Eifelheim

Betimes, the pop of a pot de fer signaled a careless move, and then the Krenken showed that they were indeed capable of quick movement. Bullets whined against the barrels, or barked the limbs of trees. The fighters took up widely separate positions from which to loose their shots. The quake of a bush and snapping of twigs within the dimness of the trees signified Gschert’s men doing the same. The pace u

With no small horror, Dietrich realized that a Krenk had appeared in the clearing itself. As still as a rock or a tree, it squatted beside a table and chairs at which the refugees had been wont to take some refreshment in warmer weather. By what imperceptible stages it had reached that position, Dietrich did not know, and when he looked again, it was gone.

Glancing then to his left, he saw a strange Krenk crouched there. Dietrich cried out in surprise and terror, and would have sprung up to his own undoing save that Hans grabbed him firmly by the shoulder. “Beatke is with us,” he said, and Hans and the newcomer touched each other gently on the knees.

The woods seemed filled with locusts, for the two sides attacked with words as well, though Dietrich heard only those diatribes that passed through the Heinzelmä

“You have used your power, Gschert,” Hans called out, “beyond what is just. If we are born to serve, and you to command, then your commands must be for the good of all. We do not deny our place in the Web. We deny your place in the Web.”

Another Krenk, also one with a head-harness, though not one that Dietrich knew, said, “We who labor will be heard. You say, ‘do this’ and ‘do that,’ while you yourself do nothing. You take your ease on the backs of others.”

Suddenly Dietrich became aware of more than a dozen Krenken now arrayed with Hans. None had pots de fer, but carried instead a variety of tools and implements. They perched in trees or behind rocks or in the gully that ran beside the clearing. “But Shepherd said that obedience was like a hunger,” Dietrich said.

His plaint was carried by the common canal, and someone — which, he did not know — answered, “So it is, but a hungry man may still smite the purveyor of rotten food.” Whereupon a ferocious chatter grew in magnitude from Dietrich’s side of the clearing. All about him were statues which, at each glance, had altered their posture — and suddenly Dietrich was small beside his mother in the Köln Minster watching the gargoyles and the stern-faced saints slowly turn toward him. The Armleder had returned, born anew amongst the Krenken.

Between two armies is a dangerous place to graze your flock, Gregor Mauer had said.

Dietrich ran from the protection of the barrels out into the clearing that separated the two warring factions. “Stop!” he cried, expecting any moment to be stoned to death by a dozen pots de fer. He raised both arms. “I command you in the name of Christ Jesus to put down your weapons!”

Surprisingly, no bullets were slung in his direction. For a time, nothing stirred. Then, first one, then another Krenk rose from concealment. Hans tossed his head back and said, “You shame me, Dietrich of Oberhochwald.” And he dropped his pot de fer to the ground. At this, the Herr Gschert emerged from the woods. “You have right,” he said. “This matter is between the Hans and me alone, and it is to the neck.” He stepped forward; and Hans, after a moment in which he and Beatke touched, loped across the clearing to meet him.

“What does it mean, ‘to the neck’?” Dietrich asked.

“It makes true,” Gschert said to Hans, “that finding ourselves on such a world we resort to the ways of our forefathers.” And he stripped himself of his clothing, worn and faded sash and blouse tossed to the ground, and stood shivering in the March afternoon.

Hans had come to stand beside Dietrich. “Remember,” he said, “that it is better for one man to die than a whole people, and if this will restore concord…” Then, to Gschert, he added, “This is my body, to be given up for many.”

To the neck. Dietrich realized suddenly that Hans would not defend himself from Gschert’s jaws. “No!” he said.

“Has it come to this, then?” Gschert asked.

And Hans answered, “As Arnold always knew it would. Galatians 5:15.”

“Have with your thought-lacking superstition, then!”

But before Gschert could spring upon the unresisting Hans, Dietrich heard the arresting tones of a trumpet, the sound that was better than all the echoes in the world.

“It was simple enough,” Herr Manfred said while Max and his soldiers led the now compliant Krenken back toward Oberhochwald. “Before even I reached the village, the field hands told me that you had like a madman galloped toward the Great Wood, and that, shortly after, the Krenken followed. I pushed my men to the double-quick. We must naturally leave our horses behind the ridge, but we were clad in half-armor for the road and so the march was not difficult. I heard some of what befell over the common canal. What was the cause of it?”

Dietrich gazed out over the clearing, at the clutter of furnishings, at the lack of order. “The Krenken hunger for obedience,” he said, “and Herr Gschert has served them bad porridge.”

Manfred threw his head back in laughter. “If they hunger for someone to obey,” the lord of Oberhochwald said, “I will serve out that porridge myself.”

And so later, in the great hall, Hans and Gottfried pressed their hands together and Manfred enclosed them in his own, and they foreswore their oaths to Baron Grosswald and accepted Herr Manfred as their liege. In recognition of his valor in the battle at Falcon Rock, Manfred placed a ruby ring on Hans’ right hand. Gschert was not content with this arrangement, but agreed in a Nicodemian ma

Shepherd accepted also when two of her pilgrims asked to be settled on the manor and to be baptized. “Those who tarry in strange lands often take up rude customs of land. We have term for it, which would ‘overset as walk in steps of native-born’. They think their cares to throw over. Later, they regret; but must be later-time in which regrets may come. You clever, priest, and have lift Hans and his heretics of one burden; but leave me with mine own.” And the leader of the pilgrims studied the Herr Gschert from across the hall. “Yet, I think Hans may not be lift of all. I think your Herr Manfred not permit us to depart and that, above all things, what Hans wishes.”

“Do not you all wish that?”

“Vain to will impossible.”

“The word is ‘hope,’ my lady. When Gottfried was repairing the ‘circuit,’ he gave me to understand that his repair fell short of the standards of the original craftsmen. Yet he applied himself to the task with a will, and I could not help but admire him for that. Any fool can hope when success lies plainly in view. It wants genuine strength to hope when matters are hopeless.”

“Thought-lacking!”

“If one presses on, God may grace the effort with success after all, and that end despair will never achieve. My lady, what would you, had you thrown Baron Grosswald over?”

The pilgrim-leader smiled the krenkish smile, which always seemed to Dietrich half-mocking. “To order Hans to do as he has done.”

“And yet you blame him for having done it!”

“Without orders? Yes.”

Dietrich turned to face the Lady Shepherd fully. “You sent Gschert into the Great Woods.”

“In my country,” the Lady answered, “we play game of placing stones within array. Some stones remain in place and these we call… Heinzelmä