Pieter understood. It might make things so much simpler. “It was considered. However, Pious will check on her soon before the trial. If she’s gone missing, hell force an oathhelper to swear another testimony.”
“Then what if she resists your words?”
“We’ll tie her like the sow she is and drag her away!” snapped Tomas.
Otto knocked timidly on the woman’s door, and she answered, wiping her hands on her apron. “Eh?” She blew a wisp of gray hair out of her eyes. “Otto? Otto the miller’s son?”
“Ja. ‘Tis me.”
“Don’t cross this threshold! You’ve shamed us all. Yer father hated me all these years, and now you come to bring yer curses to my door. Y’failed in yer faith, whelp. I sewed the crosses on yer hearts, and y’failed me.”
Tomas removed his hood, and the woman gasped. “Aye, you old hag. ‘Tis me. I’ll not cower from your foul breath like m’good friend here. Now back away. We’re coming in!”
Anka stumbled backward into her modest hovel, and the three followed her inside. No one else was home. Fortuitously, her tenants were delivering hay to the stables in Villmar. “What… what do you want of me?”
Tomas closed the door and answered, “First, food and drink. A loaf of that bread there’ll do, and that mead is fine.”
The woman obediently handed Tomas the items, and he, in turn, shared with the others as they took seats around the woman’s table. Anka fixed a fearful eye on old Pieter. The man had not smiled nor said a single word. He had simply stared at her unwaveringly from the moment she had answered the door. Finally, Pieter turned to the boys. “Aye, ‘tis her.”
“What? What do you mean?” Anka’s face flushed.
“Are you sure, Father?” asked Otto.
The priest nodded.
“What? What is this?”
Pieter stood, walked to Anka, and peered directly into her widening eyes. “Woman, thou art in the grip of sin.”
“Eh?”
“Tis true. I am a priest, one serving the folk throughout all the kingdoms of God. I have led holy processions in Palestine, even once carrying a cross past the Holy Sepulcher.”
Anka sat down nervously.
“He is a prophet, of sorts,” said Tomas, “and he found Otto and me in need of repentance. He heard our confessions and then had a vision. It is why we are here.”
“You have visions?” asked Anka. A tone of respect now melded with her terror.
Pieter humbly bowed.
“Frau Anka, you must listen to him,” insisted Tomas. “On Holy Week past he returned from the relics in Ulm to lead a procession in Lorraine. He and his followers traveled to the Rhineland, where they prayed in nearly every pilgrim’s chapel. He was blessed by the bones of… of…”
“Of the apostle Bartholomew,” Pieter finished glibly. “They were delivered to the cathedral in Trier for a short time. I was most blessed indeed.”
“Tell her, Pieter. Tell her of the journey by the Rhine.”
“Oh, I must not boast of such things.”
Anka leaned forward. “No, Father, please … please tell me.” She poured herself a tankard of mead and lifted it to her lips with a trembling hand.
Pieter hesitated, then politely asked the woman for a drink before proceeding to spin a long tale of suffering and visions that drew Anka ever closer. “Then, finally, near the city of Worms I saw the Holy Mother bathing.”
“Bathing?” Anka was astonished.
Pieter nodded, astonished as well. “Ja, my child. The water was to her neck, and a golden glow hovered over her. The river sang with the sounds of a thousand sirens. I saw fish leaping for joy, and then the heavens opened. Two angels bearing a gossamer gown descended to the water and then beneath, guarding the blessed modesty of our Lord’s Mother by wrapping her before she was drawn from the river to the clouds above, refreshed and smiling.”
Dumbstruck, Anka nearly fell from her stool.
Pieter drained his tankard and continued. “It was then, on this Pentecost past, that I vowed to purge all Christendom from what vice and wicked deeds my path might cross. I have sent a baron to justice for defiling a holy shrine, and I have sent a bishop to Rome in disgrace for his blasphemy. I could go on.”
Anka was speechless. She stared at Pieter with worshipful eyes.
“Which is why he is here, Frau Anka.”
“Why?”
Tomas lowered his voice. “Hear me, hag. I’ll malee it plain. With my own ears I heard that snake Pious tell Wil what herb to give his mother.”
Anka stiffened. “No! It cannot be! It was Wil who chose the poison!”