After the raid, Gisel followed Lorenz's footsteps again, carrying the sack on her shoulders. At least the clay pots inside had remained intact. The fear she had felt when the robber had held the knife to her throat was deeply ingrained in her bones. But what could she do? She couldn't go back. The dean had made sure of that.

Gisel remembered her mother, who, just like herself, had been a serf of the monastery, and the dean had also humiliated, bossed around, and beaten her. Her father had died before Gisel was born. Her mother never spoke of him. But something must have happened for Sister Elisabeth to harbor so much hatred towards her mother and then transfer it to her daughter. Once, her mother defended Gisel from the dean when she had tasted the honey in the kitchen. How delicious it was! The dean wanted to hit the child with a cooking spoon, but her mother intervened. Gisel watched as the dean unleashed her wrath on her mother. This woman of God was cruel, malicious, and to be feared. Gisel understood that quickly. Why her mother still urged her to be forgiving was a mystery to her.

They never had enough to eat. The monastery lacked everything. Yet her mother managed to keep the child alive while she herself grew weaker. "Child, do not cry. I am going to God. I will be fine. And I will wait for you," her mother had said as she lay dying. Tears streamed down Gisel's face. Her mother weakly patted her hand until her thin, battered fingers finally slackened. The pale corpse was emaciated, eyes closed, mouth contorted, exposing yellow teeth.

A hand grabbed Gisel by the shoulder and tore her away abruptly. No explanation, no comfort. From then on, she had no one to belong to. It took her a long time to overcome her mother's death. She always saw herself lying there on the straw sack. She often woke up startled at night under the stairs. While cleaning, the image of her dead mother flashed through her mind. She even banged her head against the wall to make it disappear.

From a young age, Gisel knew she would share her mother's fate. If she was obedient, she would be rewarded in heaven. But what kind of life was that, where a pig was treated better than she was? She had sworn to do everything to avoid ending like her mother. God could not want His sheep to perish miserably.

From then on, Gisel made an effort with Sister Hildegard, initially helping her unasked with weeding and herb cutting, until Hildegard accepted her presence. Soon, the nun gave Gisel her own tasks. The herbs, Gisel knew, could have helped her mother. They would have strengthened her and driven away the fever. And if Gisel ever ran away, far into the wilderness Sister Hildegard sometimes spoke of so eerily, she would need to know what she could eat and what would keep her healthy!

With each step Gisel took, her unsuitable half-boot rubbed deeper into her right foot. Surely she had a huge blister by now! It started in Strasskirchen. And how her legs ached! The pain in her heel was unbearable. Gisel wasn't used to walking such long distances!

Initially, Gisel was distracted by the breathtaking landscape. Mountain ranges stretched along the horizon, growing ever higher. The firs and beeches on the mountaintops were still snow-covered, seeming to touch the sky and clouds, while in the valleys, they disappeared into the fog. From a hill like the one in Strasskirchen, you could see the neighboring villages in their clearings in the mixed forest, shaded in various greens. The first thing you noticed was always the distinctive and pointed church steeple, then you discovered the surrounding houses.

Since they had resumed their journey after a short rest in Hutthurm, the pain was almost unbearable. Gisel limped with each step, trying to relieve her foot as much as possible. But the weight of the sack pressed her harder onto the rough ground. When it became impossible for Gisel to continue, Knight Otto took her on his stallion. The sack was loaded onto Curt's horse. At least a third of the distance was already covered. It was downhill towards Röhrnbach, and Gisel noticed how the black horse had to brace itself against the slope. She clung to the robust fabric of Otto's blue surcoat. With every step of the horse, she was squeezed against the plates of his armor.

In Röhrnbach, they took a break. The sun had already passed its zenith and now shone warmly into Gisel's face. Multi-story half-timbered houses crowded around a square where colorful wooden stalls were set up. At one, several customers stood around baskets full of seeds, flower bulbs, and seedlings. On a plank parallel to the houses, a dozen brown-spotted oxen scratched in the mud. Men in tattered shirts and brown doublets inspected the hooves and looked into their mouths. At another stall, the bright spruce wood of new goods caught the eye – rakes, threshing flails, and hayforks. Simply dressed traders and farmers bustled about, going about their business. In front of the blacksmith's shop, horses waited in line. The blacksmith was examining the gait of an animal led by a man in a straw hat. This was probably how he decided how to shape the horseshoe. Loud laughter emanated from the inns around the market square.

Behind Röhrnbach, the path became rockier and less worn, a sign that they were reaching the settled edge of the Bohemian Forest. So far, they had greeted many traders and travelers on the packhorse trail, usually grouped together, but in the less developed hinterland, they rarely met travel groups and even more rarely individual men and women.

The locator led the procession along streams uphill. On both sides, wooded mountains rose. Along the watercourses, the young leaves of alders and willows rustled in the wind, tall perennials stretched their buds upwards, and ferns spread their fronded leaves in the sun. The travelers passed a mill. Its bulky stone structure seemed lost in the valley between the hills. But the mill wheel turned merrily, competing with the rushing of the stream and a cuckoo in a larch, whose leaves were just beginning to fight their way out of the bud.

On horseback, Gisel could pay much more attention to the landscape. She closely observed the blue and yellow birds flitting between the trees. She tried to spot the toad belonging to the loud croaking. There, a lively squirrel with a bushy tail scampered up the trunk, making Gisel laugh. Here, a waterfall gurgled and roared, carving its way through rubble and deadwood, so loud that Gisel couldn't hear her own words. What a new, strange world! The excitement made Gisel shiver. Sometimes she wanted to stop to look closer at something on the wayside. But she had to be careful not to fall off the horse in amazement.

They crossed a wooden bridge at the confluence of two streams, which then continued united down the valley. Beyond, the terrain rose steeply to the north. The black horse struggled under the weight of two riders, and Otto let Gisel dismount to spare the animal. Immediately her foot began to burn and ache again. But there was nothing she could do. She clenched her teeth and limped on. Lorenz in front of her breathed quietly and his breath rose steaming. The air was cold and clear, smelling of moss and pine needles. The sparsely wooded forest with its light green crowns and moss-covered ground gradually gave way to an impenetrable tangle of spruces and firs.

Finally, the incline lessened, and the terrain flattened again. The forest thinned until the procession reached a clearing belonging to a settlement. The path led them past fields and meadows. The trees, shrubs, and flowers here were not as advanced as in Passau. The maple was just budding. The hazelnut blossoms were just fading. Bumblebees flew from snowdrop to snowdrop, which grew on a still sparse grass cover between earth, moss, and snow.

They reached two farms. The buildings stood on stone foundations on the slope. The walls were made of wood. In front, in fenced gardens, herbs, vegetables, and flowers grew. Smoke billowed from the chimneys. Hammering filled the air. Someone was working in the threshing floor.

In front of the caravan, it descended into the valley. Behind, the hills rose again in gentle waves. If Gisel wanted to grasp infinity, it was at this very spot where the forest stretched as far as the eye could see. A hazy veil lay on the treetops in the distance, so that Gisel did not know where the fog ended and where the sky began. Settlements arbitrarily broke through the dark green carpet here and there, but it seemed as if the trees were not ready to relinquish their claim on the land so quickly. 

The locator pointed to the mountain top in front of them. "Our own land will be established there. Below runs the Saußbach, and on a rock behind it stands Wolfstein Castle." 

Gisel could not make out a castle, no matter how hard she strained her eyes and scanned the horizon. Yet, this wild, rugged landscape touched her deeply. Over there on the hill, which still looked so inhospitable, her new home would be built. Gisel's hands were sweaty with excitement. For a moment, she forgot her pains. This was a momentous moment. Her new life was beginning to take shape. 

As the caravan started moving again, Otto made no effort to put Gisel back on the horse. So she limped on by herself. Her feet would fall off by evening. "Hold on, Gisel! Hold on!", she repeated like a prayer. She was on her way to her new homeland. It was worth fighting for. 

On the path into the valley, they passed a chapel. It was made of wood and had a small, weathered tower. Gisel crossed herself. She picked a bouquet of flowers and left it at the entrance. In this way, she thanked Mother Mary that nothing worse had happened on their way here. Above all, she prayed for a happy future for herself and for Lorenz, so that their efforts would ultimately pay off.