The windows on the ground were, unfortunately, low-silled and broad. They had been built for the convenience of moving goods out, not keeping invaders at bay. Grain-sacks filled with sand and earth had already been piled up to make the defences higher, and criss-crossed planks had been nailed in place to make the apertures less inviting, but these measures were makeshift at best.
Matthias Vaedecker showed Reinmar which of these openings was to be his station. It was the middle one of three, neither the furthest upriver nor the furthest down, but Reinmar could not see that its position would make much difference to the safety of his situation.
“Any boats moving through the narrows will be easy targets for the bowmen,” the sergeant said, addressing a gathering of all the men assigned to the ground floor of the westernmost storehouse, “and they are highly unlikely to have as many bows as we have, or any great skill in using them—but they will have clubs and spears, which they will wield with very considerable strength if they get close enough. We have put our best net at the head of the gap and our strongest hawser just behind it, and I don’t doubt that we shall wreak havoc among them until those defences are breached—but once the head of the passage is clear of obstruction we have only one more net and two more booms.
“The second net is placed two yards ahead of this middle window, so that those it interrupts will be vulnerable to fire without being able to make overmuch use of their weapons. We must make the most of that vulnerability, because the tide will turn their way if the second net is breached and the entire race fills up with crowded boats.
“Don’t become too confident if the fight goes our way at first—the longer it goes on, the harder it will become. The first kills will be ours, but this is not an enemy much given to retreat and they will keep on coming. We must keep on killing, and killing, and killing, until there is nothing left to kill. Whatever happens, we may not retreat.
“The barricades across the roads are tactical positions that might be abandoned if necessity presses, but this gap and these two storehouses are vital to the defence of the town. We do not give way. Whatever happens, we hold our positions to the last man. We may hope for reinforcements if the attack is concentrated here to the exclusion of other vulnerable points, but if no reinforcements come we must fight until we die. Is that understood?”
Looking around, Reinmar could see that it was fully understood by the men wearing colours, who had been in such situations before, but that it had caused great consternation among the townsmen and the farmers who had been assigned to support them. Even so, there was not a man among them who did not want to put on a brave face. They had all heard tales of what had happened to the farms that had been attacked, and they had all seen the bodies in the market place. No one wasted time wondering about the possibility of negotiation or mass evacuation.
“Right,” the sergeant went on, as soon as he had left a decent pause. “I want every man who has never used a pike or blade for fighting educated to the limit of what can be achieved. My corporals will sort you out into groups, according to your training, and they’ll do everything in their power to advance your capability in the time that remains to us. No one is excused, except to take an hour’s leave to eat, which we shall do in strict rotation. If any of you have been trained with sword or staff, you’ll help with the education of the others.”
There was a deal of confusion then, while all of this was sorted out, but Vaedecker took Reinmar to one side so that he could speak to him confidentially.
“You can take your last leave soon,” the sergeant said, “but I want you back by six, as I told you before. Pikes and half-pikes will be far more use than swords to begin with, but we haven’t enough of them and it will come to swordplay sooner or later. I’ll give you two or three willing lads now, while some time still remains to teach them something worthwhile—but whatever you fail to teach them, at least make sure that they don’t hurt themselves or one another, and don’t leave them exhausted.”
Reinmar promised to heed all this advice, and did so, although it was obvious to him the farmhands given to him for instruction had far more strength than skill. He judged that they would be able to do better with the scythes and pitchforks they had brought than with the rusty swords they had exhumed from long storage, but he tried to educate them anyway. If he accomplished nothing else he showed them how best to balance themselves while they thrust, and how to minimise the target they presented to an enemy.
As soon as he was given leave to go, Reinmar hurried off home. He was hungry and thirsty, but he was also anxious about what Albrecht had said to him before he went to meet the sergeant.
The shop was closed but the door had not been barred; Reinmar obtained entry readily enough. He called down to the cellars but obtained no reply; there was no sign of his father, or Godrich. That was not in the least strange, given that they must have been ordered to report for assignment exactly as he had. He ran upstairs and went immediately to Marcilla’s room. He found her alone there, but she was as fast asleep as she had been before he left, and seemingly quite tranquil. He knelt beside her pallet and took her hand in his own, but he was gentle because he did not want to wake her. He made certain that there was fresh water by her pillow, and a piece of bread, before he tiptoed away.
It was possible, Reinmar supposed, that Ulick had gone with Godrich and his father to claim a role in the defence of the town, but he dared not make that assumption. He closed the gypsy’s door as quietly as he could before making his way to his own room. He wanted to make sure that the phial he had stolen from the underworld was still where he had put it before he went to find something to eat.
He realised as soon as he opened the door that something had gone badly awry. The odour that filled the room struck him dumb and motionless.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
There was a stranger in Reinmar’s bedroom, standing in front of the mirror on the wall and studying himself carefully. More remarkably still, the stranger had put on Reinmar’s best suit of clothes. The man was taller and better-proportioned than Wirnt, although his features were not entirely dissimilar—but they were no more similar to Wirnt’s than they were to Gottfried’s, or even Reinmar’s own. The stranger seemed much younger than Wirnt, though not as young as Reinmar, but the gleam in his eye was as bright and as startling as the luminosity that Reinmar had seen in the eyes of the aged priest in the underworld as he offered Marcilla’s comatose body to the avid flower.
The hectic nature of that brightness did not reveal itself fully until the stranger turned to look Reinmar in the face. It was as if the intelligence behind the eyes had caught fire, burning out of control. This is a madman, Reinmar thought—which seemed to make it all the more remarkable that the man might have been mistaken for his father’s younger brother, had his father had a brother.
It was not until the sweetly cloying odour that saturated the atmosphere of the room released its grip on his thoughts that Reinmar realised that the resemblance might be less remarkable than it seemed.
“Damn you, child,” the stranger said. “Have you nothing in your wardrobe that a man might wear with pride?”
“Grandfather?” Reinmar asked, falteringly.
He could not quite believe it, no matter how likely it had seemed as a matter of calculation. He was too accustomed to seeing Luther Wieland as a frail old man, as broken in spirit as he was in body. This man was not merely hale, but keen and poised in spite of the uncanny fervour in his eyes. He still seemed mad, but he also seemed a man of action, a man of real power.
“You’re a liar as well as a fool,” Luther Wieland said, accusingly. “Were you saving the draught for your pretty plaything? Was not your first loyalty to me? And why should you worry, when you had such a powerful potion? Did you not know what you had? You could have diluted it a hundred times and filled a rack in the cellar with the produce. Well, it’s mine now. Did you really think that your hiding-place was safe, when you knew full well that this room belonged to me when I
was a boy like you?”
The stranger stabbed a stern finger in the direction of the slit in the wall, from which the mortar had been snatched. The questions poured out of him, glorying in their own profusion; it was as if a rusted tap had finally been freed to turn. There was nothing loving in the stranger’s expression. His eyes were darker as well as brighter than the old Luther Wieland’s, and the darkness was not merely a matter of colour. Reinmar did not doubt that this man was as dangerous as his enfeebled grandfather had been harmless.
“Monsters are coming, grandfather,” Reinmar said, swiftly. “An entire legion of them. There are men of a sort, albeit deformed, but there are half-men too, whose human flesh is mixed with animal. There will be worse, if Sergeant Vaedecker’s judgement can be trusted. All Eilhart is panic-stricken. This is not a good time to make yourself manifest as a sorcerer.”
“Sorcerer!” the rejuvenated Luther’s laugh was bitterly sarcastic. “Is that what you think, child? I thought you had more sense than that ungrateful whelp of mine. I thought that you and I had an understanding. I am no magician, but I am a man. I am everything that a man is supposed to be—which is to say that I am not a wasted, helpless, fatuous cripple, victimised by cruel time. I am a man, Reinmar, alive and capable of feeling. All the pain is gone, and all the ignominy. Gods, what a fool I was! To consent to become what my vile son made of me! What a wreck of a man I was miserably content to be, when all that I needed to restore myself was an occasional goblet of wine. How could I be so stupid? I have always tried to give you better advice than that snake, Gottfried, but I was never capable of giving strength to it till now. Listen to me Reinmar, and listen well: time is the ultimate traitor, the worst of all curses. Today you have the gift of youth, but through all your tomorrows you will pay an extortionate price for that fleeting privilege. Fight, Reinmar—fight the tyranny of time with every last vestige of your strength and spirit. Never consent to be bound by its curses. Fight, with every magic that the world can offer!”
“Grandfather,” Reinmar said, feeling quite weak now that the odour of the nectar of dreams had vanished from the air, “you do not understand how that liquor you have drunk is fed and formed. It is the produce of living human flesh.”
“Of course it is!” the restored man answered, throwing his arms up flamboyantly. “And how is your own youth any different? Is its origin any more comfortable to contemplate, when seen with an analytical eye? All flesh is the product of flesh, all youth the product of youth. Our mothers are diminished by the childbirth that makes us, and we accept their willing sacrifice as the price of our own virility. What real difference is there between the sacrifice of maternal flesh and the one that you saw? We are men, child, and we must sustain our manhood against the vicious ravages of time by any means we find. If we must fight to do it, we must fight with all our strength—and we ought to love the battle with all the fury of our hearts.”
The leather belt that Luther had fastened about his waist was not Reinmar’s, nor was the pouch attached to it. Those had come from his own trunk. Reinmar assumed that the phial he had stolen from the underworld was now in that pouch. He wondered how much Luther had drunk. Even a single sip might qualify as an overdose.
“You won’t find it easy to leave the town, grandfather,” Reinmar said stubbornly, “And if you stay, you’ll be recognised soon enough as an enemy. Our neighbours are in a mood to turn on anyone they can blame for their plight.”
“How will I be recognised? Will you denounce me as a sorcerer, even though I swear to you that I am a man like any other? Is there any man in Eilhart who would recognise me, if I were in any room but this, regarded by any eye but yours? Why should you or anyone think me an enemy? Why did you bring me the dark wine, if you did not want to see me as a man?”
As before, there were far too many questions in this torrent for Reinmar to formulate any coherent reply to any one of them. They were well enough formed, and challenging, but they were too abundant and too inconsequential to form part of any rational conversation. Reinmar looked more closely at his grandfather’s fine new features, and saw that they had something of the same reckless quality. Luther Wieland rejuvenated was a handsome man—considerably more handsome than his son, Gottfried—but there was a profoundly unnatural extravagance in the colour of his cheeks and the heat of his gaze. The life restored to Luther by the nectar of the underworld was too feverish, too assertive in its grip upon his soul—but how could he possibly have resisted the temptation to take too generous a dose of the concentrated essence, when he had been so weak and tremulous before?
“What will you do, grandfather?” Reinmar asked, struggling to keep his voice quiet and even. “Will you fight for Eilhart, or against it?”
“Am I a man or a monster?” Luther retorted.
“At this moment, I am not entirely sure,” Reinmar told him. “That is why I ask.”
“If I fight at all, I shall fight for glory,” the handsome man assured him. “If I condescend to fight, I shall fight for love of conflict, because I am a man.”
“It seems to me,” Reinmar said, pensively, “that a surfeit of humanity might be almost as dangerous and almost as daemonic, in its way, as a lack of it.”
“Then you’re a fool and a coward, child,” Luther snapped back at him. “Human life is sensation, and the best sensation is luxury. There is no higher end.” He moved away from the mirror at last, and made as if to push past Reinmar and leave the room.
Reinmar stood where he was, and would not be thrust aside. “What will you do with the phial and its contents, grandfather?” he asked.
“Keep it and use it, what else?” the other informed him, scornfully. “You matched your wits against mine and you lost. The girl can fend for herself, and you must let her go her own way. In the end, she’ll heed the summons graved within her flesh, and there’s nothing you can do to hold her back. Now stand aside—and never get in my way again. Never.”
Reinmar hesitated, but he could hardly draw his blade against his own grandfather, so he stood aside and let Luther stride from the room. As he listened to the retreating footsteps, as Luther bounded down the steps two at a time, he felt an odd thrill within his own limbs. It was as if some slight leakage of the rejuvenated man’s joy in the recovery of his power had entered into him.
Reinmar found the stray piece of mortar on the floor, and replaced it in the slot in the wall. Perhaps it was a good thing, he thought, that the nectar had been taken out of his hands. Perhaps the responsibility had been too much to bear. But his hands were trembling when he heard footsteps ascending the stair again, in a much more sedate fashion.
When Gottfried Wieland appeared in the doorway of his son’s room his expression seemed incredibly tired and drained by comparison with Luther’s. It was also pained, and accusing.
“You brought him dark wine,” Gottfried said dully. “In spite of everything you saw, you brought him the wine of dreams.”
“It’s worse than that,” Reinmar confessed. “I stole a little of the nectar from which the dark wine is made. I would not have given it to him, but he found it. I think he has taken too much.”
“The slightest sip would be too much for him,” Gottfried replied, acidly. “He’s been too long unhinged to gain anything from luxury but recklessness.”
“He seemed a little more clear-headed when he left,” Reinmar suggested. “The madness was less intense than it was while the odour lingered.”
“Why didn’t you give it to the witch hunter?” Gottfried demanded.
“I don’t know,” Reinmar said, defensively. “I don’t even know why I took it in the first place.”
“Have you eaten?”
Reinmar, slightly startled by the change of subject, put his hand reflexively to his belly. “No,” he admitted.
“You must. Everyone now seems certain that there’ll be fighting tonight, even if the worst of it is some days off. Who’s your commander and where’s your station?”
“Vaedecker�
�I think he asked for me. The storehouse at the neck of the river.”
Reinmar saw Gottfried’s eyes grow slightly wider. “That’s a compliment you might regret,” he said, “but he demanded Sigurd too and I had to send him, not an hour ago. If that’s where you are there’s all the more need to fill your belly. You haven’t much time, I suppose?”
“Less than half an hour now,” Reinmar admitted.
Gottfried was already drawing him out of the room and down the stair. “All the servants have gone to their families,” the wine merchant said. “Godrich asked for a station at the warehouse, and got it, but it would not have been diplomatic for me to do likewise. I’m on the western approach—difficult ground, but tenable. We’ll eat what we can in the kitchen, and then make parcels of anything left over. We’ll split a bottle of hock now, and we’ll each take another with us—but you’ll have to share what you eat and drink at your post.”
When they got to the kitchen they found that its supplies had already been severely depleted by the servants, but a man as careful as Gottfried always kept good reserves. There was no bread left, but there were various salted meats and pickled vegetables, a few bruised apples, a little butter and some sugar. Reinmar and his father ate while they packed up what they could.
[Warhammer] - The Wine of Dreams Page 27
