[Warhammer] - The Wine of Dreams

by Brian Craig - (ebook by Undead)

“Could you possibly come with us to the burgomaster’s house, sir?” The spokesman was still speaking with a courtesy that seemed perfectly sincere. “My sergeant, Matthias Vaedecker, would like a word with you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Are you arresting me?” Gottfried asked, uneasily.

  “By no means, sir,” the man-at-arms was quick to reply. “But your name has been given to Sergeant Vaedecker as that of a man who might be able and more than willing to help him. Will you come?” There was no hint of a threat in his tone, but Reinmar knew from his accent that he was a city man, and he had been told often enough that city men did not always say what they meant, or let their meaning show in their manner.

  “Yes,” Gottfried said. “I’ll come with you. Reinmar, be sure that you keep the shop open till nightfall. You must not leave the counter under any circumstances. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, father,” Reinmar said. He wondered, though, whether he did understand. He already knew that he had to keep the shop open till nightfall, and that he must not leave the counter. The fact that his father had taken the trouble to make the instruction explicit and to emphasise it so strongly must have some further significance—in fact, the words must have been spoken for the soldier’s benefit rather than for his.

  Reinmar and Marguerite watched silently as Gottfried went out of the door with the two men-at-arms, who turned right towards the market square as he closed the door behind him.

  “Why do they think he can help them?” Marguerite asked Reinmar, when the silence became unbearable.

  “I don’t know,” Reinmar replied. “But who knows more about a town than its only wine-merchant? Who better to consult as to its secrets?”

  “Eilhart doesn’t have any secrets,” Marguerite said, faithfully reproducing the common opinion of the region. “It’s a nice town. There’s none nicer or safer anywhere in the Empire.” She spoke as if it went without saying that there could not possibly be anywhere nice or safe outside the Empire’s bounds.

  The sense of being in the nicest and safest town in all the world had always seemed to Reinmar to make the quality of his prison that much more treacherous, and to increase the sense he had had for more than a year of being trapped in a life for which he might be direly ill-suited. “Yes it is,” he agreed. “It always has been, and probably always will be.”

  Reinmar could hardly wait for night to fall, so that he could steal up the stairs to his grandfather’s room and interrogate him. In the meantime, he wavered between hoping that Gottfried would stay out of the way long enough for him to learn whatever Luther cared to reveal to him and dreading that his father might not return at all, having been thrown in jail on suspicion of having consorted with evil magicians.

  Marguerite stayed with him for an hour, chattering about the possibilities opened up by the arrival of the witch hunter and his escort, but Reinmar easily resisted the temptation to tell her that the mysterious stranger they were hunting was his father’s cousin. She went away again, having had no occasion to take further offence at his treatment of her, when the second wave of customers began to arrive in the shop, intent on trading rumours as well as buying wine.

  Reinmar knew better than to trust the rumours entertained by labourers, who rarely knew anything and were ever wont to fantasise, but he could not help suffering pangs of anxiety when he was assured that the stowaway was a necromancer from the Cursed Marshes west of Marienburg, a sailor who had gone mad while cast away on a haunted islet in the Sea of Claws, or a daemonologist from the Howling Hills who had unleashed a host of evil spirits into the streets of Altdorf. He had no idea what a necromancer or a daemonologist was, and he suspected that his wide-eyed informants had no better idea than he, but the titles seemed pregnant with horrible disaster.

  Just as the rush was easing, Machar von Spurzheim returned in the company of four armed men, one of whom he introduced to Reinmar as Sergeant Matthias Vaedecker.

  “Your father has graciously offered to allow us to search his stock,” the witch hunter informed Reinmar. “He assures us that he has never placed any dark wine in his cellars, and we believe him, but he shares our anxiety that there might be some hidden corner where old stocks lurk of which he knows nothing.”

  The statement was, of course, absurd. Gottfried Wieland knew every jug, jar, cask and flagon in his cellars, and was not a man to tolerate the existence of hidden corners or unevaluated stock. If Gottfried had given von Spurzheim permission to search, his intention must be to clear away any slight shadow of doubt that might remain in the witch hunter’s mind as to his innocence of any dealings in “dark wine”.

  “I will show you the way,” Reinmar said. He did, and lit all the lamps that were grouped at the foot of the stone stairs so that every last corner of the mazy cellars could be illuminated at will. He stayed to watch, as Gottfried would have wanted him to do, while the five men prowled the multitudinous racks, removing the stoppers from stone jars so that they might sniff the contents and turning the spigots on wooden casks to let drops fall onto the palms of their hands. They were not wasteful, nor did their tentative sampling of the produce lead to the least intoxication.

  The search would have been quicker had all the wines in the cellars been kept in transparent bottles, but only the finest wines were ever dignified thus, and usually only in the shop itself. Glass was too precious a commodity to be wasted, and customers who were slow in returning their empties for reuse were always treated with prejudice. Gottfried Wieland was well known for his sternness in keeping count of such errors of omission, and for the infallibility of his memory.

  Machar von Spurzheim insisted that Reinmar open every cupboard and chest, while Sergeant Vaedecker used the hilt of a dagger to rap on every wall, listening raptly for any hollow echo. The whole process lasted nearly two hours, but at the end of it the visitors seemed satisfied.

  “Your stores seem to be running low,” von Spurzheim commented, as Reinmar led the way back up the stairs, “and yet your casks and jars are clustered together. There is a deal of empty space.”

  “That is true, sir,” Reinmar agreed. “We have made space to take in new stock. Godrich and I will be setting out on a buying trip in nine days time. We will take the wagon south into the hills, visiting a dozen vineyards, and we shall return fully laden.”

  “Who is Godrich?” the witch hunter wanted to know.

  “My father’s steward. One of the manservants will come with us to tend the horses and mount guard on our money and stock.”

  “Will one be enough?” Vaedecker inquired solicitously. “Are there not gypsies in the hills, and brigands?”

  “My father has made at least a hundred expeditions of this sort,” Reinmar told him, “and never lost a cargo. There has been petty pilfering by sneak-thieves, for which the gypsies may or may not have been responsible, but they tend to get the blame for every misfortune hereabouts whether it is theirs or not. There are always tales of brigands, and sometimes of monsters too, but my father says that it is all nonsense.”

  “If only it were,” von Spurzheim said gloomily. “These are bad times, and there is evil abroad in every corner of the Empire. Everyone to whom I speak hereabouts assures me that Eilhart is as good and safe a place as could ever be imagined, but my experience is that one of evil’s favourite tricks is to lull potential victims into a false sense of security.”

  By the time this speech had been delivered the party was back in the shop, and the sergeant had already unlatched the door. The night air that gusted in when he opened it was not unduly chilly, but it cleared away the lingering fustiness of the day in a matter of seconds.

  “Thank you, Master Wieland,” von Spurzheim said. “You have calmed our fears.”

  “When shall I see my father again?” Reinmar asked.

  “Soon,” the witch hunter assured him. “I have a few more questions to ask, but he will be back by daybreak. We understand how anxious he is to resume his everyday routine.”

  As soon as the doo
r was closed behind them, Reinmar went down to the cellars to extinguish the lanterns, then put out the lights in the shop. He was now so impatient to consult his grandfather that he ran up the steps to the topmost floor of the house, where Luther Wieland had one of the rooms under the eaves.

  The room was lit by a single candle, which one of the maidservants had brought with the old man’s supper. The hour was so late that Luther should have blown it out and settled down to sleep, but he had heard too much commotion and had doubtless been informed that soldiers had been in and out of the shop earlier in the day.

  “What’s going on?” he said, as soon as Reinmar appeared. “Why does no one bother to tell me what’s happening in my own house?” The fact that Luther’s supper-tray was on the table by his bed suggested that he must have received some news, but whatever the kitchen maid had told him had only increased his curiosity.

  “We’ve all been busy,” Reinmar told him. “Godrich is down at the warehouse on the quay and my father is at the Burgomaster’s house. I was in the cellars, watching soldiers and a witch hunter while they searched.”

  “What was the witch hunter searching for?” Luther wanted to know—but the guarded tone of his voice suggested that he probably knew very well.

  “Dark wine,” Reinmar answered, watching closely to see how Luther would react to the phrase. He was disappointed. The old man’s wrinkled features seemed quite impassive, and his eyes grew no narrower. His white hair was neatly tucked away within a black woollen cap, and his nightshirt had been freshly laundered that day, so his whole appearance was uncommonly neat and his manner equally crisp. His gnarled hands lay quite still upon the coverlet, the fingers relaxed.

  “They found none, of course,” Luther said.

  “Of course,” Reinmar echoed. “Nor did they expect to—unlike the man who came to the shop this afternoon. The witch hunter appears to be chasing him, although he did not tell me what the fellow is supposed to have done and the man would not tell us his own news because he thought we were being unhelpful. There is wild talk of necromancers from the Cursed Marshes and daemonologists from the Howling Hills, but the man seemed perfectly ordinary to me—except, of course, that he claimed to be your nephew.”

  Luther did not seem surprised by that either. The servants of the household were obviously better informed than they had any right to be, and the kitchen maid clearly had not hesitated to share her knowledge with the man who still desired to be thought of as her ultimate master.

  “Did you tell the witch hunter that the other man claimed to be my nephew?” Luther asked.

  “No,” said Reinmar, “but he will find out eventually. If they find him at Great-Uncle Albrecht’s house the witch hunter will come back here again, and his men might not be so careful to avoid spillage next time.”

  “Albrecht’s got more sense than to keep the boy in his house,” Luther assured him. “He’ll find some sort of hidey-hole for him, if he can’t persuade him to go away.”

  “According to my father,” Reinmar observed, “Albrecht never had a son.”

  “I never found it convenient, let alone rewarding, to tell your father everything,” Luther admitted. “He has the kind of mind which cannot tolerate overmuch confusion. You, on the other hand, are probably cursed with far too much imagination. Yes, Albrecht had a son, although he was never wed. As to whether this man is really him… that’s another question. Did you tell him where to find Albrecht?”

  “My father did. Was he wrong?”

  “No. If he is who he says he is, I suppose Albrecht might be glad to see him.”

  Reinmar took note of his grandfather’s use of “might”, but he had more urgent matters on his mind than the likely emotions of his Great-Uncle Albrecht on being confronted by his long-lost bastard son.

  “What’s dark wine, grandfather?” Reinmar asked. “Father says that we used to stock it, twenty years ago.”

  “So we did,” Luther admitted. “A very tidy profit we made from it, too. A delightful vintage, taken in moderation—although there were few men hereabouts with pockets deep enough to take it in anything but extreme moderation. In times long gone it had generated a healthy westward flow of Marienburger gold, but that flow stuttered in the confusion that followed the secession and never fully recovered. My father never tired of telling me how that storm in a soup ladle had ruined everything. There was still a demand, of course, but the chain of supply was disrupted.

  “The dark wine became a pawn in a political game, charged with being an agent of evil on account of the dreams it nurtured. According to the priests of law it stimulated an appetite for unnatural luxury that ought to be stamped out. Can you believe that? All wine intoxicates, and all liquor stimulates an appetite for more—and why should anyone object? Dreams enrich life, no matter what hard-faced men like your father may think, and while there never was a man who did not take delight in luxury how can anyone possibly charge luxury with being unnatural? Believe me, Reinmar, there is no folly like the folly of excessive reason!”

  Luther’s voice had grown faint with effort, and his head sank back upon the pillow, but Reinmar was determined to hear more while he had the chance. He poured water from the pitcher beside the bed into his grandfather’s cup, and put it to the old man’s cracked lips.

  “Thank you,” Luther said. “What a curse age is! Had I but known, I’d have…”

  He broke off guiltily, as if he had almost said something forbidden.

  Reinmar did not want to press him too hard, while there was a tale he was prepared to tell. It was difficult to be patient, but he knew that he had to get the old man talking again, and hope that the flow of his conversation would regain its impetus. So he put the cup to the old man’s mouth again, and lied.

  “It’s all right, grandfather,” he said. “There’s all the time in the world.”

  Chapter Four

  “At any rate,” Luther continued, when he could, “attempts were made downriver to stamp out the trade in dark wine, and we found it politic to get out of it. There was still demand in Marienburg, and we might have taken a good profit from the service of that demand, always provided that we exercised discretion, but your father never had any sense of adventure. If I , hadn’t fallen ill, I’d have taken the chance, but your father saw things differently. He’d married, and he intended to start a family. He knew that I took a little of the wine myself occasionally, but that only made him more determined. Now, I suppose, he’ll be more convinced than before that he was right.”

  “He told the witch hunter that there was nowhere within ten leagues where the wine could be obtained,” Reinmar observed. “Was he right?”

  “How should I know, stuck fast to my bed as I am? There was none for me, at any rate, and I doubt that Albrecht’s fared much better for all the sharpness of his thirst. I never knew where the vintage was trampled and stored—and it was usually bottled before it was delivered into my hands—but the fact that its producers used our family as agents suggests that Eilhart lay on the most convenient route to the Reik. If the dark wine and its kin no longer use the Schilder as a conduit, they must use another route, but how close it lies I cannot say. If certain rumours were true which said that the wines came from Bretonnia by means of a secret pass through the mountains, its makers may have had to go twenty or thirty leagues east or west in search of another such pass, but I never trusted that kind of talk. I always suspected that the source lay closer to home—in which case the present distribution route probably passes within a day’s walk of the town.”

  “As close as Great-Uncle Albrecht’s house, perhaps?” Reinmar suggested.

  That obtained a reaction from the old man, whose right hand twitched before forming a fist.

  “Not as close as that, I think,” Luther said, in a low voice. “Albrecht was never cut out for the wine trade, and when I saw him last he certainly didn’t have the look of a regular drinker.”

  “Why wasn’t he cut out for the trade?” Reinmar wanted to know. H
e had grave misgivings about his own suitability for a life in any sort of trade. “And what look does a regular drinker of the dark wine have?”

  Luther chose to answer the first question and ignore the second. “Albrecht had no talent for moderation,” he said dourly. “The wine business may not require the iron discipline your father brings to it, but it does demand moderation.”

  “Is that why you quarrelled—because his drinking was eating into the profits?”

  “Is that what your father told you?” the old man parried. The conversation had obviously strayed too far into matters of which Luther was supposedly forbidden—presumably by Gottfried—to speak.

  “Father never tells me anything that is not strictly related to the conduct of the business,” Reinmar answered, with more than a trace of bitterness. “It was a guess.”

  “Not such a bad guess,” Luther admitted. “It was far more complicated, of course, but that was part of it. Albrecht always had a keen thirst, for wisdom as well as wine. He had ambitions to be a scholar, and more. Eilhart was never enough for him. He wanted to be a city gentleman, but his passion for prosperity far outstripped the patience that might have delivered it.”

  “Is it such a terrible thing to want something more than Eilhart has to offer?” Reinmar asked, hesitantly.

  “Perhaps not,” Luther replied, guardedly. “But there are no reliable short cuts to prosperity, any more than there are reliable short cuts to wisdom.”

  “And that, no doubt, is why the dutiful burgers and housewives of Eilhart are so smug in their ignorance, their small-mindedness and the extreme urgency of their desire to obtain full measure from the local tradesmen,” Reinmar said.

  Luther cackled. Reinmar could remember a day when the old man’s laugh had been far more robust, rumbling up from the belly instead of rattling in the throat, but time had taken its steady toll of the slowly-withering flesh. The family physician had despaired of finding any treatment that would even slow the progress of the sickness that was gradually but relentlessly consuming him.