(eng) Michael Flynn by Eifelheim (retail)

Author:Eifelheim (retail) [Eifelheim (retail)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

ON ST. AGATHA’S Day, Dietrich recited the Mass alone. There were the sick and lame to pray for. Walpurga Honig had suffered a kick from her mule. Gregor’s older son, Karl, was laid up with a fever. And Franz Ambach had asked prayers for the repose of his mother, who had gone to her reward this past month. Dietrich asked also the intercession of St. Christopher for Bertram’s safe return from Basel.

He gave thanks, again, that the pest had gone to England and not to the high woods. It was sinful to take joy from the suffering of others, but Oberhochwald’s good fortune was annexed to it, and England’s misfortune was in that annex that he took joy.

“Meménto étiam, Dómine,” he prayed, “famulórum famularúmque tuárum Lorenz Schmidt, et Beatrix Ambach, et Arnold Krenk, qui nos praecésserunt cum signo fidei, et dórmiunt in somno pacis.” He wondered if that were true about the Krenkish alchemist. He had certainly died with a “sign of faith” clutched in his hands, but self-murder was normally a bar to heaven. Yet God moved no tragedy but that some good might come of it, and, seeing how affected the visitors were by their companion’s death, many of the Hochwalders who had before been wary or fearful of the Krenken, now greeted them openly and, if not warmly, with less marked hostility.

As he put the sacred vessels away, he thought to go by Theresia’s cottage. Lately, he had invented reasons for pausing there. Yesterday, she had told him about Walpurga’s leg and that she had set the bone. Dietrich had thanked her and waited for her to say more, but she had dipped her head and closed her window shutters.

She must by now know that she had been wrong about the Krenken. Recalling his own terror upon first sight, it was easy to forgive Theresia her more lingering dread. She would admit her error to him, she would return to the parsonage and do his chores, and in the evenings, before she returned to her cottage at the base of the hill, they would eat sweet-cakes together as they always had beforetimes and he would read to her from De usu partium or the Hortus deliciarum.

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