Quest of Hope(150)
The rains finally began to ease by the end of April and the roadways were reported to be nearly passable. The cloister was busy with the tardy planting of early peas and the ploughing of its few well-drained fields. Lay-monks scurried about during the few days of warm sunshine in a rhythm of tasks that was familiar to Heinrich.
At long last, it was agreed that conditions were right for the pilgrim to begin his sacred journey. He was called from his bed at morning lauds, sometime before the bells of prime. He rose to receive the blessing of the cloister priests and to hear a psalm sung by the monks in his honor. As he approached the church, however, he suddenly felt faint. Heinrich took a few steps, then lurched forward and caught himself on a stone column just inside the church door. He looked up to see rows of white-robed monks sitting on their gradines and staring at him solemnly. It was all that he remembered.
Later that morning, Heinrich awakened in the cloister’s infirmary sweating and delirious with high fever. “Debilitas, winter fever … possibly bilious fever?” The cloister’s infirmer was neither well-trained nor confident.
Father Baltasar was grave. He leaned over the man and prayed. “Heinrich, can you hear me?”
Heinrich groaned.
The priest and his monks gathered together with the infirmer and the prior. It was decided that God’s will would hardly be thwarted by a simple fever and that the Devil was no doubt fearful of the man’s mission. It was further agreed that the man’s fever was most likely not a result of personal sin, for Baltasar was convinced the man was devout. Nor could it be from immoderate living; none were witness to any excess in greed, gluttony, or impure behaviors. Instead, the consensus was that the man suffered maladies resulting from the oppression of the Evil One. Since all were convinced of the man’s calling as the relic-bearer, all believed he would be healed.
Father Baltasar was so certain of Heinrich’s healing that he counseled his Carthusians that they should press on to their own calling without the slightest reluctance. He vouched for Heinrich’s piety and uncommon devotion. He assured all that the relic would be safe and they need not do more than pray as they left him behind in the safekeeping of the cloister.
The matter settled, Heinrich received an anointing of oil, a quiet song, and a bathing of scented water from the priest. Baltasar and his monks then bade the sleeping man a whispered farewell and began their perilous journey to the eastern frontier.
Poor Heinrich wrestled with his fever for days. He awoke in the darkness beset by night terrors and hallucinations. He cried aloud when he thought he saw the hand of Baldric’s ghost grasping at his medallion. With a whimper he returned to half-sleep only to be awakened by nightmares of Ingly drowning in a flooding Laubusbach. He felt both his hands stretching to rescue the desperate lad, but he could not quite touch him. When Ingly’s eyes rolled and his white hair sank out of sight in the brown water, the man lurched awake, weeping. By day the man dreamt of fresh breezes in the sun-swept cottage of Cornelis. He drew breath through his flared nostrils and was sure he could smell the clean air of that glorious, free land. It was those pleasant recollections that brought some peace to his bed.
Unable to stand, Heinrich could barely lift his head to receive infusions of sweating herbs such as thyme, hyssop, or chamomile. Depending on the position of the moon, the frantic infirmer poured either barley water or raspberry vinegar down the gagging man’s throat.
By the end of the third week it was rumored that Heinrich might surely die after all. Having tried all manner of ministrations without success, the weary prior and his worried infirmer yielded their patient’s ultimate end to the Healer of the universe. They prayed earnestly for Heinrich’s restoration and sufficed to do what service each day required. The man’s fever lingered, however, and he spent more days in dreamy places.
It was sometime in the afternoon of Pentecost when the baker of Weyer finally awoke. The infirmer was in the church celebrating the holy day so Heinrich stared at the ceiling before serving himself a tankard of thin, warm ale that was sitting by his bed. He glanced about the room and saw his cloak, tunic, leggings, satchel, and eye patch set neatly on a distant stool. In the bed next to his own coughed an old monk suffering consumption, though greatly relieved at Heinrich’s sudden improvement. Heinrich rolled from his straw mattress, only to find his legs too weak to hold him. He pulled himself back into his bed and lay still.
Between nones and vespers the infirmer returned and rejoiced to see his patient in better health. He quickly ran to the kitchen and returned with a hot pottage of lentils, spring peas, boiled cabbage, and bits of smoked pork. Heinrich smiled and slurped weakly from the man’s spoon. And so it was from day to day for the next week.