Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [20]
Ejaculations like that had put Joachim’s order in deep disfavor. The Conventuals had disavowed their brothers in the face of it, but the Spirituals would not hold their tongues. Some had burned; some had fled to the Kaiser for protection. How much better, Dietrich thought, to escape notice entirely. He raised his eyes to heaven, and something seemed to move among the candle-sent shadows in the rafters and vises in the clerestory. A bird, perhaps.
“But poverty is not merit enough,” Dietrich cautioned Theresia. “Many a gärtner in his hut loves riches more than does a generous and open-handed lord. It is the desire and not the possession that diverts us from the straight path. There is good and ill in any besitting.” Before Joachim could dispute the point, he added, “Ja, the rich man finds it more difficult to see Christ because the glitter of the gold dazzles his eyes; but never forget that it is the man that sins and not the gold.”
He returned to the altar to finish the Mass, and Joachim took the bread and wine from the credence table and followed him. Theresia handed him a basket of herbs and roots that she had gathered and Joachim brought those to the altar, too. Then, since he had received only the lesser orders, the Minorite stood aside. Dietrich spread his arms wide and recited a prayer for the offerings. “Orátio mea …”
Theresia took all in with the same simplicity with which she accepted everything else in life. This was a good woman, Dietrich thought. She would never be placed on the calendar of saints, never be remembered for centuries like Laurence and Sixtus; yet she owned their generosity of spirit. Christ lived in her because she lived in Christ. Irresistably, he compared her to the wanton Hildegarde Müller.
Councils had proposed that the priest should turn his back on his flock, and not face them across the altar as had been done since the earliest times. The argument was that priest and people should face God together, the celebrant standing at the fore as the commander of an army leads his lances into battle. Some of the great cathedrals had already reversed their altars, and Dietrich expected the practice to become soon universal. And yet, how sad if he could not gaze upon the Theresias of the world.
AFTER THE vigil, as they returned by torchlight to the parsonage, Joachim said to Dietrich, “That was a fine thing you said. I had not looked to you for it.”
Dietrich had been watching Theresia make her way down the hillside with her basket of herbs, now blessed and therefore meet for preparing salves and unguents. “What did I say?” He had not expected praise from Joachim, and the compliment of the first utterance pleased him more than the implicit criticism of the second nettled.
“When you said that the rich man cannot see Christ because the gold dazzles his eyes. I liked that. I would like to use it myself.”
“I said it was more difficult. It’s never easy for anyone. And don’t forget the glitter. Gold itself is a useful thing. It is the glitter that is the blinding illusion.”
“You could have been a Franciscan yourself.”
“And burn with the rest of you? I’m a simple priest of the diocese. Thank you, but I will stay out of it. Kaisers and Popes are like the upper and nether millstones in Klaus’s mill. Between them is a bad place to lie.”
“I never read of Christ praising luxury and wealth.”
Dietrich lifted his torch the better to see his companion. “I never heard of him leading bands of armed peasants to the sacking of a manor house, either!”
Joachim shrank from the vehemence he heard. “No!” the Minorite said. “We don’t preach that. The Way of Francis is—”
“Where were you when the Armleder went about the Rhineland hanging the rich men and burning their houses?”
Joachim stared at him. “The Armleder? Why, I was a child in my father’s house. The Armleder never came there.”
“Be thankful they never did.”
A strange look passed across the monk’s features. Fear, but something else. Then the face closed up once more.