Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [3]
Through the window he noticed a light moving about at the base of the hill. It would appear, move a short space, then disappear, only to rematerialize after a moment and repeat the dance. He frowned, not quite knowing what it was. A salamander?
No. A blacksmith. Dietrich became aware of his tension only in the moment of its release. The forge lay at the bottom of the hill and the smith’s cottage beside it. The light was a candle moving to and fro before an open window: Lorenz, pacing like a caged beast.
So. The smith—or his wife—was awake also, and evidently in a nervous state.
Dietrich reached for the aquamanile to rinse the soap off and a needle stabbed him in the palm. “Sancta Katherina!” He stepped back, knocking bowl and water pitcher to the floor, where the soapy water fanned across the flagstones. He searched his hand for wounds and found none. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he knelt and retrieved the aquamanile, handling it gingerly, as if it might bite him once again. “You are a froward rooster,” he told the pitcher, “to peck me like that.” The rooster, unmoved by the admonition, was returned to his place.
When he wiped his hands on a towel he noticed that his hairs stood away, as a dog’s fur might bristle before a fight. Curiosity wrestled with dread. He pulled the sleeve of his cassock back and saw how his arm hairs rose also. It reminded him of something, long ago, but the memory wouldn’t come clear.
Recalling his duties, he dismissed the puzzle and crossed to the prie-dieu, where the dying candle sputtered. He knelt, crossed himself and, pressing his hands together, gazed at the iron cross upon the wall. Lorenz, that very smith who prowled at the base of the hill, had fashioned the sacramental from an assortment of nails and spikes and, although it did not look much like a man upon a cross, it seemed as if it might, if only one looked deeply enough. Retrieving his breviary from the shelf of the prie-dieu, he opened it to where he had marked his morning office with a ribbon the day before.
“The hairs of your head are all numbered,” he read from the prayer for Matins. “Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows …” And why that prayer on this particular day? It was too appropriate by far. He glanced again at the hairs on the back of his hand. A sign? But if so, of what? “The saints will exult in glory,” he continued. “They will rejoice upon their couches. Give us the joy of communion with Sixtus and his companions in eternal beatitude. This we ask of Thee through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Of course. Today was the feast day of Pope Sixtus II, and so the prayer for martyrs was called for. He knelt in silent meditation upon the steadfastness of that man, even in the face of death. A man so good as to be remembered eleven centuries after his murder—beheaded at the very celebration of the Mass. Above the tomb of Sixtus, which Dietrich himself had seen in the cemetery of Callistus, Pope Damasus had later inscribed a poem; and while the verses were not so good a poem as Sixtus had been a man, they told his story well enough.
We had better popes in those days, Dietrich thought and then immediately chastised himself. Who was he to judge another? The Church today, if not overtly persecuted by kings themselves nominally Christian, had become a plaything of the French crown. Subordination was a more subtle persecution, and so perhaps a more subtle courage was called for. The French had not cut Boniface down as the Romans had Sixtus—but the Pope had died from the manhandling.
Boniface had been an arrogant, contemptuous man with