Dark Tracks Read online

  “Over,” Lord Vargarten said laconically, and the two guards simply tipped the boy’s legs and let him go. They heard his yell as he fell, and then the splash and plume of water. His head bobbed up, his arms flailed wildly, and the current took him, flung him against the stone stanchions of the bridge; they saw his hands grip unavailingly at the wall, and then his head bobbed beneath the water, came up once, his mouth gasping for air, and then he was gone.

  Luca hesitated for a moment, leaning over the parapet as if he would dive into the stream after the young man and swim to his body, which they could see turning over and over in the current. Freize grabbed on to his jacket and hauled him back to safety. Luca furiously turned to Lord Vargarten. “Why?” he yelled. “Why would you do that?”

  His lordship shrugged. “So that others think twice before coming here again,” he said shortly. “I warned you. It’s easier to kill someone than change their mind with talk. Life is cheap and my time is precious. And, besides, I don’t think of them as humans. Why would I argue with vermin? I just scotch them.” He nodded toward the dancers. “Now, see how briskly they step out? How anxious they are to be gone?”

  They were going faster, their steps speeding up, afraid of the soldiers; but even now, even in this moment of fear, they were unable to run—still they had to dance. Occasionally, prompted by their own inner rhythm, they would break away from the road, join hands, and jig round each other.

  “Go on!” Luca shouted, wary of Lord Vargarten in case he gave another murderous order. “Keep moving!” He had a sudden terrible awareness of his failure. He felt that all he was doing was persecuting these people, that he was no help to them at all and had learned nothing that might save other people in the future. He had meant to save them, but he was colluding in their terror.

  The dancers were off the bridge now, stepping and twirling breathlessly up the stony track that led north. Ahead of them, scrambling out of a ditch, the fiddler stood up, keeping a wary eye on the guards, and they heard the scrape of his bow and the start of a tune. Luca shaded his eyes with his hand and watched them go. “Will they just go on?” he asked desolately. “On and on? And we can do nothing?”

  “Till they drop dead of exhaustion, or someone else chucks them in another river,” his lordship said hard-heartedly. “You can’t save people from their own stupidity.”

  “I can’t save people at all,” Luca said miserably.

  “Who’s the fiddler?” his lordship asked. “You know, I think he’s the rogue that came through last time. I swear he makes a living from leading and guiding beggars. If I catch him, I’ll hang him on one of my own trees.”

  “No more killing,” Luca pleaded. “Let them go.”

  The lord pulled up his horse and watched the dancers straggle down the road. “Keep going!” he shouted. “I can see you. Keep going and don’t come back.”

  Freize pulled at Luca’s sleeve. “There’s something odd,” was all he said.

  “What?”

  “Something odd about that woman, the one at the front.”

  “What?” Luca repeated irritably. “And what does it matter now?”

  “She had new shoes on,” Freize said. “Nobody else has new shoes. Everyone we saw in the market square yesterday was in rags with worn shoes. Most of them were danced to pieces. Some of them had bleeding feet.”

  They could barely see her; she was dancing up the road, her head bent, watching her feet, her loose blond hair tumbling about her face. It was as if the feet were taking her away, almost against her will, and she was watching them go.

  “I suppose so.” Luca could not be distracted from his guilt and grief about the young man whom he had watched struck and then drowned, at the complete failure of his mission. He turned back, and Brother Peter put out a steadying hand.

  “You could not have saved him,” he said quietly. “Lord Vargarten is a most determined man. You got some dancers into the church and the others out of the town. You did the best that you could. You saved them.”

  “I save no one,” Luca said shortly. “I have no gift for it. And this is not the first time that I have understood nothing.” Grimly, he turned toward Mauthausen and started for the gate, not even looking to see that Brother Peter and Freize were following him. The town gateman, arms folded across his chest in the open gateway, was staring up the hill, watching the dancers go.

  “I brought Lord Vargarten down on them and he is a murderer,” Luca berated himself. “I led him to them. I thought I was saving them, but I brought their murderer straight to them. I asked them what they were doing, but they did not answer me and I made no inquiry. I still don’t understand the dancing sickness and I let that boy die and the others be driven onward.” He swallowed bile. “I let that boy be thrown into deep water when his skull was already split. I let him be killed.”

  “Not at all, we saved about ten of them.” Brother Peter caught him up. “And the rest will go free. Lord Vargarten won’t chase them beyond his lands: all he wants is for them to move on. Now we’ll go at once to the church and see how the saved ones are. When they make their confession, we will understand more. We will have to report to Milord if they can be recovered and returned to their normal lives. Nine sinners out of thirty lost souls. That’s not bad. That is a victory for the risen Lord.”

  “I did not save that boy,” Luca said bitterly. “And in Venice I did not rescue my father. I let the boy go into the river. I left my father in slavery. I don’t even know where my mother is. Nine souls out of thirty doesn’t seem like a victory to me.”

  Lord Vargarten and his troop of guards followed behind Luca, Freize, and Brother Peter, the lord high on his horse, the men swaggering like victors.

  “You make sure you close the gate against the dancers if they come back,” Lord Vargarten commanded the gatekeeper. “This gate and the quay gate are to be shut at sunset, and, if you see the dancers coming, you bolt it tight and send for me at once.”

  “And what will you do?” Luca demanded.

  “I’ll ride down and put them to the sword,” Lord Vargarten said briskly. “They won’t get a second chance from me.”

  Luca nodded and shrugged his shoulders and turned away, his head bowed at his failure.

  “Good thing too,” the gateman assured them. “They’re devils, devils in human form. God knows what trouble and sorrow they have caused. And they took the landlady from the Red Fish, so who is going to brew ale now?”

  “The landlady?” Freize asked. “Did you say the landlady from the inn?”

  “She had the door bolted shut, but some fool opened it and, when they got in, they danced with her, danced her round and round and out of the door, and left the inn wide open and the keys to the cellars for anyone to steal.”

  “She’s with them?”

  “Oh yes, didn’t you see her go by? And the fair-headed wench that was staying there?”

  Freize whirled round and stared up the hill to where the last of the dancers were disappearing into the thick woods on the far side of the river. Without a word, he suddenly took off, running toward them, pushing through the guards, ignoring Lord Vargarten, deaf to Luca’s startled yell, dashing like a desperate man through the slowly closing gate, back over the bridge to run after the dancers.

  “Freize!” Luca shouted after him. “What is it? Where are you going?”

  “Go back to the inn!” Freize yelled over his shoulder. “Look for Ishraq! That was Isolde! Isolde in the red shoes. If they’ve got Isolde, then Ishraq must be dead or captive. Find her!”

  Luca took two rapid steps to follow him, but then realized that Freize was right. If Isolde was gone, then Ishraq must be in terrible trouble. She would never have let Isolde go alone; she would never have opened the door to release her friend to the dancers. He turned on his heel and ran back to the inn. As soon as he entered the square, he saw that the worst had happened. The front door to the inn stood wide open, a man, slack-mouthed in amazement, lingered in the doorway. “I never saw su