Alwin paled. Someone must have seen me close.
Alarmed, the pilgrims stared at one another blankly. Where would they go? None spoke. Those of Weyer had not yet fully grasped the fact that they no longer had a home, and they had certainly not even begun to consider where they now belonged. This was not the way to set a new course. Yet a new course needed to be taken, and quickly.
Wil took his wife’s hand and looked at the others. “Well, where shall we go?”
Alwin rose and answered. “We should not run about the country like ships without rudders. I say we start at once for England. ‘Tis a place where a man can be free. Things are afoot there that seem good to me. We could travel west, across France and to the ports in Normandy, we—”
Pieter shook his head wearily. “Alwin, I fear it is too much to ask of any. They’d need to learn another language, and they know nothing of the laws. It is simply too much, my friend, too much.”
“Too much for you or for them?” snapped Alwin.
“No, we do not wish to go to England,” answered Wil. “Not now. There must be another place amongst those who speak our tongue?”
“We could go south,” blurted Otto. “South to the Emmental. It felt good there.”
His idea was greeted with some nods. The Emmental was a pleasant place, to be sure. It had deep green valleys and good folk. “But we’d still be fugitives in a land of lords,” grumbled Tomas.
The group murmured anxiously. A few ideas drifted round the circle but none that seemed reasonable. Wil retreated deep into his thoughts as he aimlessly sharpened a stick with his dagger. Lost in pictures of places he had been, his eyes fell suddenly upon the inscription on his blade, and he turned to his father. Both men stared at the words for a moment until the baker muttered, “‘Freedom always.’”
Heinrich took the dagger from Wil’s hand and held it up almost reverently. He turned to his fellows. “You, Wil, Maria, Frieda, Tomas … all of you, listen to me. We are free now, even though we are driven from our homes and chased like animals across the land. We are free, and we’ll not spend our days hiding from those who would deny us God’s gift.”
Heinrich laid hold of Karl’s cross, which he now carried in his belt once again. He looked squarely at Alwin. “Good friend, we are all fugitives now. You are welcome with us, but go to England if you must. Yet by your own words you say that their king is a tyrant. I’ve had a belly full of tyranny.” The baker looked deeply into Katharina’s eyes. “I know a place where the sky is large and the fields are covered with flowers. There the sun shines brightly over freemen who stand firm for what is theirs, who fight shoulder to shoulder against tyrants. It is a place where we can be what we have become. Let us make our way to a new home, to a new beginning, to a new life. Let us make our way to Stedingerland.”
The baker’s words stirred each heart encircling the fire, and the friends stared at one another for a long moment as the idea washed over them. Then, one by one, the pilgrims rose and clasped hands. “To Stedingerland then!” proclaimed Wil. “To Stedingerland!”
It was a moment that brought cheers and nods—and a few doubts as well, for only Heinrich and Alwin had ever seen the place. So before long, the two were barraged with questions until Heinrich finally raised his arm. “Enough!” he laughed. “You’ll need to trust us. We’ll tell you all that we know, but now we must hurry.”
“Ja!” pleaded Münster’s priest. “You must be away long before dawn.”
“Which way, then?” quizzed Pieter. The old man was enlivened by his flock’s decision, but he barely had the strength to stand.
“Along the Lahn to Marburg. I’ve a friend there, a wealthy merchant who’ll give us shelter,” said Alwin. “Then we should go overland to Kassei, where we can follow the Fulda River toward the Weser. Then we can follow the Weser north.”
“Aye!” exclaimed Helmut. “My home is just east of Bremen.”
Heinrich nodded. “Good, perhaps we’ll take a rest there. But, lad, once we’re in the bishop’s realm, well need to have acare.”
With the matter forthrightly settled, the fugitives prepared to flee. Wil helped Benedetto load Paulus and then called for Pieter. “Your throne, my lord!”
Pieter did not complain. The adventure in Runkel had taken a terrible toll on him, and the past two days of rest had restored only a portion of his strength. “Too much excitement for these old bones,” he chuckled.
Wil surveyed his gathering company. “We have everything? Our satchels, our gold, our weapons? Is everything in order?”