Eifelheim

Gregor shrugged. “She liked him well enough, but they lived as brother and sister.”

“So! I hadn’t known. Well, Paul commended such a life in his letters.”

“Oh, she took no vow of celibacy, not so long as Klaus Müller could visit. As for Lorenz, he seemed disinclined, Wanda being Walküre enough to daunt any man’s ardor.”

“Klaus Müller and the Frau Schmidt!”

Gregor smiled knowingly. “Why not? What joy does Hilde bring to the miller’s bed?”

Dietrich could not contain his astonishment. While Hildegarde Müller’s wanto

Fra Joachim came breathless to the door. “You are needed in the church, pastor!”

Alarmed, Dietrich stood. “What’s wrong?”

“Gottfried Krenk.” The young man’s cheeks, red from the cold, glowed on his pale face. The dark eyes flashed. “Oh, surely, no name was more wonderfully chosen! He has embraced Jesus, and we need you to perform the baptism.”

Gottfried awaited by the baptistery, but Dietrich took him first into the sacristy and spoke to him alone. “Why do you choose baptism, friend grasshopper?” he demanded. No sacrament could be valid if its meaning was not understood. Baptism was a matter of will, not water.

“Because of Lorenz the Smith.” Gottfried rubbed his forearms slowly, a gesture which Dietrich had concluded meant thoughtfulness, although the precise rhythm of the rasps might indicate irritation, confusion, or other sorts of thought. “Lorenz was an artisan, as am I,” Gottfried said. “A man of low besitting, to be used as those above him would. ‘In justice do the strong command; in justice do the weak submit.’”

“So the Athenians told the Melians,” Dietrich said. “But I think our word ‘justice’ and yours do not signify the same thing. Manfred ca

“How can this be?” the Krenk asked, “if justice is the lord’s will?”

“Because there is a Lord above all. Manfred is our lord only ‘under God,’ meaning that his will is subordinate to the higher justice of God. We may not obey a bad lord, nor follow an unlawful command.”

Gottfried grasped Dietrich’s arm, and Dietrich tried not to flinch from the horny touch. “That is the very thing! Your Herrenfolk have obligations to their vassals, ours do not. Lorenz used his own life to save Wittich, and Wittich was only a… One who labors at whatever is needful, but without the special skills of an artisan.”

“A gärtner. But if Lorenz saw that Wittich was in pain, naturally, he tried to help.”

“But it is not among us natural for the greater to help the lesser. An artisan would not help a mere gärtner; not without… Without your charitas to move him.”

“To be fair,” Dietrich said, “Lorenz did not know his life would be forfeit.”

“He knew,” Gottfried said, releasing his grip. “He knew. I had warned him against touching the wires when they were animate. I told him the fluid could strike a man like lightning. That was how he knew Wittich’s peril. Yet he had no thought to stand by and watch him die.”

Dietrich studied the Krenk. “Nor had you,” he said after a moment.

Gottfried tossed his arm. “I am Krenk. Could I do less than one of you?”

“Let me see your hands again.” Dietrich took Gottfried by the wrists and turned his hands up. The krenkish hand was not like a man’s hand. All six fingers could act as thumbs and they were long compared to the palm, which consequently appeared no bigger than a Thaler gold-piece. The passage of the fiery fluid had left a burn on each palm, which the krenkish physician had treated with an ungeant of some sort.

Gottfried pulled his hands away and snapped his side-lips. “You doubt my words?”

“No,” said Dietrich. The black marks had seemed much like the stigmata. “Have you the love of God in your heart?” he asked abruptly.

Gottfried imitated the human nod. “If I show in my actions this next-love, then I have it inside my head, not true?”

“’By their fruits you shall know them,’” Dietrich quoted, thinking of both Lorenz and Gottfried. “Do you reject Satan and all his works?”

“What is then this ‘satan’?”

“The Great Tempter. The one who always whispers to us the love of self rather than the love of others, and so doing seeks to turn us from the good.”

Gottfried listened while the Heinzelmä

“Yes. Those sentences are spoken by Satan. We seek always the good, but never may we use evil means to achieve it. When others do evil to us, we must not respond with further evil.”

“Those are hard words, especially for the likes of him.”

All voices spoken through the Heinzelmä

“And Blitzl — Gottfried — will follow this way? A Krenk well known as a brawler?”

“I will,” said Gottfried.

“Are you such a weakling, then?”

Gottfried exposed his neck. “I am.”

Hans’ horn lips spread wide and his soft lips fell open. “You say so?” But Gottfried rose and strode to the sacristy door, passing close by Hans to emerge on the altar. Dietrich looked at his friend. “He will need your prayers, Hans.”

“He will need one of your miracles.”

Dietrich nodded. “We all do.” Then he followed Gottfried to the baptistery.

“Baptism,” he told the Krenk beside the copper basin, “is the washing away of sin, just as ordinary water washes away dirt. One emerges from the water born again as a new man, and a new man needs a new name. You must choose a Christian name from among the roll of saints who have preceeded us. ‘Gottfried’ is itself a good name—”

“I would be called ‘Lorenz’.”

Dietrich hesitated at the sudden pain in his heart. “Ja. Doch.”

Hans laid his hand on Dietrich’s shoulder. “And I would be called ‘Dietrich’.”

Gregor Mauer gri