hold a torrent of tears at bay, his face contorting and swelling with every passing breath. Maria wrapped her tiny arms round her mother’s sweated head and wept openly. Wil tightened his jaw and turned from the room as Anka entered the hut.
“I don’t know your game, y’old hag,” Wil grumbled with a curled lip. “But I am quite sure you’ve an eye on this house, the bakery, and our half-hide. I warn you and that rotted old husband of yours that we’ll return. And when we do, you had best not laid a hand on any what’s not yours.”
Anka, red-faced, answered, “And who shall pay the death tax for your miserable Mutti?”
“Give the bailiff a hog … and no more. By God I swear, woman, you had best be on your guard for my return. And know this, too. I’ve the miller watching how m’mother is nursed. I had better have a good report or may God have mercy on you! Now, look here….” Wil directed Anka to the herb. “Pious says we ought give this to her thrice a day. If she lives, you shall have a quarter of our land at my return. I have foresworn it to Father Albert.”
Anka grunted. She had been Marta’s childhood friend but had spent most of her years envious and coveting. She picked up the tin and nodded.
“Now, leave us.”
Anka strutted out the door, leaving the baker’s family quite alone. Wil beckoned Karl and Maria to his side, and the three stood quietly at their doorsill for just another moment. They listened to the crowing cockbirds and the early morning rustle of the village. Each seemed to know this would be the last morning of things as they had always been.
Wil adjusted Lukas’s worn satchel on his shoulder and secured Ansel’s dagger in his belt. Karl clutched his necklace and prayed that the Virgin would spare his mother. Maria smiled and plucked a small wildflower from the ground. They each then whispered their mother “Godspeed,” and, without ceremony or song, they and Tomas stepped onto the footpaths of Weyer.
The air was cool and clean; the sun was rising bold and bright. It was then, in the earliest light of the first day of July in the year of grace 1212, that the four began their journey.
Chapter 5
PIETER THE BROKEN
H e was baptized Johann Pieter, third son of Otto, Duke of Franconia, on the twenty-seventh day of August in the year of our Lord 1135. A bright and quick-witted student, he had excelled in his studies under the severe tutelage of the school masters at Aachen. His unabashed curiosity and uncommon intelligence eventually earned him entrance into the highly regarded University of Bologna and private study in Salerno and at the prestigious and exacting library at Worms.
Despite his scholastic excellence, Pieter’s inclination toward lighthearted mischief had rankled the furrowed brow of more than one of his narrow-eyed examiners. Yet the gentle spirit and soft heart that so clearly underpinned his playfulness inevitably won the affections of the most rigid of his masters.
Pieter married once but suffered a widower’s agony shortly thereafter. Brokenhearted but determined, he received his Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Cologne at the age of twenty on a cool, bright October morning. But no sooner had he gripped the coveted rolled parchment in his steady hand than he announced his intention to abandon the lofty world of the mind. “Instead,” he stated flatly, “I’ll measure my steel by the bitter business of combat.”
And so, despite the pleas and prayers of priest and pedagogue alike, Pieter abandoned further education and bowed his knee to Friederich the Fat of Bremen as a sergeant-in-training for his formidable order of Saxon knights. The spirited young man spent a cold winter of harsh training within the damp and foreboding fortress at Bremen. Friederich’s hard-eyed instructors taught their earnest liegeman the macabre arts of warfare, and the youth learned well. Though adequate with a long-sword, he seemed particularly
“I don’t know your game, y’old hag,” Wil grumbled with a curled lip. “But I am quite sure you’ve an eye on this house, the bakery, and our half-hide. I warn you and that rotted old husband of yours that we’ll return. And when we do, you had best not laid a hand on any what’s not yours.”
Anka, red-faced, answered, “And who shall pay the death tax for your miserable Mutti?”
“Give the bailiff a hog … and no more. By God I swear, woman, you had best be on your guard for my return. And know this, too. I’ve the miller watching how m’mother is nursed. I had better have a good report or may God have mercy on you! Now, look here….” Wil directed Anka to the herb. “Pious says we ought give this to her thrice a day. If she lives, you shall have a quarter of our land at my return. I have foresworn it to Father Albert.”
Anka grunted. She had been Marta’s childhood friend but had spent most of her years envious and coveting. She picked up the tin and nodded.
“Now, leave us.”
Anka strutted out the door, leaving the baker’s family quite alone. Wil beckoned Karl and Maria to his side, and the three stood quietly at their doorsill for just another moment. They listened to the crowing cockbirds and the early morning rustle of the village. Each seemed to know this would be the last morning of things as they had always been.
Wil adjusted Lukas’s worn satchel on his shoulder and secured Ansel’s dagger in his belt. Karl clutched his necklace and prayed that the Virgin would spare his mother. Maria smiled and plucked a small wildflower from the ground. They each then whispered their mother “Godspeed,” and, without ceremony or song, they and Tomas stepped onto the footpaths of Weyer.
The air was cool and clean; the sun was rising bold and bright. It was then, in the earliest light of the first day of July in the year of grace 1212, that the four began their journey.
Chapter 5
PIETER THE BROKEN
H e was baptized Johann Pieter, third son of Otto, Duke of Franconia, on the twenty-seventh day of August in the year of our Lord 1135. A bright and quick-witted student, he had excelled in his studies under the severe tutelage of the school masters at Aachen. His unabashed curiosity and uncommon intelligence eventually earned him entrance into the highly regarded University of Bologna and private study in Salerno and at the prestigious and exacting library at Worms.
Despite his scholastic excellence, Pieter’s inclination toward lighthearted mischief had rankled the furrowed brow of more than one of his narrow-eyed examiners. Yet the gentle spirit and soft heart that so clearly underpinned his playfulness inevitably won the affections of the most rigid of his masters.
Pieter married once but suffered a widower’s agony shortly thereafter. Brokenhearted but determined, he received his Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Cologne at the age of twenty on a cool, bright October morning. But no sooner had he gripped the coveted rolled parchment in his steady hand than he announced his intention to abandon the lofty world of the mind. “Instead,” he stated flatly, “I’ll measure my steel by the bitter business of combat.”
And so, despite the pleas and prayers of priest and pedagogue alike, Pieter abandoned further education and bowed his knee to Friederich the Fat of Bremen as a sergeant-in-training for his formidable order of Saxon knights. The spirited young man spent a cold winter of harsh training within the damp and foreboding fortress at Bremen. Friederich’s hard-eyed instructors taught their earnest liegeman the macabre arts of warfare, and the youth learned well. Though adequate with a long-sword, he seemed particularly
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