost, sometimes later. You ought travel through the Brenner. It is lower and clears a little earlier.”

Heinrich grumbled. “Perhaps I should hurry and find a caravan. I am told they sometimes dare the passes late in the season.”

“Some years the snow is late … sometimes early. Perhaps strange fortune and south winds might make for an odd season next year, but I can tell you that this year is too late.”

Heinrich sighed. The two sat quietly for a short time while Dietmar rested, then Heinrich offered his new friend a meal. The two found their way to a tavern within the shadow of St. Peter’s near the town’s center. Dietmar ravenously chewed a thick slice of soup-soaked bread and wiped his fingers through a hearty mash. Gangrene had indeed spread within his poorly set break and fever was besetting the young man. “This fare is some of the best I’ve eaten!” said Dietmar cheerfully. He grimaced and reached for his leg. “Cursed physicians! I have spent far too much on them. All they do is squeeze the ooze and sprinkle bits of salt on the rot.”

Despite the physicians’ shortcomings, salt was a powerful agent for healing. Just as it preserved the sausages, hams, bacon, fish, fowl, beef slabs, cheese, butter, and nearly every other food necessary to winter the growing population of Europe, it was found to protect life from many diseases. Salt was precious and expensive, yet, along with sunlight, a necessary ingredient in a dark and corrupted world.

Heinrich listened compassionately to Dietmar’s story and happily paid the man’s meal from the monks’ pennies. He then helped the man from the table and led him into the late daylight that still warmed the courtyard of the cathedral. The two found a comfortable bench and leaned against the wall of a merchant’s house.

Heinrich stared in awe at the massive stone church. Its towers were squat and heavy, like the little church in Weyer, but on a much grander scale. Its walls were massive; it was a fortress that would surely hold fast against the assaults of Lucifer’s legions. The simple man of Weyer had seen few such edifices of God’s kingdom and he sat in spellbound astonishment.

Dietmar noticed the man’s excitement and asked Heinrich to follow him into the sanctuary. Heinrich entered reverently, almost fearfully. His eye widened at the arched buttresses and thought the huge columns lining the nave to be like orderly plantings of ancient trees. He walked quietly toward the altar standing so very far away. His leather soles padded lightly on the stone floor, and as he walked he leaned his head back to behold the carvings gracing the heights of God’s castle. “This place,” he whispered, “it points me to God.”

Dietmar nodded. “What our eyes see, our tongues taste, our noses smell, our ears hear, and our fingers touch do much to call upon the spirit within us. They are important parts of our worship.”

The pair stood quietly near the altar where they lingered for some time. At last, an annoyed priest spotted them and chased them out the door, complaining he had chores for the All Souls’ services in the morning. The two stumbled out into the courtyard laughing.

“My new friend, look there.” Dietmar pointed to a mountain towering over the edge of Salzburg. “Lookup, Heinrich! An old Bulgarian priest once taught me to ‘Let the eyes climb the summit, then let them fly higher and higher! Let them take you to the God that this poor little chapel chirps about.’ ’Tis good the works of man remind us of bigger things, but look, see how the mountains point us higher still.” He turned to see Heinrich staring at the snow edging the tops of his feet. “Heinrich …?”

“I… I am under a vow.”

“A vow?” Dietmar was confused. He stared at the baker. “What sort of vow keeps your eye from heaven?”

“I do not wish to speak of it. Now, let me help you home.”

Dietmar said nothing. He was saddened for Heinrich, and the look on the baker’s face nearly broke his heart. But Dietmar was failing quickly. He felt suddenly weak and faint and halfway to his home he begged Heinrich to sit on a bench for a brief rest. He sat quietly for a while, then handed the baker a ring. It bore his family’s seal. “Take this. You have been kind to me and I’ve none other to leave it to. Show it to the archbishop’s steward of the mines, Laszlo. Tell him I sent you. He’s a monster but he always respected me and he owes me a favor or two. He can employ you through the winter.”

Heinrich stared at the silver ring. “I am forever in your debt, sire.” He let it fall into his palm.

Dietmar shivered and Heinrich wrapped his sealskin around him. “Before you begin your journey for Rome,” said Dietmar slowly, “take the ring to the tinker by the well. Ask no questions, simply do as I bid.”