Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [37]
“Entschuldigung,” he called. She paused and turned. “I haven’t even asked your name.”
“Judy,” she told him. “Judy Cao.”
“Thank you, Judy Cao.”
IT WAS a slim lead, a loose thread dangling from an old tangle of facts. At some unspecified time in the fourteenth century a wandering Minorite named Fra Joachim had evidently preached a sermon on “the sorcerers at Oberhochwald.” The text of the sermon had not survived the centuries, but Brother Joachim’s oratorical fame had, and a commentary on the sermon had been included in a treatise on homiletics against witchcraft and devil worship. A later reader—sixteenth century to judge by the calligraphy—had added a marginal gloss: Dieses Dorp heißt jetzt Eifelheim. This village is now called Eifelhiem.
And that meant …
Tom groaned and laid the printout on the table.
Judy Cao laid a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong, Dr. Schwoerin?”
Tom batted the sheet. “I’ve to go back through all these files.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Oh well. Povtorenia—mat’ uchenia.” He pulled the carton closer to him.
Judy Cao took a folder from the carton and, eyes cast down, turned it over and over in her hands. “I could help,” she suggested.
“Oh …” He shook his head distractedly. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“No, I’m serious.” She looked up. “I volunteer. There’s always a lull on the server after eight P.M. The hits from California drop off and the early morning hits from Warsaw or Vienna don’t pick up until later. The math, I can’t do, but research and documentation … I’ll have to check these cartons in real time, of course; but I can also mouse around the Net.”
“I can run a search engine,” Tom said.
“No offence, Dr. Schwoerin, but no one can mouse the Net like a master librarian. There is so much information out there, so poorly organized—and so bogus—that knowing how to find it is a science in itself.”
Tom grunted. “Tell me about it. I run a search and I get thousands of hits, most of it Klimbim, which I’m damned if I can figure out how they made the list.”
“Most sites aren’t worth the paper they’re not written on,” Judy said. “Half of them are set up by cranks or amateur enthusiasts. You need to boole your searchstring. I can write a worm to sniff out not only citations of Oberhochwald, but citations of any key words associated with the place. Like …”
“Like Johannes Sterne? Or the Trinity of Trinities?”
“Or anything. The worm can be taught to screen for context—that’s the hard part—and ignore items that aren’t relevant.”
“All right,” Tom said. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll pay you a stipend from my grant money. It won’t be much, but it’ll give you a title. Research Assistant. And your name will go on the paper after mine.” He straightened his chair. “I’ll key you a special access code for CLIODEINOS so you can dump into my files whenever you find anything. Meanwhile, we … What’s wrong?”
Judy pulled back from the table. “Nothing.” She looked away briefly. “I thought we might meet here periodically. To coordinate our activities.”
Tom waved his hand. “We can do that easier over the Net. All you need is a smart phone and a modem.”
“I have a smart phone,” she told him, tugging on the string that bound the folder she held. “My phone is smarter than some people.”
Tom laughed, not yet getting the joke.
THE TWO cartons they already had on the table were as good a place as any to start, so Tom took one and gave Judy the other and they went through them, folder by folder. Tom was reading the same items for the second time that night, so he forced himself to concentrate on the words. Searching for “Oberhochwald,” his eyes were snagged by any word starting with an “O”—or even a “Q” or a “C.” The manuscripts were penned in a disheartening variety of hands; mostly Latin, but some Middle High German, a few French or Italian. A