His horse, a stubby cob still with its s.h.a.ggy winter coat, shook its head and made its bridle rattle. It raised its head at the same time Buber did, to look around and check that nothing was coming to eat it.
There used to be giants here; still might be for that matter. He didn"t know if they were magical or mundane, but he"d bet a bag of silver shillings on some kind of enchantment.
Buber slung the waterskin on the saddle and patted the horse"s neck.
"Steady now."
The horse whiffled at him, and he took hold of the reins inside his misshapen fist.
Apart from his horse and a couple of eagles soaring spread-feathered above him, he could see no sign of any other creature. His gaze bored into the forest, but nothing stared back.
There might be wolves out there somewhere, though it was early in the year for them to have crossed the pa.s.s. And wolves couldn"t sink a boat, of course.
No; as Buber had found to his cost, men made the worst monsters. He unhooked his crossbow from its place near the pommel, and hung a quiver of bolts from his belt.
He walked on, pa.s.sing a well-weathered mile marker a little further along. If he"d been numerate, he could have counted them all the way from Juvavum and known how far he had left to go. As it was, the corroded stone was mute. All it told him was that it was a mile since the last one, and a mile until the next.
A noise up ahead broke through the rushing of the river and hushing of the trees. He could hide himself, but concealing his horse wouldn"t be so easy. He tugged on its bridle and pointed its head to the valley-side, where the forest was thicker and a silhouette less likely to show against the shining water.
Crossing what was left of the roadside drainage ditch, he cajoled his horse in among the trees and tied it to a low-hanging branch. Then because despite everything, he still valued his life he moved half a stadia away where he could keep one eye on it and the other on the road.
Buber wasn"t an expert with horses. It might not stay quiet even with his best efforts. He cranked the wire on his bow and slid a bolt into place. At least he could be still, even if his mount couldn"t.
Then he waited patiently. A handcart rolled into view, piled with parcels. It was being pushed by a man, and every time the wheel went around, it groaned. Just when Buber thought to relax, he saw another figure, a woman. Then trailing behind her, one, two, three children. Following her, another man no cart this time, just his back to carry his load. Then still more. The few ponies and donkeys were heavily laden.
He quickly lost count of the procession. From the set of their shoulders, their subdued voices, their whole demeanour, the people weren"t enjoying their journey, and since all of them, from the youngest to the oldest, seemed to be carrying something, it looked like they"d packed up their possessions and walked out of their homes.
Which they probably had, but he was never going to find out why by skulking around in the woods. He broke cover, moving back towards the road, but no one seemed to spot him until he stepped out of the trees.
The stragglers of the column eyed him cautiously, and his loaded crossbow even more so. He"d be d.a.m.ned if he was going to unstring it any time soon, though, so he just held it loosely, his hand nowhere near the trigger.
"Where are you from?" he asked. No one seemed to want to stop, so he was forced to walk along with them, back the way he"d come.
"Who"s asking?" said an old man. His load was tiny, but his back was bent with the effort and he was using two sticks to help him along. If, as Buber suspected, they hadn"t long left their town, this man was soon going to find himself struggling on alone.
"Master Buber, huntmaster of Carinthia."
"Is that so?" The man turned his good eye on Buber and totted up the number of scars. "There"s nothing for you up there."
"You"re from Ennsbruck, aren"t you?" Buber looked down the line. "You"re abandoning it.
"Nothing for us there any more, either, Master Buber." He said Buber"s name with no little sarcasm. "So we"re going down the valley, to start somewhere else."
"Why?"
"The magic"s gone, if you hadn"t noticed."
Buber bit his tongue. Actually put the tip of it between his teeth and closed his jaws around it until it hurt and he knew he wasn"t going to spear the old man through the heart.
"Yes," he finally managed. "I had noticed."
"Go and ask the dwarves why we"re leaving. You"ll get your answer from them."
Buber stopped and the man walked on. The last few people drifted by, stepping around and ignoring him, and soon enough they were swallowed up by the bend in the road.
"What the f.u.c.k is going on?" he said out loud. He turned again and went to collect his horse, but this time he kept his crossbow in his hand. He led the animal back onto the path, and continued up the valley.
He kept hearing things: a keening noise, almost a lament, that carried on the wind. It could have been the sound of a high col catching an updraft, or he could have imagined it.
Eventually, the trees thinned out into grazing land. Ennsbruck sat in the fold of the river in the distance, seemingly secure behind its ramparts. There should have been a pall of woodsmoke above it, but there was nothing.
As he approached the city, he pa.s.sed goats and long-haired cattle eking out a rough existence between drystone walls, waiting for the brief, rich months of summer. Their herdsmen appeared to have left them. They"d abandoned their wealth, and no one did that lightly.
The bridge that gave Ennsbruck its name was stone and solid, flat and supported by two piers. It ran right up to the gatehouse, and the gates were open, entirely unguarded. And the boats tied up by the river bank appeared to have all been deliberately holed; they sat wallowing on the gravel bar, their ropes wet and slack.
Buber looked at the gates, at the town inside, at the lateness of the hour, and decided that he wasn"t going to get a better offer of a decent bed, perhaps some left-overs, and maybe even a forgotten bottle of schnapps.
He led his horse through the gates, its hooves sounding hollow as they pa.s.sed under the arch, and then he stood for a moment, wondering which way to turn. A cat, black and sleek, trotted across the cobbles on the way from one alley to another. It stopped dead in the middle of the street as it spotted the man and his horse, green eyes wide. Then it was off again, and vanished from view.
It had been years since he"d been there, yet he vaguely recalled a marketplace beneath the wall, set in an open s.p.a.ce at the end of the right-turn.
When he got there, he found the stalls tucked way against the corner turret, the market empty, and a crude picture of a lidded beer mug swinging in the wind from one of the buildings. He needed to see to the horse"s feed, but there was no reason why he couldn"t do it on a full stomach.
He tried the door, and it opened. Light showed through the dusty window gla.s.s: a crude bar, barrels behind it, rough tables and chairs, and a cold fireplace. The ceiling was low enough that he had to duck, though this was no cellar. He laid his crossbow on the end of the bar as he went around the edge of it, and tapped the barrels with a knuckle. One was half-full, and he poured himself a beer.
Why would the owner just up and go? Ask the dwarves, the man had said, but the dwarves lay at the other end of the valley, almost a hundred miles away.
Buber raised his mug, tasted the beer, then drank. He came up for air with a frothy moustache, which he wiped away with his hand. He"d ask the dwarves when he got to Farduzes.
A movement beyond the window caught his eye, something that was more than his horse striking one of its hooves against the cobbles. He ducked down behind the bar, then half-rose to collect his bow.
As he did so, he caught sight of the vague shape of a man patting down his saddlebags. He guessed that when Ennsbruck emptied, not everyone had gone. What was left was likely to be the dregs.
He raised himself up again, sighting over the bar. The man was still there, working his way through each and every pocket, delving down to the bottom of the deepest bags. Not that he was going to find anything of particular value, or anything that couldn"t be found in one of the abandoned houses, but it was Buber"s horse and Buber"s meagre belongings.
He didn"t like thieves, no matter what. He"d paid his way in the world, and saw no reason why everyone else shouldn"t. Moving quickly and quietly, he leant around the door, bow first.
"Stop there," he said, but the man ducked under the horse and started off at a rare turn of speed across the market square.
So he wanted to make it interesting? In two steps, Buber had a clear view of the man"s back and the bob of his blond hair. The idiot didn"t seem to realise that he should dodge from side to side to make hitting him more of a challenge. The huntmaster raised the bow-stock to his shoulder and squeezed off a shot.
The bolt blurred and spun across the distance between them. The whirring noise it made preceded it, but only just.
The edge of the broadhead sliced a line of flesh on the outside of the man"s thigh, and he stumbled as he ran. Buber cranked the bow again and lined up another quarrel.
"Next one"s through your heart," he said, and this time his target skittered to a halt, still feet away from any useful cover.
Buber walked over, and when he was close enough to guarantee his next shot would be an easy hit, he told the man to strip.
The man had his back to Buber, and there was blood staining his breeks, the cloth gaping around the wound. "Strip?"
"You"ve stolen from me. I"d like back whatever you"ve taken."
The man finally turned, and it wasn"t a man after all, but a boy of somewhere around Ullmann"s age, thin faced, thin limbed, thin fingered.
"I"ve taken nothing."
Buber was reasonably certain it was a lie, and he didn"t have to worry about niceties, either. "I can take whatever you"ve got from your corpse."
"You"re not from around here," observed the boy. The gash he"d been given had to hurt, but he played it as if it was of little consequence.
Never one for small talk, Buber raised the bow and tickled the trigger with his finger. "If you wanted to parley like a Frank, you should have announced yourself. Now, strip or find yourself with an extra hole in your head. I"m not in the mood."
"It"s cold."
"Find someone who gives a f.u.c.k."
"You shot me."
Buber sighed. "I could count to five, but I"m likely to lose my way. So I"ll just kill you now."
The boy put up his hands. "I"ll do it, I"ll do it."
He did. Neither Buber"s crossbow nor his forensic gaze wavered. Yes, it was humiliating, and now there was blood dripping down the kid"s skinny leg as far as his knee, but the huntmaster was unmoved.
"Step away. Over to the wall. Put your nose on the stonework."
Barefoot, bare everything, he complied, and the huntmaster shook out the boy"s clothes. There was Buber"s purse with his silver and copper, and there was also a thin leather thong with a seash.e.l.l tied to it.
The money, he"d expected that: the rat-faced kid was a thief and a chancer, after all. The bracelet? That was a different level of injury. Sticking him to the wall would have been surprisingly easy, and momentarily satisfying. He considered it, but eventually decided against it.
Picking the bolt from the stock, he slid it back inside the quiver, before easing the bowstring off the catch. He looked up and saw the boy watching him.
"Did I say you could turn around?"
"You"re not going to murder me?"
Buber"s eye twitched. Murder was a strong word. Justice was another. "There"s no law here except my own scruples, and I"d be within my rights." He held up his recovered loot. "Keep away from me, boy. I"m in a dangerous mood, and you"ve used up what little mercy I keep about me."
"Can I put my clothes back on?"
"You can prance naked from now until midsummer"s day for all I care." Buber turned his back on him and stalked back across the empty market square to the beer cellar.
He patted his horse as he pa.s.sed, then poured himself another mug. This time he sat at a window seat where he could keep an eye on things. The thief, all pale goose-flesh, picked up his pile of clothes and hurried away with them, out of the square and out of sight.
Buber held up the sh.e.l.l on its strap, and watched it twirl in the muddy, fading light. He didn"t want to lose the token, but he didn"t want to wear it either too easily damaged. He silently toasted the woman who"d given it to him, and drank deep.
Time to move: find somewhere to stable the horse, and probably bed down next to it, the prospects of a soft mattress stolen from him by the mere presence of the boy. No wonder the rest of the town didn"t want him along with them. He was an irritant, incompetent and petulant, not worth the energy to deal with once and for all, but like a biting fly, draining.
He led the horse around the square and down side streets, eventually spotting something that resembled livery doors. He had to shoulder them open, but they gave, and inside was everything he needed. Unbuckling the tack, he set to brushing the animal"s brown flanks down.
As he worked, he was aware of being watched.
"I could have killed you, and you wouldn"t have known," said the boy.
Buber shook his head and carried on his broad arm sweeps.
"Come on then, little a.s.sa.s.sin. Come closer with your sharp blade and I"ll leave it in your chest."
The boy stayed by the doors. "I could have had a bow."
"If you had both a bow and the wit to use it, I"d have strangled you with the cord by now. What do you want?"
"You"re not scared of me, are you? You should be."
Buber peeled the mat of horse-hair from the brush and let it fall to the floor. "Scared of you? If it"ll make you go away, yes, I"m terrified. Now f.u.c.k off."
"I know all the houses, been in most of them. Know all the routes across the roofs and alleys. They always suspected it was me, but they could never pin anything on me."
"Of course they couldn"t. That"s why they tied you up and left you here."
"They didn"t."
"Then what are the rope-marks on your wrists and ankles? They"re fresh, made this morning, and you"ve a few bruises where they had to hold you down to do it. It"s a mark of their basic decency that they didn"t execute you because, for certain, that day was coming. Now ..." Buber turned and put his hand out for his bow, resting on a loose-tied bale of hay "last chance. Leave me alone. I can break all of your fingers, hamstring you, break your knees in a way that"ll mean you"ll never walk straight again, or just cut out your tongue. Pick one."
"I can tell you why they left."
"You could have told me that at the very beginning, and I"m likely to have believed you. You could have shown me where the stable was, but instead you decided to rob me. You could have joined me for a drink. You had the chance to make a good impression on me, even if just to make me trust you. You didn"t. Instead you just carried on like you always have done. No wonder they hate you."
The boy scowled hard. "They don"t hate me. They"re afraid of me. It"s different."
Buber was weary, weary of everything, but right now so very weary of this. Most likely Ennsbruck didn"t even have a lock-up, or the boy would have still been shut in it. "Remember when I said "last chance"?"
He walked towards the doors, and the boy scuttled backwards to the house on the far side of the narrow street. Buber swung the first door shut, then the other, and dropped a pitchfork through the hangers to serve as a bar.
"Don"t you want to know why they left?" came the plaintive cry. "I can tell you. I was listening."
Buber didn"t bother answering, just went back to his horse and threw a blanket over its back.
"Mister? Don"t you want to know?" The door rattled, then rattled again.
"Mister?"
53.