by Paton, Chris
“Well,” I tied the last knot of the bandage. “I suppose we must go back to the city.”
“No, Karl,” Seffi held out her right arm and I pulled her to her feet. “I just need a little rest. I am sure they have everything we need to thoroughly clean my wound at the inn. We have come this far and,” she nodded at the emissary, “Wuotan couldn't be in better form. Let's complete the assignment and then,” she prodded me in the shoulder, “we can find somewhere quiet to continue your research. A mountaintop library – the Hochwanner Institute in Bavaria, perhaps?”
“The Hochwanner Institute?”
“Why not?”
“It is for esteemed scholars only. I would never be allowed in.”
“Schleiermacher promised us Wallendorf’s money and his backing, Karl. With one we will get far, with both we will get everything.”
“You have thought this through.”
“It was a long train ride, and I was angry with you. And when I get angry, I look for solutions to stop being angry.” I watched a slow smile creep across Seffi's face, betrayed with brief ticks of pain from the wound in her shoulder. “But for now,” she pointed at the path, “we must make our way to the inn. I am afraid I will have to lean on you, Karl.”
“Of course, although,” I turned to the emissary. “Wuotan could carry you.”
“Yes,” Seffi relaxed as the emissary scooped her into its arms. “That would be acceptable.”
The wolves skittered to their feet, loping into the woods as I shouldered our knapsacks, collected Seffi’s knives from the ground and lengthened my stride to match that of the emissary. The moon lit the track and the clank of the emissary almost hid the rustle of feral bodies trailing us from within the pines.
Seffi slept, cradled in the emissary's arms, until I prodded her awake as the track widened into a large clearing ringed by pine trees with a large granite wall obscuring the track to the east. A lisp of smoke rose from the chimney of a large stone and timber building with a thatched roof. Candlelight flickered in the windows, and light from the roaring fire pierced the night through the open doorway, irised with the shadow of a woman pointing a musket in our direction. The emissary clanked to a halt and I stepped out from behind its shadow and waved.
“Stai,” the woman lifted the muzzle of the musket.
“My name is Karl Finsch,” I called out in English.
“And what is that to me?” the woman took a step out of the inn and onto the wooden terrace.
“We have come to talk to the Count,” I clicked my fingers as I tried to remember his name.
“Count Cojocaru?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “That is his name.”
“Then you can just keep on walking. You and your metal beast.” The woman gripped the door handle as she retreated inside the inn. The door slammed shut with a dull thud of wood.
“Well done, Karl,” Seffi swayed upon her feet as the emissary lowered her to the ground.
“Apparently, Count Cojocaru is not as popular as we had hoped.”
Seffi sat on the ground and leaned her back against the emissary's leg. “I will wait here, while you try again.”
“With what? She is clearly not interested in helping us.” I let the knapsacks slip to the ground.
“Perhaps not, but I would really like you to try.”
“Have you no wilding ways that would help in this situation?”
“Wilding ways do not work directly on humans, Karl. But,” Seffi tilted her head back to look up at me. “Bhàtair didn't give you the thimblestone without reason.” She pointed at the inn. “See? The woman is curious. She has not left the window since shutting the door.”
“Very well,” I fingered the thimblestone in my pocket. “I will try.”
My feet brushed the stems of the short-cropped grass of the clearing. I stopped at the wooden terrace. The woman clacked the muzzle of the musket on the glass in the window and I paused, one foot raised, before stepping onto the terrace and walking to the door of the inn. The rough wood, grey as bark in the moonlight, felt warm beneath my skin. I placed my palm on the door before making a fist and knocking.
“I said you should go,” the woman's voice, young and sweet, sifted through the timber cracks.
“Yes, you did. But my friend and I need your help. We were attacked by wolves.” I waited, my ear pressed to the door, pulsing with the quick thud thud of my heartbeat.
“It's the moon,” the woman's voice, barely a whisper, caught in the cracks between the wood. “One shouldn't travel under a full moon.”
“We didn't know. We,” I pressed my lips to a crack in the door. “We are not from here. We come from Germany.”
“Are there no wolves in Germany?”
“Not like these, no.”
“And what of your beast? Did it protect you from the wolves?”
“Yes,” I stepped back as the door opened a crack. “But not before my friend was hurt.” The woman was younger than I had guessed. The woman that stood before me was no more than a teenage girl. “My name is Karl.” I lowered my hands to my sides. “My friend is called Seffi.”
“And the beast?” The girl's green eyes widened. “What is its name?”
“We call it Wuotan.”
“Like the god,” the girl breathed.
“Yes,” I nodded. “Like the god.”
“My name is Natalia Sala. My father, Mihail, owns the inn.” She opened the door. The firelight lit her thick sheepskin gilet, the collar thick with fur and stiff beneath her close-cropped hair. “Bring your friend inside. Hurry.”
My feet echoed upon the terrace as I nodded my head in thanks, turned and beckoned for Seffi and the emissary to come. Natalia followed me to the edge of the terrace, the musket in her hand. She stiffened at the howl of a wolf at the edge of the clearing. Raising the musket to her shoulder, she sighted along the barrel as a light brown wolf trotted into the centre of the clearing.
“Oh, Cezar,” she lowered the musket.
The wolf sat on its haunches and stared.
“Cezar Negrescu,” Natalia gave the emissary a cursory glance, stepping around it as it clanked into a guarding position in front of the inn door. “You must go home before my father returns.” She lifted the musket and shook it. “Go, now.”
The wolf opened its great jaws and flopped onto its belly.
“No, Cezar.” Natalia stomped her foot. “I won't have it. Go home.” Turning her back to the wolf, Natalia hurried to the door and opened it wide for Seffi and I to pass through.
“Your beast will have to stay outside.”
“Of course,” I smiled. “It cannot fit inside.”
“In the barn, perhaps,” Natalia bit her lip. “It won't hurt the wolves, will it?”
“Only if they attack.”
“Oh,” she brightened, “Cezar won't attack. He is as mad for me as he is for the moon. I only hope he leaves before father gets home.”
“Cezar?” I shook my head. “You have given the wolf a name?”
Natalia sighed. “Cezar is the name of a boy gone wolfskin. It is normal in these parts.”
“Where is your father, Natalia?” Seffi called from the chair.
“He is with the Count,” Natalia spat on the stone floor. “Discussing the rent.”
“The rent?”
“Yes,” Natalia leaned the gun against a thick pillar of oak. “The rent is me, when I turn eighteen.”
Chapter 8
I removed the bandage from Seffi's shoulder to the crackle of spruce logs and the occasional pop of resin pockets in the fireplace. Natalia added another armful of neatly chopped logs onto the fire before picking up an oil lamp and placing it on the rough pine table beside Seffi. She peered at the wound as I teased at the last strip of linen.
“Do you have any warm water, Natalia,” I pointed at the bandage caked in sticky blood. “I want to get this off and clean it properly.”
“Yes, but there is something else you should know about that,” she turned to l
ook at Seffi, her eyes glistening in the lamplight. “That is not just a wound, it is also a mark. You have been marked by the wolf that clawed you. It won't rest until it has bitten you.”
Seffi lifted her head, squared her chin. “Like you and Cezar?”
“Yes,” Natalia whispered. She pulled a stool out from under the table and sat next to Seffi. “You knew?”
Seffi smiled. “It is not every wolf one calls by name, Natalia.”
Natalia glanced at the window. “We used to play together, Cezar and I.”
“And where do they come from, Natalia?” I stopped teasing at the bandage and sat down at the table.
Natalia wrinkled her nose into a sneer. “They are the Count's men, all of them. He turns all boys wolfskin on the first moon of their sixteenth year.”
“The same Count who...” Seffi took Natalia's hand. She waited for the young woman to respond.
“Yes, the one who my father is pleading with tonight. For me.” Natalia pulled her hand free and stood up. “I will boil some water on the fire.” Stopping by the window, her nose but a thumb's width from the glass, she stared at the emissary. “Will that machine stay there all night?”
“Yes,” the chair creaked as I stood up and crossed the stone floor to the window. “He will stand there as long as we are here.”
“Protecting you?”
“Yes.”
Natalia's breath frosted the glass. “Will it protect other people, too?”
“Do you need protecting, Natalia?” I glanced at Seffi, smiling as she nodded. Natalia turned away from the window, her eyes the colour of ashes brightened beneath her burnt-blonde hair.
“Yes,” she looked up at me. “For I fear my father will fail.”
Stepping past me, Natalia took a large soot-blackened kettle from a shelf above the stove and filled it from one of two wooden water pails by the side of the fire. She hung the kettle from a metal hook above the flames and secured the lid. The pop of resin cast a flame that licked at the base of the kettle as Natalia sat on the floor and began to speak. I picked up a stool for Seffi, setting it down close to Natalia so that we could hear Natalia's tale. The soft click of gears from outside the cabin suggested the emissary was listening, too.
“You have come at a difficult time for father and I. I think everyone is struggling now. The Count and his men are preparing for war, and they have stripped the mountains and valleys of game. There is nothing left for the hunters to hunt, and the fishermen sell all but the smallest fish to the Count. The only thing the Count ever did to help his people was force them to learn to speak English.” Natalia fiddled with the hem of her dress. I used the pause to ask about the war. “I don't know who the Count is going to war against, nobody does, not even father. All I know is that the war will take place far away, and the Count is organising his supplies.”
“Does he have a large army, Natalia?” Seffi asked with one hand supporting the elbow of her wounded arm.
“It grows, slowly.” She turned her head and flicked her finger at the window. “Cezar is one of the newest recruits.”
“One of the Count’s men,” I murmered.
“Hah,” Natalia laughed, the firelight playing across her dimpled cheeks. “Cezar Negrescu is a boy. I am almost two years older than him.” She shrugged. “That is why he cannot bite me.”
“But he did mark you, Natalia.” Seffi leaned forwards to place her hand on Natalia's shoulder. “Didn't he?”
“Yes.” Tugging at the sleeve of her dress, Natalia rolled it along her right arm. A thin track of three lines traced a white scar upon her nut-brown skin. “Barely, but enough. The poor hound thinks I belong to him now. It amuses the Count, but he will kill Cezar in the end.” Natalia turned her head to the fire. Smoothing her hair from her forehead, she revealed a similar scar stretching up along her scalp. “The Count marked me the day I was born.”
“Seffi,” I shuffled close to her stool. “I fear we have been deceived, again.”
“Bremen,” Seffi's lips tightened around the minister's name. “He has been courting the Count long before we came, Karl.” She sighed. “He didn't send the emissary here to impress the Count. He sent it here as a gift.”
“There is no real technology around here, not even a hint of steam beyond the railroad,” I looked around the room. Natalia turned to watch me as I stood up. “It's as though Transylvania is sealed in a pocket of time, removed from the machinations of its neighbours.”
“Karl,” Seffi chuckled. “Machinations? I think you spent too much time talking to Whistlefish.”
“Who is Whistlefish?” Natalia asked. Water spat from the kettle, fizzling on the flames as Natalia pulled on a huge leather glove to remove the kettle from the fire.
“A good friend,” I smiled at the thought of The Suilven Star sailing southwards through the clouds.
“One we should not have left so soon, Karl.”
“We didn't have much choice, and neither did he.”
“We could use his help now,” Seffi mused. “If only to get out of here, and quickly.”
The splash of hot water in a clay bowl pushed the airship from my thoughts. Whistlefish and his crew of self-made pirates were too far away to help anyway. I waited until the bowl was full and Natalia had returned from the drawer by the stove with a handful of cloths.
“We don't have any bandages, but these are clean.” She handed them to me.
“Thank you.” I dipped the smallest cloth in the water and wet Seffi's bandage until I could peel it from the wound. Beneath the surface crust of blood, the skin was already closing, healing faster than it should. Seffi caught my hesitation and placed her hand on my arm.
“What is it?” She looked up.
“It's practically healed. Beneath the blood your skin is already knitted together.”
“That's fast,” Seffi let go of my arm. “Even for me.”
“It was the same with me,” Natalia collected the soiled bandages from the table and floor. “I had to convince my father that I had even been near a wolf.” She dumped the bandages in a wicker basket by the stove. “Although, he should know better.”
“So what does it mean, Natalia?” Seffi stood, rolling her shoulder in gentle arcs.
“It is the mark. It heals quickly because you have some of the wolf inside you.” She paused. “What did it look like?”
“The wolf?” Seffi turned towards the window as the emissary clanked across the deck and stepped onto the stubbled grass of the clearing. The youthful howl of a wolf unfamiliar with its nature, lilted into the night.
“Cezar,” Natalia stiffened. “He is calling to the others.”
“And they have come,” Seffi peered out of the window. She tapped the glass. “That one. That's the one that clawed me.”
“It can't be,” I hurried to her side. “I stuck it with one of your knives.” Seffi nodded at her shoulder in response. “What do we do?”
The wolf named Cezar stretched, yawning as the large grey wolf that had marked Seffi stalked into the clearing. The two wolves that had followed us to the inn loped to one side. Cezar trembled as the large grey male rested its muzzle on top of the young wolf's nose.
“Oh, Cezar,” Natalia squirmed past me to stand at the window, her hands gripping the wooden sill. “Don't let Dragoș bully you.”
“I am not sure he has much choice, Natalia.” Seffi placed her hand on the young woman's shoulder. “Karl?”
“Yes?”
“Even with the emissary,” Seffi whispered, “we won't get far. I don't think we should leave the inn. Not before daylight. There might be more of them out there.”
“There are more,” Natalia pointed. “Lots. Here comes the Count, and,” Natalia pushed past me and ran to the door. “Father,” she shouted as the door swung open in her grasp.
“No, Natalia,” Seffi stepped away from the window. “Don't go outside.”
“But, my father comes,” Natalia frowned at Seffi. “I will be safe.”
“No,
” Seffi shook her head. “Look at your father's face, Natalia. He is scared, he does not want you to leave the inn. Trust me.”
“Trust,” Natalia hesitated. “I must trust my father.” She stepped out of the inn and onto the deck. The wood creaked softly beneath her feet, her footsteps hidden beneath the click and whirr of the emissary as it turned towards her.
“Take the musket, Karl.” Seffi stepped around me, grabbing a sheepskin jacket from the rack and pulling it on as she followed Natalia out of the door. I picked up the musket by the barrel and followed, the cold steel prickling at my fingers as I changed my grip. I had never fired a musket in my life.
“Natalia Sala,” the Count reigned his horse to a stop by the side of the wolves in the middle of the clearing, some fifty feet from the inn. “You have made some interesting new friends.” He leaned forwards on the saddle. “Won't you introduce me?”
“Stai, Natalia.” A small, weathered man astride a large horse urged his mount past the Count.
“Careful now, Mihail,” the Count nodded at the dominant wolf loitering beside Cezar. “Dragoș.”
Fangs bared, Dragoș leaped in front of the innkeeper's horse. The wolf's claws pinched the earth beneath its paws. It stretched its neck forwards, the top of its great head but a few feet from the horse's chest. Mihail struggled to still his mount.
“Thank you, Dragoș.” The Count clicked his tongue and his horse trotted forwards, past Natalia's father. Crossing the clearing, the Count stopped as the emissary strode forwards in a gout of steam. I smiled at the vibration from the emissary's cloven feet as the impact of each step tremored through the packed-earth of the clearing and through the wooden deck.
“Such friends you have tonight, Natalia.” The Count walked his horse in a circle around the emissary. I noted the distance to be only a little further than the emissary's reach. “Impressive,” the Count whistled. He stopped to look at me. “Is this the Wallendorf machine?”
“It is,” I took a step forwards, holding the musket as casually as I dared as I stood next to Natalia.
“I see,” the Count resumed his circling appraisal of the emissary. “I have already heard of its strength. My men have told me of the skirmish on the track.” He paused to sniff the air. His eyes lingered over Seffi. “And the outcome.” With another click of his tongue, the Count walked his horse to one side of the emissary and stopped. He leaned back in the saddle and stared at the emissary. “What an army I would command with but a handful of these,” he swept his hand in an arc behind him, “and my wolfs.”
