The House of the Wolf Read Online Free PDF

staring eyes which jerked about the dusky road, now in shadow from the ancient tumbled façade of the buildings opposite and the deeper mass of the Castle walls at their left as they went on down the frozen street. The eyes presently resolved themselves into a pair of lanterns suspended from short poles and set out at angles from a solid wooden cart built of massive timbers and drawn by four coal-black horses.
    Other carts followed, each painted in gaudy colours, some decorated with elaborate carving that now threw back the rays of the lamps as they swayed and flickered at the end of their poles. A low animal rumbling sounded deep from within a wooden slatted cage that stood on one of the open vehicles, and through the opening in the tarpaulin that surrounded the cage on three sides to keep off the wind, the professor glimpsed the dark snout and burning red eyes of what appeared to be a large bear.
    The men who drove the carts, with swarthy women beside them, had dark, sullen faces and wild eyes above their fierce moustaches; they looked neither right nor left but tugged moodily at the reins, one or two smoking elaborately engraved silver pipes. Coleridge could hardly take his eyes off them until the creaking cavalcade was again swallowed by the dusk.
    He realised it was the third procession he had seen since his arrival in Lugos a few short hours ago, each one more extraordinary than the last. His guide, who had sat hunched on the seat of the sled while the bizarre caravan passed, now straightened himself, cleared his throat, and spat reflectively.
    ‘Difficult and dangerous people, Professor.’
    Coleridge turned back in his seat and huddled deeper into his protective furs.
    ‘But who are they?’
    The driver stroked his chin with his free hand, his left skilfully controlling the horses so that the vehicle avoided the worst of the ruts which fell to a sort of ditch or moat which hugged the edge of the road. Above them the great sheer walls of the Castle, not a light showing this side, looked as though they were made entirely of frost.
    ‘Hortobagy!’
    The driver struggled for the English equivalent.
    ‘How do you call them in your country?’
    Then he turned with quiet triumph.
    ‘Gypsies. They are a wild folk, sir. They are here for the first of our Winter Fairs, which starts in a few days’ time.’
    ‘That sounds interesting.’
    The driver shrugged.
    ‘It is interesting enough. But there is much quarrelling and drunkenness, too. Though it brings good trade to the village and business for the likes of me, so perhaps I should not grumble overmuch.’
    He turned back to the reins, pulling the powerful team round. The road curved now, easing away from the village street, which continued onward past the main wall. There likewise was curving of the great mass, which angled inward as though anxious to be quit of the village.
    Coleridge glimpsed lights at ground level which shone and glinted on the thick ice of the moat and on vast iron-studded doors with a courtyard beyond. Above that hung the immense bulk of the Castle, hereditary home of the Homolky family. Those windows in the façade which were still lighted exhibited delicate tracery of stone and lozenges of different coloured glass which glinted ruby and green and gold, almost like church windows, but with a secular splendour foreign to churches. To Coleridge, in the biting cold of the street, they seemed to beckon with all the warmth and comfort of civilised values.
    ‘We have arrived, sir!’ said the professor’s guide, pointing with a flourished whip. ‘The House of the Wolf!’
    The horses’ hooves rang steel-hard on the drawbridge as they clattered across to where the great mass of the Castle awaited to ingest them.
    Coleridge paid off the guide, cutting short the man’s mumbled thanks, and followed the bearded servant, who tucked his luggage beneath his gigantic arms as though they had been nothing more than feather bolsters. The professor kept his