Eifelheim by Michael Flynn Read Free Book Online Page A

his tongue in his cheek and looked thoughtful. “There. That was a logic, wasn’t it?”
    “Modus tollens,”
Dietrich agreed. “But your major premise is faulty.”
    “Is it? I’d not make a good scholar. These things are all a mystery to me. Which is the major premise?”
    “The first.”
    “How is that faulty? The Romans and the Greeks were clever men. And the Saracens, heathen though they are. You told me yourself. What was that you called it? The one where they do the numbers.”
    “Al-jabr
. The cipher.”
    “Algebra. That’s the one. And then that Genoese fellow when I was apprenticed down in Freiburg who claimed he walked to Cathay and back. Didn’t he describe arts that he had seen there? Well, what I mean is, with all these clever people, Christian, infidel and pagan, ancient and modern, inventing things since the beginning of the world, how could they have overlooked something as simple as you say?”
    “There would be difficulties in the details. But mark me. One day, all work will be done by clever machines and people will be free to contemplate God and philosophy and the arts.”
    Gregor waved a hand. “Or free to contemplate trouble. Well. I suppose anything is possible if we ignore the details. Didn’t you tell me that someone had promised a fleet of wind-driven war chariots to the king of France?”
    “Yes, Guido da Vigevano told the king that wagons rigged with sails like a ship—”
    “And did the French king use them in this new war with the English he’s gotten?”
    “Not that I have heard.”
    “Because of the details, I suppose. What of the talking heads? Who was that?”
    “Roger Bacon, but it was only a
sufflator.”
    “That’s right. I remember the name, now. If anyone actually did fashion that talking head, Everard would use it to keep better accounts of our rents and duties. Then the whole village would be mad at you.”
    “At me?”
    “Well, Bacon is dead.”
    Dietrich laughed. “Gregor, every year sees a new art. Only twenty years past, men discovered the art of reading-spectacles. I even spoke with the man who invented them.”
    “Did you? What sort of mage was he?”
    “No mage. Only a man, like you or I. One who tired of squinting at his psalter.”
    “A man like you, then,” Gregor allowed.
    “He was a Franciscan.”
    “Oh.” Gregor nodded, as if that explained everything.
    T HE VILLAGERS dragged their buckets and rakes home, or picked through the charred poles and smoking thatch to salvage what they could from the ruins. Langermann and the other gärtners did not bother. There had been little enough in their huts to make their ashes worth sifting. Langermann had however recovered his goat. The cows in the cattle pen, unmilked since morning, complained without comprehension.
    Dietrich saw Fra Joachim, smudged black by smoke and gripping a bucket and hurried after him. “Joachim, wait.” He caught up in a few steps. “We will say a Mass in thanksgiving. ‘
Spiritus Dómini
,’ since the altar is vested already in red. But let us delay until vespers, so everyone can rest from the labor.”
    Joachim’s sooty face showed no emotion. “Vespers, then.” He turned away; and again Dietrich caught his sleeve.
    “Joachim.” He hesitated. “Earlier. I thought you had run off.”
    The Minorite gave him a stiff look. “I went back for this,” he said, rapping the bucket.
    “The bucket?”
    He handed it to Dietrich. “The holy water. In case the flames proved diabolical.”
    Dietrich looked inside. A residuum of water lay in the bottom. He gave the bucket back to the monk. “And since the flames proved material, after all?”
    “Why then, one more bucket of water to fight them.”
    Dietrich laughed and gave Joachim a slap on the shoulder. Sometimes the intense young man surprised him. “There, see? You do know something of logic.”
    Joachim pointed. “And who does logic tell you hauled the buckets that put out the fires in the Great Woods?” A thin,