Eifelheim

Eifelheim

by Michael F. Fly

C’est le chemin qu’on appelle le Val d’Enfer. Que votre Altesse me pardo

Preface: Anton

I know where the path to the stars lies. The gate opened once, a long time ago and in a far and unlikely place. And then it closed. This is the story of how it opened and of how it closed and perhaps of what hinged upon it.

You see, Sharon Nagy was a physicist and Tom Schwoerin was a cliologist. That was the heart of the business right there. That was the begi

Or perhaps you don’t, for the seeing was not easy. Medieval settlement patterns and multiple brane theory seem worlds apart. Indeed, they are worlds apart, tangent only in that small apartment in Philadelphia that Tom and Sharon shared. But at such close quarters they could not avoid learning a little of each other’s work, and that was the fulcrum on which they turned the world.

But I was into the affair last and least of all, and perhaps it would be best to let the story tell itself.

I. August, 1348

At Matins, The Commemoration of Sixtus II and His Companions

Dietrich awoke with an uneasy feeling in his heart, like a bass voice chanting from a darkened choir loft. His eyes flew open and darted about the room. A night candle guttering in its sconce cast capers over table and basin, predieu and psalter, and caused the figure upon the crucifix to writhe as if trying to tear itself down. In the corners and angles of the room, shadows swelled enormous with their secrets. Through the east window, a dull red glow, thin as a knife across a throat, limned the crest of the Katerinaberg.

He took a long, stilling breath. The candle told Matins anyway; so, throwing the blanket aside, he exchanged night-shirt for cassock. Goose bumps puckered his skin and the short hairs rose on his neck. Dietrich shivered and hugged himself. Something will happen today.

By the window stood a small wooden table, with a bowl and aquamanile upon it. The aquamanile was of chased copper and had the form of a rooster, with the feathers worked into it by a coppersmith’s clever awl. When he tipped it, the water ran from the beak over his hands into the bowl. “Lord, wash away my iniquities,” he murmured. Then he dipped his hands into the bowl and splashed the cold water onto his face. A good dousing would scatter the night fears. He broke a piece of soap off the cake and rubbed it on his hands and face. Something will happen today. Ach, there was prophecy! He smiled a little at his fear.

Through the window he noticed a light moving about at the base of the hill. It would appear, move a short space, then disappear, only to rematerialize after a moment and repeat the dance. He frowned, not quite knowing what it was. A salamander?

No. A blacksmith. Dietrich became aware of his tension only in the moment of its release. The forge lay at the bottom of the hill and the smith’s cottage beside it. The light was a candle moving to and fro before an open window: Lorenz, pacing like a caged beast.

So. The smith — or his wife — was awake also, and evidently in a nervous state.

Dietrich reached for the aquamanile to rinse the soap off and a needle stabbed him in the palm. “Sancta Katherina!” He stepped back, knocking bowl and water pitcher to the floor, where the soapy water fa

When he wiped his hands on a towel he noticed that his hairs stood away, as a dog’s fur might bristle before a fight. Curiosity wrestled with dread. He pulled the sleeve of his cassock back and saw how his arm hairs rose also. It reminded him of something, long ago, but the memory wouldn’t come clear.

Recalling his duties, he dismissed the puzzle and crossed to the predieu, where the dying candle sputtered. He knelt, crossed himself and, pressing his hands together, gazed at the iron cross upon the wall. Lorenz, that very smith who prowled at the base of the hill, had fashioned the sacramental from an assortment of nails and spikes and, although it did not look much like a man upon a cross, it seemed as if it might, if only one looked deeply enough. Retrieving his breviary from the shelf of the predieu, he opened it to where he had marked his morning office with a ribbon the day before.

“The hairs of your head are all numbered,” he read from the prayer for Matins. “Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows…” And why that prayer on this particular day? It was too appropriate by far. He glanced again at the hairs on the back of his hand. A sign? But if so, of what? “The saints will exult in glory,” he continued. “They will rejoice upon their couches. Give us the joy of communion with Sixtus and his companions in eternal beatitude. This we ask of Thee through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Of course. Today was the feast-day of Pope Sixtus II, and so the prayer for martyrs was called for. He knelt in silent meditation upon the steadfastness of that man, even in the face of death. A man so good as to be remembered eleven centuries after his murder — beheaded at the very celebration of the Mass. Above the tomb of Sixtus, which Dietrich himself had seen in the cemetery of Callistus, Pope Damasus had later inscribed a poem; and while the verses were not so good a poem as Sixtus had been a man, they told his story well enough.

We had better popes in those days, Dietrich thought and then immediately chastised himself. Who was he to judge another? The Church today, if not overtly persecuted by kings themselves nominally Christian, had become a plaything of the French crown. Subordination was a more subtle persecution, and so perhaps a more subtle courage was called for. The French had not cut Boniface down as the Romans had Sixtus — but the Pope had died from the manhandling.

Boniface had been an arrogant, contemptuous man with not a friend in the world; and yet, was he not also a martyr? But Boniface had died less for proclaiming the Gospel than for proclaiming Unam sanctum, to the great displeasure of King Philip and his court, whereas Sixtus had been a Godly man in an ungodly age.

Dietrich glanced suddenly over his shoulder, then chided himself for the start. Did he suppose that they would come for him, too? It was not beyond reason that they might. But what cause had the Markgraf Friedrich to seize him?

Or rather, what cause that Friedrich might know of?

Do not be afraid, the day’s prayer had commanded, the most frequent command from the Lord’s mouth. He thought again of Sixtus. If the ancients had not quailed even at death, why should his own heart, instructed by modern wisdom, harbor fear for no sound reason?

He studied the vagrant hairs on the back of his hand, brushed them flat, and watched them rise again up. How would Buridan have approached this problem, or Albrecht? He marked his place in the book for Lauds; then he placed a fresh hour-candle in the candlestick, trimmed the wick, and lit it with a taper from the stub of the old.