“Get that look out of yer eyes!” shouted Niklas. “Y’might pass for a Stedinger!”
Heinrich liked the sound of that. He set his jaw and kept his eyes fixed hard on the drunken knight.
The lord was tired of obstinate peasants. He backhanded Heinrich with a ferocious blow that knocked the baker to the ground. “Now, bend the knee to me, y’worthless fool.”
Heinrich stood. He would not obey.
“I say bend!” roared Niklas. He grabbed the baker and threw him into the shadows of a nearby stable.
Heinrich found his feet and stood defiantly. The baker had spent a lifetime bending and stooping, scraping, bowing, yielding, submitting—but only when he believed such compliance to be proper and just; only when it was right and in order. Lord Niklas had misjudged his tractability for timidity, his meekness for frailty.
Niklas struck him again and again. Bleeding and silent, Heinrich returned to his feet over and over, stiff-necked and ready for more. Frustrated and furious, the bulge-eyed knight suddenly jerked a dagger from his belt and thrust it toward Heinrich’s throat.
The baker dodged the blade and grabbed hold of Niklas’s arm. A fury rose within him, a familiar rage that had once filled him on a rainy night along the Villmar road. He held the knight’s wrist with a viselike grip made strong from years kneading heavy dough. He tossed the soldier over his leg, slammed him hard onto the earth and pounced atop him to keep him close. He held Niklas’s dagger hand fast to the ground with one hand, and with the other he seized the knight’s throat and squeezed with all his might. Niklas gasped and squirmed, trying to roll. He dug his fingers into Heinrich’s eyes as his swelling face began to purple.
Heinrich grunted and squeezed with all the strength his thick hand could muster. Pictures of Richard filled his mind and he tightened his grip even more. The moments passed slowly as the baker’s unyielding grip stayed fixed to the lurching lord’s throat like wet leather drying around a post. Niklas’s flailing body rose and fell as he struggled against his gritty foe. His mouth stretched open wide and gaping, his fingers desperately digging at Heinrich’s flesh. At last, the knight’s eyes rolled and his hand dropped. His torso relaxed and Heinrich slowly, warily, released his hold. A gurgle and wheeze escaped the dead knight’s chest and all was silent.
Heinrich stood and straddled the corpse. A cold shiver ran through him and he spun his head from side to side. He spotted a mound of manure against a far wall and quickly dragged the man by his boots toward it. In moments, he was desperately digging an unseemly grave in which he hurriedly buried the knight.
Once certain the man was well covered, the baker peeked beyond the stable door. With hurried fingers and a rag, Heinrich picked bits of straw from his leggings and wiped manure off his boots, then he slipped into the bustling castle courtyard without a notice.
The night seemed endless as Heinrich stared at the dark rafters above his head. The halls of the castle were glowing in torchlight and restless knights’ swords clanged in good-natured contest. A large contingent of tardy men-at-arms had arrived that very evening from Pomerania in the east. Rumors abounded among the servants that these rough-hewn soldiers were veterans in the empire’s wars against the pagan Prussians. Claiming devotion to Church and emperor, they could be heard above the din shouting for vengeance against the Stedingers. “Next these dogs shall be filling their villages with witches and stealing infants from Christian homes!” one cried. Heinrich groaned.
The baker was worried the dung-haulers would be about the stables in the morning. His only hope was a comment he had overheard in which there was a complaint noted by the count that the castle latrines must be cleaned. It seemed his lady was aghast at the hordes of flies and the army’s reeking piles of excrement yet to be shovelled away. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps I might be halfway to home before they find Niklas.
But Heinrich wondered if it would be better for him to simply unburden his soul by confessing his deed to the constable. After all, he reasoned, it was an act of self-defense, and who would deny even a servile baker the right to life. Yet, prudence was with the man. The lines edging his eyes and furrowed on his brow had been ploughed by years of wisdom’s teaching, and a voice deep within told him plainly that his confession would send him to the gallows. He turned his mind to the state of his soul and wondered if God would require penance for such an act. But self-defense—surely God would forgive. Yet I did think of Richard and hateful vengeance was in m’grip. Heinrich groaned and begged the night to pass.
It was Wednesday, the sixteenth day of May, when the sun rose again to shine atop the baker’s world. Nervous and distracted by his secret, Heinrich went about his duties anxiously, delivering baskets of fresh-baked breads to the knights grumbling from their chambers. He passed quietly through the halls of the castle, then into a garden courtyard where he overheard something that would change the simple man forever.