The busy roads leading to the Julier Pass were tight and crowded. The Julier was the most popular mountain pass in summertime and had ushered migrating tribes and travelers north and south since before time was recorded. From the south the approach wound its way higher and higher through forests of long-needled pines. Jagged peaks edged each side of the roadway, and as Heinrich marched upward the trees grew scarce before disappearing altogether. Here the mountains were wet with rivulets of rushing water plunging clear and clean from unseen heights.
The walk above the tree line was one full day, but Heinrich barely noticed the thinness of the air nor the ache in his straining legs. Instead he felt oddly serene in the calm desolation of the place. He turned away from the trail near the summit’s toll to sit alone atop a boulder where he could eye the rugged panorama spread before him. Sitting quietly in the eerie silence, it was as though he could hear the words of Anoush’s farewell whispering softly in the wind. “I lift up mine eyes to you who are enthroned above the sun.” The psalmist’s image beckoned the man to another way; it pointed him to things beyond the world he knew. But, despite the hallowed hush of that high and holy haven, the melancholy peasant still dared not turn his eye upward.
He drew a deep breath and trembled. In the distance, snow-capped peaks stood immutable and grand. Below, great rivers of mist coiled round these pinnacles’ feet like white serpents sliding gently midst an army of giants. This was a place of hush and awe; a most splendid and astonishing abode of all things mighty, of all things magnificent. It was as if his pitiful soul had been swallowed up, engulfed, yet wonderfully embraced by the sheer enormity of things eternal. At that moment the man felt dwarfed, like a tiny, helpless creature sitting impotent and ineffective on such a stage as this.
Overcome by the glory of such incomprehensible stillness, he rested in the simple beauty of the wildflowers gracing a crevice at his feet. And in that ominous wilderness, that place of wonder where others fail to pause, broken Heinrich was touched. The kosmos was far greater than he and, so too, was the wisdom that guided it. It was here that Heinrich began to see.
Basel was an ancient city set squarely on the Rhine. Heinrich arrived there at midmorning on the sixth of August. He was impatient and weary, dusty and hungry. The sun was shining and the man was warm. His sealskin had been stolen while he slept somewhere between Lago Como and the Julier Pass. His boots were still sound, but his satchel was nearly empty of food, though still weighted heavy with gold. With a determined step he walked beneath the swoop-necked griffen-of-the-gate and strode toward one of several docks where he’d wait to board a ferry bobbing on the river of legends and myth—the mighty Rhine.
He hadn’t taken more than a few steps, however, when his eye was drawn from the hard-running, muddy river to the amusing sight of what appeared to be a mad churchman yanking on a crook that was wedged in the planks of the dock. The white-haired cleric was shouting a plethora of oaths that turned more than a few heads. His black robes were threadbare and, as Heinrich approached the wiry old scamp, he thought him likely to be some outcast priest. “Good day, old fellow. It would seem as if you’ve a small problem.”
The man wrinkled his brow. Heinrich thought him to be as old a priest as he had ever seen. He had a narrow, white-bearded face, a head full of wispy, white hair, deep-set, fiery blue eyes, and bowed, spindly legs. Yet it was the single yellow tooth suspended in the front of the man’s mouth that made Heinrich want to laugh out loud.
“Aye. And it seems that you’ve a good eye for what’s plain to see,” answered the priest.
Heinrich jerked the man’s crook free and extended it to him.
The priest sighed in appreciation, “Well… bless you, my son. I suppose I am in your debt.”
Heinrich smiled and nodded and set his hand on the man’s bony shoulder. “It would seem so. And I might add, sire, that by your looky’ be—or at least once were—a priest?”
The old man blushed.
“Aye. And so I knew. Now, forgive my boldness, buty’d be the better for your cause if y’d be a bit more mindful of your tongue.”
The priest’s eyes sparkled and he laughed heartily. “I am undone by such a gentle rebuke, stranger, and am in your debt again. I should like very much to repay both your kindnesses with a tall tankard of ale.”
“Ah, father, thank you, but it seems we be traveling in opposing directions.”
But the priest insisted. “Of little import, good man. Your simple kindness must needs be honored. I beg you to join me over bread and a quick ale.”