Chapter Thirty-Three

Reinmar had stood firm against swordsmen, against horned beastmen, and even against the transfigured scorpions, but he shivered now that he was alone with the dead. He was not alone for long, though. Other townsmen selected out by Vaedecker’s regulars were stumbling after him. One or two were retching reflexively in reaction to the poisonous stink, but none had anything left in their stomachs to expel. They all needed better stuff to breathe, and they were as grateful as Reinmar for air that had nothing to foul it but smoke.

There were buildings burning in the centre of town, Reinmar realised, but only a few. The town would not be destroyed, unless matters became far worse, and the enemy forces seemed to have exhausted their efforts. They had attacked in a fast and furious manner and had paid the price.

Reinmar continued to support himself against a wall while he retched again, but he felt better for it. The loss of everything in his stomach had certainly left him with a raging thirst, and he felt that he would surely die if he could not find a cup of water soon, or a goblet of good Reikish hock, but he knew that he was only a few minutes from home once he could persuade himself to move again.

When he finally managed that, he was able to place one foot in front of the other with reasonable steadiness. Two of his neighbours walked with him, but he did not speak to them nor they to him.

There were no bloodthirsty beastmen running amok in the street, although he and his companions passed half a hundred men not much less wretched than themselves, and their condition was a telling commentary on the fierceness of the greater battle. As he passed from street to street, Reinmar saw that although the attackers had been forced to withdraw from the district soon enough, they had not gone without leaving their mark.

Whether by magic or mere violence, the enemies of Eilhart had reached far beyond the defensive barricades to spread their malice. They had left blood in every street, and broken glass. Reinmar knew that it would be much worse in the marketplace and on the docks, and did not doubt that morning would reveal scars on the houses of all the merchants and manufacturers who had built and kept the prosperity of Eilhart.

One of the sputtering fires, Reinmar saw when he came nearer, was burning in the immediate neighbourhood of the Wieland shop—but it was not the shop itself, and the neighbours who were chaining buckets of water from the nearest pump seemed to have it under control. He did not volunteer to help, but made instead for the door of his own home.

As he fumbled with the door-latch he looked down, and saw the condition of his clothing. He realised that he must be a frightening figure in the ruddy half-light, stained as he was by blood and ichor.

Why, he thought, I have become a monster of sorts myself.

The door was locked, and he knocked on it as loudly as he could, hoping that Marguerite was inside, and that she would not be too frightened to answer his summons.

He waited, but no one came.

He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, as if to feel the power that was within it now that it had drawn so much alien blood, but he did not draw it. His father would not like it if he forced the door, and he would have to put in enough work cleaning, sharpening and polishing his weapon without bending the blade by using it as a lever. He knew that he ought to climb up to the ledge of his window, as he had done so many times before, and slip in through the gap, but the thought of the effort and exertion that would be required made him hesitate. He hammered on the door for a second time, more loudly than before. The knock was not soon answered, and he eventually moved to turn away—but as he did so, he heard the sound of movement inside the shop, so he waited instead.

“Who is it?” asked a voice from within: Marguerite’s.

“Reinmar,” he replied.

“Are you alone? Are you hurt?”

Alone, yes. Hurt… perhaps a little. Not mortally.”

He heard the sound of the bar scraping against the door as it was removed. The door opened a crack, paused, and then swung wider—but Marguerite’s face did not appear. Thinking that she had merely stepped back, using the door as a shield, Reinmar moved into the open space. The only light inside was a candle in a tray that had been set down upon the first stair in the flight leading up to the second storey.

The door crashed shut behind him and he whirled around.

Marguerite was there, but she was not alone, and the man behind her had a knife at her throat.

Reinmar felt a pang of bitter regret that he should ever have allowed his private way into the house to be seen and copied.

“Cousin Wirnt,” he said, hoarsely. “Your friends and kinsmen have been asking after you.”

“I have had to be careful, cousin,” the stout man assured him. “I had no sooner left your shop than von Spurzheim’s men were snapping at my heels. What a pest that man is! I had no option but to hide, and by the time I tried to reach my father they had taken him away. I nearly returned to Holthusen, but that might have been more dangerous still, so I thought it best to wait for another opportunity to talk to my uncle. When I saw him leave, I nearly did not recognise him—but then I realised that you must have brought him wine, of the very highest quality. I am still willing to pay a fair price for the goods, of course—if a life can still be reckoned precious after tonight’s pageant of destruction.”

“I’m sorry, Reinmar,” Marguerite said, in a voice almost as hoarse as his own.

Reinmar observed, anxiously, that the gleam in Wirnt’s eye was not the glow of the wine of dreams but something more electric. The strength of his craving had obviously increased.

He was not mad, in the sense that Luther had been mad, but he was desperate and dangerous, and the steadiness of his hand was unlikely to be trustworthy.

“Let her go, Wirnt,” Reinmar said. “Marguerite has nothing to do with any quarrel you might have with me. She came here to render a service of extraordinary kindness.”

“Should I be threatening the gypsy, then?” Wirnt countered, without moving the tip of his blade from Marguerite’s windpipe. “She’s no use to you, I fear. The call that the source will send out after tonight’s hectic work will be irresistible. You might even hear it yourself—but I must be gone by morning if 1 am to make the most of my opportunity, and I cannot go without a supply of the wine. You do have an abundant supply, do you not?”

“Actually, no,” Reinmar told him. “My grandfather took it with him. There’s none left in the house.”

“He had no bottle with him when I saw him,” Wirnt said, “and he can’t be such a fool as to march through the streets of Eilhart with a jug of dark wine when it is full of witch hunters. Where is it, cousin? In the cellars? No more lies, now.”

“It was pure nectar he had, not diluted wine,” Reinmar said. “I’m not lying. If you hurt that girl, I’ll kill you. Let her go.”

Wirnt’s only answer to the threat and the demand was to press the point of his dagger into Marguerite’s throat, drawing a trickle of blood. The fugitive candlelight reflected in her eyes acknowledged her terror, but she did not cry out. She was trying with all her might to be brave.

“Tell me one more lie, cousin,” Wirnt said, coldly, “and I might press a little too hard.”

“You have already done that,” Reinmar retorted, with equal coldness. “Now, you will have to earn enough regard to persuade me to let you out of here alive. You have no idea how much killing I have done this night, of not-quite-men and half-human chimeras and giant scorpions with entrancing scent.”

“You have killed such a fiend?” Wirnt retorted scornfully “I doubt that, unless you had an army at your back—and if you did, that army is not behind you now. I need the wine, cousin Reinmar, and I think you understand by now how powerful a need like that can be. You know full well that I’d fight you if I had to, and kill you if I must, and you do not seem to have strength enough to swat a fly, let alone engage a man like me in combat. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I only want the wine you brought from the valley, and once I have it you can certainly trust me to take it far away from here. I’ll take it all the way to Marienburg if I can.”

“And what makes you think that you can?” Reinmar countered, hoping that if he delayed long enough he might recover enough of his strength to make a fight of it. “If even I might hear a call, for merely having sniffed a cork, what will keep you from the hidden valley and a niche in the stone floor, and a lovely flower sprouting from your flesh? Or has no one told you yet how the wine of dreams is made?”

“Reinmar, please.” The plea came from Marguerite, still terrified.

“Your little friend will not lightly forgive you for this unnecessary delay,” Wirnt said, smiling grimly. “And when the cost of this night’s work is counted, you’ll need every friend you can find. You brought those monsters here, Reinmar—you. I am probably the only man for a hundred miles who does not bear you a grudge for that, because I know what your work has done to the price of dark wine, and I mean to have your secret supply for my own. I am young enough that I only need the merest sip for myself, and I know exactly what price to extract for the rest from those whose need and thirst is greater by far. Only let me have what I want, and the girl will be safe. I’ll be gone in no time at all.”

“You’ll have to find Luther,” Reinmar said, more desperately than before—but as he spoke he saw that Wirnt’s eyes were no longer fixed on his. The stout man was looking past him, at someone on the stair, and there was a new uncertainty in his gaze.

Reinmar turned, hoping to see Luther, or Gottfried, or even Albrecht refreshed—but what he actually saw was Marcilla, perhaps awake but definitely dreaming.

The gypsy girl had her head slightly raised, as if she were listening intently or trying to catch a faint and fugitive odour. She was moving slowly but her body was quite poised, her eyes open but unseeing. When she reached the foot of the stair she moved towards the head of another—the stone flight that led down into the cellars.

“It seems that I do not need you after all, Master Wieland,” Wirnt observed, triumphantly. “Your hiding place may be proof even against an educated palate like my own, but she belongs entirely to the wine, and has since the moment of her conception. You cannot hide it from her!”

Reinmar was not sure that this judgement could be accurate, given that Wirnt’s mother appeared to be a sorceress, while Marcilla’s had merely been a gypsy, but he had already been warned that the gypsy might find the nectar wherever it was hidden. He had brought her out of the valley, but it seemed that nothing he could do could free her from the call that she had heard.

He understood for the first time how hopeless his love had been, how small and impotent a thing any mere affection was against the kind of command that was incarnate in the perfume of the thing that Sigurd had slain, and which had slain Sigurd in its turn.

He understood, too, that perhaps Luther had not been fool enough to take the nectar with him when he left the house. Perhaps he had hidden it again, in some secret place of his own.

“Follow her!” Wirnt said, abruptly. “I’ll come along too—and remember that this pretty maid’s safety is in your hands. If I get what I need, she’ll be safe. If not—whatever might happen to you or me—she’ll be dead.”

Reinmar did as he was told. He picked up the candle-tray from the bottom step of the wooden stair, and held it high enough to light Marcilla’s way down the stone flight, although it did not seem that she was in any need of the guidance of mere light.

This is fortunate, Reinmar told himself, as he moved behind the ensorcelled girl. I would never have been able to convince Wirnt that my grandfather had the nectar, or that I could not find his hiding-place, but now I shall see where it is before he does. He has the dagger, but I have the candle.

He tried, desperately, to think of some way in which he could turn that discrepancy into a winning advantage without exposing Marguerite to any further risk of having her throat cut. He was still horribly conscious of his own enfeeblement.

Marcilla reached the bottom of the flight, and swiftly went on into the mazy corridors between the racks of wine.

There was little enough room here for people to pass in single file, and Wirnt had Marguerite to cope with as well as his own over-ample girth. Unfortunately, Wirnt knew only too well that there was a hazard in allowing Reinmar to move too far ahead of him and he quickly called an instruction to halt.

“Now, my dear,” Wirnt said to Marguerite, when Reinmar obeyed. “I want you to move up behind your friend, and reach around him very carefully. I want you to remove his sword from its scabbard, very carefully, and drop it on the floor.”

It took longer than Wirnt must have hoped for Marguerite to do this, but she did it, and the sword clanged upon the stone floor.

“Good,” Wirnt said. “Now, put your hands around him and clasp him tightly. From now on, the two of you must move as one—but I have the dagger at your back and I’ll slip it through your ribs if I have the slightest cause. Now move on.”

Reinmar moved on. Marguerite’s hands were clasped tight in front of his chest, and the pressure of her arms seemed a far greater restraint than it actually was—but he heard Wirnt pick up his sword as they pressed on, and knew that he was now at a very severe disadvantage indeed, even though he still had control of the light.

Marcilla had moved on swiftly ahead, but she came to a stop now, and moved her arms uncertainly, as if her fingertips were able to sense the direction of the missing phial. She moved off into a blind side-corridor, heading for a section of bare wall.

There was no more visual evidence of any loose mortar in this wall than there had been in Reinmar’s bedroom, but Reinmar knew that Luther had lived in the house for a very long time, and that von Spurzheim could not have been the first warranted official to think that its cellars ought to be searched.

Wirnt, who had obviously reached the same conclusion, let out an audible sigh of anticipation.

Then there was an almighty crash, as something exploded upon the stout man’s head.

Marguerite screamed as the sword or the dagger pricked her back, and clutched Reinmar so tightly that he dropped the candle-tray. The candle flickered, but its light did not fail, and the flame stabilised again when the tray came to rest right way up.

Reinmar turned, putting his own arms protectively around Marguerite’s body and hoping fervently that she was not too badly hurt.

She was not. Wirnt had been felled far too abruptly to be able to carry out his threat. He had been struck from above, not from behind; he had had no chance to see or hear his assailant’s approach.

That assailant was stretched out atop a rank of shelves, from which he had plucked the jar of wine that he had shattered on Wirnt’s solid skull. Ulick, it appeared, had never left the house at all. He had merely hidden himself, in a place that was too narrow to accommodate anyone but a person of his slender configuration.

The gypsy boy’s eyes were wide open, and must have been sufficiently capable of sight to guide his blow, but as soon as Reinmar looked into them he knew that Ulick’s condition was exactly similar to Marcilla’s. Reinmar deduced that he had been set here to stand guard over the phial that Luther Wieland had hidden in the wall, and keep it safe for his sister, perhaps also for himself.

Even so, Reinmar felt that he had to make an effort to talk sensibly to the boy.

“Ulick,” he said, quietly. “You must not let Marcilla drink the nectar. If both of you will only consent to let it alone, there is still a chance that you might survive this dread affair. I understand now that I should never have brought it out of the valley, but I was confused by its perfume. It is evil through and through, and ought to be destroyed.”

While Reinmar was speaking, though, Ulick scrambled down the racks and picked up Wirnt’s dagger.

Reinmar might have been able to make a grab for his sword had Marguerite not been in his way, but he could not bear to thrust her rudely backwards over Wirnt’s fallen body, using her as a shield. It would have been too cruel even if it had not been too dangerous. It was Marcilla that he loved, still, but Marguerite was his friend, and she had already been frightened and cut for his sake.

“Is the nectar yours, Master Wieland?” Ulick asked, in a voice not quite his own. “Do you claim it for yourself?”

“No,” Reinmar said. “I do not. It is not the sort of thing that any mere man can or ought to possess—he who has it is himself possessed.”

He felt a hand upon his shoulder then, placed from behind, and felt Marcilla’s fingers caressing the side of his neck. He felt her breath upon his cheek as she leaned forward to whisper in his ear—but the voice that spoke to him was not quite her own, and he knew that no matter how he had striven to deny the fact, she was already possessed.

Marcilla’s voice, like Ulick’s, was now the voice that had spoken to him out of nowhere while he was wide awake, and had spoken to him far more subtly in his wine-induced dream.

“Dearest Reinmar,” the voice said, “we are all possessed, from the moment we first learn to see till the moment we must learn to die. We are possessed by our appetites and our lusts, and no matter how hard reason may fight for its empire, those claims of ownership can never be set aside. You are possessed, my darling, and the chit you hold in your hands is possessed too, securely and forever. You do not have the choice to be anything but a possession, and never will; the only freedom you will ever have is the freedom to be used in a better way than some few of your fellows. You might be mine, if you wished it, but if you will not be mine you will only be another’s, or held in common by all my awesome kind, to be buffeted one way and then another, never knowing true rest or fair certainty or real pleasure. Far better to be mine, dear heart, knowingly and willingly. That way, at least, there is some slight reward in life, instead of endless worry and endless travail. Believe me, darling Reinmar, there is nothing you will desire more when you grow old than the opportunity to put the clock back and give yourself entirely to me. Seize that opportunity now, and save yourself a deal of pain.”

Reinmar’s arms were still around Marguerite. She had relaxed into his grip and was pressing herself against him, breast to breast. He knew that she had heard every word, and that she was waiting with bated breath to hear his reply.

“I cannot,” he said. “Marcilla, I cannot.”

He could not be sure that Marguerite would be prepared to believe that he was talking to Marcilla, and only to Marcilla, but he thought that it might be safer if she did.

“Corrupted by discipline,” said the voice, regretfully. “If you could kill for me, you’d find so much more pleasure in killing. You glimpsed that, I think, in the instant before the fiend died. Can you not remember what killing ought to be, my love? Must you make it a matter of duty and discipline?”

“Take the nectar and go, Marcilla,” Reinmar said, his voice raw with thirst. “Take it, I beg you, and go.”

The hand moved away from his shoulder, but it was not withdrawn. Instead the fingers reached up to put gentle pressure on his eyelids and deny him sight.

“Oh, my silly darling,” the voice said, “I could have done that at any time since you stepped out of the underworld, but the game is not done yet. You do not understand me at all, for all your yearning dreams.”

And with that, Reinmar found himself falling slowly into unconsciousness. His throat was still desperately dry, but it proved in the end that he was even more tired than thirsty. He faded away into delicious, dreamless sleep.