Two bird migrations have to cross the mountains to find their way south. They fly low, almost touching the castle battlements. Feathers rain down. The formations overlap, drift towards one another, away from one another. Their calls evoke a sadness, as if they were heralding a more beautiful world that will always be out of reach for the castle’s inhabitants. And that is how it is. How many of them there are! You could almost touch them.
Martin watches. The others have also stepped out of their houses. Some of them hug each other, trying to give comfort. The horseman’s wife strokes her belly.
‘Where were you?’ she asks Martin.
Martin can’t find the words. She pulls him away. Away from Thomann, who marches to his shelter, whistling as if he’s had a good day and not just been given his death sentence. He does not turn around for Martin.
The horseman is sitting up on the edge of the bed in the house, supporting himself with his arms. He has a stick nearby. Is he practising getting up? And why today of all days? Sweat is running down the horseman’s temples, yet it is freezing cold in here. Martin checks the fire and starts to feed it.
‘Use the wood sparingly,’ the wife says. ‘You may only use, drink or eat half of everything you usually do from now on.’
‘What happens now?’
‘The horsemen leave,’ she says.
‘They close the gate,’ her husband says. ‘No more goods. No more traders. No more hunted game, no fish from the river, no ducks. Nothing from outside until the men return.’
‘Why?’ Martin asks.
The horseman remains silent, staring into the faint glow.
‘A curse,’ the wife says wearily. ‘It seems it has always been the way. The flight of the cranes, followed by the dark time. We must atone. Only if we atone and stick together can we resist the demons. Then the horsemen return and everything starts over again. Better, maybe. That’s what the princess says.’
The princess is mad, Martin thinks. And mad people invent mad rules.
‘It’s your last chance to leave,’ the horseman says urgently. ‘They won’t let you out later.’
‘I don’t want to leave,’ Martin says. Not yet. Not before it is over.
‘One more mouth to feed,’ the horseman says.
‘He doesn’t need much,’ says the wife.
‘I can help,’ says Martin.
‘You already do help,’ says the wife.
Martin thinks of the children who are living out their lives, who are with their parents and thinking they are safe. Until the horsemen find them and their fate has to be linked to that of the castle’s inhabitants.
How awful, Martin thinks, how unbearable.
The horsemen gather in the courtyard. Hooves scrape across the stones by the gate. It is impossible to guess what the horseman who is staying behind is thinking. His gaze is turned inwards. Is he searching his heart for the children that he found and took? How many did he abduct? How many are on his conscience?
‘Half of everything,’ Martin says quietly, counting out the potatoes, while the big gate is closed outside. Its hinges screech as if they were announcing doom.