Eifelheim (20 page)

“Indeed there may be, but the journey there is no natural journey.”

The Krenk, always wooden in expression, seemed to stiffen the more. “You … know of such journeys—question.”

The
Heinzelmännchen
had yet to master expression. The Kratzer had told Dietrich that Krenkish languages employed rhythm rather than tone to indicate humor or query or irony. Thus, Dietrich could not be certain that he had heard hope in the machine’s translation.

“The journey to Heaven …” Dietrich suggested, to be sure he understood.

The Krenk pointed skyward. “‘Heaven’ is up there—question.”

“Ja. Beyond the firmament of the fixed stars, beyond
even the crystalline orb or the prime mobile, the unmoving empyrean Heaven. But, the journey is made by our inner selves.”

“How strange that you would know this. How say you ‘all-that-is’: earth, stars, all—question.”

“‘The world.’ ‘Kosmos’.”

“Then, hear. The kosmos is indeed curved and the stars and … I must say, ‘families of stars,’ are embedded within it, as in a fluid. But in—another—direction, neither width nor breadth nor height, lies the other side of the firmament, which we liken to a membrane, or skin.”

“A tent,” Dietrich suggested; but he had to explain “tent,” as the
Heinzelmännchen
had never seen one named.

The Krenk said, “Natural philosophy progresses differently in different arts, and perhaps your people have mastered the ‘other world’ while remaining … simple in other ways.” It looked again out the window. “Could salvation be possible for us …”

The last comment, Dietrich suspected, had not been intended for him to hear. “It is possible for everyone,” he said cautiously.

The Krenk beckoned with its long arm. “Come, and I will explain, although the talking head may not own the words.” When Dietrich had come hesitantly to his side, the Krenk pointed to the darkening sky. “Out there sit other worlds.”

Dietrich nodded slowly. “Aristotle held that impossible, since each world would move naturally toward the center of the other; but the Church has ruled that God could create many worlds should He wish, as my master showed in his nineteenth question on the Heavens.”

The Krenk rubbed its arms slowly. “You must introduce then me to your friend, God.”

“I will. But tell me. For other worlds to exist, there must be a vacuum beyond the world, and this vacuum must be infinite to accommodate the multiplicity of centers and circumferences needed to provide places for these worlds.
Yet, ‘nature abhors a vacuum’ and would rush to fill it, as in siphons and bleeding cups.”

The Krenk was slow in answering. “The
Heinzelmännchen
hesitates. There gives ja a multiplicity of centers, but what means—circumferences—question. Unless—it is what we call the—sun-ridge. Within the sun-ridge, bodies fall inward and circle the sun; beyond it, they fall outward until captured by another sun.”

Dietrich laughed. “But then each body would have two natural motions, which is impossible.” But he wondered. Would a body placed beyond the convex circumference of the prime mobile possess a
resistance
to its natural downward motion? However, the creature had suggested also the sun as the center of the world, which was impossible, for there would then be parallax among the fixed stars when viewed from the Earth, contrary to experience.

But a more troubling thought intruded. “You say you fell outward from one of these worlds across the ‘sun-ridge’ to fall upon our own?” Satan and his minions had fallen in just such a way.
These Krenken are
not
supernatural
, he reminded himself. Of this, his head was convinced, however doubtful his bowels.

Further discourse clarified certain matters and obscured others. The Krenken had not fallen from another world, but had rather traveled in some fashion behind the empyrean heavens. The spaces behind the firmament were like a sea, and the insula, while in some ways like a cart, was also like a great ship. How this was so eluded Dietrich, for it lacked both sails and oars. But he understood that it was neither cog nor galley, but only
like
a cog or a galley; and it did not sail the seas but only something
like
the seas.

“The aether,” said Dietrich in wonder. When the Krenk cocked its head, Dietrich said, “Some philosophers speculate that there is a fifth element through which the stars move. Others, including my own teacher, doubt the necessity of a
quint essence
and teach that heavenly motions can
be explained by the same elements we find in the sublunar regions.”

“You are either very wise,” said the Krenk, “or very ignorant.”

“Or both,” Dietrich admitted cheerfully. “But the same natural laws do apply, not so?”

The creature returned its attention to the sky. “True, our vehicle moves through an insensible world. You can neither see, smell, nor touch it from this existence. We must pass through it to return to our home in the heavens.”

“So must we all,” Dietrich agreed, his fear of this being fading into pity.

The Krenk shook its head and made a smacking sound over and over with its soft upper and lower lips, quite unlike the loose flapping of their laughter. After a few minutes, it said, “But we know not which star marks our home. By the manner of our travel through the inward-curling directions, we cannot know, for the appearance of the firmament differs at each place, and the selfsame star may show a different color and stand in a different place in the heavens. The fluid that drives our ship jumped in an unexpected manner and ran down the wrong mill race. Certain items burned. Ach!” He rubbed his two forearms together sharply. “I do not have the words to say it; nor you the words to hear.”

The creature’s words puzzled Dietrich. How could the Krenken come from a
different
world, and yet claim also to have come from a star which lay embedded in the eighth sphere of
this
world? He wondered if the
Heinzelmännchen
had translated the term “world” properly.

But his thoughts were disturbed by the sound of shoes on gravel outside the door. “My houseguest returns. It would be better if he does not see you.”

The Krenk leapt to the open windowsill. “Keep this,” it said, tapping his harness. “Using it, we may speak at a distance.”

“Wait. How should I call you? What is your name?”

The great yellow eyes turned on him. “As you will. It
will amuse me to learn your choice. The
Heinzelmännchen
tells me what means ‘gschert’ and ‘kratzer,’ but I have not permitted it to overset these terms into our speech according to their proper meanings.”

Dietrich laughed. “So. You play your own game.”

“It is no game.” And with that, the creature was gone, bounding from the window noiselessly into the Lesser Wood below Church Hill.

VIII
OCTOBER
, 1348
Michaelmas to the Feriae Messis

M
ICHAELMAS CAME
and with it the annual court, which the Herr held on the green under an ancient, pale-yellow linden. The tree rustled in the autumn breeze, and women pulled shawls more snugly across their shoulders. To the southeast, dark clouds had gathered over the Wiesen valley, but the air had no smell of rain and the wind sighed in the wrong direction. A dry winter, Volkmar Bauer prophesied, and talk turned to the winter seeding. Each man and woman had worn his best clothing to honor the court: hose and smock carefully darned and nearly clean, but dull against the finery of Manfred and his retinue.

Everard presided at a bench before the great tree, and the jurors sat by to ensure that no custom of the manor was violated. Richart the schultheiss brought forth the
Weistümer
, the village bylaws, written on parchment and sewn into a book, and he researched it from time to time on the rights and privileges recorded therein. This was no mean task, as rights had amassed over the years like clutter in a shed, and one man might own different rights for different strips of land.

White Jürgen, the
vogt
, presented his tally sticks and
knotted strings and gave an accounting of the lord’s salland for the past harvest year. The free tenants attended this recital with keen interest, comparing the Herr’s increases to their own with the sort of subtle arithmetic available to those who owned no numbers beyond their fingers. Wilimer, the Herr’s clerk of accounts, himself but a few years removed from haying and mowing, transcribed everything in neat miniscule onto a parchment roll of sheets glued together side-to-side. He cast his sums on an abacus and announced that the Herr owed Jürgen twenty-seven pfennig to balance the account.

Afterward, old Friedrich, the steward’s clerk, took account of fines and dues. Like Wilimer, he cast his sums in Fibonacci’s Arabic numbers, but he translated the results into the Roman sort for his fair copy. This introduced grave chance of error, since old Friedrich’s grasp of Latin numbers was little better than his grasp of Latin grammar, where he frequently confused the ablative with the dative. “If I write the words in Latin,” the man had explained one time, “I must write the numbers in Latin also.”

The first fine was
buteil
for old Rudolf from Pforzheim, who had died on Sixtus Day. The Herr took possession of his “best beast,” a breeding sow called Isabella—and naturally all the men debated whether this was in fact Rudolf ‘s “best beast,” rendering a variety of opinions, no two of which were compatible.

Felix Ackermann stood to pay
merchet
on his daughter, but Manfred, who had been following matters from his seat beneath the linden, announced a commutation “in view of the man’s losses in the fire.” This drew admiring murmurs from the assembly; which Dietrich deemed cheaply bought. The Herr could be generous in small matters.

Trude Metzger astonished everyone by paying
merchet
on herself for the lord’s permission “to marry at will.” This set all the women’s tongues a-wagging and cast a pall of apprehension upon all the single men. The Herr, greatly amused, granted the boon.

And so it went while the sun climbed high. Heinrich Altenbach was fined four pfennigs in
chevage
for living off the manor without the lord’s grace. Petronella Lürm had gleaned the Herr’s fields “contrary to the prohibitions of autumn.” Fulk Albrecht’s son had stolen Trade’s grain during the harvest. The jurors questioned the witnesses closely and, knowing the parties concerned, recommended the fines.

Oliver Becker had raised the hue-and-cry against Bertram Unterbaum on May Day past, in malice over the affections of Anna Kohlmann. Reinhardt Bent had appropriated three furrows from all the strips abutting his headland. For this offense, the man was widely hooted, for there was to the manse peasant no greater crime than stealing a furrow from a neighbor.

Manfred himself brought suit against twelve gärtners who during the July hay harvest had refused to load the hay cocks into the carts. Nickel Langermann claimed that the labor had been done in prior years “out of love for the Herr,” but was not actually required by the
weistümer
. He asked that the free tenants inquire into the matter and Everard appointed an inquest from among the jurors.

At this, the court recessed for a board of bread and ale at the Herr’s expense.

“Langermann fancies himself a schultheiss,” said Lorenz as the crowd broke up. “He’s always finding bylaws that say he doesn’t have to work.”

“Enough such findings,” Dietrich said, “and no one will hire him, since then he won’t work at all.”

Max Schweitzer appeared and led him a little distance from the others. “The Herr bade me inquire about the black-powder,” he murmured.

“Their alchemist recognized charcoal from the specimens,” Dietrich told him, “and sulfur by its properties and appearance; but the
Heinzelmännchen
knew not what Krenkish word signified niter, so we are at an impasse. I told him it was commonly found under dung piles, but their shit differs from ours.”

“Perhaps it smells sweeter,” Max suggested. “And if we give him a specimen? Of niter, I mean. Alchemists can identify unknown materials, nay?”

“Ja, but the Krenken seem disinclined to make the effort.”