“Nay? Ach, mein Gott in Himmel!” Heinrich was exasperated. He walked to the door and felt the cool air of late September. “If I don’t leave this place I shall go mad!” He turned about and scowled. “Well, you’ll be getting some now!”
For weeks the baker furiously pushed his exhausted apprentice through every stage of baking. The poor monk did his best to learn quickly, and by early October Heinrich hastily declared to the prior that the Pole was fit. “I find him to be a bit slow, but willing. And I needs begin my journey. I made a vow to the ship’s captain that I’d deliver his token directly! That was nearly two years ago!”
The prior nodded. “I do have one question, good Heinrich.”
The baker set his jaw. There would be nothing the shaveling might ask that would obligate him to a single added duty. “Ja?”
“Would you be sure to receive our song of blessing before you leave on the morrow?” He smiled.
Heinrich nearly laughed out loud. Free to go! his heart cried. Can it be so?
The sun had barely broken over a new day when Heinrich received the prayers and blessings of the brethren at Posen. The white-robed men waved kindly and sang a final psalm as he passed by them. A few secretly worried that the man may have gone mad in the dreadful winter past and, judging the way he then turned and raced from sight, others thought he surely had.
“At last!” cried Heinrich aloud as the smoky columns of the horrid cloister faded behind him. The man was quite convinced that no misery he might ever face again could equal the damp grayness and unrelenting monotony of that place. He looked ahead to the flat road that lay in wait and he smiled. He felt suddenly strong and vigorous. His clothing was clean and mended. His dagger was sharp and his eye-patch, like his leather boots, soft and well oiled. He had secured both necklaces at the bottom of his satchel along with the Laubusbach stone. The rest of his bag was stuffed with an assortment of foods and a generous pouch of silver pennies given to him by the monks.
October’s crisp air was bracing and enlivened the man’s stride. Upright and resolute, the one-armed man with a swirling beard and graying tangle of auburn curls marched against a warm southern breeze, grinning and greatly relieved. By day he walked southward through the wide, green, Oder River valley past villages of German or Slavic inhabitants. At night he wrapped himself with his cloak and lay upon the cooling earth on pine boughs or wilting weeds. The Oder River gave him water, a few passers by bits of bread or cheese. From time to time he would stop to kneel with a pilgrim priest at one of the many, simple prayer Kapelles and from them he learned much about the larger world they traveled.
He was not certain where he would spend the winter. He was told the signs were warning of early snows, particularly in the great mountains of the south. “You should not dare the passes this autumn, my son,” counseled one journeying priest. “However, you might have time yet to press on to Vienna or Salzburg.”
Heinrich shrugged. He had no idea which city to choose and gazed at the priest helplessly. “Hmm, it seems you have little knowledge of either?”
“Nay, father.”
“You have stated you are on pilgrimage to Rome?”
“Aye.”
The priest scratched his head and thought for a moment. “From here either path could lead you to Rome. Hmm. Vienna is a most lovely city and I believe ‘tis a free one now, though I am not certain of it. But, Salzburg may be free as well… I know not. No matter. The Kingdom of the Huns borders Vienna and I do avoid every sort of border that I can. I’ve learned over my life that all boundaries, whether those of kingdoms or of persons, are places where troubles collide, places of sure conflict, risk, and peril.
“If I were you, I would press south and westward to Salzburg. It is deep in the Duchy of Bavaria and places you along a good, direct line to Rome for your springtime journey.”
Heinrich nodded. He was at the man’s mercy but his words seemed reasonable. The priest bent over and drew a map with a stick in the roadway. “Here … here is where we are. You must leave Poland behind you, travel due west through Silesia, and find the Elbe River in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Follow the Elbe Valley west to Prague.” He lifted his head. “Take care in Prague. ‘Tis another place of borders. You needs skirt the city, else your winter may be there and I doubt that would be a good thing.
“Now, after Prague follow the Moldau River south. Be warned of the Bohemian forest. ‘Tis a fearful place, filled with bogs and horrid marshes called the Sumava.” The priest crossed his chest and prayed before continuing.