Quest of Hope(146)
Heinrich drew a deep breath and nodded. “At last,” he grumbled. It was already two days past All Souls’Day and the world had turned gray and cold. He wrapped himself tightly in his cloak as he stepped out from the church that had been his safe haven. He thanked the priests, then followed the silent column of monks through the village streets. In less than a quarter of an hour he stood facing a rough-looking galley filled with sad faces. Heinrich gaped at the eyes peering at him, for though he had heard of slaves before—and even had known a few in Weyer—he had never seen them like this.
Before him sat tight rows of Slavic pagans, “Lithuanians,” some voice muttered, “else eastern Poles.” Dirty, shivering within their thin wraps, the score of broad-faced men and a handful of women sat chained to the ship’s deck. Heinrich thought of his friends, Telek and Varina, and his heart sagged. Christian knights had captured these Slavs in their campaign into the wild and untamed reaches of the Baltic lands and Poland. The wretches would doubtlessly be sold in the popular slave market of Lübeck.
The baker followed his hosts along a wide plank joining the dock and the ship, and he stepped onto the smooth planks with a measure of anxiety. A crewman led Heinrich and the clerics past the hapless cargo of souls to a set of benches in the stern.
Father Baltasar handed the captain a small bag of silver as payment for the passage before sitting next to Heinrich. “So, my son. ‘Tis a chill in the air but the captain promises a smooth sail to Stettin.” The priest had a calming way about him and smiled kindly. Heinrich thought him to be about twenty-five and believed him to be a good and decent man, though somewhat nondescript. He was plain to look at—mild brown eyes, light brown hair, average height, and plain face. It was only his Christian charity that set him apart from other men—that, and a quality of humility that bred an air of quiet confidence.
Heinrich was hesitant to engage the father in conversation and had hoped to sit amongst the silent brethren without uttering a word for the entire journey. Instead, he smiled self-consciously at the loquacious priest and groaned inwardly. It was not that the priest was unpleasant company. On the contrary, the man was cheerful and intelligent. Heinrich was simply fearful of those reasonable questions any leisurely discussion might present. What if he asks me of m’home … how do I answer him? he wondered. And what of m’arm and eye … and my penance—he’s not yet mentioned it! Ach, dare I lie to a priest? And, by the saints, exactly what did Groot tell him?
Chaper 21
ENDLESS GRAY
The single-sailed galley rolled atop a gentle sea as it pitched and lurched southward toward the northern shore of the continent. The ship was longer than Groot’s and served by eight oarsmen, a slave-master, a master-of-the-deck, and the captain. The crew was Norwegian, all except the brutish slave-master, a Wend from the nearby island of Rügen.
The captain treated Heinrich and the churchmen well and commanded the ship to a respectful silence whenever the monks conducted their prayers and psalms. The brothers were sober and contemplative. They devoted much of their day to saying the three offices: firstly, the Office of the Day; secondly, the de Beata, which is the Office of Our Lady; and finally the Office of the Dead. They ate only one scanty meal per day and repeatedly declined generous offerings offish or cheese from the ship’s crew. Unlike their Benedictine counterparts, these Carthusians were cleanshaven and their habits were white, not black, though they, too, shaved the crowns of their heads in the tonsure. Their willingness to deny themselves even the most meager of personal comforts made them good candidates to bring the Word to the farthest, most uncomfortable reaches of Christendom. Father Baltasar and his monks were being sent to a new monastery in the marshes of Pomerania near the western borders of pagan Prussia.
As Heinrich had dreaded from the outset, Baltasar soon launched a series of questions that brought beads of sweat to the baker’s brow despite the biting cold of the Baltic air. He knew he could neither betray the Stedingers nor lie to a priest of God. The poor fellow did his best to elude and evade, but the dual assault of the father’s curiosity and his own pricked conscience made the experience unbearable. Each new probe evoked a more clever hedge, and with each hedge Heinrich felt all the more like Jacob, the great deceiver. He wished the sky would blacken with a mighty tempest; that the sea would roll giant mountains toward them so the flapping jaw beside him would be stilled!
It was on the third day of Heinrich’s present agony that his verbose companion loosed a bit of news that cornered the simple baker. Father Baltasar did not intend to torment the man so, nor was he aware of the misery that Heinrich now suffered. He was genuinely curious about the stranger and wanted to shepherd the fellow’s soul to good places. So, when he yawned and nonchalantly shared that which Groot had told him, he had no malice.