Eifelheim

XVII. April/May, 1349 Rogation Sunday

By spring, it seemed as if the Krenken had always been there. They had settled into the rivalries, rhythms, friendships, and jealousies that marked village and manor, and had begun to participate in ceremonies and revelries. Perhaps, being deprived of the company of their own folk, their instinctus drove them to seek such comfort. When Franzl Long-nose was wounded by outlaw knights encamped in a cave below the Feldberg, two Krenken used their flying harnesses to scout for the outlaws, though to no avail.

“Men of von Falkenstein’s,” Max told Dietrich later, “who took to the woods when the Rock fell. I had thought them fled toward Breitnau.”

Shepherd’s long awaited coup fell on Low Sunday. Many Krenken, through too-literal a translation, had expected the “Herr-from-the-sky” to arrive and rescue them, and were afterward much disheartened. Shepherd (who had not so misconstrued) had carefully positioned her people, awaiting just this disappointment. She had insinuated herself into Herr Manfred’s company, always between Gschert’s lips and Manfred’s ear. She intended that Manfred should grow accustomed to hearing her advice in addition to — and eventually, in stead of — Gschert’s. Manfred, no stranger to intrigues among his vassals, was keenly aware of her maneuvers. “She thinks to depose him,” he told Dietrich one evening as he and Dietrich and Max strolled the castle walls. “As if my oath to protect him would mean nothing.”

Dietrich said, “She told me that the Krenken play a game of position and maneuver among themselves. I think she is bored, and this is a way of relieving her tedium. A curious folk.”

“A patient folk,” Max answered. “God might’ve created them for ambush work or sentry-go; but for intrigue, the dullest Italian could rob them blind.”

Shepherd seemed affronted when Manfred rejected her assumption of power and instead set guards over Baron Grosswald. Dietrich was unsure how great an obstacle they would have proven had Shepherd pressed her coup to the limit, but the Krenken seemed disinclined to anger their host. Most of the pilgrims and one of the Kratzer’s philosophers declared their fealty to Shepherd, who settled in the end for secession.

Gschert accustomed himself to the role of “Herr of the Krenken,” and he “beat the kettledrum,” as folk said, even though the secession, first of Hans and his companions and then of Shepherd and her pilgrims, greatly reduced his besitting. Most of the ship’s crew remained loyal to him, and perhaps he had convinced himself that this was indeed the rightful and customary bound to his authority. He was seen betimes standing rock-hard on the castle parapet, gazing out across the world with those great yellow eyes and thinking no one knew what. Dietrich never did pierce the consciousness of that cruel and haughty lord.

May blossomed from April’s bounty, and wildflowers speckled the meadows and high woods. The rich odor of rising sap and the fragrance of honey-clover anointed the air. Diligent bees flitted among the blossoms, griping bears newly roused. But in the age-old honey-struggle between bear and bee, it was men who held the balance, for they hunted the one and farmed the other.

On Walpurgisnacht, bonfires lit the hilltops to frighten witches from their covens. As custom required, Manfred spent the day playing with the villagers’ illegitimate children; while those selfsame peasants danced around festooned poles and leapt through fires and ensured a plentiful supply of such children for future years.

Dietrich and Hans sat on the church green, overlooking the celebration. “It is said that the ancient red-haired race who once held these lands lit such fires to mark the middle of the springtime.”

“The folk you call pagans,” Hans said.

“One sort of pagan. The Romans had outgrown such frivolities, one reason why their empire fell. It was much too serious to last.”

“Then the Christians took these customs from the pagans.”

Dietrich shook his head. “No, the pagans became the Christians and merely kept their own ways when they did. So, like the Romans, we give gifts during Christmastide and, like the Germans, we decorate trees on festive occasions.”

“And like the red-haired race, you light bonfires and dance around poles.” Hans parted his lips. “Underseeking your customs was the Kratzer’s great work, and I have the sentence in my head that this example will please him. Perhaps…” He stiffened for just a moment. “Perhaps I will visit him.”

Below, among the celebrants, the philosopher plied his fotografik device.

On Rogation Sunday, Hans and the other enfoeffed Krenken joined the villagers in the annual progress of the manor. Dietrich led them forth after Mass, garbed in a flowing embroidered green cape and bearing holy water in a brass bucket on which was engraved the image of a spring bursting from a rock. Behind him, in order of precedence, marched Klaus and Hilde, then Volkmar and his kin, and the other ministeriales for that year, and behind them the mass of villagers, two hundred strong, chatting and laughing, with children darting among them as random and as humming as the bees in the meadows. Hans and Gottfried walked beside Dietrich, the latter bearing the aspergum and the former, the pail.

But Dietrich remembered when the child Theresia skipped with that same aspergum clenched in her fist; and Lorenz the smith had carried the pail and held the cape. Had Gottfried taken up Lorenz’s old duty as he had taken Lorenz’s name? Now Theresia lingered fearful in the procession’s rear.

Manfred escorted them astride a white palfrey whose mane had been braided and perfumed and inset with fresh violets. With him were Eugen and Kunigund and — on a small white pony — little Irmgard, done up in a lace girdle to mark her chastity and with unbound hair flowing to her waist. Kunigund, being now wed, enclosed her hair with a wimple. Everard strode with his wife Yrmegard and his son Witold a few paces behind the Herr’s party. “He’s no more noble for traipsing in his lord’s muck,” Klaus whispered to his wife, loudly enough that Yrmegard scowled and gripped her husband’s arm.

Dietrich had earlier explained to Hans that this was a ceremony only for the familia; which was why Joachim, like the soldiers in the Burg, had remained behind. Nevertheless, the Kratzer and a few krenkish pilgrims followed with their fotografik devices.

The ground was yet sodden from the previous week’s rains, and soon were hose and shoes spattered and Manfred’s horse mud-stained to her hocks. Whenever they came to a boundary marker, Richart Schultheiss would point it out and parents would toss their children in this stream or bump their head against that tree, to general laughter and repeated demands to “do it again!”

“A curious custom,” Hans said as they progressed. “Yet it touches. One cannot love a world. It is too large. But a fleck of ground so far as his eye can see, one may hold precious above all.”

After stopping for a midday meal, and a visit by the curious to the krenkish vessel, the villagers emerged on the east side of the Great Woods, where the ground dropped sharply toward the Bear Valley road. Manfred had reined in on a spur of rock to essay the descent when he suddenly held a palm up. “Quiet!” The chatter of the peasants gave way to louder cries of “Silence, there!” and “The Herr wants silence!”

Finally, there was the sound only of soft breezes and rustling branches from the woods behind them. Everard began to make some remark, but the Herr hushed him with a gesture.

Faintly, they heard it: the tocsin of a distant bell.

It was a single note, tolling slowly, borne half-heard like a leaf on the blustery winds. “Angelus already?” someone asked.

“No, the sun is yet too high.”

“Too deep for St. Catherine’s peal. Is it St. Peter’s?”

“St. Wilhelm, I think.”

“No, St. Wilhelm tolls three bells.”

Then the wind shifted and the faint ringing died. Manfred listened further, but the sound did not repeat itself. “Whose bell was that?” he asked Dietrich.

“Mine Herr, I did not recognize it. St. Blasien owns a bass bell called the Paternoster, but this was higher-pitched. I think it was more distant than those we usually hear, and some freak of wind brought it to our ears.”

Manfred scowled toward the Swiss, the direction from which the ringing had seemed to come. “Basel, perhaps?”

Hans cried, “Smoke! And five riders.”

Everard leapt atop a protruding boulder and shaded his eyes. “The monster has right. Altenbach’s steading burns! A dust cloud moves off toward the northeast. That five riders are under it,” he added as he dropped off the stone, “I will take the word of the bug-eye.”

Manfred ordered his serfs across the valley to help put out the fire. Hans called the other baptized Krenken to his side. After a deal of pointing and clacking, he and Beatke leapt toward Altenbach’s steading, while Gottfried and another hopped into the woods, toward the wrecked ship. The fifth stood irresolute.

“How can they leap so far?” Klaus wondered, for this was the first time he had seen the Krenken in open country. “Do they wear seven-league boots?”

“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 Ackermanns. And one of the Krenken. Well, one did not need two hundred men to fight a single fire! Yet, loping by his side were Nickel Langermann and Fulk Albrecht’s son — and even Klaus Müller! Nickel grinned. “Altenbach will owe me favors for this,” he said. “It never hurts to have a rich peasant owe you.”

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 sinned against, as St. Thomas taught.’

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.