Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment
CHAPTER TWO
The west wind ushered in a night-time thunderstorm.
The purple-black sky cracked with lines of lightning and exploded with persistent rumbles of thunder. A downpour began, pelting the dusty road, roofs, and dirt smeared windows with drops as thick as oil. The strong wind continued and soon drove the rain and the storm somewhere far beyond the lightning blazing horizon.
And then the dogs started barking. Hooves were drumming, weapons rattling. A wild hooting and whistling woke the sleeping villagers, making their hair stand on end. They jumped up hastily and locked doors and windows with iron bars. Sweaty hands clutched axes and pitchfork handles. They clasped them firmly. And yet helplessly.
Terror, terror was flying through the village. Hunters or the hunted? Cruel and insane with rage or fear? Will they dash through without slowing the horses? Or will the night be illuminated with the light of burning thatch and fire?
Hush, hush, child…
Mama, are they demons? Is this the Wild Hunt? Spectres from hell? Mama, Mama!
Peace, peace, children. These are not demons, not devils.
Worse.
They are people.
The dogs barked. A gale was blowing. Horses whinnied and horseshoes pounded.
Through the village, through the night, to chase the riff-raff.
* * *
Hotsporn came riding over the crest of the hill, halted his horse and turned it sideways. He was careful, cautious, and did not take any chances, especially not when vigilance cost nothing. He was in no hurry to ride down the river, to the post office. He preferred to examine it thoroughly first.
Neither horses nor carriages were at the station, there was only a small wagon, drawn by a pair of mules. Writing could be seen on its canvas roof, though Hotsporn could not decipher it from the distance. But it did not smell like danger. Hotsporn knew how to sense danger. He was a professional.
He rode on, over the entangled bank covered in scrub and willow bushes, then decided to drive his horse into the river. He galloped through, splashing water up over his saddle. The ducks on the banks honked loudly and fled.
Hotsporn drove the horse on and rode into the yard of the station through a gap in the fence. Now he could read the writing on the wagon canvas; it said: ‘Master Alma Vera, Tattoo Artist.’ Each word of the inscription was painted a different colour and began with a particularly large, richly illuminated letter. The front right wagon wheel was emblazoned with a mark: a forked purple arrow.
‘Dismount,’ said a voice from behind him. ‘Get on the ground, now! Hands off the hilt!’
They had surrounded him silently – to the right was Asse in a black leather jacket, laced with silver threads – to the left was Falka in a green suede jacket, with feathers in her beret. Hotsporn pulled down his hood and the scarf covering his face.
‘Ha!’ Asse lowered his sword. ‘Hotsporn. I would have recognized you, but this black horse had me fooled!’
‘That's a beautiful mare,’ Falka said enthusiastically, pushing the beret off her ear. ‘As black and shiny as coal, not a hair lighter. And graceful! Oh, what a beauty!’
‘Well, I got her for just under a hundred florens.’ Hotsporn smiled carelessly. ‘Where is Giselher? Inside?’
Asse nodded. Falka stared at the mare, spellbound, and patted her neck. ‘When she galloped through the water’ – she looked at Hotsporn with her large green eyes – ‘She was like the purest Kelpie! If you would have come from the sea instead of the river, I would've sworn this was a Kelpie.’
‘Has Miss Falka ever seen a real Kelpie?’
‘Only once, in a picture.’ The girl's face suddenly clouded over. ‘That would be a long story. Go inside. Giselher is waiting.’
* * *
Light filtered through the window and shone on a table. On that table sat Mistle, leaning back on her elbows and naked from the waist down, clothed in nothing but black stockings. Between her shamelessly spread legs knelt a lean, long-haired individual in a gray-brown coat. That could be none other than Master Alma Vera, the tattoo artist, because he was just about to bite a colourful picture into Mistle's leg.
‘Come closer,’ Giselher motioned for Hotsporn to take an empty stool at the table where he sat with Spark, Kayleigh, and Reef. The latter two were dressed similarly to Asse in black calf leather jackets, which were littered with buckles, rivets, chains and other fanciful embellishments of silver. They must have originally belonged to some craftsman, thought Hotsporn. If they liked something, the Rats would pay tailors, shoemakers and saddlers truly regal fees. Of course, they also simply stole people's clothing or jewellery, if something caught their eye.
‘You found our message in the ruins of the old station?’ continued Giselher. ‘Ha, of course you did, otherwise you would not be here, yes. I must admit, you have come quickly.’
‘Because of his beautiful mare,’ interjected Falka. ‘I bet it is fast!’
‘I found your message.’ Hotsporn did not look away from Giselher. ‘But what about mine? Has it reached you?’
‘Has it…’ the leader of the Rats began to hum and haw. ‘But… Well, in short… We haven't had time. First, we got drunk and had to cut back for a while. And later, we had to go somewhere else…’
Damn bastards, thought Hotsporn.
‘In short, you have not executed the order?’
‘N-no. Excuse me, Hotsporn. It did not fit… But next time, oho! Absolutely!’
‘Absolutely!’ Kayleigh emphatically confirmed, although no one had asked him for a confirmation.
Damn, irresponsible bastards. You got drunk. And then you had to go elsewhere. Elsewhere being where you found those unusual clothes, no doubt.
‘Will you have a drink with us?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Or perhaps some of this?’ Giselher pointed to an ornate paint jar that stood between the jugs and tankards. Hotsporn now knew whence came the strange glint in the eyes of the Rats and why their movements were so nervous and fast.
‘First-class dust,’ assured Giselher. ‘Will you take a pinch?’
‘No thank you.’ Hotsporn cast an eloquent glance at a blood stain and a vanishing trail in the sawdust, which revealed the path a corpse had been dragged. Giselher noticed the look.
‘That marks the death of the postmaster's servant, who wanted to act like a hero,’ he snarled. ‘Until Spark made an example of him.’
Spark let out a throaty laugh. You could see immediately that she was exhilarated by the powerful narcotic. ‘I made an example of him, only so that blood gushed,’ she boasted. ‘And immediately after the others stayed peaceful. This is called terrorism!’
As usual, she was draped with jewellery – she even had a small diamond ring in her nostrils. She wore no leather, but instead a cherry-red brocade jacket with a pattern that was already becoming the latest fashion among wealthy youths. The same was true with the silk cloth wrapped around the head of Giselher. Hotsporn had even heard of girls who cut their hair like Mistle's.
‘That is called terrorism,’ he repeated thoughtfully, still staring at the trail of blood on the floor. ‘And the postmaster? His wife? Their son?’
‘No, no.’ Giselher frowned. ‘Do you think we slaughter everyone? Where did you get that idea? We have temporarily locked them in the pantry. The station, as you can see, belongs to us now.’
Kayleigh noisily flushed his mouth with wine and spat on the floor. Using a spoon, he took a pinch from the casket of Fisstech, licked the tip of his index finger, sprinkled it on carefully, and rubbed the anaesthetic into his gums. He gave the jar to Falka, who repeated the ritual and passed it to Reef. The Nilfgaardian, who was busy trying to look through a catalogue of coloured tattoos, refused and gave the jar to Spark. The elf passed it on to Giselher, without making use of it.
‘Terror,’ hissed Spark, narrowing her glinting eyes and sniffling. ‘With its help we conquered this station
! Emperor Emhyr does it to the entire world, we only to this hovel. But the principle is the same!’
‘Owww, dammit!’ cried Mistle from the table. ‘Watch where you poke that thing! Do that again and I'll stab you! Straight through!’
The Rats – except Falka and Giselher – roared with laughter.
‘If you want to be beautiful, you have to suffer!’ called Spark.
‘Don't worry, master,’ added Kayleigh. ‘Between the legs is inured to you!’
Falka threw a filthy curse at him, followed by a tankard. Kayleigh ducked and again the Rats laughed loudly.
Hotsporn decided to put an end to the mirth. ‘So the station is in terror. And for what? Apart from the satisfaction of terrorizing people?’
‘We are here in ambush’, said Giselher while he rubbed Fisstech into his gums. ‘If someone comes here to change horses or to take a rest, we take them out. This brings in more than any crossroads in the wild or fork on the road. But, like Spark has just said, the principle is the same.’
‘But we've been here the whole day today and all we got was this’, said Reef while he pointed to Master Alma Vera, whose whole head had nearly disappeared between Mistle's splayed thighs. ‘A pauper like all artists. He has nothing to steal, so we rob him of his art. Take a look at how clever he is at drawing.’
He bared his arm and showed a tattoo – a naked woman, who moved her buttocks when he clenched his fist. Kayleigh also had one – twisted around his arm, above the spiked bracelet, was a green snake with its mouth open and a scarlet red forked tongue.
‘Very tasteful’ Hotsporn said with indifference in his voice. ‘And helpful in the identification of corpses. But the robbery went wrong, dear Rats. You will have to pay the artist for his art. There was no opportunity to warn you: For seven days, since the first of September, the sign of safe passage has been a purple forked arrow. The same sign that is painted on his wagon.’
Reef swore softly and Kayleigh began to laugh. Giselher waved indifferently.
‘Oh well. If need be, he will be paid for his needles and inks. A purple arrow, you say? We will remember. If somebody comes up tomorrow with the character of the arrow, nothing will happen to him.’
‘You’re going to stay here tomorrow?’ Hotsporn was surprised and a bit incredulous. ‘Foolish, you Rats. Risky and dangerous!’
‘How?’
‘Risky and dangerous.’
Giselher shrugged his shoulders. Spark spluttered and spit on the floor. Reef, Kayleigh and Falka looked at the Hotsporn as if he had just informed them that the sun had fallen into the river and they had to fish it out quickly before it was cut to pieces by crab claws. Hotsporn realized that he had just appealed to reason of crazy brats. That the people he was warning of risk and danger were braggarts filled with insane bravado – people who were not familiar with the concepts of risk or danger.
‘You are being hunted, Rats.’
‘So what?’
The discussion was interrupted by Mistle, who approached them, without taking the trouble to get dressed. She put one foot on the bench, turned her hips and showed the world the work of Master Alma Vera: a fiery red rose on a green stem with two leaves, situated directly on the leg near the groin.
‘Well?’ she asked and put her hands on her hips. Diamonds sparkled on her many bracelets, which covered her arms almost to her elbows. ‘What say you?’
‘One thing is prettier than the other!’ Kayleigh snorted and brushed back his hair. Hotsporn noticed that the Rat's ears were pierced and he wore small rings in them. Doubtless, before long such rings – as well as metal studded leather jacket – would be the latest fashion among the wealthy youth throughout Thum and Geso.
‘Your turn, Falka’ said Mistle. ‘What do you want to make you stand out?’
Falka touched her legs, leaned down and looked at the tattoo. Up close. Mistle tousled her ash-blond hair tenderly. Falka began to giggle and undress without ceremony.
‘I want a rose,’ she said. ‘In the very same place as yours, darling.’
* * *
‘I think you might have mice, Vysogota.’ Ciri interrupted her story and looked at the floor, where the light from the small lamp illuminated a true tournament of mice. One could only imagine what was going on outside the glow of the lamp, in the dark.
‘You could use a cat. Or better still, two cats.’
‘The rodents’ – the hermit cleared his throat – ‘come to the hut because winter is coming. And I have a cat. But it’s gone off somewhere, the faithless…’
‘It must have been bitten by a fox or a raccoon.’
‘You have not seen this cat, Ciri. If he has been bitten by anything, it would be a dragon. Nothing smaller.’
‘So it was a tomcat? Ha, too bad. He would not allow these mice to crawl into bed with me. Too bad.’
‘Too bad. But I think he will come back. He always comes back.’
‘I'll put some wood on the fire. It's cold.’
‘Cold. The nights are devilishly cold now… and it's not even mid-October… Go on, Ciri.’
Ciri sat motionless for a moment, gazing into the fire pit. The fire rose around the newly placed log. It began to crackle and hiss. It threw a golden glow and darting shadows on the disfigured face of the girl.
‘Tell.’
* * *
Master Alma Vera stabbed and Ciri could feel tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Although she had prepared herself with wine and the white powder, the pain was unbearable. She had to grit her teeth to stifle her moans. But of course, she did not moan. She acted as if she didn't even notice the needles and didn't give a damn about the pain. She tried to continue as if nothing were happening, to participate in the conversation the Rats were having with Hotsporn. He was an individual who pretended to be a businessman, but had nothing to do with trade, as it was practiced by the merchants.
‘Dark clouds have gathered over your heads’ said Hotsporn gravely, letting his dark eyes roam over the room and the faces of each of the Rats. ‘Not only is the governor of Amarillo hunting you, but also Varnhagen and Baron Casadei…’
‘The Baron?’ Giselher grimaced. ‘The governor and the Varnhagens I can understand, but what does Casadei have against us?’
Hotsporn grinned. ‘The wolf puts on sheep’s clothing and starts bleating pitifully, ‘baa, baa, nobody likes me, no one understands me. When I look to leave, they throw stones at me, screaming ‘Be off!’. Why, why must I suffer such insults and injustice?’ – The daughter of the Baron Casadei, dear Rats, is in poor health after the escapade at Stelzbach and still has a fever…’
‘Ahhh,’ recalled Giselher. ‘The coach with four tabby horses! Was that the lady?’
‘Yes. Now, as I said, she suffers. She wakes up screaming in night, remembering the Lord Kayleigh… and in particular Miss Falka. And the brooch, a memento from her dear mother, that was violently torn from her dress by Miss Falka. Where Miss Falka said all sorts of things.’
‘That's not at all what happened!’ Ciri shouted from the table, glad to have the opportunity to cry and vent her pain. ‘We were reserved and respectful towards the Baroness and we let them go free! Someone should have fucked the maid!’
‘Indeed.’ Ciri felt Hotsporn’s gaze on her bare thighs. ‘It was truly a great insult to not ‘fuck the maid’. It’s no wonder then that Casadei drummed up his wrath, armed his House, and offered a reward. He has publicly vowed to hang all of your heads from the corbels of his castle walls. He has also vowed that, for the brooch torn from his daughter’s dress, Miss Falka will have the skin torn from her. In strips.’
Ciri cursed while the other Rats laughed and yelled. Spark sneezed and spit – a result of the Fisstech provoking her mucosa.
‘We are always hunted!’ she said as she wiped her nose, mouth, chin and the table with a cloth. ‘The governor, the Baron, the Varnhagens! They pursue us, but they do not understand! We are the Rats! We doubled back three times behind the river Velde, and now
these idiots are on a mad hunt along a cold trail. By the time they notice it is a false trail, they will be too far to turn back.’
‘They should turn back!’ said Asse, who had come in a little while ago from his guard post. No one had replaced him and no one made any move to replace him now. ‘Then we will take them in the rear!’
‘Exactly,’ shouted Ciri from the table, who had already forgotten how afraid she had been the night before when they had been fleeing pursuers throughout the small villages by the Velde.
‘Enough’ Giselher slapped his palm on the table and the loud chatter stopped immediately. ‘Speak, Hotsporn. I can see that you want to tell us something, something more important than the governor, Varnhagen, or Baron Casadei and his sensitive daughter.’
‘Bonhart is tracking you.’
There was a silence, an unusually long silence. Even Master Alma Vera stopped for a moment to listen.
‘Bonhart.’ repeated Giselher slowly. ‘The old gray bastard. We must have really stepped on someone’s toes.’
‘Someone rich,’ confirmed Mistle. ‘Not many could afford Bonhart.’
Ciri was about to ask what this Bonhart was, but before she had the chance the same question was spoken simultaneously by Reef and Asse.
‘It is a bounty hunter,’ explained Giselher gloomily. ‘He started as a soldier, then became a travelling trader, and has finally succumbed to killing people for reward. He is a son of a bitch beyond compare.’
‘He is’ Kayleigh said, rather carelessly, ‘if everyone Bonhart has killed were buried in the same cemetery, it would be a half acre in size.’
Mistle sprinkled a little white powder in the hollow between her thumb and forefinger, and snorted it violently up her nose.
‘Bonhart destroyed the gang of the Big Lothar’, she said. ‘He stabbed him and his brother, the one they called the Toadstool.’
Andrzej Sapkowski - [Witcher 05] Page 4
