Eifelheim

The next day, on the feast of St. Kunigund, a riot broke out among the Krenken. They raged against one another on the high street and on the muddy green, to the amazement of villager and garrison alike. Fist and foot and forearm dealt terrible wounds and raised a clatter like swordplay with dry wooden sticks.

Frightened Hochwalders took refuge in church, cottage, or castle, so that work languished. Dietrich cried Truce to the mob on the green, but the combat swirled about him like a stream around a stone.

Pursued by four others, Shepherd bounded past him and up Church Hill. Dietrich hurried after, and found the pursuers pounding upon the carved oaken doors of the church, scarring the figures with their serrated forearms. St. Catherine had sustained a wound never delivered by her Roman tormenters. “Stop, for the love of God!” he cried and interposed himself between the mob and the precious carvings. “This building is sanctuary!”

A terrible blow laid open his headskin and he saw sudden dark and pinprick constellations. The door opened behind him and he fell backward onto the flagstones of the vestibule, striking his already aching head against the stones. Hands seized him and dragged him inside. The door slammed, muffling the clamor of the mob.

How long he lay dazed, he did not know. Then he sat upright, crying, “Shepherd!”

“Safe,” said Joachim. Dietrich looked around the dim-lit church, saw Gregor lighting candles illuminating Shepherd and a number of villagers. The villagers had edged away from the Krenkerin, deeper into the building’s shadows. Joachim helped Dietrich to his feet.

“That was well-said,” the monk told him. “’Stop for the love of God.’ You did not debate your dialectic.” The pounding on the door had ceased and Joachim went to the peep-hole and pushed the shutter aside. “They’ve gone,” he said.

“What madness has seized them?” Dietrich wondered.

“They always were an ill-humored lot,” Gregor said as he raised the lamplighter to touch a candle high on the wall. “As arrogant as Jews or nobles. That’s twice they’ve beaten you.”

“Forgive them, Gregor,” said Dietrich. “They did not know what they were doing. I put myself between their fists and their target. Otherwise, they ignore us.” It was the estimative power of instinct, he guessed. From deep within the atoms of their flesh, the Krenken did not esteem humans as friend or foe.

Shepherd squatted upon the flagstones with her knees thrust over her head and her long arms wrapped around them. Her side lips clicked rhythmically, much as a person might hum to herself. “My lady,” Dietrich said to her, “what means this riot?”

“Need you ask?” the Krenkerin said. “You and Brown-robe cause it.

Joachim had torn a strip of cloth off the hem of his robe and tied it ’round Dietrich’s brow to staunch the blood. “We, the cause?” Joachim asked.

“Were it not for your native superstition, Hans does not turn natural order over.”

“My lady,” said Dietrich. “Hans acted for the common good — to recover the wire from Falkenstein. It is the nature of men, of all creation, to pursue the good.”

“It is ‘nature of all creation’ to do as told — told by authority, or told by nature herself. That is what ‘good’ man does. But Hans decides for himself what end is good, not in course of duties, not by orders from betters. U

Joachim cried out. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” Dietrich hushed him with a brusque gesture. “All authority is ‘under God’,” he told Shepherd, “else authority would have no limits, and justice would be only a Herr’s will. But, say on.”

“Now, is discord among us. Words run every way, like highspringers from pouncing swiftjaw, when they ought run in orderly cha

“Heart-ache,” said Joachim unexpectedly. “The word you want is heart-ache.”

“Doch? Heart-ache, then.”

Gregor the mason had come to stand with them and, when he heard what Joachim had said, remarked, “They feel heart-ache, do they? It’s little enough they show it.”

“We have heart-ache for Web-wholeness,” said Shepherd, “and would swim angry river to restore it. We have heart-ache for nurseland — you say Heimat — and… and its foods.”

“But there are now heresies among you,” Dietrich guessed. “Grosswald says one thing; Hans says another. Perhaps you,” he suggested, “say a third thing.”

Shepherd raised her mask-like face. “Hans go against Gschert words, but fault is Gschert that he fail to speak those words. Gschertl make it seem that I too defy natural order, and mob, high and low, set upon me for that sin. But when two in discord, both may be wrong, Gschertl and Hansl alike.”

“Those who hold the middle ground,” said Gregor, “are often attacked by both camps. Between two armies is a dangerous place to graze your flock.”

“Discord,” Dietrich said, “is a grave wrong. We must strive always for concord.”

Joachim laughed. “’I come not to bring concord,’” he quoted, “’but discord. Because of Me husband will leave wife, children will leave parents.’ So do philosophers, playing games with words, lose sight of their plain meanings, which can be found always inscribed in the heart.”

“A bit of discord here, too,” said Gregor mildly.

Dietrich said to Shepherd. “Tell your folk that any who come to the church, or who go to Manfred’s court, may not be attacked, for it is the Peace of God that warriors may not attack women or children, peasants, merchants, artisans, or animals, nor any religious or public building, and by law and custom both, no one may strike another in a church or in a lord’s court.”

“And does this Peace serve?”

“My lady, men are by nature violent. The Peace is a sieve, and much falls through — though perhaps not as much as might otherwise.”

“House-wherein-no-blows-may-fall…,” Shepherd said in a voice which might have meant cynicism or wistfulness. “New thought. This building to grow crowded sure.”

Dietrich asked Thierry to put down the fighting, but the burgvogt declined. “I have here only the garrison,” he explained. “Five knights, eight sentries, two gatekeepers, and a towermaster. I will not expend them to pacify those… those creatures.”

“Why have you been left here, sir,” Dietrich demanded, “if not to preserve order?”

Thierry bore impertinence less patiently than Manfred. “Von Falkenstein is no man to idle while his enemies attack, and though he ca

Discontent with this ruling, Dietrich borrowed a horse from the stables, and set off toward Falcon Rock, where he hoped to obtain Manfred’s intervention. The urge to press on warred with the need to pick his way carefully down the switchback along the side of the Katerinaberg and through the thickets and other obstacles in the gorge. He was still deep within the shadowed gorge when he heard a dull thump of thunder and saw a plume of dark smoke rise over the far end of the valley.