XVII. The Difficult Homecoming
Several days after besting the Road Popes, the Grossbarts and company found themselves arriving in Venezia long after dark.
“Real choice swap you rigged for us there,” said Manfried, staring down the black canal where the skiff had vanished before the seasick Brothers could raise a fist to stop the boatmen. “A tidy wagon and four strong horses for a one-way trip to an island. Choice, my brother, choice.”
“Mary’s Sweetness, those cheats done cheated us,” said Hegel when he regained his composure. “Pardon me for puttin my faith in my fellow fuckin man! When that mecky mung-gargler said slaves and a boat we all know he meant for the long term and not the short!”
“No matter,” said Manfried.
“No matter?!”
“Nope, no matter at all.” Manfried flashed his teeth. “I’ll allow it might a been nice to keep the boat, but I had a witch-touch a my own on the ride over, meanin we’s vindicated true at present, lack a wagon and boat notwithstandin.”
“How’s that?” Hegel screwed up his face more than nature already had.
“Figured it all went too smooth, yeah? So in such an event as just transpired, I took me a precaution and left that bottle a apple-water in the boat.”
“Why’d you do a thing like that?” asked Hegel, “so if and when they did rob us we’d be down a bottle besides?!”
“That hooch’s most powerful fruity, yeah?” Manfried cracked his knuckles. “So I doubt when they find the bottle and set in they’ll be tastin all a them barber’s berries I mushed down in there. Didn’t wanna waste’em all on an eventuality I wasn’t lookin forward to or forcin, but I reckon there’s enough in there to give’em just what’s comin their way.”
“Berries? You mean that poison?” Hegel smiled as he realized what his brother was about. “Clever as a crow, you are!”
Martyn swooned as he too understood what had unfolded, and his own part in it brought a massive weight pressing down on his chest. Being the only one of the three who spoke Italian he had quickly grasped that the men of Mertes-the river town across the lagoon from Venezia-intended to swindle the Grossbarts and he had done nothing to stop them, thinking it a fine come-uppance for the twins’ arson of the neighboring village. Martyn realized he should have known the Grossbarts would turn the mischief into something worse, and had he but warned either party those four dishonest but likely not murderous boatmen would not be rowing away with a venomous jug of schnapps. His greed to reach a proper city and be done with the whole affair had blinded him, and the realization brought stinging remorse to the priest’s eyes.
“Can’t all be-Where’s she goin?!” Manfried broke off mid-gloat as he noticed the woman disappear at the top of the stone steps leading away from the small dock.
“After the feedbag!” Hegel tore up the stairs with Manfried hot after him.
Cresting the stair, Hegel reeled backward and would have fallen had Manfried not been right behind him. The woman waited for them on a narrow road that sat like a ledge between the tall buildings and the canal. She tapped her foot in the most universal gesture imaginable but the Grossbarts, deciding she had no intention of flight, first went and retrieved their food, schnapps, and priest from the dock. Manfried helped Hegel lash the schnapps cask to his back and then hoisted the provisions.
Their pace and zeal greatly impeded, the trio gained the stairs where the woman waited. Despite the glow seen from the lagoon very few lights burned in this part of the city, and to frustrate them further clouds had blotted out the sky-clouds that appeared meaner than a riled Grossbart. True to its visage, the sky let them advance only a short distance before a deluge crashed down on them.
Canal and road meandered in their course, and then they saw a faint light spilling from a side road. While the woman waited in the road with her veiled face turned toward Heaven, the Grossbarts and Martyn stepped under the overhang of the covered alley. A campfire burned forty-odd paces down the tunnel, a small crowd squatting around it. Hegel and Martyn kept their eyes trained on this lot while Manfried stared at the woman, wondering how long he could bear the music of the rain alone.
“What say-” Hegel noticed his brother’s distraction, and resolving to make good after his previous blunder regarding their passage, advanced on the fire alone. “All a yous, listen up! We’s lookin for the Bar Goose.”
Gray eyes under a filthy cowl flickered up from the fire, intrigued to be addressed in the barbaric tongue of the north.
“I’ll say it once more,” said Hegel, in no mood to be ignored. “Any a yous tell us where a man name a Bar Goose has his home you might find yourself better for the honesty.”
The crutches were snatched and the gambit made.
Hegel turned back to Martyn and his brother to suggest they hurl the lot of rude beggars into the canal and commandeer their campfire. Then he noticed a loping figure had left the circle and was approaching him. Several others were lazily taking their feet, and Hegel put his hand on his pick.
“Barousse!” the beggar called, hurrying toward them. “Barousse!” again, followed by a string of foreign gibbering.
“He say Bar Goose?” Manfried asked his brother, turning back to the alley.
“And that he works for him,” said Martyn, his eyebrows creasing.
“That what he said?” asked Hegel, a report of thunder deafening him.
“Barousse!” the man shouted again, and drawing closer, he spoke in their native language. “I am a humble servant of Barousse, how may I assist you gentlemen?”
The other beggars began moving as a pack down the alley, and they all took up the call of Barousse. These shouted that they too worked for Barousse, and they should be the ones to assist. Hegel drew his pick and Manfried his mace, which stopped the gang in their rag-swaddled tracks. An especially grimy old dodger braved their wrath and shoved the man who had originally addressed them.
“Don’t trust that Arab cunny!
“Arab?” Hegel squinted through the rain and saw the first man’s cowl had fallen away, revealing a dark complexion and a wispy red mustache. “You an Arab?”
“Through no fault of my own!” the Arab responded, standing wearily with the help of his crutches and then lashing out at his attacker with disarming speed. The Arab feigned a punch only to kick the man in the back of the knee, and the surprised Grossbarts saw at once that instead of the usual flesh-and-bone variety the Arab possessed a wooden leg. The usurper fell to the gutter with a shout, and the one-legged Arab broke one of his crutches over the man’s back while balancing on the other.
“Come on, Arab!” Hegel laughed, marveling at their good fortune.
“Rest a yous gone.” Manfried hefted his mace at the small mob. “Get shy right quick fore we get feisty on you.”
The scrawny Arab pursed his lips in dismay at the loss of a crutch but his prone adversary’s groans were a bit of recompense. Hegel and Manfried moved in on their guide to get their first gander at a real Arab. The fellow reeked like a sick sow’s discharge, and Manfried took a healthy swig of schnapps to clear his mind and nose. The black-toothed Arab grinned at him, shuffling closer and reaching for the bottle. He knew enough to not request such boons from his betters but doubted these bristly bastards were that.
“Keep your stink to yourself,” said Manfried, “lest you wanna lose a hand in the bargain.”
“You think I… no, no, no, honest mistake, I would not presume, never, not once in all my life would I deign, in front of God and all, no, no, no.” The Arab held up his stained palms defensively, the crutch protruding from his armpit.
“Where’s the Goose roost?” Hegel asked.
“At his estate, I would imagine. Or is this a riddle? I do love-”
“Damn it, where’s his house? Estate or whatnot.” Hegel already regretted being taken in by the beggar, and vowed to Mary if he led them anywhere but to the Goose’s nest he would throttle him slow.
“Perhaps we will wait out the storm?” The Arab peered around at the torrent obscuring the alley’s mouth just behind them. “With your persuasion it is beyond the doubts of such as I that those miscreants could be enjoined to quit their fire to better allow our usage of it.”
Martyn brightened and took a step forward but Hegel stepped in front of the priest, eager to be done with the whole affair. Shaking his head, which annoyed Manfried even more than it did Martyn, Hegel motioned the rank beggar closer still. Lowering his voice, he said curtly, “We’s set to get there now-ish if it’s all the same to you, friend.”
“Hold a tic,” Manfried muttered in their code, “warmin fore the fire mightn’t-”
“No sense gettin warm just to get wet and cold again,” Hegel cut him off. “Let’s get to step.”
“If we are away in the wet,” the Arab sighed, “then let us away, for no boats will be found at this late and damp date, and by foot it is some distance. Back the way you have come, I fear.”
Their guide led them back into the street, pausing beside their thoroughly drenched female companion. Under Manfried’s careful scrutiny he tarried no further and set off in his strange gait. Passing the dock where they had landed, the Arab led them only a short distance down the street before turning inland-or so they thought. After winding through several narrow, dripping alleys they appeared before another canal. This waterway resembled the former enough for the Grossbarts to mutter back and forth about what they might do if this scoundrel was as honest as he had thus far appeared.
They crossed a bridge, and then more serpentine passages brought them to another canal, and eventually another bridge. They trudged on, only Manfried noticing that the woman would have outpaced them all if Hegel’s blocky form had not impeded her. No more smiles or songs were granted him, and he wondered what her fate would be once they delivered her.
The Arab talked incessantly of the necessity of staying quiet due to the temperament and crossbow prowess of the local populace but not even Martyn could be coaxed into conversing. The priest’s arms felt number than usual, his feet throbbed, his head might be bleeding from a fall he had suffered on the dock, he had sinned to such an extent that several boatmen might find themselves at Judgment instead of their beds come morning, and he was now being chatted up by the Infidel. Father Martyn was in a bad way.
At long last they arrived at the narrowest, darkest passage yet, a tunnel disappearing into the city. After their previous encounters with those of foreign extraction the Grossbarts were ready for treachery. It struck them as conceivable if not outright likely that the Arab had led them in circles while his associates prepared an ambush.
“You tryin to get slit?” said Manfried, snatching the Arab’s hair and pressing a dagger to his throat.
The Arab let out another volley of assurances and pledges of loyalty, but he did not seem as frightened as Manfried would have liked. They continued down the
