The cobbled streets of Leyden ran with rainwater, and Pieter-Lucas arrived at the house of Jakob de Wever drenched and weary. In no time the weaver’s vrouw, Magdalena, had dried him off and found him a seat beside a roaring fire. An assortment of children played in the corners of the big room, and the long table in the center held several adults engaged in spirited conversations.
“You should have come yesterday when the sun was shining,” the jolly woman said, placing a cup of steaming broth in his big chilled hands.
Pieter-Lucas blew ripples across the broth and sipped at it. “I would have been here several days ago, except that Prince Willem and his brother Jan have kept me running around with their messages.”
Jakob had come from his loom to stand beside his latest guest. Balding in the front, his graying hair stuck out in unruly little tufts beneath a tight-fitting cap. The slight-framed man laid a hand on Pieter-Lucas’ shoulder and asked, “And what is the cause for such urgency?”
He sighed and questioned for the hundredth time just how he ought to begin. Whatever else he’d done since he left Dillenburg four days ago, it seemed as if his mind had done nothing but rehearse this moment. Swallowing down a soothing draught of broth, he blurted out the question, “How soon do you look for Dirck and the others to move their printery here from Engeland?”
Jakob winced and pulled up a three-legged stool beside him. “Ja! I wish I could have talked them into waiting till all the troubles were resolved here. They assured me I had no idea how bad things were getting in Engeland and said they were coming directly. But”—he threw his hands heavenward and shrugged—“no one can know how long that will be. ‘Directly’ means one thing from here to Delft, or even to Dillenburg, and quite another from Engeland, especially in these times.”
“There is a place awaiting them when they come?” Pieter-Lucas went on.
“Ja! A family in our flock owns a small warehouse with an upper story. It’s just around the corner from here, and they’ve agreed to make it available.”
“For living as well as setting up the printery?”
Jakob nodded. “For both.” He paused and shook his head. “It’s not very large, but may God himself be praised! If this is His doing, we must consider it marvelous in our eyes and give thanks for small provisions.”
“I see,” Pieter-Lucas answered simply and went back to sipping his broth.
“Dirck Engelshofen is your vader-in-law—is that not it?”
Pieter-Lucas smiled and nodded. “To tell the truth, my concern goes beyond him to his daughter, my vrouw, and our children.”
Jakob started! “Oh ja?”
Pieter-Lucas turned the warm cup around in his hands and tapped the rim with his right index finger. “The story is long.”
“All stories are long,” Jakob interrupted. Then, thumping Pieter-Lucas on the chest, he added, “As you know, among the Children of God everyone has a story ten leagues long, and we close the door to them and go on. I ask no questions about your past, you ask none about mine.”
“So I am learning.”
“That way, when our enemies arrest us and put us on the rack to wring information from us about our brethren, we have less to give. ’Tis impossible to squeeze blood from a turnip, you know.”
Pieter-Lucas shuddered. All through this war, he’d met people who suffered for what they knew and would not tell, and once they got away, they spent their days running for their lives. “Let me just say this much,” he concluded pensively. “The time has come that I must remove my vrouw from the prince’s kasteel in Dillenburg. She has a newborn, and we will not have the child baptized as a Lutheran.”
“You and your vrouw are both Children of God, then?” He stared at Pieter-Lucas with penetrating eyes.
Pieter-Lucas gasped inwardly and struggled with his answer. Thanks to the war and Prince Willem’s demands, neither of them had yet been baptized. He could not tell the man his long story. He could simply say, “Ja!” But was it true? When did a man truly become a Child of God—at the moment he accepted their creeds and trusted their Christ, or must he first be baptized?
Carefully he worded his answer. “We have been a part of the fellowship of the Children of God for several years now, and ja, we hold to the doctrines, the Christ—and the baptism.” It had been a long time since anyone had asked him for such a statement of his faith. Every part of his body trembled and felt warmed all at once.
Jakob shook his head and wagged a finger. “You need say no more. How soon can you bring her here?”
Pieter-Lucas gulped, nearly choking on the broth in his mouth. In spite of all he’d said about finding a way, somehow the whole idea had remained only a dream. He and Aletta owned the dream and held it tightly. Jakob did not question the wisdom of the move but only asked, “How soon?” Could it really become more than a dream?
“I…I don’t know just how long it will take,” Pieter-Lucas stammered. “In fact, I still question how safe it is. Alva’s men are threatening Alkmaar. Surely Leyden will be next….” His head was spinning and his heart beating madly.
Jakob scooted his stool toward Pieter-Lucas, leaned close to him, and said urgently, barely above a whisper, “To be a Child of God means to live in constant danger. We may find refuge from it for a time, but never for long. We learn to trust in God with all our hearts and help each other along the thorny, muddy, robber-infested ways that we cannot avoid.”
Pieter-Lucas watched the man sit erect, straighten his clothes, and look heavenward with eyes closed as if praying for wisdom. Then suddenly he looked directly at him and said, “Young man, bring her here as quickly as you can!”
“But your house is always filled, and the warehouse is small even for Dirck and his family.”
“That means nothing. Our flock exists to help one another. We have many corners in this house and friends who help us with the overflow.”
“Most gracious of you!” So much he offered! And so speedily!
“’Tis just your wife and the newborn?”
Pieter-Lucas’ head still swam and he heard himself as from a distance answering, “We also have a boy, four years old, and a refugee nursemaid who has attached herself to us.”
Jakob was counting fingers and muttering to himself. At last he looked up and announced, “Very well. The sooner you bring them here the better for all involved.”
Pieter-Lucas lifted a hand. “One more thing, Heer de Wever. My vrouw is a skillful herbal healer. Is there such a woman in the flock here with a garden of herbs? Or perhaps a place where my Aletta might plant such a garden?”
The man beckoned to his wife from the other side of the room where she looked after the children and called out, “Vrouw, come here! This man has a question which only you can answer.”
Her long skirts rustled through the floor rushes, and she stood soon before them. Pieter-Lucas repeated his question. Her eyes grew vibrant. “Praise be to God in the Heaven! We have a couple of women in our group who have dabbled in the herbal arts and will be overjoyed to be joined by a kindred spirit who has had experience—and has learned from the famed Julianas, you say?” She clasped her hands excitedly.
“There is no garden, then?” Pieter-Lucas asked, his heart sinking a bit.
“There are several. In the Beguinage, of course, and with the other orders of nuns about the city. The best garden of all is outside the city, beyond the Zyl Poort.”
“Near to The Clever Fox Inn?” Pieter-Lucas asked, his heart skipping a beat.
“Just this side of it, on the west side of the Zyl,” she said, nodding. “Two solitary nuns—some call them hermits—have a shrine out in the fields. I’ve heard it said that they know everything there is to know about herbs and healing. Of course, they are papists….”
“Herbal healing is a gift from God,” Pieter-Lucas said.
“Ja!” Magdalena stared at him briefly, then wiped her hands on her apron. “Now, can I give you another cup of broth?”
“Nay, thank you!” Pieter-Lucas offered her the empty cup. “I must be on my way as quickly as possible to Alkmaar with more messages. I fear disaster awaits us there soon. I shall be so glad when this awful revolt is ended, and I can stop chasing after men who live by their swords.”
Jakob stroked his trim beard. “I would ask how you fell into your position, but that’s a part of your long story, right?” He grinned.
Pieter-Lucas laughed. “Indeed! I will say this much, though. If I ever had doubts about my vows of nonviolence before I was dragged into this messenger duty, they lie forever buried in the blood-soaked soils and waterways of these Low Lands.”
Jakob leaned his hands on his thighs and looked at Pieter-Lucas with question marks in his eyes. “Tell me, when Prince Willem has won the land back from Spain, think you that it will be worth all the bloodshed?”
“On the day when we meet in our own building and call our people to worship with our own bells—ask me that question again!” Pieter-Lucas shook his head as he stood, pulled on his heavy cape, and stepped out again into the rain.
****
Joris shuffled through the rushes of an empty dining hall between neatly ordered tables and benches. He pulled the towel from his waist, wiping away crumbs that didn’t exist and straightening baskets and pitchers and salt cellars that already stood in readiness for guests.
“Too quiet!” he sputtered.
“At least you didn’t have to drag a bunch of drunken Beggars out from under the tables tonight,” Hiltje said from the doorway, “or clean up the foul vomit they left behind.”
He dropped onto the end of a bench. “And how many of these quiet nights think you our purse is ready to endure?”
“Only one at a time,” she said. “It’s all life gives us.” She laughed a rich warm laugh.
Startled, he turned and looked up. It was the same laugh he’d heard the first time he ever saw her. In this very room it was. In the undulating candlelight, with an amused smile on her face, she looked a lot the same tonight too. He chuckled in spite of himself.
“Remember the first time you laughed at me from that doorway?” he asked.
Coming toward him, she answered, “Ja, you were sitting in the middle of that bench right there.” She pointed at a spot beside the next table. “You told a joke and it was so funny I had to laugh.”
As she sat beside him, he patted her leg and mused, “You were a shy little innkeeper’s daughter then.”
“I thought you were the best-looking traveling merchant I’d ever seen. But when you looked at me, I was so frightened I ran back into the kitchen.”
“Oh ja?” Joris laughed. “I only recall how you always managed to be in a corner somewhere whenever I was around. Anyway, if you hadn’t, I would have rooted around till I found you.”
She shook her head and laughed again. “You really hooked my heart, Joris. Guess that’s why I can still put up with all your sputtering when you’ve got too much business and your grousing when you don’t have enough.”
“Ach, Vrouw! You always make it worse than it is,” he protested. Then eager to change the subject, he asked, “Where’s Christoffel?”
“In the studio.”
Joris nodded. “Good place for him. I don’t understand what’s happening to that boy—always hanging around those Beggars, running off whenever he feels like it, painting a hundred pictures of the same beggar ship. And do you know, the whole time Dirck, the weaver’s friend, and his son were here, I never could persuade him to say one decent word to either of them? Where’d he learn that kind of rudeness?”
Hiltje clasped her fingers together and stretched her arms out before her. “So long as that sour old Beggar, Oude Man, is his hero, you shouldn’t need to ask.”
“Ja, ja, I know.” He shivered at the thought of the dark pointed beard and the glint of vengeance always shining in the man’s eyes.
Hiltje sighed, raised her hands and eyebrows, and added, “Anybody could learn rudeness from him without half trying.”
Joris drew little circles in the rushes with his toe. He knew she was right. Maybe she was also right when she’d said he shouldn’t let those unsavory image breakers stay here anymore. But…he looked around at the empty tables and benches and scratched his head. What’s a man to do?
“At least,” Hiltje said, jostling his shoulder, “he’s not a priest—nor likely to become one.”
Joris grunted. That was one subject he wouldn’t discuss with her. While they’d still lived in Brussels, Christoffel had a friend whose parents dedicated him to the priesthood. When the boys were six years old, Christoffel announced that he, too, was going to become a priest. That was too much!
True, they were Christians in this household. At least, that’s the way it had to be. Which was why he’d insisted on naming the boy Christoffel, “Christ bearer.” For his own part, Joris had grown up learning that being a Christian was the only way to keep his Jewish head attached to his shoulders. His parents both came from Spain, where to let anyone suspect you of being a hated Jew was an act of instant suicide. In fact, he knew there were people in Brussels who would have taken his head gladly had they known that he was in fact a Jew. He suspected the same was true here in Leyden as well. Only reason you didn’t hear about it was that very likely he, Joris, was the only Jew living anywhere near. Only he knew it—even Hiltje hadn’t a clue—and he intended to keep it that way!
Ja, it was smart to want Christoffel to act like a devout Christian. But to become a priest? He couldn’t let him carry it that far. Surely his ancestors would rise up out of their graves and do something unthinkable to them all. So, in a hurry, he had begun taking the boy to Meester Pieter Bruegel’s studio with him, and it worked. Got him distracted by the painting, and he never did talk about the priesthood again. At least so far the Beggar hadn’t inspired him to give up his charcoals and paints. Amazing, given the way Beggars hated paintings and bragged about slicing them to shreds—in front of Christoffel, no less!
Hiltje looked sidewise at him, nudged him with her shoulder, and added, “Besides, your son’s a painter!” Without warning, she hugged him around the neck and planted a quick but vigorous kiss on his cheek.
“Hiltje, stop laughing at our God-given talent,” he said, gently prying her arms off him. “Our son gives promise of big things and—”
“I know, I know,” she interrupted with exasperation. “One day he’ll make us very proud! You’ve told me enough times, I probably keep you awake mumbling it in my sleep.”
With an excited wag of the finger, Joris went on. “But the whole world doesn’t know it yet, and if he doesn’t get an artist for a hero pretty fast, they never will!”
“Then maybe it’s time you find him another Bruegel.”
“Like there’s another Bruegel this side of Heaven!” He threw up his arms. It did no good to try to talk with this woman about important things—no good at all!
Joris stared at the floor for a moment. Then clapping his hands on his thighs, he pushed himself up off the bench and announced, “I think I’ll go out and join the boy.”
“So you’re his Bruegel, eh?” she said, laughing again.
Joris waved a hand above his nodding head and started for the kitchen. He was halfway there when a loud knocking came on the outside door. Joris straightened his towel and apron and hurried across the room. With a candle Hiltje followed close behind, sputtering, “What decent traveler would come at this hour?”
“A tired one,” he mumbled back.
When Joris opened the upper half of the split door, he found a young clean-shaven man, with horse in tow. His curly hair was askew and a worried expression furrowed his face. “Can you give me a cup of soup and a room for a couple of hours?”
Joris chuckled. “When I give a man a bed, I let him keep it for a whole night.”
“I don’t have all night. Just can’t go any farther without food or sleep.”
“You’ll need a stable for your horse,” Joris said, opening the bottom door and stepping out into the night. “Here, I’ll take him around. My vrouw in there will give you some victuals, and I’ll show you to your room.”
The young man disappeared into the inn, and Joris led his horse to the stables. “Pretty hot and sweaty,” he mumbled to the horse. “You’ve been riding hard. I’ll send my son out to give you straw and a blanket.”
He called Christoffel from the studio and hurried back into the dining hall where the guest sat hunched over his bowl, slurping up the hot soup and devouring chunks of black bread. Joris hovered near him, fussing over the table appointments.
“Haven’t eaten all day, have you?” he asked.
The young man gulped down a mouthful of bread and answered, “No time. It’s war out there, you know.”
Joris stiffened and cleared his throat officiously. “What’s the latest?”
“Don Frederic—Alva’s son, you know…”
Joris nodded. “What did he do now?”
“He invested the city of Alkmaar with the siege they’ve been threatening.”
“Haarlem all over again?”
The man nodded. “’Tis!”
Joris sighed. “Ach! Alkmaar’s the last city between us and the North Sea! Alva’s got all the rest. Is Leyden next?”
“Probably,” the man said while Hiltje refilled his bowl and tankard. “When Leyden’s magistrates heard the news, they hurried out and began spreading the word to all the residents outside the city to prepare to destroy their buildings now!”
“What?” Joris exploded.
“Can’t be!” Hiltje added, resting both hands on a pitcher of beer.
Weeks ago, back before Haarlem fell, rumors swirled about every street corner that Willem was ordering that very thing. Evidently at that time the magistrates thought it was as ridiculous as the residents did, because they hadn’t insisted, and nothing had been done.
“It’s the only sensible way,” the guest explained. “Any building around the city is an open invitation to Spanish soldiers to hide out. Gradually they’ll take one after another until they’ve strangled the city.”
“What of all the farmers and their crops?” Joris asked.
“What’s ready will surely be harvested and stored in the city,” the young man offered. “Who knows about the rest?”
“Without food, how’ll the city survive?” Hiltje wailed.
The visitor had just put the last of his soup and bread in his mouth. He looked up, startled, and almost choked. With a faraway look in his eyes, he ventured, “That’s what the Spaniards are counting on.”
Then drinking down the last of his beer, the young man wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stared hard toward the innkeeper, his gaze still detached. “How far away toward the city is the nun’s shrine and herb garden?”
Joris and his vrouw glanced sidewise at each other and frowned.
“Why do you ask?” Joris demanded.
“Just wondered if they’d be affected too.”
Joris breathed deeply and answered, “They are about halfway to the Rhine and back off the trekpath a piece. Probably not the first to go—nor the last.”
“And The Clever Fox Inn?”
“They won’t come for us—not this far out.”
“I also understand there’s an artist lives out here somewhere with his son. The boy draws the most marvelous beggar ships I’ve ever seen. Will they be affected as well?”
Joris felt his legs grow weak. Who was this man and what did he know about Christoffel’s drawings? What sort of trap was he setting for him? He gave his vrouw a questioning look, then shrugged and shook his head.
“Whoever pointed you in this direction was probably trying to mislead you. You know how people are, especially in these crazy times!” Joris managed a chuckle. Then promptly, before the young man could come up with more questions, Joris stood up and said, “I think you told us you were in a hurry for a bed.”
“Indeed I am,” the young man said. He pushed back from the table and rose to his feet. “With that fine warm soup in my belly, I am more than ready.”
Joris led him up the stairs and to his room, the whole time muttering, “Thank God we live so far out! At least we’ll be safe. But the rest? Ach! Ach! God have mercy!” Mustn’t give this guest a chance to ask more questions. What did he really want? Was he indeed a messenger for the revolt? Or a hole-peeper? If so, for which side?
****
At the end of the ten o’clock meal in the kasteel eating hall, Aletta gathered up her two children and headed for the door. The baby was crying for food, and little Lucas, distracted by a group of noble schoolboys, had to be held by the hand and forcefully urged along. Outside, a gusty wind swirled leaves and layers of skirt around her feet while one phrase from Count Jan’s Bible reading swirled through her mind. “God is our refuge and strength, greatly available to help in tight places…a strong tower is the God of Jacob!”
If only she had her vader’s Bible so she could reread the whole psalm! As Count Jan had read, she felt it pouring over her wounded soul like the oil of olives mixed with soothing powdered chamomile that she continually massaged into Kaatje’s foot.
Little Lucas tugged at her hand and pointed toward the twin towers that loomed at the far edge of the cluster of kasteel buildings. “Moeke,” he asked in plaintive voice, “which one of the towers is God?”
Aletta started. “God is not a tower built of stones, jongen.”
“The man said so.”
Aletta smiled. How could she explain it to a four-year-old? Letting go of the boy and rearranging the baby in her arms, she answered, “We don’t know what God looks like because nobody has ever seen Him with their eyes.”
Lucas stared up at the towers, his nose screwed up and his eyes squinting in the bright light of the sky. “Then why did he call Him a tower?”
“A tower is strong, Lucas,” Aletta began, “a good place to hide when somebody is chasing after you with arrows and spears.” She knew he’d seen such weapons carried by the men who guarded the place and soldiers who arrived occasionally. More than once they’d had a conversation about what weapons were for.
“Oh!” He nodded, then looked up at her. “Is God that strong?”
“Even stronger, jongen!”
Lucas stopped and stared in wonder at the towers beyond him.
Grabbing him by the hand once more, Aletta prodded, “Now, come on, let’s hurry home. Kaatje needs her meal too.” She pulled him along, while he insisted on looking back at the towers and dragging his feet across the cobblestones. Deep in her heart, she cried out, “God, just how strong are you? I need a tower right now.”
She had nearly reached the door to her apartment when she heard a voice calling her name and looked up to see the younger Countess Juliana following. “When you have fed the child, can you bring her to me in the apothecary? I must show you what my inquiries have produced.”
Aletta’s heart thumped wildly. Giving Kaatje an impulsive squeeze, she answered, “Ah, Countess Juliana! Ja, we come shortly.”
Moments later Aletta sat nursing her baby, all the while rubbing the foot with herbed oil. Had the countess found a hidden cure in the pages of her big books with the leaves and vines and flowers engraved into their heavy dark leather covers? Lucas hovered nearby, leaning on her knee.
“Moeke,” he asked at last, “why do you rub Kaatje’s foot so much?”
Great God, must he know what is going on? So young he is, and with such a tender heart. How often before the child was born Aletta had taken him with her to visit the sick of the village of Dillenburg. Always he watched her carefully as she applied salves, bound up wounds, and gave elixirs. At times she watched his little face grow cloudy when one of her patients was in pain. Over and over he would ask, “Will God make them well?”
Now while she hesitated, he jostled her arm and added, “Is it a sick foot and you’re trying to make it well?”
Aletta smiled gently down on her son and whispered, “Ja, jongen, I fear it is.”
“What’s wrong with it?” His eyes were big and round and filled with a mixture of wonder and fear.
“It doesn’t move up and down like yours does.”
She watched through a thin veil of mist as the boy promptly sat on the floor. Taking one foot in his hand, he moved it back and forth and all around. He repeated the process with the other foot, then looked up with a questioning frown on his brow, and asked, “How will she walk?”
Choking back a flood of tears, Aletta said, “On her toes, I expect, at least with the foot that is not well.”
Jumping up, grabbing her arm with both hands and leaning hard against her leg, Lucas looked straight into her eyes and asked, “If God’s so strong, can’t He make Kaatje’s foot well?”
She took the baby from her breast and laid her on her shoulder. As she patted Kaatje’s back, she nodded toward her son and said simply, “Ja, jongen, God is strong enough to do anything He decides. That’s why He gives us herbs that grow in the garden and people like the countesses who know which herbs to use to heal which sicknesses.”
“Then the countess will give you something for her?”
“She will try. For now, you go play while Moeke changes the baby’s diapers.” So easy to dismiss the child and so quickly his mood changed as he stacked his blocks of wood and shouted victor’s shouts when they tumbled. But what when he would ask her again about Kaatje’s foot? How could she tell him that there was more to this than God being strong enough?
Worse yet, what could she tell her own fragile heart? Why were some children born with defects that even God did not cure?
She stared hard into the peaceful face of her infant daughter, now drifting off into a satisfied, worry-free slumber. “Be not so doleful, young moeder,” she chided herself.
“Surely you shall not need to answer such questions again,” she muttered under her breath. “Not ever again!”
****
Next to the herb garden at the foot of the hill, no place held more delights for Aletta than the apothecary of the Julianas. Larger by a lot than Oma Roza’s herbal closet in her one-room house on the harbor in Emden, its wonders were of the same sort. Rows of shelves, drawers, and bins lined the walls, laden with boxes, bottles, jars, and baskets with every imaginable sort of powders, ointments, elixirs, crushed leaves, and blossoms. Fragrances mingled in the air, teasing the nostrils and sending the herbal healer into a frenzy of passion to linger here sniffing, mixing, packing. From the rafters hung huge bunches of drying herbs that rustled in the breeze every time the door was opened or one of the herbalists swept through the room.
Aletta crept over the threshold and found the countess seated at a table amidst piles of books. A young noblewoman, barely older than Aletta, with plump cheeks and upturned mouth, greeted her herbal assistant with what Aletta perceived as a bit more reserve than she was accustomed to. She indicated a seat at the table. Aletta sat quietly and clung to the child now sleeping in her arms.
“Have the sinews in that foot withdrawn any since last I examined it?” the countess asked.
“Not that I can perceive.”
“You have continued to massage it daily, using all the various balms and ointments we have suggested?”
“Indeed! Some days it seems I do nothing else, and my apartment is redolent with their strong aromas.”
“Can we disturb the sleeping lambkin that I might look once more at the foot?” Juliana stood and leaned over the child. She smiled with that special delight of the sort reserved for the admiration of infants. Aletta laid her on the table and unwrapped her foot.
“Truly a beautiful child!” Countess Juliana exclaimed with awe.
She lifted the foot with long fingers, then turned it and flexed it and carefully examined the heel joint. She compared it with the other foot, felt along the muscles of the entire leg, then wrapped it again with the blanket.
“My moeder and I have searched the books through and through,” Juliana said. “We have found ideas and supposed cures.”
“Anything we have not yet tried?” Aletta tried to mask her eagerness.
“Only the recipe for laserwort root, pounded with a little pepper and myrrh.”
“Where shall we ever find laserwort? It grows not in these cold northern climes.”
“I know. Quite honestly I must say, though, that I have my strong doubts about its efficaciousness. I did find one more item, small and tucked away in a book from Engeland—another idea from Dioscordes. He makes great claims for the drinking of the seeds of the ladies thistle as a ‘remedie for infants that have the sinews drawne together.’”
“Oh?” Aletta felt a leaping of hope within.
“Again, I have not too much confidence therein. We might attempt it. Ladies thistle seeds we do have in supply, and more will be forthcoming in a few months.” She pulled a walnut-sized pewter box from behind a pile of books and handed it to Aletta.
Aletta clasped it in her hand. “Thank you, gentle countess. Tell me, have you and your moeder observed many children with similar maladies?”
“A handful, perhaps. My moeder has seen more in her many years at this art.”
“Tell me truly,” Aletta pressed her, not because she wanted an answer, but because she had to know, “how many have you known to experience a cure?”
Countess Juliana sat erect and breathed deeply. At first she looked away, then back. Aletta saw in the noble face a soft compassionate look and a painful hesitancy. Quickly, before the woman could force herself to answer, Aletta spoke again.
“You have never seen such a foot cured, have you?”
Both women sat in silence for a long while. The wind whistled around the corner and rattled the single window just behind the table. It sent a cold draft along the floor over Aletta’s feet and up into her heart.
At last the countess stretched out a hand and laid it tentatively on Aletta’s arm. “In herbal healing, we never say it cannot be done. Never! Did I not hear my brother read at mealtime this day that ‘God is our refuge and strength…a strong tower!’?”
“You did. It appears I must cast all my confidence on Him in this distress. That I shall do.”
Quickly she gathered up the baby and hurried out into the windy afternoon.
****
When the last meal of the day had been served and the children were both tucked into their beds for the night, Aletta sat on the edge of her lonely bed, not wanting to climb in. She heard a rapid tapping on her door.
Mieke! What could she want this time?
“Vrouw ’Letta, I gots to talk with ye. I jus done heared somethin’ dreadful!” Mieke entered the room chattering. Her face was wreathed with lines of anxiety in the flickering light of the lamp Aletta shone on her.
“Speak softly,” Aletta whispered.
“I isn’t goin’ to waken th’ little ones, but ye gots to hear this.”
Aletta put a hand on the trembling shoulder and felt the bones. “Has it anything to do with our well-being, Mieke? You’re sure I need to hear it?”
“’Tis all ’bout ye an’ yer family, I swears to God in th’ Heaven ’tis!”
Aletta sighed. “Then I listen.”
“In th’ kitchen t’night, th’ chief cook an’ th’ others what helps her was a-askin’ me when ye an’ yer man is a-plannin’ to have th’ christenin’ fer yer Kaatje.”
Aletta’s heart quickened its pace. “What did you tell them?”
“I telled ’em they’d have to be a-askin’ ye b’cause I didn’t know anythin’ ’bout yer plan fer such a thing. Then they started in to complainin’ ’cause ye hadn’t done it when Pieter-Lucas was here last time.”
“How would we have done such a thing then, even if we wanted to? He wasn’t here long enough to plan, and I never know when he’s coming.”
“I telled ’em that much, but they said they’s been a-plannin’ it already, jus’ a-waitin’ for ye to say th’ word. So one o’ th’ cook’s helpers started whisperin’ that he was sure th’ reason ye hadn’t done it yet was b’cause ye was dopers. An’ ye knows how Lutherans hates dopers!”
Dopers! It was a common peasant word for the Children of God. Unlike the word Anabaptists, it implied outright scorn. Her fears expressed to Pieter-Lucas had not been without good reason.
“You didn’t tell them we were dopers, I hope!” Alletta’s mind whirled with dizzying pictures of angry fists and shouts and scowls.
Indignant, Mieke made an outraged face. “Only Mieke th’ street thief would o’ done that! That ye knows right well. I’se not ’bout to say a word, not even if they gits me down on th’ ground an’ pummels th’ life out o’ me!”
“I know, I know, Mieke.”
Mieke grabbed her by the arm. “Ye gots to git ye out o’ this place now b’fore they starts their tongues a-waggin’ all over th’ kasteel!”
A look of sheer terror and earnest pleading glinted in Mieke’s eyes. What could Aletta do? What could she say? Suddenly the words of the count’s Bible reading came calling through the confusion and clashing of swords in her mind.
“Mieke,” she said in as calming a manner as she could conjure up. “Listen to me and be still. ‘God is a refuge and strength, ready to help in tight places….’”
“Tight places? We’se sure ’nough in one o’ them.”
“The only place we can go from here before Pieter-Lucas comes back is right down on our knees.”
Without another word Mieke dropped to her knees, pulling Aletta with her. She laid her face in the rushes and began to mumble, “Dear Vader God in the Heaven, ye done telled us that ye’s ready to help us—here an’ now—b’cause we’se in a dreadful tight place. I hasn’t got any idea how ye can do anythin’ ’bout it, but my vrouw ’Letta done reminded me that we kin pray. So here we is on our faces like they done teached us how to do in Duisburg. I guess th’ rest is up to ye, God!”
Then nudging Aletta in the shoulder, she added, “It’s yer turn now, Vrouw ’Letta.”
How could she pray with Mieke listening in? The idea was strange and uncomfortable. For the most part in the assembly of the Children of God, except for the leaders, all prayed in silence. Yet Mieke waited, and God was surely with them, so she began, simply expressing the pain in her heart.
“Dear Vader in the Heaven, our refuge and strength and strong tower, we beg of Thee for deliverance from all our enemies and that not a hair of the children’s heads will be plucked or damaged. And if it might please Thee, bring Pieter-Lucas home to us soon. In the name of Jesus, Amen.”
Suddenly Mieke was helping her to her feet, brushing the rushes off her skirt, and directing her toward her bed. “Well, Vrouw ’Letta, I’se goin’ to my bed an’ ye best get into yers. We jus’ might be a-seein’ yer Pieter-Lucas come mornin’ light.”
Aletta smiled. “One of these mornings soon—soon enough!”