Eifelheim

Joachim sat on a small stool by the Kratzer’s cot and spooned a little porridge into the creature’s mouth. Outside, weathercocks turned and dark clouds tumbled over one another as they raced across the sky. A distant cloud over the lowlands flashed. Dietrich stood by the open window and smelled rain in the air.

“Your weather pleases,” said a voice in the head harness, and it seemed so hale that Dietrich needed a moment to mark it as the Kratzer’s. It ought to gasp and sound weak, as befit his estate, but the Heinzelmä

The Kratzer raved when he spoke of returning, since it was growing ever more evident that he would not be leaving — save in the ma

As gently as he could, Dietrich told him of Ilse, at which the philosopher turned his face to the wall.

Each day, Dietrich and Joachim prepared a meal for the weakening Kratzer, trying divers materials in the hope that one might contain the substance that his body craved. They made stews of unlikely fruits, and teas of doubtful herbs. Nothing could do more harm than doing nothing more. The philosopher had put aside untasted the flask containing the alchemist’s vile brew, and each day his horny skin grew more mottled. “He bleeds within,” explained the krenkish physician, when Dietrich had called upon her skills. “If he will not drink the broth, there is naught I can do. And even should he drink,” she added, “it but prolongs the dying. All our hope is in Hans, and Hans has gone mad.”

“I will pray for his soul,” Dietrich said, and the physician tossed her arm for souls, for life, for death, for hope.

“You may believe that the energia can live without the body to support it,” the Krenkerin replied, “but ask no such foolishness from me.”

“You have the plow before the ox, doctor. It is the spirit that supports the body.” But the doctor was a materialist and would not hear it. Good in small things, as such folk often were, she esteemed the krenkish body as but a machine, like a water wheel, and gave no thought to the rushing waters that moved it.

When, after a week had gone by with no further word, the dread of the pest began to fade and people laughed at those who had shown so much fear before. By the Nativity of John, festivities drew them forth from their cottages. The tenants sent their tithe of meat to the parsonage and lit bonfires on the hills, even on the Katerinaberg, so that the vigil night was pocked with ruddy glows. Boys ran about the village drawing fiery arcs with their torches to chase away dragons. At the last, a great hoop of wood and brush was lit on the church green and rolled downhill, and a great sigh lifted from a hundred lips, for it toppled to its side halfway down. The children delighted in the flames and diversions, but their elders clucked over the bad luck thus signified. The fiery wheel more often reached the bottom without falling, the old women told the old men, who nodded without contradiction, although memory might run otherwise.

Hans parted his lips. “Underseeking your customs was the Kratzer’s great work, and I have the sentence in my head that this example might please him.”

“He is dying.”

“And so, deserving a comfort.”

Dietrich fell silent. When a few moments had gone by, he said, “You loved your master.”

“Bwa-wa! How could I not? It is written in the atoms of my flesh. Nevertheless, one more bite of knowing to feed his mind would please him.” He stiffened abruptly into immobility. “Gottfried-Lorenz calls. There is trouble.”

Gottfried wore a floral crown and had shed his leather hose to leap among the revelers. Few remarked the custom any longer, as he had no shameful organs to display. At least, none that women would recognize as such. Somehow, in the whirling, he had swiped Sepp Bauer across the crown with his serrated arm, and the young man lay now prostrate amid the flickering torches. Some in the crowd made ugly growls in their throats. Others gathered by the moment, asking questions.

“The monster attacked my son!” Volkmar declared. He swept his arm around his neighbors. “We all saw.” A few nodded and muttered. Others shook their heads. A few cried that it was chance. Ulrike, swollen with child, shrieked to see her husband lying so. “You beast!” she cried at Gottfried. “You beast!”

Dietrich saw anger, confusion, fright, recognized the signs. He noticed from the corner of his eye, a handful of other Krenken gathering in the outer darkness, and one, who held the rank of sergeant among them and was known therefore as Hopping Max, had unfastened the flap on the scrip that held his pot de fer. “Gregor,” Dietrich called to the mason. “Fetch Max from the castle. Tell him we have a matter for the Herr’s justice.”

“The Markgraf’s, you mean!” Volkmar shouted. “Murder is for the high justice.”

“No. See! Your son breathes. It wants only the scalp sewn back in place and a little rest.”

“Not by you,” Volkmar replied. “Your tender-heartedness to these demons is a scandal.”

What might have happened then remained unknown, for Max arrived with a half-dozen armsmen and imposed the Herr’s peace upon them; and Manfred, when he arrived much put out at the late hour, ruled the matter accidental and declared that a full trial of the facts would await the a

The crowd sullenly dispersed, some giving Volkmar a slap on the shoulder, others giving him a look of disgust. Gregor said to Dietrich, “Volkmar’s not a bad man, but his tongue can slither out of his food-hole before he knows it. And he says things with such certitude that he ca

“Gregor, at times I think you are the cleverest man in Oberhochwald.”

The mason crossed himself. “God forbid, that is no great feat.”

When the revelers had dispersed and Dietrich was alone with Hans and Gottfried, Hans said, “The Herr is a clever man. In three months, sits the court, and long before, all questions are moot.

Gottfried touched Dietrich in the shoulder, startling him. “Father, I have si

Dietrich regarded his convert. “Guilt may be altered by circumstances,” he allowed. “If your instinctus overcame you—”

“Striking him was not my sin.”

“What, then?”

“Afterward…, I was happy.”

“Ah. That is serious. How did he provoke you?”

“He taunted me. He called himself happy that we would soon be gone.”

Dietrich cocked his head. “Because you starve? He hoped for your death?”

“No, he meant our ship. I did not think. He might have meant a ‘fare well.’ He could not have known of our failure.”

Dietrich stopped and grabbed Gottfried by the arm, which caused the Krenk to freeze and check an instinctive blow. “Failure?” Dietrich demanded. “What means this?”

“The wire will not serve,” he said. “There is a measure… You know how a rope will snap if too much weight pulls on it? Our electronik mill snaps also, though in a different way. With each proofing, it grows less strong. We cast the sums and…”