Quest of Hope: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

abbey’s villages had little choice but to yield themselves to their pitiful place and time. For them the world was but shadows and eventide. And they, like their sluggish oxen, dared not turn against the yoke. Most of these poor and weary wretches spent their days with faces bent toward the earth, ever pressing their aching legs against hard-won furrows. Fenced by fear of both life and death, they dared hope for little else than a secure soul and a few moments of joy before they were returned to darkness just beneath the very earth they sweated and bled upon.

     
    The despair of winter had taken full hold of Weyer by late February of 1174. Baldric blustered about the forests as the woodward’s helper, seeing to the foresters’ harvest of winter timber, keeping a close watch on crews of charcoalers, and giving special heed to poachers culling deer and wolf and fox from his master’s lands.
    In this frozen month Baldric was to be wed to a young woman named Hildrun whom his father Jost had chosen a year earlier in exchange for the forgiveness of a debt. Baldric reluctantly pledged her a fair dowry of two shillings, a small gold broach, two rams, and six ewes. Should Baldric die, it would secure her until another husband could be found.
    Weyer’s priest had urged Jost to delay the wedding. After all, it was the Season of Lent and the carnal pleasures of marriage were thought unseemly for this time of denial. But Jost, conscious of his own mortality and not wanting to lose his bargain through delay, ignored the priest’s counsel. So, on a cold winter’s morning in late February, Baldric of Weyer and Hildrun of Villmar were wed within a circle of their kin in the snow by the village well. Given the priest’s objections, none dared stand in the doorway of the church according to the new custom. In fact, the priest was asked not to attend and he was happy to oblige. Instead, as in former times, Jost and Hildrun’s father heard the vows and pronounced the matrimony. Baldric then tread his foot upon his bride’s and the deed was done—for better or for worse.
    Baldric spent little time with his new wife. She was hard-eyed and stiff. He complained her face was too bony, and he cared little for her black hair. She suffered skin-scales and sores, her hips were narrow, and he doubted her ease of birthing.
    For Baldric and Hildrun and all the folk of the manor, the labors of winter dragged on through the tedious days of March. Time was spent spinning wool and repairing barns, carving spoons and plaiting baskets. Willow and ash were purchased from the village forester for shaping into harrow teeth, and the smith forged spades and ploughshares. Early lambs were tendered to the sheepfold where ewes suckled them with care. The stores of harvest-time were dwindling, and all eagerly awaited the mercy of spring.
    The joys of Easter came early, on the twenty-fourth day of March, and the village was soon busy wedding more of its vital youth. Among the betrothed was Arnold, recently contracted by Jost to Gisela, the daughter of a servile merchant from the free-town of Limburg-by-the-Lahn. She was known for her beauty and high spirit. Although pleased by her appearance, Arnold was yet tremulous at heart.
    Spring labors passed quickly—as did summer’s, and by mid-September Kurt had paid his penny for time on the thresher’s floor where he pounded his flail late into the darkness. The sanguine joys of long, warm days and the feasts of Lammas and the Assumption were soon but pleasant memories. Kurt worked long hours with the sickle as well as shouldering carpenters’ beams.
    It was on a rainy evening in late September when Kurt’s door was thrown open by his brothers and a stranger. The trio stared mutely until Baldric crossed the common room and laid a heavy hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “Kurt, Leo’s come to take us to father. He … he was found in the millstream with his head split apart. Leo thinks a mason’s foot nudged loose a