Quest of Hope: A Novel (5 page)

Beside the brother and his exhausted beast stood a young woman and her infant of one year. Despite her fatigue and the dampness of the cold November morning, the woman smiled cheerfully and caressed the wisps of white hair blowing from under her baby’s wrap. She wore a dark, hooded peasants’ cloak that fell a bit short of her ankle-length gown, exposing a pair of good, black shoes. She turned her face toward the sun to feel its warmth against her round, pink cheeks. “Ah, and you, my precious Ingelbert, can you see the blue? Does the sun not touch your tender skin?” She hugged the little one. “Brother, you do have the letter?”

The man nodded.

“And you’d be sure they’d be a willing host?”

The man shrugged.

“‘Tis a good day for m’son and me.”

The monk nodded.

“But I do hope they shall honor the archbishop’s request. He made no demands for this and—”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

“Ah, well there’s oft truth in that for me. Methinks little Ingelbert is a good reminder of that.” She sighed.

“Those who plough evil and those who sow trouble reap it.” The monk stared at her with a quality of scorn that would bend most others’ eyes to the ground.

Instead of cowering however, the stout woman turned her warm brown eyes directly into his. “Aye, ‘tis so, indeed, Brother Martin, and it was so very kind of you to remind me.”

Martin studied the woman. He noticed that her dress was common, but her face belied a quality of intelligence that had made him suspicious since they met in Mainz two days before. Brother Martin had been told nothing of her past, of her status, or of what purpose she now stood at this gate. He held his tongue and turned his back.

The greeter, a fresh-faced novice, opened the gate and welcomed the three.
“Deo gratias,
thanks be to God. Blessings,
frater.
How might I serve you?”

Martin stared at the boy and held a scroll just beyond the novice’s reach. He remained mute and waited for the lad to calculate his duty.
Dolt,
he thought.

The nervous boy brightened. “Ah, you must be bound under a vow … is it for silence?” he asked.

Martin rolled his eyes.
Pathetic fool!

“Oh, what an unwise and sinful question!” the novice stammered. “Had you answered, I’d be guilty of your sin and I’d be an accessory to temptation!” He fell on his knees.

The woman chuckled. “Ah, good lad. Stand to your feet! Ha, ha! You’ve brought me a good laugh and y’needs never repent of that! What’d your name be?”

“Brother Oskar.”

“Well, little brother, perhaps you ought fetch the porter.”

The boy stood up and rushed away. In a few minutes he returned, blushing and stuttering. Brother Egidius, the abbey’s porter, was a bit shamefaced himself. The rule of his order required the porter to be a sensible man, not given to wanderings from his post. He thought a quick trot to the latrine after prayers would go unnoticed. “Thanks be to God, Brother. I’m told you’d be bound to a vow of silence?”

Martin shook his head. “I must speak only the words of Scripture or those of saints.”

“Ah, I see,” answered Egidius. “Perhaps I ought fetch the guest-master.”

Martin shook his head again. “Many seek an audience with a ruler.” He stared intently as if to drive some point into the man’s mind. Egidius and Oskar looked at each other and scratched their heads.

“Forgive me, brothers,” interjected the woman. “I am Emma of Quedlinburg and this is my son, Ingelbert. The archbishop’s clerk sent this shaveling as my escort from Mainz with a message for your abbot. Methinks him a bit tiresome, but—”

“A fool’s mouth is his undoing!” scolded Martin.

Egidius grunted and sent Oskar to find the prior. “Brother, remain outside the gate while I find you both a cool drink. I shan’t be more than a moment.” The porter lifted his habit and ran to the nearby kitchen. He rushed back with two tankards of beer.

“Let us be thankful, and so worship God,” offered Martin.

“Aye, to Him all praises we give,” muttered Egidius.

As the monks prayed, Emma drained her tankard and then graciously offered her thanks.

The porter smiled and set a tender hand on the infant. “Your child has no father?”

“Every child has a father,” answered Emma.

“Ah, well said! I should have asked if he has a father to care for him.”

Emma thought for a moment before answering. “None with the liberty to enjoy the lad’s happy laughter, nor one free to hold him when he cries.”

Egidius lifted the boy from his mother’s arms and looked at him carefully. The baby’s eyes were deep-set and blue, close together and not in proportion to one another nor rightly aligned along his little nose. The monk tilted the boy’s face upward and took note of the child’s chin. It was far too short, leaving the upper lip protruding severely over the lower. The boy’s large ears sprouted unevenly from a sloping head and were bent forward toward his face. The monk said nothing but gently blew the boy’s ghost-white hair and brushed the lad’s pale white skin with a calloused finger. “Ah, a fine boy, Frau Emma, fine, indeed.”

“Scrawny, very ugly, and lean,” blurted Martin.

Egidius leaned close to the stranger and growled, “I don’t like you, Brother Martin, and I think your vow is suspicious. You should know that I’ve done penance twice for beating the brethren!”

The prior appeared and interrupted the porter with his greeting. “Thanks be to God.”

Egidius bowed to his superior. “Prior Paulus, we’ve a visiting brother with a letter from Mainz and a woman with some business as well.”

Emma bowed. “The paper is about my business. This wanderer is but my poor escort, assigned to me by a well-meaning clerk.”

Prior Paulus looked at the woman and her child and took the string-tied scroll from Martin’s hand. He cracked open the wax seal and unrolled it. It contained a message from the archbishop regarding the year’s plantings, taxes owed to Lord Hugo the protector, and the apportionment of the glebe harvest to the priests of the villages. He read further to find a list of repairs, tithes, dues, and hospitalities that the abbey might expect in the coming year. Toward the bottom a reference was made to the threats of a western lord and the likely gathering of Knights Templar to oppose him. At the very end was a brief statement regarding Emma: “Without known reason I am asked by your protector, Lord Hugo of Runkel, to provide this whore and her ill-formed bastard a shelter fit a woman of virtuous repute. She seems of high birth and I suspect her to be a despoiled nun. Receive her, but her cursed son is not to be an oblate; he is to suckle at the sinner’s breast and bear the weight of his mother’s scourge without benefit of alms.”

Paulus rolled the yellowed scroll and turned to Martin. “Brother, I see nothing of regard to you.”

Brother Martin folded his hands and kneeled. “When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and givest you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in?”

Paulus was not impressed. “
Gyrovoagi
,” he muttered. Yet charity was a virtue he had vowed and it could not be ignored. “Brother, we may either feed you and send you on your way, or offer you our fellowship as brethren. Your wish?”

“I wish to join you as your brother.”

Paulus’s face darkened. “I see. Then you must abide the difficult rules of joining our community. In keeping with the Rules of St. Benedict, you must remain outside of this gate for five days. At the ringing of each bell you shall entreat the porter for entry. You, Brother Egidius, must refuse him at each request.”

“Aye. ‘I rejoice in following thy statutes,’” the porter smirked.

“Then at compline of the fifth day you shall be allowed in, and you shall be brought to a novice’s cell as a postulant, and there you shall dwell for one year. After this time has passed, you shall stand before the community in the oratory and take a vow of stability promising us your faithful presence until the Lord takes your soul. You shall vow obedience to our rule and prostrate yourself to each brother in turn. Then, Brother Martin, perhaps we may serve one another.”

Martin said nothing but left his knees and bowed. Prior Paulus turned to Emma and her son. “My child. Come, enter in and let us show you to your quarters until we’ve settled you in one of our villages.”

“Grace to you, Prior Paulus,” she answered. “And thanks be to God. But as you consider our prospect, might I humbly ask to be housed near water? ‘Tis somewhat soothing by its sound and—”

“Considering your sins, methinks you to have little to say in this matter!” scolded Paulus. He paused, then softened his voice. “We’ve the village of Villmar, here, by the Lahn River, and we own some four villages by millstreams.” He looked at Ingelbert and his eyes saddened. “You have naught to fear, daughter. Your sins are at your breast each day; you have no need of an increase in your misery.” The prior paused for a moment. “I believe our village of Weyer to be a good place for you. It has a good stream, thick woods,
Volk
with no thought to idle time.
Ja,
Weyer shall be your home.”

And so it was by the late days of November in the year of our Lord 1174, Emma of Quedlinburg became Emma of Weyer. She was housed in a hastily repaired cottage at the village edge and—to the young woman’s great joy—by the pleasant waters of the Laubusbach.

Spring came early in the year 1175 and brought life and new hope to the village. Arnold and his wife welcomed their firstborn, Richard, on the fourteenth day of March. By April, Kurt and Berta were busy planning the season’s labors. Berta was large and cumbersome, her second child expected to be born in June. Since Easter would be late she counted the days and prayed the child might be born on Pentecost. Heinrich’s birth had missed the Epiphany by nearly a fortnight, and Berta still worried that good fortune was forever denied the child.

Meanwhile, Kurt had added another member to the household. Besides sheltering his sister, he rented space on the straw-strewn floor of the common room to a young man named Herwin, a distant cousin on Berta’s side. Herwin earned only a few pennies a week as the thatcher’s helper, so he offered Kurt a little cash as well as labor in Kurt’s fields. Herwin was sixteen and bright, gentle, and rather timid, given more to dreams than to the coarse ways of the sons of Jost. But Kurt thought him trustworthy and hardworking; virtues his father had taught him to honor.

Days passed quickly and without excitement until Kurt announced the betrothal of Sieghild. After shocking the girl with the unexpected news he gave her instructions. “Sieghild, you are to ride with Arnold on the morn to the Lahn. He’s to deliver a cart to Lord Hugo’s clerk in Runkel, then take you to meet your betrothed and his father by midday’s meal.”

Sieghild trembled. Kurt had negotiated with the father of a ploughman who lived in a border settlement along the Lahn River near Lord Hugo’s castle. Kurt had met the young man’s father while working with the carpenters. Sieghild did her best to hold back her tears, but her face revealed her fear.

Kurt looked at this sister with compassion but without mercy. “You shan’t be a spinster under my roof. You’d be sixteen, girl. ‘Tis time for you to marry. I was able to bargain nearly a shilling for your dowry. Father told me you would not be easy to barter and I think I’ve done well.”

At that moment Herwin came through the door, his woollens covered with thatch from a hard day’s work atop the roofs of Oberbrechen. The look on Sieghild’s tortured face stopped him in his tracks. “Sieghild?”

“Sieghild is to meet with her family-to-be on the morrow. The wedding’s in June ‘fore Midsummer’s and she has yet much to accomplish,” answered Kurt.

The next morning Sieghild trudged slowly to Baldric’s hovel. Though Jost had passed his land to Kurt, he had given Baldric his hut and its gardens, and had given Arnold two shillings of pennies. Sieghild hesitated to enter. She paused for a long moment and finally took a deep breath and called for Arnold. Within the hour she was bouncing through the byways of Weyer.