The War Hound and the World's Pain Read Free Page A

was burning; or perhaps it was a settlement which burned. The fire spread even as I watched, but no wind carried the smoke towards me.
    As the sun set I saw a faint red glow, but was able to go to bed and sleep soundly again, for no rider could have reached the castle by the morning.
    I rose shortly after sunrise and went immediately to the battlements.
    The fire was dying, it seemed. I ate and read until noon.
    Another visit to the battlements showed me that the fire had grown again, indicating that a good-sized army was on the move towards me. It would take me less than an hour to be ready to leave, and I had learned the trick of responding to nothing but actual and immediate danger. There was always the chance that the army would turn away well before it sighted the castle.
    For three days I watched as the army came nearer and nearer until it was possible to see it through a break in the trees created by a wide river.
    It had settled on both banks, and I knew enough of such armies to note that it was constituted of the usual proportions: at least five camp-followers to every soldier.
    Women and children and male servants of various sorts went about the business of administering to the warriors. These were people who, for one reason or another, had lost their own homes and found greater security with the army than they would find elsewhere, preferring to identify with the aggressor rather than be his victims.
    There were about a hundred horses, but the majority of the men were infantry, clad in the costumes and uniforms of a score of countries and princes. It was impossible to say which cause, if any, it served, and would therefore be best avoided, particularly since it had an air of recent defeat about it.
    The next day I saw outriders approach the castle and then almost immediately turn their horses back, without debate. Judging by their costume and their weapons, the riders were native Germans, and I formed the impression that they knew of the castle and were anxious to avoid it.
    If some local superstition kept them away and thus preserved my peace, I would be more than content to let them indulge their fears. I planned to watch carefully, however, until I became certain that I would not be disturbed.
    In the meanwhile I continued my explorations of the castle.
    I had been made even more curious by the fearful response of those riders. Nonetheless, no effort of mine could reveal the castle’s owner, nor even the name of the family which had built it. That they were wealthy was evident from the quantity of rich silk and woolen hangings everywhere, the pictures and the tapestries, the gold and the silver, the illuminated windows.
    I sought out vaults where ancestors might be buried and discovered none.
    I concluded that my original opinion was the most likely to be true: this was a rich prince’s retreat. Possibly a private retreat, where he did not wish to be known by his given name. If the owner kept mysteries about him as to his identity, then it was also possible that his power was held to be great and possibly supernatural in these parts and that that was why the castle went untouched. I thought of the legend of Johannes Faust and other mythical maguses of the previous, uncertain, century.
    In two days the army had gone on its slow way and I was alone again.
    I was quickly growing bored, having read most of what interested me in the library and beginning to long for fresh meat and bread, as well as the company of some jolly peasant woman, such as those I had seen with the army. But I stayed there for the best part of another week, sleeping a good deal and restoring my strength of body, as well as my strength of judgment.
    All I had to look forward to was a long journey, the business of recruiting another company and then seeking a fresh master for my services.
    I considered the idea of returning to Bek, but I knew that I was no longer suited for the kind of life still lived there. I would be a disappointment to my