The progress of the Erlkönig was steady, but not fast. In the evening, before it was dark, we tied up on a long island where another barge was already moored. This was one of a number of staging posts that apparently ran the five-hundred-mile length of the river. Moritz explained to me that they were set a distance apart, which was calculated as a minimum day’s haul upriver. Going down with the current, one usually covered two stages easily in a day, but to achieve a third meant risking darkness falling before one got there. The barges did not travel by night.
We had seen no sign of Tripods during our journey from the White Mountains, through the valleys, to the river. During this day on deck, I saw two. Both were distant, striding along the western skyline, three or four miles away at least. But the sight of them gave me a shiver of fear, which took some subduing. For quite long periods it was possible to forget the exact nature of the mission on which we had embarked. Being reminded of it was a nasty jolt.
I tried to console myself with the thought that there had been no hitches so far, that everything was going well. It did not help much, but by the following evening even that small consolation had gone.
• • •
The Erlkönig stopped at the halfway stage. This was in a small town, a trading post. Moritz explained that Ulf had some business to conduct there. It would only take him an hour or so, but he had decided, since we were in advance of schedule, to stay over until the following morning. The afternoon lengthened, though, and there was no sign of Ulf returning. Moritz became more and more visibly nervous.
In the end he voiced his apprehensions. Ulf, it seemed, was a man who drank heavily on occasion. Moritz had thought he would not do so on this trip, in view of everything that hung on it, but if the business on which he was engaged had gone wrong and he had become irritated by that, he might have stopped at a tavern, intending to have a drink to soothe his temper, and one thing might have led to another . . . In a bad bout he might be away from the barge several days.
This was a discouraging thought. The sun dropped down in the west, and there was no Ulf. Moritz began to talk of leaving us on the barge and going in search of him.
The difficulty was that the Erlkönig, and Ulf and Moritz, were well known in this town. Already a couple of men had stopped by, to offer greetings, and chat for a while. If Moritz left, Beanpole would have to handle them (it was his day on deck), and Moritz was unhappy about that. Suspicions might be aroused. They were likely to quiz him in his role as a new apprentice—people on the river were curious about strangers, knowing each other so well—and he might be led into saying something which they would recognize as false.
It was Beanpole who suggested another way. We boys could go and look for Ulf. Choosing moments when no eye was watching, we could slip away in turn, and hunt around the taverns till we found him; then either persuade him to return or, at least, tell Moritz where he was. If we were questioned, we could pass as travelers from far parts: after all, the town was a trading post. It was not the same as having to answer questions about what we were doing on board the Erlkönig.
Moritz was dubious, but admitted there was some point in this. Gradually he allowed himself to be persuaded. It was out of the question for all three of us to go searching for Ulf, but one might—Beanpole, since it had been his idea. So Beanpole went, and I at once started working on Moritz to let me go also.
I was helped by the fact that my importunity was matched, on Fritz’s part, by indifference. He made no comment and clearly was prepared to wait until things sorted themselves out without assistance from him. So, having allowed one to go, there was only one other for Moritz to consider. I wore him down, as I had known I would; he was more amiable than Ulf, much more amiable, but also less sure of himself. He insisted that I should be back within the hour, whether or not I found Ulf, and I agreed to that. I was tingling with the excitement of exploring a strange town, in a strange country. I checked that no one was watching the barge, then jumped quickly onto the quay and made my way along the waterfront.
The town was a bigger place than I had thought, looking at it from the deck of the barge. Fronting the river there was a row of warehouses and granaries, many of them with three floors above the ground. The buildings were partly of stone but principally of wood, which was carved and painted with figures of men and animals. There were a couple of taverns in this stretch, and I looked in briefly though Beanpole, I guessed, would have covered these before me. One of them was empty, except for two old men, sitting with large mugs of beer (they were called steins, I knew) and smoking pipes. The other had perhaps a dozen men in it, but I could tell in a quick survey that none of them was Ulf.
I came to a road, running at right angles to the river, and followed it. There were shops here, and a fair amount of horse traffic, with pony traps and larger carriages and men on horseback. There were, I thought, a lot of people about. I understood why on coming to the first intersection. The crossing road, in either direction, was blocked by stalls, selling food and cloth and all kinds of goods. It was market day.
It was exhilarating, after the long winter of exercise and study, in the darkness of the Tunnel or on the bareness of the mountainside, to be once more among people going about their daily lives. And particularly exhilarating for me, who before fleeing to the White Mountains had known only the quietness of a country village. A few times I had been taken to Winchester for the market there, and had marveled at it. This town seemed to be as big as Winchester—perhaps even bigger.
I made my way past the stalls. The first was piled high with vegetables—carrots and little potatoes, fat green-and-white spears of asparagus, peas and huge cabbages, both green and red. At the next there was meat—not simple cuts such as the butcher brought to my village in England; but joints and chops and rolls delicately decorated with dabs of white lard. I wandered along, gazing and sniffing. A stall was completely given over to cheeses, of a score of different colors, shapes, and sizes. I had not realized there could be so many. And there was a fish stall, with dried and smoked fish hanging from hooks and fish fresh caught from the river laid out along a stone slab, their scales still wet. Now, with the dusk gathering, some of the stalls were preparing to close down but most were busy yet, and the stream of people, threading their way between and past them was thick enough.
Between two stalls, one selling leather and the other bolts of cloth, I saw the opening to a tavern, and guiltily remembered what I was supposed to be doing. I went inside, and looked about me. It was darker than the taverns on the waterfront, full of tobacco smoke and crowded with dim figures, some sitting at tables and others standing by the bar counter. As I went up to look more closely, I was addressed from the other side of the bar. The speaker was a very big, very fat man, wearing a leather jacket with sleeves of green cloth. In a rough voice, with an accent that I could barely understand, he said, “What is it, then, lad?”
Moritz had given me some coins of the money used in these parts. I did what seemed the safest thing, and ordered a Dunkles, which I knew to be the name of the dark ale that was commonly drunk. The stein was larger than I had expected. He brought it to me, with ale foaming over the side, and I gave him a coin. I drank, and had to wipe foam from my lips. It had a bittersweet taste, which was not unpleasant. I looked around for Ulf, peering into the many dark recesses, whose paneled walls carried the mounted heads of deer and wild boar. I thought for a moment I saw him, but the man moved into the light of an oil lamp, and was a stranger.
I felt nervous. Having a Cap I was, of course, counted as a man now, so there was no reason why I should not be here. But I lacked the assurance of someone who had been truly Capped and was aware, of course, of my difference from all these others. Having established that Ulf was not one of the figures sprawling at the tables, I was eager to be away. As inconspicuously as possible, I put the stein down and began to move toward the street. Before I had gone a couple of paces, the man in the leather jacket roared at me, and I turned back.
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p; “Here!” He pushed over some smaller coins. “You’re forgetting your change.”
I thanked him, and once more prepared to go. By this time, though, he had seen the stein, and that it was two-thirds full.
“You’ve not drunk your ale, either. Are you saying it’s a poor brew?”
I hastily said no, that it was just that I was not feeling well. To my dismay, I realized that others were taking an interest in me. The man behind the bar seemed partly mollified, but said, “You’re not a Württemberger, by the way you talk. Where are you from, then?”
This was a challenge for which I had been prepared. We were to hail from outlying places, in my case a land to the south called Tirol. I told him this.
As far as allaying suspicion was concerned, it worked.
From another point of view, though, it was an unfortunate choice. I learned later that there was strong feeling in the town against the Tirol. The previous year at the Games a local champion had been defeated by a Tiroler and, it was claimed, through trickery. One of the others standing by now asked if I were going to the Games, and I incautiously said yes. What followed was a stream of insults. Tirolers were cheats and braggarts, and they spurned good Württemberg ale. They ought to be run out of town, dipped in the river to clean them up a bit . . .
The thing to do was to get out, and fast. I stomached the insults and turned to go. Once outside I could lose myself in the crowd. I was thinking of that and did not look closely enough in front of me. A leg was stretched out from one of the tables and, to the accompaniment of a roar of laughter, I went sprawling in the sawdust that covered the floor.
Even that I was prepared to endure, though I had banged one knee painfully as I landed. I began to get to my feet. As I did so, fingers gripped the hair that grew up through my Cap, and shook my head violently to and fro, and thrust me down once more to the ground.
I should have been thankful that this assault had not dislodged the false Cap and exposed me. I should also have been concentrating on what really mattered—getting away from here and safely and unnoticed back to the barge. But I am afraid that I could think of nothing but the pain and humiliation. I got up again, saw a face grinning behind me, and swung at him in fury.
He was probably a year or so older than I was, and bigger and heavier. He fended me off contemptuously. My mind did not cool down enough for me to realize how stupidly I was behaving, but enough for the skills I had acquired during my long training to take over. I feinted toward him and, as he swung a still casual arm in my direction, slipped inside and belted him hard over the heart. Now it was his turn to go sprawling, and there was a roar from the men crowding around us. He got up slowly, his face angry. The others moved back, forming a ring, clearing the tables to do so. I realized I had to go through with it. I was not afraid of that, but I could appreciate my own folly. I had been warned about my rashness by Julius and now, within a week of starting out on an enterprise of such desperate importance, it had already betrayed me.
He rushed at me, and I had to concern myself again with what was present and immediate. I sidestepped and hit him as he went past. Although he was bigger than I was, he was lacking in any kind of skill. I could have danced around him for as long as I liked, cutting him to pieces. But that would not do at all. What was needed was one disabling blow. From every point of view, the sooner this was over the better.
So the next time he attacked I rode his punch with my left shoulder, sank my right fist into the vulnerable area just under his ribs and, stepping back, caught him with as powerful a left hook as I could manage as, gulping air, his head involuntarily came forward. I got a lot of strength into it. He went backward even faster and hit the floor. The watching men were silent. I looked at my fallen opponent and, seeing that he showed no signs of getting up, moved in the direction of the door, expecting that the ring would open to let me through.
But that did not happen. They stared at me sullenly without budging. One of them knelt beside the prone figure.
He said, “He hit his head. He may be hurt badly.”
Someone else said, “You ought to get the police.”
• • •
A few hours later I stared up at the stars, bright in a clear black sky. I was cold and hungry, miserable and self-disgusted. I was a prisoner in the Pit.
I had met very rough justice at the hands of the magistrate who had examined me. The fellow I had knocked out was a nephew of his, a son of a leading merchant in the town. The evidence was that I had provoked him in the tavern by saying things derogatory of the Württembergers, and that I had then hit him when he was not looking. It bore no resemblance at all to what had happened, but there were a number of witnesses who agreed on the story. My opponent was not one of these: he had suffered concussion when his head hit the floor and he was in no state to say anything to anybody. I was warned that if he failed to recover I would assuredly be hanged. Meanwhile I was to be consigned to the Pit, during the magistrate’s pleasure.
This was their preferred way of dealing with malefactors. The Pit was round, some fifteen feet across and about as many feet deep. The floor was of rough flagstones, and the walls were also lined with stones. They were smooth enough to frustrate attempts at climbing up, and there were iron spikes near the top, projecting inward, which further discouraged thoughts of escape. I had been dropped over these like a sack of potatoes, and left. I had been given no food, and had nothing to cover me in a night which looked as though it were going to be cold. I had banged my elbow and grazed my arm in the fall.
But the real fun, as I had been told with satisfaction by some of my captors, would take place the following day. The Pit was designed partly for punishment, partly for the amusement of the local people. It was their custom to stand at the top and pelt the unfortunate prisoner with whatever came to hand or mind. Filth of all kinds—rotting vegetables, slops, that sort of thing—were what they chiefly preferred, but if they were really annoyed they might use stones, billets of wood, broken bottles. In the past prisoners had been severely injured, some even killed. My captors appeared to get a lot of pleasure out of the prospect, and out of telling me about it.
I supposed it was something that the skies had cleared. There was no protection here from the elements. There was, by the wall, a trough with water in it, but although I was thirsty I was not yet thirsty enough to drink from it; there had been enough light, when I was first thrown down, to see that it was covered by a greenish scum. No food was provided to those in the Pit. When they got sufficiently hungry they would eat the rotting refuse, bones and stale bread that were hurled at them. That, too, was supposed to be amusing.
What a fool I had been. I shivered, and cursed my idiocy, and shivered again.
Gradually the night wore through. A couple of times I lay down, curled myself up, and tried to sleep. But it was growing colder, and I had to get up again and walk about to restore my circulation. I longed for the day and dreaded it at the same time. I wondered what had happened to the others—whether Ulf had got back yet. I knew there was no hope of him intervening on my behalf. He was quite well-known in this town, but he dared not take the risk of associating with me. Tomorrow they would go on downriver, leaving me here: there was nothing else they could do.
The wide circle of sky above me brightened—I could tell which side faced east by the softer light there. For a change, I sat with my back to the stone wall. Tiredness, despite the cold, crept over me. My head nodded down to my chest. Then a sound overhead jerked me into wakefulness. There was a face there, peering down. It was a small silhouette against the paling dawn. An early riser, I thought drearily, impatient to get at the victim. It would not be long before the throwing started.
Then a voice, quietly calling down.
“Will—are you all right?”
Beanpole’s voice.
He had brought a length of rope from the barge. He stretched down and tied it to one of the iron spikes, then tossed the other end to me. I grabbed it, and hauled myself up.
The spikes took some negotiating, but Beanpole was able to get a hand over them to help me. In a matter of seconds I was heaving myself up and being hauled over the edge of the Pit.
We wasted no time in discussing our situation. The Pit was on the outskirts of the town, which, sleeping still but outlined now in the clear light of dawn, stood between us and the place where the Erlkönig was moored. I had only a hazy recollection of being brought here the previous evening, but Beanpole ran confidently and I followed him. It took us perhaps ten minutes to come within sight of the river, and we had seen only one man, in the distance, who shouted something but did not attempt to follow our fleeing figures. Beanpole, I realized, had timed things perfectly. We passed the street where the market had been. In another fifty yards we should be on the quay.
We reached it, and turned left. About as far again along, just past the tavern, next to the barge called Siegfried. I stared, and stopped, and Beanpole did the same. The Siegfried was there, all right, but next to her the berth was empty.
Beanpole, after a moment, plucked my sleeve. I looked where he indicated, in the opposite direction—to the north. The Erlkönig was out in midstream, beating downriver, a quarter of a mile off, a toy boat rapidly diminishing with distance.
Three
A Raft on the River
Our first concern was to get away before my escape from the Pit became known. We went north along the waterfront, through a few mean streets with ramshackle buildings quite unlike the painted and carved and well-cared-for houses in the center of the town, and found a road—little better than a track—which followed the general line of the river. The sun rose on our right, behind the wooded hills. There was cloud there, too, forming with ominous speed. In half an hour it had darkened the sky and blanked out the sun; in three quarters, a gray belt of rain was sweeping down the slope toward us. Five minutes later, already soaking wet, we found some sort of shelter in a ruined building lying back from the road. We had time then to think over what had happened, and what we should do about it.
The City of Gold and Lead (The Tripods) Page 3