Pilgrims of Promise(116)

Herold spat and cursed, then lunged once more at the knight. Alwin deftly blocked the man’s blow with his sword and countered with a carefully placed slice along the man’s shoulder.

“Aahh!” Herold cried. He fell back and grasped his wound, then turned hateful eyes on his son. “You! ‘Tis your fault, you little Scheisse!” He looked at the blood seeping down his arm. “Pathetic fool. You are no son of mine, and I’ll not have you stink up my home. Get out! The sight of you sickens me. Get out, else I’ll kill you in yer sleep!”

The words pierced Otto’s heart like no mere lance might ever do. The hard man who had once fed and sheltered him was now discarding him like so much refuse. Yet the boy longed to remain in his most familiar refuge with one whom he did somehow love. The brave lad’s chin quivered slightly, and then he held out his arms as if to beg his father’s mercy one last time. “I… I…”

“Shut yer fool mouth. I curse the day you were born. You’ve never been the son I wanted, and you killed the one I loved. Would that Lothar had come home and never you!”

Alwin’s chest heaved. He had no son; he had denied himself that joy by taking his Templar vows. To see this fool now curse and spit upon a lad as worthy as Otto filled him with rage. “By heaven and by hell, I ought take your head and put it on a pike! You miserable old fool, take a step toward me so I can send your soul to the Pit.”

Herold stared at Alwin, tight faced, then spat at Tomas, who was scowling to one side. What courage he had, he had already expended on his first go at the knight, and he had no interest in trying again. “You two, take this worthless scrap of dung out of m’house. He’s no son of mine no more.” With that, he turned his back on Otto forever.

Alwin lowered his sword and cursed, then looked at the trembling boy. “Lad?”

Tomas laid a hand on Otto. “It’s all changed now. Come with us.”

Otto nodded sadly. He turned to his father and opened his mouth to speak, then held his tongue. Hesitating for another moment, he let his eyes linger on the little hut that had been home to him for his fourteen years. He ran his fingers lightly along the bruises rising on his cheeks, and then, saying nothing, he followed Tomas out the door and returned to his comrades by the Magi.





“Open the door!” boomed a voice.

Herwin’s color drained away. “The reeve!”

“Open!”

Herwin’s eyes flew about the dim-lit hut. It was a one-room hovel with no good place to hide Heinrich or Wil. “To the corner!” he whispered urgently. Wulf blew out the candle, and Herwin answered. “Ja? Who’s there?”

“Reeve Edwin and five deputies. Open, else well break it down!”

Herwin lifted the bar, and the men burst into the dark room. “Where are they?” shouted the reeve. “Make us some light!”

Heinrich and Wil were crouched low in a dark corner, but they knew it was hopeless. There’d be no hiding. With a shout, they rushed toward the open door. At their cry, Wulf threw two of the reeve’s deputies away from the threshold. Midst grunts and heaves, a tangle of struggling men then tumbled out of the hovel and onto the moonlit footpath.

There, Wulf, Heinrich, and Wil engaged six shadows in a wild brawl. The large Wulf dropped one deputy with a solid fist to the face, but he was quickly felled by the strike of the reeve’s flail. He collapsed sideways, falling like a great timber. Bouncing against the hovel’s wattled wall, he rolled to his side, unconscious.

Wil traded blows with two others, then yanked his dagger from his belt, which was immediately sent to the shadows by the strike of a mallet. The two grunting forms then wrestled the howling lad hard to the ground. “Hold fast, y’devil,” cried one. “Y’ve a hangman to greet!”

Heinrich kept the three others at bay with his sword, while old Herwin begged for calm. The baker backed slowly toward his son now being tied at the wrists and ankles. “Wil!” he cried.

“Aye, Father, they’ve bound me!”

“He’s to hang, baker. He’s a murderer.” The voice was familiar but the face unseen. Suddenly, the figure lunged toward Heinrich with a long-sword of his own. The baker dodged and parried, missing his mark. Another rushed him and he swiped at the man, cutting him lightly across the belly and sending him rolling away. Reeve Edwin roared forward with his flail. Heinrich leapt to one side and tripped the aging reeve, only to quickly dodge the jab of the other’s sword once more. Instinctively, the baker returned a ferocious thrust of his own, driving the point of his sword squarely into the ribs of his foe.