Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [184]
It was the knotted rope that the monk wore as cincture, sodden now with blood. “Ach, you fool! You fool!”
The body stirred in his embrace. “If I drink the cup to the full,” a voice whispered, “it may pass from others.” The head turned and Dietrich saw eyes bright in the fragile starlight. “If I suffer the pains of ten, then nine may be spared. There,” he laughed, “that’s an algebra, isn’t it?”
A cold, blue light suffused the interior of the church as Hans entered with a Krenkish lamp. “He has hurt himself,” the creature said when he had approached.
“Ja,” said Dietrich. “To take our suffering on himself.” Had he been whipping himself for the entire four hours since Hans had seen him enter the church? Dietrich seized the monk more tightly, kissed him on his cheek.
“He thought by whips to stay the small-lives?” said Hans. “That is not logical!”
Dietrich gathered the body in his arms and stood. “To the Devil with logic! All of us stand powerless. At least he tried to do something!”
ON WEDNESDAY, Manfred summoned Dietrich to the chapel to commemorate Kaiser St. Heinrich: a just ruler from a day when the Germanies had possessed both rulers and justice. “The good Father Rudolf,” Manfred explained the summons, “took my gray last night and fled.”
Dietrich had never liked the chaplain, but this news startled and disturbed him. The Herr’s chapel was well appointed with gold vessels and silk vestments, and its chaplaincy was a comfortable benefice that made few demands and stood its holder higher than a mere village priest. Rudolf was a good man and gave God honor, but there was that small portion of his heart in which he treasured Mammon.
In the chapel’s rear stood Eugen and Kunigund and her sister Irmgard, Chlotilde the nurse, Gunther, Peter Minnesinger, Wolfram and their families, Max, and a few others of the Herr’s household, waiting quietly closed in on themselves for the Mass to begin. Dietrich lowered his voice to a whisper. “He abandoned his benefice?” Serfs would at times flee their manor. Less often, a lord would abandon his fief. But it was not seemly for any man to desert his sitting in life. “Where will he go?”
Manfred nodded. “Who can say? Nor do I grudge him the horse. Flight gives a chance, and I’d not deny a man his chances.”
Afterward, Dietrich stood at the gate to the curial grounds and gazed sightlessly over the village, thinking about Fr. Rudolf. Then he spun on his heel and walked to the cottage of Everard Steward.
“How fares your man today?” he asked when Yrmegard had opened the upper door.
Yrmegard looked over her shoulder. “Better, I think.… He …” Abruptly, she threw the lower door open. “See for yourself.”
Dietrich crossed the threshold. He took a short breath, hesitant to draw too much of the bad air into his lungs. “Peace be with all here. Where is Heloïse?”
“Who is that? The demon? I thought all demons had Jew names. I chased it out. I’d not have it squatting here ready to seize my husband’s soul should it leave his body.”
“Yrmegard, the Krenken have been with us since Kermis-day …”
“They were only waiting their chance.”
Everard’s cottage was divided into a main room and a sleeping room. The steward held several strips of land and the extra wealth showed in the opulence of his dwelling. The man himself lay in the sleeping room. His brow was dry and hot to the touch. The swellings on his chest had been joined by others in his groin and under his arms. One, by the left arm, had grown to the size and coloring of an apple. Dietrich took a cloth to the bucket, soaked it, folded it, and laid it across the man’s brow. Everard hissed and his hands became claws.
Dietrich heard Yrmegard shush the crying boy. Everard opened one eye. “Quiet, boy,” he said. The words were slurred because his tongue was swollen and refused to stay inside his mouth. It was a slimy, gray, wet snail seeking escape from its shell. “A good