The Silver Cup (19 page)

“Don't start telling me how little I know, Martin.”

“No, that's not what I meant. Was I really awful to you? ”

Anna turned to Martin and nodded. “Rotten. But not all the time. Hold still!” she said, and she emptied the cup of water over his head.

“You dog-hearted wretch!” sputtered Martin with water streaming down his hair and face.

“Doesn't that feel better?”

“You might have warned me.”

“It's more fun this way.”

“For you perhaps. ” He shook his head, spraying Anna with his wet curls. “I suppose I do feel cooler now. It's good to be back with you and Gunther. Lukas said you were a hero in Worms.”

“Lukas is generous.”

“Yes, he is. I never valued that in him, but I never understood what makes a hero, either. My idea of a hero was a knight. I guess some are brave but not the ones who killed all those people in Worms. Not your noble cousin, Magnus. Noble? I keep thinking of a story I heard when I first joined up. About King Heinrich's grandfather, Konrad, a man celebrated for his courage. Konrad wanted to understand fear, so he took a man, probably some poor peasant like me, and had his face smeared with honey. The man was bound to a tree, and they brought in a bear. Konrad watched as a bear licked the man's face. I think I laughed when I heard the story.”

“Do you still find it funny?”

“No, Anna. I feel differently about a lot of things.”

“Like Thomas.”

“Yes, that, and more,” he said, tossing the pebble into the garden with his wounded hand. “Different.” He nodded and said, “Don't you think your father is changed? He's much less sad; he even tries to joke sometimes. He's not very funny, but still. And you seem older.”

“I feel older, Martin. Nothing is the same. At least you will be with us in Worms.”

“You'll like your new life. Your father's trade grows each day. He's already a rich man; he'll be richer than his brother soon. You'll remember this home as a hovel before winter. And neither of us will miss my mother or sisters.”

“No. They still hate me,” Anna said. “I can't believe this is our last night here.”

“Worms will be a new start for all of us. And I'm sure you'll find the Flemish boy to your liking.”

“What Flemish boy?” asked Anna.

“The son of your father's new partner in the wool trade. His name is Hugh. I met him in Cologne last spring. He is going to live with us in Worms.”

“Father never told me.”

“He will, so act surprised.”

Anna shook her head. “What's he like?”

“A quiet sort, but smart enough. He made me laugh.”

“How?”

“Don't worry. Hugh isn't mean.”

“What does he look like?”

“You'd trust my description after all those years of telling you how homely you were?”

“I should have said more nasty things about you.”

“You threw things. But at least you never bit me.”

Anna punched Martin's arm, but not very hard.

“Anyway, Hugh is tall, like your father.”

“Is he blond like you or dark?”

“Interested?” He laughed. “Dark hair. And oh yes, now I remember. He has very blue eyes. And both your father and I liked him. I think we may have finally found you a husband.”

“What?” cried Anna, pouring drops from the empty cup over Martin's head.

He laughed and said, “You two will like each other. That's to be my newest wager. And I will be ‘uncle' to a long line of little Hughs and Annas.”

Anna laughed. “No, I think I'll grow old just caring for Father and you. Not so bad, really.”

“Hold on. I'm going to be the second richest man in Worms. Someone will marry me, even with my repulsive claw,” said Martin cheerfully.

By now it was just before sunrise; the night grew noisy with birdsong and the sounds of other households awakening. The cousins watched as the treetops turned from gray to gold. The last night of their old life drew to a close. Martin fetched water while Anna fed the chickens for the last time.

When Lukas appeared, he and Anna embraced. He hugged Martin and told him how glad he was to be his brother. Saying good-bye, Lukas promised to visit Worms before the moon was again full. Anna was gathering her things, when Karl appeared with a wooden box, bound with iron fittings. On its lid was a carving of a pear tree in full blossom. Each side of the box was decorated with a different season of pear sprigs: snow-covered, budding, flowering, and with fruit.

“I made this for you, Anna.”

Anna cried, stretching to reach her arms around her giant uncle's neck.

“I will see you in the city,” said Karl lifting Anna in a great bear hug. “Your father will still trade for me, though I think cloth will be first, not so much iron.” Then Karl turned to Martin and gave him the carving of Thomas's toy dog, and said, “I would have liked you to stay here with us, but I know you will do well in Gunther's work. You will bring honor to us.” When Karl turned to go to the forge, Martin went out to the garden.

“Are you ready?” Gunther asked Anna.

“Almost.”

“Are you still afraid?”

“I don't know.”

Anna sat down on the threshold, hugging the carved box to her chest. Gunther sat down next to her.

“When your mother died, I thought I had lost everything. I was wrong. We shall have a better life in Worms, Anna,” said Gunther putting his arm around his daughter and pulling her toward him. “You'll love the house. It has something very special that I had made just for you—a round window covered with panes of horn so thin that even in the cold of winter, you shall have light from the sun. No more complaining about the darkness. You've done a woman's work since you were a small girl. What did Leah say? That you work as hard as three women? Well, no more. There will be servants.”

“Servants?” asked Anna, very surprised.

“Yes, Anna. A different life for you, for Martin, and for me. The son of one of my Flemish partners will join our household. He is a fine young man. Maybe almost fine enough for you. He will live with us in Worms. He is called Hugh.”

“What more changes can there be, Father?”

“I don't know. But I am sure that you will have the strength for anything. They say my great-great-grandmother had Viking blood. I think you may be the proof.”

“Do you insult or compliment me, Father? ”

“What do you think? ” asked Gunther, kissing his daughter's forehead.

As they removed their belongings and themselves from the only home that Anna had known, no one called out a farewell. Neighbors watched wordlessly as they made their way in the horse drawn wagon, with Smudge trotting alongside.

Sitting between her father and Martin, Anna opened the carved box. She lifted Leah's cup, and the summer sunlight turned the silver gold. One fall, one winter, one spring, one summer: each season had yielded to the next, and nothing was the same.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This book started with a compelling picture I discovered as I leafed through a book my son was using to write a paper on the crusades. It was a photograph of an overgrown field, scattered with ancient grave stones marked with Hebrew letters. Spires of a medieval European church pricked the sky in the background. The caption read “Jewish Cemetery at Worms- the Rhineland town where 800 Jews were massacred by the crusaders in 1096. While my son tried to figure out why so many simple European peasants answered Pope Urban's 1096 call to rescue the unimaginably distant holy lands, I wanted to learn about these Jewish people and why they were killed.

I began reading everything I could find on the First Crusade, and then on life in the middle ages. Somewhere in my reading of history, I began to imagine characters. I saw a story of lives set in this time and place. The research was hard. The eleventh century was a largely illiterate time—what is known of daily life is reconstructed from archeology and from shards of evidence and scraps of commentary. I used subtraction. I found when things were invented or came into use in Western Europe; my characters would have to do without paper, chimneys, forks, potatoes and even pockets. They probably never saw a piece of glass or a mirror. I accumulated historic details, recipes, folk tales, and superstitions. I sifted through discrepancies differing chronologies of the massacres in Speyer, Worms and Mainz, the many versions of the lives of early saints. I read about Jewish life in medieval Europe. Since Roman times, there had been sizable Jewish settlements in the cities and larger towns along the Rhine River. These Jews remained outsiders by choice and by local custom and prejudice. As mistrusted resident strangers in these German cities of the Holy Roman Empire, the Jews maintained their own widespread communities that were not based on geography but on family, culture, and tradition. Because of their relationships with nearby and distant Jewish communities, much of the trade in exotic and valuable commodities—spices, furs, precious jewels was in the hands of Jewish merchants who prospered. The Jews of early Europe used a common language drawn from dialects of all the lands where Jews had settled: French, German, Italian, Aramaic and Hebrew. This language would become the basis for modern Yiddish.

Mostly I imagined Anna and Martin, Leah and Lukas. I tried to give them medieval outlooks, but more than anything, I tried to make them real so that you, my reader, might befriend these characters who have rattled around in this humble writer's head. Will you share Anna's disgust as she skins an eel? Can you smell Martin's feet? Will you be moved when Leah speaks her name? I hope so. Do you think anyone in the German spring of 1096 was as strong as Leah or as brave and kind as Anna? I like to think so.

HISTORICAL NOTE

In 1096, there were German people but no country known as Germany. There were soldiers of Christ and a Holy War, but no one had ever heard of a Crusader or of the Crusades. Much of Europe was forested, and life was spare and often harsh in the villages along the waterways where people gathered in walled settlements. Everything and everyone was tied to the land, and time was marked by events and measured in seasons. Paper, cotton, chimneys, forks, potatoes, and even pockets were unknown. Glass was rarely seen, and no one had a mirror.

A time of relative peace followed the first millennium. The Barbarians and the Vikings had ceased to invade. Agricultural advances led to higher yields, even surpluses, and so, trade and roads improved. Towns became cities, and feudal society began to reorder. In many cities along the Rhine, one group held itself separate from the Germans. Sizable Jewish settlements existed in all the major cities. Many traced their arrival to Roman times, and during the intervening centuries, they had remained a rare and valuable link to other parts of the continent and even to the rest of the ancient world, with extensive trading networks.

For the most part, in these early medieval years, the Jews were acknowledged but mistrusted as outsiders in Christian Europe. On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II invited all Christians to join him in a war to capture the holy sites in Jerusalem, and in their frenzy to rescue the Holy Land from “infidels,” the German Crusaders decimated the local Jewish population along the Rhine in the late spring of 1096. Eight hundred innocent lives were lost in three days in Worms.

GLOSSARY

alewife
: Woman who brewed ale or cider for sale. Her home often became a gathering place (an alehouse). 

apprentice
: Young boy (occasionally a girl) who lived with the craftsman's or master's family while learning his art or trade. An apprenticeship often began around the age of nine and usually lasted at least seven years. 

blacksmith or smith
: Craftsman who used iron to make horseshoes, nails, cooking pots, ax heads, plows, and tools of all kinds. The smith also made knives, helmets, armor, arrowheads, swords and other weapons, although in later times there were armorers who specialized in high-end gear. 

borage
: An early growing herb or salad green. Thought to be an antidote for grouchiness. 

bunting
: starling Small, plump, wild birds that were popular to roast and eat.

 
Candlemas
: February 2. Holiday to celebrate the beginning of the end of deepest winter. Candles were blessed in a church ceremony.

capon
: Castrated rooster. Surplus male chicks were fixed, to make them more tender before being fattened for cooking. (Hens lay eggs and so were less likely to end up in a cooking pot.) 

cardamom
: An aromatic and very costly spice from India. Seeds are usually crushed into powder, often used with cinnamon and clove. Popular in pickling and spice cookies. 

chancel
: The part of the church nearest the altar. (See also nave. ) 

changeling
: A child or infant, supposedly a fairy, who is substituted for another in secret. A common theme in folklore. 

censer
: A vessel in which incense or fragrant wood is burned during a religious ceremony. The vessel is usually swung to diffuse or spread its fragrant smoke.

 
Crusades
: Armed expeditions taken by European Christians to capture the Holy Lands from the Muslims. This term was not yet in use during the First Crusade in 1096.

 
Ember Days
: Period when the church days of fasting, normally Friday, was expanded to include Wednesday and Saturday as well. No meat or dairy was allowed during this period.

 
Easter
: A moveable date, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Held on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox (first day of spring). Preceded by 40 days of Lent during which no meat or dairy products could be consumed, and everyone was restricted to one meal each day.