Well Dead

XIII. A Passer-by not to pass by

For Harun, the next day could hardly have started better. After having been allowed to sleep blissfully long for a change – Wenzel having fended off all of Jan’s attempts to rouse him early – he was welcomed into the day by the wonderful smell of freshly grilled salmon. Wenzel the clever fellow had caught 8 of them the previous evening and had stowed away half of his haul. While Harun ate, Wenzel could be seen disappearing into the direction of the river. And the way he winked when he returned nurtured in Harun hopes of further nurturing.

The rest of the day, however, did not live up to its promising beginning. For although it was certainly not as hectic, this day of their journey proved to be quite as uneventful as the last one. Harun got off one or two quite promising starts of conversation with Wenzel, but sooner or later they were interrupted by Jan, who seemingly deemed it his duty to drop his usual taciturnity in order to save his fellow Christian Wenzel from the peril of a Saracen’s no doubt heretically infectious fabulations. This left little to do for Harun to pass the time and over the next few exceedingly long hours, Jan's interruptions provided him with a deeper insight into the subject of horse manure than he would ever have liked to acquire. Obviously, once he had got going, Jan was not the man to be stopped his detailed lectures.

Only near sundown was he finally silenced, when a crying woman with bleeding child in her arms passed them on the road.

*~*~*~*~*

None of the four people on the wagon was quick enough to realize what passed them before it already had passed – except Harun. He was down from the wagon in a flash, quite surprising from a man who was normally more accustomed to move like an overweight stork. Wenzel, the guard, who should have seen enough wounds and suffering before to register immediately what was wrong with the child just stared after his friend, gave a shout and only then realized what had made him jump down.

“Good woman, stop.” Panting, Harun reached the woman, who did stop, more out of surprise than anything. “Is your child hurt? What happened to you? Is your child hurt? Let me see. Maybe I will be able to do something.”

The woman… no, she was hardly more than a girl, Harun saw now, in tattered peasant's clothing. She opened and shut her mouth, not getting any words out. Her eyes were wide with terror.

Harun nodded to himself understandingly. He had seen eyes like that before, years ago, when the invaders had come, taken his town and made him a slave. He knew the things those girl's eyes must have seen – things in the guise of men who came out of the morning mist and destroyed the world you had known, taking lives, taking honor, taking everything.

Harun smiled reassuringly at the woman. From the state of her, it looked like she had hardly escaped alive. She must be terrified by whatever had happened to her.

That indeed was part of the girl’s problems. What Harun fortunately did not know, was that the rest of it: after just having her home burned, the woman now saw before her this horrible, dark-skinned, heathen monster, leering at her, threatening her child.

“What the hell are you doing?” Yelled the bondsman. “Get back here! You’re holding us up!”

Jan said nothing. He would probably have been quite content to continue his journey without the additional unnecessary load.

“Come back,” called the bondsman. “What on earth is the matter?” He jumped off the wagon and hurried towards Harun. “Come back, this has nothing to do…” His gaze fell on the woman and her wounded child. “God’s breath!”

Harun took a step forward and looked, in the glaring red glow of the sinking sun, at the stains of darker red on the child’s shoulder. They were not damp anymore but dry and rust-colored. Nevertheless, through the cut cloth, one saw the gashes going deep, and the white bone glaring. No. The bondsman was not right. Whoever's breath had caused this, it was no heavenly creature. More likely the exact opposite.