He had never been to Lorsch and had heard stories of its wondrous library; however, his visit had been unceremoniously cut short when he had been informed by the monks at the abbey that the library had been sealed.
And then there had been the matter with the Frankish mercenaries. All in all, a peaceful stroll along the river for a few days was probably the best recourse. It would give him time to fully expunge the annoyance still laboring in his breast. At least until he reached Mainz and sought an audience with the Archbishop there, specifically to inquire why His Excellency had ordered the closure of the library in Lorsch.
Andreas adjusted his pack on his shoulder, and whistling tunelessly through his teeth, he continued on his journey toward Mainz, following in the direction of the regal priest and his entourage. He gave little thought as to where the party was bound until he stumbled across them again not an hour later.
The village was not unlike many of the villages that were scattered along the Rhine between Worms and Mainz, little more than a tiny green surrounded by an inn or two, a trading house, and a few other houses belonging to the local farmers who preferred to be known as owners of land rather than workers of the same. The rest of the residents lived in huts scattered among the fields that surrounded the village. The inn, a more well-to-do building than the last few Andreas had seen, was on the north side of the green. Its broad porch was being used as a dais by the local magistrate and the regal priest to address the unruly crowd. On the western periphery of the crowd, eager participants were arguing over the distribution of freshly cut wood around a tall pole.
Andreas paused at the verge of the crowd as he realized what he was about to stumble into. He was taller than most of the villagers, and though he stood at the back, he was able to readily scan the crowd for the focus of the villagers’ ire. Near the front, not far from the magistrate, was a cluster of men, holding someone between them. A woman, he surmised, as the sound of her shrieking voice carried over the general hubbub.
It pained him to walk away, but he knew this was not his fight. He knew nothing of the charges being levied against the woman or the mood of the villagers. By inserting himself in this situation, by revealing who he was, he could cause more strife than the village was already suffering. He did not care for the way the priest carried himself, but his dislike of the recent abuses attributed to some Dominicans in their zealous pursuit of heretics was not a complete condemnation of all priests.
He might be a Knight Initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, the Holy Knights of the Virgin Defender, but he was one man, far away from home. A company of Shield-Brethren, as they were more regularly known in the Holy Roman Empire and the lands north, were known to strike terror in an opposing army simply by virtue of their appearance on the battlefield, but one Shield-Brother was more a curiosity than a cause for alarm.
Andreas caught sight of a man seated on a horse to his left. He wore a plain surcoat over mail with a longsword on his person and a shield attached to his saddle. His skin was darker than the rest of the villagers-a consequence of his birth, not the sun-and his hair and beard were neat and short, cut close to the shape of his head and face. His shield bore a familiar rose emblem, not unlike the brooch pinned to Andreas’s cloak.
One Shield-Brother might be a curiosity, he thought, but two?
As the magistrate attempted to make himself heard over the crowd, Andreas worked his way around the crowd toward the man on the horse. The rider spotted him coming and regarded him coolly for a moment, assessing him, before returning his gaze to the spectacle unfolding on the green.
“That’s a nice horse,” Andreas opined as he reached the mounted knight. He was being polite. The animal was magnificent. Its withers were on equal height with his chest, and its coat was such a lustrous gray that it seemed more like Byzantine silk than hair. It wore very little tack, and Andreas assumed such a decision on the part of the rider was due to the animal’s responsiveness to knee and hand. It had white markings on its front legs and face, and when it turned its head to look at him, he was startled to see a rounded bump among the white hair on its forehead-a tiny nub not unlike the sort of protrusion male deer exhibit as they start growing their horns.
“It is,” the man said, and his accent reminded Andreas of the confusion of languages he had heard during his time in the Levant. “The Carthusian monks breed excellent stock.”
Further conversation was precluded by the magistrate finally making himself heard over the crowd. The villagers shushed one another-a susurration that ran from the front to the back of the mob-as the magistrate began to shout. “I know you are frightened, but we must not allow ourselves to be filled with fear. If the Devil walks among us, we must be strong in our faith so that we may cast him out. If we quarrel amongst ourselves, then we are divided. We have laws, given to us by God, that protect us, and as long as we uphold those laws, no harm will come to us.
“The widow”-and this word brought howls from the audience-“this…woman, Gerda, stands accused of witchcraft; of sacrificing her husband to the Devil in return-” The audience started shouting again, drowning out the magistrate’s voice. Andreas could see him waving his arms, trying to get their attention, but the villagers were too stirred up.
The woman had stopped fighting her captors as soon as the magistrate had started speaking, and the accusations had not stirred her. She hung loosely in the grip of the three men, her face unmoved by the turmoil around her. It was the men holding her who were showing signs of distress, clearly worried that the mob’s bloodthirst would extend to them.
The magistrate stepped back, raising his hands in frustration to the priest, who took his place at the edge of the platform. The priest raised his arms, palms out, and held still, waiting for the crowd to notice him. When he spoke, he spoke in a normal tone of voice, and such was his presence and his expectation of being listened to that the audience fell silent as wheat felled by the pass of a scythe.
“We are God’s children,” the priest said. “We are not animals. What has happened here in your village is a heinous crime against God, and I promise you that the malefactors will be found and punished. But the Church believes that each of us-no matter how far we have strayed-may confess our sins and receive absolution. We will hear this woman’s confession, and should it be satisfactory, we will grant her the salvation her poor soul craves. If she is unrepentant in her testimony, we will purge her-and the taint of her sins-from this village.
“This matter belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. It is my sworn duty as an inquisitor to cleanse this evil from your midst so that it may not infect others. I am the Righteous Hand of God, and the woman is my responsibility. I will hear her testimony as well as the testimony of the witnesses who accuse her. But not at this time.”
The crowd jerked as one body, and Andreas could feel them winding up to a storm of noise again.
But the priest spoke first. His voice was still calm, but there was an underlying anger in his words. “The rules of God and the Church are plain in the matter of the Ordeal. Do you think you know better than God how to discern heresy? Do you think you know better than I the signs of the Devil’s influence?”
The change in the audience was as dramatic as the sudden cessation of a summer storm. The tension in the crowd vanished in a heartbeat, draining away into a tiny stream of quiet muttering in the back of the crowd.