Eifelheim

Joachim pressed his lips together and Dietrich thought he would launch some retort; but after a moment, he rose to his feet and straightened his robe. “I wasn’t praying for that.”

“What, then?”

“For you.”

“Me!”

“Yes. You are a goodly man, I think; but you are a cold one. You would rather think about the good than do it, and you find it more congenial to debate angels and pin-heads than to live the true life of poverty of the companions of the Lord — which you would know, if you thought about what Paul meant in his letter.”

“Are you so holy, then?” Dietrich said with some heat.

“That men’s hearts do not hold always what their lips proclaim, I am heartily aware — ja, from childhood! Many a whitened sepulcher proclaims Jesus with his tongue, and crucifies Him with hands and body! But in the New Age, the Holy Spirit will guide the New Man to perfect himself in love and spirit.”

“Ja doch,” said Dietrich. “ ‘The New Age.’ Was it Charles of Anjou or Pedro of Aragon who was to have started it? I’ve forgotten.” The New Age had been prophesied by another Joachim — he of Flora. Paris had reckoned him a fraud and “a dabbler in the future,” for his followers had prophesied that the New Age would begin in 1260, then in 1300, as political winds in the Two Sicilies shifted. Flora’s teaching that St. Francis had been a reincarnation of Christ Himself struck Dietrich as both impious and logically flawed.

“’The man of the flesh persecutes those born of the spirit,’” Joachim quoted. “Oh, we have many enemies: the Pope, the Emperor, the Dominicans…”

“I should think Popes and Emperors enemies enough without taking on the Dominicans.”

Joachim threw his head back. “Mock on. The visible church, so corrupted by Peter with Jewish falsifications, has always persecuted the pure church of the spirit. But Peter fades, and beloved John appears! Death stalks the land; martyrs burn! The world of fathers will be replaced by a world of brothers! Already, the Pope is overthrown, and Emperors rule in name alone!”

“Which still leaves the Dominicans to deal with,” Dietrich said dryly.

Joachim lowered his arms. “Words hang like a veil before your understanding. You subordinate spirit to nature, and God Himself to reason, and so ca

“Which does not seem beyond understanding, at all, and reduces God to a mere residuum. You preach Platonism warmed over like yesterday’s porridge.”

The young man’s face closed. “I am a sinful man. But if I pray that God will forgive my sins, is it so terrible that I include yours, too?” He bent and rose again with a sprig of hazel in his fingers that had fallen from Theresia’s herb basket. The two parted with no further words.

Dietrich always found his meetings with the Krenken u

Dietrich had concluded that it was not the Heinzelmä

“A number may be expressed a word,” Dietrich responded. “We have the word eins to signify the number one. But how can a word be expressed as a number? Ach… You mean a code. Merchants and imperial agents use such methods to keep their messages secret.”

The Kratzer leaned forward. “You have this species of knowledge?”

“The signs we use to signify beings and relations are arbitrary. The French and the Italians use different word-signs than we do, for example; so to assign a number is not in principle different. Yet, how does the Heinzelmä

“So,” the Kratzer said finally. “But these numbers use only two signs: null and one.”

“What a poor sort of number! There gives often more than one of a species.”

The Kratzer rasped his forearms. “Attend! The… essence-that-flows… Fluid? Many thank. The fluid that drives the talking head flows through i

The Herr Gschert had been listening to the byplay from his usual position, leaning casually against the far wall. Now he buzzed and clacked and the talking head picked up some of what he said through the “small-sound” automaton to which Dietrich had given the Greek name mikrofoneh. “How does this discussion use?”

The Kratzer said, “Each knowledge uses always.” Dietrich did not think the utterance was meant for him and kept a blank face — although blank faces might convey weighty matters to such an expressionless folk as the Krenk. The servant who groomed the talking head turned a little and, while his great faceted eyes never looked on anything squarely, Dietrich had the unca

I do believe that I have seen one of them smile. The thought came unbidden, and left him with a curious sense of comfort.

“The two-fold number is the smallest piece of knowledge,” the Kratzer instructed him.

“I disagree,” said Dietrich. “It is not knowledge at all. A sentence may impart knowledge; even a word may. But not a number that represents a mere sound.”

The Kratzer rubbed his forearms together in what appeared an absent-minded fashion, and Dietrich thought that the act signified something like what a man would mean by scratching his head or rubbing his chin. “The fluid that drives the talking head,” the Kratzer said after a moment, “differs from that which drives your mill, but we may know something of the one by a study of the other. Do you have a word that signifies this? Analogy? Many thank. Hear this analogy, then. You may break a pot into shards, and these shards into fragments, and the fragments into dust. But even the dust can be broken into the smallest possible pieces.”

“Ah, you must mean the atoms of Demokritos.”