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His manner seemed to be of perpetual annoyance and pending rage, save an occasional wit that brought welcome relief.
    Frustrated by his parish status and straining for recognition, Father Pious was regarded by most as ambitious and calculating and clearly void of what virtues a true churchman might reflect. The priest’s rash temperament and his inclination toward vengeance silenced those who would be otherwise apt to judge his ways, particularly those aware of his fleshly indiscretions. It would seem his peers and superiors alike were keenly aware of their own secret failings and preferred to avoid risk of their own exposure. So the pitiful man was abandoned to endure his office without the warmth of friendship, the comfort of a colleague’s encouragement, or the maturing sting of a mentor’s loving rebuke.
    Pious finished commanding his housekeeper by thumping a hard fist on her stiffened back and bent in his first attempt to lash shoes to his feet. Karl turned a shy eye toward the man once again, unable to avoid particular notice of the huge legs and the wide bottom that stretched the man’s threadbare linen nightshirt. The lad wrinkled his nose. Man of God or nay … he is hard to look at.
    Seemingly aware of the boy’s eyes on him, Pious hastily wrapped himself in a substantial woolen blanket. Grunting, he dropped himself atop an oaken stool, positioned his thick hands squarely on his bulky knees, and leaned forward over his rotund belly to try the shoes again.
    “So, Johann Karl, speak ‘fore I box thy ears and chase you home. You’re making me defer m’morning’s prayers and neither I nor thy Father in heaven is particularly pleased.”
    Karl fumbled with his hands and nervously placed one set of dusty toes upon the other.
    “I … I … we’ve need of you,” he stammered. “Mother lies sick by fever and likely near death. Wil has taken leave to the abbey for …”
    The priest furrowed his brow, wrinkling the very top of his crown and wobbled on his stubby stool. “By what hour did Wilhelm leave to the abbey?”
    “Evening past, sire, well past compline, perhaps nearer to midnight,” answered Karl. “But he sought only aid from the herbalist and …”
    Pious leaned close to the boy. “A detachment of soldiers woke me just before you came and informed me of trouble in the abbey …”
    “Oh, Father, Wil surely had no cause for trouble.”
    Father Pious slapped his hands on his thighs and struggled to his feet. “Sit fast to this stool, boy, and say not another word. I’ll dress and together well seek out this brother of thine … and attend to thy mother.”

     
    Wil dashed and darted from tree to tree. Ahead of him broke the first light of the rising sun against the silhouette of Father Pious’s home, and behind him curled the thin ribbons of smoke from the rooftops of Oberbrechen. The boy paused behind a bush and snarled. How pleased I’d be to plunge this dagger through the fattened hide of that black-hearted pig of a priest. Oh, to feel the drag of a sharp edge through that baggy throat.
    Wil caught his breath and returned his attention to the task at hand. He sprang from his bush and raced along the cover of some wild hedge rimming the roadway. Clearing Pious’s house, he turned northeastward, proceeding from tree to tree until he found the security of a heavy stand of trees that stretched the distance to his village.
    Nearly in full prime, the manors’ valleys had begun to bustle with their summer morning routines. Carts crowded the narrow road, groaning and heaving, obediently lurching close behind their sluggish oxen. Timbermen shouldering their broadaxes and field serfs handily gripping wooden forks and scythes strode along the roadway, bound for their day’s labors with complacent resolve.
    Yet Wil thought this particular morning seemed strangely different. This day was not bearing itself in its customary ritual, nor observing its sure rhythm. Instead, Wil sensed a peculiar