Reinmar knew that the sergeant could not possibly be any more tired than he
was himself, but his own thoughts were too confused and restless to allow him even to contemplate sleep—so he sat where
he was, keeping very still for Marcilla’s sake, and tried with all his might to
think of the future, and all the possibilities it held. When his right hand
began to tremble, he told himself that it was only the chill of the rain, but he
knew that it was a lie. He did not feel cold at all.
So what if I have killed a man, he said to himself? And if there were three,
how is that any worse than if there were only one? Would they not have killed
me, had I paused to think of mercy, however weak and badly armed they were?
But the hand continued to tremble, and would not stop no matter how he hugged
it to his breast.
It was a long way home, and it seemed much longer. He fretted in this manner
through every tedious inch of it—but in the end, he did come safely into sight
of the lights of Eilhart. Reinmar knew that he would find his father worried and
anxious, and not at all prepared to welcome a gypsy as his son’s beloved, and he
knew that the battle of wills that lay ahead of him at home would be long and
hard—but that was a battle he knew how to fight. As for the others of which
Vaedecker had warned him, there was nothing he could do but wait until they
began, and learn to fight them as he went along, as best he could.
It had been dark for an hour when the cart finally rolled to a halt outside
Gottfried Wieland’s shop. The horses should have been rested long before, but
Godrich had kept them up to their work, on the assumption that they would have
plenty of time to recover from their extraordinary exertions. Their load had
been lightened for the last few miles because Reinmar and Vaedecker had walked
with Sigurd. Vaedecker had not ridden in the cart since sleeping for thirteen
hours after their escape from the valley, having recovered his strength easily
enough.
Reinmar had not been so fortunate; although his exertions had taken a far
greater toll of his limited strength he had hardly been able to sleep for more
than an hour at a time during the days and nights following his adventure in the
underworld, waking as soon as uncomfortable dreams began to disturb him—and it
seemed that he had lost the knack of finding any kind of dream that was other
than profoundly uncomfortable. Marcilla had slept far longer, far more deeply—and, if appearances could be trusted, far better—but she seemed to be in a
perpetual daze whenever she awoke.
They had not been attacked while they were on the road, either by men or by
monsters—but sometimes, when they looked behind them as they rested, they had seen shadowy figures lurking in
the woods or on the ridges of the hills. As if to combat this ominous sign,
however, the further they descended from the hills the more benign the weather
had become. The kindness of the daylight and the increasing familiarity of the
terrain had brought a little peace of mind to all of the travellers.
Matthias Vaedecker had taken the first opportunity to wash the clotted blood
and other stains from the clothes he had worn when he entered the valley, and
Reinmar had followed his example, but neither of them put those clothes on again
when their replacements became soiled. Neither of them was able to think of the
clothes they had worn in the underworld as clean, no matter how thoroughly they
were scrubbed.
Gottfried Wieland was waiting in the street to welcome the cart, having
received advance notice of its approach from a watchman. He had three labourers
ready to convey its cargo to the cellar, and the waiting crowd was swelled to
more than twice that number by other anxious faces. Machar von Spurzheim was
with them, with two attendant men-at-arms. Godrich’s wife and son were also
there, and so was Marguerite. The reactions of these individuals were as varied
as might be expected, even though none of them could have had any advance
indication of what had befallen the members of the expedition.
While Godrich took Gottfried aside to whisper a report, and Vaedecker did
likewise with the witch hunter, Reinmar found himself face-to-face with
Marguerite, who seemed very enthusiastic to hear a full account of his
adventure. He, for his own part, was anxious to know what had happened in the
town while he had been away.
“We brought these two gypsies away from a village where they were attacked by
farmhands,” Reinmar said, allowing Ulick to take responsibility for putting a
protective arm around Marcilla’s shoulder. “Then we were attacked in our turn.
But as you see, we are all alive and unhurt. Had the soldier not been with us it
might have been different, but he and Sigurd make a fine team. What news is
there of my great-uncle?”
“He is still in prison,” Marguerite told him. “More soldiers have been
arriving in the town every day—and others who certainly are not soldiers,
though they may be fighting men of some sort. Three warehouses by the quays have
been converted into barracks, and there are officers billeted in every inn and lodging-house.
There are men sleeping in stables and storerooms, and their quartermasters are
acquiring provisions on a massive scale, although they seem very reluctant to
pay a proper price. The market has become a battleground. Some of the townsfolk
are sealing their houses and moving their entire households downriver; others
are sending their wives and children away but keeping their menservants at home,
fearful that their houses might otherwise be requisitioned or looted. No one
knows when or whether the soldiers intend to move on again, or where they will
go if they do. What is happening, Reinmar? Is there really an army of monsters
gathering in the hills?”
Reinmar was saved the trouble of improvising an answer to this question by
the intervention of his father, who hauled him away in a peremptory fashion.
Gottfried told Marguerite to go home, without bothering to be overly polite. She
made not the slightest move to obey, and followed them into the shop so that she
could hear what Gottfried had to say, and what responses Reinmar might make.
“Am I expected to find a room for these gypsies?” Gottfried demanded.
“We have plenty of rooms, father,” Reinmar said, obstinately. “We gave them
protection, and we have good reason to believe that they still need it.”
“Reason enough to leave the wagon and go haring off into the wilderness?
Reason enough to leave Godrich alone when he was hurt and the cart broken?
Reason enough, even though you had been attacked?”
The effect of these questions was to stimulate an anger that Reinmar had long
held in reserve, and his replies would undoubtedly have caused more trouble. He
had no time to make them, though, because Marguerite was rudely thrust aside for
a second time as Machar von Spurzheim strode into the shop.
“Leave the boy be,” the witch hunter instructed, ignoring the amazement which
took immediate possession of Gottfried Wieland’s face. “He has been brave as
well as reckless, so my sergeant says, and his bravery may have won considerable
gains for our cause. You can welcome him home in your own fashion later—for
now, I have need of him and he must come with me.”
Gottfried opened his mouth to protest, and the words nearly escaped before he
remembered who he was talking to, and how delicate his dealings with the witch
hunter had been. Had his face been more brightly lit it would probably have
exhibited his ire very clearly, but the lamp happened to be placed in such a way
that he was in shadow—not that von Spurzheim was watching, for he had already
reached out a hand to take Reinmar by the arm, and was already drawing him
towards the door.
“Make the girl comfortable, I beg of you,” was all that Reinmar had time to
say to his father before he was hustled out into the street again. “You must
keep her safe.”
“Do as the boy says,” von Spurzheim added, as he paused briefly in the
doorway, having positioned himself squarely between father and son. “The boy and
girl might be vital to our enterprise. It is in everyone’s interest that you
keep them safe.”
Reinmar could not see how his father reacted to this instruction, but he
could imagine it well enough. Given that Gottfried was the son of one man
suspected of involvement in sorcery and the nephew of another, he could hardly
afford to offend a witch hunter, but necessity would not make the indignity any
easier to bear.
While von Spurzheim marched Reinmar through the streets Matthias Vaedecker
and the other men-at-arms fell into step behind them, and Reinmar was
uncomfortably aware that it would seem to any onlookers that he had been
arrested—all the more so because they were not moving in the direction of the
burgomaster’s house, where von Spurzheim had established himself as a guest, but
towards the town jail, where Albrecht Wieland was still being held under guard.
Reinmar was also uncomfortably aware of the fact that if von Spurzheim demanded
the privilege of searching him, the presence of the phial in his pouch might
indeed give cause for his arrest and incarceration.
Although the streets were by no means crowded once they had moved away from
Gottfried Wieland’s shop, Reinmar did not doubt that there were eyes aplenty
following his course. Every house that had a curtained window, whether glazed or
not, had the curtain in question moved slightly to one side, so that the
apprehensive dwellers within might keep track as best they could of the trouble
that had visited their town.
“Don’t be afraid, lad,” was all that von Spurzheim said to him while they
strode through the streets. “Sergeant Vaedecker has told me what you did, and
I’m exceedingly grateful to you, no matter that your motives might not have been
as pure as I could have wished.”
There was no reasonable reply that Reinmar could make to this, so he
contented himself with silence, until they reached the blockhouse where the town
constables discharged their official duties, and where felons were kept until
the assizes at which they were tried. Once they were inside, von Spurzheim
wasted no time in taking Reinmar to the windowless room in which Albrecht
Wieland was confined.
Reinmar was glad to see that his great-uncle did not seem to have been badly
maltreated; the old man had no obvious injuries and he did not look as if he had
been starved. The pallet on which he had been sleeping was crude but it provided
reasonable relief from the hardness of the stone floor and the stink from the
iron bucket in the corner was not too awful to bear. Albrecht was obviously
startled to see Reinmar in the company of Machar von Spurzheim, but he appeared
to be completely in control of his faculties and his only reaction, once the
initial astonishment had faded, was to knit his brows in concentration. Matthias
Vaedecker closed the door of the cell behind him, leaving the other two
men-at-arms outside.
“Your grandfather’s brother has been helping us, Reinmar,” von Spurzheim said,
when Vaedecker had come to stand beside him. “His memory is a trifle vague when
it comes to names and places, but he usually remembers his old friends once we
have laid their names before him. There is a community of scholars to whom he
once belonged, in whose activities we have long been interested—but there is
little left of it now. Unfortunately, he does not know what has become of his
son, Wirnt, or his former housekeeper. His house has been watched night and day,
of course—as has your own, merely as a precaution—but no visitors had
arrived when the sentries were last changed. It’s possible that Wirnt is in
Holthusen, where a few of the so-called scholars still remain, but he may have
gone southwards, towards the place which you recently had occasion to visit. I
hope that you will tell your great-uncle all about your adventure, so that he
might have a clearer idea of the evil nature of the business in which he has
involved himself.”
The last words were obviously intended to elicit a reaction from Albrecht,
but Albrecht was ready for some such move and his expression hardly changed.
“Fortunately, Magister Albrecht,” von Spurzheim went on—pronouncing the word
“Magister” as sarcastically as he had earlier pronounced the word “scholar”—“Reinmar has been far more helpful to our cause than we could ever have hoped;
he is obviously his father’s son. He has succeeded where you and your brother
apparently failed. He found the source of the wine of dreams at the first
attempt, which inclines me to believe that it cannot have been so very difficult
after all. Not only did he guide Sergeant Vaedecker there, but he penetrated its
deepest secrets, and then brought about their escape. And there is more, is
there not, Reinmar? What was it that you did, exactly, when you were briefly
separated from the sergeant?”
Reinmar hesitated before replying. His eyes were fixed on his great-uncle’s
face—more by virtue of concern for the old man than because he was avoiding
the witch hunter’s eye—but he knew that the game being played here was being
directed by von Spurzheim, and he was not at all sure that he wanted to play it
by von Spurzheim’s rules.
“I discovered the method by which the wine of dreams is made,” he said,
softly, although he knew that it was not an adequate answer to the question.
“Those who drink it, and value it, can have no conception of its origins or they
would never let it pass their lips, no matter how sweet it might be.”
“It is made by plants nourished on human flesh,” von Spurzheim said, by way
of amplification. “But you were better placed than Sergeant Vaedecker to
understand exactly how the process works, were you not?”
“I only saw a storeroom,” Reinmar said. “Nothing more. But I saw no fruit,
nor any kind of press. I saw large mortars where vegetable flesh was ground, and
vats into which the resultant fluid was decanted. The flowers that produce the
wines of the underworld were so vast that I could not help but wonder whether
the wine might be their nectar, but I can’t be absolutely certain. People are
fed to those plants, great-uncle. Those who are chosen hear some kind of summons
in their dreams. Young people, with their whole lives before them, are drugged
with the wine, and then the seeds are planted in their living flesh, within an underworld whose rocks shine with a strange and
dazzling radiance. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”