Chapter Nine

As was usual, Godrich instructed Sigurd to sleep on the wagon. Because the innkeeper’s barn was separated from the inn itself by a considerable space, and because he judged that the risk to the stock was far greater than it was on most nights, the steward decided to join his labourer. He apologised to Reinmar for leaving him alone with the soldier to take care of the two wounded gypsies, but assured him that he would be ready to come to their aid at a moment’s notice—as Vaedecker would doubtless be ready to come to his.

When Reinmar demanded extra pallets so that he and Vaedecker could sleep beside the stricken pair the innkeeper shrugged his shoulders and sent his boy to stuff a couple of linen sacks with straw. He did not apologise for the quality of the straw, nor did he assure them that he would be ready to answer any further whims at a moment’s notice. This failure of customer service presumably reflected his suspicion that the evening’s events might leave an awkward legacy of bad feeling festering in some of his regular clients.

“We had to break it up,” Reinmar said, defensively, when he and Vaedecker had been left to their own devices.

“Agreed,” the sergeant said wholeheartedly. “I’m not such a stickler for propriety as to say that fighting should be reserved entirely for soldiers, but I can’t stand to see people going at it without the least semblance of military discipline. Reminds me of the unruly creatures we sometimes have to face on northern campaigns. If people like us can’t do our bit to keep order, who can?” His tone made the words sound less than wholly serious, but Reinmar suspected that he meant every word.

“You talk of creatures, monsters and ogres,” he said. “Don’t you ever have occasion to fight men when you’re off on your adventures?”

“Oh yes,” said Vaedecker. “Mostly men—but the distinction isn’t always as clear as you’d imagine. Men can be marked, you see, when they turn against the ideals of civilisation, order and empire. It’s as if they begin to become creatures as soon as they forsake the discipline of being human. The further they go in opposition to the ideals of order and harmony, the more bestial they become—and in the end, there’s nothing left of them but monsters. Some liken it to sliding down a slippery slope, but a businessman like you might find it easier to imagine it in terms of finding the obligations of human society too taxing, and the evasion of that tax slowly compounding into full-scale fraud.”

“You don’t like businessmen very much, do you?”

“Never think that, lad,” Vaedecker said. “I know as well as anyone what rewards the Empire reaps from healthy trade along the Reik. What I worry about is that such folk often come to consider themselves immune from the threats and temptations that afflict the rest of us, and they’re not. People like your grandfather and his brother think they can dabble in black magic the way they might dabble in tax evasion, but they have no idea what they’re playing with. They don’t realise that the risks they run aren’t just borne by them but by the rest of us. It’s bad enough when nomads and gypsies dabble in magic, but at least they’re on the fringes of society, not really part of its fabric. In his prime, Luther Wieland was at the very heart of society in Eilhart, and his corruption could have been a direly serious matter. You can’t imagine how great a debt you owe to your father’s strength of mind. Had he not purged your business of the dark wine the whole of Eilhart might now be as sick, frail and mad as the old man.”

“He’s not mad,” Reinmar protested. “He’s just old.”

“Older than he would be if he’d never taken a sip of the wine of dreams,” Vaedecker opined. “But the false youth he’d have obtained had he continued to drink it would have been bought at a terrible price, paid by everyone with whom he came into contact—including you.”

“So you say,” Reinmar countered, the criticism calling forth his natural stubbornness. “But I hear talk of that kind all the time, and none of it ever matches my reality. There are monsters in the hills, I hear—but the only monsters I have seen have been brutes attacking women and children with clubs, rakes and pitchforks. The north has so many monsters that they gather into armies to harry the Reiksguard and the knights of every other order, so you tell me, but the only military action of yours that I have observed was the search of my father’s cellars. The tales that are told of the Empire’s glorious history ramble on about the great war against the skaven, the great war against the Vampire Counts of Sylvania and the legendary victory of Magnus the Pious over a monstrous horde at the gates of Kislev, but are there skaven or Vampire Counts in the world now? And what is Kislev but a neighbour state with which we trade? Do you see my difficulty, sergeant?”

“Only too well,” Vaedecker agreed. “But you do not see mine. I do not know for certain whether there are vampires in the world now, but I believe it. As for skaven—if that is the name for men-become-beasts who take their stigmata from the common rat, then yes, there are skaven in the world now and I have spilled their blood myself. Now Kislev, it is a state of sorts, where men struggle hard to do what men must do to retain their manhood, including trade, but it is a state under perpetual siege by every kind of evil, after a fashion that you cannot seem to grasp. I suppose I should hope that the scales of innocence never fall from your eyes, but I cannot. If you were my son, Reinmar Wieland, I would want you to understand what kind of a world it is in which you live, however harsh the lesson was.”

“Bravo,” said a weak voice. “Might I have some water?” It was the gypsy boy, who had obviously recovered consciousness some time before, and had been waiting for an opportunity to make himself heard.

Reinmar filled a leather cup with water from a jug which the innkeeper had left for them on the table.

It was not until the boy had drunk it, wincing at the slightest movement of his head, that he noticed the second casualty. “Marcilla!” he said, angrily. “What have they…?” He could not finish the sentence.

“She’s still alive,” Vaedecker was quick to say. “She’s taken fewer bruises to the body than you have. When she’s slept off the head-blow that knocked her out she’ll probably be fine.” He was promising far too much, but he obviously did not want the boy to become too agitated. By way of further distraction he added a question. “Is she your sister?”

The boy made as if to nod, thought better of it, and whispered: “Aye. We’re twins, but not alike—like enough, though, that I might have been felled by the blow that hit her, without even taking a bruise to my own skull.”

As he spoke the boy used his arms to drag himself across the floor, without even attempting to crawl, let alone to walk. When he arrived beside his sister he touched the back of his hand gently to her forehead.

“I knew it,” he said. “She has a fever. Half of this ache in my head is hers. I can feel the fury of her dreams, and…” He broke off abruptly.

“And what?” Vaedecker asked, mildly.

The boy did not answer. In response to his touch, however, the girl roused slightly. If, as the boy said, her condition was compounding his, the slight alleviation of his condition must have echoed in her own. Her eyeballs were moving rapidly from side to side beneath closed lids, and her lips trembled. A few muttered words escaped them, too ill-formed to be comprehensible, except perhaps for one.

Reinmar was at first perfectly certain, although it took no more than a couple of seconds for profound doubts to return, that one of the words she spoke was “call”.

Even if it was, he told himself, sternly, it might mean nothing. The word has a perfectly ordinary everyday meaning. And she might not have said “call” at all; the syllable might have been conjured up by my own imagination, primed by what my grandfather told us on the eve of our departure.

He might have told himself more, but he was not given the opportunity. Matthias Vaedecker had seized his arm and was gripping it hard. “What did she say, Master Reinmar?” he demanded. “What did she say?”

He knows, was Reinmar’s reflexive internal response. He knows what it means for a gypsy to hear a call. But what he said aloud was: “I don’t know, sergeant. My ear was only a little closer to her lips than yours.”

“What did she say?” Vaedecker asked the boy.

“She’s dreaming,” was all the boy would say. “She’s hurt—but you’re right. She cannot die. It won’t be allowed.”

Reinmar saw that Vaedecker’s first impulse was to demand a further explanation of the last remark, but he saw the sergeant clamp his mouth shut, as if in response to a reminder that he was now a spy, duty-bound to play a long and careful game.

When the sergeant released his arm Reinmar reached out to touch the boy, as reassuringly as he could. “If your twin is as sensitive to your condition as you are to hers,” he said, “would it not be a good idea to rest your bruises and to try to sleep?”

The boy turned to him, evidently surprised by his perspicacity, or perhaps by his concern. “Aye,” he whispered. “Is my father hurt? Why are we here?”

“Your companions were wise enough to retreat in the face of far superior numbers,” Vaedecker told him. “They were pursued, but I suspect they’re fleet enough and clever enough to make good their escape. One man had to pick up and carry a young boy—might that have been your father?”

The boy nodded warily, although the gesture was obviously painful.

“The fight would have gone much worse for you had we not come along,” the soldier added. “We broke it up, saving a few hundred bruises and perhaps a life or two. Two others who remained—they named themselves Rollo and Tarn—judged that we were fit people to look after you, and defend you from any further harm. They promised to return in the morning. You’ll be quite safe until then. You have my word on that. I’m no knight, but I am a soldier—and I am sure that your father would know this man, even if you do not. He is Reinmar Wieland, son of the wine merchant Gottfried Wieland, whose stock you help to produce and refine.”

The boy was nodding more easily now, and it did not seem to be causing him too much discomfort. “I have heard of you, Master Wieland,” he confirmed. “I may have seen you, also, when we were both too young to take note of it. My name is Ulick.”

“I will see you safe, Ulick,” Reinmar promised. “Your sister too. Now, will you take my advice?”

The boy nearly nodded again, but this time felt that even mild discomfort was uncalled-for. “Aye,” he said. With some effort, he managed to raise himself to his knees and crawl back to his own pallet. He laid himself down with a deep sigh, seemingly satisfied that he could trust his companions to keep their word.

“We had best do likewise,” Vaedecker murmured, and Reinmar agreed.

All of Reinmar’s confused ambitions had been reawakened by the suspicion that the girl’s delirious mutterings were connected with the strange tale his grandfather had told him before he had set out, but there was no possibility of keeping sleep away after the exertions and privations of the previous few days. He fell unconscious as soon as he laid his head down—but he dreamed extravagantly while he slept and he awoke before any of his immediate companions, with a sense of urgency and anticipation already upon him.

Ulick and Marcilla both appeared to be sleeping soundly and peacefully, although the boy seemed to have become very cold. Reinmar’s gaze lingered far longer over the girl, whose features were now possessed by a serenity he had never seen in any human face. Her skin was very smooth, quite flawless in every respect.

Marguerite’s skin had the usual bloom of youth, but close inspection showed up a host of tiny blemishes: freckles, small patches of dead skin, blocked pores, unruly hairs a shade darker than those upon her head. Marcilla’s loveliness was subject to none of these minuscule compromises. She was so neatly formed, so seemingly polished, that it was hard for Reinmar to believe that she was a product of nature. She was more like a statue brought to life—not one of the military memorials carved from grey stone or cast from bronze that could apparently be seen outside the town halls of every Schilder port but something lovingly formed from Tilean marble, like the ancient busts which were occasionally displayed inside the town halls, as treasures plundered in the course of centuries-old military expeditions.

Her helplessness added to her charm, and the longer Reinmar looked at her the more protective he felt towards her.

He reached out a hand to stroke her face, and her eyelids slowly lifted to display a pair of eyes so wondrously dark as almost to be black rather than brown. The eyes were staring straight at him, but Reinmar was not convinced that the girl had really awakened. There was little or no consciousness in the incurious stare, and he had the strangest feeling that something other than her everyday mind might be using her eyes to appraise him.

Apparently, he passed the appraisal. A slight smile began to ease the corners of her mouth.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”

Her lips stirred, very slightly—far too slightly, he would normally have assumed, for any audible words to have escaped them. And yet, he did hear words, whether they were spoken or merely imagined.

“I have heard the call,” she seemed to say. “I must obey.”

“So you must,” he murmured, as her eyes fell shut again and she relaxed back into a deeper sleep—but as he continued stroking her cheek he noticed that her flesh had taken on a sudden chill. He took up the cloak under which he had been sleeping and draped it over her body.

Matthias Vaedecker raised his head then, his eye immediately attracted by the swirl of the cloak. “Is she awake?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Reinmar said. “She seems well enough, given the nature of her injury. I think she’ll live, if she is given time enough to recover.”

“That’s good,” the sergeant acknowledged. He frowned slightly before adding: “I suppose it would complicate things for us if her kinsfolk cannot collect her.”

Reinmar went to the outhouse behind the inn to relieve himself, then continued to the barn to see if Godrich and Sigurd were awake. They were—and Sigurd was already in conversation with the gypsy spokesman of the night before. They were arguing, but not fiercely.

“Reinmar,” Godrich said, as soon as the steward clapped eyes on his master. “You remember Rollo. The two within are brother and sister, it seems, and they have a cousin even younger who was also hurt last night. Their father has sent Rollo to ask us whether we will keep the two of them with us until we are well away from the town, so that he can collect them from a far safer place. That would allow him to avoid any further trouble with locals who are still intent on giving the rest of his family a battering. I am not so sure, however, that the girl is fit to travel on roads as bad as those hereabouts in a cart that’s already overloaded. She shouldn’t really be moved at all.”

Godrich obviously wanted support for his own view, but Reinmar knew that there were times when it could be an advantage to seem naive. He pretended not to understand what was required of him.

“I think the boy will be much better today,” he said. “As for the girl, we’ve taken on no more than half our intended cargo, so I think we can make room for her. Since the roads are so ill-made, it will probably be best in any case if Sigurd, the sergeant and I walk behind. We can wrap the girl up well enough to prevent her taking a bruise from every lurch.”

“We have business to transact,” Godrich protested. “We are not nursemaids—and she really was badly hurt.”

“We saved these people from being murdered,” Reinmar stated. “We have an obligation to see that they remain safe from their would-be murderers. We shall keep them with us until it is safe to let them go, even if that requires us to shelter them for several days.”

If the steward expected any support from Matthias Vaedecker he was sorely disappointed. The sergeant had come into the barn while they were talking, to tell them that the innkeeper had brought fresh water from the well and an allegedly-new loaf of bread. When he heard what Reinmar was saying he became thoughtful—but by the time the steward turned to him he was quick to add his own endorsement.

“Master Wieland is right,” he said. “The scoundrels who set upon these folk last night are probably lurking in the pines, brooding on their defeat and awaiting their opportunity. We have to keep the boy and the girl until we’re well away from here.” Without waiting for Godrich to comment he addressed Rollo directly, saying: “Tell your elders that we’ll look after them well until they can be collected in perfect safety.”

It sounded like generosity, but Reinmar knew better. The sergeant had heard from the witch hunter what Reinmar had heard from his grandfather: that the source of the dark wine might be protected by magic, but that a way thereto could be opened for those who “heard a call” and anyone who accompanied them “to see them safely to their destination’.

Reinmar did not feel able to criticise the soldier for his deceptiveness, given that he was keeping his own counsel, but he did feel that his own motives were far purer. He wanted to know what all the fuss was about, and he was determined to keep an open mind about all the matters of which Vaedecker seemed so fearfully certain.

“Very well,” said Godrich, accepting defeat. “I suppose we shall be able to conduct our business just as well—and if your assurances are to be trusted, our guests have already played their part in guaranteeing us a good return in these parts. We shall be glad to do as you ask, Rollo.”

“A thousand thanks,” the gypsy said. “You are good men, and we shall not forget this.”

“How is the girl, really?” Godrich asked the sergeant, when Rollo had gone.

“Very poorly,” Vaedecker admitted. “But Reinmar may be right. If we can keep her well wrapped up, she might well be safer with us for the next day or two than anywhere else in this treacherous land—and she’s a rare beauty.” He cast a knowing sideways glance at Reinmar as he made the last pronouncement, but Reinmar looked away and pretended that he had not heard.