She fell silent for a moment, breathing heavily. Wolfgang interjected, saying mildly: “Actually, the boy’s not really responsible for all that, Gwendolyn. At least, in the short time we’ve made his acquaintance, I haven’t noticed him charging about spreading mass disease and misery.”
Gwendolyn glared at him, then sighed.
“I know, I know. It’s unfair of me to throw it on to Benvenuti’s head. I shouldn’t personalize these things. But still, it infuriates me, the way the Ozarines create a world that perpetuates—makes worse!—every injustice in it, and then cluck their tongues at the barbarity of it all.”
It was the first time in my life that I didn’t just walk away from a political argument. I think it was the fierce flame in her, that drew me like a moth—and didn’t I know, even then, that it usually turns out badly for the moth! Then, too, there was this—which, I admit, cut a little close to Gwendolyn’s point, so I always kept it to myself—that she made every Ozarine lass I’d known seem like a pale shadow. Fact is, the damned woman was a romanticist’s dream! And what artist isn’t a romantic? Not any Sfondrati-Piccomolinis. At least, not from my—admittedly somewhat disreputable—branch of the clan. My branch of the clan, truth to tell, has always produced a lot more adventurers than scholars.
I did not, of course, attempt to argue the politics of her persuasion. For one thing, I would have been completely over my head. Even at that young age, I had enough sense not to dispute doctrine with a hardened Groutch revolutionist! For another, I wasn’t at all sure I didn’t agree with her, insofar as I’d ever given any thought to political questions. My uncles had certainly never instilled in me any great feeling of pride in “the grandeur of Ozar.”
But I did make the attempt to present myself in a different perspective. And so, as our campfire burned a spot of light in the darkness, I spoke quietly of my lifelong fascination with Grotum. Begun, to be sure, from a child’s fairy tales. But, as I grew older, I came to understand the centrality of Grotum to all the world’s art and literature. This reality was known to all students of the arts, and often commented on by the scholars—some with admiration, most with rueful asperity, some even with despair. But directly or indirectly, Grotum acted like a great dark planet, which drew into its orbit all the brighter but smaller orbs.
She said nothing, but she listened to me. Rather intently, I think. When I was done, she did not break her silence. But I thought—or so I hoped—that there was less tension in the set of her shoulders.
“We’d best get some sleep,” she said. Then, as she was rolling up in her blanket, a little chuckle, and she added: “You’ll need to be well rested tomorrow, Benvenuti, so your whip hand doesn’t waver. But I owe you for the draymasters, so I’ll give you one scratch if you cut it too fine. One only, mind! Or it’s the gutting blade.”
* * *
It took us two days to get through the Goimric countryside to the edge of the forest. The trip was uneventful, save for one occasion late in the afternoon of the second day, when we were overtaken by a platoon of cavalry. They came galloping up the road behind us, waving their sabers and hallooing war cries. But it became obvious that they were not interested in us. The platoon charged right by without so much as a glance in our direction. One of the cavalrymen, however, fell off his horse as he tried to ride around the cart. He landed in the road with a great thump.
I hopped off and went over to him. He was sitting up, shaking his head. I leaned over and helped him to his feet.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Guess so,” he muttered. He looked around for his horse. The nag was off in a field some thirty yards distant. The soldier pursed his lips and whistled. The nag looked at him, defecated, and trotted away.
“Damn the beast!” snarled the soldier. “Now I’ll have to finish the charge on foot.”