Krabat

‘There’s work to be done!’ he cried. ‘The Goodman is coming – hurry up, make haste!’

In the rush Krabat could not find his shoes, so he followed the others out of the mill barefoot. There was a new moon; the night was so dark that the miller’s men could not see an inch in front of them. In the crush someone wearing wooden clogs trod on Krabat’s toes.

‘Hey!’ cried the boy. ‘Watch out, you clumsy oaf!’

A hand was put over his mouth. ‘Ssh!’ Tonda whispered.

Then Krabat realized that not one of the miller’s men had spoken a word since the Master woke them. And they did not utter a sound all the rest of that night, nor did Krabat himself.

He could guess what kind of work lay ahead, and soon enough the stranger with the flickering plume in his hat came rattling up in his cart. The men fell upon it, tore off the dark canvas cover, and began dragging sacks into the mill – to the Dead Stones at the far end of the grinding room.

Everything happened just as it had four weeks ago, when Krabat watched the others through the gable window, only this time the Master swung himself up by the stranger’s side on the box. Today it was he who cracked the whip, right above their heads, so that the men ducked as they felt it whistle past.

Krabat had almost forgotten what hard work it was to carry a full sack, and how soon you were out of breath.

‘Remember that you are my pupil!’

Those were the Master’s words, and the longer Krabat thought about them, the less he liked the sound of them.

The whip cracked, the men ran back and forth, the mill wheel went around and the house was filled with the clatter and squeal of the Dead Stones. What was in those sacks? Krabat glanced into the hopper, but he could not make much out in the dim light of the lantern swaying from the ceiling. Was he tipping clods of dirt, or pine cones, into the hopper, or maybe round stones encrusted with mud …?

The boy had no time to take a closer look; Lyshko came up with the next sack, panting, and elbowed Krabat aside.

Michal and Merten had taken up their positions by the meal bin; they refilled the empty sacks with whatever it was that had been ground, and tied them up. Again, everything happened just as before. At first cockcrow the cart was loaded up again, the cover pulled over it and fastened. The stranger reached for his whip, and off he went with his cart, so fast that the Master only just had time to jump down without breaking his neck.

‘Come with me!’ said Tonda to Krabat.

While the others went into the house, the two of them went up to the millrace to shut the sluice. They heard the mill wheel run down below them, and all was quiet, but for the rooster crowing and the hens clucking.

‘Does he often come?’ asked Krabat, jerking his head in the direction in which the cart had disappeared into the morning mist.

‘Every night of new moon,’ said Tonda.

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘Only the Master knows that. He calls him the Goodman – and he is afraid of him.’

They walked slowly back to the mill through the dewy meadows.

‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ said Krabat, before they entered the house. ‘Last time the stranger came the Master was working, too. Why not today?’

‘Last time he had to help us to make up the dozen,’ said the head journeyman. ‘But since Easter the numbers of the Black School have been made up, so now he can afford to spend the nights of new moon cracking the whip!’

CHAPTER NINE The Ox Dealer from Kamenz

Sometimes the Master sent his men out on errands, in pairs or in small groups, to give them a chance to use the arts they learned in the Black School. One morning Tonda went up to Krabat. ‘I have to go to the Wittichenau cattle market with Andrush today,’ he said. ‘The Master says you can go with us if you like.’

‘Good!’ said Krabat. ‘It’ll make a change from all this grinding of grain!’

They took a path through the wood that joined the road beside some houses near the Neudorf village pond. It was a fine, sunny July day. The jays were calling in the branches, they could hear the tapping of a woodpecker, swarms of honey bees and bumble bees filled the wild raspberry bushes with their buzzing.

Krabat noticed that Tonda and Andrush looked as merry as if they were off to the fair. It couldn’t be just the fine weather. Andrush, of course, was always a cheerful, good-tempered fellow, but it was unusual to hear Tonda whistling happily to himself. From time to time he cracked his ox whip.

‘Are you practicing to do that on the way home?’ said Krabat.

‘What do you mean, on the way home?’

‘I thought we were going to Wittichenau to buy an ox?’

‘On the contrary!’ said Tonda.

Just at that moment Krabat heard a loud ‘Moo!’ behind him, and when he turned around, there was a fine ox standing where Andrush had been a moment before. It had a smooth, reddish-brown coat, and it was looking at him in a friendly way.

‘Hey!’ said Krabat, rubbing his eyes.

Suddenly Tonda, too, was gone, and in his place there stood an old Wendish peasant, wearing felt shoes, linen trousers with cross-gartering from ankle to knee, and a smock belted with a cord. He had a greasy fur cap, its brim rubbed bare.

‘Hey!’ said Krabat again. Then someone tapped him on the shoulder and laughed. When he turned, there was Andrush back again.

‘Where did you go, Andrush? And where’s that ox – the one that was standing here just now?’

‘Moo!’ said Andrush in the ox’s voice.

‘What about Tonda?’

The peasant turned back into Tonda before Krabat’s very eyes.

‘So that’s it!’ said the boy.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said Tonda. ‘Andrush is going to show his paces in the cattle market.’

‘You mean you’re going to sell him?’ ‘Those are the Master’s orders.’

‘But – but suppose Andrush gets sent to be slaughtered?’

‘No fear of that!’ Tonda assured him. ‘Once we sell Andrush as an ox, all we have to do is keep his halter. Then he can turn himself into any shape he likes, any time he likes.’

‘Suppose we lose the halter?’

‘You dare!’ cried Andrush. ‘If you did that I’d have to stay an ox all my life, eating hay and straw – just you get that into your heads, and don’t do any such thing!’

Tonda and Krabat created a great sensation in Wittichenau cattle market. Their ox was much admired. All the dealers came hurrying up and surrounded them, and a few of the townsfolk, and some farmers who had already disposed of their pigs and bullocks, joined the crowd. It wasn’t every day you saw such a fine, fat ox; they all felt they’d like to get their hands on it before anyone else could snap up such a splendid animal from under their noses.

‘How much?’

The cattle dealers showered Tonda with questions, shouting at the tops of their voices. Master Krause the butcher, from Hoyerswerda, offered fifteen guilders for Andrush, and lame Leuschner from Koenigsbruck went one better and offered sixteen.

Tonda merely shook his head. ‘Not good enough,’ said he.

‘Not good enough?’ said they. He must be crazy, they assured him. Did he take them for fools?

‘Fools or no,’ said Tonda, ‘I suppose you gentlemen must know that best yourselves!’

‘Very well, then,’ said Master Krause from Hoyer-swerda. ‘Eighteen!’

‘Eighteen! Why, I’d rather keep him myself!’ growled Tonda. He would not let Master Leuschner from Koenigs-bruck have him for nineteen guilders, either, or young Gustav Neubauer from Senftenberg for twenty.

‘The devil take you and your ox, then!’ cried Master Krause angrily, and Master Leuschner, tapping his forehead, said, ‘I’d be a fool to ruin myself. Twenty-two, and that’s my last word!’

The bargaining seemed to have reached a deadlock when a fat, shapeless man, puffing like a grampus at every step he took, pushed his way through the crowd. His frog face with its round, goggle eyes was shiny with sweat, he wore a green tailcoat with silver buttons, a showy watch chain over his red satin vest, and there was a fat purse at his belt for all the world to see.

Master Blaschke, the ox dealer from Kamenz, was one of the richest and probably the shrewdest of all the cattle dealers for miles around. Pushing Master Leuschner and young Gustav Neubauer aside, he shouted in his loud, blustering voice, ‘How in heaven’s name did such a thin fellow come by such a fat ox? I’ll take him for twenty-five!’

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