Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

Author:Michael Flynn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Historical, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780765340351
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2006-01-01T10:00:00+00:00

LATER THAT afternoon, Dietrich and Joachim fed the milch cow and the other animals pertaining to the benefice. The shed was warm from the heat of the beasts and rich with the odors of dung and straw. “It will please me,” Dietrich said as he forked silage into the manger, “When the Krenken have gone and Theresia resumes her duties.”

Joachim, who had taken the more noisome task of the chicken coop, paused and wiped the curls off his brow with the back of his hand. “Dietrich, you cannot grind a sausage into a sow.”

Dietrich frowned and leaned upon his pitchfork. The cow lowed. Joachim turned and scattered feed to the chickens. There was a distant sound of banging pots in the outbuilding.

“She was always like a daughter to me,” Dietrich said at last.

Joachim grunted. “Children are a father’s curse. My father told me that. He meant me, of course. He’d lost a hand in the Barons’ War, and it embittered him that he could no longer chop other men to pieces. He wanted me to take his place and be my uncle’s heir, but I wanted God to live in me, and butchery seemed an uncertain path to the New Age.” Dietrich twitched and Joachim nodded. “You taught Theresia charity, but when tried for the greatest charity of all she was found wanting. I have written it so in my journal. ‘Even Pastor Dietrich’s ward was tried and found wanting.’”

Dietrich shook his head. “Never say such a thing. It would hurt her. Say rather that ‘Pastor Dietrich was tried and found wanting,’ for I have always fallen short of the marks I have set.”

The Kratzer burst into the shed, buzzing and clicking and shaking a cook’s ladle. Dietrich jumped at the sudden intrusion and braced the pitchfork before him, but when he saw it was the philosopher, he pulled the head-harness from his scrip and woke it.

“Where is Hans?” the Krenk demanded. “It is past time and my meal is unprepared.”

Joachim opened his mouth to answer, but Dietrich lifted a hand to still him. “We’ve not seen him since morning,” Dietrich temporized. At this, the Krenk slammed a fist into the doorpost, said something that the Heinzelmännchen did not translate, and bounded from the shed.

Dietrich removed his head-harness and carefully put it to sleep. “So. He doesn’t know—which means that Grosswald did not send them.” He worried. Gschert had imprisoned Hans for snatching Dietrich from the dungeon of Schloss Falkenstein. What retribution might follow this new transgression?

BY TIERCE the next day, Baron Grosswald had learned of the matter and barged into the parsonage, shoving the door so hard that it banged and recoiled from the wall. Dietrich, who was praying his office at the time, jumped from the prie-dieu, dropping his book of hours so that the pages bent on themselves.

“He will show me his neck when he returns!” Grosswald cried. “Why did Manfred allow it?” Shepherd and the Kratzer pushed into the room as well, the pilgrim-leader pausing to close the door against the March chill.

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