Quest of Hope: A Novel (57 page)

In Bologna, Heinrich bade farewell to his fellow traveler and thanked the man profusely for the wealth of knowledge he had imparted. This effusive man had taught the simple baker that the world was an intricate tapestry. “It is textured,” he had said, “with Creation’s mountains and valleys, deserts, rivers, oceans, endless forests, and fertile fields. It is hued by colors born under the sun; it is sprinkled with the races of man and the creatures over which they are given dominion. As time turns, this great tapestry is revealed in greater dimension, while fingers of the unseen Weaver deftly add more wondrous threads to this Story of Stories.”

The Apennines Mountains arc in a long, sweeping turn from Genoa’s Ligurian Alps in the northwest through the length of the Italian Peninsula. Somewhere in the stunted forests of these rounded hills Heinrich huddled beneath his cloak and waited patiently for the end of a heavy, pelting rainstorm. Indeed, he took the inconvenience in stride and soon found himself pressing southward around Firenze, through the olive orchards and birch forests of Umbria, by numerous villages of rose-hued stone, and beneath the uncomfortable watch of cliff-topped castles. At last he spotted what his informative friend had told him to seek: a Roman aqueduct! Stretched before him was a long, multi-arched, bridgelike structure that filled the gap between two rolling hills and disappeared from sight far in the distance. “Follow the aqueducts to Rome!” the man had said.

Heinrich was nearly bursting with excitement as the roadway gradually clogged with more and more travelers. Merchants, farmers, carts laden with goods, impatient consorts, and companies of cavalry jostled and hurried along the now dusty road. Heinrich had been told to circuit the city and enter from the south—it would be a more advantageous route to the little church.

The well-worn roadway was arrow-straight and flat, made of dark gray, almost black blocks of basalt. On either side were ancient ruins pilfered for their narrow, red-brown bricks or covered by creepers and vines. The blocks beneath his feet were about a man’s forearm square, rather rounded with age and often grooved by what Heinrich imagined were iron wheels from long-ago carts and chariots. To either side were gardens and ploughed fields, cypress trees and umbrella pines, chestnut tree and rhododendrons. A few modest farmhouses sheltered dark-eyed folk who seemed unimpressed by the steady flow of traffic passing them by.

The man was eager but growing more nervous. He moved to the side of the road and took a brief respite. He watched the colorful pageant passing by, then stared wistfully ahead. He drew a deep breath and imagined Rome to be filled with the songs of angels and the aroma of heaven’s gardens. He closed his eye and pictured golden streets, jeweled portals, and silk banners. He could hear brass trumpets summoning the Virgin to bless penitent pilgrims such as he. He imagined the pope stepping lightly down the Holy Stairs, the
Scala Santa,
to receive the old Norseman’s pitiful necklace. He felt better.

A voice interrupted Heinrich’s thoughts. “Saints Peter and Paul stepped there.”

Heinrich opened his eye. “Eh?”

It was a young Saxon lad who Heinrich judged as a novice by his robes.

“Saint Paul stepped here, and Saint Peter, too.”

Heinrich looked about. “Where?”

“Here. On this road. This is the Appian Way, the road Rome’s legions traveled and the road the apostles walked.”

Heinrich stared in disbelief.

“’Tis true, pilgrim. Ahead are the holy catacombs … tombs of our brethren gone on before some thousand years ago. Then farther is the
Porta Appia
through Aurelian’s Wall. The wall is nearly a thousand years old itself!”

Heinrich stared at his feet. He was about to tread where saints had actually walked. He lifted his foot toward the block of pavement and hesitated. When he set it down it was as if a surge of power entered his body. He muttered to himself, then bowed his head.

It was dusk on Friday, the thirty-first of December, 1210, when a weary and dejected Heinrich finally stood at the door of
Santa Maria in Domnica
church. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at the ruin of an ancient aqueduct standing nearby. Beyond it, where the city sloped downward in the distant center of his view, he saw the gray walls of the infamous Coliseum.

Rome had already disappointed him. From the moment he had passed through the deep gate of the massive, double-arched city wall he was sickened by the septic stench of stagnant sewers and the putrid odor of human waste. He had walked past run-down and abandoned villas on the broken cobbles of the Caelian Hill. Goats and sheep grazed between the columns of a once-mighty empire. Bricks lay in heaps aside collapsed homes, and weeds grew where lush gardens had once boasted blooms from all regions of the known world. The few green sprigs of Advent hanging here and there did little to add the cheer of Christmas to a place that had fallen so very far from glory.

The City of Seven Hills was the heart of an empire that had once ruled the earth from the bogs of Britain to sunbaked Arabia. Its power and might had made Rome a city of glory in the center of a world forever changed. Yet great cities, like empires, always crumble under the weight of things greater than themselves, and by the time Heinrich arrived in Rome it had become a pitiful shadow of its former self. From its zenith of some one million inhabitants it had decayed into an overgrown, diseased, and gasping home to fewer than twenty thousand.

Heinrich grimaced at the horrid odor curling within his nostrils. He longed for the clean air of the mountain spruce or the briny breezes of Stedingerland and the sea. He surveyed the faded tile rooftops of the dismal city and sighed.
’Tis a certain place to do penance.
The sun was setting and the shadows were growing long. Heinrich gathered his courage and knocked on the door.

None answered, so he knocked again, harder. At last a small window within the door opened and an eye peered out.
“Si?”

“G-guten Tag,”
stuttered Heinrich. “I am a pilgrim come to do penance.”

“Si? Avanti!”
The window closed with a slam.

Heinrich scratched his head and knocked again. Twice. The window opened and a few sharp words were hurled at the dumbfounded baker. The window slammed shut again.

Heinrich sat on the dirt in front of the church and thought carefully. “Ach, dolt!” he muttered to himself. He reached into his satchel and dug for the relic and the letter from the Carthusians. When his fingers brushed against his mother’s medallion, however, he hesitated. Then, with a measure of resolve, he lifted it from its sanctuary and dangled it from his hand. It twirled in the cool evening breeze and he thought it a most beautiful thing. His mind flew to his hovel and to his mother. He grasped the medallion in his hand and wept.

Whether it was the tears or gold none could know, but the church door suddenly creaked on its rusted hinges and opened slightly. A little man stepped from its recesses with a wary eye on the stranger. He had been watching the visitor all along. “German?”

Heinrich was startled.
“Ja!”

“Humph.”

“Pater?”

“Si.”

The priest stared at Heinrich for a long moment. He was a short, aging man with a close-cropped ring of white hair running from temple to temple. His complexion was olive; he was dark eyed, round faced, and slightly rotund. His eyebrows angled upward at the far side of each eye, giving him the appearance of perpetual anticipation. “And what to do for you?” His German language skills were weak, probably by choice. Romans had been annoyed with their shaggy German guests ever since Charlemagne and his heirs dared claim the name of “Holy Roman Emperor.”

Heinrich handed the priest his letter of introduction and followed him to a dimly lit chamber attached to the church’s sanctuary. The priest lit several candles, read the letter with increasing interest, then turned to Heinrich. “The relic?” His tone had changed.

Heinrich said nothing for a moment. He looked around the little room and wondered. With reluctance he extended his fist, then opened it to reveal the treasure lying in his calloused palm. The father knelt and crossed himself, then lifted the medallion reverently and laid it gently on an open Bible. He knelt again and murmured another prayer. Heinrich waited respectfully, then followed the little man down a dark hall and into a larger room where dozens of children prepared for sleep. Attending them were two more priests, a novice, and three nuns. Heinrich followed farther, past an infirmary filled with coughing, fevered children, and finally to a small cell with a single candle and one cot. The priest lit a stubby candle with his own. “Your room.”

Heinrich stared.

“I am
Don
Vincenzo. We speak in morning.” With that the little priest vanished and left Heinrich to his first night in the Eternal City.

It was squeals of laughter that awakened Heinrich from an unhappy dream. He sat up with a start and stared about his dark, little cell. He quickly checked for his rucksack and satchel. All was in order, except for the unfamiliar noise.

The man gathered his things and followed the happy sounds into the larger, straw-covered room he had passed through the night before. The children stopped playing and stared in terror as the one-eyed man with long red curls stepped toward them. Heinrich peered into each little face and smiled.
Children!
he thought.
‘Tis good to hear them laugh! A voice
caught his attention. It was Father Vincenzo. “Come.”

Heinrich obeyed and followed the priest through a maze of short hallways and rooms to a small office. He was seated in front of two other priests and one ancient woman dressed in a habit. Heinrich assumed she was a nun.

Vincenzo introduced each by name. “Father Arturo of Rome, Father Florian of Lombardy, and Sister Anoush of Armenia. Only sister speaks your tongue well.”

Heinrich nodded to each, then turned to the aged nun. He bowed respectfully.

Anoush wore a simple nun’s gown, a homespun white habit with a plain black apron. Her hair was covered by a black hood. Nearly bent in two by more than eighty years of life, the kindly sister smiled and took Heinrich’s hand in her own—one curled and knotted by years of difficult labor. “Dear boy,” she began, “sit with us.” Heinrich felt good; he hadn’t been called “boy” for a very long time! The sister’s voice was as clear as her shining brown eyes. “
Don
Vincenzo has shown us your letter, and we spent the New Year’s Eve in fasting and prayers of thanksgiving.” She was pious, but not pretentious. She leaned close to Heinrich and wiggled her finger for him to lower his ear. She whispered, “Truth is they spent most of their time speaking of today’s Feast of Fools at the Ruffini’s!” She chuckled.