Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [41]
“Regarding?”
“The Herr. He is a man of appetites. It would be well not to feed them. His wife has been dead now these two years.”
The miller’s wife said nothing for a space. Then she tossed her head and said, “What would you know of appetites?”
“Am I not a man?”
Hilde looked at him sidewise. “A fair question. If you’d pay the fine ‘under the linden,’ you could prove it to me. But the fine is double if the woman’s married.”
The heat rose in Dietrich’s neck and he watched her for a while as their horses plodded steadily onward. The Frau Müller rode with the inelegance of the peasant, flat against the saddle, bouncing against it with each step. Dietrich looked away before his thoughts could travel much further. He had tasted from that table and had found its pleasures overrated. By God’s grace, women held little appeal for him.
It was not until they had entered the forest that Hilde spoke again. “I went to pray him food and drink for those awful things in the woods. That was all. He gave me the sacks you see here, tied behind the saddle. If he thought a price for the favor, he did not name it.”
“Ah. I had thought …”
“I know what you thought. Try not to think about it so much.” And with that remark, she kicked heels to her horse and trotted ahead of him down the path, her legs splaying artlessly at every jounce.
REACHING THE charcoal kiln, Dietrich reined his mount in and spoke a short prayer for the souls of Anton and Josef. Shortly, the horse whickered and shied and Dietrich looked up to see two of the strange creatures watching from the edge of the clearing. He froze for a moment at the sight. Would he ever grow accustomed to their appearance? Images, however grotesque, were one thing when carved of wood or stone; quite another thing when formed of flesh.
Hilde did not turn. “It’s them,” she said, “isn’t it? I could tell by the way you started.” Dietrich nodded dumbly, and Hilde heaved a breath. “I gag at their smell,” she said. “My skin crawls at their touch.”
One of the sentries swung its arm in a passable imitation of a human gesture and leapt into the woods, where it paused for Dietrich and Hilde to follow.
Dietrich’s horse balked, so he kicked until the beast followed, with notable reluctance. The sentry moved in long, gliding lopes, pausing now and then to repeat the beckoning arm gesture. It wore a harness on its head, Dietrich saw, although the bit stood free before its mouth. From time to time it chittered or seemed to listen.
At the edge of the clearing where the creatures had erected their strange barn, the mare tried to bolt. Dietrich called upon half-forgotten skills and fought the beast, turning it away from the sight, shielding its eyes with his broad-brimmed traveling hat. “Stay back!” he told Hilde, who had lagged behind. “The horses fear these beings.”
Hilde jerked hard on the reins. “Then they show better sense.” She and Dietrich dismounted out of sight of the strangers. After picketing the horses, they carried the food sacks to the camp, where several of the creatures awaited them. One snatched the sacks and, using an instrument of some sort, cut small pieces from the foods inside. These, it placed into small glass phials. Dietrich watched the creature sniff at the mouth of one phial and hold it up to the light, and it suddenly occurred to him that it was an alchemist. Perhaps these folk had never seen goose or turnips or apples and so were wary of eating them.
The sentry touched Dietrich on the arm—it was like being brushed with dry sticks. He tried to fix the creature’s uniqueness in his memory, but there was nothing that his mind could seize on. Its height—taller than many. Its coloring—a darker gray. The yellow streak that showed through the gap of its shirt—a scar? But whatever idiosyncrasies there may have been were drowned in a wild impression of yellow faceted eyes and horny lips and too-long limbs.
He followed the sentry to the barn. The wall had a subtle and slippery feel, unlike any material