Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [93]
In the silence that followed these announcements, Joachim began to sing, low at first and then more strongly, lifting his chin and throwing words to the vises and rafters, as if transported by some inner fire. Dietrich recognized the hymn, Christus factus est pro nobis, and at the next phrase, joined his own voice in duplum, at which Joachim faltered, then recovered. Dietrich took the “holding voice,” or tenor, and Joachim the upper and their voices moved freely against each other, Joachim sometimes rendering a dozen notes to Dietrich’s one. Dietrich became aware that the Krenken had stilled their chittering and stood as the statues in their niches. Not a few of them held mikrofonai aloft to capture the sounds.
At last their two voices fell into unison on “the refreshing fa” with which the fifth mode ended, and the church remained hushed for some moments, until Gregor’s rough “Amen!” started a chorus of affirmations. Dietrich blessed the congregation, saying, “May God prosper this enterprise and strengthen our resolve. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”
Then he prayed silently that the concord miraculously elicited by Joachim’s unexpected sermon would not vanish in the face of second thoughts.
WHEN DIETRICH later brought Hans and the Kratzer to the parsonage, he found that Joachim had built up the fire in the main room and was adjusting the crackling logs with an iron poker. The two Krenken made exclamations untranslatable by the talking head and pushed into the room, close to the flames. Joachim stepped back, the poker in his hands and considered them.
“These are to be our particular guests,” he supposed.
“The one wearing the strange furs is called the Kratzer, because when I met him he used his forearms to make a rasping sound.”
“And you called their lord ‘Gschert,’” Joachim said with a flat smile. “Does he know it means ‘stupidly rude’? Who is the other? I’ve seen those garments before, in the church rafters at the feriae messis.”
“You saw him then—and said nothing?”
Joachim shrugged. “I had fasted. It might have been a vision.”
“His name is Johann von Sterne. He is a servant who tends the talking head.”
“A servant, and you call him ‘von.’ I never looked for humor from you, Dietrich. Why does he wear short pants and doublet while the other is wrapped in fur?”
“Their country is warmer than ours. They keep their arms and legs bare because their speech sometimes makes use of the arm-rasping. As their ship was bound for lands likewise warm, neither pilgrims nor crew brought cold-weather clothing. Only the Kratzer’s folk, who had planned to explore an unknown country, did so.”
Joachim rapped the poker against the stone fireplace to knock the ashes off. “He will share the fur, then,” he said, hanging the poker on its hook.
“It would never occur to him,” Hans Krenk answered. After a pause, he added, “Nor to me.”
DIETRICH AND Joachim went to prepare beds for the strangers in the kitchen outbuilding, where the larger kitchen hearth would provide greater warmth. In the snow-path between the buildings, Joachim said, “You sang well in the church today. Organum purum is difficult to master.”
“I learned d’ Arezzo’s method in Paris.” That had involved memorizing the hymn Ut queant laxis and using the first syllables of each line for the hexachord: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la.
“You sang like a monk,” Joachim said. “I wondered if you’d ever been tonsured.”
Dietrich rubbed the back of his head. “I came by the bald spot in the common course.”
Joachim laughed,