Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [94]
“They are not demons. You will see that in time, as I did.”
“No, they are steeped in evil. The philosopher refused to share his fur with his servant. Philosophers will always have logical reasons for avoiding the good—and those reasons will always hang on their lust for material goods. A man who has little thinks little of sharing it; but the man who has much will clutch it with his dying fingers. This device …” Joachim fingered the cord of the head harness that Dietrich wore. “Explain how it works.”
Dietrich did not know, but repeated what he had been told about insensible waves in the air, “felt” by devices which he had named “feelers,” or antennae. But Joachim laughed. “How often you say that we ought not imagine new entities to explain a thing when those already known suffice. Yet you accept that there are insensible waves in the air. Surely, that the device is demonic is by far the simpler hypothesis.”
“If this device is demonic, it did me no harm.”
“Diabolical arts cannot harm a good Christian, which testifies in your favor. I had feared for you, Dietrich. Your faith is as cold as the snow, and provides no warmth. True faith is a fire that gives life—”
“If by that you mean that I don’t shout and weep—”
“No. You talk—and while the words are always right, they are not always the right words. There is no joy in you, only a long-forgotten sorrow.”
Dietrich, much discomfited, said, “There is the tithe barn. Fetch the straw for the bedding.”
Joachim hesitated. “I had thought you went into the woods to lie with Hildegarde. I thought the leper colony a ruse. To believe that was the sin of rash judgement—and I pray your pardon.”
“It was a reasonable hypothesis.”
“What has reason to do with it? A man does not reason his way into a slattern’s bed.” He scowled and his thick brows knit together. “The woman is a whore, a temptress. If you did not go into the woods to be with her, it is certain that she went into the woods to be with you.”
“Judge her not too rashly, either.”
“I’m no philosopher, to mince words. If we are to grapple with a foe, let us at least name him. Men like you are a challenge to women like her.”
“Men like me …?”
“Celibates. Oh, how tasty are the grapes that dangle out of reach! How much more desired! Dietrich, you haven’t granted me pardon.”
“Oh, surely. I take the words of the Lord’s Prayer. I will pardon you as you pardon her.”
Surprise contorted the monk’s features. “For what must I pardon Hilde?”
“For having such ‘a woodpile stacked by the hut’ that you dream of her at night.”
Joachim blanched and his jaw muscles knit. Then he looked at the snow. “I do think on them, what they felt—might feel like in my hands. I am a miserable sinner.”
“So are we all. Which is why we merit love, and not condemnation. Which of us is worthy to throw the first stone? But let us at least not blame another for our own weakness.”
IN THE kitchen, Dietrich discovered Theresia huddled in a tight corner between the hearth and the outer wall. “Father!” she cried. “Send them away!”
“What ails you?” He reached to her, but she would not emerge from her corner.
“No, no, no!” she said. “Evil, wicked things! Father, they’ve come for us, they mean to take us down down down to Hell. How could you let them come? Oh, the flames! Mother! Father, make them go away!” Her eyes did not apprehend Dietrich, but looked on another vision.
This affliction he had not seen in many years.
“Theresia, these Krenken are the distressed pilgrims from the woods.”
She clutched at the sleeve of his gown. “Can you not see their hideousness? Have they enchanted your eyes?”
“They are poor beings of flesh and blood, as we are.”
The monk had come to the door of the kitchen outbuilding, a bundle of staw for the bedding balanced on his shoulder. He dropped it and rushed to the alcove where he went to his knee before Theresia.
“The Krenken terrify her,” Dietrich told him.
Joachim held his hands out. “Come, let us go down to your own