Chapter Ten

By the time the horses had been fed, watered and hitched to the wagon Reinmar could see that Godrich’s mood had darkened somewhat. The breakfast they had eaten, while by no means good, should have made him feel better, but any effect of that sort had been more than outweighed by his gloomy contemplation of the early morning weather. The northern sky, from which the last traces of night had still to be erased, was clear enough, but the grey pall that had squatted down upon the mountain peaks the night before had intensified even further. In the west it was so dark as to seem black even by day; in the east, with the sun directly behind it, its leaden gloom was only slightly alleviated by an ochreous yellow tint.

“Storms are gathering,” the steward opined. “The clouds will spit them out like great gobs of catarrh. If we run into one this afternoon, after we’ve left the vineyard-”

“We’ll pull into the shelter of the pines and raise the canopy,” Reinmar said. The underside of the cart was fitted with three iron bands which could be removed and arched over the body of the wagon, secured in slots on the side-walls to serve as a frame for a protective awning. The awning would be able to withstand a buffeting wind, provided that the wind’s force was broken by surrounding trees, and it would keep rain and hail at bay if it had a little help from the overhanging crowns of mature conifers.

“It would be better by far if we did not need to,” the steward muttered. “Still, the storms are always localised, and usually brief. The likelihood is that they will miss us altogether, and will not trouble us for long if we are unlucky enough to run into one.”

Although Reinmar had been obliged to volunteer to walk with Sigurd and Sergeant Vaedecker in order to lighten the draught-horses’ load he was not very enthusiastic to do so. He was relieved when the soldier assured him that he and Sigurd had bodyweight enough between them to render his slim measure irrelevant. Ulick also pronounced himself capable of walking, but Vaedecker disagreed with that too, so Reinmar and the gypsy boy ended up sitting to either side of the unconscious Marcilla, helping to make sure that she was not thrown about whenever the wagon-wheels slipped from one rut into another, or had to negotiate a fallen branch.

They were so high in the hills by now that carts were relatively scarce, and those used by the local farmers had all been home-made, usually with scant regard to the imperial standard gauge. The result of this was that the deep ruts that were worn by conventionally-built carts into the fabric of conventionally-built roads, which ordinary traffic followed like inset rails, were replaced hereabouts by a confusion of different rut-patterns. Even that would not have been so bad had the roads not been mostly used by riders and men afoot, whose hoof- and boot-prints blurred and broke the ruts. Although pack-trains were uncommon this far from the nearest pass through the mountains their occasional passage had wrought even greater havoc with the surface, the weight of the packs having forced the iron-shod hooves of the mules deep into the rain-softened surface, creating a vast and disorderly expanse of shallow pits. This made the labour of the two horses pulling Reinmar’s cart that much harder, and made Godrich’s task as driver four or five times as difficult as it was at the best of times.

The continued threat of the clouds would probably have made the steward’s mood very dark indeed by early afternoon had they not had such a good morning at the vineyard. As Rollo had promised, the harvest had been more abundant than the quality of the season had led them to expect, and the work that had gone into the making of the wine had been artful as well as neatly-timed.

“This is wine that will mature very well indeed,” the steward confided to Reinmar. “It is for vintages such as this that cellars were intended. This will be a real investment.”

The grower knew this too, of course, but Reinmar had not forgotten what Gottfried had told him about the value of their virtual monopoly. He felt that he had given his generosity quite enough indulgence for one day. He struck what seemed to him—and to Godrich—to be an exceptionally good bargain for an exceptionally large purchase.

The success required a good deal of rearrangement in order that Marcilla could still be comfortably accommodated, but that was accomplished without requiring too much of Sigurd’s mighty shoulders, and the party was on its way again a few hours after noon.

By this time, the girl seemed a little better, and Reinmar was somewhat reassured that he had done the right thing. She opened her eyes briefly when Ulick fed some water to her, but she was not yet ready to take anything solid. There was no sign of her other relatives.

“Where will you go for the winter, when you are all united again?” Reinmar asked the boy, when they were once again making steady progress southwestwards, towards the furthest of the vineyards at which they were due to call.

“I don’t know,” Ulick said. “Sometimes we make a winter camp and provision it before the snows arrive, but the hunting has been so bad this year that we would have too little meat to salt away. We might make a trek northwestwards, to join up with other clan-members, or we might go due north into the lowlands to find what lodgings we can in the towns. People do not like us there, but they are never as violent as those madmen last night.”

The boy did not sound sure of any of these possible objectives, and he left Reinmar with the impression that there were others carefully unmentioned.

“Winters are usually mild in Eilhart itself,” Reinmar observed. “If the uplands have a bad time, though, we feel the effects in spring when the meltwater swells the Schilder. River traffic can be halted for days on end, and if the thaw comes quickly to the hills the river always bursts its banks somewhere. My father and I have never been flooded ourselves, but the parts of the town below the docks are sometimes swamped. Can you still tell whether your sister is dreaming?”

Ulick looked at him a little sharply, but accepted the question as common curiosity.

“She is calm,” he said, “except…”

After a few moments’ silence, Reinmar said: “Except what?”

The boy shook his head, but he obviously knew how discourteous it would seem if he refused a reply, so he said: “There is something she and I must do when she is well enough.”

Reinmar knew that it was a risk, but he decided to be bold. “She has heard a call,” he said. “You and she have work still to do, bringing in another harvest.”

The boy looked at him suspiciously. “I am in the trade,” Reinmar reminded him. “My grandfather is Luther Wieland, whose task it once was to start the wine of dreams on its long journey to Marienburg, via the Schilder and the Reik. My great-uncle went to Marienburg to become a scholar, guided in his ambition by dark wine.”

“Why is the soldier with you?” the boy asked.

“My father thought the cart needed extra protection. There are rumours of monsters abroad in the hills.”

For a moment or two he feared that the boy would dismiss the rumours, and the reason with them, but Ulick’s eventual reaction was more surprising than that. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose that was wise. We have as much to fear as anyone else, it seems, although I do not know why they are gathering. Do you?”

“Do I know why the monsters are gathering?” Reinmar repeated, not sure he had grasped the true significance of the question. “How would I?”

Ulick shrugged. “Perhaps no one does,” he said. “Marcilla is calm enough, I suppose. I think she would sense it if we had anything to fear… although she gave us no warning of that mob last night. Perhaps, since she heard the call, she has grown deaf to aught else.”

“What kind of monsters are gathering?” Reinmar asked. “The rumours that have reached Eilhart are vague.”

“The kind that cannot be safely glimpsed except at the limit of vision,” the boy replied, unhelpfully—but then he added: “Beastmen of a wolfish stripe. More dangerous in packs than those which have no discipline at all, though not as reckless. This is wineland, after all, and the very heart of it.”

“Have you seen them?” Reinmar asked, wondering why his jaw suddenly felt slightly numb.

“Only in my dreams,” the boy replied, glumly. “The worst place of all, some would say—for I could not see them so clearly in my mind’s eye were I not fated to look into their actual faces. It were best, I think, if we could obey the call quickly, but Marcilla is hurt and my father has not managed to catch up with us. Who could have thought that foresters with axe-handles and farm-boys with rakes and pitchforks could disrupt the plans of masters such as ours? What a world we live in!”

“What a world,” Reinmar agreed. His mouth had gone so dry that he had to take a swig of water from the jug he kept beside him. He offered it to Ulick, but the boy shook his head, pointing instead to his sister. Reinmar nodded, and tried to bring the neck of the jug to her lips.

She had responded before, but weakly. This time, she did more than open her lips reflexively. As the water splashed upon her teeth she opened her eyes, and was able to raise her head slightly. Reinmar immediately reached out to help her, and with his support she managed to raise herself up even further, so that she could drink more deeply and more comfortably. By the time she had slaked her thirst she was definitely awake.

She did not attempt to say anything, but she looked up into Reinmar’s face, met his eyes, and did not look away. She looked at him as if she had always known him and always trusted him. It seemed to Reinmar, in fact, that she was looking at him as if she loved him.

He knew that it must be wishful thinking, but he was convinced that it was not entirely so. She was definitely looking at him, languidly and very tenderly. He felt his heart lurch in response, and felt a lump form in his throat, and knew that he loved her too. If this was how it felt to be the victim of a magic spell, he thought, it was not so bad—but he did not think that love could really be reckoned a kind of magic.

“We’re safe, Marcilla,” Ulick said. “This is Reinmar Wieland, son of the wine merchant to whom the vintage we helped prepare was promised. He has collected his portion of the crop, having stepped in to save us when the local louts set about us last evening. Father will collect us as soon as he is able, but for now we are in good and sympathetic hands. We shall do what we need to do when we can.”

Marcilla smiled, but paused for a moment longer before testing her voice. “I have seen him in my dreams,” was what she murmured.

She said it lightly, as if it were of little significance, but Reinmar had just been listening to Ulick’s account of what his own dream visions might signify. “Well,” he said, “you can see me now in the flesh. The dream has come true.”

“Not yet,” she murmured.

What Reinmar inferred from that was that she had seen more in her dreams than his face. However deaf the call that she had heard might have made her to other influences, it obviously had not made her blind to other possibilities. “You have nothing to fear,” he assured her. “While you are with me, I will do my utmost to see that you come to no harm, and if there is anywhere you wish to go I shall do my very best to see that you reach your destination safely.”

“Thank you,” she said, faintly, “but I have not so far to go, now, and time is not yet pressing.”

Her flawless face still seemed perfect, even in the unkind light, but her flesh was suddenly startled by the fall of a raindrop, which struck her upon the cheek. As it ran away like a tear another caught her on the forehead.

Reinmar suppressed a curse as he looked up in some alarm. The cloud directly overhead seemed as featurelessly leaden as ever, but he could see darker vapours snaking across the sky from the south in the grip of some high capricious wind, and he guessed what was about to happen. At the same time, the realisation struck his steward.

Godrich immediately reined in the horses and looked from side to side in search of a thick stand of trees. The slope they were negotiating was not overly steep, but they had been caught on an upgrade and the ground to either side of the track was horribly uneven. They were in a wood of sorts, but the trees were scrawny and widely spaced and the terrain was dominated by a thick undergrowth of ferns and grasses.

Sigurd and Vaedecker had already run up to stand abreast of the steward’s driving-seat. “Forward!” the sergeant said. “We must hope to find better ground ahead.”

“You’re right,” said Godrich, quickly. We need to find a place where we can safely shelter—but we ought to raise the canopy while we roll, if we can.”

“We can,” Sigurd said, having already ducked under the wagon to unfasten the iron bands that would serve as supports for the awning. As Godrich moved the horses forward again the giant began to bend the bars across, one by one.

The first two flexed readily enough, but the third had become brittle with rust and it splintered as soon as Sigurd threw his weight upon it. The end that he had bedded in its slot whipped back like a spring and hurtled away from the wagon, leaving the astonished giant holding the other end like a ludicrously bent broadsword. Sigurd cursed and dropped the useless piece that he still held.

“We must still get the canopy up if we can,” Reinmar said, having already unearthed the cloth from its lodging in the box beneath Godrich’s seat.

“There’s a better wood ahead,” Godrich told them. “Let’s hope there’s a covert where I can roll off the road safely.” The wagon had crested the ridge, sliding slightly to one side as the ground beneath its wheels was slickened by the rain. “I think we can reach it if we don’t get bogged down,” the steward added.

Becoming bogged down was a real danger, Reinmar realised, for the rain had thickened so much in less than a minute that it was pouring from the sky as if from a bucket.

Ulick pulled the cloak that had served Marcilla as a blanket over her head, and told her to draw herself into a huddle, which she did. Then the boy drew his own arms about his head, while Reinmar and Vaedecker wrestled with the canopy-cloth.

The wind had grown stronger, but it was not yet strong enough to drag the sheet from their hands, and they contrived to get it over the pair of half-hoops that Sigurd had managed to erect. It sagged badly at the back, but they pinned it down with casks of wine in order to prevent it billowing up like a sail and catching the wayward wind. The sound of the rain on the stretched cloth was thunderous—and was soon joined by actual thunder after the dimly-lit interior of the wagon was briefly illuminated by a distant lightning-flash.

Sigurd had joined them by now, so the space was very cramped, but Marcilla was able to peep out from beneath the cloak now that the awning was in place, and she was able to move her legs to make a little more room.

The cart moved steadily forward, although the rain blurred visibility to the point at which Reinmar could not make out the wood that Godrich had spotted—nor, for that matter, could he see the road that would take them there if all went well.

“I think it’s all right,” Godrich called back. “There’s a gap in the trees into which the cart will probably fit, and the ground looks tolerable. We’ll lurch a bit, but… curse you, what’s the matter?”

It took Reinmar a second or two to work out that this last remark was addressed to the horses, which were whinnying, and trying to pull themselves up.

“Not now, you fools!” Godrich protested. “That’s shelter—for you as much as for—oh no! In Sigmar’s name, no!”

The terror in the steward’s voice made Reinmar sit bolt upright, and caused Matthias Vaedecker to go scrambling for his weapons.

Reinmar was wearing his own sword but Sigurd had stowed his staff and he too had to go grubbing around in the cargo, his huge shoulders lifting the badly-secured awning. Even Ulick reached down reflexively to snatch up the broken end of the iron strut that Sigurd had dropped at his feet, which he took in hand as if it were a dagger.

Reinmar contrived to get far enough forward to look over the back of Godrich’s driving-seat, but it was difficult to see anything at all through the driving rain, except for the backs of the horses. The animals, normally so placid and willing, were rearing up on their hind legs, struggling against the collars and harnesses that bound them to the struts of the cart.

There were straight-boled trees thirty or forty paces away, whose high crowns vanished into the low-lying cloud, but it was difficult to discern exactly what it was that was moving between the boles.

The shadows looked almost human—but not quite human enough. Reinmar remembered all too clearly what Ulick had said about “beastmen of a wolfish stripe”.

Vaedecker cursed as he took up a position parallel to Reinmar, resting his crossbow on the wooden ridge of the seat to steady his aim. “Sit still!” he muttered, to Godrich, as he placed the dart and made ready to fire. He took careful aim before doing so, and that interval gave Reinmar the chance to peer a little more intently at the faces of the figures emerging from the wood—the faces that should have been human had they been fitted to the general gait of the creatures, but were instead hairy and elongated and full of bestial cruelty.

Forewarned by Ulick, Reinmar was able to put a name to what he saw, and the name was “Beastmen!”

Then Vaedecker released the string of his crossbow, the bolt flew true to its target—and all hell broke loose.