Quest of Hope(61)

Heinrich held his tongue. He hadn’t forgotten the burned parchment and the promise that blew away in the ash. He knew nothing of matters of law, however, and it seemed right to wait until Axel’s sixteenth birthday, only one year away. He nodded.

“Good. Then I’ve your pledge that I’m to act as your legal head until Axel’s birthday?”

“Aye,” answered Heinrich with an unconcerned shrug.

“You so swear on the Virgin?”

Heinrich should have been suspicious. “Yes!”

Baldric nodded, approvingly. “Then I’ve another matter. I’ve chosen you a wife.”

Heinrich was stunned. He staggered a little and blurted, “W-what! You’ve not the right… I am of age to choose m’self and—”

“Hold your tongue!” boomed Baldric. “You’ve just agreed to hold your claims. As your keeper ‘tis my duty to negotiate a dowry and make a pick fit for our kin. I’ve taken the matter to Father Pious and he is in agreement. You’ll marry who the priest has approved and there shall be n’ere more talk of it! Refuse, and the girl shall be shamed and you shall be punished.”

Heinrich was sweating and confused. “Uncle, I’ve need to make m’own choice in this. Can y’not hear me?”

Baldric grinned a toothless grin and laughed. His foul breath burned the boy’s nostrils and Heinrich turned in disgust. “Speak, boy, who is the one you’ve such an eye for?”

Heinrich eyed the brute directly. “Katharina, the daughter of the mason.”

“Ha! Ha, ha!” roared Baldric. “Katharina? That green-eyed wisp? Her? She’s the daughter of a freeman, y’fool. The abbot forbids marriages ‘tween bound and free.”

“But what if I buy my freedom?”

“With what? Dolt!”

Heinrich lowered his head. Truly, the fee for freedom was high, far too high. His only other choices would be to escape to a free city and hide for a year and a day, or follow the colonists into the marshes of heathen Prussia—a bleak and dreary life for such as Katharina. “But what if she pledged her fealty to the abbot?”

Baldric shook his head. “I wonder what kind of man would ask such a thing!”

Heinrich was suddenly ashamed of himself. Indeed, what sort of man would ask a woman to surrender her freedom for his selfish desires? And what father would permit it? Heinrich yielded. His voice thickened and he asked his uncle the dreaded question. “S-so who have you chosen?”

Baldric grinned. “Marta, daughter of Dietrich.”

Heinrich’s legs wobbled. “Marta? Marta? That selfish, spoiled wench who … who … spends her days complaining and grousing… and …”

“Aye.”

“Oh please, Uncle, not Marta. Give me … give me Elke of the cotter, or Etta, or Maria of Tomas or—”

“It is done, boy. At least she’s a pretty one, a bit small for my taste, but spirited.”

“I’d rather marry a monkey!”

Baldric darkened and bent into the young man’s flushed face. “But Dietrich’s an old and loyal friend to us. He knows things ‘bout us all. He’s a miller, you’re a baker; ‘tis a fit match and ‘tis done. The wedding shall be in two years or less. Dietrich needs her at the mill till Sigmund can be of some use. I’ve already pledged this, but you needs so swear to Dietrich and to the girl at the altar in the coming Lent.

“And I’ve pledged Axel to a carpenter’s daughter from Emmerich. She is named Truda. Your brother’s a good lad; he looks like Arnold but seems more like me.”

Heinrich grunted. He was far too overcome by his own misery to care much about his brother’s plight. Marta! echoed in his head. My God, it cannot be!





It was a miserable, damp morning on the first day of Lent when Heinrich and Marta faced each other to formally accept their betrothal. With a heavy heart, Heinrich stood beneath the low timbers of the manor’s mill and stared vacantly at his bride-to-be. Marta, for her part, was not pleased with her father’s selection either. She had little respect for this curly-headed baker with the melancholy eyes. But her desires were given no more heed than a groaning ewe, and she would submit to her father’s decision void of joy.

Heinrich was sick of vows and weary of the expectations he labored to fulfill. He had paid a high price for a simple glance at the stars the year prior. For that he had been required to walk barefoot in the snow with a weight tied round his head that kept his neck bent toward the earth. And, at Christmas past, he had failed to mark the monks’ bread with their dove stamps. For this he was called to publicly repent of sloth and carry firewood for Father Pious each day of Christmas’s twelve.