It had been decided that Heinrich would provide a rear guard by taking a position about a bowshot behind the column with Solomon. From there they might better know if any were following.
The rain eased, and the pilgrims traveled through the night without incident. The following day brought welcome sunshine and the safety of another small clearing in a brushy hollow, where the children found an ample supply of mushrooms and a few snails. Pieter’s plan was for them to leave that afternoon on a circuitous route. “Children,” he began quietly, “come close. I am leading you to a sanctuary where I believe we shall all be safe. It can only be found by boat or by a small footpath marked by a cross etched into a gray boulder under an ancient olive tree. Very few know of it; even fewer care to make the journey.
“The path begins about half a league beyond the fortress of the Dragonslayer.”
All chins dropped. “Dragonslayer?”
Frieda’s large brown eyes were as wide as Pieter had ever seen, and he laughed. “Ja. The folk nearby call it ‘Dragonara.’ I remember it as a little redoubt atop a rocky cape. I’m told the lords of Genoa are building a castle there now.”
“Why the name?” asked a voice.
“Ah, it is named after the blessed St. George, the Dragonslayer of old. But well save the story for later. For now, listen. The castle and the village lie along this same sea road. I fear the garrison must be alerted by now, so we must pass wide in daylight … through the mountains. Then we must circle back to the edge of the road again not far past the village. There we’ll hide until first light on the morrow, then hurry for the marker.”
The company grumbled. A march through the mountains would be difficult, even in daylight. Their feet were bleeding, and they were wet and cold. Finally, Wil called from his litter, “Hear me, all of you. Trust him. It is the only way.”
The words of their wounded hero comforted the weary pilgrims, and after an hour’s rest, Pieter raised his staff. “Follow me!” he cried.
True to his plan, Pieter and his company marched into the mountains east of the roadway, then southward until angling back to the sounds of the sea once more. Shortly before dusk they arrived just south of Dragonara, where they could hear the surf crashing against a wall of rocks. “Ah, good,” cried the old man. “We’re very close now!” They hid in the brush off the roadway for the night and emerged from their woody cover at the first light of dawn.
As soon as he could see his feet, Pieter burst on to the road with a youthful stride and a happy smile, leading his column in search for the hoped-for footpath. Eventually, the old man slowed his pace as he scanned every rod of the shoulder for the obscure signpost. At last he stopped and raised his hands. “Here! God be praised! Look!” Just as he remembered, a gnarly olive tree stooped over a gray boulder. The rock had been carved centuries before, probably when the remote church was first built to serve some humble community now long forgotten. Barely visible on the boulder’s face was an etched cross.
The column quickly turned off the road and entered the narrow footpath in single file. Judging by the undergrowth, it seemed the path was rarely used. The forest pressed tightly on both sides, leaving a corridor no wider than a small man’s shoulders. Cutting thorns and brambles crowded the way, a certain obstacle for the merely curious. “The monks prefer to travel by boat,” offered Pieter. A chorus of understanding answered.
For two hours the children followed the old priest along the meandering footpath. Most grew discouraged, especially when the trail began to fall through steep ravines and then climb over stony knolls.
The sun was now high overhead, and what sky could be seen was blue. The forest’s green was stale, of course, a thing natural to the season. Wood thrush fluted their throaty song from time to time, and a few warblers added music to the woodland. But, despite their pleasant sounds, Heinrich thought the mountainside to be rather plain and lacking in beauty.
The baker remembered climbing the Appenines weeks before and wishing for all the world that he could be returned to the heavy oak and massive beech of the noble forests of the northland. Here it was only softwoods and stubby maples, tangles of small-leafed brush and useless stands of scrubby pines.
The pilgrims pressed on, dragging themselves along the tight pathway in and out of the shadows of the wood. They had climbed steeply for a considerable distance and had begun a partial descent, when Pieter raced ahead. He turned and raised his staff. “Come, my blessed ones!”
The company followed him onto a sunny outcropping, where they gaped in awe at the splendid scene below. There, at the end of their sharply descending trail, was a simple jewel placed by the angels neatly at the edge of a crystal sea. Astonished, the column stared at the little paradise tucked safely away from the perils of a broken world. Below them were the old white buildings and impeccable gardens of the monastery of San Fruttuoso.