Pilgrims of Promise (39 page)

Dodging the stout stick, Alwin kicked the man in the belly and sent him sprawling on the floor. “Otto, get out!” the knight cried.

The lad hesitated.

“Go!” added Tomas. “Go now!”

Bruised and bleeding from his beating, Otto backed slowly toward the door with his eyes fixed on his father now climbing angrily to his feet.

“Boy!” the miller shouted. “You’d run from yer own father? You’d betray yer own for some stranger?”

Otto’s eyes flew from his father to Alwin, then to his father again. “Just… just let me come home in peace,” the lad pleaded. Tears streamed down his face. “Can y’not forgive me? Can y’not have me back?”

Herold spat and cursed, then lunged once more at the knight. Alwin deftly blocked the man’s blow with his sword and countered with a carefully placed slice along the man’s shoulder.

“Aahh!” Herold cried. He fell back and grasped his wound, then turned hateful eyes on his son. “You! ‘Tis your fault, you little
Scheisse!
” He looked at the blood seeping down his arm. “Pathetic fool. You are no son of mine, and I’ll not have you stink up my home. Get out! The sight of you sickens me. Get out, else I’ll kill you in yer sleep!”

The words pierced Otto’s heart like no mere lance might ever do. The hard man who had once fed and sheltered him was now discarding him like so much refuse. Yet the boy longed to remain in his most familiar refuge with one whom he did somehow love. The brave lad’s chin quivered slightly, and then he held out his arms as if to beg his father’s mercy one last time. “I… I…”

“Shut yer fool mouth. I curse the day you were born. You’ve never been the son I wanted, and you killed the one I loved. Would that Lothar had come home and never you!”

Alwin’s chest heaved. He had no son; he had denied himself that joy by taking his Templar vows. To see this fool now curse and spit upon a lad as worthy as Otto filled him with rage. “By heaven and by hell, I ought take your head and put it on a pike! You miserable old fool, take a step toward me so I can send your soul to the Pit.”

Herold stared at Alwin, tight faced, then spat at Tomas, who was scowling to one side. What courage he had, he had already expended on his first go at the knight, and he had no interest in trying again. “You two, take this worthless scrap of dung out of m’house. He’s no son of mine no more.” With that, he turned his back on Otto forever.

Alwin lowered his sword and cursed, then looked at the trembling boy. “Lad?”

Tomas laid a hand on Otto. “It’s all changed now. Come with us.”

Otto nodded sadly. He turned to his father and opened his mouth to speak, then held his tongue. Hesitating for another moment, he let his eyes linger on the little hut that had been home to him for his fourteen years. He ran his fingers lightly along the bruises rising on his cheeks, and then, saying nothing, he followed Tomas out the door and returned to his comrades by the Magi.

“Open the door!” boomed a voice.

Herwin’s color drained away. “The reeve!”

“Open!”

Herwin’s eyes flew about the dim-lit hut. It was a one-room hovel with no good place to hide Heinrich or Wil. “To the corner!” he whispered urgently. Wulf blew out the candle, and Herwin answered. “
Ja
? Who’s there?”

“Reeve Edwin and five deputies. Open, else well break it down!”

Herwin lifted the bar, and the men burst into the dark room. “Where are they?” shouted the reeve. “Make us some light!”

Heinrich and Wil were crouched low in a dark corner, but they knew it was hopeless. There’d be no hiding. With a shout, they rushed toward the open door. At their cry, Wulf threw two of the reeve’s deputies away from the threshold. Midst grunts and heaves, a tangle of struggling men then tumbled out of the hovel and onto the moonlit footpath.

There, Wulf, Heinrich, and Wil engaged six shadows in a wild brawl. The large Wulf dropped one deputy with a solid fist to the face, but he was quickly felled by the strike of the reeve’s flail. He collapsed sideways, falling like a great timber. Bouncing against the hovel’s wattled wall, he rolled to his side, unconscious.

Wil traded blows with two others, then yanked his dagger from his belt, which was immediately sent to the shadows by the strike of a mallet. The two grunting forms then wrestled the howling lad hard to the ground. “Hold fast, y’devil,” cried one. “Y’ve a hangman to greet!”

Heinrich kept the three others at bay with his sword, while old Herwin begged for calm. The baker backed slowly toward his son now being tied at the wrists and ankles. “Wil!” he cried.

“Aye, Father, they’ve bound me!”

“He’s to hang, baker. He’s a murderer.” The voice was familiar but the face unseen. Suddenly, the figure lunged toward Heinrich with a long-sword of his own. The baker dodged and parried, missing his mark. Another rushed him and he swiped at the man, cutting him lightly across the belly and sending him rolling away. Reeve Edwin roared forward with his flail. Heinrich leapt to one side and tripped the aging reeve, only to quickly dodge the jab of the other’s sword once more. Instinctively, the baker returned a ferocious thrust of his own, driving the point of his sword squarely into the ribs of his foe.

The man cried out and fell forward with Heinrich’s sword jammed into his chest. While struggling to jerk his blade free, the one-armed baker was quickly pounced upon by the reeve and another and knocked hard to the ground.

“I’ll kill you, y’fool!” cried a deputy.

“Hold!” begged Herwin. “Hold easy!”

With a loud cry, the reeve struck Heinrich on the head with his flail, knocking the man unconscious. He then spun around to Herwin. “I should arrest you as well, you and your son. You’ve harbored a fugitive.”

“We didn’t know.”

“Aye, y’did know! You know Wil and his father well, and you know the boy’s been charged with murder. You’d a duty to summon me! That makes you guilty.” Reeve Edwin was panting. He was a man of middling years and had served as Weyer’s reeve for a decade. He had always liked Herwin, however, and as his breath returned to him, so did his reason. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

“I… I had barely spoken with them when you came to the door. Who sent you?”

“I did!” It was Horst, the yeoman occupying Heinrich’s hovel. The man cursed and rubbed his jaw. “Boys?”

One son answered. “Fitz is cut in the belly!”

Horst stumbled to his son’s side. “That one-eyed fool!” he cried. “I’ll kill him where he lies!”

Reeve Edwin spun about and stuck the end of his flail against Horst’s chest. “Nay. He’ll be taken to Runkel. You’ll not have at him nor his lad.”

Horst spat and cursed. “My son lies with a belly wound.”

“Then load him in yer cart and get him to the abbey! But leave me with these.”

The two glared at one another in the darkness until Horst yielded. Edwin then ordered Herwin to tie Heinrich’s ankles together and to wrap the man’s arm to his side. The reeve then hurried over to his fallen deputy and groaned.
“Ach, mein Gott!
Ludwig’s been killed.”

Another deputy hurried to Edwin’s side on wobbly legs, still rubbing his jaw where Wulf had pummeled him. The two bent over the dead yeoman and cursed. The reeve yanked Heinrich’s sword from the man’s chest and threw it on the ground. “Baker, you’ll surely swing as well,” he muttered.

Several peasants with torches had emerged from their hovels and now stood gawking in a curious circle around the reeve, his deputies, and their two prisoners. Behind them, crouching deep in the shadows, were Alwin and Tomas, recently arrived from delivering Otto to the Magi. They had hurried back to the village and had been drawn to the sounds of struggle. Now they found themselves utterly unable to help their captured friends.

Edwin ordered four onlookers to carry the body of Ludwig to his wife. “And give her the killer’s sword. She can sell it for her keep.” Heinrich’s sword was laid across Ludwig’s corpse, and the grunting men carried the body away.

“Now, you others. Hear me. We’ve captured Wilhelm, son of Heinrich, and he’ll be hanged for murdering his mother … and maybe for others as well.” The folk murmured.

“And it seems our missing baker’s come home. He’s murdered Yeoman Ludwig, and he’ll dangle with his son.”

That news drew loud gasps of disbelief. “Heinrich’s come home?” cried one.

“Where has he been?”

Numbers of them hurried to stand over Heinrich and Wil, where they stared at the two in the dim torchlight. Wil scowled and countered a few mocking words with answers of his own. But those looking at Heinrich were stunned. “Are you sure ‘tis him, Reeve?”

“Aye. ‘Tis him, sure enough. Ask Herwin.”

The frail fellow nodded. “
Ja
, it is he. ‘Tis m’old friend come home.”

The folk stared at the one-eyed, one-armed, bearded man in disbelief. “He’s different. He’s old and … and …”

“And he looks like a freeman,” grumbled one.

The others nodded. “Aye. Look at his clothes. And they say he had a sword.”

“Well, he’s come home now!” mocked one.

“Aye. He’s come home to hang.”

Alwin and Tomas stayed hidden until the reeve had carted his prisoners away and the curious peasants had returned to their hovels, shaking their heads in disbelief over the night’s events. Stealthily, the knight approached Herwin’s door and knocked quietly. The trembling thatcher opened it slowly, and then, astonished, he bade the knight and Tomas inside. “Come quickly!” he whispered.

Once inside the hovel, Alwin listened carefully as Herwin offered what details he could of the matters at hand. He and Tomas gave a sketchy review of the past year’s events and assured the man that the baker and his son would not be abandoned to their troubles.

“We shall help you as we can,” said Herwin. “But Alwin, have a care. The Templars search the lands for you often. They want you hanged, sir. They say you turned your sword against your own.”

The knight nodded. “I know what they say. Herwin, you’ve known me many years. I tell you this: I turned my sword against evil. That, my friend, is my duty under God.”

Saying no more, the two turned toward the door and slipped away. They hurried through the night to the Magi, where they told all of the night’s worsening events. The pilgrims groaned with the news. Otto’s story had been tragedy enough, but this was far worse. “Wil’s charges are grievous, and I fear Heinrich’s fate is sealed,” moaned Alwin. “Our baker struck a man dead in full view of many.”

Frieda started to sob loudly. “This cannot be! I knew we should not have come here!” She stood and paced about the campfire. “Oh, what do we do? What do we do?”

Maria sniffled as she leaned into Pieter’s side. The old man patted her head and stared into the low flames. His mind was spinning, and he sat with his gaze fixed on the fire for an hour or so. No one disturbed him; no one spoke. With Maria at his one side, Frieda had come to his other. Across his legs sprawled Solomon. Around the fire the other troubled pilgrims sat silently.

Pieter did not speak. It was as if he were in a trance, as if his spirit had left his body and were floating somewhere far beyond sight. Finally, his mouth moved and he whispered,
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
.” He took a deep breath and turned his face solemnly toward his fellows. “Yes?”

The group looked at one another. Maria looked at him. “Papa Pieter, what shall we do?”