Eifelheim

“No,” Dietrich explained, “beings made of earth move naturally toward the center of the earth. But these beings are drawn less strongly because they come from a different earth. Hans told me that on Krenkhome his weight, or ‘gravitas,’ was greater than here.

Klaus grunted, unconvinced, and started after the others. Dietrich seized Theresia by the wrist. “Come, the Altenbachs may need your salves.”

But she pulled away from him. “Not while they are there!”

Dietrich held his hand out. “Will you lend me then your tote?” When Theresia did not move, he whispered, “And so we see it. First you recoil from these strangers from beyond the firmament; then you recoil from helping your own folk. Did I teach you this from childhood?”

Theresia thrust her bag into his hands. “Here. Take it.” And then she burst into tears. “Watch over Gregor,” she said. “That big fool risks his soul.”

As Dietrich hurried after, Gottfried and Winifred Krenk passed overhead in flying harnesses, with metal buckets of some sort dangling from them. Glancing back, he noted the small knot of villagers who had stayed behind. Theresia. Volkmar Bauer and his kin. The Ackerma

Fulk said, “Hold your flap and hurry, or the fire is out before we get there.”

When, breathless, Dietrich had reached the steading, Manfred met him at the gate. “He needs your sacrament, pastor,” he said, in a voice sharp as flint.

Dietrich entered the smoldering cottage, where the Krenken were smothering the flames with foam they pumped from their curious buckets. On the packed earth floor, Altenbach sat with his hands folded over his midriff, as if after a satisfying meal. Behind him, a woman wept. When he saw Dietrich, Altenbach grimaced. “Thank God ye’ve come in time,” he said. “I’d fain not have her journey alone. Shrive me of my sins, but be damn quick about it.”

Dietrich saw blood oozing between the fingers. “That’s a sword-cut!” he said. And a fatal one… This he did not voice, though he suspected Heinrich knew.

“I thought it would hurt more,” the peasant said. “But I feel cold, as if I had winter in my belly. Father, I have lain with Hildegarde Müller, and once I struck Gerlach Jaeger in anger…” Dietrich leaned close so that others could not hear the confession. For the most part, the man’s trespasses had been stirred only by short-lived passions. There was no true wickedness in him, only the stubborn pride that had driven him to live apart. Dietrich drew the sign of the cross, using his own spittle, and offered him the words of God’s forgiveness.

“Thank you, father,” Heinrich whispered. “It would grieve me to have her alone in heaven. She will be with God, won’t she, father? Her sin does not condemn her.”

“Her sin…?’ Dietrich raised his head and searched the room for Altenbach’s wife, and saw that the woman weeping in the corner was Hilde Müller. Beside her, Gerda Altenbach lay with her throat slit and her clothing ripped from her, although a blanket now covered her decency. “No,’ he told the dying man. “She committed no sin, but was si

Altenbach relaxed. “Poor Oliver,” he said.

“Your sons are Jakop and Jaspar, no?”

“Brave lads,” he whispered. “Defend their mother…” Then he gave his ghost out. When his hands fell away, his guts spilled from him.

“All dead,” said Manfred from the doorway and Dietrich turned to him. “The two boys are in the yard.” The Herr’s glance flickered toward Gerda, rested on Heinrich. “There was a gärtner who worked for him. Calls himself Nymandus. He hid in the woodpile and witnessed all. Tried to flee from me, so he must be off someone’s manor. ‘Nymandus,’ indeed! It’s little I care for sending him back. He saw five men in mail, but much disheveled, so I take them to be those outlaws from Falcon Rock that Long-Nose ran into. They defiled Altenbach’s wife, killed him and his sons, made off with his chickens and yearlings. I think the food was their object. Nymandus said the leader had red hair, which sounds like Falkenstein’s Burgvogt from the watchtower.” The Herr heaved a deep breath and stepped outside into the yard. Dietrich followed him.

“I’ll send Max out,” Manfred said, “but there are too many dells and meadows in those hills, and a small band might lurk unseen for a long time… Dietrich…” He hesitated. “The baker’s son was with them.”

“So. That was what Heinrich meant.”

“Nymandus heard his master call the boy by name. He’s hanged himself for certain now, the fool. It lacks now only his capture and a stout rope.”

“Evil companions led him astray…”

“They’ve led him to the gallows. Altenbach’s older boy — Jakop, was it? — raked him with a sickle and laid open his cheek.” He paused, perhaps reflecting on the similar wound, more honorably obtained by Eugen. “And it was Oliver who cut him down.”

Dietrich had noticed the two boys lying where they had fallen in the barnyard, a bloody sickle clasped in the elder brother’s hand. Had Oliver imagined himself a knight doing battle? He had owned a lively imagination, capable of imposing its fruits on the world about him. Now he was a murderer of children. Dietrich whispered a prayer — for Jakop and Jaspar, for Heinrich and Gerda, and for Oliver.

“Ja,” said Manfred, noting the gesture. “I don’t know if poor Altenbach saw them fall. I hope he died thinking his sons would carry on his blood.”

In the silence that followed, the sound of the distant bell came once more. Dietrich and Manfred looked at one another, but neither said what he thought the omen presaged.

XVIII. June, 1349

At Tierce, The Commemoration of Ephraem of Syria

June came and, in the timeless wheel of the seasons, the winter fields were harvested and the resting field plowed for the September planting. Fully half the plow-days were allotted to the Herr’s salland, so that while the weistümer called for rest from labors at eventide, the free tenants kept hand to plow on their own manses to make the lost time up. One of Trude Metzger’s oxen had died of a murrain the week before, and so she harnessed a cow to her team, though with marked lack of enthusiasm on the cow’s part.

Dietrich and Hans watched the villagers at work from a slab of granite at the edge of the Great Woods. In the rock’s crevices, Dietrich marked the large, blue flowers of adder-heads, and resolved to tell Theresia of their location. Nearby, the spring that ran near the krenkish camp tumbled into the valley. “What foods grow you in your country?” Dietrich asked. “They must differ from those we grow here.”

Hans became as one with the granite slab on which he squatted. This absolute stillness into which the Krenken sometimes fell no longer frightened Dietrich, but he did not yet understand what the habit signified.

Then Hans’ ante

“May you taste them soon. Is your vessel yet ready to depart?”

A parting of the soft-lips. “You tire of my company?”

“Never that, but there will be… difficulties should you remain much longer.”