Chapter Twenty-Five

Reinmar was expecting anger, recrimination and complaint, but that was not what awaited him. Gottfried Wieland seemed, instead, to have decided to make himself abnormally calm and full of concern. He had obviously had a long conversation with Godrich and Sigurd, and had fully absorbed all that they had to tell him.

“The boy and girl are safely lodged,” the wine merchant assured his son. “They shall have all the usual privileges of hospitality until their own folk come to claim them. Have you seen Albrecht?”

“Yes,” Reinmar replied, slightly disconcerted by the politeness of his father’s manner. “I think the witch hunter will release him in the morning. If so, it might be as well for him to go to Holthusen—grandfather too, if he is able to travel. Eilhart is not safe. Even if the soldiers march on in search of the valley, there might be trouble here. That might be my fault, in part.”

“No it’s not,” Gottfried said, still acting out of character. “It’s no more your fault than mine, and no more mine than my father’s. Our neighbours might prefer it if the blame were to stop here, but it can’t. Eilhart has been a quiet and peaceful town for generations, and there’s not a family here who does not know that a price has been paid for that quiet. There have been many here more tolerant of the traffic in the wine of dreams than I, and even I made no serious attempt to stop the trade, being content to divert it away from my shop. It might have been better for everyone if the witch hunter had not traced the trade-route this far, but now that he has there is no one of even moderate means who can honestly claim that his own prosperity has not been fostered by the trade. Whatever happens, Reinmar—to this house, or to the town—it isn’t your fault. I don’t know what the witch hunter said to you, but Godrich has told me that you conducted yourself nobly as well as bravely, and I am proud to hear it.”

Reinmar had never heard such a speech from his father’s lips before, but he was too tired for overmuch astonishment or gratitude. All he could say was: “Thank you for understanding.”

“You must go to bed now,” Gottfried said. “But when you dress yourself in the morning you had best strap on your blade. I have no idea what tomorrow may bring, and nor has any other man, but I fear that we may have need of the ability to defend ourselves.”

“They are not invulnerable,” Reinmar said, feeling that he ought to make the effort. “The witch hunter was enthusiastic to press that point. They can be beaten.”

“I know that,” his father replied. “I have lived my whole life with that hope and expectation, else I would long since have gone the way of my own father, or those who have suffered fates far worse than his. Now bid me goodnight, and go.”

For once, Reinmar was glad to do as he was told.

There were half a dozen hiding-places in Reinmar’s room that were capable of accommodating the phial that he had stolen from the underworld, and he was very glad to have the opportunity of relieving himself of that particular burden for a while. He placed it in the hidey-hole that he had always considered the best: a crevice in the brickwork that could be artfully concealed by a strip of mortar that gave no indication to an inquisitive eye that it was not firmly bound to its setting.

When he was finally able to lay his head upon his pillow Reinmar immediately sank into oblivion, and was afterwards certain that he remained in that peace for several hours—but long before he woke he was troubled by dreams whose turbulent substance eventually coalesced into a remarkably coherent vision.

It seemed to Reinmar that he was lifted from his bed and that he floated out of the open window of his bedroom, whereupon he was drawn into an erect posture before beginning a stately ascent into the dark and starry sky. He put his arms out on either side of him as if they were wings, and was careful in the meantime to hold his legs straight and his ankles tight together.

When he was high enough to look down on the roofs of all the houses in Eilhart, Reinmar’s ascent was halted and his head was tilted slightly forward so that he could look down. It seemed to him that the town was surrounded by a great ring of roseate mist, in which blue and purple shadows moved. Among those shadows were groups of squat and ugly humanoids, and chimerical beings in which human parts were combined with animal, or animal elements with insectile, but they were no more than shadows and the mist had not yet encroached upon the boundaries of the town. Wherever there was a light on the streets, however—and there were many more than usual, particularly by the docks, where so many soldiers had been quartered—there were fluttering moths.

While Reinmar strained his eyes in order to see these moths more clearly they seemed to grow in size. Wherever he looked, the larger moths immediately began to detach themselves from the crowds clustering about the lanterns and moved upwards towards him, as if in answer to his curiosity. As more and more moths began to fly up to him, Reinmar began to wonder if he too might be alight like a lantern, not with fire but with some strange, pure white radiance that belonged deep in the heart of the world.

As the moths began to spiral around him they were certainly illuminated by some sort of light, and he was able to see that instead of insectile bodies and heads, they had the bodies and heads of female manikins, although their deep green eyes were large and compound and each of them had only a single breast. As they fluttered about him, though, he saw that the legs of each seemingly-human body were fused together, and wrapped around by a long tail. Their wings were very beautiful. The pale blues and rose-pinks that were their predominant colours were arrayed in whirling confusion, which became even more dizzying as the wings beat rapidly back and forth.

A sourceless voice whispered in his ear, instantly recognisable as the one he had heard as he quit the hidden valley to which—he now felt certain—he had been carefully lured.

“It is not too late, my child,” the voice said. “Others stand condemned, but there is hope for you. Whatever harm you did, you conserved the possibility of setting matters to rights when you accepted a measure of my power—a measure far more potent than its volume implies. You were right to guess that the nectar of the flowers is the vital ingredient of its virtue, but you did not witness the careful process of dilution and adulteration to which it is normally subject. The phial you have contains pure nectar, and there is as much virtue in a single drop of that syrup as there is in a case of the wine you were give to taste. You fear, and rightly so, that you offended against my purpose when you spilled the bottled wines, but I am the kind of master who knows the value of forgiveness. An instrument at the heart of a rival camp has abundant opportunity for reparation, and for reward. The best victories are won by stealth, and the best of all are those in which the enemy does not know the manner or the extent of his defeat.

You shall see horrors in the days to come, my child, that will make you understand what a paradise my garden in the underworld should properly be reckoned—but I can promise you that you shall not be torn apart, nor burned alive, nor shall your mind dissolve into madness. This I do freely without asking any recompense at all. I am content to tell you that you do have the means to make recompense, not merely to me but to those whom you love, and that I in my turn have the means to grant you pleasure far beyond the meagre capacities of common men.

“As you make your choices in the days to come, ask yourself only this: what, in life, is truly worth having? Has time any value of its own, or is it the quality of each moment rather than the quantity of all that provides the better measure of happiness?”

Reinmar might have fashioned a reply to this speech had his throat and mouth not been frozen, but he lacked the power to move his jaw or exercise his vocal cords. He knew, however, that no reply was required or desired. When the oration had concluded, the moths began to crowd about Reinmar more closely, their flight-paths spiralling inwards towards him. He could no more brace himself against the anticipated collisions than he could speak, so he simply waited for the impacts—but he felt none. It seemed that the moths entered his body as easily as they might have flown from shadow into starlight, meeting no resistance whatsoever.

Alas, whatever kind of light it was that attracted them to him was far from kindly, and as soon as they were inside him they burst into flame. He felt each one flare up, as if it were an element of a galaxy of tiny suns illuminating his breast and his belly, his skull and his groin. He felt not the slightest hint of agony in the process of annihilation, for the flash in which each tiny form was consumed was a blaze of pure pleasure, an eruption of incandescent ecstasy. The bliss of it was so extreme that although he could not close his eyes he ceased to see, blinding himself by the exercise of his will.

It was not until the entire company of moths had been obliterated that Reinmar accepted sight again and looked down.

Now he saw fire of a more brutal kind, flooding the town of Eilhart with a keen hunger for consumption, avidly embracing every beam of wood and every bolt of cloth, reducing every carriage and every boat to ash. He heard the agonised screams of the fire’s victims, but he could not feel the heat of the flames nor smell the billowing smoke. Nor could he make out with any significant clarity the kinds of shadows that danced in the flames, joyously wielding claws and blades to deadly effect. It all seemed to him to be no more than play: a great game of pleasure and pain, which had begun long before he was born or the Empire founded, and would endure not merely long after he was dead but long after the Empire had been forgotten by history and legend alike.

And then he woke up, to find himself being shaken more roughly than could possibly have been necessary.

When he condescended to open his eyes, he found that daylight was shining strongly behind the curtain obscuring his window, but he was still convinced that the hour was unreasonably early. He would have asked what time it was, but he was still being shaken so insistently that his teeth would only have rattled in his mouth.

He was astonished to find that the man who was shaking him was his grandfather, Luther, who should not have had strength enough in his arms to lift a bowl of gruel. The old man was kneeling by the bed, as if he had crawled there on his hands and knees—as he would surely have been forced to do unless some miracle had restored his strength—but his arms were possessed by a fury that could not have been entirely his.

“Reinmar!” the old man whispered, plaintively. “Do you have the wine? Did you bring the wine?”

Reinmar did not have to ask what wine the old man meant. Nor did he doubt that the measure that was in his possession really was, as the dream voice had assured him, far more powerful than its volume suggested.

“Stop it, grandfather!” Reinmar complained, fending off the furious hands. “I’m awake.”

“I need the wine,” Luther said, hoarsely. “Far more than Albrecht or his whelp. If you only knew what dreams I have had! I need the wine, Reinmar, for pity’s sake. I am soon a dead man, and must have it now or never. I must have it now, or I cannot face my death. If you brought some from the source, you must give it to me and not to any other. You owe me that, child, for I have been a far better friend and father to you than any man alive.”

Reinmar finally succeeded in gripping the old man’s hands in his own and forcing them to be still. “What dreams?” he asked, roughly “What dreams?”

“They’re coming, Reinmar,” Luther whispered, his huge eyes staring madly into Reinmar’s own. “They do not love violence for its own sake, but when they turn to it they are terrible. The monsters are coming, Reinmar, and Eilhart is doomed. As soon as they are fully gathered they will come, and I must have the wine. You must give me what you brought, even if it’s but a single flask. I must have it. I must.”

It was confusion rather than cruelty that made Reinmar continue his stubborn refusal. Even if he had acted immediately, though, he would not have been able to bring the phial from its hiding-place in the wall in time to let Luther drink from it, because his father and Godrich had already come into the room, searching for the old man.

“He brought nothing,” Gottfried said, as he descended upon the old man in order to tear him away from his grandson’s bedside. “He was not such a fool, for he knows the value of sanity. He did everything in his power to make sure that no dark wine would come out of that place for a long time to come, because I have taught him the ways of the world far better than you ever taught them to me. Whatever monsters come, the men of Eilhart will stand against them with no wines but mine to slake their thirst and fortify their courage.”

While he was speaking, Gottfried had lifted his father up like a sack of flour. As soon as he had finished he handed the old man over to Godrich as if he were, indeed, an item of household provision. Godrich held Luther a little more tenderly, but moved quickly enough to carry the old man out of the room and back to his own bed.

“I’m sorry for that, son,” Gottfried said. “I’d have let you sleep longer if I could, but it might be best that you’re awake. Marguerite is with the gypsy, but she seems to be doing no good.”

“Marguerite?” Reinmar repeated. “What is Marguerite doing with Marcilla?”

“The gypsy girl has a high fever, and there’s not a doctor left in town except for those who’ve been commandeered by the officers to help make their men battle-fit. Marguerite’s hardly a wise woman, but she has patience and a tender touch, and she offered to sit by the sick-bed.”

Reinmar suspected that it was neither patience nor tenderness that had led Marguerite to volunteer such charity, but rather jealous curiosity about the girl that he had brought out of the hills. He did not say so. Instead, he asked his father to leave him while he used the chamber pot and got dressed, promising to look in on Marguerite and Marcilla before he came down to breakfast.

Although he put on the same bloodstained belt that he had worn throughout his adventure in the hills Reinmar was careful to find a new pouch. He left the phial where it was, glad to be free of its ominous presence for a little while longer. He followed his father’s advice, and made sure that the scabbard of his sword was securely bound to his belt.

Ulick was with Marguerite by Marcilla’s bedside, and it was he who reacted first to Reinmar’s appearance. “She is dying, sir!” he said, in obvious anguish. “She has refused the call, and her senses have fled.”

Reinmar picked up Marcilla’s arm from where it lay on the coverlet. Even the wrist was hot, and the pulse within was racing. Her lovely face was flushed deep red, and her lips were moving silently, as if she were reciting some secret spell.

It’s only a common fever,” Reinmar said, although he doubted it. “It was brought on by over-exertion and exposure to the rain.”

“She has demanded wine,” Marguerite said. “We have given her water, but it only made her demands more clamorous. In the end, I let her have a little hock, but she spat it out. She’s incoherent now, but whenever she says anything aloud, she asks for wine. I don’t know what wine she means, but if you have any you might have to let her have it. I don’t know whether it will save her, but I fear that nothing else will.”

“She does not know what she needs,” Reinmar insisted. “She has never known what is good for her. The fever will pass, in time.” If Marcilla was to have what she craved, she would have to wait until he and she were alone; he dared not trust Ulick or Marguerite with the knowledge that he had the phial.

Marguerite stood up, and placed herself squarely in front of the man who had been her likely husband since the day she was born. “Why did you bring her here, Reinmar?” she demanded.

He knew that he could put her off with a lie. He could have said that Sergeant Vaedecker had recognised her value, and the boy’s too, as an invaluable means of locating the hidden valley. He could have said that Machar von Spurzheim had ordered him to keep her safe. He could even have said that taking her in was a simple act of kindness and mercy. Instead, he told the truth. “Because I love her,” he said, bluntly. “I have saved her from a terrible fate, and I am determined to keep her safe forever, if I can. I have defended her against monsters, and I will continue to do so, no matter what monsters may come against me in future.”

Marguerite flinched twice as Reinmar set out his statement, but by the time he had finished she had done flinching.

“Everyone says that the monsters in the hills are massing for an attack,” she murmured. “Everyone says that there will be a battle, and that the witch hunter has already delayed too long in waiting for reinforcements. I saw families arriving in carts from the farmlands when I stepped out into the street this morning, and others packing carts in order to go to the docks. Were there not so many barges arriving laden with soldiers and their weapons there would be none to bear those who want to flee downriver, but the traffic is steady in both directions. The superstitious see omens in the moths that cluster about the lanterns, swearing that they are not moths at all but spirits sent to spy on us, that the attackers might lay their plans in careful detail. The whole world is turning upside-down, Reinmar—but I did not think that you would turn with it. I see that you have put on your sword, even though you are at home. I always thought when I watched you at practice that you might one day fight for your father, or for your shop, or for Eilhart, or even for me, but I had never thought that you would ever fight for a gypsy whore who is already confirmed in the worship of evil.”

“She is a girl like any other,” Reinmar said, stiffly, although the speech had cut him deeply. “It is her beauty alone that makes you jealous, and jealousy alone that makes you insult her. If you are not here to help her then I wish that you would go. I can look after her myself “You cannot and shall not,” Marguerite contradicted him. “Von Spurzheim has already sent word to your father asking for you. You are his darling of the moment, it seems. You’d best beware—however good a man he is, he’s dangerous company. Almost as dangerous, I dare say, as your grandfather the repentant sorcerer.”

“Grandfather was never a sorcerer,” Reinmar told her. “Nor was my Great-Uncle Albrecht, who was at least a scholar. I think Ulick can be trusted to give his sister as much care as she needs until I return, so you may still go.”

Marguerite had been looking into his eyes all the while, but now she looked down at her feet. “I’ll stay,” she said.

“To help?” Reinmar asked.

“To help,” she answered, stoutly. “If there is anything I can do to save her, I shall not fail.”

As if in answer to that promise, the gypsy girl’s soundless muttering suddenly became audible, and Marguerite knelt beside her, raising her head a little from the sweat-drenched pillow on which it lay. “Wine!” Marcilla demanded, hoarsely. “I need dark wine! Please! If I have not wine I shall never rest.”

Reinmar could not help but wonder whether the proximity of the phial of nectar was sufficient in itself to excite Marcilla and Luther alike, but he put the thought from his mind. However strong their cravings became, he thought, answering their demands would neither be helpful nor moral. The darkness of the wine was malice and destruction, no matter how its sweetness might amplify the appetites of its victims.

“I must go,” he said, brusquely. “I need bread to stock my stomach before I go to see von Spurzheim.”

“You need more than bread to stock your stomach,” Marguerite replied. “You need sense to stock your head. You need eyes to see what is good and what is not, instead of delusions born of glamour.”

“I shall return when I can,” Reinmar said, dutifully ignoring the insults and speaking as much to Ulick as to Marguerite. “Keep her safe, I beg you, until the fever fades. Give her as much water as she can take, and food if she is able to eat.”

Having said that, he turned on his heel and left the room, hurrying down to take his breakfast and face his father. He half-expected that all his father’s dourness and critical exactitude would have returned by now, but there was no sign of it. Gottfried managed to be perfectly civil as he told his son that he would man the counter while Reinmar went to see von Spurzheim, and positively tender when he insisted that Reinmar should eat his breakfast first.