Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [116]
“But, the Markgraf …”
“Graf Friedrich would keep her unwed, the longer to milk my land for his own pocket.” His face clouded. “Had the boy lived, and Anna with him … Ach! There’d be none to gainsay that woman were she my burgvogt! There was a wife worthy of a man! Half of me died when I heard the midwife’s wail. These past years have been empty.”
“Is that why you went off to the French wars?” Dietrich asked. “To fill them?”
Manfred stiffened. “Mind your tongue, priest.” He yanked on the bridle reins but, looking up, checked his turn. “Ho! What have we here?”
A clamor had gone up from the waiting knights and their attendants. Some in the encampment were pointing to the sky and cheering. Others shrieked in terror as five Krenken in flying harnesses settled like fallen leaves from the sky onto the horse-pawed field. They carried handheld pots de fer strapped round their middles and long, slim tubes slung over their shoulders. Dietrich recognized Hans and Gottfried—and thought it passing strange that the Krenken had once seemed so alike to him.
Wails rose from those who, having come from remote holdings, had not yet seen a Krenk. A camp-follower from Hinterwaldkopf waved in the air a reliquary she wore round her neck. Others slipped off with fearful backward glances. Franzl Long-nose slapped some of the retreating camp-followers with his staff. “What, would ye run from a handful of grasshoppers?” he laughed. Some knights half-drew their swords, and Manfred called out in his battle-voice that the strangers were travelers from a distant land who had come to lend their aid with their cunning weapons. Then he added sotto voce to Dietrich, “My thanks for persuading Grosswald.”
Dietrich, who knew how ineffective his pleas had been, said nothing.
The familiarity with which the local garrison greeted the fresh arrivals quieted many. Some muttered about “welcoming demons,” but none of the country knights dared gallop off while their brothers from the Burg stood fast. When Hans and Gottfried knelt before Dietrich, drew the sign of the cross upon themselves, and prayed the priest’s blessing, the murmurs faded like water sucked into the thirsty earth. Reflexively, many of those who had shouted the loudest alarms also crossed themselves, and took heart, if not ease, from this sign of piety.
“What means this?” Dietrich asked Hans amidst the commotion. “Has Grosswald then consented?”
“We shall recover the copper wire stolen by von Falkenstein,” Hans said. “It may perform better than that which the blessed Lorenz drew.” One of the three unfamiliar Krenken tossed his head back and made some buzz of comment; but as the creature lacked a head-harness, Dietrich did not understand him and Hans silenced the fellow with a gesture.
Manfred, having donned his own harness, approached and inquired after their corporal.
Hans stepped forward. “We have come to honor Grosswald, mine Herr. By your grace, we will fly before the column and call back reports of Falkenstein’s doings through the far-speaker.”
Manfred rubbed his chin. “And be out of sight of the faint-hearts among us … Do you have the thunder-clay?” A Krenk stroked the satchel he wore strapped across his body and Manfred nodded. “Very well. It pleases. You shall fly a vanguard.”
Dietrich watched with mixed feelings the Krenken recede into the distant sky. The objections were two. The army would carry gossip on its breath, exciting a terrible curiosity; but a glimpse of Hans or his companions would give body to the whispers. On the contrary, Hans might recover the wire and so speed the Krenkish departure. Ergo … The question would be determined by a race between the arrival of the curious and the departure of the Krenken. In answer to the first objection, rumors were surely abroad by now, so that the gossip of this army would add but little. But to the second objection, Dietrich saw no ready answer.
On the way to Church Hill, Dietrich passed by Theresia’s cottage and marked