Heinrich thought for a few moments, then yielded to the woman. She seemed trustworthy and wise, though he was not certain she was the well of wisdom that Emma had been. He proceeded to tell her of his theft and lies, of misplaced desires, of sloth, of envy, greed, and hatred. The more he revealed, the more he wanted to reveal. He told her of his vow. He whispered of his fight for the Stedingers, and even of his recent pillage of the salt box. By the time he had finished he was melancholy but lightened of a great load.
“Hmm,” mused the tinker. She closed her eyes and sat quietly for a few moments. At last she moved. She lit a candle by a coal and turned a tender eye toward the curious baker. “I spend my days with broken things.” She took Heinrich’s hand and held her candle by his eye. “You are a vessel within a vessel. Each is cracked, but each is yet filled with darkness. Both must be broken to let the light in.” She paused and squeezed Heinrich’s hand hard. “If you must go to Rome, expect that which you do not.”
She released her grip and leaned forward. Her tone was firm but kind. “Now hear me. For each of the Commandments do penance for one month; for each of the seven deadly sins, one month; for the Golden Rule, one month. Serve in Rome for eighteen months. Suffer the bells, suffer the smoke, suffer the suffering… it is the only way.”
Chapter 23
PENANCE
Heinrich hurried from the tinker’s shop somewhat confused by the proprietor’s riddle but decidedly purposed and his mind fixed on the plan. He strode the roadway with a chin set hard in defiance to both the archbishop and his miserable steward, and as he climbed the rising slopes he felt all the more relieved to be leaving the waste of that foolish year behind.
He was determined, yet troubled. Though he had been lied to, Heinrich was well aware that he had been blessed beyond measure. Over his shoulder was slung a satchel stuffed with provisions and coins, and on his back hung a well-waxed rucksack filled with precious salt. He had left home to suffer, yet it seemed he could not escape mercy. Even m’boots don’t fail me! he thought. Indeed, the boots Lord Niklas had given him years before were worn, but neither torn nor leaking. They had become comfortable like two old friends sitting close by a warm hearth.
Heinrich filled his thick chest with clean mountain air as he followed the sparkling Salzach southward. His thick legs stepped lightly along the dirt road and his broad face beamed under the cloudless sky. The man was not ignorant of the risks involved in daring the Alps in November. It was already the third week of the gray month, yet fortunately, the southerly wind continued to rule the air. With continued good fortune he thought he might enter Rome by Christmas Day!
The pilgrim traveled alone through a landscape that filled him with wonder. He dared lift his eye from time to time to marvel at the towering mountains rising to touch the floor of heaven itself. Grand valleys of mist curled and lapped along these giants’ feet and disappeared midst the mixed-hued greens of ancient forests. Heinrich’s nostrils were filled with the intoxicating scent of pine and spruce, and he rejoiced to hear the screech of eagles and hawks soaring bold and free above.
He reached Bischoffen in good time. There, where the river bent westward and narrowed, he joined a small caravan of Syrian merchants hurrying home with a summer’s bounty earned at the fairs in faraway Cologne, Champagne, and Frankfurt. They spoke enough German to barter food for Heinrich’s services as a cart-driver. It seemed they had lost a young Bavarian carter who thought their late rush through the passes unwise. In any event, Heinrich was glad to rest his feet and grip the reins of a two-horse team.
The caravan consisted of two score of men; most were pagan followers of Mohammed. Heinrich found the company of these dark-skinned men to be somewhat uncomfortable, but not totally disagreeable. He had spent his life, as had his forebears, instructed in the evil ways of these infidels. They seemed ever poised to seize upon the lands of Christendom and had ruled Spain and half of France. They were a constant menace in the Christian east and for centuries had persecuted the Christian faithful in Palestine. In Jerusalem they now required Christians to wear leather girdles as a symbol of their servitude and forbade them to learn the Arab tongue, for to do so would be to defile Allah’s people.
For generations Christ’s faithful had endured alternating seasons of harshness and tolerance while they quietly suffered the added offense of watching their most holy places fall one by one into heathen hands. A small corner of the Holy Land still remained under Christian rule, and pilgrims continued to go in an unrelenting stream; they saw their lot as that of Christ’s and suffered in hopes of a final deliverance. Deliverance had surely been delayed, however. The black-and-white tents of the terrible Turks under Suleiman now dotted the plains and mountains of that land, and Christian pilgrims had become the targets of cruel torture and death. To these challenges the knights of Europe were still hoping to rise again in Holy Crusade.