There Will Be Wolves (18 page)

“My father is dead,” Ursula answered.

“Oh, dear! Such a shame! Such a wonderful man he was.” She looked askance at Bruno and Verity, who held Ursula’s hand, staring straight ahead of her, unseeing. The child had yet to speak a word, or react in any way to Ursula’s many entreaties.

“But it seems you’ve got yourself quite a family now, haven’t you?” she poured on. “I recognize the boy—he was around here before you left, wasn’t he? But where did you find that little one?”

“Her mother died as well,” Ursula answered. “Verity stays with me now.”

Bruno had been tethering the horses, ignoring Mistress Ingrid’s torrent of words. He turned now to Ursula. “I’ll return in the morning,” he said woodenly. “I must see if my hut is still standing, but I will be back to help you tomorrow.”

Before Ursula could say anything, he walked away. She looked after him, suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of loss and emptiness as he disappeared around the corner.

“And will you be opening the apothecary again?” Mistress Ingrid was still talking on.

“I don’t know,” Ursula answered shortly. She had lain awake many nights on their return journey, wondering how she was going to live. To open the apothecary again would take more money
than her share of the horse’s sale would give her.

“Well, it’s a delight to see you back, that it is,” Mistress Ingrid exclaimed. She positively beamed at Ursula.

Ursula was confused. Why was the woman being so friendly? The last time she had seen her, she was all for having Ursula burned as a witch.

“What …?” she began, stopped, then gathered her courage and continued. “What has happened with Mistress Elke?”

“Oh, her!” Mistress Ingrid grimaced with distaste. “She’s dead, too. Died of the pestilence soon after you left. It’s said now she brought her own curse upon herself with her evil tongue and sharp ways. In any case,” she added quickly, “your sins are pardoned now.
You
have been on the Crusade!”

So that was it. Ursula stared past the woman toward what was left of her house, but she wasn’t seeing that. In her mind she was seeing a field full of bodies, a road strewn with dead children, the shallow, stone-covered grave of a friend, the deeper resting place of her father, the child, Verity, who could not speak, and Bruno, who could not pray.

Yes, she thought, I’ve been on the Crusade. And for that I am now cleansed and pardoned of my sins?

  *  *  *  

The sale of the horses brought enough money for wood to make a new roof for Ursula’s house and to repair Bruno’s hut which had fallen in during his absence. A year before, someone would have taken possession of that hut before his return, but Cologne, these days, was strangely empty. So many had left for the Crusade, and the pestilence had been particularly bad during the last few months.

Bruno quickly found work with his old master on a new church they were building, but, to Ursula’s despair, he remained sunk in depression. He helped her clear the rubble from her house, built the roof for her, and installed new shutters, but nothing she could do or say comforted him. He had confessed to his priest. His priest had absolved him and even blessed him for taking part in the Crusade, but Bruno remained convinced of his guilt.

Ursula cast around for means to support herself and Verity. She began doing errands for her neighbors, cleaning other stores, washing—anything that would earn her a few coins. She spent as little as possible and gradually began to accumulate enough to start replenishing her herb supply at the market. She found the neighbors surprisingly kind and sympathetic. The very ones who had been first to shout “witch” before, now regarded her almost as a saint. Even Britta and the other girls made cautious attempts to regain her
friendship. Ursula was the first to return from the Crusade. The fact that it had failed and they had never reached Jerusalem seemed not to matter; all that was important was that she had gone.

While she was working in her neighbors’ houses, her neighbors often asked her about the foreign lands she had seen. Was it true that all the domes and towers of the churches in Constantinople were sheathed in gold? Was it true that the people wore jewels of such weight and quantity that they couldn’t walk and had to be carried everywhere on litters? Ursula answered as best she could. Telling what they wanted to know was a way of repaying them for their kindness and acceptance of her, but the remembering was like a continual reopening of a festering wound.

News reached them, finally, that the remaining Crusaders who had taken refuge in the tower had indeed been rescued. They were now back in Constantinople with Peter, and had joined up with the forces for whom the emperor had bidden them wait in the first place. This Crusade was mightily armed and made up of great armies of nobles and their soldiers. They were making ready to set out for Jerusalem and this time were certain of success, the news said. Ursula would not even listen to the tidings.

Verity grew no better either. She sat wherever she was placed or occasionally crept into a corner
and huddled there. She allowed herself to be fed and taken care of but stared with blank eyes and made absolutely no response. Ursula spent a part of each day teaching her German words, pointing out objects all around them and naming them, but there was no way of knowing whether the child heard or not.

  *  *  *  

Spring came, and, to Ursula’s joy, the garden at the back of the house began to come to life. With Verity seated on a blanket beside her, Ursula threw herself into weeding and tending the overgrown herbs. And then, one day, Bruno burst into the house with a vigor and eagerness Ursula had not seen since they had left Cologne. She looked up, and her heart leaped to see his deep blue eyes shining.

“Ursula!” he cried. “I have been made a carver! No longer just a mason, hewing out blocks for the church—I have been chosen to work on the baptismal font itself! It is to be carved all round with scenes from the Bible, and I am to do it. The master says my work is a glory to God!”

Ursula dropped the shift she was mending and rushed to him. “Bruno—what wonderful news!”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and enveloped her in a hug. Then, suddenly, his face became serious again.

“Ursula, do you think …? Could it possibly be that … that
this
is the way I can work for my forgiveness from God? Through giving him the best work from my hands and heart that I can?”

Ursula lifted her hands to cradle his face. The hope in his eyes—the light in them again—was almost heartbreaking. She caught her breath with a sob.

“Oh yes, Bruno. Of course it is. It
must
be.” She passed her fingers gently over the deep creases in his brow. “Everything will be all right now. It will!” She drew his face down to hers. The kiss surprised them both. They looked at each other, startled, and then laughed at the same time at the wonderment in each other’s face.

T
hey were wed on one of the first soft days of summer. It was a simple marriage. They walked together to Great St. Martin’s, Bruno carrying Verity. The priest heard their vows, and they walked back home again. For a wedding feast they dipped into their small supply of coins and added meat to the nightly stew.

The garden throve, and soon Ursula was harvesting her herbs. Bruno rebuilt the shelves alongside the hearth, and she drew greater and greater satisfaction from watching them fill up with bags and sacks and hanging swatches of drying leaves and flowers. Finally, one day, Bruno lowered the front shutters before he left for his work, and Ursula set out her wares. The apothecary was open again.

That night, as they sat by the fire, Samson suddenly sprang up with a bark. Horses’ hooves clamored on the cobblestones outside. Ursula called
sharply to stay him—he still hadn’t learned any sense about horses—but he ran to the door in a paroxysm of whining and tail-wagging. A knock rang out, the door opened, and a figure walked in. Samson went mad.

“Ursula? Master William? Are you here?” The voice was deeper than Ursula remembered, but there was no mistaking it. David!

Ursula sprang up. David was a hand taller than when she had last seen him. He was dressed sumptuously, and a cloak of heavy scarlet wool hung from his shoulders. He looked so much more like a young man now, and so much less like the small boy she had known, that she stopped, suddenly shy. Samson, however, threw himself upon his master.

David knelt to tousle the dog’s head. “Samson! I hardly dared hope he would still be here.” He looked up at Ursula and Bruno with a happy smile. “I’m here with my father,” he said. “To reclaim my uncle’s house from the archbishop. My father has already gone to see him, but I couldn’t wait to come here. Where is Master William? And what has happened to the house?”

“David! I can hardly believe it is you! But here, sit,” Ursula cried, pulling a small coffer forward. “I have so much to tell you, and I want to hear so much from you. But first …” She sobered. “I must tell you…. My father is dead. He died last summer. On the Crusade.”

David’s eyes clouded. “I wanted to see him again,” he said. “To have him meet my father. To thank him for what he did for me. I am so sorry, Ursula.” Then he seemed to hear what else Ursula had said. “On the Crusade?” he asked. “Went you on the Crusade with those
to’im?”

To’im
—”aimless wanderers.” In such a way did the Jews speak of those who had persecuted them so heartlessly.

Ursula met Bruno’s eyes. “We will tell you of that later,” she answered. “It was a thing of necessity, not of choice. But I want to hear of you. How did you get back to Mainz? What happened to your family there? We heard that only a handful escaped.”

“We were among that handful,” David replied. His face darkened, and Ursula guessed that his memories were no less painful than her own.

She reached out a hand to him. “I feared for you. I am so thankful you were spared.”

They talked long into the night. Samson remained glued to David’s feet the whole time. For the moment, Ursula had forgotten about Verity. The child had crept into a corner near the open trap door to the cellar. Suddenly a piercing scream brought them all to their feet.

“Verity!” Ursula cried, but she was nowhere in sight.

“In the cellar,” Bruno said. “The cry came from the cellar.”

They rushed down and found her, unhurt, but cowering in terror, staring at the wall above her. A grotesque animal’s head, carved into the wall there, hung out over her. The light from the fire, coming in through the trap door, caused its shadow to flicker and move on the wall behind it.

“Wolf!” Verity screamed. “Wolf!”

Ursula ran to her and gathered her into her arms. “Its just a stone wolf,” she soothed. “Just a carved wolf …” Then two realizations struck her at the same time. The child had finally spoken—and she had shrieked out “wolf.” Her father’s last words came back to her. Unconsciously, she repeated them aloud.

“Look to the wolf.” She stared at the carving. “Look to the wolf.”

“What are you saying?” David broke in.

“My father …” she said slowly. “As he lay dying he said that. ‘Look to the wolf.’ I knew not what he meant.”

“But it is a wolf—
this
wolf—that guards the door.”

David went over to the wall and reached up his hand to place it on the beast’s muzzle.

Ursula was confused. “What door? What do you mean?”

“Did he never tell you then?” David asked. At Ursula’s shake of the head, he went on. “Do you remember when your father hid me? You couldn’t
imagine how we managed to conceal ourselves here in the cellar.”

“Yes, I remember,” Ursula answered, still bewildered.

“There is a door here,” David went on. “A hidden door. And underneath this cellar there is another secret cellar. He never told you that?”

“No,” Ursula answered. Her voice trembled. “Unless … unless that is what he was trying to tell me at the end. But, how do you open it?”

“The wolf,” David answered. “The wolf holds the key. Bruno—fetch a light for us and I’ll show you.”

Bruno was back in an instant with a lighted wick floating in a dish of tallow.

“Come here,” David said.

Bruno brought the light to the wall, and they clustered around him, Verity clinging tightly to Ursula. The flame cast even more fantastic shadows—the other carved heads danced on the walls around them.

“Something or someone of great value must have been hidden here once,” David said. “The opening of the door is marvelously contrived. Watch.” He pressed his hands against the neck of the wolf. Ursula gasped as the head and the stone upon which it was carved suddenly began to swing outward. Inside the dark opening, they could just make out a ladder leading down into what seemed to be a black hole.

David took the light from Bruno and started down. “Come, follow me,” he called back.

Ursula passed Verity over to Bruno and then clambered after David into the musty dankness of the secret cellar.

The walls here were rougher than those of the cellar above, rubble pressed together rather than cut stones. Ursula recognized the building method from the walls surrounding Cologne itself.

“Roman,” she murmured. The cellar must have been dug in Roman times, and then the foundations of their own house laid on top. Her eyes were drawn away from the walls, however, when the light revealed what was in the cramped room. A straw pallet lay in one corner, and a table and chair sat in the middle.

“My father always said this was the house where Emperor Henry was hidden when he was a boy,” she whispered. “I thought he imagined things, but maybe he was right.” Then she caught her breath as she saw something else. On the table lay a deep green velvet pouch. She moved swiftly over to it. Her hand reached out, hovering. Hardly breathing at all now, she forced herself to pick it up, forced her mind to stop the wild imaginings that had suddenly taken hold of her. The pouch jingled and sagged in her hand. As if…. As if it was filled with …

Bruno called anxiously down to them. Ursula’s head burst up through the opening.

“He
did
pay my father! He
was
telling the truth. God forgive me for disbelieving him. Count Emil
was
telling the truth!” She reached up her hand and a cascade of silver coins, gleaming in the wavering light, poured out onto the floor at Bruno’s feet.