Quest of Hope(81)
“Ha! Methinks you off with another! Listen to me, husband. If you stray I’ll have you beaten by the bailiff and you’ll be doing more of your pathetic penances for all the village to see!”
Heinrich sighed—he had much practice. “Give me m’son and go see your friend Anka.”
Marta bristled and threw a tankard of warm ale into the man’s face. He stiffened but stood quietly as others laughed, then wiped his sleeve across his face. He stared blankly at his wife as she disappeared into the torchlight, then picked up his crying son from the ground. Without a word he turned and walked away; he could no longer bear the joy of Christmas.
Lent was calculated to be forty days before Easter, Sabbaths not counted. Since Easter was to be on the second day of April, Lent would begin the fourteenth day of February in this most dreary and snowy winter of 1195. It was a reckoning that Father Pious dreaded, since the season of Lent was his least favored time. While time still remained, the overstuffed churchman hastened to indulge himself in heavy breads, dark ales, and, according to the rumors, companionship unbecoming a man of the Church.
The priest’s ambition would be also fattened, for Oberbrechen’s priest had died a few weeks prior, and Father Pious had quickly petitioned his superior in Mainz. He hoped to be awarded that parish, including its prosperous glebe lands, as his own. Furthermore, Father Johannes was deteriorating and it would surprise none to find him cold and blue in his bed at any time, leaving Pious positioned to claim the parish of Weyer as well. Despite the looming severity of Lent, life for Pious was suddenly brimming with opportunity.
Life was not as happy for Richard. The young man was disgruntled and sullen, and his handsome face was beginning to show signs of the misery of his soul. He simply rose each day to go about his tasks despondently as a broken, woeful soul. To add to his miseries, Richard’s father had pledged him to marry a woman the lad had never met. It was a profitable exchange for Arnold, negotiated in the quiet chambers of the abbot’s residence and serving the secret purposes of many.
Heinrich nearly wept at his friend’s wedding and thought Richard’s fate to be as bad as his own. The couple had no feast, no merry-making, or the slightest pretense of joy. Richard had only met the girl one hour beforehand and was suddenly sure he would have been better off being chained to a mad cow. Brunhild was more attractive than most—thin, brown-haired, blue-eyed, and fair. But it took only a few moments to discern a heart hardened with anger. Heinrich was certain she must be blood-kin to his own Marta.
By mid-April the village was deluged with rains unlike anything seen before. Great sheets of water poured from heaven day and night and this, coupled with the melting snows, made life unbearable. The mud along the footpaths and roadways was shin deep in most places’, knee deep in others. Several huts’ roofs had collapsed and their occupants had little choice but to crowd into neighbors’ hovels.
Rivulets poured from the high ground surrounding the village into the surging Laubusbach. Swollen with more water than it could contain, the faithful, cheerful Laubusbach had become uncharacteristically fearsome and untrustworthy. It quickly turned into a brown serpent, swirling and churning, swallowing great gulps of earth from the banks that were once its gentle shoulders. It bore atop its rolling back huge timbers and debris from places afar, and soon it carried death, as well, for drowned sheep from unknown pens began to tumble into its angry course.
Some thought the Easter confessions to be the cause; either they were lacking in truth, as some said, or were so forthright that God needed to exact a special penance of His own. But now, just two weeks later, it mattered little what the cause. The abbey’s bailiff ordered Oberbrechen and Weyer to remove their residents to the safety of their churches’ high ground.
The floodwaters brought more than mud, debris, and sheep carcasses into Weyer. When the rains finally stopped and the Laubusbach returned to its gentle course, a pestilence emerged from the many pools of stagnant water and spread its invisible terror from hut to hut. Many suffered and died, but to Heinrich’s indescribable distress his good friend Ingelbert lay ravaged and tormented by fever.
Poor Emma sat by her beloved son’s bed both day and night, refusing sleep and all but the most meager bits of bread for three days. Lukas often sat with her, pleading with all heaven to spare the simple-hearted lad. Ignoring the blistering complaints of his wife, Heinrich hurried about his tasks only to fly to Emma’s badly damaged cottage where he kept vigil with his beloved friends and hoped for God’s mercy. But, alas, it was not to be. On a sunny afternoon gently warmed by soft southern winds, Ingelbert left the embrace of those he loved to discover the wonders of a new world.