Quest of Hope(11)

Meanwhile, Kurt had added another member to the household. Besides sheltering his sister, he rented space on the straw-strewn floor of the common room to a young man named Herwin, a distant cousin on Berta’s side. Herwin earned only a few pennies a week as the thatcher’s helper, so he offered Kurt a little cash as well as labor in Kurt’s fields. Herwin was sixteen and bright, gentle, and rather timid, given more to dreams than to the coarse ways of the sons of Jost. But Kurt thought him trustworthy and hardworking; virtues his father had taught him to honor.

Days passed quickly and without excitement until Kurt announced the betrothal of Sieghild. After shocking the girl with the unexpected news he gave her instructions. “Sieghild, you are to ride with Arnold on the morn to the Lahn. He’s to deliver a cart to Lord Hugo’s clerk in Runkel, then take you to meet your betrothed and his father by midday’s meal.”

Sieghild trembled. Kurt had negotiated with the father of a ploughman who lived in a border settlement along the Lahn River near Lord Hugo’s castle. Kurt had met the young man’s father while working with the carpenters. Sieghild did her best to hold back her tears, but her face revealed her fear.

Kurt looked at this sister with compassion but without mercy. “You shan’t be a spinster under my roof. You’d be sixteen, girl. ‘Tis time for you to marry. I was able to bargain nearly a shilling for your dowry. Father told me you would not be easy to barter and I think I’ve done well.”

At that moment Herwin came through the door, his woollens covered with thatch from a hard day’s work atop the roofs of Oberbrechen. The look on Sieghild’s tortured face stopped him in his tracks. “Sieghild?”

“Sieghild is to meet with her family-to-be on the morrow. The wedding’s in June ‘fore Midsummer’s and she has yet much to accomplish,” answered Kurt.

The next morning Sieghild trudged slowly to Baldric’s hovel. Though Jost had passed his land to Kurt, he had given Baldric his hut and its gardens, and had given Arnold two shillings of pennies. Sieghild hesitated to enter. She paused for a long moment and finally took a deep breath and called for Arnold. Within the hour she was bouncing through the byways of Weyer.





Somewhere on the road to Runkel five men charged from the wood and intercepted Arnold’s cart. “Ha!” boomed one as he grabbed the horse’s bridle. “You’d be comin’ with us, son of Jost!”

Cursing, Arnold stood on his wagon and snapped his whip at the man. “Off with you! Get off, now!” He swung his whip over and over again, drawing blood and oaths. More hands grasped at the panicked beast and at Arnold and his shrieking sister.

Arnold quickly reached under his seat and yanked out a stout stick with a rock lashed to one end. He roared and flung his weapon in all directions, pounding at the heads and shoulders of the gang of men now clambering into his cart. It wasn’t long, however, before Arnold was knocked to the ground where four of the rogues kicked him and beat him furiously until he went limp in the dust.

Meanwhile, a fifth man held Sieghild by her hair as his fellows rummaged through the cart. Like ignorant apes at the fairs of Champagne, they poked and sniffed a satchel of spices destined for Lord Hugo’s kitchen and some herbs intended for his physician. One squeezed warm cider from a wineskin into Arnold’s face. “Look at me, son of Jost! You and your kin needs pay for yer sins.”

“Aye, you’d all be in needs of a lesson, methinks,” snarled another.

Arnold struggled to open his blood-matted eyes. He peered through a red haze at the filth before him. Toothless, and smelling worse than most peasants before their spring baths, they reeked of garlic and field scallions; their leggings were threadbare and crusted by years of neglect.

“Rot in hell,” muttered Arnold.

With that, poor Sieghild was thrown to the ground. Arnold struggled to his feet, only to be hammered in the belly. He collapsed, gasping and cursing. The writhing girl’s gown and under-gown were yanked from her shins and bunched above her hips. Sieghild’s face was pummelled mercilessly by heavy fists while her wrists and ankles were pinned tightly to the ground.

It was not long before her screams and pleadings faded into wounded whimpers as one by one each attacker took a turn. At long last the five stood shoulder to shoulder spitting upon both Arnold and poor Sieghild. They laughed and mocked the girl, adding vulgarities to their blasphemy, then crowded into Arnold’s cart. With a slap of the whip they disappeared into the darkening wood.

Arnold groaned and covered his trembling sister. Stunned and ashamed, Sieghild stared vacantly from behind haunted eyes, then turned her face away.