Eifelheim

Dietrich prepared the salves and ungeants in the kitchen outbuilding, while Joachim prepared also di

“Your salvation,” Dietrich told him, “lies in the Bread and in the Wine.”

“Ja,” said the Kratzer, still studying root. “But bread of what grain? Wine brewed of which fruit? Ach, had Arnold persevered, he might have found the answer in this unpromising wood.”

“One doubts so,” said Dietrich. “That is mandrake, and a poison.”

“As we will all learn,” Joachim said from the kettle, “if you let it into my stew.”

“A poison,” said the Kratzer.

Dietrich spoke. “Doch. I have lately learned that it induces sleep and a relief from pain.”

“Yet, that which poisons you may sustain us,” the Kratzer said. “Arnold should have continued his proofings. Our physician has not his skill at alchemy.”

“What was it Arnold sought?”

The Kratzer rubbed his forearms slowly. “Some thing to sustain us until our salvation.”

“The Word of God, then,” said Joachim from the fireplace.

“Our daily bread,” said the Kratzer.

Dietrich thought the concordance too neat. The words he heard the Kratzer speak were only those that the Heinzelmä

“That we should be taken from this world to the next, and so to our home beyond the stars, when your lord-from-the-sky at last on Easter comes.”

“Faith is vain,” said Joachim, “without charity. You must follow the Way that is Jesus — shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted, feed the hungry -.”

“Ach!” cried the Kratzer. “Could I but feed the hungry! Yet, there is food which nourishes and that which merely fills.” He rubbed his forearms slowly together, a sound like a grinding millstone and hopped to the doorway, the upper half of which was open to the late afternoon, and stared out toward the Lesser Wood. “I have never -,” he said after a silence. “Your word is ‘wed,’ though among us it wants three to accomplish. I have never wed, but there are colleagues and nest-brothers that I would see once more, and now I never shall.”

“Three!” said Joachim.

The Kratzer hesitated a moment and his mandibles parted, as if on the edge of speech; then he said. “In our language, the terms would mean the ‘sower,’ the ‘eggmaker,’ and the… The Heinzelmä

“You must not lose hope,” said Joachim.

The Kratzer turned his great yellow eyes on the monk. “Hope! One of your ‘i

“When all else is lost,” Joachim told him, “it is the one thing you may keep.”

At Theresia’s cottage, Dietrich’s knock was answered first by silence, then by a furtive movement by the shutters, then by the upper door opening. Awkwardly, Dietrich pulled from his scrip the bag of medicines he had prepared and extended them to the woman who had been the only daughter in his life. “Here,” he said. “I made these for you. One is a sleep-inducement made of mandrake for which some instruction is required.”

Theresia did not take the bag. “What temptation is this? I am no witch, to deal in poisons.”

“’The dose makes the poison.’ You know that. I taught you.”

“Who gave you this poison? The demons?”

“No, it was the Savoyard physician who treated Eugen.” Only a chirurgeon, but Dietrich did not mention that. He shook the bag. “Take it, please.”

“Which is the poison? I won’t touch it.”

Dietrich took the sponge he had infused with the Savoyard’s mixture.

“I wish you hadn’t made it. You never dealt in poison before they came.”

“It was the Savoyard, I told you.”

“He was only their instrument. Oh, father, I pray every day that you break free of their spell. I have asked for help for you.”

Dietrich felt cold. “Who have you asked?”

Theresia took the remainder of the bag from him. “I remember when I saw you first,” she said. “I could never remember, but now I do. I was very small, and you seemed enormous. Your face was all blackened from smoke and people were screaming. There was a red beard… Not yours, but…” She shook her head. “You snatched me over your shoulder and said, ‘Come with me.’” She began to close the upper door, but Dietrich held it back.

“I thought we could talk.”

“About what?” And she closed the door firmly.

Dietrich stood silently before the cottage. “About… anything,” he whispered. He had longed so for her smile. She had always delighted in his gifts of medicines. Oh, father! the child cried in his memories. I do love you so!

“And I love you,” he said aloud. But if the door heard, it did not answer, and Dietrich had barely dried his tears before he reached the parsonage at the top of the hill.

Shortly before vespers on Holy Thursday, a herald arrived from Strassburg bearing a parcel sealed with ribbons and with the episcopal arms impressed into bright red wax. The herald found Dietrich in the church preparing for the morrow’s Mass of the Pre-sanctified, the only day of the year when no Consecration was prayed. Warned by the farspeaker, Hans and the other Christian Krenken, who were helping drape the crosses and statues in black, had leapt into the rafters and hidden themselves in the shadows above.

Dietrich inspected the seals and saw no sign of tampering. He hefted it, as if its weight would reveal its matter. That someone as august as Berthold II knew his name frightened him beyond measure. “Know you what this touches upon?” he asked the herald.

But the man denied knowledge and departed, though with many a wary glance at his surroundings. Joachim, who was also helping in the church, said, “I think rumors have reached the bishop’s ears. That man was sent to deliver a message, but he was also told to keep his eyes open.”

The Krenken dropped to the flagstones and resumed their work with the shrouds. Gottfried, last to drop, said, “Shall we give him something to see?” Then he departed, laughing.

Dietrich slit the seal on the packet and unfolded it. “What is it?” Joachim asked.

It was an indictment from the episcopal court that he had baptized demons. If there were any surprise in the contents, it was that they had been so long in coming.

It came suddenly upon Dietrich that it was on this night, at about this time of day, that the Son of Man had been betrayed by one of his own. Would they come for him tonight, as well? No, he had a month’s grace to respond.

He read the document a second time, but the words had not changed.

“A month’s grace,” said Manfred when Dietrich came to his scriptorium with the news.

“By law,” Dietrich answered. “And I must provide a list of my enemies, so the investigating magistrate may decide whether the charges have been laid in malice. There must be at least two witnesses before a judge will act. The bill does not name them, which is unusual.”