“Havn?”
“Aye. Some call it Copenhagen. ‘Tis a good port built on the marshes. The Bishop of Roskilde owns it from the other side. ‘Tis where all Christendom gets its salted herring for Lent! We needs get help in this town, then maybe walk to Havn.”
“I needs get to Götheborg and winter with the Swede.” Heinrich shivered.
Groot shook his head. “Nay, sir. I’ll not be going there now. I’ll get m’men to Havn where we’ll ferry our way south, ‘round the islands to Schleswig. Then I’ll needs overland them to home.”
Heinrich stared blankly. “But, I …” He was exhausted, cold, hungry, and confused.
“First, y’needs get dry and warm, be fed, and see where we are. And y’needs cover that hole in your face!” Groot roared.
Heinrich nodded, slowly. He reached into his satchel and put his patch back over his eye. He was relieved to find his dagger safe and he secured it in his belt. He pinched the Laubusbach stone between his finger and his thumb. Then he smiled. “Here.” He offered his fellows a generous portion of the food that Edda had sent with him. The six feasted on his cheese, fish, and salted pork, and in a few moments the company was hurrying toward the belltower of the church.
Groot’s instincts were correct. His crew had washed ashore at the north end of an island some two or three days’ journey from Copenhagen, and they were now the guests of a hospitable Danish fishing village. The local priest fed the six and led them to a roaring hearth where they sat naked under wool blankets held wide to capture the heat of the snapping blaze. Three weeks later the same priest arranged their transport with a wagonload of sympathetic monks from a monastery in Sweden who were traveling to an outpost in eastern Pomerania, just north of Poland.
The six were introduced to a Swedish priest, one Father Baltasar, who was escorting the monks. The gracious young father insisted Heinrich and the sailors take positions in the tall wagon while he and his white-robed Carthusian brethren walked alongside the wagon’s solid wheels. Looking over the side at the hooded heads bowed and bobbing beneath him drew Heinrich back to visions of the monks in Villmar. He stared at these men, quite aware that their gesture was an act of true Christian piety. Amazed and profoundly moved, he was suddenly disturbed by their kindness. He closed his eye and groaned within himself, now certain he had betrayed the good that yet was in the world of his past.
As promised, the priest and his monks finally delivered the sailors to Havn where they bade a humble farewell. Groot and his men would need to find a ferry back to the Jutland peninsula before marching overland to home. The churchmen, on the other hand, would ferry southeastward to the mainland at Stettin by the mouth of the Oder River near the eastern borders of the German Empire.
Heinrich had reasoned that he would follow the monks to Stettin and then travel south through the Oder River valley until such time as he might make a move westward toward home. It was a plan counseled by Groot and not without wisdom. Heinrich dared not venture into any of the lands influenced by news from knights returning from Oldenburg, and numbers of them had come from manors all over nearby Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thurungia. Nor did he dare wander farther east into the perilous lands of the Poles. By transversing the Oder Valley he should be safe in between both dangers and hidden in the wilderness until he was far enough south to make his turn.
The sailors could offer the monks nothing more than their heartfelt thanks. For their part, the brethren seemed genuinely pleased to have served their fellow man. Groot and his companions then turned to Heinrich and embraced him. Each offered him a hearty “Godspeed” and Groot whispered a final word of advice: “Say nothing to the brothers or their priest. Do not tell them of your past… of where you come from, or how you lost your arm and eye. Even the tongue of a good monk can slip … and one slip might surely be your doom. I’ve told them all that they needs know about you.”
“What did you say?” asked Heinrich.
“I said you were a pilgrim doing penance. Godspeed, Heinrich. Perhaps we meet again!”
“But… but, Groot… wait—” With a saddened look to the men that had become so quickly familiar, he waved a final farewell. It was a painful moment for the baker. Though he had known the sailors for only a short time, he had grown close to them. Sharing the terror of the shipwreck and the joy of survival had knit the six together in a way only such a shared adventure can. “Ah, indeed. Perhaps we meet again.”
It would be several more days before Heinrich finally boarded the ferry with the monks. He had done his best to keep a polite but necessary distance from the priest and the brothers, for he was uneasy about what questions might be posed. “Follow us—we are ready to sail, good pilgrim!” cried Father Baltasar.