The Wine of Dreams (35 page)

“If they only spent as much energy in fighting the enemy as they do in trying
to secure and increase their own authority,” von Spurzheim said, “the banks of
the Reik would be a better and happier place. They all know full well what the
situation is, and how urgent it has now become. They know that I have the
warrant of the Grand Theogonist himself, but even if they were kneeling before
the War Altar and the Staff of Command they would be bickering over trifles.
When the fighting starts they will be heroes all, but they do not know how to be
single-minded about anything but violence. Who injured the sentry I could ill
afford to lose, Reinmar?”

“Two monks from the valley—the two who tried to sell me dark wine while I
was there. They probably had others with them, but it was Brother Noel whose
sword was red with blood.”

“Why did they come? Surely not for the housekeeper?”

“The woman in the house wasn’t Albrecht’s housekeeper,” Reinmar told him. “She
was a sorceress by the name of Valeria.”

Von Spurzheim looked up at the ceiling, annoyed that no one had been able to
tell him that while he still had time to react. “The lady scholar!” he
exclaimed. “I thought she’d be half way to Middenheim by now. What a thirst she
must have to make her put her head into the lion’s mouth! Did she exercise power
of command over the monks?”

“It certainly seemed that she did,” Reinmar said. “There might have been a
fight had she not told them to leave me be. I doubt that was for mercy’s sake.
They brought her wine, and she grew young after drinking it—but she did say
that the gathering army was nothing to do with her, and that her business was of
another kind.”

“She doesn’t care about Eilhart,” the witch hunter muttered. “It’s Marienburg
that’s uppermost in her mind. She may not mean to lend her power to the fight,
but she’ll use it in one way or another. I’m sorry, lad—I had no idea that I
was sending you into a viper’s nest. What did your great-uncle do?”

“Nothing,” Reinmar reported, economically. “He refused to go with them, and
they seemed to think him irrelevant to their present concerns.”

“And what did you do?”

“Nothing,” Reinmar said, again. “I had no chance to draw my blade, and had no
reason to think that help would come if I called.”

“But the monks must have recognised you, and they could hardly be of the
opinion that you were irrelevant to their concerns,” the witch hunter observed,
shrewdly. “They did not know what you had done when they met you with Matthias
as you made your escape from the valley, but they must know now. They let you
alone, even so.”

“Because they had more pressing matters to attend to,” Reinmar insisted—but
von Spurzheim knew that there had to be more, and Reinmar had to provide a
further explanation. “Albrecht and Valeria were lovers once, as you obviously
know, and they had a child. Valeria asked Great-Uncle Albrecht if I were one of
them. He implied that I might be, although it was a lie, and it was on that
account that she told the monks to leave me alone.”

Von Spurzheim looked at him long and hard before saying: “And what was the
attitude of the monks?”

“They were bitterly angry,” Reinmar told him, uneasily. “They told her what I
had done in the underworld, offering it as proof that I am a dangerous enemy.
She would not listen.”

Von Spurzheim might have interrogated him further had he not been in such a
hurry, but he shrugged his shoulders then, as if dismissing the matter until a
more convenient time. “Your charmed life may be a more valuable asset than I
imagined,” he said wryly. “Do you know where to report to Sergeant Vaedecker?”

“Yes.”

“Then you had best go. By nightfall, every able-bodied man in town must be
thoroughly certain of what his role is to be in the coming conflict. It seems to
be coming sooner than I hoped, but we can still win it. We must.” Reinmar opened
the door to go out, but von Spurzheim decided that he had not quite finished,
adding: “We are fighting for our lives, Reinmar. Every one of us. No one here can
make a private arrangement with destiny. No one.”

“I think my Great-Uncle Albrecht knows that,” Reinmar said, deliberately
misunderstanding the real implication of the witch hunter’s warning—but the
last darkly quizzical look von Spurzheim directed at him before the door closed
told Reinmar that the witch hunter knew well enough that his threat had not
fallen on deaf ears.

The streets through which Reinmar walked to the neck of the river were very
crowded, and everyone he passed was urgently busy. Some were carrying provisions
home, or bringing weapons out; others were boarding up windows or strengthening
the slots that would hold the bars securing their doors. There were no children
out of doors; those who had not been sent away were being kept inside, probably
banished to cellars and attics.

Reinmar had never seen so many unsmiling people, or witnessed such a flush of
collective anxiety overlaying the pallor of fear.

The docks and warehouses of Eilhart’s port were clustered a furlong below the
neck of the river, where the waters had been artificially broadened to form a
deep pool. The “neck” qualified as a neck because it had two huge storehouses to
either side of a narrow gap, through which the water was forced to flow more
rapidly, but there were no quays for unloading. Goods were sometimes lowered into boats from the wide and glassless windows of the
storehouses, using block-and-tackle systems strung from jutting beams, but the
traffic was one-way. The storehouses were used to stockpile grain, turnips and
beets from the surrounding farms, almost all of it for local use. Each had three
storeys, with holes cut in each floor through which long ramps extended, also
equipped with hauling gear. By the time Reinmar arrived, there was at least one
crossbowman at every window—and Reinmar had no difficulty in judging that
those at the highest would be least likely to get hurt, always provided that the
buildings were not fired. Although the shell of each storehouse was brick, the
floors and ramps were wooden.

The windows on the ground were, unfortunately, low-silled and broad. They had
been built for the convenience of moving goods out, not keeping invaders at bay.
Grain-sacks filled with sand and earth had already been piled up to make the
defences higher, and criss-crossed planks had been nailed in place to make the
apertures less inviting, but these measures were makeshift at best.

Matthias Vaedecker showed Reinmar which of these openings was to be his
station. It was the middle one of three, neither the furthest upriver nor the
furthest down, but Reinmar could not see that its position would make much
difference to the safety of his situation.

“Any boats moving through the narrows will be easy targets for the bowmen,”
the sergeant said, addressing a gathering of all the men assigned to the ground
floor of the westernmost storehouse, “and they are highly unlikely to have as
many bows as we have, or any great skill in using them—but they will have
clubs and spears, which they will wield with very considerable strength if they
get close enough. We have put our best net at the head of the gap and our
strongest hawser just behind it, and I don’t doubt that we shall wreak havoc
among them until those defences are breached—but once the head of the passage
is clear of obstruction we have only one more net and two more booms.

“The second net is placed two yards ahead of this middle window, so that
those it interrupts will be vulnerable to fire without being able to make
overmuch use of their weapons. We must make the most of that vulnerability,
because the tide will turn their way if the second net is breached and the
entire race fills up with crowded boats.

“Don’t become too confident if the fight goes our way at first—the longer
it goes on, the harder it will become. The first kills will be ours, but this is
not an enemy much given to retreat and they will keep on coming. We must keep on
killing, and killing, and killing, until there is nothing left to kill. Whatever
happens, we may not retreat.

“The barricades across the roads are tactical positions that might be
abandoned if necessity presses, but this gap and these two storehouses are vital
to the defence of the town. We do not give way. Whatever happens, we hold our
positions to the last man. We may hope for reinforcements if the attack is
concentrated here to the exclusion of other vulnerable points, but if no
reinforcements come we must fight until we die. Is that understood?”

Looking around, Reinmar could see that it was fully understood by the men
wearing colours, who had been in such situations before, but that it had caused
great consternation among the townsmen and the farmers who had been assigned to
support them. Even so, there was not a man among them who did not want to put on
a brave face. They had all heard tales of what had happened to the farms that
had been attacked, and they had all seen the bodies in the market place. No one
wasted time wondering about the possibility of negotiation or mass evacuation.

“Right,” the sergeant went on, as soon as he had left a decent pause. “I want
every man who has never used a pike or blade for fighting educated to the limit
of what can be achieved. My corporals will sort you out into groups, according
to your training, and they’ll do everything in their power to advance your
capability in the time that remains to us. No one is excused, except to take an
hour’s leave to eat, which we shall do in strict rotation. If any of you have
been trained with sword or staff, you’ll help with the education of the others.”

There was a deal of confusion then, while all of this was sorted out, but
Vaedecker took Reinmar to one side so that he could speak to him confidentially.

“You can take your last leave soon,” the sergeant said, “but I want you back
by six, as I told you before. Pikes and half-pikes will be far more use than
swords to begin with, but we haven’t enough of them and it will come to
swordplay sooner or later. I’ll give you two or three willing lads now, while
some time still remains to teach them something worthwhile—but whatever you fail to teach
them, at least make sure that they don’t hurt themselves or one another, and
don’t leave them exhausted.”

Reinmar promised to heed all this advice, and did so, although it was obvious
to him the farmhands given to him for instruction had far more strength than
skill. He judged that they would be able to do better with the scythes and
pitchforks they had brought than with the rusty swords they had exhumed from
long storage, but he tried to educate them anyway. If he accomplished nothing
else he showed them how best to balance themselves while they thrust, and how to
minimise the target they presented to an enemy.

As soon as he was given leave to go, Reinmar hurried off home. He was hungry
and thirsty, but he was also anxious about what Albrecht had said to him before
he went to meet the sergeant.

The shop was closed but the door had not been barred; Reinmar obtained entry
readily enough. He called down to the cellars but obtained no reply; there was
no sign of his father, or Godrich. That was not in the least strange, given that
they must have been ordered to report for assignment exactly as he had. He ran
upstairs and went immediately to Marcilla’s room. He found her alone there, but
she was as fast asleep as she had been before he left, and seemingly quite
tranquil. He knelt beside her pallet and took her hand in his own, but he was
gentle because he did not want to wake her. He made certain that there was fresh
water by her pillow, and a piece of bread, before he tiptoed away.

It was possible, Reinmar supposed, that Ulick had gone with Godrich and his
father to claim a role in the defence of the town, but he dared not make that
assumption. He closed the gypsy’s door as quietly as he could before making his
way to his own room. He wanted to make sure that the phial he had stolen from
the underworld was still where he had put it before he went to find something to
eat.

He realised as soon as he opened the door that something had gone badly awry.
The odour that filled the room struck him dumb and motionless.

There was a stranger in Reinmar’s bedroom, standing in front of the mirror on
the wall and studying himself carefully. More remarkably still, the stranger had
put on Reinmar’s best suit of clothes. The man was taller and
better-proportioned than Wirnt, although his features were not entirely
dissimilar—but they were no more similar to Wirnt’s than they were to
Gottfried’s, or even Reinmar’s own. The stranger seemed much younger than Wirnt,
though not as young as Reinmar, but the gleam in his eye was as bright and as
startling as the luminosity that Reinmar had seen in the eyes of the aged priest
in the underworld as he offered Marcilla’s comatose body to the avid flower.

The hectic nature of that brightness did not reveal itself fully until the
stranger turned to look Reinmar in the face. It was as if the intelligence
behind the eyes had caught fire, burning out of control. This is a madman,
Reinmar thought—which seemed to make it all the more remarkable that the man
might have been mistaken for his father’s younger brother, had his father had a
brother.

It was not until the sweetly cloying odour that saturated the atmosphere of
the room released its grip on his thoughts that Reinmar realised that the resemblance might be less remarkable than it
seemed.

“Damn you, child,” the stranger said. “Have you nothing in your wardrobe that
a man might wear with pride?”

“Grandfather?” Reinmar asked, falteringly.

He could not quite believe it, no matter how likely it had seemed as a matter
of calculation. He was too accustomed to seeing Luther Wieland as a frail old
man, as broken in spirit as he was in body. This man was not merely hale, but
keen and poised in spite of the uncanny fervour in his eyes. He still seemed
mad, but he also seemed a man of action, a man of real power.