Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [131]
He was pleased at their interest, and curious also what “the alchemist’s broth” might be.
TO RAISE a junker to knighthood was a costly matter, since honor required celebrations worthy of the occasion: festivities, banquets, gifts, a competition of minnesingers, and bohorts, the “playing at lances.” So lords often raised several junkers at once to share the costs. When Manfred announced that he would raise Eugen, Thierry agreed to raise his Imein, as well.
The Zimmermans constructed a stand of benches in the meadow from which folk could watch the contests, and the sounds of hammer and saw drowned the grumbling at the extra work. A serf named Carolus was so wroth at the additional work that he ran off. His property escheated to Manfred, who bestowed the manse in halves to Hans and Gottfried.
“The land is servile,” Dietrich warned the new tenants, “so you’ll owe hand-service for it to Manfred, but you yourselves are free tenants.” He suggested they engage Volkmar Bauer to assume the plowing and reaping in return for half-shares in the harvest. Volkmar complained naturally that he was hard-pressed to work his own manses and those he owed the Herr; but he was a forethoughtful man and his kin might someday need additional furlongs. So arrangements were made by which divers obligations of the strips were rented to others, and the terms were witnessed by the schultheiss and written into the weistümer. While the transaction did not win Volkmar’s love for the Krenken, it did still the vogt’s more overt hostilities.
On the day before the knighting, which was the Third Sunday in Lent, the junkers fasted from dawn to dusk. Then, breaking fast at sunset, they put on robes of the purest white English wool and spent a vigil-night on their knees in the chapel. Eugen’s wound was healing, as the Savoyard had promised, though the scar was prominent and his smile would always have a sinister curl to it. Imein, who had fought creditably but without a wound, regarded the scar with something approaching envy.
“I much regret the meanness of the festivities,” Manfred confessed to Dietrich that evening as he inspected the viewing stands. “Eugen deserves more, but we must yet conceal our Krenkish vassals. Einhardt will be much vexed that I did not invite him to play at lances with us.”
Einhardt was the imperial knight by Stag’s Leap. “I suspect the old man has heard rumors by now,” Dietrich suggested, “but is too courteous to indulge his curiosity.”
“That pleases. My daughter dislikes bathing him because he smells so. He seldom uses soap, though he was taught since childhood proper bathing. ‘French vanities!’ he says. I suspect he triumphed on the battlefield because his opponents ran from his stink.” Manfred threw his head back and laughed.
“Mine Herr,” said Dietrich, “I pray you not tilt your head … Among the Krenk it is a mark of submission—and an invitation to the superior to bite the neck in twain.”
Manfred’s eyebrows shot up. “Is’t so! I’d thought them laughing.”
“Each man sees what his own experience has taught him. You did not punish Grosswald for disturbing the peace. To us, forebearance is a virtue; but to them it signifies weakness.”
“Hah.” Manfred walked a few more steps with his hands clasped behind the small of his back. Then he turned and inclined his head. “Hans’s gesture at Falcon Rock, when he spared his enemy … Did that signify also weakness?”
“Mine Herr, I know not; but his ways are not ours.”
“They must learn our ways, if they are to stay on my manor.”
“If they stay. Their desperation to regain their own country is what drove Hans to his disobedience.”
Manfred considered him thoughtfully. “But why such desperation? A man might long for his homeland, for family or lovers or … or wife, but longing eventually dies. Most longing.”
ON THE morrow, the junkers emerged from the chapel and were bathed to symbolize their cleanliness, after which they were dressed in