The Wine of Dreams by Brian Craig - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online Page B

and I am too poor nowadays to support expensive habits.
    “If Wirnt has fled Marienburg there must be further trouble in the city,
completing the disruption of the dark wine’s supply. If a witch hunter and
soldiers are mere hours behind him, the trouble in question is presumably a
crusade of sorts. Whatever Wirnt might have told you, I doubt that it is filial
affection that has brought him here. He is more likely to be searching for the
source of the wine of dreams. He might even be hoping that Luther can tell him
where to continue his search.”
    “He did ask for Luther before he asked for you,” Reinmar confirmed.
    “He will probably come here too,” Albrecht said, mournfully. “He is likely to
go anywhere and everywhere in search of a clue, and he will draw the witch
hunter after him. I only hope that someone can persuade him that the secret lies
beyond the mountains. He will do less harm hereabouts if he goes in search of
the famous secret pass without undue delay.”
    “My grandfather does not believe that there is any such pass,” Reinmar
commented.
    “Nor does any man who knows the mountains,” Albrecht agreed. “But it has been
a convenient fiction for centuries—and the truth is that no one knows where
the wine of dreams and its kin are made, or by whom, or by what process. Its
makers guard their secret well, and wisely so.”
    “What kin?” Reinmar questioned. “How is other dark wine different from the
wine of dreams?”
    “The wine of dreams is one of several vintages allegedly produced by the same
growers,” Albrecht said, uneasily, “but the others are even rarer, and cater to
more exotic tastes.”
    “My father seems to think that dark wine really is evil,” Reinmar said,
hoping to provoke further revelations.
    “Your father has never tasted it,” Albrecht retorted, with a sigh. “Perhaps he
is wise, although I have never admired that narrow kind of wisdom. It is as well
that he has kept you clear of it, if there are witch hunters abroad. Luther
might be a stronger man today if it had never passed his lips, but I cannot
regret the visions I obtained from it. I am a scholar through and through and I have always been willing to pay a price for insight and inspiration.
The witch hunter will find nothing here if he comes calling, and my crimes, if
crimes they were, are too distant now to interest him. If you see Wirnt again,
tell him that I would be glad to see him—but beg him to be careful, for all
our sakes. You had best go now. If honest men are not abed when they should be
it excites suspicion, and I dare say that you have duties to perform by day.”
    “I have,” Reinmar agreed, dolefully. He had hoped to learn more, but he did
not have the time.
    “Come again, when this is over and done with. Your father disapproves of me,
I know, but we are kin and he thinks worse of me than I deserve.” Albrecht stood
up as he spoke, and Reinmar stood too, allowing himself to be ushered back to
the door.
    Reinmar removed the bar himself, although he had seen that the old man
handled it without difficulty. “I will come again,” he promised. “I’ll bring
news, when there is more to bring.”
    “Be careful,” Albrecht advised. “Can you find your way by starlight? The
moons are but crescents, alas.”
    “I have good eyes,” Reinmar assured him, “and there will be light enough in
the streets, once I am among the houses again.”
    He took the advice he had been given, and trod carefully until he was sure of
his way—and even then he took pains to move discreetly, lest there was anyone
nearby who had been told to stand watch and take note of his passing. He saw no
one, but the trees were dense enough to conceal a dozen inquisitive watchers.
    When he arrived back home the house seemed quiet. His ascent to the first
floor window was as awkward as the descent, but he contrived to wriggle through
the narrow window-frame without doing overmuch damage to his jerkin.
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