Pilgrims of Promise: A Novel (The Journey of Souls Series) Read online

  Summer air wafted through the damp hall, and the first hint of the day’s light peeked through the shutters. “My regards to your baker, my lady,” offered Heinrich. “The bake is nearly perfect.”

  “Nearly?” quizzed Dorothea.

  “Well…”

  “A poor choice of words from a simple man!” quipped Wil with a laugh. “I think the whole table is quite perfect indeed!”

  The guests clapped. Dorothea then motioned for another servant to come to her side, and when he did, she whispered in his ear. The man scurried away, and the diners continued their meal with little more conversation until Pieter could wait no longer. “My dear sister,” he said, “might we see our Friederich this morning?”

  Dorothea nodded and swallowed a portion of bread. She slowly took a draught of wine, then answered. “Yes, of course. The priest was told that the archbishop’s emissary demanded the boy for a penance in Mainz.” Her eyes twinkled. “He should be here soon.”

  Pieter raised his brows.

  Dorothea laughed softly. “I’ve learned from you! First, though, I have gifts.” She clapped her hands, and to everyone’s wonder, a group of servants bearing armloads of clothing scurried toward the children. Dorothea rose with a smile as big as an autumn sunset. “The innkeeper told me you were all dressed in black! He said you look like novices and nuns. So my chamberlain demanded the clothier open his shop at matins, and we’ve fresh, well-loomed garments for you.” She turned toward Heinrich, Pieter, Benedetto, and Alwin. “It is our thought to serve the young ones as I have little to offer the three of you.” Her glance lingered playfully on Alwin. “But I do have something for you, sir knight.”

  A servant hurried over to Alwin and presented him with boots, heavy-spun leggings, a long brown tunic, a padded leather vest, and a sleeveless green robe. The man was speechless. “These were my husband’s. I am a widow,” Dorothea said calmly.

  Alwin received the gifts with a humble bow. “With thanks, m’lady. God’s blessings.”

  Happy hands reached for new leggings and tunics, overgowns, and scarves. Dorothea motioned for her seamstresses to descend upon the group with needles and thread to adjust gown lengths and such, and before long, the pilgrims looked less like pilgrims and more like free wayfarers.

  Maria twirled about in her new hooded overgown. It was a deep and rich forest green, linen weave—perfect for summertime. It was belted with a heavy braided cord and fit her wonderfully well. Frieda was simply stunning in a gown similar to Maria’s, only paneled in cherry red and mustard gold.

  Wil proudly displayed his own clothing for his new bride. He and his fellows had been given tightly woven brown linen leggings, and their tunics were knee length like those of freemen of means. They were hooded and made of finespun English wool—and dyed the color of baked rye. Each was given a different belt: Wil’s was braided leather, Tomas’s a rather dashing red sash, Otto’s a wide leather belt with a brass buckle, Helmut’s a black cord, and Rudolf’s a green sash.

  The travelers looked at one another in the early day’s light and clapped. Looking like free persons, they suddenly felt like free persons. Tomas lifted his head proudly and thanked Dorothea with an eloquence that raised the brows of all. Each, in turn, bent a knee before the kind lady and kissed her hand.

  “Now, my dear guests, would I be permitted to give your former garments to the poor?”

  “Ja!” answered a chorus of happy voices.

  At that moment, as if on cue, the door to the hall burst open, and young Friederich rushed toward his fellows with a happy cry. “Oh, Pieter! Wil! Frieda! All of you!”

  Immediately overcome with tears, Pieter rose on wobbly legs and stumbled toward his lost lamb. The two embraced with halting sobs as the others crowded close. The reunion was joyous. Benedetto leapt upon the table and sang loudly as the boy greeted one old friend and then another.

  At last, Wil asked that which all needed to know. “Tell us, Friederich. Tell us more of Jon.”

  The hall fell quiet. “It was some sort of pox, methinks. After St. Michael’s, many in the town were sick. Most blamed us. We were both beaten, though Lord Bernard sent his guards to stop it. The priest said we ought to be ashamed for our failure, that God would punish the town for helping ‘faithless fools’ like us. He told the lord that we’d need to work a great penance for all the town, else everyone would die. He made us walk naked in the streets each day at terce to show our shame. And Jon’s leg was not healed well, so it hurt him. I tied a splint as best I could, but it was growing crooked.

  “Then he made us clean the latrines day and night. My wrist was weak, and I had trouble with the shovel, so I was beaten for it. We were given little to eat and were not allowed to speak. There were other things, too, but I cannot mention them.” The bony eight-year-old hung his head.

  Heinrich and Pieter were nearly bursting with rage. They turned hard eyes on Dorothea, who shifted in her seat with her eyes downcast in anguish. “It … it was the Church’s business. I did what I could to help them both.”

  “Ja, she did,” said Friederich. “She was scolded often, but she hid bread about the town and sent her servants to tell us where. I heard her arguing with the priest, and she once threw over the chalice!”

  “And Jon?”

  “His face broke into red marks, and he was sweating day and night. Then he began a terrible cough. Blood came out his nose.”

  “And the doctor?” queried Wil.

  “The priest said it wasn’t allowed. He said Jon was paying his debt to God.”

  The table shook with the pounding fists of the outraged pilgrims.

  “Where is this priest?” roared Heinrich with a drawn sword.

  “No!” exclaimed Dorothea. “I’ll not have this at my table!”

  An usher suddenly rushed into the hall and flew to Dorothea’s side. He was visibly frightened and whispered awkwardly into the lady’s ear. Dorothea paled, then looked about the hall.

  “Quickly!” ordered Dorothea. “All of you to the cellars.”

  “What is it, m’lady?” asked Pieter.

  “Soldiers are at our gates. They’re demanding the right to search.” Dorothea’s face was drawn and her body stiff.

  “What do they want?” asked Heinrich.

  The messenger answered. “Two Templar knights are with them along with some brown shirts. They claim four of their own were murdered, and a refugee is about. They’ve some thought for youths dressed in black, but they suspect Cathari as well.” The man looked sideways at Dorothea and licked his dry lips. “M’lady?”

  “Father Pieter, you must all do as I say at once. We will hide you in the cellars until—”

  “Bar their entrance!” cried Wil. He picked up his bow and set a hand on the hilt of his new dagger. “We’ll fight with you!”

  “Fool boy!” growled the servant. “They’ve two score horsemen and footmen, archers as well. Our garrison is a score at best. The rest of our soldiers are with Lord Bernard.”

  Heinrich’s mind was racing. “Lady Dorothea, the innkeep has seen us, and you’ve servants as well. They’ll be sure to search your house.”

  A guard ran into the room and whispered into Dorothea’s ear. Pale, the woman answered, “Ja. So it may be. You all have been seen together, but my servants and the innkeep are loyal to the death.” She turned to her servant. “Tell the gatekeepers to hold fast until I come. Tell the Templars they must ask my permission directly.”

  “Hold fast?”

  “Yes!” cried Dorothea. “Do as I say. Then send me my captain.”

  The servant raced away as Dorothea pointed to a dark corridor. “There, all of you. Follow my man down to the deep cellar. Leave the dog here with my hounds.”

  “Our donkey?” squealed Maria.

  “Give it no thought, Màdel. He’ll be safe enough in the stable.” She set a kind hand on the girl’s head. “You shall be safe, my dear. Now all of you must go quickly.”

  Wil and his company followed a terri
fied clerk down a slippery flight of narrow stairs and across a candlelit cellar crowded with wine barrels, sundry baskets of root-foods and cheese, a few racks of fruit preserves, and a collection of broken furniture and pottery. Reaching a far wall, the clerk pushed away a large trunk and reached down to lift a dusty wooden hatch. “God go with you,” he muttered as he pointed to a short ladder leading into utter blackness. “And, by the saints, keep silent!”

  Above, Dorothea summoned her handservants, who fussed about her clothing and her hair. “My circlet,” she ordered anxiously. A young girl ran to a drawer and returned with a silver ring, which she placed neatly over the woman’s silk wimple. Now dressed in a flowing green overgown and her shoulders covered by a lace mantle, Lord Bernard’s lovely daughter drew a deep breath and bravely stepped from the burgher-house.

  Feigning confidence as she entered the town’s abandoned streets, the young widow smiled at her father’s townsfolk peering fearfully from behind half-shuttered windows. The radiance of her fair beauty and the bold gait of the soldiers at her side quieted many a racing heart. Dorothea made her way calmly to a set of wide steps at the base of the town wall. She lifted her gown and began her climb to the wall walk that rimmed the top edge of the stockade. She then made her way to a position just above the main gate, where she raised her face to survey the army arrayed before her. Never show fear to an enemy, she thought. They were wise words from both her father and her late husband. So when Dorothea’s eyes scanned the angry faces staring at her from impatient chargers, she did not flinch. Instead, she let her mind fly to the young soldier she had married three years ago. Oh, dear Jurgen, I wish you were with me now.

  “Who commands this town?” roared a knight. The man was the surly, unkempt commander of several companies.

  “I do,” answered Dorothea firmly.

  The soldiers below laughed. “As tender a wisp I’ve ne’er seen, m’fair lady,” the knight said as he bent forward in his saddle. “I am Sir Roland von Esselbach. My men are tired and hungry. Would that we might dine in thy halls this very morn.”

  “I doubt your manners are equal to the task,” declared the lady.

  Insulted, Sir Roland growled. “Open the gates, wench, and we’ll soon see of what stuff you’re made!”

  Dorothea’s eyes shifted from Roland to the Templar a few mounts to one side. The monk seemed agitated. The woman placed her hands on her hips. “Who of you is in command?”

  Sir Roland pounded his chest. “I am.”

  “You command the Templars?”

  “Aye.”

  The goad showed immediate promise. The Templar barked at Roland, “We serve the pope, y’fool, not the likes of you!”

  For a few moments, it appeared that a sudden rift had divided the army. The Templar knights and a few of their lesser, brown-habited brethren formed a knot in defiance of Sir Roland. “You’ve no authority over us in this or any other matter.”

  “I am ordered by the emperor against all foes of the empire. This is my army and—”

  “I declare this army now to be an army of the Holy Church!”

  Dorothea held her breath.

  Sir Roland spat. He would not raise his sword against the Templars and risk the vendetta of their brethren from all over Christendom. “Ach, blood is blood for me. I am in command of m’men—”

  “And I am in command of you!” The Templar nudged his stallion close to the knight’s and faced him squarely. “Enough of this, then. We’ve fugitives inside to find. Take from the town what you will, but the Church seeks justice for our slain and an end to heresy. Do not interfere again.”

  Defeated, Roland said nothing more as the Templar turned his face toward the disappointed Dorothea staring at him from above. “Woman, I am Brother Cyrill, commander of this army. Four of our brethren have been murdered, and a prisoner has escaped. We must search this town for him and for the heretics that are said to be harbored here.”

  “By whose authority do you come?”

  A loud chorus of jeers rose from the ranks. “We owe no woman an answer! Open the gates or we shall burn them down!”

  Sir Roland pointed his sword at the lady. “Did y’not hear us? We’ll burn yer cursed town to the ground.”

  Brother Cyrill shouted for silence. “Woman, we come in the name of the Holy Church, and I command you to open this gate.”

  “My father, Lord Bernard, is lord of this town and lands surrounding. He is en route with men-at-arms even as we speak. In his name I grant none entrance.”

  Olten’s guardsmen shifted in their places. They looked nervously at their lord’s daughter. “M’lady,” whispered the town’s captain, “we are at half strength, and some are sick with fever. With what we’ve left, we cannot resist them.”

  Looking at the man with sudden contempt, Dorothea stiffened. “This town is not yet chartered. It is the property of my father, and you are his subject. Your duty, sir, is to do as I say, even unto death!”

  Chastened, the soldier backed away. Dorothea looked across the thatched rooftops and leaning buildings of her town. Not a soul was in sight. It is hopeless, she thought. Would that our whole army were here; we’d have enough men to make a fight of it!

  Unwilling to yield easily, she took a sword from a nearby guardsman and pointed it directly at Brother Cyrill. “Hear me, warrior-monk. ‘Let all things be done in decency and in order.’ Lord Bernard is a vassal to the abbot of St. Gall. When you deliver the seal of the abbot, you may search this town. Until then, Brother Templar, be content that you have not bled on Olten’s soil.”

  Dorothea’s captain of the guard went wobbly. Pale and shaking, he whispered, “My lady? What are you—” They were his final words on earth, for a crossbowman shot an oak dart squarely into the man’s chest, and he toppled into the courtyard below.

  Shocked, Dorothea whirled about and cursed the Templar and his army. “Murderous army of hell! Serpents and demons, may you all be cursed to the Pit!” The brave young woman threw her sword from the wall with a loud cry.

  “Open the gate!” came the angry reply.

  Defeated, Dorothea nodded to her gatekeepers. In moments the lock beam was lifted away, and the heavy timber gates were pulled apart. Horsemen and infantry roared through the opening and descended on Olten in a wild rage. Like angry hellions, the soldiers surged across the courtyard knocking over carts and merchants’ tables, spilling racks of wares, and trampling cages of fowl. Homes and shops were immediately looted as terrified townsfolk crouched ever deeper in the shadowed corners of their homes.

  On the wall, Dorothea waited for the enemy. She ordered her guards to drop all weapons as footmen scrambled up the stairways to the wall walk. At last, with her face lifted proudly, she yielded to the grasping hands of two large knights, who dragged her down to the courtyard. Thrown to the ground at Cyrill’s feet, she fought back tears of outrage. She climbed to her feet and brushed the dirt off her silk gown. Her chin now trembled slightly, and her fair face had lost its prior flush of anger. Nevertheless, she stood erect and proud. “Whom do you seek?” she asked flatly.

  The Templar stroked his short beard and shook his head. He muttered a few words to the other white-robed knight at his side, who galloped away. Then he shook his head at the disgusting display around him. Laughing footmen were carrying screaming women into vacant sheds, and knights were filling sacks with silver goblets and sundry treasures. The inns were crowded with men happy to slake their thirsts with fresh ale and red wine.

  At last, he turned to Dorothea. “Brave woman, look about you. I am ashamed of the wanton vice and excess I see. These are Roland’s men. Unlike mine, they are under no vows. Do you see there, those horsemen in brown robes behind their commander in white? They are our lesser brethren, Templars nonetheless. They’ll not touch the women nor steal for themselves. No, my lady, be thankful we are here.”

  “Thankful? I think not! If you were truly in command, you’d spare this carnage.”

  “I see. Well, perhaps it is ca
rnage or perhaps it is justice. Like the locusts of Egypt, they may be the mighty hands of God’s wrath.” His mood darkened and his voice now rose. “You are harboring heretics, doubtlessly the murderers of four of my brothers—four Christian soldiers with whom I served our Lord in Palestine.”

  “We harbor no one.”

  The man took a deep, restraining breath. He wrapped his fingers around the handle of his sword and watched a footman slay an old man in the doorway of a shop. “Before this day ends, we shall have our justice. Either you surrender those you are hiding, or I shall order the entire town slaughtered and burned.”

  Cyrill’s tone was matter-of-fact, and his ultimatum was delivered with such seeming familiarity that the woman’s spine tingled with terror. “Now, hear me well. We are told of youths dressed in black. They were seen freeing our horses in Burgdorf and setting fire to that town.”

  “And?” Dorothea’s mind whirled.

  The Templar set his jaw. “And we are certain that they are those who later murdered my four friends and set our captive free.”

  “Children bettered the swords of four mighty Templars? Methinks not.”

  The knight reddened. “Silence, wench!” He slapped Dorothea hard across her face, knocking her to the ground. “We’ve also been told of Cathari venturing to and from this town on their flight eastward. The man who was rescued is a traitorous Templar who served their cause! Does it not seem odd that he is rescued near the very place the Cathari are known to hide? By God and the Holy Mother, I can almost smell them! We shall find them and slay them under thine own eyes! Now where are they?” he roared.

  Dorothea fell silent. Her heart raced, for she knew that if either Pieter’s company or the Cathari were discovered, she’d suffer death as well. Oh, Pieter, stay deep in the cellar! she thought. Before she could answer, the town’s priest came scurrying toward the two of them. “Brother Templar!” he cried.