Revenge of the Rose (10 page)

 
          
The
other two find their traveling companion in jovial humour when they come down,
already grinning at a joke concerning a famished ferret and a rabbit—the
gypsies have a wealth of such bucolic reference, a constant source of amusement
to them.

 
          
Elric’s
attempts at similar banter leave them puzzled, but when Wheldrake joins in with
a string of stories concerning sheep and jackboots, the ice is thoroughly
broken. By the time they ride towards the west cliff and the causeway, the
gypsies have decided they are acceptable enough companions and assure them that
they will be more than welcome in the Gypsy Nation.

 
          
“
Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,
” warbles
Wheldrake, still with his mug of breakfast porter in his hand as he leans upon
his saddle and admires the grandeur of it all. “To tell you the truth of the
matter, Prince Elric, I was growing a little bored with Putney. Though there
was some talk of moving to Barnes.”

 
          
“They
are unsavoury places, then?” says Elric, happy to make ordinary conversation as
they ride. “Full of sour magic and so forth?”

 
          
“Worse,”
says Wheldrake, “they are
South of the
River
. I believe now I was writing too much. There is little else to do in
Putney. Crisis is the true source of creativity, I think. And one thing, sir,
that Putney promises is that you shall be free from Crisis.”

 
          
Listening
politely, as one does when a friend discusses the more abstruse or sticky
points of their particular creed, Elric let the poet’s words act as a lullaby
to his still-tortured senses. It was clear that the venom’s effect did not
lessen with increasing use. But now, he knew, if their gypsy guides proved
treacherous he would be able to kill them without much effort. He was a little
contemptuous of local opinion. These ruffians might have terrorized the farmers
of these parts, but they were clearly no match for trained fighters. And he
knew he could rely on the Rose in any engagement, though Wheldrake would be
next to useless. There was an air of awkwardness about him which made it clear
that his use of a sword was more likely to confuse than threaten any opponent.

 
          
From
time to time he shared glances with his friends, but it was clear neither had
any idea of an alternative. Since the ones they sought had searched for the
Gypsy Nation there could be no reason for not at least discovering what exactly
the Gypsy Nation was.

 
          
Elric
watched as the Rose, to release some of her anxiety no doubt, suddenly let her
horse have free rein and went galloping along the narrow track beside the chasm
while stones and tufts of clay and turf went tumbling down into the darkness
and the roar of the unseen river. Then, one by one, the gypsies followed,
galloping their horses with daredevil skill in the Rose’s wake, yelling and
hallooing, jumping up in their saddles, leaping and diving, as if all this were
completely natural to them, and now Elric laughed joyously to see
their
joy, and Wheldrake clapped and
hooted like a boy at the circus. And then they had come to the great wall of
garbage, higher than anything Elric had seen earlier, where more gypsies waited
at a passage they had made through the waste and they greeted their fellows
with all manner of heartiness, while Elric, Wheldrake and the Rose were
subjected to the same off-hand contempt with which they treated all
non-gypsies.

 
          
“They
wish to join our free-roaming band,” said the tall man in red and white. “As I
told them, we never reject a recruit.” And he guffawed as he accepted a
somewhat overripe peach from one of the other gypsies’ bags. “There’s precious
little to forage as usual. It’s always thus at the end of the season, and at
the beginning.” He cocked his head suddenly. “But the season comes. Soon. We
shall go to meet it.”

 
          
Elric
himself thought he felt the ground shivering slightly and heard something like
a distant piping, a far-off drum, a drone. Was their god slithering along his
causeway from one lair to the next? Were he and his companions to be sacrifices
for that god? Was that what the gypsies found amusing?

 
          
“Which
season?” asked the Rose, almost urgently, her long fingers combing at her
curls.

 
          
“The
Season of our Passing. Indeed, the
Seasons
of our Passing,” said a woman spitting plum stones to the ashy filth of the
ground. Then she had mounted her horse and was leading them through the
passage, out onto the fleshy hardness of the great causeway, which trembled and
shook as if from a distant earthquake and now, in the far distance, from the
east, Elric looked down the mile-wide road and he saw movement, heard more
noise, and he realized something was coming towards them even as they
approached.

 
          
“Great
Scott!” cried Wheldrake, lifting his hat in a gesture of amazement. “What can
it be?”

 
          
It
was a kind of darkness, a flickering of heavy shadows, of the occasional spark
of light, of a constant and increasing shaking, which made the banks of garbage
bounce and scatter and the carrion creatures rise in squawking flurries of
flesh and feather. And it was still many miles off.

 
          
To
the gypsies the phenomenon was so familiar they paid it not the slightest
attention, but Elric, the Rose and Wheldrake could not keep their eyes away.

 
          
Now
the rocking increased, a steady motion doubtless created partly by the free
span of the road over the bay, until it was gentle but relentless, as if a
giant’s hand rocked them all in some bizarre cradle, and the shadow on the
horizon grew larger and larger, filling the causeway from bank to bank.

 
          
“We
are the free people. We follow the road and call no man our master!” sang out
one of the women.

 
          
“Hear!
Hear!” chirrups Wheldrake. “Hey-ho, for the open road!” But his voice falters a
little as they draw nearer and see what now approaches, the first of many.

 
          
It
is like a ship, but it is not a ship. It is a great wooden platform, as wide
across as a good-sized village, with monstrous wheels on gigantic axles
carrying it slowly forward. Around the bottom edge of the platform is a kind of
leather curtain; around the top edge is built a stockade, and beyond that are
the roofs and spires of a town, all moving on the platform, with slow, steady
momentum, with dwellings for an entire tribe of settled folk.

 
          
It
is only one of hundreds.

 
          
Behind
that first comes another platform, with its own village, its own skyline,
flying its own flags. Behind that is another. The causeway is crowded with
these platforms, rumbling and creaking and, at turtle pace, ploughing steadily
on, packing the refuse into the ground, making still smoother the smoothness of
their road.

 
          
“My
God!” whispers Wheldrake. “It is a nightmare by Brueghel! It is Blake’s vision
of Apocalypse!”

 
          
“It’s
an unnerving sight, right enough.” The Rose tucks the tongue of her belt into
its loop another notch and frowns. “A nomad nation, to be sure!”

 
          
“You
are, it seems, pretty self-sufficient,” says Wheldrake to one of the gypsies,
who assents with proud gravity. “How many of those townships travel this way?”

 
          
The
gypsy shakes his head and shrugs. He is not sure. “Some two thousand,” he says,
“but not all move as swiftly as these. There are cities of the Second Season
following these, and cities of the Third Season following those.”

 
          
“And
the Fourth Season?”

 
          
“You
know we have no fourth season. That we leave for you.” The gypsy laughs as if
at a simpleton. “Otherwise we should have no wheat.”

 
          
Elric
listens to the babble and the hullabaloo of the massive platforms, sees people
climbing upon the walls, leaning over, shouting to one another. He smells all
the stenches of any ordinary town, hears every ordinary sound, and he marvels
at the things, all made of wood and iron rivets and bits bound together with
brass or copper or steel, of wood so ancient it resembles rock, of wheels so
huge they would crush a man as a dog-cart casually crushes an ant. He sees the
washing fluttering on lines, makes out signs announcing various crafts and
trades. Soon the traveling platforms are so close they dwarf him and he must
look up to see the gleam of the greased axles, the old, metal-shod wheels, each
spoke of which is almost as tall as one of Imrryr’s towers, the smell, the deep
smell of life in all its variety. And high above his head now geese shriek,
dogs put their front paws upon the ramparts and bark and snarl for the pure
pleasure of barking and snarling, while children peer down at them and try to
spit on the heads of the strangers, shouting catcalls and infant witticisms to
those below, to be cuffed by parents who in turn remark on the oddness of the
strangers and do not seem over-enthusiastic that their ranks have grown. On
both sides of them now the wheels creak by and from the sides are flung the
pails of slops and ordure which form both banks, while here and there, walking
behind the platforms, come men, women and children armed with brooms with which
they whisk the refuse up onto the heaps, disturbing the irritated carrion
eaters, creating clouds of dust and flies, or sometimes pausing to squabble and
scrabble over a choice piece of detritus.

 
          
“Raggle-taggle,
indeed,” says Master Wheldrake, putting his huge red handkerchief to his face
and coughing mightily. “Pray tell me, sir—where does this great road go?”

 
          
“Go,
man?” The gypsy shakes his head in disbelief. “Why nowhere and everywhere. This
is our road. The road of the Free Travelers. It follows itself, little poet! It
winds around the world!”

 
          
On
Joining the Gypsies. Some Unusual Definitions Concerning the Nature of
Liberty
.

 
          
And
now, as Elric and his companions wandered in amazement amongst the advancing
wheels, they saw that behind this first rank of moving villages came a vast
mass of people; men, women and children of all ages, of all classes and in all
conditions, talking and arguing and playing games as they went, some walking
with an air of unconcerned familiarity in the wake of those pounding rims;
others unaccountably miserable, hats in hands, weeping; their dogs and other
domestic animals with them, like people on a pilgrimage. The mounted gypsies had
disappeared by now, to join their own kind, and had no interest at all in the
three they had found.

 
          
Wheldrake
leaned down from his horse and addressed a genial matron, of the type which
often took a fancy to him. His hat was swept from his red comb, his little
bantam’s eyes sparkled. “Forgive me for this interruption, madam. We are
newcomers to your nation and thought perhaps we should seek out your
authorities …”

 
          
“There
are no authorities, little rooster, in the Gypsy Nation.” She laughed at this
absurdity. “We are all free here. We have a council, but it does not meet until
the next season. If you would join us, as it seems you have already done, then
you must find a village which will accept you. Failing that, you must walk.”
She pointed behind her without interrupting her stride. “Back there is best.
The forward villages tend to be full of purebloods and they are never very
welcoming. But someone there will be glad to take you in.”

 
          
“We’re
obliged to you, ma’am.”

 
          
“Many
welcome the horseman,” she said, as if quoting an old adage. “There is none
more free than the gypsy rider.”

 
          
On
through this great march, which spanned the road from bank to squalid bank,
rode Elric, Wheldrake and the Rose, sometimes greeting those who walked,
sometimes being greeted in turn. There was in many parts a festive quality to
the throng. There were snatches of song from here and there, a sudden merry
barrel-organ reel, the sound of a fiddle. And elsewhere, in rhythm with their
stride, people joined in a popular chant.

 
          
“We
have sworn the Gypsy Oath,
To uphold the Gypsy Law,
Death to all who disobey!
Death to all who disobey!”

 
          
Of
which Wheldrake was disapproving on a number of moral, ethical, aesthetic and
metrical counts. “I’m all for primitivism, friend Elric, but primitivism of the
finer type. This is mere xenophobia. Scarcely a national epic …”

 
          
—But
which the Rose found charming.

 
          
While
Elric, lifting his head as a dragon might, to scent the wind, caught sight of a
boy running at unseemly speed from beneath the wheels of one of the gigantic
platforms and over to the banks of refuse (now being freshened by every
settlement that rolled slowly by). The boy was trying to scramble up armed with
pieces of board on hands and feet which were meant to aid his progress but actually
only hampered him.

 
          
He
was wild with terror now and screaming, but the chanting crowd marched by as if
he did not exist. The boy tried to climb back to the road but the boards
trapped him further. Again his cry was piteous over the confident chanting of
the marching gypsies. Then, from somewhere, a black-fletched arrow flew, taking
him in the throat to silence him. Blood ran from between his writhing lips. The
boy was dying. Not a soul did more than flick a glance in his direction.

 
          
The
Rose was forcing her horse through the people, shouting at them for their lack
of concern, trying to reach the boy whose dying movements were burying him
deeper in the filth. As Elric, Wheldrake and the Rose arrived it was clear that
he was dead. Elric reached towards the corpse—and another black-fletched arrow
came from above to bury itself squarely in the child’s heart.

 
          
Elric
looked back, enraged, and only Wheldrake and the Rose together stopped him from
drawing his sword and seeking the source of the arrow.

 
          
“Foul
cowardice! Foul cowardice!”

 
          
“Perhaps
he committed a fouler crime,” cautioned the Rose. She took hold of Elric’s
hand, leaning from her saddle to do so. “Be patient, albino. We are here to
learn what these people can tell us, not challenge their customs.”

 
          
Elric
accepted her wisdom. He had witnessed far crueler actions amongst his own
people and knew well enough how an outrageous deed of torture could seem like
simple justice to some. So he controlled himself, but looked with even more
wariness upon the crowd as the Rose led them on towards the next rank of moving
villages, creaking with infinite slowness, no faster than an old man’s pace,
along the flesh-coloured highway, their long leather skirts brushing the ground
as they advanced like so many massive dowagers out for an evening stroll.

 
          
“What
sorcery powers those settlements,” murmured the Rose as they moved, at last,
through the stragglers, “and how can we get aboard one? These people won’t
chat. There is something they fear …”

 
          
“Clearly,
madam.” Elric looked back to where the boy had died, his sprawled corpse still
visible upon the piled garbage.

 
          
“A
free society such as this must pay no taxes, therefore can pay no-one to police
it—therefore the family and the blood-feud become the chief instruments of
justice and the law,” said Wheldrake, still very distressed. “They are the only
recourse. I would guess the boy paid for some relative’s misdemeanour, if not
his own. ‘
Blood for blood! groaned the
Desert King, And an eye, I swear, for an eye. ’Ere this day’s sun sets on
Omdurman
,
the Nazarene must die!
’ Not
mine! Not mine!” he said hastily, “but a great favourite amongst the residents
of Putney. M.C. O’Crook, the popular pantomime artist, wrote it I was
told …”

 
          
Believing
the little poet merely babbled to comfort himself, Elric and the Rose paid him
little attention, and now the Rose was hailing the nearest gigantic platform
which approached, its skirts scraping and hissing, and from which, through a
gap in the leather curtains, there strolled a man in bright green velvet with
purple trimmings, a gold ring through his earlobe, more gold about his wrists
and throat, a gold chain about his waist. His dark eyes looked them over, then
he shook his head curtly and returned through the curtain. Wheldrake made to
follow him, but hesitated. “For what, I wonder, are we being auditioned?”

 
          
“Let’s
discover that by trial,” said the Rose, pushing her hair back from her face and
flexing a strong hand as she rode towards the next slow-moving mass, to find a
head poked out at her and a red-capped woman glancing at them without much
curiosity before turning back in. Another and another followed. A fellow in a
painted leather jerkin and a brass helmet was more interested in their horses
than themselves, but eventually jerked his thumb to dismiss them, making Elric
murmur that he would have no more to do with these barbarians but would find
some other path and fulfill his quest that way.

 
          
The
next village sent out a well-to-do old gypsy in a headscarf and embroidered waistcoat,
his black velvet breeches tucked into white stockings. “We need the horses,” he
said, “but you seem like intellectuals to me. The last thing this village
requires are trouble-makers of that sort. So I’ll bid thee fare-thee-well.”

 
          
“We
are valued neither for our looks nor our brains,” said Wheldrake with a grin, “and
only a little, it seems, for our horses.”

 
          
“Persevere,
Master Wheldrake,” the Rose was grim, “for we must find our sisters and it’s my
guess a village that will admit them will also have something in common with a
village that will welcome us.”

 
          
It
was poor logic, reflected the albino, but logic, at least, of a sort, and he
had nothing better to offer.

 
          
Five
more villages inspected them and five more times they were rejected until, out
of a village that seemed smaller and perhaps a little better-kept than most of
the others, sauntered a tall man whose somewhat gaunt appearance was tempered
by a pair of amused blue eyes, his attention to costume suggesting a pleasure
in life belied by his features. “Good evening to you, gentlefolk,” he said, his
voice musical and a little affected, “I am Amarine Goodool. You have something
interesting about you. Are you artists, by any chance? Or perhaps
story-tellers? Or you have, possibly, some affecting story of your own? As you
see, we grow a trifle bored in Trollon.”

 
          
“I
am Wheldrake, the poet.” The little coxcomb stepped forward without reference
to his companions. “And I have written verse for kings, queens and commoners. I
have published verse, moreover, in more than one century and have pursued the
vocation of poet in more than one incarnation. I have a facility with metre,
sir, which all envy—peers and my betters, sir, as a matter of fact. And I also
have a certain gift for spontaneous versification, of sorts.
In Trollon, elegant and slow, dwelled
Amarine Goodool, famed for his costume and his wit. To friends so valuable was
he, they even saved his—
”

 
          
“And
I am called the Rose and travel upon a quest for vengeance. My journey has
taken me through more than one realm.”

 
          
“Aha!”
said Amarine Goodool. “You have followed the megaflow! You have broken down the
walls between the realms! You have crossed the invisible barriers of the
multiverse! And you, sir? You, my pale friend? What skills have you?”

 
          
“At
home, in my own quiet town, I had some reputation as a conjuror and
philosopher,” said Elric meekly.

 
          
“Well,
well, sir, but you would not be with this company if you had not something to
offer. Your philosophy, perhaps, is of an unusual sort?”

 
          
“Fairly
conventional, sir, I would say.”

 
          
“Nonetheless,
sir. Nonetheless. You have a horse. Please enter. And be welcome to Trollon. I
think it very likely you will find yourselves amongst fellow spirits here. We
are all a little odd in Trollon!” And he raised his head in a friendly bray.

 
          
Now
he led them through the skirts of the village, into a musky darkness lit by dim
lamps so that first it was possible to perceive only the vaguest of shapes. It
was as if they had entered a vast stable, with row upon row of stalls
disappearing into the distance. Elric smelled horses and human sweat and as
they passed up a central aisle he could look down the rows and see the
glistening backs of men, women and adolescents, leaning hard against poles
reaching to their chests and pushing the huge edifice forward, inch by inch.
Elsewhere horses were harnessed in ranks, also, trudging on heavy hoofs as they
hauled at the thick ropes attached to the roof beams.

 
          
“Leave
your horses with the lad,” said Amarine Goodool, indicating a ragged youth who
held out his hand for a small coin and grinned with pleasure at the value of
what he received. “You’ll be given receipts and so on. You’ll be at ease for at
least a couple of seasons to be sure. Or, if you are otherwise successful, for
ever. Like myself. Of course,” he lowered his tone as he swung up a wooden
stairway, “there are other responsibilities one must accept.”

 
          
The
long staircase led them, spiral by spiral, to the surface until they clambered
out into a nondescript narrow sidestreet from whose open windows people looked
idly down without breaking their conversation. It was a picture of such
ordinariness that it contrasted all the more with the scenes below.

 
          
“Are
those people down there slaves, sir?” Wheldrake had to know.