May Day gave way to six weeks of hard labors before Midsummer’s feast. And this particular year’s feast presented the village with something of a surprise, for midst the afternoon’s celebrations, Baldric reluctantly wed. In a ceremony that lasted less than a rich man’s confession, the brute was married, ironically, to Hedda, the widow of Paul the dyer who was slain that awful night. Baldric was not particularly pleased with the choice, but he had been pressured to take her by the abbey’s prior who had little patience for the problems of widows. After claiming her by ceremonially stomping on her foot, he introduced the limping bride to a circle of applauding witnesses.
Heinrich bowed politely and introduced himself to his stepmother. “I am Heinrich.” He looked carefully at Hedda. The lad was insightful for a boy of five. He saw the brown-eyed woman as sympathetic and caring, but weary and withdrawn.
Hedda smiled and reached a hand toward the boy, but Baldric grabbed her by the wrist and twisted her arm cruelly. “Fetch me beer!” he growled.
Herwin shook his head as Baldric belched and turned away. “Children,” Herwin whispered quickly, “follow me.” He led the three through the footpaths of Weyer to the village well. There, to Heinrich’s great joy, were Ingelbert and Emma. While the children played, Herwin entreated Emma to keep the boys and their sister overnight.
Herwin’s request proved to be a wise one, for soon after the next day’s dawn, Baldric was bellowing about the hovel like a madman. Poor Hedda had made a confession to her new husband. “I am barren and … and cannot conceive,” she wept. After three years of marriage to Paul she had not so much as a miscarriage. She had done penances and drunk infusions, worn amulets and even gone so far as to seek the witch near Munster, but nothing had eased her shame.
Upon hearing the pronouncement, Baldric beat her senseless and tossed her out his door. He then punched his fists through the walls of his hovel and smashed a stool atop the coal-red hearth. Cursing the prior for his trickery, he grabbed the morning’s kettle, steaming with heated water and charged outside to douse his bride when Reeve Lenard intervened, backing him against the wall with the points of a hay fork. Other men rushed to the cottage and circled the raging man as Hedda was taken away.
Heinrich, Effi, Axel, Ingelbert, and Emma were blissfully unaware of the morning’s turmoil. They had spent a wonderful night sleeping under the stars in Emma’s butterfly garden and laughing at the wondrous stories good Emma could tell. In the morning they begged for more. “Well, my children,” laughed Emma, “have I told you of the Nixie of the Rhine?”
The spellbound children leaned forward, gaping and wide-eyed.
“Ha, ha!” chuckled the sparkling-eyed woman. “She lives with other Nickers by the water’s edge and spends her days combing her golden hair under a magic sun!
“On Midsummer’s she and her Nixie friends dance with their male friends, the Nixes, and in their secret palace below the water they sing and feast until the moon is high above.
“They are good, you know. They dance upon the water when a man is about to drown. They say it is a call for help.”
“Nay.” Heinrich was suddenly gloomy. “Methinks they’d be happy for death.”
“Ah, now Heinrich, why do you speak so?” asked Emma. She looked at him with worried eyes.
The boy shrugged. At the tender age of five, he had more reasons than he ought to think as he did.
It was a wondrous afternoon on the second Sabbath of July. A happy breeze toyed with the fields of thigh-high grain, bending them like folds of soft satin. The sky was blue, even bluer than the laughing eyes of young Heinrich as he dashed up the slope behind his good friend and cousin, Richard. The two reached the summit of the high ridge that overlooked Weyer from the east and waited impatiently for Ingelbert and Emma who were lagging behind.
Emma, panting and sweating, collapsed next to the boys and laughed. “By all the saints! I am getting a bit old for this.” She pulled a clay jug of last year’s cider from her satchel and smiled as the boys squealed in delight. Each took a swig and gathered close to the woman. She sat quietly for a few moments, enjoying the company of her son and his young friends. She reached deep into her satchel again and withdrew some rye and cheese. Soon the four were gnawing on dark bread and sharing the cider jug as the woman told tales of artful dwarves and cunning gnomes, the Knight of the Swan and the Dragon-rock.
The soft melodic voice of Emma lulled all to sleep beneath the golden sun; their backs nestled in thick, soft grass, their tender faces turned toward the warm light of the ever-constant sun. And while the foursome slept, the sun’s caring visage arced in an ever-certain path, its very sureness offering hope to the shadowed order grinding far below.