by Robert Earl
Brock was surprised at the rumble of agreement, and fought down the impulse to go and box his son’s ears.
“After all,” one of the domnu’s friends said, in conciliation, “if life does become too tough, we can always go to Flintmar later.”
“By then, it may be too late,” Brock insisted.
“Our lives were never meant to be certain,” another man added.
“Well, they’ll be certain enough if we stay here,” Brock said. He turned to the petru for help, but the old man remained silent, merely staring into the fire and drawing on his pipe.
“Look,” Esku said, “at least let’s wait until after the festival. We are doing good business here, and the next town along is even richer. We can always talk again next month. We all respect you, domnu, and if you say we should go then we should all respect that, but if we do go, we should make the most of the time we have remaining first.”
“The problem is, we don’t know how much time that will be. It could be a week, a month. It could be-”
Before he could finish the statement, there was a cry from the sentries, followed by the beating hooves of a horse galloping into the stockade. The wagon masters sprang to their feet, and the night came alive with the hiss of their drawn weapons and the glitter of firelight on steel.
The sentries threw oil onto their braziers, and the bloom of yellow light sent long, black shadows racing among the neat lines of the Striganies’ wagons and tents.
Brock led the phalanx of wagon masters to the central clearing where the intruder’s horse had staggered to a halt. If this was an attack, the domnu realised as his men surrounded the rider, it wasn’t much of one. There was only a single horseman, and he was neither armed nor armoured for war, unless it was a ruse.
“Sentries,” Brock roared, “eyes back out front. This could be a distraction.”
The men jumped to follow his orders, and were soon joined by others, who, scantily clad but well armed, had come stumbling out of their caravans at the alarm.
“To the stockade,” Brock told them, his voice booming amongst the wagons. “Take your positions.”
Only when the camp was awake and bristling did the domnu turn his attention back to the rider, who stood at bay amongst the circle of wagon masters’ blades.
“Chervez,” Brock shouted into the night even as he regarded the intruder, “any sign of an attack?”
“Not yet, domnu,” a voice answered back from the darkness.
“Keep alert. And you,” Brock said, lowering his voice as he spoke to the horseman, “what do you mean by barging in like this? Why didn’t you stop at the gate?”
By way of an answer, the man ran a hand through his thick black mane of hair, slipped from his horse’s back and bowed. His movements were clumsy with exhaustion.
“My pardon, domnu,” he said, his words a little slurred. “I have been riding for three days to find you. I am Dannie, from the caravan of Domnu Ionescu. I need to speak to Petru Engel, who I think travels amongst you.”
“Do you now?” Brock asked, exchanging a glance with the petru, who stood behind the swordsmen, “and what does Domnu Ionescu want of Petru Engel?”
“Nothing,” Dannie told him. “He’s dead. They’re all dead. It was state troopers. I wasn’t there, but I followed them. I…”
Dannie paused, put his hand to his face, and staggered back against the heaving flanks of his mare.
The domnu was immediately contrite, but it was the petru who pushed forward and took Dannie by the arm.
“I am Engel,” he said. “Here, take my shoulder. You have found me. Come, rest and drink something. You are safe now.”
“Thank you, petru,” Dannie muttered, “but I must see to my horse.”
“We’ll do that,” Brock said, “and we’ll be glad to. You are welcome among us.”
There was a chorus of agreement, and the wagon masters watched the petru lead the newcomer away with a mixture of fear and sympathy.
“We’ll resume the council tomorrow,” Brock told them, “after we’ve heard what he has to say.”
Although he felt sorry for the boy, the domnu found himself thanking the gods for sending him the stick he needed to drive his caravan to safety. Dannie let the petru lead him back to the solid block of his wagon, and sit him down on the smooth wood of its floor. He watched while the old man lit a lamp and, by the glow of it, uncorked a stone bottle to pour him a wooden bowl of some tonic.
“Here,” the petru said, handing the bowl to him, “drink it slowly.”
Dannie swirled the viscous liquid, inhaling the aroma. He had never smelled anything like this before, except perhaps the sweet warmth of a meadow in high summer. Although there was no taste of alcohol when he drank, it soothed him as well as the strongest potcheen.
After the first swallow, the knots that three days of riding had tied in his muscles started unravelling. After the second swallow, he sighed with relief, and when he’d drained the bowl, even the rat’s nest of worries that beset him seemed less pressing.
“This is good, petru,” he said, feeling the warmth of the brew as it seeped into his blood.
“Made from rowan berries and a few other bits and pieces,” the petru told him. He refilled his guest’s bowl, and then corked the bottle, sat in his chair, and started filling a pipe.
“Thank you,” Dannie said, and drank some more. His breathing came heavier, and his eyelids started to drop. He blinked hard, and sat back up straight.
“I should tell you what happened,” he said, but the petru just shrugged.
“You should, but it may be well to sleep first. I can see how exhausted you are.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Dannie said, before performing a jaw-cracking yawn, “but maybe you need to know this now. My petru, Petru Nils, had taken me for an apprentice. He told me many of the tales, much of the lore. I was to be our next petru.”
Dannie took another swig, and, despite the numbing exhaustion, he could feel his host’s eyes upon him.
“Well, now that he is dead, I am petru. I am domnu, petru, everything, and, as such, I will bring my people their revenge.”
Dannie turned to face the petru, who frowned. It had been a long time since he had seen such cold hatred in somebody’s eyes, maybe not since he’d been as young as his guest.
“Eat revenge too hot and it scalds the tongue,” he said.
“I know the aphorisms,” Dannie said. He nodded, and looked into the depths of his bowl, “And I know about the Old Fathers too.”
He let the words hang in the air. Engel stopped drawing on his pipe. The air seemed to grow colder, thicker. He paced over to the door of his wagon, peeked outside to make sure that nobody was out there, and bolted it before returning to his seat.
“The Old Fathers?” he asked.
“I have come here,” Dannie continued, “so that you may guide me to one.”
Petru Engel opened his mouth to ask Dannie what he was talking about, what an Old Father was supposed to be. Tales were only tales. Was he in shock? Then he closed his mouth without uttering a word.
There was no point in telling a lie unless it would be believed. He would have to try another tack.
“The Old Fathers,” he said, grimacing as he spoke, as though the very words had a foul taste. “I don’t know what your petru told you, or started to tell you, but they are not… they are not tame.”
“I know that,” Dannie said, his voice flat and dull. “How could they be?”
“I mean,” the petru continued, “they are not sane either, none of them. They are unclean, taboo.”
“So can women be,” Dannie answered, “but that doesn’t stop you from talking to them.”
“That’s totally different,” the petru said uneasily.
“Anyway, that is why I am here,” Dannie said. He put the cup down. “I ask you, in the name of my caravan, of my family and our blood, to aid me. Now, if I have your leave, petru, I will sleep. It’s been many days.”
“
Of course,” the petru said, “I’ll give you some blankets.”
Dannie, however, was already snoring, exhaustion taking him where he sat. The petru watched him, his beard moving as he chewed his lip. Then, with a sigh, he leaned forwards, and put his face in his hands.
“The Old Fathers,” he said to himself. “By Ushoian, lad, whatever your petru told you, they are nothing but a curse on our people.”
Then he uncorked the stone bottle and poured himself a measure. He drank deeply, and sighed miserably.
He had no idea that Mihai was lying not three feet beneath him, his head resting on the rear axle and his ear pressed to the floor boards. If he had, the emotions that raged within his bony old chest would have found the perfect release.
As it was, he sat up until dawn, chewing his beard into rats’ tails, and wondering what to do with the young man who lay slumbering on the hard wooden floor of his wagon, and who threatened to damn them all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The price of life is death.”
– Strigany aphorism Dannie was alone. The land around him was flat and empty. Not even the most gnarled patch of scrubland broke the endless plain of grey stone. He looked up to find ash falling from the dark sky. It drifted between his feet, and dusted the bodies that lay ready in their coffins around him.
The only sound was a knocking, loud and rhythmic, and, when he turned to the noise, he saw that the source was a black-robed figure. It was stooped beneath its robe, bent over one of the coffins as it hammered the lid closed. As Dannie watched, it finished its work, and started on another.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The figure, still wielding the hammer, didn’t deign to turn. Instead, it pointed with one gnarled finger. Dannie followed the yellow claw, and saw one coffin was empty.
He didn’t need to ask for whom it had been made.
“You awake in there?” a voice asked, and with a terrifying rush of vertigo, Dannie’s dream shattered. He sat bolt upright on the wooden floor, and, in the darkness of the wagon, he struggled to remember where he was.
“Better wake up and get this before it’s gone,” the voice told him, and Dannie realised that, although he had woken, the hammering sound continued. It was somebody knocking on the door of the wagon.
“I’m awake,” he croaked, and then coughed to clear his throat. “Come in.”
“Thanks,” the voice said, and the wagon door opened. Dannie squinted in the wash of sunlight, and saw his guest. The man was perhaps twenty, he guessed. Although he was as thin-faced and wiry as any Strigany, his blue eyes and mop of red hair were unusual for one of their people. Dannie vaguely recognised him from the night before.
“Brought you some food,” the man said, nodding absentmindedly towards the scroll box above the door, and climbing into the wagon.
“Thank you,” Dannie said, and, at the same time he realised how stiff his muscles were, he found that he had an appetite. “Thank you very much. I haven’t eaten for days.”
“Better take it easy then,” the redhead told him, and handed him a wooden platter of food. Dannie’s mouth watered at the sight of it: there was a pot of ale, fresh bread, sweet wrinkled apples, and even a slab of jellied pork.
“Will you join me?” he asked, breaking the bread and smearing a slice of jellied pork onto it.
“No, I’ve eaten. I’ll keep you company, though. My names Mihai.”
“And I’m Dannie,” Dannie said, and offered his hand.
“Yes, I know,” Mihai said as they shook. “I remember you all right.”
“I didn’t know we’d met before,” Dannie said around a mouthful of food. “By the gods, this hits the spot. This pork’s fantastic.”
“Yes, we met years ago. I was only about ten, and you would have been twelve or thirteen. It was when our two caravans joined up to travel through some bandit country.”
“Oh yes, I remember that,” Dannie said, nodding, and taking a bite of one of the apples. It was as sweet as honey, and he washed it down with a swig of ale. “Didn’t we go hunting together or something?”
“No, but you saved my life,” Mihai told him. “I was swimming in a river when the current took me. If you hadn’t galloped down the bank to fish me out, my bones would have ended up in the sea.”
Dannie’s eyes opened in surprise.
“That was you?” he asked, and tore off another piece of bread. “Yes, I do remember now. With that red hair of yours, how could I forget? How you wailed!”
“Well, I was only ten,” Mihai said.
“Yes, of course,” Dannie agreed easily. “You were strong enough to save yourself, though. You’d have made it to the bank eventually. I just wanted to give you a hand.”
“Thank you,” Mihai said. Dannie was about to brush the thanks away, but, when he saw the seriousness on Mihai’s face, he changed his mind. If the man wanted to owe him a debt, well, that might come in handy.
“You are welcome,” he said. “Strigany are all one family. We have to stick together.”
“That we do,” Mihai said. “Hey, after that you can come and see me wrestle a bear if you like.”
“Really?”
“Sort of. I’ve known old Ursus since he was a cub, but we like to put on a good show for the peasants. He can snarl and lumber about something terrible,” Mihai grinned.
Dannie grinned back, his full cheeks making him look like a hamster. Then he remembered his duty, and the grin died.
“Thanks,” he said, “but I need to talk to the petru. We have some business to attend to. Can you tell him I want to speak to him?”
“Of course,” Mihai said, nodding, and regarding the other man with a strange appraisal. “I’ll send him right along. And don’t forget,” he said, slapping Dannie on the shoulder as he got up to leave, “I owe you one.” That afternoon there had been some more argument, but not much. To Petru Engel’s dismay, Dannie’s claim to have been his petru’s apprentice had proved to be no idle boast. His knowledge of lore and the custom was too thorough to be dismissed, and, when Engel had tried to dampen his thirst for vengeance with a charm, the younger man had waved it away.
Eventually, Petru Engel had given in. The ferocity of his ambition was too strong to be denied, and he had the right. That was the real problem. For all the good it would do him, he had the right.
So it was that, after the cooking fires had burned out, and as the wheel of the stars turned overhead, the petru and his guest stepped out into the night. Both men were cloaked, and although they had a long march ahead of them, they avoided the corral to slip out of the encampment on foot.
The guards on the gate both turned away as they approached, although neither of them could have said quite why, and the guard dogs that ran up to challenge them suddenly changed their minds and, tails between their legs, slunk off into the shadows.
“My master never taught me how to do that,” Dannie murmured when they were far enough away from the guards.
“We all have our talents,” the petru murmured back. The walls of Lerenstein were to their right, but the two men had no business there tonight. Instead, they skirted the town, and angled off over the moonlit fields towards the forest beyond.
Beneath the light of Mannslieb, the forest looked solid and black. As they drew nearer, the ancient trees towered over them, and Dannie felt a twinge of unease. He scolded himself. Compared to what they would be facing tonight, there was little in this darkness to fear.
In fact, Dannie thought, compared to the thing that they would be facing tonight, there was little in this world to fear.
“How many miles will we walk tonight?” he asked the petru, mainly to take his mind off of that thought.
“I’m not sure,” the old man said, “but we will be finished before dawn. Perhaps,” he added, “long before dawn, and forever. It is still not too late to turn back. There are other ways than this. There always are.”
“No,” Dannie said, making the decision quickly, before his fear had the c
hance to betray him. “I am committed. This is my path.”
“Yes,” the petru sighed as they found the track that cut into the tree line. “I was afraid that you’d say that.”
The two men lapsed into silence as they left the moonlit fields for the blinding darkness of the forest. The track that they followed was riven with deep ruts, and the two men stumbled along it, their way lit only by the blade of moonlight that fell through the gap in the forest canopy.
Now and then, animal cries would float out of the darkness. Some Dannie recognised, others he did not. Once there was a sudden, terrifying shriek of pain from their right, followed by a moment of complete silence. Above them, the silhouettes of owls hunted those of bats who, in turn, hunted moths.
Dannie immersed himself in the sounds of the sleeping forest; anything rather than think about where they were heading. Even so, when the petru suddenly froze, he had no idea why.
Knowing better than to ask, he just froze behind him. His eyes scanned the darkness in vain, and, although he stilled his own breathing in order to hear better, there was nothing but the call of some distant thing that might have been a bird.
Then, from not twelve paces ahead of them, there came the voice.
“Good evening, petru,” it said. “Dannie, I was hoping to find you here.”
“Mihai.” Both men said the name at the same time, and, as Mihai stepped forward, his grin was bright enough to be seen, even in the darkness.
“And Boris.” This voice came from the darkness on their right.
“And Bran,” another added, and the twins emerged like wraiths from the undergrowth.
The petru hissed with exasperation.
“What are you doing here, you young fools?” he snapped at Mihai, who took a step back.
“We came to look after you, petru,” he said. “I know that we weren’t invited, but you’re too valuable to be left unguarded.”
“The day that I need guarding by the likes of you is the day I’ll happily die,” the petru said.
“I can see why,” Boris agreed.
