WAS THE Master suspicious of Krabat and Juro? Was he on their track, with Lyshko’s help maybe? One evening early in September he invited his journeymen to drink with him, and when they were gathered around the big table in his room, and every tankard was full, he unexpectedly announced, “A toast to friendship!” Juro and Krabat, taken aback, exchanged glances across the table.
“Drink up!” cried the Master. “Drink up, all of you!” Then, telling Lobosch to refill the tankards, he said, “Last summer I told you about my best friend, Jirko, and I told you too that it was I who brought him to his death. Now I will tell you how it happened: It was at the time of the great war against the Turks. Jirko and I had had to leave Lusatia for a while, and so we parted. I enlisted as a musketeer in the Emperor’s army, while Jirko, unknown to me, hired himself out to the Turkish Sultan as a magician. The Marshal of Saxony was in command of the Imperial Army, and he had led us far into Hungary. We were facing the Turkish army, friend and foe both entrenched in fortified camps, and for weeks on end we would hardly have known a war was going on, but for the occasional skirmishing of raiding parties from both sides, and the firing of cannon into the no man’s land between us, to find their range. Then one morning it turned out that the Turks had kidnaped the Marshal of Saxony in the night and carried him off, obviously with the aid of magic. Soon after that a Turk came riding out to our trenches to negotiate. He said the Marshal was a prisoner in the hands of the Sultan, and if our army would withdraw from Hungary within six days he would be set free; if not, he was to be strangled on the morning of the seventh day. There was great consternation, and not knowing that Jirko was in the Turkish camp I volunteered to go and fetch the Marshal back.”
The Master emptied his tankard at a draught, signed to Lobosch to pour more wine, and went on.
“Our captain said I was out of my mind, but he passed my offer on to the colonel, who took me to see a general, and this man took me before the Duke of Leuchtenberg, who had taken the command in the Marshal’s place. At first the Duke did not believe in me either, but then I turned his staff officers into parrots before his very eyes, and I changed the general into a golden pheasant. At that the Duke changed his tune. He told me to turn his officers back again at once, and promised me a reward of a thousand ducats if I succeeded in rescuing the Marshal. Then he had his own riding horses brought out for me, and told me to choose myself one.”
Once more the Master paused to drink, and once more Lobosch refilled his tankard before he continued.
“Now,” said he, “I might simply go on with my story . . . but I have a better notion. You can live out the rest of the story for yourselves! Krabat will play my own part—the part of a musketeer skilled in magic, who is going to rescue the Marshal of Saxony. Now we need someone to be Jirko . . .”
He glanced from one of his men to another, looking Hanzo over, considering Andrush and Stashko, and at last his eyes rested on Juro.
“You’ll do,” said he. “You may play Jirko if you like.”
“Very well,” said Juro, shrugging. “I suppose someone has to do it.”
Krabat was not deceived by his friend’s foolish grin. It was clear to them both that the master intended to test them in some way, and now it was important to be on their guard and not betray themselves.
The miller crumbled some dried herbs over the candle flame, and a heavy, druglike fume spread around the room. The miller’s men felt their eyelids droop heavily.
“Close your eyes!” the Master told them. “Then you will see what happened in Hungary, while Juro and Krabat act out the story—the story of myself and Jirko in the great Turkish war . . .”
Krabat felt weariness overcome him, felt himself slowly falling asleep as he heard the Master’s voice, monotonous and far away.
“Juro, the Sultan’s magician, is in the Turkish camp. He has sworn allegiance to the crescent of Islam. And there is Krabat, Krabat the musketeer, in his white gaiters and blue coat, standing at the Duke of Leuchtenberg’s right hand, inspecting the parade of horses . . .”
Krabat, Krabat the musketeer, in his white gaiters and blue coat, is standing at the Duke of Leuchtenberg’s right hand, inspecting the parade of horses. He likes the look of a black horse with a tiny white mark on the forehead; from a distance the mark looks like a pentagram.
“I’ll take that one!” he says.
The Duke has the black horse saddled and bridled for him. Krabat loads his rifle, hangs it over his shoulder, and mounts. He trots gently around the parade ground, then puts spurs to the horse, and gallops toward the Duke and his retinue as if he intended to ride them down.
The officers scatter in alarm—but Krabat sweeps over their powdered white heads, and to their amazement they see the horse carry him straight up into the air. And that is not all. Horse and rider begin to disappear, dissolving gradually into thin air until they finally vanish from sight completely, even from the sight of the Master of the Ordnance, Baron Gallas, who has the best telescope in the Imperial Army at his disposal.
Krabat rides up and up to dizzy heights, as other men might ride over a level plain. Soon he catches sight of the first Turks on the outskirts of a bullet-riddled village. He sees their turbans, bright in the sun, he sees the cannon in position behind their gabions, he sees patrols riding back and forth between the outposts. He himself, however, and his horse, are invisible. The Turkish horses blow out their nostrils with fear as he passes, the dogs begin to howl and put their tails between their legs.
The green banner of the Prophet is waving in the wind above the Turkish camp. Krabat guides his horse carefully down to earth. Not far from the magnificent tent which houses the Sultan he sees another, rather smaller tent, guarded by some twenty janissaries, all armed to the teeth.
Leading his horse, he enters the tent. Sure enough, there is that great warrior-hero the Marshal of Saxony, the scourge of the Turks, seated on a stool, his head in his hands. Krabat makes himself visible, clears his throat, goes up to the Marshal—and steps back in amazement.
The Marshal is wearing a black leather patch over his left eye!
“What is it?” he asks Krabat in a hoarse voice, a voice like a raven croaking. “Are you in the service of the Turks? How did you get into this tent?”
“I am at your service, sir!” says Krabat. “My orders are to rescue Your Excellency. My horse is ready!”
And the horse too becomes visible.
“If your Excellency has no objection . . .” says Krabat.
He swings himself up on the horse, signing to the Marshal to get up behind. Then they break out of the tent.
The janissaries are so surprised that they do not lift a finger, and shouting boldly “Make way there!” Krabat and the Marshal race through the middle of the camp. At the sight of them even the Sultan’s Nubian guards drop their spears and swords.
“Hurrah!” shouts Krabat. “Hold tight, your Excellency!”
No one dares to bar their way, and already they are at the gates of the camp. They ride out into open country. Then Krabat makes the horse rise in the air. Only now do the Turks begin to fire at them, volleys of shots, and the bullets whistle in the air around them.
Krabat is in a cheerful mood. He does not fear the Turkish bullets.
“If those fellows were going to hit us, they’d have to shoot with something made of gold!” he tells the astonished Marshal. “Bullets of iron and lead will do us no harm—or arrows either!”
The shots die away, the firing stops. Then the two riders hear a rushing and a roaring sound, coming from the Turkish camp and swiftly getting closer. Krabat cannot turn around as they ride through the air, so he asks his companion to look behind them.
The Marshal says he sees a huge black eagle following them. “He is swooping down from high above, the sun at his back, his beak toward us!”
Krabat recites a magic spell, and great clouds tower up between them and the eagle, thick, gray clouds, like a misty mountain range.
The eagle plunges on, right through them.
“There!” croaks the Marshal. “It’s swooping down on us.”
By now Krabat knows what kind of an eagle it is following them, and he is not surprised when the eagle cries out in human language.
“Turn back!” calls the eagle. “Turn back, or you are dead men!”
Krabat knows that voice. Where has he heard it before? No time to wonder about that! He makes a sign, and a storm breaks around them, flinging the eagle back, a storm that should sweep him right out of the sky. But it fails. The Sultan’s eagle is a match for any storm.
“Turn back!” he calls. “Surrender, before it is too late!”
“That voice!” thinks Krabat. He recognizes it now. It is the voice of Juro, Juro who was his friend when they were journeyman millers together, many years ago, at the mill in the fen of Kosel.
“The eagle!” the Marshal warns him. “He’s nearly caught up with us!”
Suddenly Krabat recognizes the voice croaking in his ear as well. “Your gun, musketeer!” it is urging him. “Fire! Why don’t you shoot the monster down?”
“Because I have nothing made of gold!” Krabat is glad; it is true, too. But the Marshal of Saxony—or whoever it may be sitting there behind him—the Marshal tears a golden button off his coat.
“Put that in your gun—now, fire!”
Juro, Juro the eagle, is only a few wing-beats away now. Krabat has no intention of killing him. He pretends to be putting the golden button in the barrel of his rifle, but in fact he lets it slip from his hand.
“Fire!” the Marshal insists. “Fire!”
Without turning his head, Krabat fires the gun over his left shoulder at their pursuer; it is blank, as he knows, loaded only with powder, no golden button in the barrel.
There is the sudden crack of a shot—and a shriek of agony.
“Krabat! Kra-baa-aaaht!”
Horrified, Krabat drops his gun. He covers his face with his hands and weeps.
“Krabat!” someone is calling in his ear. “Kra-baa-aaaht!”
Krabat woke, with a moan. How did he come to be sitting here at the table, with Andrush and Petar and Merten and all the others? They were staring at him, white, appalled, and each man looked away as soon as he felt Krabat’s eyes on him.
The Master sat in his place, still as a corpse, leaning back in his chair, as if he were listening to something far away.
Juro was motionless too, lying with the upper half of his body over the table, face down, his arms spread wide—arms that had been eagle’s pinions beating strongly only a few moments ago. There was a spilled tankard beside him, and a dark red spot on the table top . . . was it wine or blood?
Lobosch threw himself on Juro, sobbing. “He’s dead, he’s dead!” he cried. “You killed him, Krabat!”
Feeling his gorge rise, Krabat tore his shirt open with both hands.
Then he saw Juro move first one arm, then the other. Slowly, as it seemed, life was coming back into his body. Propping himself on his hands, Juro raised his face. There was a round red mark on his forehead, just above his nose.
“Juro!” Little Lobosch grasped his shoulders. “You’re alive, Juro, you’re still alive!”
“Why, what else?” inquired Juro. “It was only done in play . . . but my head was fairly ringing with that shot of Krabat’s! Someone else can play the part of this Jirko another time! I’ve had enough—I’m off to bed!”
The miller’s men laughed aloud in relief, and Andrush said what they were all thinking. “Yes, you go to bed, brother! Thank heaven you’re all right.”
Krabat sat at the table as if turned to stone. The shot, the scream, and now this light-hearted merriment all of a sudden . . . how did it all fit together?
“Stop!” the Master interrupted them harshly. “Stop it! I can’t stand it! Sit down and be quiet!” He had risen and was leaning one hand on the table; his other hand was clasped around his tankard as tightly as if he would crush it to pieces.
“Yes,” he cried, “what you saw was only a nightmare! You wake from a nightmare, and then . . . But I didn’t dream the story of Jirko, that time when I was in Hungary. I did shoot him! I killed my friend, I had to kill my friend—as Krabat did, as every man of you would have done in my place, every single one!”
He brought his fist down on the table, making the tankards dance, reached for the jug of wine and drank from it greedily. Then he flung it at the wall, shouting, “Get out! Go away, all of you, get out of here! I want to be alone—alone—alone!”
Krabat wanted to be alone, too, and he slipped out of the mill. There was no moon that night, but there was starlight. He walked through the wet meadows to the millpond, and when he looked down at the black water, from which the stars sparkled up at him, he felt a longing to bathe in it. Taking off his clothes, he slid into the pond and swam a few strokes out from the bank.
The water was cold and cleared his head, which was what he needed after all that had happened that evening. He went under and surfaced again a dozen times, and then, gasping and with chattering teeth, turned back to the bank.
Juro was standing there with a blanket.
“You’ll catch cold, Krabat! Come on out—what are you doing?”
He helped Krabat back on land, wrapped the blanket around him and began to rub him dry.
Krabat pulled away from him. “I don’t understand it, Juro!” he said. “I don’t see how I could have shot at you!”
“You didn’t shoot at me, Krabat—not with the golden button.”
“You know that?”
“I know what would happen—I know you!” Juro nudged him in the ribs. “A shriek like that may sound nasty, but it’s no great effort to produce one!”
“What about the mark on your forehead?” asked Krabat.
“Oh, that!” said Juro, smiling. “Don’t forget, I know a little of the Secret Arts . . . just enough for my purposes!”