The Willow King Read online

  He pressed his head against the cold metal plating and peered through the window to try to get a better view of the surroundings, but all he could see through the narrow metal slits was the jolting landscape, getting darker and darker, just individual details which didn’t add up to any whole.

  Laurentius tried to align his eye with one of the larger holes, but at that very moment the carriage jolted violently, causing him to knock his brow painfully against the cold iron, and everything started swimming in front of his eyes. He let out a muffled groan. The other passengers anxiously sat up in their seats and pressed their hands against the sides of the carriage for support. He heard a rattling sound, at first barely audible, but slowly getting louder and louder, until suddenly the seats tilted sideways, and there was a loud crash, followed by the sound of the coachman swearing and whoaing the horses. The carriage came to an abrupt halt. For a moment silence reigned, to be broken by the thwack of cases falling from the baggage deck onto the muddy road behind.

  “Aah!” Laurentius cried out.

  He rubbed the sore spot on his head and started trying to lift himself out of the lopsided carriage, although it proved no easy task. When he finally managed to get the door open, he saw that the coachman and the woman’s footman were already bustling about at the back of the carriage. Fortunately, the spoked wheel had not been too seriously damaged: it had just come off its axle and was lying to one side, half-lodged in the mud.

  “I’m going to need help with that,” declared the coachman. “I’m hardly likely to get it back on by myself. Everyone out.”

  “But it’s raining, isn’t it?” the woman sitting next to Laurentius said in an irked tone.

  “Let the lady stay where she is,” said the coachman in response. “How much can she weigh in any case?”

  Laurentius straightened his back and surveyed the scene. By the roadside there were a few lone trees which the wind had not yet stripped of their autumn leaves, and through their grey trunks he could see a brown forest glade. On higher ground in the middle of it stood a blackened barn, the same one which Laurentius had been trying to make out through the carriage window. Something about the scene sent a cold shiver running down his spine. That acrid stench was in his nostrils again, like some horrific memory which he had been struggling to subdue. The essence of black bile, mixed with acid, maybe sulphur, was pouring down on the passengers and the carriage with the raindrops. The vile breath crept through their damp clothing, under their hats and through their hair, past their skin and into their nostrils, and then onwards to their lungs, flesh and hearts. First on the tongue, then in the nose—acrid, sharp, hostile and unexpected. He could vaguely remember that some time ago, a very long time ago, he had experienced a similar smell, a similar horror. The particles of this stench, the essence of which carried the memories, hooked their barbs into the inner cavities of his nose, into the roof of his mouth, and moved onwards through the long passages to his brain, and then to his soul. The smell overpowered him, bringing with it memories of a horrific scene, with murder, rape and people wailing in distress, a scene which he would never forget. It wore away at the old experiences which had been dulled by the passage of years, leaving them freshly exposed. Blood flowed from the wound. He could still remember—how could he not?

  “Excuse me,” Laurentius said, trying to get the coachman’s attention.

  He anxiously rubbed his nose, and even tried to hold his nostrils shut, but in vain. The smell had permeated everywhere and he feared that there was no hope of being free of it. A feeling of dread started to overcome him. Meanwhile, the other passengers were bustling about at the end of the carriage pole, looking almost cheerful.

  “It’s as if some Satan put a curse on that there wheel,” fumed the coachman. “I looked over everything meself before we set out, and there weren’t nothing wrong. Some devil must’ve put the evil eye on it.”

  “Excuse me!” Laurentius said despairingly. But the coachman didn’t even look in his direction; he just carried on swearing to himself, as if he were chanting a prayer or spell.

  “Hey, what’s the matter with you?! Come and take hold of this end and we’ll lift it together,” instructed the man who had been cursing the state of the local roads.

  “Have you noticed that smell as well?” asked Laurentius.

  “I beg your pardon?” the man asked.

  “That smell,” Laurentius repeated.

  “I can’t smell a thing. I’ve had a heavy cold the last few days. Maybe the wind is carrying it from somewhere nearby. The locals burn all sorts of rubbish,” the man said.

  Laurentius shook his head, looked around again, and rubbed his nose anxiously. His head was spinning.

  “Now, all together, heave!” the coachmen yelled.

  Laurentius grabbed hold of the carriage with the others. Straining their muscles, pushing their boots deep into the mud, they eventually managed to lift the carriage to the right height, and the driver began to beat the wheel back on, continuing to mutter something to himself in time with the hammer blows. But inside Laurentius, inside his thoughts and in his brain, the barbed stench was spreading with ever-greater strength; the black bile was diffusing ever wider, reaching into all of his limbs: horror, odium, hell. But where were they?

  “Where are we now, anyway?” Laurentius asked.

  The coachman mumbled something incomprehensible, nodded towards the road, and carried on beating the wheel with his hammer. Flustered, Laurentius didn’t dare ask more questions; he just stood there looking uneasily at the surroundings. Where indeed could they be?

  “We’re almost there now, just a little further to go. I reckon Dorpat would have been in sight before nightfall,” explained one of the men when they finally put the carriage back down. “It was bad luck about that wheel, to be sure; now it will be properly dark by the time we arrive. Best gather up the baggage quickly.”

  Laurentius smiled and tried to summon up a friendly expression. “It’s a real bother, to be sure.”

  Thankfully his case was still there on the baggage deck. But the cage containing his dead parakeet was not to be seen, and nor did it appear to be among the things scattered across the muddy road. Laurentius strained to look in the direction of the dark clearing. The other passengers huffed and puffed irately as they lifted their cases up onto the back of the carriage, and the footman tied them fast, while the carriage driver continued to potter about near the wheel. Laurentius looked around as if he were searching for something. But it was barely possible to make out any clear details through the twilight and spattering rain. Taking care to avoid the long puddles he stepped a couple of paces away from the carriage wheel.

  He winced as he felt a hot sensation moving slowly upwards from his stomach to his head. This was the hot, moist humour, the one which caused anger and fear.

  A couple of yards away, stooping in the shadow of a tall thick fir tree, stood a raggedy hunchbacked figure with sunken features. He was holding Laurentius’ parakeet cage. The cage door had been torn open, and Laurentius could see something brightly coloured in the ragamuffin’s spindly, bone-white hand. The strange stench was getting stronger and stronger. The ragged figure croaked a couple of words in an incomprehensible language and seemed to try to smile. From inside the grey tuft of beard a mouth appeared, full of crooked, dark stumps of differing sizes.

  “Give that back to me,” said Laurentius, trying to make his voice sound assured and assertive.

  Still smiling, the figure stood upright and grabbed Laurentius by the shoulders. Light-blue eyes, almost the same colour as the summer sky, goggled at him from sunken sockets. Laurentius wanted to avert his gaze. He never looked other people in the eye if he could avoid it. But this time he couldn’t look away or close his eyes. He stared into the old man’s eyes, and there, amid the bluish-grey, he saw pain and death. A starving old man, driven away from wherever he went, too old and skinny to work, too scruffy and sick for anyone to care for.

  “I can’t...” Lauren
tius began to explain. He still couldn’t turn his gaze away. But by now it was probably too late.

  “I must not,” Laurentius said.

  The old man turned round and galloped off at a surprisingly sprightly pace in the direction of the rotting barn.

  Laurentius stood and watched him go, unable to do anything. He should have gone after him, grabbed the cage, maybe offered some money, but a torpor caused by the stench and his fear held him fast like a wall. The black bile had engulfed him, pushed him into a dead end; he couldn’t react quickly enough. He was afraid of the little old man.

  “We’re leaving now. Before it gets really dark,” someone hollered from over by the carriage.

  At first Laurentius didn’t answer; he just stood staring blankly at the black barn and rubbing his nose. The stench was washing over him in waves; it seemed to be radiating from the surrounding trees and the rotten rafters of the barn, like light from a candle. Or did it come from Laurentius himself ? Was he the candle?

  “Hey!” someone called again.

  Laurentius shook his head and started walking slowly back towards the carriage. “Didn’t you see?”

  “What? Hurry up now,” said one of the other passengers.

  “There was someone there,” Laurentius said.

  “My good man, it was probably just a patch of mist,” said the passenger.

  “My cage...” he began, but he knew there was no sense in trying to explain. By now the stench was almost suffocating him; he couldn’t stand being there any longer.

  MONDAY EVENING

  THE OUT SKIRTS OF TOWN were always the same. Clearings would suddenly start to appear between the forest trees, swiftly followed by lone, unlit hovels. Architectural complexity and yellow lantern light were reserved for the centre of town; here in the hazy interim zone there were just shabby buildings, workshops of various descriptions, tanners and their stinking vats, all those people who due to their trades or social standing were not allowed into town, or who chose not to pass through its walls. Here the town was yet to start, but the countryside had already started fading away. Nevertheless, people still talked about the edge of town, as if it were possible to draw a dividing line, beyond which the countryside abruptly ceases to exist. Where was that sharp boundary which separates the town from the countryside, the end from the beginning? Was it the town wall? Of course not—the cloisters, inns, graveyards and allotments indicated that the town had started well before then. Where are the outer limits of my being? Are they my skin, my hair, my clothes, my cage? The stagecoach?

  Laurentius closed his eyes, but the stench had not gone anywhere. At first he had been afraid that it was too vile ever to get used to, then he thought that he might be able to forget it at least for a while. But as soon as he started to take cheer in that thought it came back, filling his nostrils with all its former strength, and he could think of nothing else. He knew that it was because of the crime he had committed and the oppressive guilt which would not leave him alone for a moment. But where was it coming from? He felt so overcome with disgust that he decided to pray quietly to himself. But even prayer could not help. Where was his dear Clodia when he needed her?

  Laurentius shifted restlessly in his seat. “Aren’t we there yet?” he asked, addressing no one in particular.

  “We should be arriving at the inn any moment now. You can’t make out anything in this darkness. There should be a lantern hanging outside it,” the man sitting opposite said.

  Laurentius nodded, rummaged about in his pocket for a handkerchief, and wiped his face. He bent forwards to look out of the window, but he could make out very little through the little holes. Just a uniform, indeterminate dimness, together with the hazy outlines of the occasional hut and the odd bystander watching them as they went past. In the distance he could see the contours of the city walls and the bastion mounds.

  “I can’t see a single light,” Laurentius said.

  “Aha,” the other passenger responded.

  Laurentius closed his eyes and tried to focus his thoughts. The stench was continuing to waft into his nostrils, as if an iron demon had breathed a soul forged on an anvil into him. The new soul had entered him and started to displace the vapour which had previously been suspended there, which he had brought with him from another place, from another country.

  Without knowing fully why, he stared to panic.

  “Now you can see it,” the man sitting opposite announced jubilantly.

  The coachman geed the horses, and the carriage turned. It rumbled across the sunken kerbstones leading onto a small square which was edged with a row of wooden stakes. The light of the high-hanging lanterns illuminated innumerable rippling puddles, covering the uneven muddy surface of the yard. As the large carriage wheels pressed down into the puddles they created momentary furrows of dryness, before the water lapped back into position. Tiny water droplets fell onto the puddles’ surface, causing concentric ripples, and the wind whistled between the dripping spokes of the carriage wheels.

  “We’re here!” the man sitting opposite called out in a triumphant voice, as if he had been driving the carriage himself and had managed to steer it to safe harbour through many ordeals and hardships. The other passengers began to stir and gather up their bundles.

  The leather-clad door opened with a creak; the coachman warned the passengers to be careful descending the steps, and one by one they stepped out onto the grey flagstones which had been placed at the edge of the square for that very purpose. Laurentius sat and waited for the rest of the passengers to get off, watching how the woman sitting next to him hoisted up her voluminous dress so that she could stand up and make her way out of the carriage.

  “Is that everyone?” the coachman asked.

  “Forgive me,” Laurentius mumbled, and he got up. His legs were trembling. He stood on the footboard for a moment, taking deep breaths of the air outside. Some kind of vapour wafted past his face, and he could detect the smells of sulphur, iron and tin.

  “Easy there,” the coachman said to Laurentius.

  He stood on the square and watched as the small horses were led to stable, tossing their manes, while the coachman swore to himself. The wind had picked up and was tearing bits of straw from the thatched roofs. The debris spun through the air before landing in the puddles where it lay, floating on the surface. Laurentius was the last to clatter his way in through the inn door. Once inside, he hoped to get himself and his case out of sight of the other guests as quickly as possible. For some reason he had the feeling that everyone was watching him suspiciously, and this wasn’t helped by the agoraphobia which he always felt in such places. Would this be the moment when someone pointed the finger at him? Several other guests had gathered around the chipped stone hearth to warm their hands, and they turned towards the door as he entered. Some of the others were sitting at the wobbly little tables by the wall, and they also peered over at him curiously.

  “Good evening to you all,” he mumbled in the brief silence which ensued as he entered, and made a line straight for the host.

  “One night please,” he announced, glancing at the innkeeper.

  The clerkish-looking innkeeper appraised Laurentius for a moment before directing him to a small chamber at the back of the inn, where there were two beds positioned almost side by side.

  “There is one free space here,” said the host, pointing at a wooden case which was already standing by the wall. “The window hardly lets in any draught at all. But you will have to share the bed. The other gentleman is still in town taking care of some business, but he is sure to be back by evening.”

  Laurentius sighed. Sharing a bed was a familiar necessity which could often prove rather tedious, especially if one’s bedmate happened to be a drunkard.

  “Understood. I will bear that in mind,” Laurentius said.

  He dragged his case to the head of the bed. The small window above had a thick pane of glass in it, but it hadn’t yet been filled with straw for winter, so it was safe to assum
e that the damp and chill of the night would come seeping into the room. But this was still better than the roadside guest houses, where he had been forced to sleep on nothing more than his coat, spread out on the bare floor. He had good reason to fear that if his bedmate were restless, then not much would come of his efforts to sleep here either. But nor did he have much choice in the matter—they put several people together to sleep in all of the guest houses. It saved on space—and it was warmer like that.

  “Thank you,” he said politely.

  The host gave him an encouraging nod, and pulled the door shut behind him, leaving a reassuring ray of light shining into the room through the chink at the bottom.

  Laurentius sat down on the mattress filled with birch leaves, and leant back against the wall. None of the other guests had gone to bed yet, and he could hear a racket coming from the neighbouring room. Someone had even started singing in an inebriated voice.

  “Drunkards again,” he mumbled to himself.

  Laurentius shook his head apprehensively, and started reading an evening prayer in a half-whisper. Through the thin bedroom door he could hear almost every word being said in the public room, and he couldn’t focus on any of the lines of his prayer apart from “preserve us from evil”.

  “Amen,” he said in a slightly louder voice, and he looked out of the window.

  It occurred to him that it might be appropriate to say an intercessory prayer for his parakeet, but he couldn’t make up his mind. It was true that Clodia had been a bird, and that she therefore had no rational soul, but creatures who spent so much time in the company of humans eventually became one with their beings and desires, and with their soul’s phantasms, and they began to change. Plutarch had tried to comfort his wife after their daughter’s death by comparing the soul to a bird which has flown its cage. If the bird had been in the cage for a short time, then it would fly out quickly, but if it had been there longer, then the bird would have grown accustomed to the cage; it would have become its home, and it would not be able to leave so easily. When little children play with dolls made from cloth and wood, the dolls respond to them. For the children they are beings with souls, and causing them distress is the same as causing distress to a living person. Those wooden dolls and scraps of cloth are given a life and a purpose by the children, just as the carriage gained a life and purpose when the passengers travelled in it; just as the cage has a life and purpose when a bird is inside it. In a similar way Clodia had long been one with his soul; she had balanced his soul’s humours with her warmth, acting as a counterweight to his melancholy. Together, they had formed a single whole, like an artist and the brush he holds in his hand. They were immiscible and yet undissolvable. If Ovid had dedicated an elegy to his beloved parakeet, then why should Laurentius not pray for his? After all, he had spent every single day over nearly ten years tending to Clodia’s well-being, and she in turn had helped to keep him balanced. But now his spadger was gone, seized by some raggedy old man.