Eifelheim by Michael Flynn Read Free Book Online

pastor.”
    “What?”
    “The fires are out,” said Gregor.
    “Oh.” Dietrich shook himself from his trance. Up and down the line, men and women sank to their knees. Lorenz Schmidt raised the last bucket and poured the water over his head.
    “What damage?” Dietrich asked. He sank to his haunches in the reeds along the millpond’s edge, too tired to climb up the embankment and see for himself.
    The mason’s height gave him an advantage. He shaded his eyes against the sun and studied the scene. “The huts are lost,” he said. “Bauer’s roof will want replacement. Ackermann has lost his house entirely. The two Feldmanns, as well. I count … five dwellings destroyed, perhaps twice that many damaged. And outbuildings, as well.”
    “Were any hurt?”
    “A few burns, so far as I can see,” said Gregor. Then he laughed. “And young Seppl has scorched the seat from his trousers.”
    “Then we have much to be thankful for.” Dietrich closed his eyes and crossed himself.
O God, who suffers not that any who hope in Thee should be overmuch afflicted, but listens kindly to their prayers, we thank Thee for having heard our requests and granted our desires. Amen
.
    When he opened his eyes, he saw that everyone had gathered at the pond. Some were wading in the water, and the younger children—not comprehending the close brush with disaster—had seized the opportunity to go swimming.
    “I have a thought, Gregor.” Dietrich examined his hands. He would have to mix a salve when he was back in hisquarters, else there would be blisters. Theresia made such ointments, but she would likely run short today, and Dietrich had read from Galen in Paris.
    The mason sat beside him. He rubbed his hands slowly back and forth, palm to palm, scowling at them, as if searching for signs and portents among the scars and swollen knuckles. The little finger of the left hand was missing, crushed off in a long-ago accident. He shook his head. “What?”
    “Affix the buckets to a belt moved by Klaus Müller’s wheel. It wants only Herr Manfred’s grace and the services of a skilled cam master. No. Not a belt. A bellows. And a pump, like the one used at Joachimstal.”
    Gregor frowned and turned his head so he could see Klaus Müller’s waterwheel downstream from the millpond. The mason pulled a reed from the earth and held it dangling at arm’s length. “Müller’s wheel is out of plumb,” he said, sighting along the reed. “From that strange wind, do you think?”
    “Have you ever seen a water pump?” Dietrich asked him. “The mine at Joachimstal is at the top of the hill, but the miners have fashioned a latticework of wooden spars extending up the hillside from the stream. It takes its power from a waterwheel, but a cam translates the wheel’s circular motion into the latticework’s to-and-fro.” He moved his hands in the air, trying to show Gregor the motions he meant. “And that to-and-fro works the pumps up at the mine.”
    Gregor wrapped his arms around his knees. “I like it when you weave these fancies of yours, pastor. You should write fables.”
    Dietrich grunted. “These are not fables, but fact. Would paper be so plentiful without water mills to pound the pulp? Twenty-five years ago, a cam was fashioned to run a bellows; and I have lately heard that an artisan at Liège has joined the bellows to the hearth and created a new kind of iron furnace—one that uses a blast of air. For now eight years it has been smelting steel in the north.”
    “These are wondrous times,” Gregor acknowledged. “But what of your bucket line?”
    “Simple! Equip the bellows to throw water instead of air and attach it to a pump, as at Joachimstal. A few men holding such a siphon could direct a continual stream of water at the fire. There would be no need for bucket lines or—”
    Gregor laughed. “If such a thing were possible, someone would have built one by now. No one has built one, so it must be impossible.” Gregor stuck