Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [119]
Shepherd squatted upon the flagstones with her knees thrust over her head and her long arms wrapped around them. Her side-lips clicked rhythmically, much as a person might hum to herself. “My lady,” Dietrich said to her, “what means this riot?”
“Need you ask?” the Krenkerin said. “You and Brownrobe cause it.”
Joachim had torn a strip of cloth off the hem of his robe and tied it ‘round Dietrich’s brow to staunch the blood. “We, the cause?” Joachim asked.
“For your native superstition, Hans turn natural order over.”
“My lady,” said Dietrich. “Hans acted for the common good—to recover the wire from Falkenstein. It is the nature of men, of all creation, to pursue the good.”
“Is ‘nature of all creation’ to do as told—told by authority, or told by nature herself. That is what ‘good’ man does. But Hans decide for himself what end good, not in course of duties, not by orders from betters. Unnatural! Now, some say he act on orders—from your lord-from-sky, ‘whose authority exceed even Herr Gschert.’”
Joachim cried out. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” Dietrich hushed him with a brusque gesture. “All authority is ‘under God’,” he told Shepherd, “else authority would have no limits, and justice would be only a Herr’s will. But, say on.”
“Now, discord among us. Words run every way, like highspringers from pouncing swiftjaw, not in orderly channels from those-who-speak to those-who-listen. As you cannot imagine … celebration-inside-head … of knowing one toils in one’s besitting, touching upward, downward, all sides, link in Great Web, neither can you know lacking-within-us when Web broken. The Kratzer compare it to hunger, but hunger small thing …” She paused and buzzed softly. “… which one may bear with ease until it grow unbearable. But this lacking like sit on bank of flood-swollen river with … with … your word love-mate … with love-mates unreachable on farther side.”
“Heartache,” said Joachim unexpectedly. “The word you want is heartache.”
“Doch? Heartache, then.”
Gregor the mason had come to stand with them and, when he heard what Joachim had said, remarked, “They feel heartache, do they? It’s little enough they show it.”
“We have heartache for Web-wholeness,” said Shepherd, “and would swim angry river to restore it. We have heartache for nurseland—you say Heimat—and … and its foods.”
“But there are now heresies among you,” Dietrich guessed. “Grosswald says one thing; Hans says another. Perhaps you,” he suggested, “say a third thing.”
Shepherd raised her masklike face. “Hans go against Gschert words, but fault to Gschert that he not speak those words. Gschertl say I too defy natural order, and mob, high and low, set upon me for that sin. But when two in discord maybe both wrong, Gschertl and Hans alike.”
“Those who hold the middle ground,” said Gregor, “are often attacked by both camps. Between two armies is a dangerous place to graze your flock.”
“Discord,” Dietrich said, “is a grave wrong. We must strive always for concord.”
Joachim laughed. “‘I come not to bring concord,’” he quoted, “‘but discord. Because of Me husband will leave wife, children will leave parents.’ So do philosophers, playing games with words, lose sight of their plain meanings, which can be found always inscribed in the heart.”
“A bit of discord here, too,” said Gregor mildly.
Dietrich said to Shepherd, “Tell your folk that any who come to the church, or who go to Manfred’s court, may not be attacked, for it is the Peace of God that warriors may not attack women or children, peasants, merchants, artisans, or animals, nor any religious or public building, and by law and custom both, no one may strike another in a church or in a lord’s court.”
“And does this Peace serve?”
“My lady, men are by nature violent. The Peace is a sieve, and much falls through—though perhaps not as much as might otherwise.”
“House-wherein-no-blows-may-fall …” Shepherd said in a voice which might have meant cynicism or wistfulness. “New thought. This building