Pieter’s body was carried back to the camp, and Wil walked slowly to Paulus in order to retrieve the bundle that had been discreetly handed to him by Friar Oswald in Renwick. It was another gift from Traugott—a fine deer-hide shroud, one fit for a prince. Wil unfurled the shroud, then handed his wife a ball of leather cord and a heavy needle.
Frieda nodded and quietly gathered the women together. In less than an hour, Pieter’s body was sewn within the deerskin and then laid in the center of the camp, where the company fell slowly to sleep until distant birds signaled the coming of dawn.
It was Tuesday, the twenty-seventh of August in the year 1213. Heinrich rose first and added a few small logs to the red ashes of the night’s fire. He looked at Pieter’s shroud lying stiff and straight atop the earth.
“Father?”
Heinrich turned. “Aye, lad?”
Wil stretched his open hand toward the man. “Let all things be forgiven … let all things be made new. You have brought us safely to a new land, and I thank you for it.”
The baker squeezed his son’s hand hard and answered, “We have brought each other here, both guided in ways I cannot explain.” He looked deeply into his son’s eyes, now enlivened by the rising flames. “May God bless you richly as you take hold of what is now yours.” He released his son’s hand and retrieved Karl’s cross from his belt. He kissed it and held it to his breast. “I pray that none of us forgets the sufferings or the joys of our journey.” Heinrich’s throat swelled, and he could no longer speak.
Katharina slipped to the baker’s side as Frieda joined Wil. Maria emerged from the darkness to lean against Heinrich. Together, the five stood silently as the first light of the new day streaked pink across the bluing sky.
The light breezes of the early morning teased their hair and brushed warm against their faces like the breath of angels. The quiet group watched their fellows rise, and when all had gathered, Wil spoke. “We’ll not eat here,” he said firmly. “Today, we eat our first meal as freemen!” He looked at Pieter’s shroud and then smiled at Maria. The stitching had been filled with flowers in the night. He lifted his sister into his arms. “And we take him with us. He shall rest in free soil.”
In a quarter hour, the brave company was standing in proper order as Wil inspected each of his comrades. With Solomon at his side, he planted his staff firmly into the rich soil of Blumenthal and walked up and down the small column with pride. Tomas, Otto, Alwin, and Heinrich each held a corner of Pieter’s litter—Heinrich and Otto in the fore. Wil paused to look at each of them. Brave men all, he thought. And Friederich, too. He turned to face Maria and the women. Dear sister, dear wife, brave Wilda, and good Katharina…
“May God bless us all on this good day and for many to come,” he proclaimed. He walked past Maria and rubbed Paulus’s ears with a contented smile. Then, taking his place in the fore of his beloved company, he pointed westward.
With cries of jubilance, the pilgrims advanced, measuring their steps lightly atop the yielding petals of the valley floor, drawn deeper into color and to light as the sun rose higher behind them. Splashed to either side was the brilliance of this new day’s dawn, set to glory by the fluttering of butterflies now dancing atop the morning mist and the gift of wildflowers spread far and wide. Above, the sky was filled with songbirds, and ahead the lightly riffled waters of the Weser lay easy and warm, peacefully waiting to receive this tithing of free brethren.
Drawing deeply of the sweet, fragrant air, Wil paused at the water’s edge and took Otto’s place with Pieter’s litter. He held the rail handle firmly in his left hand; to his side stood Heinrich holding the litter with his right. The pair looked at one another, then turned their heads southward as their memories suddenly carried them across green forests and wending fields of grain. They were swept far, far away, through narrow valleys and into the magnificent desolation of the highest places. They closed their eyes to smell the wood smoke of a hundred campfires, to hear the laughter and the tears of those much loved.
It was in that moment that their fellows began to sing the “Crusaders’ Hymn,” that gentle song of so many lost along the way, that melody of innocence and purity that had graced the hearts of all who had lifted it to their lips. “Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodland….”
Heinrich listened and looked to the heavens, where he imagined Karl joined in chorus with Pieter and Emma, with Lukas and Ingelbert. It was as though he could see them floating with the angels at that very moment, in that very place. He let a tear fall from his eye as Katharina stepped to his side.