Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [141]
Klaus grunted, unconvinced, and started after the others. Dietrich seized Theresia by the wrist. “Come, the Altenbachs may need your salves.”
But she pulled away from him. “Not while they are there!”
Dietrich held his hand out. “Will you lend me then your tote?” When Theresia did not move, he whispered, “And so we see it. First you recoil from these strangers from beyond the firmament; then you recoil from helping your own folk. Did I teach you this from childhood?”
Theresia thrust her bag into his hands. “Here. Take it.” And then she burst into tears. “Watch over Gregor,” she said. “That big fool risks his soul.”
As Dietrich hurried after, Gottfried and Winifred Krenk passed overhead in flying harnesses, with metal buckets of some sort dangling from them. Glancing back, he noted the small knot of villagers who had stayed behind. Theresia. Volkmar Bauer and his kin. The Ackermanns. And one of the Krenken. Well, one did not need two hundred men to fight a single fire! Yet, loping by his side were Nickel Langermann and Fulk Albrecht’s son—and even Klaus Müller! Nickel grinned. “Altenbach will owe me favors for this,” he said. “It never hurts to have a rich peasant owe you.” Fulk said, “Hold your flap and hurry, or the fire is out before we get there.”
WHEN, BREATHLESS, Dietrich had reached the steading, Manfred met him at the gate. “He needs your sacrament, pastor,” he said, in a voice sharp as flint.
Dietrich entered the smoldering cottage, where the Krenken were putting the flames out with foam they pumped from their curious buckets. On the packed earth floor, Altenbach sat with his hands folded over his midriff, as if after a satisfying meal. Behind him, a woman wept. When he saw Dietrich, Altenbach grimaced. “Thank God ye’ve come in time,” he said. “I’d fain not have her journey alone. Shrive me of my sins, but be damn quick about it.”
Dietrich saw blood oozing between the fingers. “That’s a sword-cut!” he said. And a fatal one … This he did not voice, though he suspected Heinrich knew.
“I thought it would hurt more,” the peasant said. “But I feel cold, as if I had winter in my belly. Father, I have lain with Hildegarde Müller, and once I struck Gerlach Jaeger in anger …” Dietrich leaned close so that others could not hear the confession. For the most part, the man’s trespasses had been stirred only by short-lived passions. There was no true wickedness in him, only the stubborn pride that had driven him to live apart. Dietrich drew the sign of the cross, using his own spittle, and offered him the words of God’s forgiveness.
“Thank you, father,” Heinrich whispered. “It would grieve me to have her alone in Heaven. She will be with God, won’t she, father? Her sin does not condemn her.”
“Her sin …?” Dietrich raised his head and searched the room for Altenbach’s wife, and saw that the woman weeping in the corner was Hilde Müller. Beside her, Gerda Altenbach lay with her throat slit and her clothing ripped from her, although a blanket now covered her decency. “No,” he told the dying man. “She committed no sin, but was sinned against, as St. Thomas taught.”
Altenbach relaxed. “Poor Oliver,” he said.
“Your sons are Jakop and Jaspar, no?”
“Brave lads,” he whispered. “Defend their mother …” Then he gave up his ghost. When his hands fell away, his guts spilled from him.
“All dead,” said Manfred from the doorway and Dietrich turned to him. “The two boys are in the yard.” The Herr’s glance flickered toward Gerda, rested on Heinrich. “There was a gärtner who worked for him. Calls himself Nymandus. He hid in the woodpile and witnessed all. Tried to flee from me, so he must be off someone’s manor. ‘Nymandus,’ indeed! It’s little I care for sending him back. He saw five men in mail, but much disheveled, so I take them to be those outlaws from Falcon Rock that Long-nose ran into. They defiled Altenbach’s wife, killed him and his sons, made off with his chickens and yearlings. I think the