Chapter Forty-nine

 

 

A Frozen Discovery

 

 

Brother Handel was a superior winter logistician, and prior to moving his Saxon train into the Alps, he had made meticulous preparations for the crossing. Unlike the open wagons Tristan and Guillaume had employed in the warmer weather, Handel’s wagons were covered, insulated, and outfitted with tiny pot-bellied, vented coal stoves for the troops’ sleeping comfort at night. Certain wagons were also allocated to carry ample supplies of food, coal, and animal feed. In addition, each wagon was drawn by four large draft horses outfitted with crescent-shaped, cast-bronze horseshoes nailed to their hooves, the bottoms of which were studded for traction on ice. Handel also insisted that every man traveling with him be warmly clothed in heavy woolen winter garb, headgear, and gloves.

Moving south from Germany, he eventually intersected with the Via Francigena and took its path toward Tuscany. And though the weather was brutal, he carefully monitored the movement of the train and saw to it that both the men and the animals maintained a reasonable but not overly arduous pace.

As he led his caravan over a particularly high pass, he brought the train to a halt.

“What’s that blocking the road up ahead at the top of the pass there?” he said to his lead teamster.

“Dunno,” the teamster said, tightening the brake of his wagon then jumping down to chock his wheels. “Let’s go see.”

Handel tied his horse to the wagon and stepped ahead to inspect the blockage. “What the hell! It’s a little wagon of some sort, stuck in the ice,” he said. “And look at those two little ponies, frozen stiff.” Then, moving to the back of the wagon, he pulled the ice hatchet from his belt and began hacking at the ice blocking the rear door.

“Hey, give me a hand,” he called to the teamster, “damn thing’s frozen shut.”

After some effort the two men managed to pry the door free and the teamster then peered into the wagon. “Damn!” he whistled, quickly pulling his head back and looking at Handel. “Dead folks, must’ve got stranded up here and froze to death.”

“What? Here, let me take a look,” Handel said, lifting himself into the wagon. Then he saw the dead baby lying upon the woman’s belly. He quickly made the sign of the cross and muttered a short prayer. “Mercy of Heaven, a baby, two women and a man,” he whispered to himself, “what the hell were they thinking trying to cross the Alps in this rickety thing?”

As the words left his mouth, the blanket moved slightly and an icy hand touched his. One would think that Handel, because of the pervasive danger he endured as a hardened member of the Benedictine underground was fearless, but he was so startled by this unexpected, ghostly touch that he cried out in horror, thinking momentarily that one of the corpses was rising from the dead. Looking down upon the pallid face of the young woman before him, her eyes slowly open, and he realized that she was not dead after all, was merely trying to draw breath.

“She’s alive!” he cried to the teamster, drawing her frozen hands into his in an effort to warm them. “Quick, get some sheepskins!” Then from behind him he heard another sigh. Turning, he caught sight of the old woman’s ice-crusted eyelids slowly cracking open. “Another one’s alive in here, too!” he cried. “Hurry!”

The teamster soon returned with an armload of furry sheepskin blankets and crawled up into the wagon. Mimicing what Handel was doing to warm the young woman, he reached for the baby and desperately began working on it until Handel shoved his hands away.

“The infant’s dead!” Handel shouted, pointing at Duxia. “Tend to the old woman!”

After several minutes of rubbing the hands and faces of the two women, they buried them beneath the heavy sheepskins and Handel had the other men move them into the lead wagon and instructed them to fire up the coal stove. Half an hour later the two women began, by degrees, to show signs of recovery even though both still shivered and quaked beneath the sheepskins despite the warmth emanating from the stove. In their eyes Handel recognized that silent gaze of profound gratitude displayed by those who have been miraculously rescued from death but are yet too weak to speak.

“Heaven has spared you,” he said, looking down at both of them, “so God must have a purpose for you yet.”