Reinmar had always been instructed by his father to make it a point of principle to treat gypsies no less politely than anyone else, because the seasonal labour provided by the nomads was vital to the production of good vintages. This was partly because time was so much of the essence in harvesting and processing the grapes and partly because many gypsies were not only skilled men and women but people with an instinctive feel for the art of wine-making. Without the contribution of the gypsies, Gottfried had often told Reinmar, the products they sold would be poorer, and the greatest loss would be suffered by the finest vintages.
For his own part, Reinmar had always been fascinated by the gypsies who came to the market in Eilhart, especially by those who attempted to earn coin by various kinds of exotic performance: fortune-telling, playing musical instruments of their own design and manufacture, and dancing. He had always felt that there was a little magic in gypsy music, which was as intoxicating in its own way as good wine.
With all this in mind, Reinmar made a particular effort to be courteous and friendly towards the gypsies the cart encountered on the road, and was slightly hurt by the fact that their responses were often curt and suspicious. At first he was inclined to attribute this entirely to the legacy of insults hurled at them by other prosperous folk, but he realised eventually that Matthias Vaedecker’s presence was an additional factor. Without his colours the sergeant was supposedly in civilian dress, but that only made his possession of a crossbow more remarkable, and his attitude to the gypsies was not ameliorated by the conditions that modified the manners of his companions.
Eventually, Reinmar took Vaedecker to task for this while the cart was making its way through a particularly gloomy wood.
“You should not stare at them with such frank hostility,” he said. “They are people like you or me, who will respond to a smile and a kind word as well as anyone. How would you feel if you were greeted everywhere with stony looks and signs supposedly designed to ward off the evil eye?”
“The nomad tribes are breeding-grounds for evil,” Vaedecker assured him. “I do not say that they are all magicians, but I do say that any who are enthusiastic to sell their souls can readily find recipes for self-destruction and tutors in witchcraft. Their culture is corrupt—and if your father is to be believed, they are the ones who know where the dark wine is made.”
“If that were the case,” Reinmar informed him, unable to hide his irritation, “a wise spy would make every effort to be friendly, helpful and cheerful.”
Somewhat to his surprise, Vaedecker seemed to take this observation seriously. “You are right, of course,” the sergeant said, with a sigh. “This is not the kind of work for which I was trained. I’m a fighting-man, not a secret agent. I’m used to meeting the enemy head-on. I’m a Reiklander through and through, but once a man has done a long tour in the north, where life is hard for everyone and evil clearly manifest, the south comes to seem like a land becalmed in a dream.”
“What do you mean?” Reinmar asked him, taken aback by the sudden rush of confidentiality.
“The people who live ordered and comfortable lives in towns like Eilhart assume that theirs is the way human life should be lived,” Vaedecker observed. “They think that if only people everywhere were like them—hard-working, businesslike and scrupulous—the whole world would be like Eilhart, as prosperous and as happy as any community has any right to be. It isn’t so. There are places in the world—places not merely on the borders of the Empire but actually within its bounds—where the wages of hard work and a businesslike attitude is an early and ignominious death, which end can only be postponed by fighting the enemies of order with every last fibre of strength and ounce of courage a man possesses.”
“So all travellers’ tales say,” Reinmar remarked.
Vaedecker did not take offence at his scepticism. “You hear tales of monsters in the hills, Master Wieland, and your automatic reaction is to say, laughing, that there are always tales of monsters in the hills. Well, Reinmar, I have fought whole armies of monsters, with darts and arrows, swords and clubs—and sometimes, in the end, with nothing but my bare and bloody hands. Monsters have come so close to tearing out my throat that I can never laugh when I hear the word. I have seen them so awfully arrayed in their hundreds before the pikes of my fellows and the lances of the guard that it sickens and disheartens me to hear men like yourself casually assuming that only fools could believe such things dangerous. I am a traveller of sorts, but I can assure you that the tales I have to tell are true, and even nastier than they sound. The world is not like Eilhart, my friend—and if the state of affairs that pertains elsewhere in the world of men ever spreads to Eilhart, you might find yourself awakening from that lovely dream in which you have lived your entire life, into nightmarish reality.”
Had these words been spoken while the cart was bathed in warm sunshine, or while the four men with it had been sat around a blazing fire in a grower’s well-stocked hearth, they might not have seemed so threatening. In fact, the sky that was all-but-eclipsed by the branches of the looming conifers was blue only in the north. The mountaintops to the south were immersed in a thick blanket of grey cloud, whose trailing edges extended over them like an ominous awning.
In such circumstances, Reinmar could hardly suppress a shudder as the sergeant’s words cut through him and penetrated his heart. He could find no adequate reply.
“So you will understand,” Vaedecker added, “that I cannot look upon the gypsy folk with the same generous and trusting eye as you. I do not doubt that you are right, and that many of them are good and honest souls who mean us no harm—but the knowledge that even one in a hundred is not is quite enough to make a man like me uneasy. Still, I will follow your advice and try to suppress my feelings, not because it is polite but because it is politic. I am, as you have kindly reminded me, a spy—and I must do my very best to watch the folk we encounter as closely as I am watching you.”
The last sentence, with its veiled accusation, helped Reinmar overcome his embarrassment. He saw Godrich’s head turned, and took note of the warning in the steward’s eyes, but he ignored the silent advice.
“It must be an indignity for a fighting man like yourself to be reduced to spying,” Reinmar observed. “Indeed, it must be a sickening come-down for a bold hero used to fighting legions of monsters to be chasing liquor-smugglers through the happiest lands in the realm.”
“Must it?” Vaedecker countered. “I have stood face-to-face with beastmen and ogres and wished that I might be anywhere else in the world, about any other kind of work. Duty does not always compel us to spectacular exploits. I have always used my strength in the service of virtue, however menial my task -although I cannot expect that to impress men whose notion of hard labour is entirely determined by their experience of lifting and moving casks of wine.”
Even Sigurd frowned at that, but Sigurd was not the kind of man to react to slights. If he did not intend to move with crushing force he did not move at all.
“Peace, friends,” Godrich said, turning in his seat. “The cart is not half full and we have a long way yet to go. The time will pass more easily if we can keep from quarrelling. We are not adversaries. In this matter of the dark wine we are all on the same side.”
Are we? Reinmar thought, but he held his tongue. He forced himself to nod, and to soften his expression. It was not an apology, but it was a gesture, and Matthias Vaedecker—who probably felt that he had spoken far too freely—was prepared to do more than match it.
“Aye,” he said. “Your man is right. I’m not used to being set apart from my own kind like this, and I have become fretful. I meant no offence.”
“Nor I,” Reinmar felt bound to add. “I have been here before, but always with my father to guide me. I suppose I too am a little uneasy—and I do not like to see those clouds gathering about the mountain-peaks. It is thunderheads of that kind which spit out the storms that cause so much consternation hereabouts.”
“We’ll be fine
till nightfall,” Godrich assured him, quick to take advantage of the change of subject. “There’s a village ahead with an inn and a blacksmith to see to the horses, so we’ll be warm no matter what. With luck, the sky will be clearer in the morning.”
And without it, Reinmar thought, some of us may be looking for someone to blame for any hail that falls upon our luckless heads.
Chapter Eight
As ill luck would have it, things began to go wrong long before nightfall. The village that Godrich had welcomed as a potential haven did indeed have an inn and a forge, and even a market square of sorts between the inn yard and the town pump. When the cart pulled into that square, however, it seemed to be anything but an outpost of Reikish civilisation.
The conflict that was in full swing on the cobbles probably seemed to be a mere casual brawl to the battle-hardened sergeant, but it seemed bloody and bitter enough to Reinmar. No weapon was being wielded more deadly than a pitchfork, but he knew that cudgels could do an enormous amount of damage if plied with sufficient vigour, and there was no doubting the enthusiasm of the foresters and farm-hands who were laying about them with a fine fury.
The object of the local men’s ire was a party of gypsies, no more than a dozen strong—including three women and two small children—whose even greater ardour was not nearly enough to make up for the deficit in their numbers. The fight had presumably begun in the middle of the square, but the gypsies had already been forced back against the wall of the inn. They had so little room for further manoeuvre that their attempts to stay together in a square formation, in which they could make some attempt to guard one another’s backs, were futile. They were being forced into a thin line, with no space at all for retreat. Two had already gone down, one of them a boy no more than twelve years old. Now that their adversaries had them trapped it seemed that they would all go down one by one, each to be beaten black and blue by staves, boots and rake-handles.
Reinmar did not suppose that the gypsies’ attackers intended to murder them, but it required no more than a glance to see that they were highly unlikely to be particular in judging the exact extent of the punishment they were handing out, even to the women and children.
Rising impulsively to his feet, Reinmar filled his lungs, ready to shout an order to desist at the top of his voice, but Godrich was too quick for him. Keenly aware of his own duty, the steward grabbed his master’s son hard and jammed a gauntleted hand over the lower part of his face, with the fingers splayed to choke off his shout. Reinmar spluttered, but could not deliver his challenge. Furiously, he reached up with his own hands to drag the cloying glove away from his mouth, but the steward was strong as well as determined. Godrich was, however, sufficiently sensitive to the diplomatic necessities of the situation to round on Sergeant Vaedecker.
“Soldier!” he said. “You have much to say of duty, and of the necessity of keeping order. Exercise your powers of discipline!”
Vaedecker was obviously reluctant, but his expression showed clearly enough that the appeal to his sense of duty was not misplaced. While he hesitated, though, Sigurd acted.
The giant did not jump down from the cart immediately, perhaps judging that the extra elevation would make his immense height seem positively supernatural at first glance. To emphasise the point even further he raised his massive arms above his head, holding his six-foot staff horizontally, before howling: “Stop! In the name of the law!”
He had, of course, no real authority to speak for the law, but the village was by no means large enough to possess a constable, so there was hardly likely to be anyone in the crowd in a position to dispute his entitlement.
The loudness of Sigurd’s cry was remarkable, but it was not nearly as remarkable as the echoes which fired back and forth from the walls of the inn and its stables, from the forge and from the opposite barn—and seemingly, though it must have been an illusion, from the peaks of the Grey Mountains.
The immediate effect of the command was as impressive as Reinmar could possibly have wished. The entire fracas was abruptly stilled, as every single combatant paused and looked around to see who had spoken.
Had they only seen four men in a half-laden cart drawn by two exhausted horses the foresters and farm-labourers might have returned to their work without delay, but Sigurd did not look like any mere man. Striking a pose in the blue twilight, with his arms upraised to the lowering sky, he must have seemed to anyone with imagination like Sigmar Heldenhammer reincarnate.
“Drop your weapons!” Sigurd shouted, following through his advantage.
Half a dozen staves and axe-handles clattered to the ground, all of them dropped by members of the attacking force. The gypsies, by and large, were not quite so startled and not quite so impressed—and that gave them a fraction of a second to reconsider their options.
“Run!” shouted one of their number—a man whose booming voice echoed almost as impressively as Sigurd’s.
It was a wise decision. Any violent advantage the gypsies might have taken of the disconcertion of their attackers would have been very brief, and would have called forth a much stronger reaction. Flight, on the other hand, prompted no reflexive response.
Had the gypsies had more room they might have managed to contrive a safe retreat, even pausing to pick up their fallen. Even as it was, the man who had shouted the order contrived to snatch up the fallen child and managed to jostle his way clear, while five or six of his companions also managed to slip sideways from the battle-line before anyone thought to wonder whether it was worth trying to stop them. Unfortunately, the four gypsies who were furthest away from the edges of the inn-wall had no obvious escape-route available. Because they were in the centre, their adversaries were gathered more thickly in front of them, and whichever way they turned their path was blocked by bodies.
For five or six seconds after Sigurd first cried out no one was actually attempting to knock the remaining gypsies down, but that interval was not long enough for them to find a route out of harm’s way—and when the mob realised that the objects of their hatred were in the process of escaping, they still had more than enough anger in reserve to make them stubborn.
Nobody shouted “Stop them!” because nobody had to; the curious collective consciousness that mobs sometimes acquire restored a similar sense of purpose to each and every one of them. Sticks, fists and boots were raised again, but this time the fight separated out into three. One company of gypsies ran to the right, and was pursued; another went to the left, and was also chased. The third, unable to run, lashed out with whatever meagre force its members could contrive.
Given the uneven distribution of the attacking force, it was inevitable that the three-way split should be far from equal. The four gypsies who fled to the right were chased by five foresters, the three who fled to the left—one of them carrying the child—were pursued by four farm-hands. The four who were left to make their stand found themselves outnumbered almost four-to-one by various abundantly-muscled opponents. That would have been a very brief fight indeed if Sigurd and Matthias Vaedecker had not decided that the time had come to assert their authority in person.
Sigurd shouted again, repeating his instruction to let all weapons drop, but he had leapt to the ground by now and the second shout had amply demonstrated that the multiplication of his voice was not, in fact, supernatural. Vaedecker shouted too, invoking the names of Sigmar, Magnus, the Emperor and the Reiksguard, but any effect those august names might have had was ruined by the cacophonous echoes, which swallowed up the sense of what he said.
Neither Sigurd nor Vaedecker made the slightest attempt to break heads or knock men down. They were entirely content to haul their opponents back and shove them aside—but anyone hauled back and shoved aside by the giant stayed where he was put, and Vaedecker knew how to handle men firmly without doing them any permanent damage. It took them less than three minutes to scatter the remnant of the mob like ears of corn under the thresher—but by the time they had fought their way through to the
people whose backs were to the wall not one of the four was still standing. Only two were able to raise themselves painfully to their feet as the square became suddenly quiet again.
Sigurd beckoned to Godrich, who finally consented to let go of Reinmar’s mouth.
“Sorry, sir,” the steward murmured. “Remember, I beg you, that we do business here, and must be careful.” Having said this, he went straight away to one of the fallen bodies—a woman’s—whose condition was obviously causing Sigurd some concern. Vaedecker was checking the injuries of the other fallen man, so Reinmar went to one of those who had regained his feet.
“Thank you, sir,” the gypsy said, using the fingers of his right hand to test the flesh of his upper left arm for evidence of a break. “They’d have killed us for sure were it not for your arrival. You’re Gottfried the Merchant’s son, are you not? My name is Rollo—your father would know my face.”
“What was the fight about?” Reinmar asked him.
“What is it ever about? Work and witchcraft. We brought in the vintage on the estate south of the village, and brought it in better than it deserved, while most of the local farms had a bad year. The chickens won’t lay and the hunters’ snares have been empty for weeks. All summer they’ve been whispering that we bought our luck at the expense of theirs—that we’re in league with the monsters in the woods that have ruined the hunting. We were paid off yesterday, and thought to leave a little coin behind in their inn, as a token of our good intent—stupid, to think that such as they could understand a generous gesture.” While he was speaking the man moved to join his companion and Godrich, who were kneeling anxiously over the unconscious woman. Sigurd stood aside to give them room, and Reinmar thought it best to take a pace back—a pace which brought him into collision with Matthias Vaedecker.
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