Kriegsritter Johannes Braun – Imperial Knight
Copyright© 2026 by Vonalt
Chapter 9: Through Great Saint Bernard Pass
Imperial Knight Braun and his travel companions made their way along the old Roman road toward northern Italy, through the Alps, and over the St. Bernard Pass into the Holy Roman Empire. In nearly every Italian town and village where they paused for food and lodging, they were received with warmth and generous hospitality.
The only town Johannes remembered unpleasantly on the journey to Rome was the provincial town of Pavia. It was there that he had been attacked by a gang of thugs who had taken exception because they believed he was spying on them in a local tavern.
On the return journey, Johannes insisted that everyone in their party stay together. It might have seemed overly cautious, but he was unwilling to risk anyone becoming separated, ambushed, and killed.
Before turning in for the night in Pavia, Johannes shuddered to think what might have happened had Apollonia been with them. Her habit of insulting her hosts and finding fault with the local people could easily have provoked another confrontation. It was just as well that he had put her aboard the ship bound for Rome.
As on the journey south, they were unable to secure lodging in either a monastery or an inn while crossing the pass. Instead, Johannes had the party make camp among the ancient Roman ruins that stood there. The crumbling stone walls provided shelter from the wind and whatever rain or snow might fall overnight.
The following morning, their breakfast consisted of cheese, dark bread, and dried meats they had packed for just such occasions. The meal was cold, but they had remained dry through the night, and no one went hungry.
Once they had crossed the St. Bernard Pass, travel became easier, and both the countryside and the settlements grew more familiar to Johannes and his fellow knights. Johannes hoped to visit both his former lord, Count Simon, and his father. Calling at the estates in Saarbrücken and Aussen would not take them far from the established roads used by imperial officials and messengers. Any time lost could easily be recovered by riding longer distances over the next several days. Even with the visits, they would still reach Aachen well before the deadline Emperor Frederick had set.
On the third night after crossing the St. Bernard Pass, Johannes secured lodging for his party at the castle of a local lord situated along the old Roman road. The original structure had begun as a Roman castrum—a simple stone fort built to guard the road. Over the centuries, it had been expanded, remodeled, and rebuilt to suit the needs of successive lords, eventually becoming the seat of the lord responsible for protecting and administering the surrounding territory.
After enjoying a hearty meal, Johannes and Marcus admired the tapestries and paintings the lord had collected and displayed on the walls of the great hall. Among the objects that drew Johannes’s attention was a crude map, yellowed with age, depicting the surrounding countryside. Studying it would soon give him an unexpected idea.
Johannes recognized several landmarks shown on the map, as well as the names of towns and abbeys along the route. As he studied it, an idea came to him. By taking a lesser-used road, they could save valuable time while still visiting both Count Simon’s estate and his father’s home. He looked forward to showing his friend Marcus the countryside where he had grown up and sharing stories of his youthful adventures with his father and the man who had first mentored him when he was a lowly page. Johannes could hardly wait to see the pride on both men’s faces.
Johannes asked the local lord if the map was accurate. The lord informed him that it had been commissioned by the lord’s father when he was a child. It was intended to depict the holdings of the estate over which his father had held dominion and which had passed to the local lord upon his father’s death a few years earlier.
Johannes made a point of telling him that he would mention the map to the Emperor and suggest that all lords loyal to him display one in their manors. He glanced over at Marcus. It never hurt to offer a compliment to one’s host; it helped secure lodging for future travel in the region.
The following morning, Johannes and his companions took the road leading north toward Strasbourg rather than the well-traveled route that turned northwest toward Metz. This course would allow Johannes to spend a night at the estate of his former mentor, Count Simon, in Saarbrücken, and the following night at his father’s estate in Aussen before continuing on to Aachen.
Johannes would soon see his family and those who had meant so much to him during his childhood, the people who had helped shape him into the page and later the squire he became. As they rode, he pointed out places that stirred old memories, most of them happy, and shared their stories with Marcus.
Not every memory was a pleasant one. Along their route they passed through the village where a monk had ordered him to burn an elderly woman accused of being a witch, a command Johannes had refused to carry out. He told Marcus that story as well, and Marcus agreed that Johannes had done the right thing.
“There was some good that came of it,” Marcus observed. “It was the beginning of your journey to becoming the Imperial Knight and the Emperor’s powerful hammer.”
Johannes smiled faintly but was nevertheless relieved when they left the village behind. It held too many painful memories for him.
With the days growing shorter as autumn advanced, Johannes and his companions rode through the gates of Saarbrücken just as the sun disappeared behind the hills surrounding the river valley in which the town lay. The guards at the entrance to Count Simon’s manor grew uneasy at the sight of such a large company of mounted riders approaching the gatehouse. The sergeant of the household guard ordered the gates closed and challenged the newcomers before allowing them to enter the estate.
Tired but still in good spirits, Johannes greeted the sergeant of the guard with an insult—a man he had known for most of his life and who had taught him the basics of swordsmanship when he was still a young page.
“Frisch, does your daughter Heimtraut still give riding lessons behind the haystacks?” Johannes called with a laugh.
The sergeant of the household guard sputtered, preparing a sharp reply, when Johannes spoke again.
“Open the gates, Frisch! It’s me—Johannes Braun. I’m hungry, and so are my men. You wouldn’t want Count Simon to learn that you refused entry to the Imperial Knight and his companions. He might have you mucking out the pigsty for a month as punishment.”
“Johannes, you’re the Imperial Knight? The Count and your father have no idea it’s you. You’ve come so far, and so quickly, Johannes. Hold on while I get the gates open.”
Frisch grinned.
“Heimtraut will be delighted to hear you’ve been knighted. A man of your rank needs a wife, and she’s still available.”
“I have a wife waiting for me in Rome,” Johannes said quietly, the words seeming to weigh heavily on him.
Marcus and the other riders chuckled at Johannes’s reply, though Marcus alone seemed to catch the note of resignation in his voice.
Johannes and his fellow riders dismounted and handed their horses over to the stable groom before making their way toward the manor house. As they approached, the front door flew open, and Count Simon and his wife hurried outside. Without a moment’s hesitation, they embraced Johannes in a warm, heartfelt hug.
During his years as a page and later as a squire, Johannes had become like a son to them both, and they were eager to hear of his adventures. The last news they had received was that he had stood in judgment at Trier, where King Frederick had intervened, knighted him, and taken him into the royal guard.
Count Simon’s wife had the cook awakened and asked her to prepare a quick supper for thirty hungry men. Although the cook grumbled at being roused so late, she set to work without further complaint.
Johannes had long been one of the cook’s favorites. Even as a young page, he had always treated the servants with kindness and respect, often asking the cook about her work and showing a genuine interest in the household. She had never forgotten his courtesy and was pleased to return the same warmth and generosity he had shown her as a boy.
While they waited for supper to be prepared, the household sat in expectant silence, eager to hear the rest of Johannes’s story. Johannes tried to compress years of life, danger, and change into as few words as possible, though the telling still carried the weight of it all.
He spoke of traveling to Rome alongside the man who would become Holy Roman Emperor and of slowly earning the king’s trust and confidence in a foreign court where every word carried consequence. He told of Rome itself, of audiences with Pope Adrian IV, and of being drawn into the shifting and often dangerous politics of the city as the king’s confidant and representative.
As he spoke, the room seemed to grow quieter still.
He also recounted how he had met Marcus and Marcus’s powerful uncle, Oddone, and how, through a chain of events he still found difficult to untangle in his own mind, he had come to marry Marcus’s sister, Apollonia.
For a brief moment, Johannes hesitated after saying her name, as though it belonged to a different life entirely.
When Count Simon’s wife asked after Johannes’s nwife, he answered somewhat awkwardly, explaining how Apollonia’s temperament had changed since their marriage. He described how she had become increasingly critical and prone to insulting others during their journey toward Aachen.
Johannes said he had tolerated her behavior until they reached Genoa, where she had insulted and argued with one of the Emperor’s influential allies. Her conduct had threatened to jeopardize important imperial alliances, leaving him with no choice but to send her back to Rome to stay with her relatives.
Marcus, seated nearby, added quietly that Apollonia was his sister. Even so, Johannes had endured her behavior longer than most men would have. He supported Johannes’s decision, agreeing that sending her back to Rome had been the only logical course of action.
The cook was able to provide a simple but filling soup, served with fresh bread. The men washed it down with wine from the Count’s own estate.
That night, Johannes and Marcus were guests in the manor, while the rest of their traveling party slept in the loft above the stables, where fresh hay had been laid out for bedding.
The next morning, they rose early to a breakfast of porridge, bread, and cheese, served with weak ale.
When it came time to depart, Johannes and Marcus were accompanied outside to where their traveling companions waited patiently with their horses. After a warm farewell and embraces from Count Simon and his wife, Johannes and Marcus mounted up and left the count’s estate.
As they passed through the gate, Frisch was at his usual post, leaning against it as if holding it together by habit more than necessity. Johannes was riding through when Frisch called after him.
“Johannes, does your friend there need a wife? It’s going to get cold soon, and he’d appreciate someone to keep his bed warm. If you wait, I’ll fetch Heimtraut—she can accompany him to court. A priest can marry them there!”
Johannes snorted as Marcus spurred his horse into a gallop. Laughing, Johannes and the rest of the riders quickly followed, breaking into a full gallop to catch up with him.
No one spoke to Marcus for the rest of the ride to Johannes’s family estate, a rebuilt Roman castrum like that of Count Simon’s manor. Each time Johannes glanced over at Marcus, he would break into laughter, soon joined by the others in the riding party.
It was only a half day’s journey to Johannes’s father’s estate in Aussen. Someone must have ridden ahead to announce his arrival. As Johannes and the other riders approached the estate, he noticed that the workers were not in the fields. Instead, they lined the road leading to the old Roman castrum, which his father had renovated after becoming the administrator and protector of the village and its surrounding lands.
Johannes recognized faces in the crowd as he passed. They were long-standing tenants who still farmed his father’s lands, faithfully paying their taxes and tithes each year. It was his father’s duty to distribute the revenues according to the agreement between Count Simon and the Archbishop of Trier.
At the manor house stood Johannes’s father, Wilhelm, proudly surrounded by his household staff. Wilhelm looked somewhat worn and older than Johannes remembered. His shoulders stooped slightly, and there was a weariness to his appearance. Johannes tried not to let his concern show, but he couldn’t recall his father ever looking this tired or as though he were under such great stress. He began to wonder why Count Simon hadn’t mentioned it. Probably his father’s vanity again—not wanting to cause worry or concern among his people and allies. Johannes could be that way too, and Oddone had counseled him to delegate tasks so as not to become consumed by a single responsibility.
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