Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [140]
But Dietrich remembered when the child Theresia skipped with that same aspergum clenched in her fist; and Lorenz the smith had carried the pail and held the cape. Had Gottfried taken up Lorenz’s old duty as he had taken Lorenz’s name? Now Theresia lingered fearful in the procession’s rear.
Manfred escorted them astride a white palfrey whose mane had been braided and perfumed and inset with fresh violets. With him were Eugen and Kunigund and—on a small white pony—little Irmgard, done up in a lace girdle to mark her chastity and with unbound hair flowing to her waist. Kunigund, being now wed, enclosed her hair with a wimple. Everard strode with his wife Yrmegard and his son Witold a few paces behind the Herr’s party. “He’s no more noble for traipsing in his lord’s muck,” Klaus whispered to his wife, loudly enough that Yrmegard scowled and gripped her husband’s arm.
Dietrich had earlier explained to Hans that this was a ceremony only for the familia; which was why Joachim, like the soldiers in the Burg, had remained behind. Nevertheless, the Kratzer and a few Krenkish pilgrims followed with their fotografik devices.
The ground was yet sodden from the previous week’s rains, and soon were hose and shoes spattered and Manfred’s horse mud-stained to her hocks. Whenever they came to a boundary marker, Richart Schultheiss would point it out and parents would toss their children in this stream or bump their head against that tree, to general laughter and repeated demands to “do it again!”
“A curious custom,” Hans said as they progressed. “Yet it touches. One cannot love a world. It is too large. But a fleck of ground so far as his eye can see, one may hold precious above all.”
After stopping for a midday meal, and a visit by the curious to the Krenkish vessel, the villagers emerged on the far side of the Great Woods, where the ground dropped sharply toward the Bear Valley road. Manfred had reined in on a spur of rock to essay the descent when he suddenly held a palm up. “Quiet!” The chatter of the peasants gave way to louder cries of “Silence, there!” and “The Herr wants silence!”
Finally, there was the sound only of soft breezes and rustling branches from the woods behind them. Everard began to make some remark, but the Herr hushed him with a gesture.
Faintly, they heard it: the tocsin of a distant bell.
It was a single note, tolling slowly, borne half-heard like a leaf on the blustery winds. “Angelus already?” someone asked. “No, the sun is yet too high.” “Too deep for St. Catherine’s peal. Is it St. Peter’s?” “St. Wilhelm, I think.” “No, St. Wilhelm tolls three bells.”
Then the wind shifted and the faint ringing died. Manfred listened further, but the sound did not repeat itself. “Whose bell was that?” he asked Dietrich.
“Mine Herr, I did not recognize it. St. Blasien owns a bass bell called the Paternoster, but this was higher-pitched. I think it was more distant than those we usually hear, and some freak of wind brought it to our ears.”
Manfred scowled toward the Swiss, the direction from which the ringing had seemed to come. “Basel, perhaps?”
Hans cried, “Smoke! And five riders.”
Everard leapt atop a protruding boulder and shaded his eyes. “The monster has right. Altenbach’s steading burns! A dust cloud moves off toward the northeast. That five riders are under it,” he added as he dropped off the stone, “I will take the word of the bug-eye.”
Manfred ordered his serfs across the valley to help put out the fire. Hans called the other baptized Krenken to his side. After a deal of pointing and clacking, he and Beatke leapt toward Altenbach’s steading, while Gottfried and another hopped into the woods, toward the wrecked ship. The fifth stood irresolute.
“How can they leap so far?” Klaus wondered, for this was the first time he had seen the Krenken in open country. “Do they wear seven-league boots?”
“No,” Dietrich explained, “beings made of earth move naturally toward the center of the earth. But these beings are drawn