Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [187]
There, he found the miller upon a three-legged stool drawn close to the bed. The bed boasted a headboard and, at its foot, an oaken chest with iron hinges and carved with the image of a waterwheel. Upon the bed lay a mattress stuffed with ticking and, upon the mattress, lay Hilde.
Her golden hair was twisted and matted with sweat, and her frame racked by coughs. She stared with near-Krenkish eyes. “Summon pastor Dietrich,” she cried. “Dietrich!”
“Here,” Dietrich said, and Klaus jerked to that soft statement where he had not reacted to the earlier knocks and shouts. Without turning, he said, “She complained of headaches when she awoke and I thought little of it and went to start the wheel. Then …”
“Dietrich!” cried Hilde.
Dietrich knelt beside the bed. “Here I am.”
“No! No! Bring the pastor to me!”
Dietrich touched her gently on the shoulder, but the woman jerked away.
“She has lost her wits,” Klaus said, in a voice preternaturally calm.
“Have the boils appeared?”
The maier shook his head. “I know not.”
“If I may lift her gown up to inspect …?”
The miller stared at Dietrich for a moment, then began to laugh. They were great rolling laughs that shook his frame and died abruptly. “Pastor,” he said gravely, “you are the only man in this dorp who has prayed my grace before looking.” He moved aside.
Dietrich lifted the nightgown and was relieved to find no swellings in her groin, though reddish spots near her secret place showed where they intended their appearance. When he tried to look at her chest and under her arms, the gown caught and she flailed about. “Max!” she said. “Send for Max! He will protect me!”
“Will you give her the last rites?” Klaus asked.
“Not yet. Klaus …” he hesitated, but then said nothing about Wanda. The miller would not leave his wife like this. When he rose, Hilde clutched at his robe. “Fetch Dietrich,” she begged him.
“Ja doch,” Dietrich answered unfastening her grip. “I go now to fetch him.”
Outside, he paused for breath. God was a clever sort. Dietrich had fled the pest in one house, only to find it in another.
HANS AND Gottfried helped him move Wanda to her bed. When Dietrich returned to the parsonage, Joachim took one look at his face. “The pest!” he said. At Dietrich’s nod, he threw his head back and cried, “O God, I have failed You!”
Dietrich laid a hand on his shoulder. “You have failed no one.”
He shrugged off the touch. “The Krenken are gone back to Hell unshriven!”
When Dietrich turned away, Joachim snatched his sleeve. “You cannot let them die alone.”
“I know. I go to Manfred to pray his grace for a hospice.”
HE FOUND the Herr in the great hall, sitting between a roaring fire in the hearth and a second built in a large cauldron placed on the other side of the room. The entire household had huddled there, even Imre the peddler. Servants came and went, bearing wood to feed the fires. They left slowly and returned quickly.
Manfred, who sat at the council table scratching with a pen on a sheet of parchment, spoke without looking up. “The fires worked for your pope. De Chauliac recommended it when I bespoke him in Avignon. The element of fire destroys the bad air …” He waved the pen in dismissal. “… somehow. I leave science to those trained in it.” His eyes darted to the corners of the room, as if he might spy the pest lurking there. Then he bent once more to the parchment.
Fire might be effective, Dietrich thought, since it loosened the stiffened mass of bad air and caused it to rise. Bells, too, might break up the mass by shaking the air. But if the pest was carried by innumerable mikrobiota, Dietrich did not see where the flames would help—unless, like moths, the small-lives were drawn to the fire for self-immolation. Of these thoughts he said nothing. “Mine Herr, Wanda Schmidt and Hilde Müller have been struck by the pest.”
“I know. Heloïse Krenkerin warned us by the farspeaker. What do you want of me?”
“I pray your grace to establish a hospital. Soon, I fear, too many will lie ill to—”
Manfred tapped the pen against the table, blunting