Chapter 12

It was unlike any pilgrimage that Voldi had ever seen. Like a river at flood, with swift currents channelling the central stream and sluggish eddies eating into the weeds and bushes of its banks, the crowd pressed on in silent, sober, sweating, desperate haste. Crude, home-made crutches dug into the loose gravel, scraping dangling legs and crooked feet through the dust. Barrows and carts bore haggard old men and women, pale, dull-eyed, emaciated children, and on cots and litters helpless invalids lay supine, their sunken eyes tightly closed against the glare of the mounting sun and the callous stares of the passing pack; for, far outnumbering and outspeeding these hapless ones trudged a pushing, elbowing multitude apparently bent upon appeasing its curiosity. It was by no means a pleasing spectacle, this conglomeration of misery jostled by a heedless throng whose behaviour too closely resembled the conduct of stampeded cattle.

The procession was moving faster now. Three hundred yards ahead, the more agile were breaking into a run as they reached the place where their ruthless predecessors had toppled the stone wall, and were racing across a flat-trampled stubble-field. Darik jumped easily over what was left of the wall. Voldi turned toward the old farmhouse and rode on to the stableyard, where a stocky, middle-aged, greying man was stirred to prompt interest in the sleek Arabian horse.

‘You like horses, I think,’ remarked Voldi, pleasantly.

‘I don’t know much about them,’ replied the farmer. ‘Never owned one. That’s the finest horse I ever saw.’

‘How would you like to take care of him for a little while?’ Voldi dismounted, hopefully. Darik tossed his head and snorted.

‘Is he dangerous?’ inquired the farmer dubiously.

‘Tame as a kitten, after he’s acquainted. I see you keep bees. Give him a little piece of honeycomb and he’ll be one of your best friends…Of course I shall want to pay you for your trouble.’

‘You’re going over to hear the Carpenter?’

‘Thought I would. Quite a crowd. I must see what it’s all about. Some kind of religion, isn’t it?’

‘I haven’t heard him,’ admitted the farmer. ‘I’ve got to stay on my place and see that the rabble don’t carry anything off. If it’s religion, it isn’t doing them very much good. They trample down as many berry bushes on their way out as on their way in.’