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seem
to have stamped out their end of the trade in dark wine, at least for the time
being, but they won’t be satisfied with that. They want the source eliminated,
and having traced it back as far as this they won’t be in any mood to stop short
of their goal. If we can’t help them, they’re likely to assume that the ‘can’t’
is really a ‘won’t’, so we must hope that we can. You’d better come with me
while I talk to my father—Godrich can mind the shop for an hour or two, given
that it’s so quiet.”
    Reinmar felt a thrill of triumph as he realised that for the first time in
his life he had forced his father’s hand. He went up the stairs far more lightly
than his heavily-treading father, although he had only had a little more rest.
    Luther seemed distinctly uneasy when his son and grandson confronted him—unsurprisingly, given that Gottfried was in such a grim mood. The old man’s gaze flickered uneasily from one to the
other. “I couldn’t help it,” he said defensively, shrinking back beneath the
coverlet. “It wasn’t me who let him in.”
    Gottfried was startled, but not completely astonished. “The stout stranger
came back,” he quickly deduced. “Albrecht’s brat. He wouldn’t take no for an
answer—not from me, at any rate. He’s not still here, I hope?”
    “No, he’s not,” said Reinmar. “I saw him as he left. He’s gone into the hills
to hide—unless he decided to call on his father first.”
    “What did you tell him?” Gottfried asked of Luther.
    “What could I tell him?” the old man retorted, resentfully.“ We have no dark
wine, and we don’t know where it’s made.”
    “And what did he tell you?” Gottfried demanded.
    “That his mother, when he found her, seemed hardly old enough to have given
birth to him—but that she did acknowledge him, and that he continued to see
her in spite of rumours that she was involved in dark magic. She was proud of
him, it seems, and told him not to hate his father too much for having gone away
and left him in the care of strangers. She introduced him to the wine. He said
that the dreams were like coming home—as if they filled a hole in his heart
that he had never quite been aware of before. It was as if he had never properly
begun to live, until that moment. It was as if… but you have heard such talk
before, and did not like it then.”
    “I haven’t,” Reinmar put in, quietly.
    Luther was still staring at his son, waiting for permission to continue.
Gottfried only hesitated briefly before he said: “Tell him everything.”
    Luther nodded, and made an obvious effort to collect himself, then shifted
his gaze to his grandson. “The dark wine is also called the wine of dreams,” he
said, in a voice that was strangely dry as well as weak. “There are other wines
from the same source, all darker of hue than the sweetest Reikish and all of
which give rise to dreams, but those who know what they are about speak of dark
wine in the singular, and the wine of dreams likewise. A few who have had the
opportunity to tire of the wine of dreams manage to cultivate an appetite for
one or other of its peculiar kin, but their use has always been… esoteric.”
    Reinmar wished that he might elaborate on that, but he did not.
    “The wine of dreams is the kindest and most generous of the vintages produced
by its makers,” Luther continued, “and connoisseurs deem it the very essence of
luxury, because the greatest luxury of all is youth and dark wine is a veritable
elixir of youth. It has the power to preserve beauty, and zest, and a particular
kind of innocence that none but the guilty can appreciate. Is it magic? Perhaps.
Who can tell where nature ends and magic begins? All wine intoxicates, and it is
surely conceivable that dark wine is merely the finest and purest intoxicant of
all. Albrecht used to write to me, in the days when we were still as close as
brothers ought to be, that he had heard scholars swear