Eifelheim

After making the arrangements, Dietrich knelt in prayer in his room. Be mindful, O Lord, of thy covenant, he prayed, and say to the destroying angel: Now hold thy hand, and let not the land be made desolate, and destroy not every living soul. When he raised his eyes, he saw Lorenz’s strange iron crucifix and bethought himself of the smith. A strange and gentle man in whom God had blended both strength and mildness; a man who had died trying to save a monstrous stranger from an unseeable peril. What had God intended by that? And what had God intended by moving a violent and wrathful Krenk to take Lorenz’ name — and as much of his mildness as the krenkish nature could assume?

Rising from the pre-dieu, he saw Hans squatting knees-above-head behind him. Do

A faint parting of the soft lips indicated a wan smile. “Among us, noise is evidence of clumsiness. In the atoms of our flesh, it is written that we make no sound, and the most silent are the most admired, and esteemed the most attractive. When our forefathers were animals, lacking thought and speech, we were prey to terrible flying things. And so, when we were pagans, we worshipped swooping, fearsome gods. Death was a release from fear — and our only prize.”

“’Do not be afraid.’ Our Lord said that more often than he said anything else.”

Hans clacked his side-lips. “Do you have the sentence in your head that tomorrow’s procession will halt this pest of yours, that it will bar the small-lives from the High Woods?”

“If it is as you say, no. No more than prayer can stay a charging horse. But that is not why we pray. God is no such cheap juggler as to play for a pfe

“Why, then?”

“Because it will focus our minds on last things. All men die, as all krenken die. But how we approach that death matters, for we will receive another life according to our merits.”

“When your folk submit, you kneel before your Herr. Among us, we squat as you see.”

Dietrich accepted this, and after a moment he asked, “For what purpose have you prayed?”

“For thanks. If I must die, at least I have lived. If my companions have perished, at least I have known them. If the world is cruel, at least I have tasted kindness. I had to cross to the far side of the sky to taste it but, as you say, the world is full of miracles.”

“There is no hope, then, for your folk?”

“’One thing alone removes all chance of death; and that thing is death.’ But hear me, Dietrich, and I will tell you a sentence that my folk have learned. The body may be strengthened by an exercise of the spirit. Do you understand me? One man may welcome death, and so find it.

Another may may will himself to live, and in that will may lie the difference in their fates. So, if these prayers and processions muster your energia, you may better resist the entry of the small lives into your bodies. As for me, I have an answer to my own prayer.”

“And what is that?”

But Hans refused to say. He hopped to the bedside of the dying Kratzer and affixed to the wall before his eyes a brightly colored reproduction of the meadow-scene that Dietrich had first noted on the strange “view-slate” on the Kratzer’s desk. Hans then squatted by the bedside for a time in silence. Then he said, “For every Krenk, the sentence is that he would see his birth-nest once more. What you call his ‘heimat.’ However he fares through the world-inside-the-world, whatever wonders he finds in distant places, there gives always that place for him.”

Hans unfolded to his feet. “Our ship will sail,” he said. “In another week, perhaps two. No more.” Then without another word he left the parsonage.

During the week that followed the procession, a curious humor came over the folk of Oberhochwald. There gave much merriment and spontaneous laughter, and they told one another that Munich and Freiburg were far off and what happened there did not affect the high woods. Folk left their harrows to sport in the field. Volkmar Bauer gave Nickel Langerma

Gregor and his sons brought Theresia Gresch to Mass on the Fifth Sunday in Pentecost. This Mass was better attended than most, and afterward Gregor said that if people were frightened more often, the village would be a friendlier place, and he laughed as if at a great and terrible joke.

Dietrich gave thanks for the new-found concord but when, after that week, nothing had happened, the village slowly returned to normal. The free tenants once more spurned the gärtners and serfs; the horseplay in the fields ceased. Dietrich wondered if the penitential procession had, as Hans had suggested, strengthened their spririts to resist the bad air; but Joachim only laughed.

“How heartfelt is a penance that fades so soon?” He shook his head. “No, true contrition is longer, broader, deeper than that, for this sin was so long with us.”

“But the pest is not a punishment,” Dietrich insisted.

Joachim turned his eyes away. “Do not say that,” he whispered fiercely in the soft confines of the wooden church — and the statues seemed to whisper back in creaks and moans. “If it is not punishment, it is nothing; and it is too terrible a thing to be nothing.”

That night, quietly, the Kratzer died.

Joachim wept, for the philosopher had never accepted Christ and had died outside the arms of the Church. Hans said only, “Now, he knows.”

Dietrich, to comfort the servant of the talking head, said that God could save whom He would, and there was a limb of Heaven reserved for the virtuous pagans, a place of natural happiness.

“Do I experience that which you call ‘grief’?” the Krenk wondered. “We do not weep as you do; so perhaps we do not feel as you do. But there is a sentence in my head that I will see the Kratzer no more, that never more will he give me instruction, never more strike me for my faults. Since a long time, I have not paid homage to him — I use your term — and since that time, I have looked on him differently. Not as a servant looks on a master, but as one servant looks on another, for are we not both servants of a greater Lord? The sentence in my head is that this pleased him in some way, for even now I ca

He turned to the window, where he stared down Church Hill to the village and beyond that to the Great Woods. “He would not drink, and I did. The strength he refused was mine to repair the ship. Which of us was right?”

“I do not know, my friend,” said Dietrich.

“Gschert drank, and did nothing.”

Dietrich did not answer him. The Krenk’s lips worked slowly.

After a time, the physician came with two other Krenken and they carried off the mortal remains of the Kratzer to their vessel, there to prepare him for the nourishment of others.

Friday, on the commemoration of the Seven Holy Brothers, the Krenken departed the High Woods. Manfred bade them a ceremonial farewell in his manor hall, inviting their leaders and those who had hosted them. To Shepherd he gave a necklace of pearls, while to Baron Grosswald he gave a coronet of silver to signify his rank. Perhaps for the only time, Dietrich thought the Krenken leader affected. He set the laurel upon his head with great care and, though Shepherd split her lips in the krenkish smile, the knights and armsmen present gave forth a loud “Hoch!” that startled the Krenken.