Chapter Twelve

The storm clouds had already blown over, and the rain had ceased as abruptly as it had begun, but thick cloud still lay across the southern half of the sky. The sun’s light was beginning its slow fade towards darkness.

When Reinmar and Vaedecker had sheathed their blades and toiled back to the cart they found Godrich sitting up and nursing his head between his hands. He seemed very groggy, but when Reinmar scrambled back on to the wooden boards he roused himself and said: “It’s just a bump on the head and a twisted ankle. I’ll live.” He was already looking about him, his careful eye judging the extent of the damage that the cart and its cargo had sustained. Appearances were not encouraging, although the steward’s expression suggested that he had feared worse.

“Where’s the girl?” Vaedecker demanded, suddenly.

Reinmar was surprised by the urgency in the sergeant’s tone. He had not thought the soldier to be a caring man.

Godrich looked around, uncertainly, while Vaedecker snatched up the cloak under which the gypsy girl had been huddling, shaking it as if she might somehow have slipped into its lining. It was Reinmar who spotted her, already fifty or sixty paces away from the wagon—and he would have lost her in the trees had he not caught that brief glimpse.

“There!” he said, pointing.

Marcilla vanished almost as soon as he spoke, but Reinmar had time to notice that she was walking with a sureness of step that seemed unnaturally mechanical and measured, as if she were in some kind of trance.

Vaedecker cursed, almost as volubly as he had during the fight.

“Mind the cart well, steward,” he growled, although Reinmar formed the impression that he did not care overmuch at that point in time whether the cart was minded carefully or not. “Come on, Reinmar.”

Reinmar was surprised, but he obeyed readily enough, jumping down behind the sergeant and moving off in the direction the girl had taken—which was at a right angle to that in which the horses had fled. He had gone a dozen paces before he realised that the soldier was not in the least concerned for the girl’s welfare. Vaedecker was following her because he had heard the word “call” in her delirium, and knew what significance that word might have in the context of his spying mission.

They did not catch sight of her again as soon as they might have expected, and they drew apart by slow degrees so that they could cover more ground, although the sergeant called out a warning lest they lose sight of one another entirely.

By the time he caught another glimpse of the slim figure as it went gliding between the trees, Reinmar was beginning to wonder whether he would be able to find his way back to the cart. It was impossible to stick to a straight course while moving among thickets and fallen logs, and he was no longer sure of his exact heading—but Marcilla seemed certain enough of hers, and she kept on going, heedless of any threat which might be posed by inhuman creatures of any kind.

Reinmar had never had any particular fear of the forests that decked the foothills of the Grey Mountains, although they could be dismal and ominously quiet. He had slept beneath the trees on previous expeditions that he had made with his father, and would not have hesitated to do it again on this trip had it been necessary, even in this relatively gloomy region which he did not know well—but now that he knew that there really were monsters in the hills, every step that separated him from the cart seemed a step into the dangerous unknown.

Oddly enough, however, Reinmar feared more for Marcilla than he did for himself. The gypsy girl must have slept rough far more often than he, in far worse places than this. But she was ill now, and wet through in spite of the cloak he had draped over her sleeping body. While she was entranced she might easily step into a ditch and take a heavy fall, and would not be able to raise the slightest defence against a beastman. The ground over which they were walking was very uneven.

It was not until Vaedecker shouted “Hulloa!” that Reinmar realised that they had lost sight of one another—but when he replied they were able to reset their paces instantly on a convergent course.

The sound of Reinmar’s answering call seemed to rouse Marcilla slightly from her waking dream. She paused for a fraction of a second, but she did not look back. Whatever force held her seemed to tighten its grip in response to her hesitation, refusing to release her. Blurred echoes of the two shouts lingered in the air for a second or two, as if Vaedecker had been answered by a dozen distant voices emanating from the darkest part of the forest, away to the south-east.

They were now no more than fifteen paces behind Marcilla. There was no further danger of losing her, but still Reinmar hurried on in order to catch up. Vaedecker matched him stride for stride.

Reinmar called out again, this time addressing himself directly to the girl—but the only answer he received was from the eerie echoes. He hurried forward even faster and soon drew level with the gypsy, but Vaedecker hissed a warning at him.

“Don’t touch her!” the sergeant said. “Let her go where she will—and let her take us with her.”

The instruction banished any last lingering doubt that Reinmar might have entertained as to the sergeant’s purpose. One way or another, Machar von Spurzheim had discovered the little that Luther Wieland knew about the source of the dark wine, and his sergeant was not about to pass up the stroke of good fortune that had delivered Marcilla into his care at exactly the right moment. This was his mission, and he had an unexpected opportunity to complete it. It was not, of course, Reinmar’s mission, and Reinmar knew full well what Gottfried would say, if and when he heard that his son had gone haring off into the forest after a sleepwalking gypsy instead of remaining with his cargo, but he put the thought aside. He had taken the girl under his protective wing, and he was determined to protect her. He could not leave her to wander the forest alone, or with none to look after her but a soldier intent on using her as a guide to a secret place.

In any case, Reinmar’s own curiosity had been excited by tales of the wine of dreams. What would Luther or Albrecht have given, he wondered, for the chance that had casually been thrown into his lap? How many expeditions of this kind must Luther have undertaken in his youth, without ever experiencing such an outrageous stroke of luck?

Reinmar had drawn level with Marcilla again, and he could see the expression on her face. He had expected it to be blank, but it was not. He saw that the girl seemed deeply anxious and agitated, as if lost in an inner turmoil she could not dispel.

“Don’t touch her,” Vaedecker warned him, again. “Whatever troubles her, it is but a dream.”

“We don’t know that,” Reinmar muttered—but he kept his hands by his sides.

“Where are we going, Master Wieland?” the sergeant asked him. “You know these parts better than I. What lies beyond this wood?”

Reinmar looked about him, although he knew full well that he had not the slightest chance of catching sight of a landmark he knew. They were travelling roughly east-southeast, and they were travelling uphill, but he had no notion at all of what might lie in that direction or what might lie beyond the ridge that they would presumably attain in due course.

“I have no idea,” Reinmar confessed. “I dare say that there are farms and hamlets hereabouts which have no access for carts. The ground is too uneven to permit the building of roads. Even a man on horseback would have great difficulty following deer-trails through a wood of this kind. This is territory for walkers, and any produce brought out of it must take a long and winding course to anything remotely resembling a market. Have you seen any sign of human habitation since we left the cart—the markings of a woodcutter’s axe, or a hunter’s snare?”

“None,” the soldier admitted. “But the road cannot be much more than a few hundred paces away, and this is habitable land—or would be, were there not half-human monsters lurking in its coverts.”

“What are we to do when night falls?” Reinmar asked him, tacitly accepting the fact that they would follow the girl wherever she led for as long as it took, leaving the cart and its cargo to the protection of Godrich and Sigurd. “We have no lantern. Without our packs, in fact, we have nothing but the contents of our pouches, our blades and our sodden clothing—and yours, if you’ll forgive the observation, is distinctly malodorous.”

“The least the rain might have done for our cause was to wash the beastman’s stink away,” Vaedecker agreed, glumly. “But we’ve a while till the twilight fades, and no matter what magic may be guiding her steps, the girl still needs her eyes to tell her where to place her feet. If she doesn’t get to where she’s going before darkness falls, she’ll have to stop and wait.”

Silence fell while they trudged on for a while, but the agitation within Marcilla’s half-eclipsed soul was beginning to communicate itself to Reinmar, and he did not want to be left at the mercy of its horrid uncertainties.

“Why did you instruct me to come with you?” he asked the soldier. “I thought you didn’t trust me.”

“Why did you come?” Vaedecker countered. “I know you don’t trust me.”

Reinmar was slightly taken aback by the question, because he was genuinely uncertain of the answer. In the end, he said: “I did not want the girl to come to harm. Not from any source.”

Vaedecker laughed dryly, “young men fall in love too easily,” he observed. “Show them a pretty face and a helpless form, and they’re lost. Still, better that than the lure of the dark wine. I’d rather you were here as a hero than a merchant—but whatever your reason, I’d rather have you under my eye. I’m a soldier, not a fool; if this mysterious source is protected by monsters which hunt in packs, I’d far rather that I didn’t have to face them without a friend to guard my back.”

“A friend?” Reinmar echoed.

“Are we not friends, Master Wieland? We did not wake as friends this morning, I suppose, but we stood side by side to fight monsters this afternoon. We’ve a basis for friendship now, have we not?”

“I suppose we have,” Reinmar granted, although he knew that Vaedecker must have reasons of his own for making the claim.

They were still heading upslope, with no sign of a ridge before them—but the trees grew much taller hereabouts, with higher and more elaborate crowns. A few of the conifers typical of the wider region could still be seen, but the dominant vegetation hereabouts was deciduous and the leaves had already begun to yellow on the branches. The ferny undergrowth was nourished by a rich leaf-humus, which enabled the curling fern-leaves to grow man-high, but the going was not so very difficult.

Reinmar realised that the trees between which they passed must be very old. They had held dominion here for so long that not a single sapling had found space to grow up for thirty years or more. The woods beside the roads were extensively worked by fellers and coppicers, and always had young growth mingled with old, but this was obviously a place where few men ever came, and to which none brought axes.

Marcilla’s stride had begun to falter, not through any loss of resolution but because she was near exhaustion. She had not taken a drink since the rain had wet her lips, and she had not eaten for far too long. The blow to her head had taken a great deal out of her.

While Reinmar hesitated, uncertain as to whether to take a hand, she stumbled—and would have fallen had he not then stepped swiftly forward to catch her.

He would have helped to ease her back into her stride if he could, but as soon as her progress was interrupted she collapsed like a puppet whose strings had snapped. He found himself holding her up, cradled in his arms. She was fast asleep, but still dreaming. Her eyes still moved behind closed lids, and her expression was by no means serene.

Vaedecker cursed yet again.

“What now?” Reinmar asked. “Do we wait until morning? We have neither food nor water to help her regain her strength. She might have recovered if she’d stayed with the cart, but she’s much worse now.”

“The call she has heard cannot make concessions to her condition,” the soldier muttered. “The magic, if magic it is, cannot know or care that she had been hit over the head and knocked silly. If we were not here, she’d probably lie down and die, but since you’re here to carry her there’s still a chance that she might live. Let’s hold her course while we can, at least until we reach the top of this cursed slope. Once at the top, I’ll climb into the crown of one of these wooden giants, to see how the land lies ahead.”

Reinmar adjusted Marcilla’s position in his arms as best he could before he moved on, this time following the sergeant’s lead. The girl had seemed slight enough when she was moving under her own volition, but now that she was a dead weight she seemed very heavy indeed, and Reinmar was not sure that he could carry her far without collapsing himself.

Fortunately, the top of the slope was not so very far away—and when they attained it, Vaedecker immediately set himself to climb a tree. Reinmar looked around for somewhere that he might set his burden down, but the ground was rutted with root-ridges, and the spaces in between were thick with ferns. The vegetation was still very wet; it certainly would not dry out before nightfall, and the same was true of Marcilla’s clothing. Reinmar looked down at the top of her head. The wound she had sustained was very obvious from this angle.

Reinmar looked back the way they had come, trying to estimate how much distance they had put between themselves and the wagon. There was no shelter to be had there, but some of the spare clothing in the packs would be reasonably dry, and there was food and water on the cart—not to mention plenty of wine. Would it be so very bad, he wondered, if he and Vaedecker lost their one and only chance to gain admittance to the place where the wine of dreams was fermented? To refuse to go back, given their circumstances, might be to volunteer for a great deal of hardship and strife.

Matthias Vaedecker dropped down from the lower branches of the tree that he had climbed.

“Good news,” he said. “There are two clusters of buildings visible in the valley beyond. The forest thins out, and there’s a lake. Its waters look grey and gloomy in this light, but I dare say it’s a pleasant enough spot when the sun shines. The buildings are grey too. The larger group is on the shore—it seemed to me to be capable of accommodating a whole community. The other is closer to the forest’s edge, directly in the path of anyone heading for the lake or the larger edifice. The nearer cluster looks like a common farmhouse and its outbuildings—two barns and perhaps a henhouse—but I could see no sign of labourers or livestock. It’s valuable shelter, if we could be sure of a welcome there.”

“If,” Reinmar repeated, dubiously.

“Well, Master Wieland,” the sergeant said, decisively, “I suppose it’s up to you to see that you do obtain a welcome. If you turn up on the doorstep with the girl unconscious in your arms and near to death, they’re hardly likely to turn you away—and if they ask you who you are and what your business is, you’re Reinmar Wieland, grandson of Luther Wieland the well-known wine-merchant, out in search of new stock. I believe they’ll be prepared to entertain you, whoever they may be.”

“And what about you?” Reinmar demanded, with only slight resentment of the manner in which the other was trying to manipulate him. He had his own plans, after all—and he was the one in the best position to make further enquiries and further discoveries.

“I’m a soldier,” Vaedecker told him. “I can look after myself for a while—and now we’re here, if here is the place we’ve been trying to attain, I need to take a long look around. I’d prefer it if no one knew that I was here—all the more so if it’s true, as rumour has it, that strangers are not supposed to be able to find their way here without supernatural aid. Spies work best where they’re not expected.”

“Aren’t you worried about leaving me to my own devices?” Reinmar asked, wryly.

“I’ll be close at hand till you’re safe indoors,” the soldier assured him. “After that, I’ll have to trust you to look after all our interests as best you can.”

Reinmar only hesitated for a moment before nodding assent to the plan. He might indeed be made far more welcome if he and the girl were unaccompanied by another man. Even if his hosts were suspicious of him, they would owe him a debt of gratitude when they realised that she could not possibly have completed the journey on her own, and they might be pleased to hear his name. If they were makers of dark wine, or even if they were merely agents of its distribution, the Wielands had been their allies once, and if they knew of von Spurzheim’s exploits in Marienburg they might well feel that they were in direr need of allies now than they had ever been before.

He readjusted Marcilla’s position in his arms so that when he set off his load was fairly evenly balanced. Now that he was travelling down the slope instead of up the going seemed easier, although he had to be careful not to trip over a trailing root, or slip on a patch of mud.

The trees grew more densely lower down the slope, but he contrived to find a path through them without losing his bearings. He hardly noticed when Vaedecker vanished into the trees. Although he looked around from time to time in the hope of seeing where the other man was, Reinmar could not catch the slightest glimpse of him—but he did not assume that he was unobservable himself.

Because Reinmar was descending into a valley, the sun—which was setting behind the mask of cloud—descended into shadow a little faster than he had anticipated, and he began to wonder whether the twilight would last, but as soon as he became anxious the trees began to thin out again. He was profoundly glad when lighted windows showed ahead, giving him a target for which to aim.

“Well,” he said to himself, in a whisper, “here I am. I always longed for an adventure, and now I am in the middle of one. Let’s hope I can acquit myself in a manner that I can remember gladly for a lifetime.”