The priest opened the door slowly and stepped to the edge of the churchyard wall to steal a peek. He stuck his pointy nose into the cold air and studied the men carefully. “Hmm. No torches, no drawn swords, no forays into the village. Would seem to be a pitiful lot of lost fools.” He called upon his instincts and stepped cautiously through the gate to descend the hill. When he reached the bottom he ambled to the nearest horseman and bowed. “Greetings! How may I serve you?”
A red-faced knight leaned toward the priest and scowled. His breath steamed into the cold air and he hissed impatiently through his frosted beard. “Ja, you can serve us! We’ve been ordered to the keep at Betzdorf and methinks m’sergeant’s turned us wrong!”
The priest had no knowledge of Betzdorf and now suddenly faced a dilemma. He could plainly see that the men were agitated and he knew they could easily unleash their frustrations on his flock. The anxious priest feared to expose his ignorance, but also feared to point the soldiers in the wrong direction. Confused and sweating, he whispered a desperate prayer and begged for a plain sign from heaven. At that moment a black bird flew along the roadway in the direction of the village of Selters, to the south. “Ah, yes, praise the Virgin,” he muttered. He turned to the knight. “Good soldier. Betzdorf be south by some distance. Y’needs ride hard to this way,” he pointed to his right, “first westward through Oberbrechen, then south at the fork to Selters and beyond. Methinks it to be a hard ride … but my prayers shall go with you.”
The knight grumbled and swore an oath at his sergeant. His horse snorted clouds of white vapor over the priest. Spinning his mount, he hesitated for just a moment—a long moment for the anxious cleric—then led his soldiers quickly away.
The relieved priest fell to his knees and cried a prayer of thanksgiving for the sparing of his helpless sheep: “Laudamus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam, Domine Deus! We praise thee, we adore thee, we glorify thee, we give thee thanks for thy great glory, Lord God!”
The villagers crept out through the church door and descended the steps warily. Fearful eyes watched the road carefully and ears were yet cocked for the return of the warriors. But, before long, a nervous laughter broke the silence and, relieved, the families of Weyer hurried toward their smoky hearths. Kurt, Berta, and their round-faced child reached the bottom of the hill and crossed the road. Here they followed the well-worn footpath to their two-room hovel located near the village center.
Kurt’s hut was little more than two years old and still smelled faintly of fresh thatch and clay. He boasted it would be a three-generation house, not merely serving one like so many others. “When our lad weds, it’ll yet stand, and for his lads after that!” Instead of simply sinking posts into the earth, he had dug a deep foundation that he lined with large rocks. Posts were then stood every rod or so and tightly packed with stones and gravel.
The walls of the hut were not unlike the others of the village. They were covered inside and out with wattle and daub—woven wands of oak or willow smeared with a mixture of mud and straw. Kurt was pleased to have a two-room dwelling; a large common room about three rods square, and a smaller room for a private sleeping area. The roof was about two rods tall at the peak, sound and covered to a generous depth with good thatch. Built with a design becoming ever more popular, it rested on long, collared rafters instead of a clutter of interior posts.
In keeping with her duty and despite her soreness and fatigue, Berta began the preparation of the day’s meal. She planned to surprise her guests with wheat rolls and beer that she had bartered with the monastery’s kitchener. The expensive wheat had cost her a double quantity of her best rye loaves plus two ells of spun wool, but this was the day of Heinrich’s salvation, and she was pleased to pay the monk his due.
Kurt heaped a generous supply of wood onto the floor-hearth that was set in the exact center of the common room. He watched as sparks flew around the iron kettles suspended over the flames, and he followed their ascent to the small mouth of the smoke-hole. Suddenly, the door burst open and a cold blast of wind chased a loud tumble of homespun and fur into the room. Kurt laughed and turned to greet his family cheerfully. “Ja, ja, welcome! Now everyone, first to the fire and a tankard of beer! We’ve needs be glad-hearted for our good fortune this day. Ha! Let them burn Selters! We’ve no fires to quench and none to bury, no loss of barns or beasts!”
As the family crowded around the fire, Berta carefully ladled dark amber beer into the circle of wooden tankards now waving impatiently toward her. The first served was Jost, the patriarch. He, too, had been eighteen when his own firstborn, Kurt, was baptized. A steely, shrewd, vindictive man, Jost was more able than most to climb and claw his way about the world.