Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [100]
Dietrich countered with the story of the Convent of Titisee. “None were admitted save beautiful heiresses, who lived high on their treasure. One dark and stormy night, there fell a knock on their door during a drunken feast, and the sisters sent their newest novice to answer. Peeping out, she saw a weary old man, white of hair, who prayed lodging for the night. Not being yet corrupted, she begged Lady Abbess to grant him hospitality, but the woman only drank a toast to his health and sent him away. That night, the rain flooded the valley and all in the convent were lost, save the young novice, who was rescued by a boat rowed by the old pilgrim. And that is the origin of the Titisee.”
“Makes it so?” asked Shepherd.
“Doch,” Manfred added gravely. “The story may be twice tested. First, one may peer into the depths of the lake and spy the towers of the drowned convent. The other is to dive deep into the waters. For if you dive ‘deeper than ever plummet sounded,’ you will hear the chimes of the convent bells. But none who have done so have returned—for the Titisee is bottomless.”
Later, Hans drew Dietrich aside and said, “If none have ever returned from the bottomless lake, how does one know if the bells can be heard?” But Dietrich only laughed.
“A fable is to teach a lesson,” he admonished the Krenk, “not to record a history. But mark that punishment was meted for withholding charity from a stranger, and not for some ancient pagan superstition over bread-loaves.”
Little Irmgard had crept from the nursery, as children were wont to do when their elders feasted; but Chlotilde, her nurse, having discovered the escape, came after her and the child ran shrieking into the room, weaving among the tall forest of legs, until, glancing behind for her pursuer, she collided with Shepherd.
The leader of the pilgrims, who had earned her name because she spent much time gathering them and chivvying them about, gazed down upon the small thing that had nearly bowled her over, and a hush fell across the room. The dancers froze in their motions. Kunigund, seeing what her sister had done, said, “Oh” in a very small voice, for everyone knew of the strangers’ choleric nature.
Irmgard looked up, and then up, and her mouth dropped open. She had seen the creatures already from a distance, but this was her first close encounter. “Why …,” she said in delight, “it’s a giant grasshopper! Can you jump?”
Shepherd cocked her head slightly as her head-harness repeated the words; then, with a slight flex of the knees she leapt toward the rafters of the hall—to Irmgard’s delighted claps. At the top of her leap, Shepherd rasped her shins together, much as a man might click his heels. Before she had touched the flagstones, a second Krenk leapt also and soon several were doing so, to an arrhythmic scritching of arms and clacking of mandibles.
So, thought Dietrich, this is what passes for dance among their kind. Yet the leapers made no effort to move in concert, nor did the scratching and clacking follow a tempus.
But Irmgard’s question and Shepherd’s response had broken the quiet tension in the room. The Hochwalders began to smile as they watched the Krenk leap about, for Irmgard, too, had joined in the leaping with childish glee. Even Volkmar’s scowl softened.
Master Peter, hunting on