Eifelheim

“The fires are out, pastor.”

“What?”

“The fires are out,” said Gregor.

“Oh.” Dietrich shook himself from his trance. Up and down the line, men and women sank to their knees. Lorenz Schmidt raised the last bucket and poured the water over his head.

“What damage?” Dietrich asked. He sank to his haunches in the reeds along the mill pond’s edge, too tired to climb up the embankment and see for himself.

The mason’s height gave him an advantage. He shaded his eyes against the sun and studied the scene. “The huts are lost,” he said. Bauer’s roof will want replacement. Ackerma

“Were any hurt?”

“A few burns, so far as I can see,” said Gregor. Then he laughed. “And Young Seppl has scorched the seat from his trousers.”

“Then we have much to be thankful for.” Dietrich closed his eyes and crossed himself. O God, who suffers not that any who hope in Thee should be overmuch afflicted, but listens kindly to their prayers, we thank Thee for having heard our requests and granted our desires. Amen.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that everyone had gathered at the pond. Some were wading in the water, and the younger children — not comprehending the close brush with disaster — had seized the opportunity to go swimming.

“I have a thought, Gregor.” Dietrich examined his hands. He would have to mix a salve when he was back in his quarters, else there would be blisters. Theresia made such ointments, but she would likely run short today, and Dietrich had read from Galen in Paris.

The mason sat beside him. He rubbed his hands slowly back and forth, palm to palm, scowling at them, as if searching for signs and portents among the scars and swollen knuckles. The little finger of the left hand was missing, crushed off in a long ago accident. He shook his head. “What?”

“Affix the buckets to a belt moved by Klaus Müller’s wheel. It wants only Herr Manfred’s grace and the services of a skilled cam master. No. Not a belt. A bellows. And a pump, like the one used at Joachimstal.”

Gregor frowned and turned his head so he could see Klaus Müller’s water wheel downstream from the mill pond. The mason pulled a reed from the earth and held it dangling at arm’s length. “Müller’s wheel is out of plumb,” he said, sighting along the reed. “From that strange wind, do you think?”

“Have you ever seen a water pump?” Dietrich asked him. “The mine at Joachimstal is at the top of the hill, but the miners have fashioned a latticework of wooden spars extending up the hillside from the stream. It takes its power from a water wheel, but a cam translates the wheel’s circular motion into the lattice-work’s to-and-fro.” He moved his hands in the air, trying to show Gregor the motions he meant. “And that to-and-fro works the pumps up at the mine.”

Gregor wrapped his arms around his knees. “I like it when you weave these fancies of yours, pastor. You should write fables.”

Dietrich grunted. “These are not fables, but fact. Would paper be so plentiful without water mills to pound the pulp? Twenty-five years ago, a cam was fashioned to run a bellows; and I have lately heard that an artisan at Liege has joined the bellows to the hearth and created a new kind of iron furnace — one that uses a blast of air. For now eight years it has been smelting steel in the north.”

“These are wondrous times,” Gregor acknowledged. “But what of your bucket line?”

“Simple! Equip the bellows to throw water instead of air and attach it to a pump, as at Joachimstal. A few men holding such a siphon could direct a continual stream of water at the fire. There would be no need for bucket lines or—”

Gregor laughed. “If such a thing were possible, someone would have built one by now. No one has built one, so it must be impossible.” Gregor stuck his tongue in his cheek and looked thoughtful. “There. That was a logic, wasn’t it?”

“Modus tollens,” Dietrich agreed. “But your major premise is faulty.”

“Is it? I’d not make a good scholar. These things are all a mystery to me. Which is the major premise?”

“The first.”

“How is that faulty? The Romans and the Greeks were clever men. And the Saracens, heathen though they are. You told me yourself. What was that you called it? The one where they do the numbers.”

“Al-jabr. The cipher.”

“Algebra. That’s the one. And then that Genoese fellow when I was apprenticed down in Freiburg who claimed he walked to Cathay and back. Didn’t he describe arts that he had seen there? Well, what I mean is, with all these clever people, Christian, infidel and pagan, ancient and modern, inventing things since the begi

“There would be difficulties in the details. But mark me. One day, all work will be done by clever machines and people will be free to contemplate God and philosophy and the arts.”

Gregor waved a hand. “Or free to contemplate trouble. Well. I suppose anything is possible if we ignore the details. Didn’t you tell me that someone had promised a fleet of wind-driven war chariots to the king of France?”

“Yes, Guido da Vigevano told the king that wagons rigged with sails like a ship—”

“And did the French king use them in this new war with the English he’s gotten?”

“Not that I have heard.”

“Because of the details, I suppose. What of the talking heads? Who was that?”

“Roger Bacon, but it was only a sufflator.”

“That’s right. I remember the name, now. If anyone actually did fashion that talking head, Everard would use it to keep better accounts of our rents and duties. Then the whole village would be mad at you.”

“At me?”

“Well, Bacon is dead.”

Dietrich laughed. “Gregor, every year sees a new art. Only twenty years past, men discovered the art of reading-spectacles. I even spoke with the man who invented them.”

“Did you? What sort of mage was he?”

“No mage. Only a man, like you or I. One who tired of squinting at his psalter.”

“A man like you, then,” Gregor allowed.

“He was a Franciscan.”

“Oh.” Gregor nodded, as if that explained everything.

The villagers dragged their buckets and rakes home, or picked through the charred poles and smoking thatch to salvage what they could from the ruins. Langerma

Dietrich saw Fra Joachim, smudged black by smoke and gripping a bucket. Dietrich hurried after him. “Joachim, wait.” He caught up in a few steps. “We will say a mass in thanksgiving. ‘Spiritus Dómini,’ since the altar is vested already in red. But let us delay until vespers, so everyone can rest from the labor.”

Joachim sooty face showed no emotion. “Vespers, then.” He turned away; and again Dietrich caught his sleeve.

“Joachim.” He hesitated. “Earlier. I thought you had run off.”

The Minorite gave him a stiff look. “I went back for this,” he said, rapping the bucket.

“The bucket?”

He handed it to Dietrich. “The holy water. In case the flames proved diabolical.”

Dietrich looked inside. A residuum of water lay in the bottom. He gave the bucket back to the monk. “And since the flames proved material, after all?”

“Why then, one more bucket of water to fight them.”

Dietrich laughed and gave Joachim a slap on the shoulder. Sometimes the intense young man surprised him. “There, see? You do know something of logic.”