Large salty droplets also fell from Frieda’s cheeks as she cleaned every bit of bramble off the grave. Humming softly as a mother would when tending one she loves, she smiled lovingly as she pictured the boy’s red curls and ready smile. “Ah, Karl,” she whispered, “you know the answer to the riddle now, don’t you?” She reached for a few early blooms and sprinkled them atop the mound.
In time, Wil composed himself and started for the grave again. He stopped, however, and stared at his father, who was yet lying on the ground, still as death. The lad watched and considered this final evidence of the man’s heart. “Uncaring?” It hardly seems so. “Dangerous?” I remember how he was so easily tricked by the steward. “Selfish?” Perhaps. But I don’t recall the times he was, other than his leaving us, and I’ve not seen a sign of it in all these months.
Wil’s thoughts took him to the Weyer of his childhood, and memories of his father began to take a more pleasant place alongside those of Karl. He liked to laugh but was too easily shamed by others, he remembered. Ah, the Magi and the Laubusbach … he and Karl loved them so. And old Emma and Lukas…. Odd they should be such friends to the man he was said to be.
Frieda’s touch returned him to the present. “Wil, perhaps ‘tis time?”
The young man nodded. He walked to his father and nudged him with his boot. Heinrich lurched with a start. “What?”
“‘Tis time.”
The man’s eye lingered on the well-groomed grave for another moment. It was hard for him to leave it, harder than he had imagined. He stared, emptied of all joy, drained of things happy. At last, he rolled to his knees and bowed his head. He prayed loudly and without reservation, pleading with the saints, the Holy Mother, and the Christ to share the bounty of heaven “with my good boy, Karl,” to “show the boy mercy at the Judgment to come,” and to “grant him all joy until the day I see him again.” Then, knowing he could do no more, he stood slowly to his feet. With a heavy sigh, he turned to Wil and waited to press his journey home.
The April air was noticeably cooler in the Appenines than it had been by the sea, but it was comfortable in the daytime hours and surprisingly dry. Wil’s company pressed through the mountains under the watch of numerous castle keeps perched on ledges high above their path. The Ligurian lords who ruled them were in ever-changing tangles of alliances that kept their lives and fortunes in perpetual jeopardy.
The six pilgrims camped at the eastern base of the mountains on a stony shore of the narrow Scrivia, and in the morning they bathed in the river’s rushing water. It was cold and bracing—almost sacramental. Few words were spoken, but somehow they believed they needed to be refreshed in body and in spirit. It was as though the chilly dip in running water might wash away the salty stains of heavy tears.
Renewed and refreshed, they then journeyed northward along the Scrivia toward the crossroads town of Tortona, where they detoured westward in the direction of Allesandria. The days were mercifully dry, and the sky was blue. The highways were not crowded, and the pilgrims made good time.
They forded the shallow Po, then made their way to the stone walls of Vercelli, where they set up camp alongside a small caravan of merchants crossing the Piedmont from Milan to Turin. The caravan was made up of some score of merchants led by their elected doyen—a gruff, former Norman crusader named Robert Fitzhugh. The band, or “guild,” included several spice purveyors delivering seasonings from the eastern Mediterranean, a wine seller, an oil merchant, a few potters, several cloth merchants, and sundry others all riding in wagons groaning under the weight of a bounty of goods purchased from the lands of Islam.
That evening the band enjoyed a lively feast of good beer and tasty foods. By midnight, however, Tomas had indulged far beyond his limit and was sick in the alleys of Vercelli, leaving his fellows to settle into easy conversation with a silk merchant born in Oppenheim. “Ja, I’ve heard things of your crusade. Seems your leader’s father was hanged in Cologne.”
“Our leader?” quizzed Helmut.
“Nicholas of Cologne,” answered Frieda.
“Devil’s son,” answered Helmut. “I hope he’s dead!”
The merchant raised his brows. “Ja? Well, I have heard nothing of Nicholas, but well before Advent, methinks, an angry mob dragged his father into the streets of the city. They said the scoundrel had deceived them all. Then they hanged him and promised to do the same to Nicholas.”
Wil grumbled. Nicholas was not his leader, but Nicholas’s vision in the springtime past had certainly inspired the whole of the Christian world and affected the destinies of countless children, himself included. Thinking of being seduced by madness was troubling. ‘Tis bad enough we failed, he thought. But now to know we were dolts as well!