“Hold on, fellow!” cried Heinrich. He splashed into the brown river and pressed through thigh-deep waters until he reached the tangle. Carefully, he extended his hand between the knots of brush until he laid it securely on the dog’s head. “Good creature,” he said calmly, “hold fast.” Heinrich struggled with the branches as he slowly pulled one from the other. As he did, his grateful new friend began to wiggle and squirm until he finally leapt from his troubles, free and happy!
Laughing, Heinrich lifted the licking dog by the belly and cradled him under his arm as he returned to the roadway. He cleared dried mud from its eyes and checked for deep wounds and broken bones. Content that the beast had been spared serious harm, he held him by the chin and stroked his head. “Solomon?” The dog lifted his ears and licked Heinrich’s hand. “Ah, Solomon!” Heinrich laughed. “Won’t Pieter be happy!”
He rubbed the dog’s muddy head and studied him more carefully. Though low-bred and scruffy, there was a special light in the dog’s eyes that Heinrich found oddly familiar. With a chuckle, the man reached into his satchel and fed the grateful beast a generous helping of cheese and pork. “We’ll rest in the sun for bit, but we needs press on to find your master.”
Within the hour, the ragged man and his shaggy companion were striding quickly southwestward, first following the Aare, then veering onto the narrow roadway leading to Burgdorf. Darkness fell and the path became so obscured that it was impossible to see. Heinrich reached for a new flint that Bernard had given him and struck some kindling afire. Before long, the two were curled alongside a crackling blaze under cover of the stars.
Daybreak found the two hurrying on, Solomon trotting ahead, nose down and excited. “Soon, good fellow!” panted Heinrich.
Indeed, by vespers of that second day the baker and the dog arrived at the gates of Burgdorf. “Ho, there, guard,” called Heinrich.
“Aye?”
“Can y’tell me the whereabouts of a band of children and an old priest? They ought to have come in the town a day past or so.”
The guard shrugged and asked another, then summoned his captain. “He wants to know of any children and a priest.”
The captain picked his nose and spat. “Aye. They come two days past and we sent ‘em on. We’ve no need for the likes of ‘em here, and by the sight of you, y’needs move on as well.”
Heinrich stared angrily. “You sent them on?” he cried. “Did you give them food?”
The soldiers laughed. “Food? By the devil no, man. They’ve brought fever to all the villages about. We’ve no need of ’em here.”
The baker growled and squinted. He laid a hand on the hilt of his dagger. With that, the guards lowered their lances and laid the points against the man’s chest.
“Leave, cripple, whilst y’can still breathe,” hissed the captain.
Heinrich glared a moment longer, then stepped back and turned away, cursing. He and Solomon returned to the road and the man sat on his haunches, angry and anxious. “Where? Where did they go from here?” He scratched the dog’s ears and shook his head.
“Bern!” he grumbled. “They’ve surely gone to Bern like Bernard said.”
The frustrated baker hurried along the roadway south until he came to a fork in the road where he needed to be sure. The man hesitated. “Right or straight? Right to food, straight for time? Which did they choose?” He sighed and stared at the dog, who had lost any trace of scent midst the many feet that had converged at the intersection. “Food. I say they went for food and for the feast in the city.” Solomon followed obediently.
Heinrich’s decision again quickly proved to be an unfortunate one, for Wil had chosen to stay the course and not add a detour to the west—not even for food. Fortunately, upon entering Bern, a spice merchant told Heinrich about a strange old man he had seen begging food for a tattered company of children in the Emmental villages south of Burgdorf. The raging baker ran out of the city gate and retraced his steps, unable to speak a word! Then, two days after he had made his decision, he returned to the fork and turned right—with a loud curse!
It was nearly a fortnight after he left Basel when Heinrich passed through the splendid Emmental and began the ascent into the passes of the Alps’northern slopes. For days both man and beast traveled through magnificent hardwood forests until the steep-slanted groves of beech and maple gave way to barefaced cliffs and spruce. The two soon crowded with other travelers through rocky channels of lichen and high-mountain moss. Along the way they paused only briefly to view the blue-green waters of a breathtaking mountain lake lying still and shimmering far below. “Where are they?” Heinrich moaned.