Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [179]
“If you go down the mountain,” Manfred told him, “I can not permit your return. The living here need your care.”
Dietrich formed an objection, but Hans interrupted. “It will by us go easier.”
“Then you, too, must be barred from returning,” Manfred said to the Krenk.
Hans worked his lips in a brief Krenkish smile. “Mine Herr, my companions and I are forever barred from ‘returning.’ What is one lesser exile within a geater? But, the small lives that devour your folk would likely not attack mine. The … How do you say it when kinds change?”
“Evolutium,” suggested Dietrich. “An unfolding of potential into actual. An ‘out-rolling’ toward an end.”
“No, that is not the right term … But what it means, mine Herr, is that your small-lives know not our bodies, and would lack the … the key to enter our flesh.”
Manfred pursed his lips. “Very well, then. Hans, you may bury the dead at Niederhochwald. Take only Krenken with you. When you return, wait at your former lazaretto in the woods for signs of the pest. If no signs appear in … in …” He cast about for some interval that might provide protection. “In three days’ time, you may return to the village. Meanwhile, no one may enter this manor.”
“And what of my wife’s father?” Klaus insisted.
“He must go. It sounds harsh, miller, but it must be. We must look to ourselves.”
EVERARD LAY facedown in the path near the curial gate. Klaus laughed, “The sot had puked his guts out.”
The sun was high but the breeze off the Katerinaberg carried with it enough chill to mitigate the heat. The roses had come into their time and their sharp tendrils had entwined themselves around the trellises of the Herr’s garden. But the earth here by the gate had been scuffed bare by countless obedient feet, and the yellows of the butterheads emerged more miraculously from the barren ground.
Amidst the color, Everad twitched.
“He’ll be sore when he sobers up,” Max observed, “thrashing on the ground like that.”
“He may choke on his vomit,” said Dietrich. “Come, let us carry him to his wife.” Dietrich strode ahead and knelt by the steward.
“He seems comfortable where he is,” said Max. Klaus laughed.
The vomit beside the path was black and loathsome, and Everard himself exuded a repellant odor. His breath wheezed like a bagpipe; and his cheeks, when Dietrich touched them, were hot. The steward twitched at the gentle touch and cried out.
Dietrich stood abruptly, taking two steps back.
He collided with the miller, who had come forward crying, “Awake, drunkard!” The steward and the maier had been rivals and partners for many years and bore each other that mix of friendly contempt that such associations often engendered.
“What is it?” the sergeant called to Dietrich.
“The pest,” Dietrich told him.
Max closed his eyes. “Herr God in Heaven!”
Dietrich said, “We should carry him to his cottage.” But he made no move. Klaus, hugging himself, turned away. Max returned to the manor house, saying, “The Herr must know.”
Hans Krenk shouldered them aside. “Heloïse and I will carry him.” The pagan Krenkerin, who had been resting nearby from her flight, joined him.
On the hill opposite, Joachim tolled the midday bell, announcing lunch to the workers in the fields. Klaus listened a moment, then said, “I thought it would be a bleaker scene.”
Dietrich turned to him. “What would be?”
“This day. I thought it would be marked by terrible signs—lowering clouds, ominous winds, a crack of thunder. Twilight. Yet, it is so ordinary a morning that I grow frightened.”
“Only now frightened?”
“Ja. Portents would mean a Divine Mover, however mysterious His moves; and the wrath of an angry God may be turned away by prayer and penance. But it simply happened. Everard grew sick and fell down. There were no signs; so it may be a natural thing, as you have always said. And against nature, we have no recourse.”
In the steward’s cottage, they scattered ledgers and rolls from the table and placed Everard there,