Pieter sighed. “It is my observation that all men are either poets or merchants. Poets see beauty for what it is; merchants see it for what it does!”
Alwin agreed. “I daresay we are in a long line of merchants who’d squeeze deniers from the stones at our feet if they could! Look there.” He pointed at three squabbling peddlers. “One sells cloth; the other, metals; the third, feathers. They’ve naught in common but greed.”
Heinrich grunted. “They’d quarrel over a comfit.”
Pieter nodded and studied the column. “Seems we’ll be spending the day with the song of hammers. That wagon’s leaning badly, and it looks like an axle broke on the other.”
Wil joined the three and heard the news that the caravan would need to make an early camp. “Will we ever come to Weyer!” he groused.
“I shouldn’t be so much in a hurry about it, lad,” answered Alwin. “Much can happen in a year’s time.”
“I swear, if that old hag Anka stole our land or if Pious stole the bakery, I’ll lay them both in new graves!”
Heinrich darkened. “We own both for all time. It is the law.”
Pieter sighed. “Nothing is owned for all time, baker. Omnia mutantur. All things are changing.”
“No!” retorted Wil and his father simultaneously. Heinrich’s face tightened. “The land was m’father’s father’s. It is only a half hide, but it is my half hide! The bakery is mine by law as well. The abbot bartered it to me in fair exchange for land I inherited from a dear friend. No other shall have it!”
Wil felt suddenly anxious, and he turned sheepishly to his father. “I … I did swear to Father Albert that I’d give a quarter of our land to Frau Anka if mother is alive when we return.”
Heinrich stared blankly at his son. “A quarter of our land? By the saints, boy! That would be seven hectares!”
“Enough to feed a family for six months,” added Otto as he joined them.
“Aye!” The baker’s face was flushed.
“But she gets it only if mother is alive when we return,” blurted Wil.
Heinrich’s conscience was suddenly snagged. He would prefer to keep his seven hectares, to find them plowed and planted and still recorded in his name. Yet choosing a plot of earth over the life of his insufferable wife was shaming. “I … I … well, what’s right is right, boy. Pray you’ve yet a mother.”
Otto interrupted. “My mother died soon after Lothar was born.”
“I know, lad,” answered Heinrich. “Your mother was a good woman.”
“She hated my father.”
Heinrich was not sure how to answer. “I wouldn’t know much about that. Your mother seemed content enough when she came for bread. Your father kept a distance from me, and I ne’er knew him very well… even though he was baptized the same year as m’self. He has a strong way about him, and it was good when he got the mill. Better him than that fool Dietrich, I thought. He’ll be happy to see you.”
Otto shook his head. “He swore he’d beat me and throw me out of the village if I didn’t bring Lothar back unscathed.” The lad’s voice became thick, and he wrung his hands. “He loved m’brother like no other. After the wild Schwein killed my sister, he was never the same. Then Lothar was born and Mutti died.”
“I remember when your sister was killed,” said Wil. “It was horrible.”
“My father found her lying with two dead lambs. He said she had been torn in pieces. He keeps a lock of her hair tied round his neck on a cord.”
The group fell quiet while they made camp for the coming night. Wil ordered a few to tasks, and then built a small fire and sat by Otto and Tomas as they spoke of home. Frieda and Maria had spotted mushrooms on some trees in a woodland they had passed, and the pair imagined adding these to the afternoon meal along with a sprinkling of poppy petals.
“Wil, we’d like to gather some mushrooms from the wood,” Frieda said. She pointed to a dark stand of forest not far from the roadway.
Wil was lost in his conversation. With a distracted wave of his hand, he sent the two smiling girls away, and within a short time, Frieda and Maria were skipping across a narrow field with baskets on their elbows.
The day was warm, almost hot. An hour or so before, distant bells had rung the hour of nones. But, as this was near the middle of July, the day would be long. The young woman and her little sister sang happily as they dashed through waist-high barley. Their flaxen braids shimmered golden under the bright sun, and their pink skin flushed with joy as they raced toward the cool of the woodland shade. In moments, the pair disappeared from sight, swallowed into the shadows of the silent forest.