It had not yet grown dark. Egert stood, leaning against a wall, and dully watched a street urchin who was pensively winding a ribbon around the tail of a dead rat. The rat was obviously being decorated with the dark blue ribbon in honor of the holiday.
Someone walked by, almost brushed Egert’s shoulder and stopped, looking back; no longer having the strength to be afraid, Egert turned his head.
The Wanderer stood on the footpath directly in front of him. Egert saw his face down to the tiniest detaiclass="underline" the vertical wrinkles that cut his cheeks in two; his prominent, too clear eyes, cold and inquisitive; his leathery eyelids, devoid of lashes; his narrow mouth with the corners drawn down. Standing thus for a fraction of a second, the Wanderer slowly turned and walked away.
Egert gasped for air. He wanted to scream, but he had no voice. Darting forward, he rushed in pursuit but, as in a dream, his wobbly legs buckled and would not move. The Wanderer walked away without hurrying, but somehow very quickly. Egert stumbled after him, and then a viselike grip seized him by the collar.
Egert tried to wriggle free. The Wanderer was getting farther away, but the hand that was restraining Egert would not come loose. He heard laughter next to his ear.
Only then did Egert turn round. Three men had beset him, but he did not immediately recognize the man who was grasping his collar.
“Hello, Egert!” he exclaimed merrily. “And just where do you think you’re going?”
The voice was Karver’s. His fresh uniform sparkled with cords and buttons, and it seemed like the braid of his lieutenancy occupied half his chest. His companions were also guards: one was Bonifor, but the other was unknown to Egert, a young man with a tiny mustache.
Egert gazed after the Wanderer. He turned around a corner. “Let go,” he said quickly. “I need to…”
“You need to? A little or a lot?” Karver asked sympathetically.
“Let me go!” Egert tried to jerk away, but feebly, because Karver, sneering, had raised his heavy, gloved fist to Egert’s face.
“There’s no need to rush off. We’ve been looking for you for a long time in this festering hellhole of a city. We’re not going to let you go just when we’ve found you.”
All three were regarding Egert with overt curiosity, as if he were a monkey at a village fair. Bonifor drawled wonderingly, “Look at you.… You look just like a student! You don’t even have a sword!”
“Oh, Egert, where is your blade?” inquired Karver with deliberate sorrow.
Bonifor drew his sword from its sheath. Egert grew faint. His fear crippled him; it paralyzed him down to his last nerve. Bonifor grinned and ran his finger along the edge of his sword, and then Karver clapped Egert on the shoulder.
“Don’t be afraid. As you, my little friend, were deprived of both military rank and nobility, deprived publicly before the regiment no less, no one will use his sword against you. We might slap you in the face, or even beat you: that’s still allowed. It’s unpleasant, of course, but generally very educational, don’t you think?”
“What do you want?” asked Egert, scarcely able to move his parched tongue.
Karver smiled. “I wish you well. You are, after all, my friend. So much has passed between us.” He smirked, and Egert was more afraid of that smirk than of the naked sword.
Karver continued leisurely, “We’re going home. You have here the Day of Jubilation, but you will have no occasion to rejoice.… You are a deserter, Egert Solclass="underline" you shamefully ran away from your duty; you brought disgrace to the uniform. We’ve been ordered to find you, catch you, and present you before the regiment, and then who knows what will happen.”
He released Egert’s collar, and his two assistants firmly gripped Egert by his elbows, though in truth there was no need for this because fear had bound Egert more tightly than steel chains.
The Wanderer had long ago disappeared. He had dissolved into the busy streets, and with every second, the likelihood of meeting him again diminished, dissolved like sugar candy in water.
“Listen, Karver,” said Egert, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Let’s come to an agreement, huh? You tell me where I need to go later, and I will go there, upon my honor.… But right now I really need to…” Egert was disgusted at how plaintive and beseeching these words sounded.
Karver bloomed like a bouquet under the window of a man’s intended. “Well, if you really need to … Perhaps we’ll let you go, eh?”
The young man with the tiny mustache gaped; Bonifor had to wink at him twice before he understood that Karver’s words were no more than a lark.
“I need to find someone,” Egert repeated fecklessly.
“Beg,” Karver suggested gravely. “Beg well. Get on your knees. Do you know how?”
Egert looked at Karver’s boots. They retained traces of recent polishing and less recent grime from puddles; several pieces of rotten straw were stuck to the sole of the right boot.
“What are you thinking about?” wondered Karver. “A rendezvous is serious business. Is she beautiful, Egert? Or simply a slut?”
“What did I do to you?” Egert had to wrench the words out.
The evening street came alive, filling up with laughing, dancing, kissing groups of revelers.
Karver brought his face close to Egert’s eyes. He delighted in the tears that were welling up out of them and shook his head. “You are a coward, Egert. You are such a coward.…” Then he added, smiling sweetly, “Gentlemen, you don’t need to hold him. He won’t run away.”
Bonifor and the other guard reluctantly released Egert’s elbows.
Karver’s smile widened. “Don’t cry. You get on your knees and we’ll let you go to your tryst, that’s all. Well?”
Half an old rusty horseshoe lay on the pavement near their feet. Perhaps this is the final degradation, thought Egert. It couldn’t really get worse, could it?
“He won’t do it,” said the young guard. “The pavement is filthy; it’ll soil his trousers.”
“He’ll do it.” Bonifor guffawed. “And he’s already soiled his trousers: he’s no stranger to that.”
This is the last time, Egert told himself. The very last time … The Wanderer could not have managed to go far.… One last indignity …
“Well?” Karver sounded impatient. “You want to wait longer?”
The doors of a nearby tavern burst open, and a dashing, drunken, irrepressible group poured out onto the street like champagne from an uncorked bottle. Someone seized Egert by the ears, intending to kiss him passionately. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that a young girl was hanging on to both Karver and Bonifor at the same time, and then a frantic circle dance erupted, wrenching Egert aside, sweeping him away. The disappointed face of the young guard flashed by him in the crowd, but Egert was already running, as if on air, weaving in and out of drunken revelers with impossible agility, obsessed by a single thought, The Wanderer! Maybe he is still here.…
It was late in the night when Egert returned to the annex. Fox became fearful when he saw his friend’s face, disfigured by despair. The encounter had not happened, and Egert now had only one day left: the Day of Jubilation.
The scaffold in front of the courthouse was ready at the very last minute. The carpenters were finishing the final touches, and the block had been lovingly sheathed in black cloth, which was draped with countless garlands of fresh flowers. It was a holiday, after all; when the cloth was swept back, the wooden block was revealed to be varnished and painted to look like a drum.