Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [128]
The woods seemed filled with locusts, for the two sides attacked with words as well, though Dietrich heard only those diatribes that passed through the Heinzelmännchen. Gschert’s words were like honey placed before a fasting man, appeals to the heretics’ inborn hunger for obedience.
“You have used your power, Gschert,” Hans called out, “beyond what is just. If we are born to serve, and you to command, then your commands must be for the good of all. We do not deny our place in the Web. We deny your place in the Web.”
Another Krenk, also one with a head-harness, though not one that Dietrich knew, said, “We who labor will be heard. You say, ‘do this’ and ‘do that,’ while you yourself do nothing. You take your ease on the backs of others.”
Suddenly Dietrich became aware of more than a dozen Krenken now arrayed with Hans. None had pots de fer, but carried instead a variety of tools and implements. They perched in trees or behind rocks or in the gully that ran beside the clearing. “But Shepherd said that obedience was like a hunger,” Dietrich said.
His plaint was carried by the common canal, and someone—which, he did not know—answered, “So it is, but a hungry man may still smite the purveyor of rotten food.” Whereupon a ferocious chatter grew in magnitude from Dietrich’s side of the clearing. All about him were statues which, at each glance, had altered their posture—and suddenly Dietrich was small beside his mother in the Köln Minster watching the gargoyles and the stern-faced saints slowly turn toward him. The Armleder had returned, born anew amongst the Krenken.
Between two armies is a dangerous place to graze your flock, Gregory Mauer had said.
Dietrich ran from the protection of the barrels out into the clearing that separated the two warring factions. “Stop!” he cried, expecting any moment to be stoned to death by a dozen pots de fer. He raised both arms. “I command you in the name of Christ Jesus to put down your weapons!”
Surprisingly, no bullets were slung in his direction. For a time, nothing stirred. Then, first one, then another Krenk rose from concealment. Hans tossed his head back and said, “You shame me, Dietrich of Oberhochwald.” And he dropped his pot de fer to the ground. At this, the Herr Gschert emerged from the woods. “You have right,” he said. “This matter is between the Hans and me alone, and it is to the neck.” He stepped forward; and Hans, after a moment in which he and Beatke touched, loped across the clearing to meet him.
“What does it mean, ‘to the neck’?” Dietrich asked.
“It makes true,” Gschert said to Hans, “that finding ourselves on such a world we resort to the ways of our forefathers.” And he stripped himself of his clothing, worn and faded sash and blouse tossed to the ground, and stood shivering in the March afternoon.
Hans had come to stand beside Dietrich. “Remember,” he said, “that it is better for one man to die than a whole people, and if this will restore concord …” Then, to Gschert, he added, “This is my body, to be given up for many.”
To the neck. Dietrich realized suddenly that Hans would not defend himself from Gschert’s jaws. “No!” he said.
“Has it come to this, then?” Gschert asked.
And Hans answered, “As Arnold always knew it would. Galatians 5:15.”
“Have with your thought-lacking superstition, then!”
But before Gschert could spring upon the unresisting Hans, Dietrich heard the arresting tones of a trumpet, the sound that was better than all the echoes in the world.
“IT WAS simple enough,” Herr Manfred said while Max and his soldiers led the now compliant Krenken back toward Oberhochwald. “Before even I reached the village, the field hands told me that you had like a madman galloped toward the Great Wood, and that, shortly after, the Krenken followed. I pushed my men to the double-quick. We must naturally leave our horses behind the ridge, but we were clad in half-armor for the road and so the march was not difficult. I heard some