Quest of Hope: A Novel (60 page)

Heinrich could not look back. His eye was blurred and his heart was filled with grief; he would never see the good woman again. Yet leave he must. Confused and ashamed, he was too weary to think. No longer could he weigh the perils of his soul, nor consider his plight. He needed to go home.

Heinrich chose a circuitous route out of the city in order to linger along the shores of the Tiber River one last time. He arrived at its mucky banks sometime past sext and paused to watch the bluishgreen waters ease through its wide bends. He set his back against a thick, scaly-trunked pine and stared into the patches of seaweed and the scattered white rocks along the river’s muddy bottom. “What tales those rocks could tell,” he mused.

Heinrich stood and followed the Tiber northward, past the bridge leading to the ancient, round fortress known as the Castel Sant’Angelo. The man hastened along his route, past scurrying clerics and their acolytes, merchants, pilgrims, men-at-arms, misfits, castoffs, fugitives, and beggars. The sunbaked brick and broken marble of a former time now barely drew his notice, for he began to dream of the spruce-scented air of his own northern forests.

He hurried by the home-fortresses of Rome’s elite—the walled villas guarded by well-armed soldiers as if they were miniature empires in danger of a siege. He passed churches and abandoned temples, gardens and neglected orchards. At last Heinrich arrived at the
Porta Flaminia,
the northern gate in Aurelian’s ancient wall. He paused for barely a moment and gave one final look to the tile-roofed city. He wiped the sweat gathered across his brow, then shook his head and drew a deep breath.

Heinrich of Weyer was now thirty-eight years old. Most of his generation had passed into their graves, but those who yet lived were now likely to survive another seven or even ten years, and a few fortunates, like dear Anoush, might live three score and ten or beyond. Thanks to the old nun, the baker had regained much of his former bulk and he now walked with a healthy stride. Remarkably, he still retained a good deal of the red in his hair, though his freshly trimmed beard was nearly all gray. His shoulders were thick again and broad. His face was full, even fleshy, and his blue eye keen. His back was straight and his legs muscular. With his dagger in his belt, a patch over his right eye, and a stump for a left arm, fellow travelers were apt to keep a wary distance. Despite his physical health, however, the man’s mood was still somber and devoid of hope.

Heinrich marched north in the uninvited company of pilgrims, couriers, and caravans of traders. The summer season had crowded the roadways with columns of men-at-arms, long convoys of wagoners, horsemen, oxen, two-wheeled carts, and groups of monks huddled around their donkeys. Heinrich made good time through the rolling landscape of Umbria, but did better yet across the wide plain of the Po Valley. Pouring much of his frustration into his stride, the man covered six and sometimes seven leagues per day.

Milan was a city worthy of a traveler’s rest, and Heinrich delayed one day to duck a heavy summer storm that pounded the flat fields of Lombardy. He found shelter with a fellow baker with whom he exchanged some ideas for sweetening bread. In the afternoon he dozed, only to suddenly startle awake to see a quick-footed, fair-haired imp make off with his rucksack.

“Ach, poor wretch,” he murmured.

“Eh?” A tall man walked by.

“I said, poor wretch. She took m’bag.”

“Ja.
She nearly ran me over on the way by. She’s sure to be one of those pitiful child crusaders. My name is Horst, from Frankfurt on the Rhine.”

“Child crusaders?” asked Heinrich.

“Aye. You’ve not heard? The pope cries that the cause is lost in Palestine, so it seems an army of children is marching south on a fool’s errand to save the Holy Land themselves! A lad in Cologne had a vision. Now thousands of the little waifs are coming, most in a large column from Cologne, but rumors are that others ‘ave heard the news and come in little bands this way and that. Some say they’re bringing pestilence and God’s wrath with ‘em.”

“It cannot be so.” Heinrich shook his head.” ‘Tis madness. Even if they could get to Palestine, the Turks would slaughter them like lambs. The priests would ne’er let them go.”

“I speak what is true!” Horst was indignant. “Most claim the sea shall open for them so they’ll cross over like the Hebrews did the Red Sea … but I should think ships to be the more likely way. And the French children are coming as well; they’d be marching to Marseilles! They think God will convert the infidels by the purity of their hearts.”

Heinrich still doubted that such a thing could be true.
But, if it is,
he thought,
Marta would ne’er let m’lads follow.
He changed the subject. “Frankfurt? I’ve a sister in Frankfurt. She married a merchantman named Jan.” Heinrich hadn’t thought of his sister in a long time. He smiled at the memories.

“Hmm. Jan.” Horst brightened a moment. “I’ve business with a shipper named Jan … and methinks I’ve heard a word ’bout his Frau wearin’ the breeches of the house!”

“Ha! Could be her! What can you tell me of them?”

Horst paused. “I’m sorry, stranger, but I’ve no business with him lately.”

Heinrich sighed. He was disappointed. “What other news ’ave you, sir. I’ve been on pilgrimage for years.”

“Ah, the world is much the same. The pope still favors young Friederich for emperor. That little switch had brought some confusion to the lords! Seems whenever the pope belches the wind changes. I’m glad to be a freeman. Were I a vassal I’d fear to rise in the morning.”

Heinrich nodded.
A freeman,
he thought,
I shall never be.

The days were warm and the sky was cloudless as the baker pushed north into the southern range of the Alps.
Lago Como
was so beautiful that even the downcast Heinrich was unable to pass it by without a brief rest. The man collapsed in the tall, green grass, hungry and exhausted. He stared at the lake’s blue waters and wondered what recourse was left for his miserable soul; to what source might he finally appeal? There was little left for him in the order of things as he knew it. As he drifted off to sleep, long-ago whispers nudged him to seek another way.

Heinrich awoke to the pleasant sounds of water lapping a pebbled shore. He gazed at the southern slopes of the Alps rising all around him, but he still did not dare lift his eye too high. He spat, then dug his hand into his satchel to find his treasure from home; his little stone with the etching of his mark. He wiggled his fingers beneath the layers of compressed fish and cheese that Anoush had stuffed inside until he felt an odd-shaped pouch. He paused and let his hand test the pouch’s size and shape before he withdrew it slowly. It felt heavy, as if it were stuffed with coins. His heart began to race as he pulled the string that bound it closed, and to his utter astonishment the pouch was filled with nearly all the gold coins he had given to the church. “Anoush!” he exclaimed. “You … you—” The man’s heart lifted. Yet it was not the sight of gold that filled the man with something fresh. It was the unconditional love of one who cherished him despite his shame. Stunned, humbled, glad-hearted, and suddenly hopeful, the man from Weyer stood to his feet.

The busy roads leading to the Julier Pass were tight and crowded. The Julier was the most popular mountain pass in summertime and had ushered migrating tribes and travelers north and south since before time was recorded. From the south the approach wound its way higher and higher through forests of long-needled pines. Jagged peaks edged each side of the roadway, and as Heinrich marched upward the trees grew scarce before disappearing altogether. Here the mountains were wet with rivulets of rushing water plunging clear and clean from unseen heights.

The walk above the tree line was one full day, but Heinrich barely noticed the thinness of the air nor the ache in his straining legs. Instead he felt oddly serene in the calm desolation of the place. He turned away from the trail near the summit’s toll to sit alone atop a boulder where he could eye the rugged panorama spread before him. Sitting quietly in the eerie silence, it was as though he could hear the words of Anoush’s farewell whispering softly in the wind. “I lift up mine eyes to you who are enthroned above the sun.” The psalmist’s image beckoned the man to another way; it pointed him to things beyond the world he knew. But, despite the hallowed hush of that high and holy haven, the melancholy peasant still dared not turn his eye upward.

He drew a deep breath and trembled. In the distance, snow-capped peaks stood immutable and grand. Below, great rivers of mist coiled round these pinnacles’ feet like white serpents sliding gently midst an army of giants. This was a place of hush and awe; a most splendid and astonishing abode of all things mighty, of all things magnificent. It was as if his pitiful soul had been swallowed up, engulfed, yet wonderfully embraced by the sheer enormity of things eternal. At that moment the man felt dwarfed, like a tiny, helpless creature sitting impotent and ineffective on such a stage as this.

Overcome by the glory of such incomprehensible stillness, he rested in the simple beauty of the wildflowers gracing a crevice at his feet. And in that ominous wilderness, that place of wonder where others fail to pause, broken Heinrich was touched. The
kosmos
was far greater than he and, so too, was the wisdom that guided it. It was here that Heinrich began to see.

Basel was an ancient city set squarely on the Rhine. Heinrich arrived there at midmorning on the sixth of August. He was impatient and weary, dusty and hungry. The sun was shining and the man was warm. His sealskin had been stolen while he slept somewhere between Lago Como and the Julier Pass. His boots were still sound, but his satchel was nearly empty of food, though still weighted heavy with gold. With a determined step he walked beneath the swoop-necked griffen-of-the-gate and strode toward one of several docks where he’d wait to board a ferry bobbing on the river of legends and myth—the mighty Rhine.