The Boatmaker (33 page)

The boatmaker nods. The policeman moves aside to let him into the barns. He turns right between rows of empty stalls. Then he turns left and sees Bold Prince through an arched doorway that leads to a stall larger than the rest, straw piled on the floor. The big brown horse is bucking and rearing, his eyes wide and white.

The boatmaker runs toward the arch. As he reaches it, a man comes rushing out past him. He is sure it is the man he saw at the Mint.
Rademacher. A very dangerous man
, Rachel had said.

Inside the stall, the tall brown horse and the pony are backing into a corner, the pony in front, protective. The Irishman is lying crumpled in the straw. The boatmaker kneels beside him. A bruise is spreading across Donelan's cheek. His flat cap is lying in the straw. A large syringe, half-full of milky liquid, stands up out of his chest. There isn't much blood.

He takes Donelan in his arms, smells tobacco, horse, cologne and a sweetish smell he can't identify. The color
has drained from the trainer's features. He does not seem to be in pain, but he is weakening moment by moment.

“The horse?” he asks in a wisp of a voice.

“Fine.”

“Get him to the track. He must race.”

The boatmaker doesn't know whether to remove the syringe, which is deep in Donelan's chest. Then the Irishman's body goes limp, and the boatmaker knows he's gone.

Staedter, the jockey, appears in the arched doorway holding the racing saddle with the bridle draped over it.

“Donelan's dead.”

“
Christ!
Who did it?”

“Rademacher.”

“Who's that?”

“It doesn't matter. I think they were trying to get to the horse and fix him so he couldn't run.”

“
Jesus Christ!
” The jockey looks at the animals in the corner, cowering and showing their teeth. He kneels on one knee to look at Donelan, careful not to get spots on his gleaming white jodhpurs or the silk blouse in Lippsted red-and-white.

“You've got to get him out of here. The horse will never calm down with the body in the stall.” He rises, takes two small steps toward Bold Prince, stopping out
of range of hooves and teeth, turns and barks at the boatmaker: “
Get him out of here, I said!
”

Suddenly the archway is filled by Eriksson in his long canvas coat, followed by two journeymen the boatmaker recognizes from the compound.

“We need to move him,” he says, looking up at the foreman, who kneels down and presses two fingers against Donelan's neck, then nods to the men behind him. The two of them pick Donelan up under his arms and legs and carry him out.

“What happened?” the foreman asks.

“Rademacher,” the boatmaker says. The foreman looks startled, then thoughtful.

“We must tell Herr Lippsted.”

“No,” says the boatmaker. He has never given Eriksson an order, never even thought of doing such a thing. He isn't sure how he has the courage to do it now, but he is certain Jacob Lippsted must not know about Donelan until after the race. The horse is not harmed. The race must go on. With his last breath, Donelan had said so. The two men stand up out of the straw, one more than a head taller than the other. They look at each other, dark eyes into light, for what seems like minutes.

“Alright,” says the foreman. “I'll have Donelan taken away. Some of the men will stay here to guard the stall.
They're not armed, and we don't have time to go back and get weapons. But I think we'll be safe. I doubt that he'll come back now. He was after the horse?”

“Yes.” The boatmaker bends down, picks up Donelan's cap and hands it to the foreman.

“And the little Irishman fought like a demon to keep them from hurting him.”

“Yes.”

“
A bloody mess.
” The boatmaker knows Eriksson means not just what has happened in this stall but everything outside as well: the boiling city, the crowd drinking itself into a rage as it fills the stadium, the hateful newspaper, the poisonous handbills.

Turning to the jockey, the foreman asks, “Staedter, can you manage here by yourself? We have men outside.”

“
I can if you will by God get out of here.
The horse won't calm down until you leave. And the race goes off in
fifteen bloody minutes
.”

The boatmaker and the foreman exchange glances. Neither likes Staedter, but the jockey has a job to do that no one else can do—and he knows his work.

The boatmaker leaves the stables to find a place where he can watch the race. He wants a place outside the iron fence, with open streets at his back. It is a day to have room to run.

At the end of the track farthest from the royal box, he finds a good spot. He will have to watch the race standing, but there is plenty of room to turn and run, and he has a clear view down the track to the main building. He cannot make out every detail under the slate roof flying its two flags. But he can see the scarlet tunics of the King's Own Guard on the track in front of the stands, white gloves on their rifles. He knows the king will enter last, to the sound of a brass band, joining Jacob Lippsted and a few others in the royal box.

All around the royal box, the boxes for the nobility are filling with refined chitchat. Along the straightaways, the stands for commoners are full of excited babble. Outside the fence, near the boatmaker, stand the workers who could not afford a ticket or chose not to buy one. They seem even poorer, drunker and angrier than the men in the stands. All around him, the boatmaker hears words that have leaped off the handbills into the mouths of the people.
Disease. Parasites. Purify.

Down at the other end of the track there is a commotion as the king enters and takes his seat. When everyone is settled, the royal chamberlain, in dark coat and long tails, walks out from under the stands. Standing in front of the royal box, on the white line marking start and finish, he takes papers from an inside pocket and reads. His
remarks are carefully written and appropriate for the day, praising the king for his liberality, his modernity, his farsightedness, his boldness in welcoming the future to the Mainland.

The chamberlain is too far away for the crowd around the boatmaker to make out his words clearly. The speech goes on and on, tension rising in the crowd. When the chamberlain finishes, there is no cheering, only polite applause from the high-born.

The chamberlain bows and recedes. A brass band in dress blue marches out onto the track, instruments gleaming, and begins to play. The sound is thin and distant, but the boatmaker can hear the national anthem, its tune going all the way back to the time of the sea-warriors. After the anthem, the band plays the hymn that has for centuries accompanied the Mainland's army and navy into battle. The music that accompanies the words
a mighty fortress
comes down the track, the words humming involuntarily in every brain from hundreds of repetitions over a lifetime.

The wind dies. The flags crumple and spill down their poles. The music stops. The band carries their golden instruments back under the stands. The wind picks up again. The flags belly out: the blue-and-yellow rectangle and the white streamer sliced by the cross.

Down on the right, from the opening the band marched out of, comes The Royal Champion, ridden by a tiny jockey wearing blue-and-yellow silks. At the sight of the never-defeated black thoroughbred, the crowd opens its throat and sends out a roar of love and willingness to die—and kill—for the homeland. A groom leads the Champion, who is dancing, lighter than air.

The black horse passes the royal box before being turned and brought back to the starting line. The horses will start in front of the stands, make the first turn immediately, go into a long straightaway, sweep around the turn in front of where the boatmaker is standing and head down the other straightaway into the final turn. They will finish where they started: in front of the royal box, before the eyes of the king and Jacob Lippsted.

A moment later, Bold Prince is led out to a low grumble from the crowd. He is taller than the royal horse and thinner, obviously powerful but not nearly as elegant as the black horse. He is not floating. A groom in red-and-white leads the horse and Staedter. The boatmaker sees the jockey talking to the big brown horse, stroking his neck. Bold Prince walks slowly, head down, as if he is in pain. The boatmaker wonders whether some of what was in the syringe did reach its mark before ending up in the chest of the Irishman.

The groom gets Bold Prince turned in front of the royal box and brings him up level with The Royal Champion. The noise in the stands quiets. A man in a dark suit steps onto the track, a silver pistol at his side. The grooms release their horses. The starter raises his silver pistol. When the report reaches the boatmaker at the far end of the track, the horses are already running.

The black jumps off the line into the first turn, taking the inside. The Royal Champion runs with speed and grace, his jockey holding him back, horse and rider appearing to be as untroubled as if they were out for a training gallop. The brown is running, but the boatmaker can see that he is not himself.

On the far straightaway, both horses take the inside, Bold Prince breathing the Champion's dust. The boatmaker sees Staedter urging the brown horse on. He is not using his whip. As they reach the end of the first straightaway the gap widens to three lengths, then to four.

If the race continues like this, the king's horse will win by many lengths. From the crowd in the stands and along the fence comes a deep rumble of satisfaction. All is right with the world. The cosmic order has held. Tonight, glasses will be raised to the king who put the Jews back in their place. The Jews of the Old Quarter will be relieved that things have begun to return to normal. The
handbills from The Brotherhood will be replaced by the usual advertisements for circuses and miracles.

Unlike the men around him, the boatmaker is not yelling; he is simply watching. He can feel his own disappointment. But perhaps it is for the best, he thinks. However it has come about—whether Rademacher actually reached Bold Prince with his syringe or not—it may be the better outcome. The crowd will be calmed. There may be sporadic violence but no mob out of control in its rage and bloodlust.

The horses come into the turn in front of the boatmaker and swing around, both on the inside. He sees desperation on Staedter's face. As they come out of the turn into the second straightaway, the jockey begins using his whip. Staedter strikes Bold Prince's neck and shoulders. As he brings the whip down, the jockey loses control. He is no longer a calm strategist, a skilled technician, winner of many races. He is a man in a rage.

Whether it is because of the pain, or the outrage at being treated with such disrespect, Bold Prince wakes up and starts to run as the boatmaker has seen him run many times. On the second straightaway it looks as though The Royal Champion has slowed to a walk, though the boatmaker knows he is moving just as fast as he was before. The tiny royal jockey, shocked at the pounding coming up
behind, begins whipping his horse. The black responds, but the gap continues to close: three lengths, two, then one.

Looking down the straightway, seeing the horses from behind, the boatmaker cannot tell who is in front. As they thunder into the far turn, Staedter swings Bold Prince to the outside, around the black. They pound past the finish line, necks stretched, nostrils wide. As they reach the royal box, the boatmaker can make out the brown head on the outside, just in front of the black.

CHAPTER 24

An angry howl goes up from the crowd. The horses whip around the first turn again, slowing with each stride, jockeys standing in the stirrups. They come to a walk in the middle of the straightaway before the jockeys turn them back toward the main building. Grooms run out to lead the horses to the safety of the barns.

As horses and riders vanish, the entire racecourse bursts open like the mouth of a volcano. Out of the opening comes a molten wave of sound, different, louder than the first angry cry. The royal guard, their bayonets fixed, surround the king and his guests and lead them from the royal box to the carriages.

At the other end of the track and outside the iron fence, the boatmaker cannot make out individuals, but he knows Jacob Lippsted is within the wall of scarlet. Rachel must be nearby, among the gentry scrambling for their horses and carriages.

The whirlwind of sound fills and overflows the racecourse, like lava rolling down the slopes of a volcano. It begins to harden, take shape. Words rise out of the chaos. “Death,” the chant goes up. “Death to the Jews!” Then it finds its rhythm and begins repeating: “
Death, death to the Jews! Death, death to the Jews!
”

The crowd of workingmen pours out of the entrances and away from the track. The boatmaker threads his way among them. Here and there men are clustered around someone speaking the words of The Brotherhood's handbills. The boatmaker stops at each speaker, expecting to see Rademacher, but the very dangerous man is nowhere to be seen.

The boatmaker hurries through the streets, sometimes stepping out of the way to allow shouting men to run by. He smells smoke.

He leaves the crowd on the boulevards and takes a route that leads him down narrow streets and alleys, pausing at the intersections with the major streets to let a flood of angry workingmen stream by, whipped into a rage by the speakers. As it moves, the angry crowd has settled on its destination: the Old Quarter.