Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [167]
“More likely he yanked it loose as it passed,” said Klaus, and the others tittered nervously.
Manfred did not smile. “That was when the servant told him of the pest, and that hundreds were each day dying in Freiburg.”
“Did he verify the servant’s tale, mine Herr?” Everard insisted. “Perhaps the man exaggerated. Servants are notorious liars.”
Manfred spared him a curious glance. “Imre reasoned that if a man as educated as a guild-merchant deemed it wise to flee east, he would be a great fool himself to continue west. The servant with the pack horse quickly outdistanced Imre’s mules, yet Imre came upon his load shortly after, scattered along the trail up the gorge. He supposed that the roughness of the trail had caused the pack to come loose again and, lacking his master’s voice in his ear, the servant had this time abandoned all and fled. Imre thought the clothing too fine to lie deserted so he gathered them into his own pack.”
Klaus said, “I misdoubt he helped tie the man’s bundle with that very end in view.” He spoke too quickly and too sharply and rubbed one hand with the other as he looked at each councilor in turn.
“A little farther on,” Manfred continued grimly, “he came upon the body of the merchant’s lady, lying as she had fallen from her horse. Her face was deep blue and distended in agony, and she had vomited black bile over herself. Beside which, her neck was broken in the fall.”
Klaus had no quip his time. Everard had gone pale. Young Eugen caught his lip between his teeth. Baron Grosswald did not move. Dietrich crossed himself and prayed God’s mercy for the unknown woman. “And her husband stopped not to aid her?” he asked.
“Nor the servant. Imre says that in pity he placed over her form a blanket from the abandoned bundle, daring naught else. But,” and Manfred slumped a little in his high seat, “I have not said all. The peddler confessed that he had come west in flight. The pest was in Vienna already in May and in Munich this month, but he kept silence for fear we would expel him.”
At that, there were many exclamations. Everard cursed the peddler. Klaus exclaimed that Munich was, after all, many leagues distant, and the malady might travel north into Saxony, rather than west into Swabia. Eugen worried that the pest was surrounding them, east and west. Dietrich wondered about the Jews, who had set off in that direction with the Duke’s escort.
Baron Grosswald, silent until now, spoke up. “Illness stems from countless creatures, too small for thought and borne in divers ways—by touch, on the breath, in the shit or piss, in the spit, or even on the breeze. It matters not which way the roads wind.”
“Such foolishness!” Eugen cried.
“Not so,” said Dietrich, who had heard already this thesis from Hans, as well as from the Krenkish physician. “Marcus Varro once proposed that very thing in De re rustica.…”
“Which is very interesting, pastor,” said Klaus in a high, tight voice, “but this pest is not like other afflictions, and so may not spread like those of the monsters.” To Gschert: “Can you swear that what you say of your small-lives is true of us? I’ve heard your folk remark more than once on our differences.”
Gschert tossed his arm. “‘What may be, may be; but what is, must be.’ I have other concerns than this mal odour of yours. You may live or you may die, however you may deny it, as the luck of the small-lives have it. As for us, we may only die.” The affectless tones of the talking head endowed his pronouncement with a fatal chill. Dietrich wanted to tell the monster that his reasoning had failed, had asserted the consequent. What must be is; but what is need not be, but can through the grace of God be changed.
But Manfred struck the table with the pommel of his dagger. Dietrich marked how white the knuckles were that held it. “Could your physician not mix for us a medicine?” the Herr asked. “If the pest is natural, then the treatment must be natural, and we have no theriac in the village.”
But Gschert shook his head