It was exhilarating, after the long winter of exercise and study in the darkness of the tunnel or on the bare vastness of the mountain side, to be once more among people going about their daily lives. And particularly exhilarating for me, who before fleeing to the White Mountains had known only the quietness of a country village. A few times I had been taken to Winchester for the market there, and had marveled at it. This town seemed to be as big as Winchester -- perhaps even bigger.
I made my way past the stalls. The first was piled high with vegetables: carrots and little potatoes, fat green-and-white spears of asparagus, peas, and huge cabbages, both green and red. At the next there was meat -- not simple cuts such as the butcher brought to my village in England, but joints and chops and rolls most delicately decorated with dabs of white lard. I wandered along, gazing and sniffing. One stall was completely given over to cheeses of a score of different colors, shapes, and sizes. I had not realized there could be so many. And a fish stall had dried and smoked fish hanging from hooks and fish fresh caught from the river laid out along a stone slab, their scales still wet. Now, with dusk gathering, some of the stalls were preparing to close down, but most were busy yet, and the press of people, threading their way between and past them, was thick enough.
Between two stalls, one selling leather and the other bolts of cloth, I saw the opening to a tavern, and guiltily remembered what I was supposed to be doing. I went inside and looked about me. It was darker than the taverns on the waterfront, full of tobacco smoke and crowded with dim figures, some sitting at tables and others standing by the bar counter. As I went up to look more closely, I was addressed from the other side of the bar. The speaker was a very big, very fat man, wearing a leather jacket with sleeves of green cloth. In a rough voice, with an accent that I could barely understand, he said, "What is it, then, lad?"
Moritz had given me some coins of the money used in these parts. I did what seemed the safest thing, and ordered a stein of Dunkles, which I knew to be the name of the dark ale that was commonly drunk. The stein was larger than I had expected. He brought it to me, with ale foaming over the side, and I gave him a coin. I drank and had to wipe foam from my lips. It had a bitter sweet taste, which was not unpleasant. I looked round for Ulf, peering into the many dark recesses, whose paneled walls carried the mounted heads of deer and wild boar. I thought for a moment I saw him, but the man moved into the light of an oil lamp, and was a stranger.
I felt nervous. Having a Cap, I was regarded as a man, so that there was no reason why I should not be here. But I lacked the assurance of someone who had been truly Capped, and I was aware, of course, of my difference from all these others. Having established that Ulf was not one of the figures sprawling at the tables, I was eager to be away. As inconspicuously as possible, I put the stein down and began to move toward the street. Before I had gone a couple of paces, the man in the leather jacket roared at me, and I turned back.
"Here!" He pushed over some smaller coins. "You're forgetting your change."
I thanked him, and once more prepared to go. By this time, though, he had seen the stein and that it was two-thirds full.
"You've not drunk your ale, either. Have you got any complaint about it?"
I hastily said no, that it was just that I was not feeling well. To my dismay, I realized that others were taking an interest in me. The man behind the bar seemed partly mollified, but said, "You're not a Württemberger, by the way you talk. Where are you from, then?"
This was a challenge for which I had been prepared. We were to hail from outlying places, in my case a land to the south called Tirol. I told him this.
As far as allaying suspicion was concerned, it worked. From another point of view, though, it was an unfortunate choice. I learned later that there was strong feeling in the town against the Tirol. The previous year at the Games a local champion had been defeated by a Tiroler and, it was claimed, through trickery. One of the others standing by now asked if I were going to the Games, and I incautiously said yes. What followed was a stream of insults. Tirolers were cheats and braggarts, and they spurned good Württemberg ale. They ought to be run out of town, dipped in the river to clean them up a bit...
The thing to do was get out, and fast. I stomached the insults and turned to go. Once outside I could lose myself in the crowd. I was thinking of that and did not look closely enough in front of me. A leg was stretched out from one of the tables and, to the accompaniment of a roar of laughter, I went sprawling in the sawdust that covered the floor.
Even that I was prepared to endure, though I had banged one knee painfully as I landed. I began to get to my feet. As I did so, fingers gripped the hair that grew up through my Cap, shook my head violently to and fro, and thrust me down once more to the ground.
I should have been thankful that this assault had not dislodged the false Cap and exposed me. I should also have been concentrating on what really mattered -- getting away from here and safely and unnoticed back to the barge. But I am afraid that I could think of nothing but the pain and humiliation. I got up again, saw a face grinning behind me, and swung at him in fury.
He was probably a year or so older than I was, and bigger and heavier. He fended me off contemptuously. My mind did not cool down enough for me to realize how stupidly I was behaving, but enough for the skills I had acquired during my long training to take over. I feinted toward him and, as he swung a still casual arm in my direction, slipped inside and belted him hard over the heart. Now it was his turn to go sprawling, and there was a roar from the men crowding round us. He got up slowly, his face angry. The others moved back, forming a ring, clearing the tables to do so. I realized I had to go through with it. I was not afraid of that, but I could appreciate my own folly. I had been warned about my rashness by Julius, and now, within a week of starting out on an enterprise of such desperate importance, it had already betrayed me.
He rushed at me, and I had to concern myself again with what was present and immediate. I side-stepped and hit him as he went past. Although he was bigger than I was, he was lacking in skill. I could have danced round him for as long as I liked, cutting him to pieces. But that would not do at all. What was needed was one disabling blow. From every point of view, the sooner this was over the better. So the next time he attacked I rode his punch with my left shoulder, sank my right fist into the vulnerable area just under his ribs, and, stepping back, caught him with as powerful a left hook as I could manage as, gulping air, his head involuntarily came forward. I got a lot of strength into it. He went backward even faster and hit the floor. The men watching were silent. I looked at my fallen opponent and, seeing that he showed no signs of getting up, moved in the direction of the door, expecting that the ring would open to let me through.
But that did not happen. They stared at me sullenly without budging. One of them knelt beside the prone figure.
He said, "He hit his head. He may be hurt badly."
Someone else said, "You ought to get the police."
A few hours later I stared up at the stars, bright in a clear black sky. I was cold and hungry, miserable and disgusted with myself. I was a prisoner in the Pit.
I had met very rough justice at the hands of the magistrate who had examined me. The fellow I had knocked out was a nephew of his, a son of a leading merchant in the town. The evidence was that I had provoked him in the tavern by saying things derogatory of the Württembergers, and that I had then hit him when he was not looking. It bore no resemblance at all to what had happened, but there were a number of witnesses who agreed on the story. My opponent, to give him possible credit, was not one of these, the reason being that he had suffered a concussion when his head hit the floor. He was in no state to say anything to anybody. I was warned that if he failed to recover I would assuredly be hanged. Meanwhile I was to be consigned to the Pit, during the magistrate's pleasure.
This was their preferred way of dealing with malefactors. The Pit was round, some fifteen feet across and about as many feet deep. The
floor was of rough flagstones, and the walls were also lined with stones. They were smooth enough to discourage attempts at climbing up, and there were iron spikes near the top, projecting inward, which further discouraged thoughts of escape. I had been dropped over these like a sack of potatoes, and left. I had been given no food, and had nothing to cover me in a night that looked as though it was going to be cold. I had banged my elbow and grazed my arm in the fall.
But the real fun, as I had been told with satisfaction by some of my captors, would take place the following day. The Pit was designed partly for punishment, partly for the amusement of the local people. It was their custom to stand at the top and pelt the unfortunate prisoner with whatever came to hand or mind. Filth of all kinds -- rotting vegetables, slops, that sort of thing, were what they chiefly preferred, but if they were really annoyed they might use stones, billets of wood, or broken bottles. In the past prisoners had sometimes been severely injured, even killed. They appeared to get a lot of pleasure out of the prospect, and out of telling me about it.
I supposed it was something that the skies had cleared. There was no protection here from the elements. By the wall was a trough with water in it. Although I was thirsty, I was not yet thirsty enough to drink it; there had been enough light, when I was first thrown down, to see that it was covered by a greenish scum. No food was provided to those in the Pit. When they got sufficiently hungry they would eat the rotting refuse, bones, and stale bread that were hurled at them. That, too, was supposed to be amusing.
What a fool I had been. I shivered, and cursed my idiocy, and shivered again.
Gradually the night wore through. A couple of times I lay down, curled myself up, and tried to sleep. But it was growing colder, and I had to get up again and walk about to restore my circulation. I longed for the day and dreaded it at the same time. I wondered what had happened to the others -- whether Ulf had got back yet. I knew there was no hope of him intervening on my behalf. He was quite well known in this town, but he dared not take the risk of associating with me. Tomorrow they would go downriver, leaving me here. There was nothing else they could do.
The wide circle of sky above me brightened, and I could tell which side faced east by the softer light there. For a change, I sat with my back to the stone wall. Tiredness, despite the cold, crept over me. My head nodded to my chest. Then a sound overhead jerked me into wakefulness. I saw a face peering down. It was a small silhouette against the paling dawn. An early riser, I thought drearily, impatient to get at the victim. It would not be long before the throwing started.
Then a voice called quietly down.
"Will -- are you all right?"
Beanpole's voice.
He had brought a length of rope from the barge. He stretched down and tied it to one of the iron spikes, then tossed the other end to me. I grabbed it, and hauled myself up. The spikes took some negotiating, but Beanpole was able to get a hand over them to help me. In a matter of seconds, I was heaving myself and being hauled over the edge of the Pit.
We wasted no time in discussing our situation. The Pit was on the outskirts of the town, which, sleeping still but outlined now in the clear light of dawn, stood between us and the place where the Erlkönig was moored. I had only a hazy recollection of being brought here the previous evening, but Beanpole ran confidently and I followed him. It took us perhaps ten minutes to come within sight of the river, and we had seen only one man, in the distance, who shouted something but did not attempt to follow our fleeing figures. Beanpole, I realized, had timed things perfectly. We passed the street where the market had been. In another fifty yards we should be on the quay.
We reached it and turned left. About as far again along, just past the tavern, next to the barge called Siegfried, I stared and stopped, and Beanpole did the same. The Siegfried was there, all right, but the berth next to her was empty.
Beanpole, after a moment, plucked my sleeve. I looked where he indicated, in the opposite direction, to the north. The Erlkönig was out in midstream, beating downriver, a quarter of a mile off, a toy boat rapidly diminishing in the distance.
3 -- A Raft on the River
Our first concern was to get away before my escape from the Pit became known. We went north along the waterfront, through a few mean streets with ramshackle buildings quite unlike the painted, carved, and well-cared-for houses in the center of the town, and found a road -- little better than a track -- that followed the general line of the river. The sun rose on our right, behind the wooded hills. There were clouds there, too, forming with ominous speed. Within half an hour they had darkened the sky and blanked out the sun; in three quarters, a gray belt of rain was sweeping down the slope toward us. Five minutes later, already soaking wet, we found shelter in a ruined building lying back from the road. We had time then to think over what had happened, and what we should do about it.
On the way, Beanpole had told me his side of events. He had not found Ulf, but when he returned to the barge Ulf was there. He had been drinking, and it had not improved his temper. He was furious with Beanpole and me for having gone into the town, and with Moritz for having allowed us. We two, he had decided, would spend the remainder of the trip downriver below decks. Fritz, obviously, was the only one who could be relied on, the only one with any sense.
As time passed without my return, his anger increased. After dark, one of the men he knew, coming to see him, spoke of the young Tiroler who had started a fracas in a tavern, and who in consequence had been condemned to the Pit. When this man had gone, Ulf spoke in a more coldly angry and implacable fashion. My folly had jeopardized everything. I was clearly a liability to the enterprise, rather than an asset. There was to be no more waiting, and certainly no attempt to set me free: In the morning the Erlkönig would resume its voyage. It would take two participants to the Games instead of three. As far as I was concerned, I had got myself into the Pit and I could stay there and rot.
Although he did not talk about it, I know that Beanpole found himself cruelly in a quandary over this. We were under Ulf's authority, and ought to obey him in all things. Moreover, what he said was entirely reasonable. Above all, it was the project itself that mattered, not individuals. His job was to do his best to win at the Games, to gain entry into the City of the Tripods, and to bring out of it information that might help to destroy them. That was what was really important.
But Beanpole talked to Moritz, asking him questions particularly about the Pit: what it was like, where it was situated. I do not know whether Moritz was too stupid to see where the questions might be tending, or whether he understood and approved. He was, I thought, really too amiable a man for work that, of its nature, required a streak of ruthlessness. Anyway, Beanpole found out what he wanted to know and, at first light, took a length of rope and left the Erlkönig in search of me. Presumably Ulf heard or saw something of his departure and either in rage or out of cold logic decided there was nothing to do but salvage the one reliable member of the trio and get the Erlkönig under way before there could be any question of suspicion falling on the boat or its crew.
So here we were, stranded, hundreds of miles short of our objective.
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had started, and gave way to hot sunlight in which our wet clothes steamed as we walked. We were drenched again less than an hour later -- this time there was no shelter at all and the torrential downpour soaked us to our skins -- and the day proved to be one of sunburst and cloudburst. Most of the time we were sodden and miserable; all the time we were conscious of the mess we -- and I in particular -- had made of things.
We were also hungry. I had eaten nothing since the previous midday, and as soon as the immediate excitement of escape and flight had died down, I was aware of ravenous hunger. We had what was left of the money we had got from Moritz, but there was nowhere to spend it out in the open country, and we had not fancied waiting in the town until the shops opened. The land through which we were traveling was either waste or pasture, with groups of black and
white cows chewing their cuds. I proposed milking one, and with Beanpole's assistance cornered her in an angle of a field. But it was a fiasco. I got out no more than a few drops. She objected strongly to my rough and inexperienced handling and forced her way clear. It did not seem worthwhile trying again.
Several hours after we started, we came on a turnip field. There was a cottage within sight of it, but we risked taking some. They were small and bitter, but it was something to chew on. The rain came down again as we continued, and this time lasted without ceasing for an hour or more.
We found a patch of ruins in which to spend the night. We had discovered no other source of food, and chewed grass and the green shoots of the hedgerow in an attempt to stay our hunger. It was ineffective, and gave us stomach pains. Also, of course, our clothes were wet. We tried to sleep but with poor success. We were awake as night grayed into morning, and set off, tired and wretched, on our way.