Excerpt from Broken Bonds
Excerpt from Broken Bonds
Read a sample of the novel free of charge
Dearest readers,
Today, I am delighted to bring you a little sample of my forthcoming book, Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation. A chance to try before you buy, so to speak. This is the prologue. Stay until the end for a little “behind the scene” explanation of how this particular scene came together. Enjoy!
He should never have traveled this night.
Only a fool would have made such a choice, and he is no fool. Something else has driven him to this point: fate, God, the devil? Who could say?
The sky was red at break of day. He smelled the vapor in the air—felt the sweat upon his skin. Ungodly heat! The clouds have gathered, storing up their wrath of thunder, preparing to throw down their bolts. There will be no rocky cave or hole in the ground to shelter him when that fire comes down from heaven to earth. I knew it, and yet I set out, he laments.
He remembers the storms of his youth. In his bed at night, lying between his younger brothers, bodies pressed together for want of space, mouths agape in sleep, he would hear the distant cataclysm—the upheaval of the elements. Ever closer it would creep. How the wind would lash that house! Then the momentary glow: the lurid flash of white. Again, again, again! His brothers would sleep through it all, but he would lie flat on his back transfixed, staring up at the rafters, his heart threatening to bolt from his chest—lips trembling, limbs rigid.
“O Maria, salva me! Sancta mater, salva me!”[1] Even so, he would whisper into the void—the dark abyss of terror.
This is one such storm. He has watched it take shape upon the western horizon as he urges his horse one mile, two miles, three miles from his former life and toward another. Is he spurring the beast, or is some beast spurring him? It fills him with angst to see the great cloud rise like a bird of prey taking its stand, unfolding its vast wings, engulfing the hills beneath it. Now he passes over flat earth with nothing to shield him, utterly alone upon the road. Reason herself forbids him continue, but he is compelled by something stronger. He traverses the lower sphere—the realm of fire—as the heavens pass in circuit above him, set in motion by the unmoved mover.
So great is his dread of storms that he could only have been driven to this point by something worse than death.
In his thigh resides a memory that enlivens his fear. Not three months hence, as he was placing a blade in his belt, it pierced through cloth, skin, and flesh, severing an artery. A one in a thousand chance, or perhaps one in ten thousand, but it happened sure enough, and before he had time to contemplate the fact, his life was hanging by a thread of fate. The blood was loosed from his veins, pouring down his leg, covering the hands that rushed to stymie the flow. He was pulled into darkness, unable even to call for help. Only the skill of a surgeon had saved him from the grasping fingers of death. Never had he felt such terror, and since that moment, he has done nothing but consider what would have happened had the good surgeon failed in his task.
For in that darkness—that dread catharsis of the mind—he knew the full horror of damnation. He weighed his deeds in the balance and found them desperately wanting. He felt the wrath of God as keenly as the cowherd’s brand. He came within a breath of hell, and he can never be the same.
So, when his strength was recovered and his mind firmly set, he made for the home of his youth, there to inform his parents that he could no longer afford to waste his time learning the particulars of the law, for his soul was in deadly peril. His life might be snatched from him any day: that much was clear. The burden of his sin was crushing, and he could see no remedy but to devote the remainder of his life to the God before whom he had cowered all his days. Yes, he would pursue a career in the Church. Perhaps in seeking salvation for others, he might find it for himself.
In any case, he had long since tired of legal texts, which seemed to bury truth under great heaps of words, and found himself drawn instead to the Holy Scriptures, where the truth struck one free and clear like a blade to the heart, dividing joints and marrow, soul and spirit. This is what he had hoped to explain to his parents when he arrived at their home two days earlier.
His father’s reaction was immediate and violent: far worse than anything he could have imagined. He watched that immense body quake with rage, face contorting wildly. Even now, he hears the deep voice rising, issuing from lungs racked by soot, bursting forth like the torrent that will soon fall upon his head.
“I bet my life on you—all our lives! What didn’t I do for you?!”
How his father’s words pierced him! From his earliest days, if there was anything he knew, it was that he was the eldest son: the pride, the hope, the legacy of his parents. As such, they had molded and shaped him, pouring themselves into him, sparing no expense for his advancement. It was only upon his return, as he informed his father that he could no longer become the lawyer he was meant to be, that his elders realized just how thoroughly their son had been shaped by others—how little their own efforts had counted in the end. But his father was not a man to simply accept hard truths. When his son explained his desire to pursue the things of God rather than the things of man, it drew forth a stream of venom: the offense of years released in a moment.
“That’s nice! The pot giving it back to the potter!” the older man bellowed, his words clipped and biting. “Do you condemn your father?”
“I do not condemn you!” he protested, trembling inside.
“Your every word condemns me. You’ve rebelled since birth!”
Even as he thinks of it now, he struggles not to give way to tears. Only five miles lie between him and Erfurt: city of scholars, city of his future. Within those walls, he will find refuge from the storm, but where can he hide from the wrath of his father? Not for the first time, he tugs on the reins and bids the horse to pause—looks back in the direction he has come. He feels the frantic longing: the inescapable urge to run back to his father. The weight of that disapproval threatens to drive him into the dust. How can I bear it? But how can I bear the wrath of the Almighty? No, he has come too far, and the storm is too near. He has crossed the Rubicon of his soul. There can be no turning back.
“You forget your duty to this house!” his father had charged, spitting the words as much as speaking them. “You forsake us in our hour of need!”
He could think of no reply except to utter softly, “I also owe a duty to my heavenly Father.”
The sky is utterly black as he urges his horse forward. In the distance, a church bell rings: an attempt to combat the power of the storm. Off to the west, he sees the first streak of light move from heaven to earth—hears the ripping of the air. Seated upon his horse, riding past treeless fields, he is the tallest object for half a mile in any direction and may well be a target of the thunder’s wrath. His Saxon ancestors would have said Thor was having himself a fine romp in the clouds, but he does not fear the old gods. Something far more alive haunts him.
As he presses on, the rain begins to fall: first a light pattering, then a ferocious torrent, pelting him from head to toe, breaking up the earth beneath him, filling his eyes so he can hardly see. The wind catches his cloak and whips it to and fro. The sound of the bell is drowned by the din of rain and peals of thunder. Less than four miles to go, but it seems an eternity.
As the water presses into his nostrils, he thinks of his friend, Paul, like himself a student on the brink of something great. Four months earlier, this fellow pupil stepped into a boat to cross the Gera: a boat that was not entirely sound. Unable to swim, Paul drowned within fifty feet of the bank. Standing over his friend’s newly cut grave, he was struck dumb by the cruel turning of fate. Why should he live and breathe while Paul was set to become food for worms? The priest had approached him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and spoken unbidden.
“The hidden purposes of God are strange beyond all measure, and we are fools who seek beyond the bounds.”
For a moment, he was torn from his grief, or perhaps provoked into a deeper level of agony. He looked the man of God in the eye and spoke accusingly: “Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“Men in general set too much store by comfort,” the priest replied without shame, “or perhaps they seek the wrong kind of comfort. I tell you now, there are words which must be heard whether you are prepared to receive them or not.”
Two miles left before the city walls, and all around him the lightning strikes. His hands clutch the reins, striving to maintain control. The horse’s chest expands and contracts, its breath labored as he drives the beast forward at a vicious pace. Is the fate of Paul about to be my own? He knows he must cry out to God, but he cannot find the strength. He is held back—no, held down. He is crushed by the sin in which he has lived and moved and had his being. In sin his mother conceived him,[2] and he has breathed it in and out, in and out. How then can he expect the mercy of a holy God? Who can see that face and live? His thoughts are spiraling, turning inward, dragging him down into a darkness more real than that which fills the sky. And still the words of his father haunt him.
“You’re trapped inside your own head,” the old man had claimed. “Too smart for your own good—always were.”
“I just feel…” And then he hesitated, afraid of the reaction his words would provoke.
“Yes. Spit it out, son!” his father demanded.
“I just can’t help feeling that God wants me to serve his Church,” he answered, and even to him the words seemed weak.
“He’s got an army of priests to serve his Church, boy! I only need one lawyer! What does God need with one more priest?”
But his heart was already captive. He could not move by any power of mind or soul, and so he stood his ground, not in bravery or defiance, but from a simple inability to do otherwise. And then came the final judgment: the revocation, the parting of the ways.
“If you do this thing, don’t you dare call yourself my son!”
In the middle of the storm, with the specter of death before him, he weeps at the memory of these words. He is broken, body and soul. For the first time in his life and quite possibly the last, he has been thrown out by his father, forsaken to the darkening world. He was granted no money for the journey upon his expulsion, so he rode until he was too weary to continue, making his bed beneath a tree, sleeping rough beneath the star filled sky. Arising from fitful sleep, he has continued throughout this day despite the warning signs of nature, riding beneath the burning sun, watching the clouds rise to torment him even as the demons rack his soul.
Before he crossed that threshold for the final time, he had turned to his mother: the woman who taught him to fear God. If anyone could understand him and restrain his father’s fury, it would be her.
“Mother,” he pleaded, “speak to father for me. I have lost his love. I beg you, help me regain it!”
She took his face in her hands, her eyes as moist as his own. He saw love within those spheres, but a firmness in her jaw: an unwillingness to press beyond the bounds of her husband’s will.
“You burn too fiercely, son. You will destroy yourself,” she told him. An accusation or an act of love? Who could say?
As she began to shut the door, cutting him off perhaps forever from his childhood home, he cried, “Mother, please! I’m afraid.”
To his shock, she laughed softly, but with eyes infinitely sad. “Oh, my son! Only the dead are free from fear.”
He is close to Stotternheim now. Less than a mile to the city wall and a kind of salvation. He thinks to himself, Perhaps I am wrong after all. Perhaps there is another way. Might I please one father and also another? Must I force the breach and destroy what we have worked to build? I can still be a lawyer. After all, wouldn’t God want me to obey my father? Is that not one of the chief commandments? But what of my soul? And how can I stand before the holy one? Who am I before God?!
Even as these questions torment him, a strange silence breaks overhead: a sort of dampening of sound. Perhaps against his better instincts, he looks up—and then it happens.
The clouds are kindled and lightning issues forth, severing the air, rushing toward the ground. The sky begins to whirl and spin above him even as the earth beneath. He realizes he is being thrown from his horse. Suddenly he thinks of old Heine, the cripple of Mansfeld who lost his mount and had his neck snapped, never to walk again. Denied a quick death, he lingered on for years confined to his bed, unable to feed or dress himself, longing for release from his lifeless body. Will that be my destiny? Have I already walked for the last time, held a book for the last time, known joy for the last time?! These thoughts pass by in a flash as brief as the lightning.
The next sensation he feels is pain as his body collides with the ground. He is lying flat on his back, staring up into the storm, the fall of rain merciless, the shock moving from the core of his body to the extremities. Then he hears the loudest sound he will ever hear in his life, as if God had once again rent the heavens and come down. The earth beneath him quakes. His ears ring—his head feels as if it will split open. His heart is pounding with the force of a fighter’s fist. His very existence is terror. He is not certain if he is injured. The fear has so overwhelmed him that he can do nothing but—scream! Yes, the cries are issuing from him now: violent, desperate, pleading.
“Help me! Someone, help me! Please!” he yells into the void, but there is no reply. He is alone, without comfort in life, exposed before the elements and the wrath of the Almighty. He senses that this is it: the moment that will define all he is. I must do it. I must make the breach.
So, Martin Luther cries to the saint whose image graces the wall of that home he loves so well, who blessed the days of his youth and perhaps, if he is the most fortunate of men, will hear him now.
“Help me, Saint Anna!” he begs. “I’ll become a monk. Yes. I will become a monk. I swear it! Just please, spare me!”
As the heavens wheel above him, he feels himself broken: chastened from head to toe, longing for absolution. And somewhere deep below, in the secret caverns hidden from man, comes a response, like the rolling thunder around the throne. A crack spreading in splintered veins, branching out across Christendom, driven toward an end beyond imagination. For not only he, but the earth itself will never be the same.
BONUS: BEHIND THE SCENE
I originally thought this episode in Luther’s life would only be mentioned in passing rather than featured as a scene. It’s so well known that even people who are mostly ignorant about Luther are aware of it. It also takes place nineteen years before the main plot of the novel. For these reasons, I initially thought to exclude it, but when it came time to write, I changed my mind and wrote it as a prologue to set the tone of the story. It was the first full scene I wrote. I made a few strategic decisions when constructing it.
First, I decided not to inform the reader who I was talking about until the very end. Luther is a historical figure about whom people are likely to have certain pre-conceptions. By beginning with him as an anonymous male and only gradually filling in the details, it allows the reader to come to know him first apart from who he became: to simply feel what it is to be him in this moment. Of course, Luther experts will guess who I’m talking about quickly, but the average reader will take awhile to figure it out.
Second, I crafted a first sentence that would put things immediately on edge. We are told that he shouldn’t have gone out. That gives us a sense of foreboding, and it fills us with questions. Why shouldn’t he have gone out? What is going to happen to him? Is he in serious danger? The working title of this novel was “Fear and Trembling,” and it focuses on the uncertainties and contingencies of life. It therefore seemed appropriate to begin in such a manner.
Third, I wanted to create a distinct sense of embodiment. Luther is going to become a theologian for whom the physical is crucial, whether in the Lord’s Supper, the marital relationship, or his Anfechtungen. I therefore attempt from the beginning to let the reader know what it is like to be in his body: he can feel vapor in the air and sweat on his skin. The natural world is having a physical impact on him.
Fourth, I wanted to use vocabulary and metaphors that are suggestive of physical violence, struggle, and terror. You will see certain instances of this sprinkled throughout the text, such as when I write that he is staring up at the ceiling “transfixed.” (The literal meaning of that would be that he is impaled.)
Fifth, I wanted to immediately establish some of the big themes of this novel: divine sovereignty, the longing for unconditional love, the fragile nature of this world. By the end of the prologue, you know what is bothering Martin Luther and you have a good sense of what he will be pursuing throughout the story.
Sixth, I wanted to establish a sense that there are dual realms: the physical and the spiritual. At many points, we see hints of the supernatural or extraterrestrial. I make a brief allusion to Plato’s understanding of the celestial spheres and the fact that Luther exists in “the realm of fire.” That is suggestive of the trials we endure on earth, but also of a bigger unfolding narrative in which this physical world is only one part.
All of that had to be accomplished in short order, because this is not a scene that should drag on. In fact, it is one of the shortest I have written to date. I hope it is a good beginning to the novel that puts a new spin on things even for those who have heard this particular story many times.
One more interesting thing to note: It is known that a friend of Martin Luther’s died while he was a student at Erfurt, before he entered monastic life. However, the identity of this friend is uncertain. I decided, without any great deal of thought, to assign him the name Paul. It was a common enough German name at the time, and that was the sole reason I chose it.
Only after reading this prologue multiple times did it hit me: I had written that Luther was scared that “the fate of Paul would become his own.” Well, what is about to happen to Luther? He is going to have his own Damascus road experience: one somehow darker than St. Paul’s and much more open to interpretation. Luther himself will reinterpret and doubt the meaning of this event in the years to come, but he will always believe it to be some sort of supernatural intervention in his life.
So in a way, the fate of St. Paul becomes his own, and it will be St. Paul who leads him to some of his greatest theological discoveries, prompting him to make the far greater breach with the see of Rome. I was not thinking of that connection at all when I selected the name, but upon further reflection it is perfect. Might a higher power have prompted me to choose it, or was it a coincidence?
That kind of ambiguity is what I hoped to create in the novel, from that second sentence when Luther wonders what caused him to go out that night. Most of our experiences are harder to interpret than the Damascus road incident. We are both just and sinners, faithful and doubting, striving along the pilgrim road toward the beatific vision in which we will know fully even as we are fully known.
[1] “O Mary, save me! Holy Mother, save me!”
[2] Reference to Psalm 51:5