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| Honza About to Get Shorn (Actually a Frans Hals painting from Wikimedia Commons) |
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Not long after the four riders had left the last outbuildings of Vodnikov behind them, they saw a fencedin compound, stoutly fortified but still somehow aesthetic and inviting, with freshly painted letters above the door- “The Inn On the Straw Mattresses” - in Schwabisch. Faded letters just below them said the same thing in Krajanštína: “Na Slamníku.”
Silvernose gritted his teeth. Perching awkwardly on his saddle, he said in gasps: “I am ashamed to say it – because we’ve been on the road so briefly – but I really need to stop a while…”
“We can stop here for the whole night,” said Zdenka, catching Beata’s and Ludmilla’s eyes for a heartbeat, then dismounting. The others followed suit. Zdenka waved the inn’s stable girls over to help Silvernose dismount, then the girls led all their horses into the courtyard to get watered and brushed. Zdenka, Beata and Silvernose were all enjoying the rare circumstance of fat wallets. Even Ludmilla had money for the way donated by Mother Vlasta.
Ludmilla surprisingly refrained from protest about possible delay in returning to her hermitage, but once they were seated in the inn for their evening meal, and she had a beer in front of her, she began to buffet her companions with flowing commentary in her distinctive rural dialect:
“You’re Schwabs! You’re all of you Schwabs! Except for you, Zdenka, but you’re not a good Krajanka either! What are you, anyway? How can you beat what I couldn’t beat? How can I even trust you people to find our way safely to Skalica?”
Irritation passed over Zdenka and Beata’s faces, but Silvernose merely excused himself to go to the latrines outside. He returned when the innkeeper was adopting a stance like a theater actor to address the room.
The innkeeper shouted over the din of the pub: “Right now, my guests, I am sorry to say, until the good Sisters of St. Vlasta in Vodnikov patch their brewing vats and make more of their fine beer, we are tapping our very last keg of St. Vlasta’s Milk!”
Boos, whistles, and catcalls erupted from guests around the pub: “Fakt jo! Fuj! Ty volevej!”
Ludmilla winced, bent double, shut her eyes, covered her ears with her hands. She swore like a Moldava River boatman, but in her strange accent of the hilly lands far to the east of Vodnikov: “Kurva! Too loud in here!”
The innkeeper grimaced at the crowd’s disapproval and waved in long-haired musicians clutching drums and horns and lutes.
Ludmilla opened her eyes, widened them. “This! This is the top of the hill! I’ll get the innkeeper to show me to our room. Later, trdla!” The skinny old woman hustled away as the band started playing its raucous high-volume tunes.
“A bit rude she is, wouldn’t you say?” shouted Beata over the din when Ludmilla was newly gone. “What does she mean by ‘trdla’?”
“Trdlo – plural: trdla. That means ‘wooden stakes’ or ‘chunks of wood’ or ‘clods’ or ‘fools’ – something like Klotz in Schwabisch,” answered Zdenka. “You have it right – She didn’t mean anything kind toward us!”
“Actually, you might have it wrong,” Silvernose broke in. “I wager the old woman is agonized by all the noise. She insults us only because she is lashing out in intense pain. Mayhap her ears are overkeen. I have developed great sympathy, especially recently- as you could see on our short ride- with those afflicted with pain.”
“Silvernose, indeed you likely have it right,” said Beata. “We were wrong to react with quick, ungenerous judgements.”
“A vocation in quiet, lonesome nature suits her, especially if she is oversensitive to people’s sounds and hubbub,” Zdenka agreed.
Then, she changed paths: “You seem to feel better, Silvernose. Do you?”
The rotund swordsman replied that he did, and that he applied herbs from his kit whilst away from the table.
“Silverbeak, we’re glad you’ve improved, but can you tell your bosom companions what ails you?” Beata inquired.
“Absolutely not, my dear.”
“You forsook the bait of ‘bosom companions’ – you certainly are ill, my friend! Usually that would result in a few amusing volleys of innuendo fired between us, but this evening you’ve let the shuttlecock drop! Will you be able to ride the rough road to Skalica with us tomorrow?”
“My healing herbs were most efficacious, Beata Beatrix,” answered Silvernose. “And I am too much of a gentleman to pursue your bait into the thicket.”
Dropping shuttlecocks, riding the rough road, pursuing bait into the thicket – Beata and Silvernose would normally have woven these ribald gambits into an intricate conversational sword-dance. Tonight, she refrained from pressing the jests. She knew he was, underneath a brave face, preoccupied by the mysterious absence of his lady. She was also skeptical that her friend’s physical health had really improved.
Across the inn’s tavern, one of the long-haired musicians bellowed for attention from the room:
“Poor Honza has been snared by the Schwabenreich’s recruiters! He says not to weep for him, that a boy of job-age now has a good-money job that will let him see the beauty of the Eastern Steppes!”
The other musicians held Honza’s head forward and ceremoniously severed his years-long fall of black hair. The one who had been speaking shook his still-intact locks, mockingly, ostentatiously. He held up the black mass of severed hair like a victorious hero holding aloft the head of a monster he has decapitated. To whistles and cheers he announced: “We will auction this lovely product of three years of Honza’s patient nurturing! And he will dance the verbuňk for the winner!
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First in the Terror of the Trdlo Serial:
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