The Wine of Dreams (11 page)

“Never think that, lad,” Vaedecker said. “I know as well as anyone what
rewards the Empire reaps from healthy trade along the Reik. What I worry about
is that such folk often come to consider themselves immune from the threats and
temptations that afflict the rest of us, and they’re not. People like your
grandfather and his brother think they can dabble in black magic the way they
might dabble in tax evasion, but they have no idea what they’re playing with.
They don’t realise that the risks they run aren’t just borne by them but by the
rest of us. It’s bad enough when nomads and gypsies dabble in magic, but at
least they’re on the fringes of society, not really part of its fabric. In his
prime, Luther Wieland was at the very heart of society in Eilhart, and his
corruption could have been a direly serious matter. You can’t imagine how great
a debt you owe to your father’s strength of mind. Had he not purged your
business of the dark wine the whole of Eilhart might now be as sick, frail and
mad as the old man.”

“He’s not mad,” Reinmar protested. “He’s just old.”

“Older than he would be if he’d never taken a sip of the wine of dreams,”
Vaedecker opined. “But the false youth he’d have obtained had he continued to
drink it would have been bought at a terrible price, paid by everyone with whom
he came into contact—including you.”

“So you say,” Reinmar countered, the criticism calling forth his natural
stubbornness. “But I hear talk of that kind all the time, and none of it ever
matches my reality. There are monsters in the hills, I hear—but the only
monsters I have seen have been brutes attacking women and children with clubs,
rakes and pitchforks. The north has so many monsters that they gather into
armies to harry the Reiksguard and the knights of every other order, so you tell
me, but the only military action of yours that I have observed was the search of
my father’s cellars. The tales that are told of the Empire’s glorious history
ramble on about the great war against the skaven, the great war against the
Vampire Counts of Sylvania and the legendary victory of Magnus the Pious over a
monstrous horde at the gates of Kislev, but are there skaven or Vampire Counts
in the world now? And what is Kislev but a neighbour state with which we trade?
Do you see my difficulty, sergeant?”

“Only too well,” Vaedecker agreed. “But you do not see mine. I do not know
for certain whether there are vampires in the world now, but I believe it. As
for skaven—if that is the name for men-become-beasts who take their stigmata
from the common rat, then yes, there are skaven in the world now and I have
spilled their blood myself. Now Kislev, it is a state of sorts, where men
struggle hard to do what men must do to retain their manhood, including trade,
but it is a state under perpetual siege by every kind of evil, after a fashion
that you cannot seem to grasp. I suppose I should hope that the scales of
innocence never fall from your eyes, but I cannot. If you were my son, Reinmar
Wieland, I would want you to understand what kind of a world it is in which you
live, however harsh the lesson was.”

“Bravo,” said a weak voice. “Might I have some water?” It was the gypsy boy,
who had obviously recovered consciousness some time before, and had been waiting
for an opportunity to make himself heard.

Reinmar filled a leather cup with water from a jug which the innkeeper had
left for them on the table.

It was not until the boy had drunk it, wincing at the slightest movement of
his head, that he noticed the second casualty. “Marcilla!” he said, angrily.
“What have they…?” He could not finish the sentence.

“She’s still alive,” Vaedecker was quick to say. “She’s taken fewer bruises
to the body than you have. When she’s slept off the head-blow that knocked her
out she’ll probably be fine.” He was promising far too much, but he obviously
did not want the boy to become too agitated. By way of further distraction he
added a question. “Is she your sister?”

The boy made as if to nod, thought better of it, and whispered: “Aye. We’re
twins, but not alike—like enough, though, that I might have been felled by the
blow that hit her, without even taking a bruise to my own skull.”

As he spoke the boy used his arms to drag himself across the floor, without
even attempting to crawl, let alone to walk. When he arrived beside his sister
he touched the back of his hand gently to her forehead.

“I knew it,” he said. “She has a fever. Half of this ache in my head is hers.
I can feel the fury of her dreams, and…” He broke off abruptly.

“And what?” Vaedecker asked, mildly.

The boy did not answer. In response to his touch, however, the girl roused
slightly. If, as the boy said, her condition was compounding his, the slight
alleviation of his condition must have echoed in her own. Her eyeballs were
moving rapidly from side to side beneath closed lids, and her lips trembled. A
few muttered words escaped them, too ill-formed to be comprehensible, except
perhaps for one.

Reinmar was at first perfectly certain, although it took no more than a
couple of seconds for profound doubts to return, that one of the words she spoke
was “call”.

Even if it was, he told himself, sternly, it might mean nothing. The word has
a perfectly ordinary everyday meaning. And she might not have said “call” at
all; the syllable might have been conjured up by my own imagination, primed by
what my grandfather told us on the eve of our departure.

He might have told himself more, but he was not given the opportunity.
Matthias Vaedecker had seized his arm and was gripping it hard. “What did she
say, Master Reinmar?” he demanded. “What did she say?”

He knows, was Reinmar’s reflexive internal response. He knows what it means
for a gypsy to hear a call. But what he said aloud was: “I don’t know, sergeant.
My ear was only a little closer to her lips than yours.”

“What did she say?” Vaedecker asked the boy.

“She’s dreaming,” was all the boy would say. “She’s hurt—but you’re right.
She cannot die. It won’t be allowed.”

Reinmar saw that Vaedecker’s first impulse was to demand a further
explanation of the last remark, but he saw the sergeant clamp his mouth shut, as
if in response to a reminder that he was now a spy, duty-bound to play a long
and careful game.

When the sergeant released his arm Reinmar reached out to touch the boy, as
reassuringly as he could. “If your twin is as sensitive to your condition as you
are to hers,” he said, “would it not be a good idea to rest your bruises and to
try to sleep?”

The boy turned to him, evidently surprised by his perspicacity, or perhaps by
his concern. “Aye,” he whispered. “Is my father hurt? Why are we here?”

“Your companions were wise enough to retreat in the face of far superior
numbers,” Vaedecker told him. “They were pursued, but I suspect they’re fleet
enough and clever enough to make good their escape. One man had to pick up and
carry a young boy—might that have been your father?”

The boy nodded warily, although the gesture was obviously painful.

“The fight would have gone much worse for you had we not come along,” the
soldier added. “We broke it up, saving a few hundred bruises and perhaps a life
or two. Two others who remained—they named themselves Rollo and Tarn—judged
that we were fit people to look after you, and defend you from any further harm.
They promised to return in the morning. You’ll be quite safe until then. You
have my word on that. I’m no knight, but I am a soldier—and I am sure that
your father would know this man, even if you do not. He is Reinmar Wieland, son
of the wine merchant Gottfried Wieland, whose stock you help to produce and
refine.”

The boy was nodding more easily now, and it did not seem to be causing him
too much discomfort. “I have heard of you, Master Wieland,” he confirmed. “I may
have seen you, also, when we were both too young to take note of it. My name is
Ulick.”

“I will see you safe, Ulick,” Reinmar promised. “Your sister too. Now, will
you take my advice?”

The boy nearly nodded again, but this time felt that even mild discomfort was
uncalled-for. “Aye,” he said. With some effort, he managed to raise himself to
his knees and crawl back to his own pallet. He laid himself down with a deep
sigh, seemingly satisfied that he could trust his companions to keep their word.

“We had best do likewise,” Vaedecker murmured, and Reinmar agreed.

All of Reinmar’s confused ambitions had been reawakened by the suspicion that
the girl’s delirious mutterings were connected with the strange tale his
grandfather had told him before he had set out, but there was no possibility of
keeping sleep away after the exertions and privations of the previous few days.
He fell unconscious as soon as he laid his head down—but he dreamed
extravagantly while he slept and he awoke before any of his immediate
companions, with a sense of urgency and anticipation already upon him.

Ulick and Marcilla both appeared to be sleeping soundly and peacefully,
although the boy seemed to have become very cold. Reinmar’s gaze lingered far
longer over the girl, whose features were now possessed by a serenity he had
never seen in any human face. Her skin was very smooth, quite flawless in every
respect.

Marguerite’s skin had the usual bloom of youth, but close inspection showed
up a host of tiny blemishes: freckles, small patches of dead skin, blocked
pores, unruly hairs a shade darker than those upon her head. Marcilla’s
loveliness was subject to none of these minuscule compromises. She was so neatly
formed, so seemingly polished, that it was hard for Reinmar to believe that she
was a product of nature. She was more like a statue brought to life—not one of
the military memorials carved from grey stone or cast from bronze that could
apparently be seen outside the town halls of every Schilder port but something
lovingly formed from Tilean marble, like the ancient busts which were
occasionally displayed inside the town halls, as treasures plundered in the
course of centuries-old military expeditions.

Her helplessness added to her charm, and the longer Reinmar looked at her the
more protective he felt towards her.

He reached out a hand to stroke her face, and her eyelids slowly lifted to
display a pair of eyes so wondrously dark as almost to be black rather than
brown. The eyes were staring straight at him, but Reinmar was not convinced that
the girl had really awakened. There was little or no consciousness in the
incurious stare, and he had the strangest feeling that something other than her
everyday mind might be using her eyes to appraise him.

Apparently, he passed the appraisal. A slight smile began to ease the corners
of her mouth.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”

Her lips stirred, very slightly—far too slightly, he would normally have
assumed, for any audible words to have escaped them. And yet, he did hear words,
whether they were spoken or merely imagined.

“I have heard the call,” she seemed to say. “I must obey.”

“So you must,” he murmured, as her eyes fell shut again and she relaxed back
into a deeper sleep—but as he continued stroking her cheek he noticed that her
flesh had taken on a sudden chill. He took up the cloak under which he had been
sleeping and draped it over her body.

Matthias Vaedecker raised his head then, his eye immediately attracted by the
swirl of the cloak. “Is she awake?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Reinmar said. “She seems well enough, given the nature of her
injury. I think she’ll live, if she is given time enough to recover.”

“That’s good,” the sergeant acknowledged. He frowned slightly before adding:
“I suppose it would complicate things for us if her kinsfolk cannot collect
her.”

Reinmar went to the outhouse behind the inn to relieve himself, then
continued to the barn to see if Godrich and Sigurd were awake. They were—and
Sigurd was already in conversation with the gypsy spokesman of the night before.
They were arguing, but not fiercely.

“Reinmar,” Godrich said, as soon as the steward clapped eyes on his master.
“You remember Rollo. The two within are brother and sister, it seems, and they
have a cousin even younger who was also hurt last night. Their father has sent
Rollo to ask us whether we will keep the two of them with us until we are well
away from the town, so that he can collect them from a far safer place. That
would allow him to avoid any further trouble with locals who are still intent on giving the rest of his
family a battering. I am not so sure, however, that the girl is fit to travel on
roads as bad as those hereabouts in a cart that’s already overloaded. She
shouldn’t really be moved at all.”

Godrich obviously wanted support for his own view, but Reinmar knew that
there were times when it could be an advantage to seem naive. He pretended not
to understand what was required of him.

“I think the boy will be much better today,” he said. “As for the girl, we’ve
taken on no more than half our intended cargo, so I think we can make room for
her. Since the roads are so ill-made, it will probably be best in any case if
Sigurd, the sergeant and I walk behind. We can wrap the girl up well enough to
prevent her taking a bruise from every lurch.”

“We have business to transact,” Godrich protested. “We are not
nursemaids—and she really was badly hurt.”

“We saved these people from being murdered,” Reinmar stated. “We have an
obligation to see that they remain safe from their would-be murderers. We shall
keep them with us until it is safe to let them go, even if that requires us to
shelter them for several days.”

If the steward expected any support from Matthias Vaedecker he was sorely
disappointed. The sergeant had come into the barn while they were talking, to
tell them that the innkeeper had brought fresh water from the well and an
allegedly-new loaf of bread. When he heard what Reinmar was saying he became
thoughtful—but by the time the steward turned to him he was quick to add his
own endorsement.