[Warhammer] - The Wine of Dreams

by Brian Craig - (ebook by Undead)

  Although he put on the same bloodstained belt that he had worn throughout his adventure in the hills Reinmar was careful to find a new pouch. He left the phial where it was, glad to be free of its ominous presence for a little while longer. He followed his father’s advice, and made sure that the scabbard of his sword was securely bound to his belt.

  Ulick was with Marguerite by Marcilla’s bedside, and it was he who reacted first to Reinmar’s appearance. “She is dying, sir!” he said, in obvious anguish. “She has refused the call, and her senses have fled.”

  Reinmar picked up Marcilla’s arm from where it lay on the coverlet. Even the wrist was hot, and the pulse within was racing. Her lovely face was flushed deep red, and her lips were moving silently, as if she were reciting some secret spell.

  It’s only a common fever,” Reinmar said, although he doubted it. “It was brought on by over-exertion and exposure to the rain.”

  “She has demanded wine,” Marguerite said. “We have given her water, but it only made her demands more clamorous. In the end, I let her have a little hock, but she spat it out. She’s incoherent now, but whenever she says anything aloud, she asks for wine. I don’t know what wine she means, but if you have any you might have to let her have it. I don’t know whether it will save her, but I fear that nothing else will.”

  “She does not know what she needs,” Reinmar insisted. “She has never known what is good for her. The fever will pass, in time.” If Marcilla was to have what she craved, she would have to wait until he and she were alone; he dared not trust Ulick or Marguerite with the knowledge that he had the phial.

  Marguerite stood up, and placed herself squarely in front of the man who had been her likely husband since the day she was born. “Why did you bring her here, Reinmar?” she demanded.

  He knew that he could put her off with a lie. He could have said that Sergeant Vaedecker had recognised her value, and the boy’s too, as an invaluable means of locating the hidden valley. He could have said that Machar von Spurzheim had ordered him to keep her safe. He could even have said that taking her in was a simple act of kindness and mercy. Instead, he told the truth. “Because I love her,” he said, bluntly. “I have saved her from a terrible fate, and I am determined to keep her safe forever, if I can. I have defended her against monsters, and I will continue to do so, no matter what monsters may come against me in future.”

  Marguerite flinched twice as Reinmar set out his statement, but by the time he had finished she had done flinching.

  “Everyone says that the monsters in the hills are massing for an attack,” she murmured. “Everyone says that there will be a battle, and that the witch hunter has already delayed too long in waiting for reinforcements. I saw families arriving in carts from the farmlands when I stepped out into the street this morning, and others packing carts in order to go to the docks. Were there not so many barges arriving laden with soldiers and their weapons there would be none to bear those who want to flee downriver, but the traffic is steady in both directions. The superstitious see omens in the moths that cluster about the lanterns, swearing that they are not moths at all but spirits sent to spy on us, that the attackers might lay their plans in careful detail. The whole world is turning upside-down, Reinmar—but I did not think that you would turn with it. I see that you have put on your sword, even though you are at home. I always thought when I watched you at practice that you might one day fight for your father, or for your shop, or for Eilhart, or even for me, but I had never thought that you would ever fight for a gypsy whore who is already confirmed in the worship of evil.”

  “She is a girl like any other,” Reinmar said, stiffly, although the speech had cut him deeply. “It is her beauty alone that makes you jealous, and jealousy alone that makes you insult her. If you are not here to help her then I wish that you would go. I can look after her myself “You cannot and shall not,” Marguerite contradicted him. “Von Spurzheim has already sent word to your father asking for you. You are his darling of the moment, it seems. You’d best beware—however good a man he is, he’s dangerous company. Almost as dangerous, I dare say, as your grandfather the repentant sorcerer.”

  “Grandfather was never a sorcerer,” Reinmar told her. “Nor was my Great-Uncle Albrecht, who was at least a scholar. I think Ulick can be trusted to give his sister as much care as she needs until I return, so you may still go.”

  Marguerite had been looking into his eyes all the while, but now she looked down at her feet. “I’ll stay,” she said.

  “To help?” Reinmar asked.

  “To help,” she answered, stoutly. “If there is anything I can do to save her, I shall not fail.”

  As if in answer to that promise, the gypsy girl’s soundless muttering suddenly became audible, and Marguerite knelt beside her, raising her head a little from the sweat-drenched pillow on which it lay. “Wine!” Marcilla demanded, hoarsely. “I need dark wine! Please! If I have not wine I shall never rest.”

  Reinmar could not help but wonder whether the proximity of the phial of nectar was sufficient in itself to excite Marcilla and Luther alike, but he put the thought from his mind. However strong their cravings became, he thought, answering their demands would neither be helpful nor moral. The darkness of the wine was malice and destruction, no matter how its sweetness might amplify the appetites of its victims.

  “I must go,” he said, brusquely. “I need bread to stock my stomach before I go to see von Spurzheim.”

  “You need more than bread to stock your stomach,” Marguerite replied. “You need sense to stock your head. You need eyes to see what is good and what is not, instead of delusions born of glamour.”

  “I shall return when I can,” Reinmar said, dutifully ignoring the insults and speaking as much to Ulick as to Marguerite. “Keep her safe, I beg you, until the fever fades. Give her as much water as she can take, and food if she is able to eat.”

  Having said that, he turned on his heel and left the room, hurrying down to take his breakfast and face his father. He half-expected that all his father’s dourness and critical exactitude would have returned by now, but there was no sign of it. Gottfried managed to be perfectly civil as he told his son that he would man the counter while Reinmar went to see von Spurzheim, and positively tender when he insisted that Reinmar should eat his breakfast first.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  As soon as he had eaten a hurried meal, Reinmar set off for the burgomaster’s house in search of Machar von Spurzheim. He had only to step outside the door of his father’s shop to understand what Marguerite meant about the carts that were bringing farmers’ families and their possessions into town while the local inhabitants were packing up to leave.

  The exchange was not as nonsensical as logic might suggest. A town full of soldiers was a far safer place than a hamlet, if there really were an army massing in the surrounding hills, but that army was bound to need provisions and if the worst rumours were true, its officers were not the kind to pay their way or to hold back their troops from looting. From the viewpoint of a farmer who had already harvested and sold his crop, Eilhart would appear to be a haven simply because it offered the meagre safely of numbers; the townspeople, on the other hand, would be thinking in different terms. Many of them would have relatives or trading-partners in Holthusen, and the larger town must seem to them a very desirable haven by comparison with one that had no protective wall or local garrison and was likely to be stripped of the greater part of its wealth. Eilhart would have to be defended, if the need arose, by soldiers who had no local relatives or property to shape their priorities, who would undoubtedly become more desperate as time went by in their requisitioning of food, weapons and manpower.

  Reinmar was stopped three times on his way to the square by people who knew that he was recently returned from an expedition into the foothills of the Grey Mountains. They all wanted to know if he had actually seen monsters. When he told them that he had, and that Sigurd and Matthias Vaedecker had even contrived to spill the
blood of beastmen, they nodded grimly. They were not surprised; what he had to say merely set the seal on their anxiety. Two of the three also knew that he had been closeted for some time with Machar von Spurzheim, and they asked him what the witch hunter intended to do. He told them that he did not know, but that the decision might be taken out of the witch hunter’s hands if the attack began too soon. It was the enemy, Reinmar conceded, who would determine the time and place of the conflict to come. He ended by echoing yet again the assurance that however monstrous the forces arrayed against the town might be, they were not invulnerable—but he was not surprised when his questioners could take no comfort from it.

  No one asked after his great-uncle, or even his grandfather.

  When he reached the burgomaster’s house, Reinmar was immediately sent on to the blockhouse, where he found von Spurzheim in the company of the town constables, carefully examining a map. The witch hunter broke away from his conference as soon as Reinmar appeared, and took him to one side.

  “There’s no further need to keep your great-uncle in a cell,” he said, “but he insists on returning home. I’ve told him that his house is too far out of town, and that we can’t possibly extend our defensive perimeter that far, but he is adamant. If you could persuade him to come to your father’s house you might save his life.”

  “That’s a task better suited to my father,” Reinmar pointed out.

  “Aye,” said von Spurzheim, “but your father was as reluctant to see Albrecht as Albrecht is to see him, while both seem happy to let you serve as go-between. For his own good, I hope you can persuade him—but if you can’t, I wish that you would at least see him safely home. I still have two men watching the house, but I intend to withdraw them before nightfall.”

  This speech rang slightly false, and Reinmar had no difficulty understanding what von Spurzheim really wanted of him. He had refused to go to Holthusen as a spy, but the witch hunter still thought that he might be useful in some such capacity. Von Spurzheim did not seem inclined to give him a formal commission, but would certainly demand a full account of any conversation that took place as Reinmar guided Albrecht home—and of any contact that Albrecht might subsequently make with his elusive son.

  Even so, Reinmar thought, I have enough reasons of my own to comply. “I’ll need two horses,” was what he said aloud to von Spurzheim. “Albrecht is too frail to walk home, and if I’m to come back alone I’ll need to come quickly.”

  Von Spurzheim nodded. “I’ll have two horses saddled,” he said. “You’re wise to wear your sword, but such intelligence as I can gather from the farm folk suggests that the enemy forces are still fairly widely scattered. If anything happens tonight it will probably be little more than a skirmish.”

  One of the constables took Reinmar down to the cells and unlocked the door to Albrecht’s.

  “Will you come home with me, great-uncle?” Reinmar asked. “We are a little crowded now, but we can set down a pallet for you in my room or Luther’s, as you please.”

  “I can’t,” was Albrecht’s reply.

  “If you suppose that your past adventures in Marienburg will guarantee you immunity from the forces ranged against the town,” Reinmar said, soberly, “I fear that you may be sadly mistaken.”

  “I don’t,” the old man said. “The gratitude of princes is a bounteous thing compared to the gratitude of the darker gods. If you suppose that I would be any safer in your father’s house than in my own then you’re sadly mistaken. Granted that I am lost, I would rather be lost in my own place.”

  “In that case,” Reinmar said, “I’ll come with you. I’ve sent for two horses, if you’re well enough to ride. If not, I’ll find us a carriage.”

  Albrecht lifted a grey eyebrow. “Is that wise?” he said.

  “Why not?” Reinmar countered. “If there’s no safety for you in my father’s house, there’s none for me either.”

  Albrecht gave in, evidently grateful for the favour of his nephew’s company as well as a horse to ride. As von Spurzheim had promised, the two mounts were saddled and waiting by the time the two of them emerged blinking into the late morning light.

  As soon as he had mounted his horse, Albrecht craned his neck to look at the cloud-clad peaks of the distant Grey Mountains. “Tonight will be clear enough,” he judged, “but tomorrow won’t. When those clouds come scurrying northwards, bearing icy fogs and thunderstorms, worse things will follow in their train.”

  “What things?” Reinmar wanted to know, as soon as they were out of earshot of the busy square. “Where are these monsters coming from, great-uncle?”

  “Who knows?” was Albrecht’s reply. “The mountains hereabouts were never host to dwarfish settlements, so far as history and legend can inform us, but you seem to have found that they are hollow nevertheless—and the fact that we know of no passes which lead conveniently to Bretonnia does not mean that none are known to unhuman beings. Then again, we are not so very far from the Cursed Marshes that lie beyond Marienburg. If von Spurzheim’s forces have come so far since they began their campaign, their adversaries might easily have moved in parallel. What matters is not where these creatures came from, but how many have arrived. Six by six they will come, and thirty-six by thirty-six, while the witch hunter’s men form up in tens, but we shall not know how the balance lies until the battle is actually joined, and perhaps not until it’s ended.”

  “Von Spurzheim seems to be assembling a considerable force,” Reinmar said. “He has abundant support from the Reiksguard as well as men under his direct command—and if the fight is brought to us, the farmers and the townspeople will all take up arms to defend what is theirs. Eilhart will not lack for passionate defenders.”

  “I dare say,” the old man replied, pensively. “But I have drunk the wine of dreams, and I have heard the testimony of those who have probed its deeper secrets. The attackers will likely use mercenary troops, just as the defenders will, but those who are more fully committed to the cause will take such pleasure in the fury of battle as merely human beings can hardly comprehend. I have sipped darker wine than the wine of dreams, and I drew back from its grip, but as your new friend reminded me last night, I have known those who were only avid for more—and I have glimpsed the pleasure that such people take in torment and murder. You can have no conception of the ecstatic quality that some minds find in the furthest excesses of bloodlust. If you imagine that the strength men gain from defending home and hearth is the most powerful motive there is, you’re mistaken.”

  By this time Albrecht’s house was in view. The surrounding woods gave such ample shelter that Reinmar had not expected to catch a glimpse of the spies von Spurzheim had set to watch it, and he did not. He was, however, startled to see that a thin plume of smoke was curling from the chimney. Although Albrecht had not been home for several days and his housekeeper was supposed to be long gone, someone had lit a fire that morning. Given that the late summer weather was more than warm enough, it had to be a cooking fire.

  Reinmar’s first thought was that the witch hunter’s spies must have been uncommonly careless to let someone take up residence—but his second was that he himself had been unwary. Von Spurzheim probably knew full well that the house was occupied, and by whom, but he had decided that Reinmar might serve him better as an informant or agent provocateur than any company of constables and men-at-arms.

  Albrecht had seen the smoke too. “Wirnt?” he murmured, half in expectation and half in trepidation. The old man rode a little way ahead so that he might dismount and go to the door before Reinmar had quit the saddle, and he hurried inside while Reinmar took his time about tethering the two horses. Reinmar did not bother to take the animals round the back of the house to the stables, because they had not come far enough to need the water-trough.

  When Reinmar went inside he expected to see the man whose visit to the shop had been the trigger of this whole affair, but what he actually saw was a woman. The quality of her clothing testified that she was not a house
keeper, although she did indeed have a kettle and a frying pan set upon the stove. She was not young, by any means, but she was handsome enough and her eyes were bright with intelligence.

  “It’s good to see you, Albrecht my love,” she was saying, although Reinmar took note of the fact that Albrecht had made no move to embrace her. He leapt immediately to the conclusion that this was Wirnt’s mother, fled from Marienburg in Wirnt’s wake and hastened on her way by the pursuit of Machar von Spurzheim’s zealous witch hunters.

  “Are you mad, Valeria?” Albrecht asked her. “The house is watched—and if it were not, it might be more dangerous still.”

  “I doubt that,” she replied. “Yes, the house is watched, by more than one man. If the soldiers were to try to seize me, they might find me more dangerous than they imagine. The weight of the years has begun to weigh on me for want of the wine of dreams, but I am not without resources. Who is the lovely boy?”

  “Luther’s grandson, Reinmar Wieland.”

  “One of us?”

  “The Wielands have not traded in dark wine for many years,” Albrecht told her. “I suppose I must take the blame for that, at least as much as Luther—but Reinmar has been to the source, it seems, and has escaped with his life.” Reinmar noticed that he had not actually answered the question he had been asked.

  Answer or not, this news intensified Valeria’s interest remarkably, and she stared hard at Reinmar, as if her eager eyes were avid to drink every detail of his face. He could not guess exactly how old she was. The flesh that sat upon her bones seemed on close examination to be almost as thin as Luther’s, and her greying hair almost as filmy, but she had a kind of hauteur that somehow preserved her beauty in spite of such reductions. If she had come on horseback she must have changed after stabling her animal, because her gown was no riding-dress. It was pale blue in colour, with crimson embroidery, and the swirling design of the ornamental threads put him strangely in mind of the moths that he had seen in his dream.