Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [84]
Manfred laughed. “Needed a feather up his arse? Hah!”
“Mine Herr, there are other prisoners in need of rescue.” He explained about the Jew’s caravan and the Hapsburg silver.
Manfred rubbed his chin. “The Duke lent the Freiburgers money to buy back the liberties they sold to Urach during the barons’ war. I suspect the treasure was a payment on those loans. Mark me, one day the Hapsburgs will own the Breisgau.”
“The other prisoners …”
Manfred waved a dismissive hand. “Philip will free them—once he’s taken all they have.”
“Not having seized the Hapsburg silver. Falkenstein’s safety lies in their silence. Albrecht may assume the Jew absconded with the treasure.”
“Since you have already escaped, he gains nothing by silencing the others. And a de Medina would not be tempted by such an amount. Albrecht knows that.”
“Mine Herr, a coil of especially fine copper wire I had drawn in Freiburg for the Krenken … Falkenstein has taken it.”
Manfred raised his gauntlet and studied the kestrel, brushing her feathers with his forefinger. “This is a lovely bird,” he said. “Mark the taper of the wing, the elegance of the tail, the delightful chestnut plumage. Dietrich, what would you have me do? Attack Falcon Rock to retrieve a coil of wire?”
“If the Krenken give aid with their thunder-paste and flying harnesses and pots de fer.”
“I will tell Thierry and Max I have found a new captain to advise me. Why should the Krenken give a fig about Falcon Rock?”
“They need the wire to repair their ship.”
Manfred grunted, frowned, and stroked the kestrel’s head before restoring it to its perch in the rookery. “Then it is better lost,” he said as he closed he cage. “The Krenken have many useful arts to teach us. I’d fain they not leave too soon.”
WHEN DIETRICH called Hans on the mikrofoneh afterward, the Kratzer answered instead.
“He you call ‘Hans’ sits in Gschert’s dungeon,” the philosopher told him. “His sally against the Burg in the valley was not by Herr Gschert ordered.”
“But he did it to retrieve the wire you need!”
“That is of no account. What matters, matters. Quicksilver falls.”
Alchemists associated quicksilver with the planet Mercury, which was also quick, and Dietrich thought the Kratzer meant that the very planet had fallen from the sky. But he had no chance to ask, for the Krenkish philosopher ended the audience.
Dietrich sat at his table in the parsonage and twisted the now-silent head harness around his fingers before tossing it to the table. The Krenken had been now for three months in the woods, and wild stories were already in Freiburger ears. And the wire they needed for flight was lost.
DURING THE next two weeks, the Krenken barred Max and Hilde from their encampment. They were felling trees again, Hilde told him, and building bonfires. Dietrich wondered if some festival of theirs impended, similar to St. John’s Day but requiring the exclusion of outsiders. “It isn’t that,” Max said. “They’re planning something. I think they’re afraid.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know. It’s a soldier’s instinct.”
THE FEAST of St. Catherine of Alexandria dawned close and cold, under a sky sullen with heavy clouds and a breeze not bold enough for wind. The villagers, having celebrated the Kirchweihe in memory of the foundation of their church, crowded from the church into the morning light, eager for the foot races and other games that marked the Kermis, only to stare dumbfounded at snowy hummocks rolling white to the horizons. During the church-vigil, a stealthy snow had thickened the land.
After a moment’s awed contemplation, the children fell to with a collective shriek, and soon young and old were engaged in mock battles and fortifications. Across the valley, a troop of armsmen emerged from the castle. Dietrich thought at first that they intended to join the snow-fight, but they turned and marched at the double-quick down the Bear Valley road.
A snowball struck Dietrich on the chest. Joachim grinned and threw another, which missed. “That’s how your sermons strike some people,