Eifelheim

And so it was.

Manfred summoned the jurors to the courtyard, where Nymandus the gärtner swore to Oliver’s presence among the outlaws and to his murder of the Altenbach boy. The young man made no response, but whispered, “I rode a horse and carried a sword. I struck blows for the poor and in honor of the queen of love and beauty.”

No, Dietrich thought, you struck blows upon the poor — because your queen of love and beauty chose another. He wondered what the other outlaws had made of him. Had they, too, imagined themselves free men defying oppressive lords?

None spoke in Oliver’s behalf, not even his father, who loudly disowned his son and cried that this was the fate of all those who aspired above themselves. But afterward, he returned to his bakery and sat for hours staring at the cold, cold oven.

Only A

And instead of wi

“You see to the next life,” the Herr answered. “I must see to this one.”

The Krenken who had crowded into the court clattered their agreement along with the other Hochwalders when the jurors returned their verdict and Manfred pronounced sentence of death. Gschert von Grosswald and Thierry von Hinterwaldkopf, who flanked Manfred on the bench, concurred in the judgment, Gschert with a simple scissoring of his horny lips.

So the next morning at dawn, they led the prisoner forth, bound and gagged, bleeding from a dozen wounds, face blackened by countless blows. His eyes darted like two mice above the rag jammed into his mouth, seeking escape, seeking succor, finding nothing but dull contempt from those around him. His own father spat upon him as he was led down the high street toward the linden tree for judgement.

Later, when Dietrich went by Theresia’s cottage to see to her welfare, he encountered Gregor outside her door, nursing one hand with the other. “My little finger, I think,” the mason said. “It wants a splint. I jammed it between two stones.”

Dietrich rapped on the doorpost and Theresia pulled open the upper door and, seeing Gregor, brightened into the first smile Dietrich had witnessed since the advent of the Krenken into the village. Then she caught sight of Dietrich. “Greet God, father,” she said before turning to address Gregor. “And how goes it by you, mason?”

Gregor raised his bloody hand in mute appeal, and Theresia gasped and rushed him in. Dietrich followed, leaving the upper door open for the air. He watched Theresia cleanse the wound and bind it to a splint with a hemp bandage, although it seemed to Dietrich that the mason was not one to quail at such small hurts. Only after she had cared for Gregor did Theresia address Dietrich. “And are you then also wounded, father?”

Yes, he thought. “I came only to see how matters go with you,” Dietrich said.

“It goes well,” she said, turning up her eyes to his face.

Dietrich waited for her to say more, but she did not; and so he took her by the shoulders and kissed her on the brow, as he had so often in her childhood. Unaccountably, she began to weep. “I wish they had never come!”

Dietrich said, “Gottfried-Lorenz has assured me that they will soon go home.”

“To one home or another,” Gregor said. “Two more died this past week. I think they die of homesickness.”

“No one dies of homesickness,” Dietrich said. “The cold killed some — the alchemist, the children, a few others — but summer is come.”

“It’s what Arnold once told me,” the mason insisted. “He said, ‘We will die because we are not at home.’ And again, he said, ‘Here, we eat our fill, but are not nourished.’”

“That is senseless,” said Dietrich.

The mason scowled, and glanced at Theresia, and then at the open doorway, through which the sounds of birds thrilled the morning air. “It puzzles me,” the big man admitted. “Your friend, the Kratzer, said once that he wished for half the hope that Arnold had. Yet, Arnold murdered himself, and the Kratzer did not.”

“Their talking head may not understand such words as ‘hope’ or ‘despair.’”

“What difference,” said Theresia, “whether they die or depart?”

Dietrich turned and took her hand in his, and she did not pull away. “All men die,” he told her. “What matters in God’s eye is how we have treated one another in life. ‘Love the Lord with your whole heart and your whole soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.’ This command binds us to one another and saves us from the snares of vengeance and brutality.”

“There is no shortage among Christians of vengeance and brutality,” Gregor observed.

“Men are men. ‘By their fruits you shall know them,’ not by what name they call themselves. Sudden grace may come upon even the most wicked of men. Ja, even the most wicked of men… I have — I have seen this myself.”

Theresia reached out and touched his cheek to brush away a tear. Gregor spoke: “You mean Gottfried-Lorenz. Grosswald called him choleric, and now he is the humblest of Krenken.”

“Ja,” said Dietrich, glancing toward him. “Ja. I meant like Gottfried-Lorenz.”

“But I think Grosswald intended no praise by it.”

Theresia was weeping also and Dietrich returned her favor. “No, he would not,” he answered. “By him are forbearance and forgiveness weakness and folly. A man with power uses it; one without, obeys. But I believe all men thirst for justice and mercy, whatever is written in the ‘atoms of their flesh.’ We have saved six of his folk — perhaps seven, for of the alchemist I am uncertain.”

“Justice and mercy,” said Gregor. “Both at once? Now, there stands a riddle.”

“Father,” said Theresia suddenly, “can one love and hate the same man?”

A bee had found its way into the cottage and hunted diligently among the herbs that Theresia grew in small clay pots on her windowsills. “I think,” Dietrich said at last, “that it may be not the same man, but rather two: the man he is now and the man he once was. If a si

He feared to press the matter further and left the cottage shortly after with Gregor. Outside, the mason rubbed his injured finger absently. “She is a sweet woman, if a simple one. And she may not be entirely wrong about the demons. It may be as Joachim says — the supreme test. But who is tested? Do we lead them to humility, or do they lead us to vengeance? Knowing men, I fear the second.”

At breakfast the next morning, the Kratzer opened a flask that he kept in his scrip. The contents proved a murky broth, which the Krenk stirred into his porridge. He screwed the cork back into place, but sat frozen with the flask in hand for some time before returning it to his scrip. The Kratzer pulled a spoonful of porridge to his lips, hesitated, then returned spoon and contents to the bowl and pushed it away. Dietrich and Joachim exchanged puzzled glances, and the Minorite rose from his seat and went to the pot to check the porridge.

“Does it fill, but not nourish?” Dietrich asked in jest, remembering what Gregor had said the day before.

The Kratzer responded with that stillness in which his folk seemed to turn to stone. Always u

The Kratzer stirred his porridge. “I ought not speak of it.” Dietrich waited and Joachim watched with a puzzled frown. He ladled porridge into his own bowl but, although he had to reach past the Kratzer to do so, the Krenk did not move.