A terrified serving wench and boy looked into the hall, then fled as soon as they saw the knights. Paszko stood up, swore crudely, pulled down from the wall a large bardiche with a blackened blade and a shaft full of woodworm holes. For a while, he couldn’t make up his mind. Although he was seething with evil desire to wreak revenge on Biberstein’s beastly daughter, good sense told him he ought to help the comitiva.
Biberstein’s daughter won’t escape revenge, he thought, feeling his balls already beginning to swell, since there’s no way out of the tower. For the time being, I’ll only punish her with haughty contempt. First, let the others pay.
“Just you fucking wait!” he yelled, hobbling towards the courtyard and the sounds of battle. “I’m coming for you!”
The door to the tower trembled from heavy blows. Scharley cursed.
“Hurry,” he yelled. “Samson!”
Samson dragged two saddled horses from the stable. He growled menacingly at a servant who had jumped down from the hayloft. The servant fled, showing a clean pair of heels.
“This door won’t hold for long,” said Scharley, dashing down the stone steps and wresting the reins from him. “The gate, quickly!”
Samson saw another plank burst and splinter in the door they had locked, the only thing separating them from Buko and his comrades. They heard the clank of iron against stone and metal—it was obvious that the enraged Raubritters were trying to hack off the hinges. There was no time to lose. Samson looked around. The gate was held fast by a beam, additionally reinforced by a heavy padlock. Three bounds took the giant to a woodpile, where he wrenched a large axe from a tree stump, and he was back at the gate in another three bounds. He grunted, raised the axe and with extraordinary strength brought the butt down on the padlock.
“Harder!” yelled Scharley, glancing at the now-splintering door. “Hit it harder!”
Samson hit it harder, making the entire gate and the watchtower above it shudder. The padlock, probably Nuremberg work, didn’t yield, but the spikes supporting the beam came half out of the wall.
“Once again! Whack it!”
The Nuremberg padlock gave way under the next blow, the spikes were pulled out and the beam fell with a thud.
“Rub it under your arms,” said Reynevan, pulling his shirt down from his shoulders, then scooping up some ointment from the clay pot and demonstrating how to apply it. “And on the back of your neck, like this. More, more… Rub it in well… Quickly, Nicolette. We don’t have much time.”
The girl looked at him for a moment, disbelief fighting with admiration in her eyes. She didn’t say a word, but reached for the ointment. Reynevan dragged the oaken bench into the centre of the room. He opened the window wide and a cold wind swept into the sorcerer’s workshop. Nicolette shuddered.
“Don’t go near the window,” he cautioned her. “Better… not to look down.”
“Aucassin.” She stared at him intently. “I understand we’re fighting for our lives, but are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Sit astride the bench, please. There’s really no time to lose. Sit behind me.”
“I’d prefer to sit in front. Clasp me around the waist, tightly. Tighter…”
She was hot. She smelled of sweet flag and mint, which even the intense smell of Huon’s mescolanza couldn’t mask.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready. You won’t let go of me? You won’t let me fall?”
“I’d sooner die.”
“Don’t die.” She sighed, turning her head back and briefly brushing her lips against Reynevan’s. “Don’t die, please. Live. Cast the spell.”
Weh, weh, Windchen
Zum Fenster hinaus
In omnem ventum!
Hop out of the window
It won’t touch a thing
The bench leaped up and shifted under them like a skittish horse. In spite of all her resolution, Nicolette was unable to suppress a cry of terror. Neither, indeed, was Reynevan. The bench rose two yards in the air and spun around like a furious spinning top. Huon’s workshop blurred before their eyes. Nicolette pressed her fingers over Reynevan’s arms entwined around her and squealed, more from eagerness than anxiety, he could have sworn.
Meanwhile, the bench shot straight through the window, into the cold, dark night. And immediately dived steeply down.
“Hold on!” yelled Reynevan. The rush of air pushed his words back into his throat. “Hoooold oooon!”
“You hold on! Oh Jeeesuuus!”
“Aaaaaagh-aaaaaagh!”
Just as the Nuremberg padlock gave way and the beam thudded down, the door to the tower flew open and the Raubritters poured out onto the stone staircase. They were all armed and enraged and so blinded by bloodlust that Buko of Krossig, who was first across the threshold, stumbled on the steep steps and fell straight into a pile of muck. The others leaped on Samson and Scharley. Samson roared like a buffalo, fending the assailants off with wild swings of the axe. Scharley, also roaring, fought them off using a halberd he had found by the gate. But the advantage—and the combat skills—were with the Raubritters. Retreating before the venomous thrusts and treacherous slashes of swords, Samson and Scharley fell back.
Until they felt the hard resistance of a wall at their backs.
And then Reynevan flew past overhead.
Seeing the courtyard growing bigger and bigger, Reynevan yelled. As did Nicolette. Their screams, transformed by the suffocating wind into truly hellish howls, achieved a much better effect than their physical arrival. Save for Kuno of Wittram—who happened to glance skywards—none of the Raubritters had even noticed the riders on the flying bench. But the howling accomplished a literally devastating psychological effect. Weyrach dropped on all fours, Rymbaba cursed, yelled and flattened himself against the ground, and Tassilo of Tresckow tumbled down beside him, unconscious, the only victim of the air raid—the bench had caught him on the back of the head as it plummeted towards the courtyard. Kuno of Wittram crossed himself and crawled under a hay wain. Buko of Krossig cringed as the hem of Nicolette’s cotehardie slashed him across the ear. The bench, meanwhile, shot upwards, accompanied by even louder screams from the flyers. Notker of Weyrach stared open-mouthed as they flew away and was fortunate to glimpse Scharley out of the corner of his eye and dodge a halberd thrust at the last moment. He caught the shaft and they began to wrestle.
Samson discarded the axe, caught one of the horses by the reins and was about to grab the other when Buko lunged at him with a dagger. Samson dodged, but not quickly enough. The dagger cut open his sleeve. And his shoulder. Samson punched Buko in the teeth and sent him staggering towards the gate before he could stab him again.
Samson felt his shoulder and saw the blood on his hand.
“Now,” he said slowly and loudly, “now you’ve really annoyed me.”
He walked to where Scharley and Weyrach were still fighting over the halberd shaft and punched Weyrach so hard that the old Raubritter turned a graceful somersault. As Paszko Rymbaba raised the bardiche to strike, Samson turned around and looked at him. Paszko took two rapid steps backwards.
Scharley caught the horses while Samson grabbed a round, wrought-iron buckler from a rack by the gate.
“Have at them!” yelled Buko, lifting a sword Wittram had dropped. “Weyrach! Kuno! Paszko! Have at them! Oh, Jesus Christ…”
He had seen what Samson was doing. For Samson had taken hold of the buckler with the grip of a discus thrower and was whirling around like one. The buckler shot from his hand as though from a ballista, just missing Weyrach. It whistled across the entire courtyard and slammed into a corbel, shattering it. Weyrach swallowed. Samson, meanwhile, was taking another buckler from the stand.
“Jesus Christ…” gasped Buko, seeing the giant start to spin again. “Take cover!”
“By the dugs of Saint Agatha!” yelled Kuno of Wittram. “Every man for himself!”
The Raubritters bolted in different directions, it being impossible to gues
s who Samson would throw the shield at. Rymbaba fled to the stable, Weyrach ducked behind a pile of firewood, Kuno of Wittram crawled under the hay wain again, and Tassilo of Tresckow—who was just coming around—flattened himself on the ground once more. In full flight, Buko of Krossig tore an old-fashioned elongated shield from the practice mannequin and covered his back with it as he fled.
Samson finished his spin standing on one leg in a classical pose worthy of a statue by Myron or Phidias. The buckler whistled towards its target and struck the shield on Krossig’s back with a loud thud. The momentum propelled the Raubritter a distance of at least ten yards, when his progress was stopped by a wall. After a few seconds, he slid down to the ground.
Samson looked around. There was no one left to throw anything at.
“Over here!” yelled Scharley, now in the saddle, from the gate. “Over here, Samson! To horse!”
The horse, although sturdy, slumped slightly beneath his weight. Samson patted it.
They set off at a gallop.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In which the talk is of love and death. Love is beautiful. Death is not.
One of Reynevan’s Prague mentors had tried to prove that magical flights are subject to the mental control of a witch or wizard covered in flying ointment. The objects they fly on, however, whether brooms, pokers, shovels or whatever else, are just lifeless objects, inanimate matter, subject to the will of the magician and utterly dependent on their will.
There must have been something in that theory, since the bench carrying Reynevan and Nicolette, after soaring into the night sky to the height of Castle Bodak’s battlements, circled around until Reynevan saw two horsemen—one of unmistakably impressive physique—leaving the castle. The bench glided gently after them, as though wanting to reassure him that neither of the horsemen racing along the Kłodzko road was seriously wounded and that they weren’t being followed. And, as though sensing his relief, the bench described another circle around Bodak, then flew upwards into the sky, above the moonlit clouds.
It turned out that Huon of Sagar had also been right in his claim that “all theory is grey,” since the disquisitions of the Prague doctor about mental control were true only to a limited extent. A very limited extent. Having assured Reynevan that Scharley and Samson were safe, the flying bench completely stopped being dependent on his will. In particular, it wasn’t Reynevan’s will at all to fly so high that the moon appeared to be at arm’s length, where it was so cold his and Nicolette’s teeth began to chatter like Spanish castanets. It was also far from Reynevan’s will to fly in circles like a buzzard hunting for prey. His will had been to follow Samson and Scharley—but the flying bench didn’t appear to give a toss about that.
Neither did Reynevan feel like studying the geography of Silesia from a bird’s-eye view, so who knew how and under whose mental influence the item of furniture descended and flew north-east, above the slope of Reichenstein. Having passed the massifs of Javorník and Borůvková on their right, the bench soon flew over a town surrounded by a double wall bristling with towers, which could only have been Paczków. Then it carried them over the valley of a river that could only have been the Nysa. Soon the roofs of the towers of Otmuchów passed by beneath them. Here, however, the bench changed direction, made a big curve, returned to the Nysa and this time flew upstream, following the meandering ribbon, silver in the moonlight. Reynevan’s heart beat faster for a moment, for it looked as though the bench planned to return to Bodak. But no, it suddenly turned and headed north, soaring over the lowlands. Soon, the monastery complex of Kamieniec flashed beneath them and Reynevan was once again alarmed. After all, Nicolette had also applied the flying mescolanza to herself and may also have been using her willpower to influence the flying bench. They might have been—which their trajectory appeared to be suggesting—flying straight towards Stolz, the Bibersteins’ seat. Reynevan doubted he would be well received.
But the bench turned a little westwards and flew over some town or other. Reynevan was slowly losing his sense of direction and beginning not to recognise the scenery passing by under his eyes, which were watering from the wind.
They were not flying as high now, so they had stopped shaking and their teeth were no longer chattering. The bench was gliding smoothly and stably, without any aerobatics, and Nicolette’s fingernails weren’t digging into Reynevan’s hands any more. He felt sure that the girl had relaxed a little. He was also breathing freely again, no longer being choked by the rush of air or the adrenaline.
They were flying beneath moonlit clouds. A chequerboard of forests and fields passed by below.
“Aucassin…” she said, shouting over the wind. “Do you know… where we’re…”
He pulled her closer to his chest, knowing he should, that she was expecting it.
“No, Nicolette. I don’t.”
He didn’t. But he had his suspicions. Informed ones. And he wasn’t even particularly astonished when a soft cry from the girl informed him that they had company.
The witch on their left, a woman in the prime of life wearing a married woman’s cap, was flying on a broom, the rush of air blowing her sheepskin jerkin about. Moving a little closer, she greeted them with a raised hand. After a moment’s hesitation, they waved back and she overtook them.
Two witches flying to their right didn’t greet them and probably hadn’t even noticed them, so absorbed were they with each other. They were very young, with plaits flying behind them, sitting astride a sleigh runner, one behind the other. They were kissing passionately and voraciously; it looked as though the one in front would break her neck trying to reach the mouth of the one behind. While the one behind was utterly preoccupied with the breasts of the one in front, which she had pulled out of her unbuttoned blouse.
Nicolette cleared her throat and coughed strangely, fidgeting on the bench as though wanting to move further away from Reynevan. He knew why she was doing it and was aware of his own excitement. The erotic scene wasn’t to blame, or at least not that alone. Huon of Sagar had warned him about the side effects of the ointment and Reynevan remembered it had also been mentioned in Prague. All the specialists were in agreement that when rubbed into the skin, the flying ointment acted as a powerful aphrodisiac.
The sky was suddenly teeming with witches flying in a skein, the apex of which was vanishing somewhere among the luminescence of the clouds. The witches, bonae feminae (although there were also several wizards in the skein) were flying astride various objects, from classic brooms and pokers, to benches, shovels, pitchforks and fence posts. Myriad bats and night birds darted in front of and behind the flyers.
“Hey! Confrater! Greetings!”
He looked back. And, strangely, wasn’t surprised.
The witch who had shouted to him was wearing a black pointed hat with her flame-red hair streaming out from under it. Her dirty-green woollen shawl fluttered behind her like a train. Flying beside her was the young witch with the foxy face who had made the prophesy. Bringing up the rear was the swarthy Jagna, rocking on a poker and none too sober, naturally.
Nicolette cleared her throat loudly and looked back. Reynevan shrugged and made an innocent face. The red-haired witch laughed. Jagna burped.
It was the night of the autumn equinox, called by common folk the Feast of the Ingathering, the magical start of the season of favourable winnowing winds. For witches and the Older Tribes it was Mabon, one of the year’s eight sabbaths.
“Hey!” the ginger-haired witch suddenly screamed. “Sisters! Confraters! Shall we have some fun?”
Reynevan wasn’t in the mood for fun, all the more so because he had no idea what kind of fun it would be. But the bench was now clearly part of the flock and was doing what the flock did.
The squadron dived down towards the bright blaze of a campfire. Almost catching on the treetops, they flashed, whooping and shrieking, over a clearing and the campfire around which about a dozen men were seated. Reynevan saw them looking upwards and heard faint cr
ies of excitement. Nicolette’s fingernails dug into his flesh again.
The ginger-haired witch displayed the greatest audacity—howling like a she-wolf, she flew down so low that her broom threw up a shower of sparks from the campfire. Then all of them climbed steeply upwards, with the yells of the men by the fire hot on their heels. If they had crossbows, Reynevan shuddered, who knows how the game might have ended.
The skein began to descend towards a mountain rising up from a forest and itself covered in trees. It was definitely not Ślęża, however, contrary to Reynevan’s conjecture. The mountain was too small to be Ślęża.
“That’s Grochowa Mountain,” Nicolette said, surprising him. “Near Frankenstein.”
Campfires were burning on the mountainsides, yellow, resinous flames were shooting up behind the trees, and a red glow was lighting up the magical mist lying in the valleys. Reynevan could hear shouting, singing, the squealing of flutes and pipes and the jangling of a tambourine.
Nicolette trembled at his side, and probably not just from the cold. He wasn’t especially surprised—shivers were also running down his spine and he could barely swallow, for his heart was in his mouth.
A fiery-eyed, dishevelled creature with hair the colour of carrots landed beside them and got off its broom. Its sticklike fingers were armed with curved, six-inch talons. Close by, four gnomes in acorn-shaped caps were drowning each other out with their jabbering. They appeared to have all flown in on a large oar. A creature wearing something like an inside-out sheepskin that might have been its natural fur plodded past, dragging a baker’s shovel behind it. A witch in a snow-white and a very immodestly unbuttoned shirt cast a hostile glance at them.
At first, during the flight, Reynevan had planned to escape immediately, and right after landing he was still wondering how to get away as quickly as possible, descend the mountain and vanish. Nothing came of it. They had landed in a throng which carried them away like a current. Any step in a different direction would have been conspicuous and aroused suspicion. He judged it would be better not to.
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