Quest of Hope(2)

Berta then spoke to her father-in-law who had just reached her side. “You’d still be coming for a bite?”

Jost, little Heinrich’s wiry, outspoken, and overbearing grandfather, spread his arms wide and draped them around the shoulders of Kurt and Berta. “Aye! But of course, m’lady! Y’ve beer or mead on hand … or a keg of cider perhaps?”

Berta’s face darkened slightly. She did not approve of excess on the Sabbath, particularly excess in drink, and most especially if Kurt’s family would be doing the drinking.

“Ja, ja,” interrupted Kurt. “We’ve no cider, but we’ve plenty of beer and mead for drinking!” He laughed. The eldest of four, he had long since learned that it was helpful to laugh when caught between his father and another.

Jost’s leathered skin wrinkled with a smile. “Good, we’d be by at the bells … ach, but now I’ve needs tend to some business.”

Kurt watched his coarse, aging father bluster his way down the steps and then turned to his wife and gave her a wink. He knew that Berta was not pleased to host his family, but he was relieved she had risen to duty. He was equally proud that she had consented to allow his brothers and sister to stand as godparents. Kurt had learned to love his wife and was now happier than ever that his father had chosen her rather than that awful girl from the neighboring village of Oberbrechen. Berta was pleasing to his eye. He liked to tangle his fingers in her thick, cherry-red hair. He thought her eyes to be as blue as a sunny summer sky and her curves to be just ample enough to please. Her complexion was clear and she smelled better than most.

Berta pulled her hood close against her head and clutched it beneath her chin with one hand. “I do so try to give you a proper household, husband, one beyond gossip and pleasing to God. I needs keep us safe from evil.”

Kurt shrugged, a bit annoyed by his wife’s perpetual fears, then gently took her by the arm to descend the steps of the church hill. The pair followed the other peasants toward their simple hovels below until they all stopped to listen carefully to a faint but all too terrifying rumbling in the east. An eerie silence gripped the village and nothing could be heard other than the rush of wind—and the pounding of hooves! Then, as if commanded by a single voice, the peasants abruptly turned and surged back up the steps and toward the sanctuary of the church. Berta cried out and clutched her newborn tightly as her husband hurried them through a swarm of desperate neighbors.

Weyer’s church had withstood the onslaught of both nature and man for nearly four hundred years. Men-at-arms might torch the thatch of a peasant’s hovel and slay a child along a village path, but few would test grace by despoiling the house of God or spilling blood upon the glebe.

So, the poor Volk raced toward the arched doorway as sounds of heavy horses thundered ever closer. The trusted bell, ever faithful to the sacred hours of each day, now clanged a frantic warning to urge the villagers on. The peasants poured through the low archway like an anxious funnel of tangled wool as their priest spread his hands over them. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…”

Kurt pressed his way into the straw-floored nave, secretly wishing for more than the Spirit’s help, holy or not. “Come, Berta! Come by me!” He wished he might rather hear the sounds of their lord protector’s knights galloping to their rescue than to have his ears filled with pleas to heaven. “Berta, here, by me … come quick!”

Berta’s eyes were round with fright; her brows arched high. “Nay… husband, here!” she shouted. “We’ve needs to be by the holy altar … here … hurry!” Berta pushed through the crowd and crouched at the foot of Weyer’s bronze-plated altar, clutching the earth with one hand and holding baby Heinrich tightly with the other. The earthen floor at the front of the nave had been sprinkled with sand from Palestine; sand that long ago had been soaked by the Savior’s blood. It was a well-blessed place.

Kurt climbed through the mass of frightened serfs and wrapped his large body around his wife and child. The trio huddled together until the oak doors of the church were slammed shut and locked in place by a huge wooden crossbeam. The priest’s tremulous voice seemed suddenly invigorated by the crisis, and its confident timbre quickly calmed the jittery throng. The thick walls of the damp church muffled the sound of the approaching horsemen, but watchmen at the small windows soon gave news of their arrival.

A column of armored knights had, indeed, entered the village byway of the road from Münster in the east and now paused at the base of the church hill. They milled about on steaming horses pawing impatiently at the frozen earth. Though dressed in chain mail and heavily armed, none seemed purposed toward pillage or rape. One watchman whispered that they seemed lost on their way to some other place. The priest was unsure; it was uncommon for knights to be about their business in January. The harvest crops were not stored in the villages except for what the peasants’ small barns might hold, and he was not aware of present threats against the holdings of either the village’s lord, the abbot, or his hired protector and neighbor, Lord Hugo.