Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [122]
The dentator had by then finished his work and the garrulous chirurgeon took his leave to attend to Eugen’s cheek. The junker, sweating and exhausted from the work on his jaw and teeth, watched the approaching knife with something approaching relief. Knives he understood. The pelican had been too much like an instrument of torture.
“HE WILL bear up,” Manfred said after he and Dietrich had repaired to the Herr’s tent. “The blow he took was aimed at me, so it is a scar he may wear with honor. The Markgraf himself remarked the feat and agreed on the spot that Eugen shall have his accolade. Your Hans performed a brave deed, too, which I will bring to Grosswald’s attention.”
“It is Grosswald’s attentions that are the cause of my errand.” Dietrich explained what had happened in the village. “One faction says that Hans did the proper thing, despite his master’s command. ‘To save us from the alchemist,’ is how they expressed it.”
Manfred, seated upon his camp chair, pressed his hands together under his chin. “I see.” He beckoned to his servant with a hand-flip and selected a sweetmeat from the tray thus proffered. “And Grosswald’s party?” He waved the servant toward Dietrich, who declined.
“They cry that Hans, by his disobedience, upset the natural order, and this they abhor above all else. I suspect other factions, also. Shepherd is wroth with Hans, but would use his faction to unseat Grosswald, whom she holds blameworthy for stranding her pilgrims.”
Manfred grunted. “They are as convoluted as Italians. How stood matters when you left?”
“Once they grasped the Peace of God, many of the lowborn fled to St. Catherine or the Burg, to the frustration of their attackers, who will not risk your displeasure by violating sanctuary.”
“Well,” said Manfred, “I can’t say I like the natural order being upset, either, but Hans did me great service this day, and for my honor I would see him rewarded, not punished.”
“What service was that, mine Herr? Would it mollify Grosswald?”
“Grosswald is a man of uncertain humor.” Manfred checked himself, then smiled crookedly. “How accustomed to those creatures have we grown this winter, that I should think of him as a man. Hans and his Krenkl’n swooped upon the ramparts while all attention was on the breach, slew the archers there, then assaulted the bergfried and secured the treasure-hoard!”
“Mine Herr,” Dietrich said with sudden apprehension. “Mine Herr, were they seen?”
“Some in the camp saw them, I think—though only at a distance, for I cautioned them to remain hidden to the extent their honor permitted. The archers on the ramparts, naturally, saw them plain, as did the towermaster in the ‘murder hole’ above the gate. Him, they slew before he could pour the hot oil upon us, to the saving of many a life and horrible injury. Falkenstein’s men thought their lord’s demonic master had come for him at last, so their appearance sowed panic to our advantage. There will be stories, but that cannot be helped, and the demons may be thought Falkenstein’s, not ours.”
“There is a poetry in that,” Dietrich admitted, “that the legend he used to frighten others turned like a snake to bite the man himself.”
Manfred chuckled and drank wine from a goblet partly filled with resins to impart a sweet perfume to the beverage. “The Krenk who carried the thunder-paste—he was called Gerd—performed most valiantly. He flew at night to the base of the gate tower and planted there the paste. On the morrow, he fired it at the moment Hapsburg fired his pots de fer, so that it would seem that the shots had wrought the damage. The Duke’s captain was sore amazed! Gerd used the far-speaker to accomplish this. By Our Lady, it seemed as if he spoke to the paste and it obeyed. Dietrich, I swear upon my sword that the line between clever art