Aubrey was having trouble labelling them. Were they brigands? Freedom fighters? Revolutionaries? He decided that this would only be known in hindsight, when all was done, and the histories were being written by the victors. It gave him pause, the shifting nature of things, the uncertain times in which he lived. Belief could lead to great deeds or it could lead to horror – the line was a delicate one and again hindsight was the only way to know when one had stepped over it.
Sizzling pheasant meat, mushrooms, sliced roast potatoes and fresh bread on a tin plate appeared in front of him. ‘Eat, eat,’ Rodolfo said. ‘You are too skinny. Eat.’
Aubrey’s stomach insisted that Rodolfo was right. He took the plate, sat on a coil of rope, and, while the singing around him redoubled, its contents vanished with surprising speed.
He wiped the plate with the crust of bread, wondering where it came from. A nearby village friendly to their cause? An elderly man staggered past, roaring what could be considered a song, even if it was a completely different one from that the rest of them were trying to sing. It was as if he’d taken a tune, gutted it, stuffed it with random notes while preserving the words and then decided that volume was more important than tune anyway, dammit.
Aubrey looked for their leader, and found him away from the centre of activity. He was still sitting on his stool, still brooding, watching his band enjoy themselves. ‘They’re happy,’ Aubrey said.
‘Happiness passes, but it is good while it lasts.’
‘You’ve been out here long?’
Rodolfo glanced sidelong at Aubrey. ‘Long enough.’
‘It must be difficult, fighting for your cause.’
Another sidelong glance. ‘Fighting is difficult at any time.’
‘You’re not a soldier then?’
This time, Rodolfo turned to face Aubrey squarely. ‘I was a school teacher, Mr Black. When Holmland sympathisers murdered the president of my country, I was appalled but did nothing. When anti-Holmland agitators killed the man who led our army, I was aghast. When the government began to round up people to stop the killing, I lost track of who was who. When my brother was seduced by those who claimed that Veltranians were historically a Holmlandish people and joined a group who wanted to blow things up, I wrote a letter to the newspaper denouncing such things.’ His face hardened. ‘I was called in by the headmaster, told that I no longer had a job. When I went home to my flat, the landlord threw me on the street. A band of men then assaulted me and as I lay in the gutter I realised that being appalled and aghast and affronted wasn’t enough. I knew I had to fight.’
Rodolfo’s voice was soft, but Aubrey heard every word, despite the carousing that was going on. He felt the man’s pain, his anger, his loss, but he had to ask. ‘And you’re certain you’re fighting for the right cause?’
Rodolfo’s dark eyes were intense. He leaned forward. ‘Certainty is a fool’s crutch.’ He stood and stretched. ‘Now, Mr Black. You seem to be still here.’
‘That’s what I wanted to talk about.’ Aubrey brushed off his trousers. His stomach was full; he felt warm and strong. ‘What’s the best way to get back to my train?’
‘You want to rejoin it?’ Rodolfo made a gesture as if it were a matter of little importance, something of the order of an annoying fly. ‘This is no problem. Carlito will take you. Carlito!’
A scrawny figure stumbled out of the unruly choir, nearly tripping on the outstretched sleeping form of a replete outlaw. He wore a stocking cap over greasy, greying hair. He was small and ferret-like, with a prominent nose. He looked inquiringly at Rodolfo, who gestured at Aubrey. ‘This man wants to get to the Transcontinental Express.’
Carlito screwed up his eyes. ‘Now?’
‘As soon as possible,’ Aubrey said.
‘Carlito will get you there,’ Rodolfo said.
‘How?’
‘Raft, signor. Raft,’ Carlito said, grinning in a gap-toothed way that made the word sound like the equivalent of ‘death trap’.
It was.
Seventeen
The raft trip was madness. Within minutes, Aubrey was convinced that Carlito was the man for the job.
The raft itself was a ramshackle assemblage that looked more like an accidental coming-together of flotsam than a water-tight, navigable vessel. Some of it was made of barrels, some of it was sheet metal, some of it was rope and netting, a fair proportion of it was prayers. Branches were woven in and out of the chaos, but most of the raft was still open space. Carlito had to steady Aubrey as he boarded because his feet found gaps more easily than solid construction. The raftman’s grin didn’t waver as Aubrey wobbled, lurched and eventually threw himself at the spot Carlito indicated with a blackened finger. Then, picking a rope somewhat at random, Aubrey thought, Carlito cast off and they were whipped into the maelstrom.
Aubrey’s first reaction, after a faceful of icy spray, was that the river had more than grown up. He’d first encountered it as a wild mountain stream, wayward, but still young and with a chance to reform. Now, it was a hardened villain of a waterway, carving its way through solid rock at the bottom of the perilous gorge. In seconds, Aubrey’s breath was driven from him in a series of plunges that jarred his bones and drenched him in water he was sure would have frozen if it had stayed still for even an instant. His teeth chattered; his hands hurt from gripping whatever structural component was closest and least likely to detach itself.
The darkness at the bottom of the gorge was almost complete, so Aubrey couldn’t anticipate the wild changes in direction and the plummeting, swerving passage of the raft. Flashes of white foam made him jerk his head left and right but imminent death was on every side, only interrupted by the towering darkness of immense rocks that even the thunderous river couldn’t shift.
As they were flung through the watery violence, Aubrey was constantly battered by the roar the river made as it sped along, madcap and unbridled. The noise filled the narrow space and assaulted them as if it were alive and malicious. It was an all-consuming sound, a head-filling sound. It hissed and bellowed, and underneath was the grinding of boulders being dragged along the riverbed.
Carlito’s navigation was eccentric. He stood, swaying, at the rear of the craft, with a heavy wooden pole under his right arm which he used to fend off the rocks that threatened to bring their journey to an abrupt end, although how he saw them Aubrey had no idea. This was a rational, even sensible course of action, but it wasn’t consistent. At times Carlito simply grinned as the raft slammed into the sides of the gorge or into a fang of rock, and allowed the raft to career away down the gorge. How he chose which to fend off and which not to defeated Aubrey. He gave up trying to work out the raftman’s method. Instead he concentrated on hanging on.
He had no idea how long the passage took. The ride took a few seconds or a few lifetimes, one or the other.
Carlito left the jelly-legged Aubrey on the outskirts of Agoulle, where the river burst from the chasm, widened and lost most of its violence. Behind them was the dark cleft of the gorge, which Aubrey was sure had a charming local nickname like ‘the Widowmaker’. Any description of it would be accompanied by the opinion that only lunatics would attempt passage through it.
Carlito, apparently a professional lunatic, steered the raft under some willows. He pointed to the lights of the houses and to where the railway line ran alongside the main street. For a moment, Aubrey sat on the raft and stared upward, enjoying the stars and the way they’d stopped wheeling crazily across the sky. Then he took a deep breath and launched himself onto the river bank. It was soggy and evil-smelling from what Aubrey suspected was animal droppings, but it had the immensely wonderful benefit of not being the raft.