Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [14]
“Well, not everything’s in the Net,” she snapped back. “Aren’t there musty old papers in archives and the back rooms of libraries that no one’s ever read, let alone scanned? I thought that’s what you historians used to do before you got computers—root around in dusty shelves, blowing off cobwebs.”
“Well …,” he said doubtfully. “Anything off-line can be scanned in by request …”
“That’s if you know the document exists. What about uncatalogued stuff?”
Tom pursed his lips and looked at her. He nodded slowly. “There were a few marginal items,” he admitted. “They didn’t sound too promising at the time; but now … Well, like they say: Cantabit vaceus coram latrone viator.” He grinned at her. “A penniless man sings before the robber,” he explained. “Like me, what can he lose?” He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, pulling absently on his lower lip. Sharon smiled to herself. She knew that habit. Tom was okay, but he was like an old motorcycle. You had to kick hard to get him started.
LATER, AFTER Tom had gone to the library, Sharon noticed CLIO’S screen still lit and sighed in exasperation. Why did Tom always go off and leave things running? Computers, electric lights, stereos, televisions. He left a trail of perking appliances behind him wherever he went.
She crossed the room to turn his PC off, but paused with her finger over the track pad while she stared at the empty cell. Eifelheim … A sinister black hole surrounded by a constellation of living villages. Something horrible must have happened there once. Something so wicked that seven centuries later people shunned it and had forgotten why.
Abruptly, she cleared the machine. Don’t be silly, she told herself. But that made her think of something Tom had said. And that made her wonder, What if …? And nothing was ever the same again.
II
AUGUST, 1348
At Primes, The Commemoration of Sixtus II and His Companions
DIETRICH STEPPED from the church to find Oberhochwald in turmoil: thatch roofs blown askew; shutters loose on their hinges; sheep milling and bleating in the pen by the meadow gate. Women shrieked, or hugged crying children. Men milled about arguing and pointing. Lorenz Schmidt stood in the doorway of his smithy, a hammer tight in his grip, eyes searching for an enemy to strike.
Dietrich inhaled the dusty, urgent scent of smoke. From the portico’s edge, whence he could spy the village’s farther end, he saw thatch roofs ablaze. Farther off, across the common meadow, black clouds churned and roiled above the Great Wood where the lustrous glow had been.
Gregor Mauer, atop the carving table in his yard, shouted and pointed toward the mill pond. His sons, Gregerl and Seybke, hurried past with buckets hanging from their thick arms. Theresia Gresch ran from house to house, sending people to the stream. Across the Oberreid road, the portcullis of Manfred’s castle rose with a clatter of chains, and a squad of armsmen dog-trotted down from Castle Hill.
“It’s the wrath of hell,” said Joachim. Dietrich turned to see the younger man sagging against the doorpost. The eagle of St. John hovered in the wood beside him, beak and talons poised. Joachim’s eyes were wide with fear and satisfaction.
“It’s the lightning,” said Dietrich. “It has set some cottages on fire.”
“Lightning? With no cloud in the sky? Where is your reason, now?”
“Then it was that wind, toppling lamps and candles!” Dietrich, having no more patience, seized Joachim’s arm and sent him stumbling down the hillside toward the village. “Quickly,” he said. “If the flames spread, the village burns.” Dietrich tied the skirts of his alb up to his knees and joined the throng heading toward the millpond.
The Minorite had fallen halfway down the path. “That fire is unnatural,” he said as Dietrich passed. Then he turned and scrambled back toward the church.
THE GÄRTNERS’ huts, mean dwellings at best, were engulfed in flames and folk had given up any thought of saving them. Max Schweitzer, the sergeant from the castle, organized bucket lines to pass water from