Pilgrims of Promise (32 page)

“I hope someone killed the priest,” grumbled Friederich.

Heinrich glanced at Wil, then stared at the young boy with a heavy heart.
What turns a happy child to such a thought?

Finally, Wil spoke to his company. “On the morrow we begin the journey to take Rudolf home.” A small cheer rose up, and many hands patted the blushing Rudolf on his back. The gentle lad was buoyant and grinning as thoughts of his parents’ mountain home rushed through his mind. What a joy it would be to see his mother’s round face again. Rudolf laughed out loud. “Oh,
Mutti!
I’m almost home!”

The next morning the pilgrims rose to a pleasant summer’s day. The sky was clear and streaked with color as the sun peeked over the horizon in the east. A fresh morning breeze felt clean and cool, and soon the happy band was washing once more in the refreshing pool.

Alwin was well rested and laughing. The bruises across his throat were still red, but his voice was no longer hoarse. “Can y’not keep that crusty old priest out of the water until we fill our flasks!”

Heinrich laughed and came to the knight’s side. “Good friend, we really do need you with us. Will you vow to stay with us to Weyer?”

“To Weyer?”

“Aye.”

Alwin hesitated. Heinrich entreated him earnestly until the man finally agreed. “I pray this is not foolishness. I am still a target; I can feel it.”

“Let God shield us all then,” answered Heinrich.

The knight nodded, then clasped the baker’s hand. “To Weyer then.”

Revitalized, the group gathered and cheered Heinrich’s good news. Clean and ready to press on, they had assembled in their column when Wil whispered to his father. Smiling, Heinrich nodded in agreement.

Pieter was summoned to Paulus’s side and ordered to climb atop the beast. The red-faced priest laced his furious indignation with nearly every known expletive and even threatened Alwin with his staff! It was Maria’s gentle insistence that finally quieted the old fellow as Alwin and Heinrich lifted him atop the unhappy donkey’s back.

Despite the tragedy lying in their wake, the wayfarers began their journey northward in high spirits. They traveled several hours along the rapidly rising highway ascending from the wide green valley of the Aare River. Looking back only once, they paused to bid a final farewell to the distant, craggy, snow-capped mountains appearing behind a rising curtain of morning haze. The ragged horizon seemed so very, very far away. It was hard for them to imagine that they had come from even farther places.

“Somewhere beyond is my home,” lamented Benedetto. The minstrel had said little since Burgdorf, and the trauma of Olten had nearly finished him.

“Your home is with us now,” said Frieda. She set her hand lightly on the man’s shoulder. “You are one of us.”

“Si,” he answered. “
Grazie, signora
. It is true, but sometimes I do yearn for the past.”

“The past, good minstrel, is just that,” Heinrich offered with a hint of introspection. “Methinks it is oft a good place to remember, but not a good place to dwell.”

“I sometimes pretend I’m sucking lemons with Brother Stefano and the monks at San Fruttuoso,” said Helmut. “Now
that
is a good place to remember
and
to dwell!”

“Aye!” answered a chorus of others.

The pilgrims stared for a while longer at the distant view, then turned to look forward. During the brief respite, a cloud of heavy melancholy moved in to hover over them. Quiet conversations carried them to faraway homes and distant places, to the way of life before the crusade. Heinrich now felt especially despondent. For all his bravado just moments before, fear of the past had abruptly ensnared him, and he began to perspire.
What of Weyer?
he wondered as dread filled his belly.

Conversations fell to whispers, then ended altogether as blank stares were fixed at the horizon. The way of the past had cast its spell.

“Enough!” cried Pieter suddenly. “Enough of this. You have left the old order behind. Do not go back to it. You must live life freely and without fear, bound only by the laws of grace.” His voice was firm but not harsh. He leaned on his staff and reached for Maria. “Believe in what you have become.”

Sudden chills of inspiration tingled along his listeners’ spines, and in that moment the power of evil oppression was broken. Heaven had sprinkled the old man’s mouth with admonitions of hope, and the brave pilgrims were now ready to press on.

Heinrich and Alwin shifted Paulus’s sacks to make room for Pieter. “He’ll not be refusing us again,” insisted the baker. “He will do as we say!”

Alwin looked at Pieter and shook his head. “How old is he?”

“Nearly seventy-eight,” Frieda replied. “But my heart tells me he still has much to teach us. He’ll not be taken from us yet.”

The sun was directly overhead when Pieter was finally hoisted upon Paulus. He did not complain nearly as much as the beast below him, though he admitted a certain wounded pride. “Ah, it is what it is,” he finally muttered. “Lead on, Wil. Lead us on.”

Chapter Fifteen

A FAREWELL, A MONKEY, AND A CARAVAN

T
he region of Liestal lay southeast of Basel. It was a land of lumpy-shouldered mountains and easy valleys. Small fields of spelt and rye checkered clearings here and there, and hardwood forests covered what was not green with pasture. It was a quiet place, save for the bountiful numbers of songbirds fluttering happily amongst the heavy boughs. Tucked out of sight were the timber farmsteads of the mountain peasants. From their hidden chimneys, thin columns of smoke streamed slowly upward like white ribbons, rising from the unseen hearths hidden deep within the mountains’ many nooks.

Rudolf was flushed with excitement. It had been just over a year since he had left his family to join with a different band of crusaders that had passed nearby. He began to point to familiar landmarks—first a few, then many more as they grew closer. “There!
Herr
Ernst’s well! And see, down there, old Emil’s mill.”

He began to trot ahead, down a long descent toward a waiting valley. Laughing, the others followed close behind, with poor Pieter grumbling atop his bouncing perch. At last, Rudolf stopped. He held his breath and licked his lips nervously as he and his friends faced the homestead.

The house was a long rectangular structure, “built of mostly hardwood logs, judging by the bark still hanging on some,” reckoned Heinrich. The baker stared at the rock chimney standing proudly at one end. “Better than a smoke-hole!”

The scene was made all the more inviting by the low mooing of milk cows grazing in a nearby meadow. To their deep song was added the grunts of contented swine rooting mast from the woodland floor and the clucking of hens bobbing and scratching along the footpath. The pilgrims looked about, enchanted by the healing green of the forest, the farmyard’s comforting sounds, the sprinkling of colorful wildflowers, and the warm rays of golden sunshine piercing between leafy boughs. And were that not blissful enough, the air was soon sweetened with a singsong melody of the
Hausfrau.

     
Backe, backe Kuchen, der Backer hat gerufen!

     
Wer will guten Kuchen backen, der muss haben sieben Sachen:

     
Eier und Schmalz, Butter und Salz, Milch und Mehl, Safran macht den Kuchen gehl Schieb in den of en rein!

     (Bake, bake the cakes, the baker has cried!

     Who wants good cakes baked, he must have seven things:

     Eggs and lard, butter and salt, milk and flour,

     Saffron makes the cakes yellow. Shove them in the oven pure!)

Rudolf’s eyes watered and a lump filled his throat. He had heard that rhyme for the whole of his life. Pieter dismounted and wrapped an arm about the lad. “You are home, boy. Go and greet them.”

The lad embraced Pieter. “God bless you, Father. God bless you always.” He turned, then sprinted toward his timber home, where he flung open the door and disappeared into the darkness behind. The singing stopped abruptly. Silence seized the woodland, and nothing stirred until cries of joy rose to heaven as Gerda ran to her son.

Maria and Frieda had been holding hands anxiously. At the sound of Gerda’s happy cries, they burst into tears. It was a precious moment, indeed, one filled with shining eyes and broad smiles.

Then, to the pilgrims’ right, the earth suddenly shook with the sound of feet crashing through the woodland brush. Storming toward the opened door of his home charged the barrel-chested, bearded man of the house, Dieder. Hearing the shrieks of his wife in the trees beyond the fences, the bear of a man roared past the amused travelers and burst through his doorway, axe in hand and readied for battle. Again, utter silence seized the moment until, unashamed, Dieder bawled loudly, like a small boy swept away by utter joy.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Pieter. “Wonderful!” He skipped about on his bowed legs with his face flushed by his glad heart. “I love it!” he cried. “Sing, O ye angels! Sing!”

The group waited in their place until the household settled. In a few moments Dieder and his plump wife emerged from their doorway with arms stretched as wide as their smiles. They called to the pilgrims with shouts of thanksgiving. As Gerda hurried toward Pieter eagerly, the teetering old fellow suddenly had cause to fear! He braced himself as the happy woman fell upon him and lifted him off his feet with both arms wrapped tightly round his bony waist. “Father! You found him … you found my boy!”

Gasping for air, Pieter wheezed, “
Ja
, God be praised! Please … I can’t breathe!”

“Ha!” roared Dieder. He pried Pieter from his wife’s embrace and squeezed the old man’s aged hand with one of his huge paws.

“Aahh!” cried Pieter. “Aye, aye, you are surely welcome!”

Dieder pulled the limp-limbed priest to his chest and hugged him crying, “Ah! Old fellow! God be praised indeed!”

From the sheep pen, a young girl came running. “Rudi!” she cried. It was Beatrix, his younger sister. The lad ran to meet her, and the two greeted each other with joy.

Sore and breathless, Pieter grinned, and at the sight of his snaggletooth, the farmer roared with laughter. “Come! Come in and eat with us, all of you!”

The rest of that day was spent in tale-telling and feasting. Gerda scurried about her kitchen delivering baskets of freshly baked cakes and loaves of spelt bread to her guests. She raced to her larder for sundry berry preserves as Heinrich studied her bread. “Ah, good woman,” he exclaimed as she returned, “a finer bread I’ve not tasted.”

Gerda blushed.

“Tis true. I am a baker by trade, and I’ve an eye for these things.”

“Only
one
eye!” laughed Otto.

“Ach!
So be it.” Heinrich feigned anger. He turned to Gerda. “Long ago I was reminded that the baker is the priest of the kitchen table. Like the Eucharist at the altar, bread gives us life. It may seem a simple thing, but it is
bread
that our Lord chose as His body for us.”

“And it is feasts like this one that is our Lord’s vision for his true kingdom!” Alwin stood, his dark eyes swollen red with emotion. “Look about, all of you. What do you see? I see love and charity. I see kindness and grace. See the table, about to be filled with the bounty of God’s goodness.” The knight’s voice thickened with the lump filling his throat. “Oh, dear Heinrich, dear Gerda … bake your bread always with thanksgiving … it is a taste of the feast to come.”

Dieder stood and toasted the knight with a fresh tankard of ale. “To the kingdom, then!”

“Hurrah!” cheered the diners.

Then, with the frothy tankard fixed securely in his grip, Dieder lifted his eyes upward. “O Lord of field and forest, rivers and seas, I thank You for our Rudi, and I thank You for our brothers and sisters round m’table who’ve brought him home. Forgive us our failings. Heal our weaknesses. Strengthen our charity. Amen.”

“Amen.”

Wil had listened to many prayers, mostly in Latin. But here he heard a humble, grateful man lift his voice directly to the Almighty in the common tongue. There was such simple honesty in the man’s tone and such directness in his words that Wil thought all heaven was surely moved. Perhaps it was.

With an unwavering smile stretched as far across her face as it might go, Gerda then filled the table with platters of salted pork, entrails, mutton, cheeses, and numbers of summer vegetables. She poured mead generously amongst the young ones, while Dieder reached for some ale and a bottle of good red wine for Pieter, Heinrich, Alwin, and himself.

Later, three chickens and a duck were boiled in beer, and a slab of venison was set to sizzling on a spit above a snapping fire. Before long, the stuffed pilgrims lounged about the summer evening like spoiled little lords and ladies. They spoke of the crusade, of adventures, and of friends lost. Wil informed a saddened Dieder of Karl’s death. Then others spoke of the terror of the
San Marco,
the wonders of San Fruttuoso, and of the journey north.

At long last, night fell. The sounds of a woodland’s summer evening calmed all hearts with as soothing a lullaby as ever was sung, and, one by one, the pilgrims fell to a peaceful sleep in the embrace of the kindly mountains near Liestal.

It was a sad farewell when Rudolf was left behind. He, too, had changed. But his world was unusually suited to both what the boy had been and to what he had become. For the travelers, though, thoughts turned to things ahead, particularly Weyer and the troubles that might be waiting. Until then, many more leagues needed to be traveled.

It was early in the second week of July when Wil’s company looked down on the walls of Basel. The city brought them nothing but dread, and none wanted to enter. “But, Wil, we are now in need of foodstuffs,” insisted Otto.

“Dieder gave us a good supply.”

“Ja,
but it is not enough.”

“We can cross on the ferries and find food in the Rhine Valley.”

Otto spat. “In a place like Dunkeldorf?”

The group fell quiet. Pieter hung his head sheepishly, remembering his own failings in that horrible town, but it was Frieda who gasped at the name. “No! I’ll not go near that awful place.”

Wil laid his arm around her and whispered words of comfort. It was in Dunkeldorf where she had been rescued by Wil’s company, along with her now-departed brother and sister. She shuddered.

“Then we need to travel west of the Rhine and cross at Mainz,” stated Alwin flatly.

The group discussed the plan until there was general agreement. Heinrich added rather insistently, “Aye, but we still need to send someone into Basel for provisions.”

Alwin agreed. “I think it best as well. The prices ought to be better here than from some thieving merchant along the way. The free villages along the borders by France are the worst.”

Wil nodded. “Then you, Father, along with Helmut, Tomas, and m’self will go. You others make a camp off the roadway.”

Otto and Friederich grumbled some, but Benedetto was greatly relieved. He made his way to Solomon’s side and sat beside the dog, nearly out of view.

“And how long before we send someone to find you?” Friederich cast a sideways glance at Pieter.

The priest smiled weakly. “They’ll be back in proper time, lad. Not like some fool priest.”

A conversation quickly ensued in which a list of necessary items was made. Frieda wanted more thread and a needle; Maria asked for honey for Pieter’s sake; the others added various items such as salt, fishing nets for the Rhine, fresh flint, replacement arrows for Wil, and a whetstone for the blades. “Several baskets of flour would be good,” added Frieda. “We lost most of ours in Olten.”

“And what about some vegetables … late peas and the like?”

Helmut added more. “What of some fresh-baked bread? What we have is hard as stones. And I’d like a few turnips, some garlic and onions, some—”

“My, how times have changed!” mused Pieter. “Might I add some butter, a bottle of French wine … perhaps from Bordeaux … no, Provence … no, make that the region of Lyons—”

“It’ll be red,” grumbled Heinrich. “Is that all?”

Alwin stepped forward hesitantly. “It would cost much, very much, but what of a sword for me? I fear we might need one.”

The group hesitated. Swords were very expensive. Heinrich thought it a wise purchase however. “How much is one of our lives worth? We need Alwin’s arm.”