Quest of Hope(178)

Poor Heinrich walked away from his sons with the weight of all time heaped upon his shoulders. He could not sleep that night, for his mind was spinning with what words he might speak at the bells of prime. The man wandered to the docks and stared into the black waters of the surging Rhine. “I ought not wait,” he murmured. “I ought wake them and tell them … tell them now!”

The man hurried along the river’s bank, only to halt and hesitate. “I… I ought not wake them. Nay, ‘tis better in the morn. I… I shall buy them bread and cheese, some fruit… aye! Fruit and fish … and some cider. They’ve need of food!” Heinrich felt better.

It was an hour before dawn when the first booth of the day’s market opened. Heinrich pounced on the peddler for a basket of his bread. Then the man raced to the next, and the next, until, at last his arm ached for the baskets hanging off his elbow and his neck. He then lurched and stumbled through the streets, and as the bells of prime struck in the city’s steeples, he hurried to the grassy bank where he had left his beloved sons and stared among the ferries at dockside.

Heinrich quickly arrived at the very place where the crusaders had camped just hours before. He peered through gray light at the dewy grass flattened like the nest of small deer. No one was there. He ran farther down the bank. No one was in sight. He turned around and around, running this way and that, to the far side of the gate and back. They were gone! “You there!” Heinrich shouted to a pair of workmen ambling along the city wall. “’Ave y’seen a company of children … with a white-headed priest?”

“Nay,” they answered.

Desperate, the man ran inside the city again. He charged about the market square, the fish market, and the guild rows. Up and down the hilly streets he ran, until, fearing the worst, he sprinted to the dungeon and quizzed a guard. Relieved, but still distressed, Heinrich raced back to the grassy bank and collapsed. He rubbed his hand aimlessly through the crushed grass and he pictured his boys. The man then set his jaw and packed his satchel full. “I shall find them!”

Heinrich burst onto the roadway leading south like a madman, stopping only to annoy passersby with questions of the local geography or of the young crusaders’ whereabouts. His feet pulled his leaning body forward through the low, green mountains that gently rose below Basel and into a nameless village where he needed to make the first of many decisions. After questioning a local peasant he sighed. Do I follow the road westerly along this river or south to some place called Olten? He paced about, then reasoned the valley seemed logical. A traveler had convinced Heinrich that the crusaders’ next destination was likely Bern, and the wide road could lead him there. Heinrich wondered. He knew the children’s provisions were low, and it seemed more logical that they might hurry for the closest town of some size, which would be Olten in the south. Nevertheless, the baker followed the other’s suggestion and charged through the Birs Valley.

His decision proved unwise. He knew his own pace had to be considerably quicker than that of Pieter’s, and after almost three days of hard marching he had not overcome them. Frustrated and angry with himself, Heinrich decided he must retrace his steps in hopes of intercepting the company in Olten. “Surely, they shall pause for rest and food.”

He wanted to press through the night, but the skies opened and a deluge unlike any the man had ever known poured over the land. Great flashes of lightning lit the sky and thunder roared through the valleys. Heinrich hid in a goat shed until the rain eased. In the morning the roadway was a long, brown quagmire.

At vespers on the sixth day from Basel, an exhausted Heinrich stood at the gate in Olten’s walls. He peered past the guard at the timber-and-mortar, steep-pitched houses, the fishponds, and the muddy streets busy with morning business. He turned to the sentry. “Have y’seen a company of children … young crusaders … with crosses stitched on their breasts. They’d be traveling with an old priest?”

The soldier stared down his long nose. He raised an eyebrow. “Ja.”

“And are they still here?” Heinrich’s tone was impatient.

The man looked at the one-eyed stranger for a long moment, then called for his captain. The two whispered for a few moments, then the officer scurried off. “Wait here.”

Heinrich paced about, slapping his hand against his side until a beautiful young woman came to the gate escorted by a small troop of soldiers. Heinrich repeated his question.

The woman looked at him carefully. “And what are these to you, sir?”