Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [73]
“Gschert’s—artisans—want for two hundred shoe-lengths of copper wire. Know your kind the art of wire-drawing—question. It must be drawn to the fineness of a pin, with no cracks.”
Dietrich rubbed his chin. “Lorenz is a blacksmith. Copper may lie beyond his art.”
“So. Where finds one a coppersmith—question.”
“In Freiburg,” Dietrich said. “But copper is dear. Lorenz might do the task from charity, but not a Freiburg guildsman.”
“I will give you a copper brick we have mined from rocks near here. The smith may keep whatever is not used for the wire.”
“And this wire will further your departure?”
“Lacking it, we cannot leave. Prying the copper from the ore required only … heat. We have not the means to draw it. Dietrich, you do not have the sentence in your head to do this. I hear it in your words. You will not go to Free Town.”
“There are … risks.”
“So. There are then limits to this ‘charity’ of yours, to this rent you owe the Herr-from-the-stars. When he returns, he will thrash those who failed to do his bidding.”
“No,” said Dietrich. “That is not how he rules. His ways are mysterious to men.” And what better proof than this encounter, he thought. He glanced once toward the clouds, as if he expected to see Jesus there, laughing. “Na. Give me the ingot and I will see to its drawing.”
But Hans would not approach him, and left the ingot on the trail.
THE WAGONS set forth the next day across the plateau to the rendezvous point, where they were joined by the wagon from Niederhochwald. Thierry von Hinterwaldkopf commanded the three knights and Max’s fifteen armsmen. Eugen bore the Hochwald banner.
Other wagons joined them along the way: one, from an imperial holding by Stag’s Leap and another from the manor of St. Oswald’s chapel. The chapter provided two more armsmen and Einhardt, the imperial knight, brought his junker and five more armsmen. Thierry, seeing his small force thus augmented, grinned. “‘S Blood, I’d almost welcome a sally from Burg Falkenstein!”
FROM ABOVE the gorge, Dietrich heard that eerie whisper in which distant valleys speak—a patois formed from the wind through the naked branches and evergreen needles below, from the rushing brook cascading off the escarpment, from a choir of grasshoppers and other insects.
The wagon track switchbacked down the face of the Katerinaberg. Inhospitable patches of gray stone and barren ground alternated with copses of desolate, wind-shorn beeches. The road ahead wound only a few hundred feet below them, but across insuperably steep pitches, so that Dietrich sometimes spied the vanguard coming from the other direction. Footpaths ran off where wagons could not follow. He saw ancient stairs carved into the stone hillside and wondered who had cut them.
The bottom, when they reached it, was a wild ravine, tangled with brush and toppled oaks, and flanked on both sides with great overhanging rocks and steep, wooded precipices. A rushing torrent, fed by waterfalls plunging from the heights, crashed and hissed over rocks down its center, turning to mud what little track the wagons had.
“There’s Stag’s Leap,” said Gregor, pointing to an outcropping that jutted out over the gorge. “The story is that a hunter chased a stag through the woods near here and the beast leapt from that crag over to the Breitnau side. You see how the valley pinches up here? Still, it was a wonderful leap, they say. The hunter was in such hot pursuit that he tried to follow, though with less happy results.”
BURG FALKENSTEIN, high upon one of the precipices, held the gorge tight. Bartizans dotted the schildmauer like warts on a toad, and were slit by cruciform ballistaria to give openings for hidden archers. Sentries were silhouettes in the battlement’s crenels; their jibes rendered indistinct by distance. The escort feigned indifference, but they hefted their shields a little higher and kept a tighter grip on their pennoned lances.
“Those dogs won’t sally against knights,” Thierry said after the troop had passed with no more damage than the taunts. “Tough enough