Eifelheim (37 page)

Dietrich parted his lips to debate the point. After all, few ever attended the daily Mass. But he thought better of it and commented instead on the warming weather.

Theresia shrugged. “Frau Grundsau saw no shadow.”

“Herwyg says it will be another cold year.”

“Old One-eye
feels
the cold more each year.”

“Do … Do your herbs prosper?”

“Well enough.” She paused in her labor and looked up. “I pray for you each day, father.”

“And I for you.”

But Theresia only shook her head. “You
baptized
them.”

“They desired it.”

“It mocked the sacrament!”

Dietrich reached out and took her by the sleeve. “Who has been telling you such things?”

But Theresia pulled away from him and turned her back. “Please leave.”

“But, I—”

“Please leave!”

Dietrich sighed and turned to the door. He hesitated a moment with his hand on the latch, but Theresia did not call him back, and there was nothing for it but to close the door behind him.

M
ANFRED RETURNED
from Benfeld on Sexagesima, morose and taciturn and, when Dietrich came to the manor house, he found the Herr thoroughly drunk.

“War can be honorable,” Manfred said without preamble, after Gunther had closed the door of the scriptorium and the two were closeted together. “A man puts on the cloth of war and his opponent also, and they meet on a field agreeable to both, and they use the tools of war, such as have been agreed upon, and then … God defend the right!” He saluted with a goblet, drank it dry, and filled it again from a flagon of neat wine. “God defend the right … Drink with me, Dieter!”

Dietrich accepted the cup, though he only sipped from it. “What befell at Benfeld?”

“The devil is loose. Berthold. Lacks all honor. Flies with the wind. A bishop!”

“If you would have better bishops, let the church choose them, and not kings and princes.”

“Let the Pope choose, you mean? Pfaugh! There would be French spies in every court of Europe. Drink!”

Dietrich pulled a chair across from Manfred and sat. “How has Berthold driven you to this intemperance?”

“This,”
Manfred filled his cup, “is not intemperance. It’s what he’s
not
done. He’s lord o’ Strassburg, but does he lead? A few lances would’ve settled things.” He smacked the table with the flat of his hand. “Where is that Unterbaum boy?”

“You sent him to the Swiss to learn the true state of affairs.”

“That was on St. Blaise’s Day. He should be back by now. If that gof has run off—”

“He’d not run from Anna Kohlmann,” Dietrich answered mildly. “Perhaps the road delays him. He took great pride in wearing the messenger’s cloak. He’d not lightly throw it over.”

“It makes nothing,” said the Herr in a sudden swing of temperament. “Learned all ‘n Benfeld. Y’know what happened in the Swiss?”

“I heard the Basler Jews were gathered up for banishment.”

“Would they
had
been banished. Mob stormed th’ compound an’ set it afire, so … All died.”

“Herr God in heaven!” Dietrich half-stood, crossing himself.

Manfred gave him a sour look. “I’ve no love for usurers, but … there was no charge, no trial, only th’ mob run wild. Berthold asked Strassburg what
they
intended regarding the Jews, and th’ councilors answered that they ‘knew no evil of them.’ An’ then … Berthold asked th’ bürgermeister, Peter Swaben, why he’d closed th’ wells and put th’ buckets away. By me, that was mere prudence, but there was great outcry against Strassburg’s hypocrisy.” Manfred emptied his cup again. “No man’s safe when the mob runs loose, Jew or no. Wants only a grudge—as well you know.”

At that reminder, Dietrich drained his own cup and it shook as he replenished it.

“Swaben an’ his council stood fast,” Manfred continued, “but the next morning, th’ minster bells ‘nounced a procession of the Cross-Brothers. Th’ bishop detests them—all th’ better folk do—but he daren’t speak while th’ vulgar favor them. They—
Drink, Dietrich, drink!
They marched two-by-two, the flagellants did, heads bowed, somber habits, cowls thrown up, bright red crosses front, back, cap. Up front, walked their Master, an’ two lieutenants with banners of purple velvet and cloth of gold. All this in utter silence. Utter silence. Unnerved me, that silence did. Had they shouted or danced, I might’ve laughed. But that quiet awed everyone who saw, so th’ only sound was th’ hissing breath of two-hundred brothers. I thought it some enormous serpent, winding through th’ streets. In th’ minster-place, they chanted their litany, and I could think of but one thing.”

“And what was that?”

“How
bad
th’ poetry was! Hah! Th’ cursed melody entangles m’ thoughts. I need Peter Minnesinger to exorcise it. Wish I’d laughed, now. Might’ve broken the spell. Cathedral chapter all ran off, naturally. Two Dominicans tried to halt a procession out near Miessen an’ were stoned for their troubles, so who dares oppose’m now? I was told Erfurt closed its gates against them, and Bishop Otto suppressed them in Magdeburg. An’ th’ tyrant of Milan erected three hundred welcoming gibbets outside the city walls, and the procession went elsewhere.”

“The Italians are a subtle folk,” Dietrich said.

“Hah! At least Umberto had a spine. The brothers stripped to the waist an’ processed slowly in a circle ‘til, at the Master’s signal, the singing stopped and they threw themselves prostrate on the ground. Then they rose and whipped themselves with leather straps while the three in the center kept a
tempus
, so that th’ smacking proceeded in unison. Meanwhile, th’ crowd groaned and shivered and wept in sympathy.”

“The brotherhoods were less quarrelsome in the beginning,”
Dietrich ventured. “A man required his wife’s permission to join—”

“Which I suppose many were all too happy to give, hah!”

“—and provide four pence a day to support himself on the road. He made a full confession, vowed to neither bathe nor shave, nor change clothes nor sleep in a bed, and to maintain both silence and chastity regarding the other sex.”

“A serious vow, then; though a hairy, malodorous one. And all for thirty-three days and eight hours, I was told.” Manfred’s brow creased. “Why thirty-three days and eight hours?”

“One day,” Dietrich told him, “for each year of Christ’s life on earth.”

“Truly? Hah! I wish I’d known that. None of us could cipher it. But th’ old leaders have all died or quit in disgust. Now, th’ Masters claim to absolve from sin. They denounce mother Church, revile th’ Eucharist, disrupt th’ Mass, and drive priests from their churches before looting them. They enroll women now, and one hears that some vows are no longer held so dear.” Manfred tilted his cup, swirled the remnants of his wine, and sighed. “I fear the curse of sobriety is overtaking me.… The flagellants heard of the council’s obstinancy and ran wild through the Jewish quarter, drawing the townsmen after them. The Strassburgers rioted for two days, deposed Swaben and his council, and installed another more to their liking. In the end, the bishop, lords, and Imperial Cities agreed to expel their Jews. On Friday the thirteenth, the Strassburg Jews were taken up, and led the next day into their own cemetery into a house prepared for them. Along the way the crowd jeered and threw offal and ripped their clothes to find any concealed money, so that many were almost naked when they arrived.”

“An outrage!”

Manfred stared into the dregs of his cup. “Afterward,”
he said. “Afterward, the house was fired, and I am told that nine hundred Jews perished. The mob looted the synagogue where they held their secret rituals, and found the horn of a ram. None knew its purpose, and it was supposed a means to signal the enemies of Strassburg.”

“Oh, dear God,” said Dietrich, “that was the
shofar
. To celebrate their holy days.”

Manfred refilled his cup. “Perhaps you should’ve been there to educate them, but I don’t think they were in a humor for learned discourse. Lover-God, I would gladly kill nine hundred Jews, if they came at me under arms and properly girded for war. But to burn them all … Women and children.… A man of honor
protects
women and children. Disorder cannot be tolerated! If a man is to be relaxed to the pyre or the headsman, let it be after a proper inquisition.
Men must be ruled!
That was Berthold’s sin. He truckled to them when he should have sent his knights to
trample them under their hooves
. I tell you, Dietrich, this is what befalls when the low-born impose their will! Give us lords like Pedro of Aragon or Albrecht von Hapsburg!”

“Or Philip von Falkenstein?”

Manfred stabbed a forefinger at him. “Do not try me, Dietrich! Do not try me.”

“What of the Jews who escaped?”

A shrug. “The Duke’s man named Hapsburg land as sanctuary, so I suppose now they will all heigh for Vienna—or Poland. King Casimir was said to have extended a similar invitation. Oh, hold,” Manfred said around a swallow of wine. He coughed and placed the goblet unsteady on the table. Dietrich snatched it before it could topple and spill its contents. “There’s to be a war.”

“A war? And you forgot until now to mention this?”

“I, am, drunk,” Manfred said. “One drinks to forget. The Freiburg guilds have determined to break Falcon Rock. The Falcon has fouled his own nest. His ward, Wolfrianne, ran off and married a Freiburger tailor. Philip captured the man, and when she came below the walls to plead for his
release, her jealous guardian returned him to her—headlong from the highest battlement. The tailor’s guild demanded vengeance and the others will strike from solidarity.”

“And how does that affect you?”

“You know my mind on Falkenstein … But the Duke’s man promised aid to the Freiburgers. They bought their liberties from Urach with the Duke’s silver, and their prosperity is now Albrecht’s hope of repayment. Von Falkenstein robbed the Hapsburgs of one such payment.” Manfred nodded to Dietrich as if to remind him. “He’ll not lose another.”

“He’s called you out, then, for your knight-service.”

“As Niederhochwald,” Manfred said. “But I expect Markgraf Friedrich will join, too. Then … Hah! The lords of Oberhochwald and Niederhochwald will ride out together!” He drained his cup and turned the flagon bottoms-up to no avail. “Gunther!” he shouted, throwing the flagon against the door. “More wine!” Then, in a whisper to Dietrich, “He’ll bring th’ rot-gut, now he thinks I can’t taste th’ difference.”

“So,” Dietrich said. “Another war, then.”

Manfred, slouching in his high seat, flipped a hand palm up. “The French war was a fancy. This one’s duty. If the Rock can’t be taken now—with the Freiburg guilds, the Duke, and the rest combined—then it cannot be done at all. But Baron Grosswald will not commit himself.” He tossed his head toward the door and, by extension, toward the south tower, where the Krenkish guests were housed. “I bespoke him on my return, and he said he’d not hazard his sergeants against Falkenstein. What use their magical weapons, if I can’t employ ’em?”

“The Krenken are few,” Dietrich suggested. “Grosswald wishes to lose no more of his band than he already has. The last of their children died yesterday. Surely he will face an inquest when he has won his way home.”

Manfred slapped the table. “So he trades his honor for safety?”

Dietrich turned on him in sudden fury. “Honor! Are the wars such a joy, then?”

Manfred shot to his feet and stood with his hands on the table before him, leaning a little forward. “A joy? No, never a joy, priest. At the wars, we must forever swallow our fears and expose ourselves to every peril. Moldy bread or biscuit, meat cooked or uncooked; today enough to eat and tomorrow nothing, little or no wine, water from a pond or butt; bad quarters, tent for shelter or the tree branches overhead; a bad bed, poor sleep with armor still on our backs, burdened with iron, the enemy an arrow-shot away. ‘Ware! Who goes there? To arms! To arms!’” Manfred gestured broadly with his empty
Krautstrunk
. “With the first drowsiness: an alarm. At dawn: a trumpet. ‘To horse! To horse! Muster! Muster!’ As sentinels, keeping watch by day and by night. As foragers or scouts, fighting without cover. Guard after guard, duty after duty. ‘Here they come! Here! There are too many—No, not so many—News! News! This way—That—Come this side—Press them there—Go! Go!—Give no ground!—On!’” The Herr arrested his motions, suddenly aware that his voice had risen and that he had been pacing and and waving his arms wildly and Gunther stood dumbstruck in the doorway. Manfred spun back to the table and took up his cup, looked inside, and placed it back empty. “Such is our calling,” he said more quietly as he fell back to his seat.

Silence lingered. Gunther replaced the wine flagon and carefully left. Then Manfred raised his head and speared Dietrich with his gaze. “But you’d know something of that, would you not?”

Dietrich turned away. “Enough.”

“You’ve friends among the Krenken,” he heard Manfred say. “Explain to them what
duty
means.”

A
T DAWN
, those serfs who owed service as messengers donned cloaks with the Hochwald arms and bore the news to the lower valley and to the knight-fiefs. From Church
Hill, Dietrich watched the horses dance along the snow-filled roads.

The snow that had lain thick all winter around the manor, a barrier keeping at bay the turmoil beyond the woods, was melting. Already tracks had been trampled through it. The men who carried messages would carry also rumors, and odd tales about Oberhochwald’s guests would begin to circulate.

T
WO WEEKS
to the day, on the first Monday in Lent, horses pawed at the mud below the castle walls and snorted bright vapors in the cool March breeze. Colorful, snapping banners marked the knights who had mustered from their fiefs. Armsmen checked weapons and hitched their burdens for the trek into the valley. Wagons creaked; donkeys neighed; dogs barked. Children shouted with excitement or kissed fathers who waited afoot with solemn faces. Women, steadfast, refused to weep. The expected summons had arrived from the Markgraf, and the Herr of Oberhochwald was going to the wars.