With the additional weight of Hoos, Theresa was forced to walk. Althar urged on the mount, using the whip as readily as he uttered oaths. He forbade Theresa from holding on to the cart because, he said, it couldn’t bear the weight. And he made Theresa push with all her might whenever they had to climb a slope.
Most of the time Althar drove alongside and in pace with Theresa. She confessed that the traps she had spoken of actually belonged to Hoos Larsson, but this fact did not seem to bother him. They kept moving, stopping only when they had to readjust the repaired wheel. When they reached the gully, the traps were still next to the horse’s carcass, nearly licked clean by the pack of obstinate wolves.
As Althar retrieved the equipment, she attended to Hoos. The old man had said that Hoos had several broken ribs and that they might have pierced his lungs, which is why he laid him face up on some bundles of fur.
He was still breathing weakly. After moistening his face, she wondered what had made Hoos deviate from his planned route. She thought he might have followed her to reclaim the dagger, which she suddenly became aware of again under her skirt where she had concealed it. She continued to clean Hoos until Althar returned, laden with equipment.
“There was more than you promised,” he announced with a smile. “Now let’s see how we’re going to carry it.”
“You’re not intending to leave him.”
“Don’t you worry, lass. If it’s true that these valuable things are this man’s possessions, I’ll do everything in my power to save him.”
After some food, they continued their journey headed toward the mountains and Althar spoke of the past. Years ago he said he had lived in Fulda, working like the rest of its inhabitants in the service of the abbey. He and his wife, Leonora, managed to rent a plot, where they built a nice cabin. In the morning they would work the land, and in the afternoon they would move onto the abbey’s fields to pay their corvées. That tenure gave them enough to buy a small piece of land, not much, around forty unplowed arpents, but enough to grow their own crops. He explained that they didn’t have children. The Lord’s punishment, he reasoned, for the little faith he professed. Like most simple folks he learned several trades without mastering any. He was skilled with the axe and the adze. He built his own furniture, and in autumn, with his wife’s help, he repaired the roof.
The years went by and he thought he would spend the rest of his days in Fulda, but then one autumn night a man raided his smallholding and tried to steal his only ox. He took an axe and without saying a word sunk it into his head. The thief turned out to be the abbot’s son, a wild young man who was a slave to wine. After the burial, they came to his house, seized him and took him to trial. His statement was worthless, for twelve men swore that the young man had jumped over the fence looking only for a little water. Althar couldn’t prove that they were lying. They took everything he had and condemned him to exile.
“The sentence made Leonora sick with melancholy,” he continued. “Fortunately, her sisters offered to look after her while I waited for her to join me in the mountains. A couple of neighbors who knew me well also helped me. Rudolph gave me an old adze, and Vicus lent me some traps, provided I return them along with any furs I could collect. I found refuge in the south, in the Rh?n foothills,” he said, pointing at a nearby mountain, “in an abandoned bear cave. I closed up the entrance, made it as homely as possible and spent the winter trapping.
When I went back for Leonora, I learned that some of the bastards who had wrongly accused me had confessed to their false testimony, but by then they had already sowed my land with salt. Even then, the abbot refused to sell me seeds or rent new land to me, and he we went so far as to threaten anyone who helped me with the same treatment. That was when Leonora and I decided to move to the bear cave and live alone there forever.”
“And you haven’t been back to Fulda since then?” Theresa probed.
“Of course I have. Where else would I sell my furs? The abbot died not long afterward,” he said with a smile. “He exploded like a cockroach. The one who succeeded him forgot about the threats, but nothing would be the same again. I travel to Fulda frequently to trade honey for salt—or when I need it, tallow, which is nowhere to be found round here. Leonora used to come with me, but her feet are in a bad state now and she seems to struggle with everything.”
At sundown they left the green of the forest behind them and the land grew rugged. Trees became scarce and the wind grew fierce.
It was nightfall by the time they approached the bear cave, an area so stony that Theresa was surprised the two wheels of the cart remained intact. Althar told her to hold Hoos tightly, but despite her efforts, all the jolting made the young man moan for the first time.
At the foot of a great wall of granite, Althar stopped the cart and gave a couple of whoops as he clambered down. “You can come out, my dear,” he said, whistling a silly tune. “We have company.”
A plump face appeared among some bushes. It let out a funny little cry and intoned the same melody. A large, squat body moving with surprising swagger followed the woman’s contagious smile.
“What has my prince brought for me?” asked Althar’s wife, running into her husband’s arms. “Jewelry or some perfume from the Orient?”
“Here are your jewels,” he joked, pressing his crotch against the woman’s stomach and making her laugh wildly.
“And these two?” she asked motioning behind him.
“Well,” Althar murmured, raising an eyebrow. “I mistook him for a deer, and she fell in love with my flowing locks.”
“I see.” She laughed. “In that case, come in and we’ll talk inside. It’s getting cold as hell out here.”
They left the goods outside, then took Hoos into the bear cave and lay him on a bed of furs. Theresa noticed that they had made a hole in the ceiling to serve as a chimney and around it they had set up a cooking area. A roaring fire kept the cave warm. Leonora offered them some apple cake, which they accepted with pleasure. There was hardly any furniture, but even so, Theresa felt like she was in a palace.
As they ate their dinner, Althar explained that they had another cave that they used for storage, and a cabin where they went when the weather improved. When they had finished, Theresa helped Leonora clear the table. Then she turned to Hoos to wrap him in more furs.
“You’ll sleep here,” Leonora indicated. She kicked aside a goat and cuffed away some hens. “And don’t worry about the young man. If God wanted to, He would have taken him already.”
Theresa nodded. When she lay down to sleep, she wondered again if Hoos had really followed her to retrieve his dagger.