The Last Bottle

The village in the cove was a picturesque affair. There were jolly fishing boats in the harbour, and the place had an air of quiet prosperity. I concluded from the outset that these people must certainly be no more than smugglers and thieves.

Fortunately, it was precisely this kind of devious customs dodger that I required. In no time at all I hired one of the coast’s self-styled captains, and I then installed myself in the ramshackle inn which, with a slight bias to seaward, stood on the cliff-top road.

True to his word in this respect at least, the smuggler sailed his sloop back into the tiny harbour under the light of the next full moon. I watched a boat being put down into the water and then made my way inside, to wait there for the merchandise as had been arranged.

‘Do you have it?’ I demanded the moment the smuggler sat down in front of me.

‘I said that I would didn’t I?’ The smuggler’s tanned face was contorted in a smile; he regarded me in a manner that any nobleman could only find impertinent.

‘And I have the money as agreed.’ I kept both of my hands below the level of the table, one rested on the hilt of my sword, the other around my purse.

‘Ah yes, well that’s the thing, Your Lordship.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I asked.

‘Conditions have changed,' he said . 'This is no longer just a rare bottle of wine made from the finest grapes and forbidden for export to these shores. It may well be that this is the last of its vintage, ever.’

‘That is of little interest to me’ I replied. 'Let us settle our business as we discussed.’

‘You see, there is civil war over the water, Lord Ertel, and even the most prized vineyards have fallen into neglect. On top of that of course, it will come as no news to you that those pretty coins of yours are worth a good deal less in this province than once they were.’

Unfortunately I could hardly dispute that. I was a good two days ride from my own lands, and at court I am still considered a frontiersman; out there the writ of the Crown runs barely at all. ‘Still, silver is silver' I reminded the base fellow. 'What you do with the coin is your business.’

‘Well said, Lord Ertel, but the price has changed all the same.’

‘I will pay what we agreed, Captain Retmund, not a silver penny more.’

‘Then you will have no bottle of wine.’

I sprang to my feet; my sword flew to my hand. The innkeeper, the only company that we had had to this point, looked for a moment as if he might try to make peace, instead he opted for escape and dashed through the door behind his bar.

Retmund was strong and courageous but no match for noble grace and training. His only defence was all out attack. He knew no more technique than that. He swung three times at my head and, failing to remove it from my shoulders, lunged directly then at my body. The fight lasted only seconds. I parried and stepped aside, running my sword between his shoulder and the top of his right arm as he passed. I inflicted such a deep wound that I feared I might break the tip of my blade.

‘I should kill you where you lay’ I said to the prostrate smuggler. ‘Where is the bottle? If you’re lucky I may even leave you some of the King’s silver you so disdain.’

Momentarily the swine took his left hand away from the wound at the top of his sword arm and pointed to the pack which he had hung from the back of his chair when he had come in. The chair had been over-turned and the pack was lying under it on the floor.

Sadly it took only a second to verify what I already feared. A dark pool spread across the dirty floorboards; the bottle in the pack was smashed.

‘Should I meet you' I told him, 'or even hear of you again Retmund, I will kill you.’

Worried that perhaps the innkeeper would soon bring Retmund’s crew to the inn, and not wishing to fill the place with their bodies, I left quickly then. In any event, there was no more  I could do there. If I was ever to win this wager, I would need another plan.

*

Retmund had been right about the war over the water. I waited nearly two years for the chance to take ship myself for Ochia. My grasp of the Ochian language isn’t bad, and I felt no need for a retinue. I travelled as in my youth, with only my wits and my sword for company. Of course there was one important difference, on this occasion my purse was full.

The Ochian civil war was burning itself out in a country too exhausted to go on fighting. Nonetheless, travelling was difficult and dangerous. There were too many towns and too many taverns in ruins, and too many soldiers on the roads making the all-too-easy transition into banditry.

I was mightily relieved come harvest-time, to find myself in the south, amongst the steep-sided valleys which are home to some of the most renowned wines in all the world.

I stood one day in the shade of a peasant’s doorway and looked up at the hanging terraces high above. ‘So those are the vineyards? I said to the wizened old man, as brown as a nut.

‘Oh yes’ the old man replied. He seemed amused.

‘How do people work up there?’

‘They climb the cliff, or at least they used to.’

‘No-one works them any more?’

‘So many have been away’ the man said, ‘and food has been more important than the vines up there.’

‘But your wine is worth a fortune' I told him.

The old man laughed saying ‘It has never made us rich.’

‘No, well it could this time' I assured him. 'I need you to harvest your terraces and make me some of your wine. I need it to be the best there is, I need a bottle of Imperial Reserve good enough for the palate of a king.’

The peasant’s head turned sharply towards me. He regarded me doubtfully for a moment until I nodded and showed him my purse.  He didn't smile even then, but raised his arm and pointed up at the cliff, to a terrace so high that I had hitherto failed even to make it out from the rock wall all around it.

The next morning, in the pale light just before the dawn, the old peasant, two of his sons and I began the long trek out of the valley and up to the exposed spine of the ridge that made its north wall. As we left his house behind he muttered something grimly to me; I didn't fully understand his meaning, but it seemed to me that he was saying there was more to fear than just the climb.

Once we reached the top of the ridge I asked the old man if he and I would climb down as well as the two younger men who were busy checking the ropes.

‘No.’ He wagged his finger. To my surprise he pulled a sort of blunderbuss from his backpack and began to ready the thing for use. The day was already hot and a haze had settled over the valley floor far below. ‘No’ he repeated to me. I nodded, to be honest, relieved that I would not be climbing down, even as I wondered why my companion felt the need for his weapon.

The three peasants huddled together then, closer to the edge than I wanted to go. They spoke quickly in their own dialect, the father advising his sons, or perhaps just telling them to come back safely and that he loved them. All the while they looked around keenly as if something might come from the air. Moments later the young men had begun their descent.

The old man crouched next to where the ropes were anchored so that he could look down the rock wall; he beckoned to me to do the same. From there I could see what looked like a ridiculously tiny terrace with a miniature vineyard. ‘Does the Imperial Reserve always come from there? I asked.

‘Always, and from nowhere else. My family has looked after these high terraces for generations. There were paths once, but they have fallen away.’

I found it hard to imagine that there could have been paths, but further down still than the two climbers and the terrace just below them, there were indeed little shelves, footholds for people who could climb like mountain goats. The more I looked, the more terraces I could see; there must have been hundreds of tiny vineyards, but none so precarious as the one the two climbers had just reached.

One of them barked something up at his father; there were grapes on the vines. The harvest began. Only moments later something in the distance took the old man's attention, something in the air. 'Hurry' he shouted down to his sons. All that I could see was what looked like a large bird.

At last the men had walked the length of the rows of vines and had taken all of the precious fruit; their father waved them to begin their ascent. But during the time they had worked the bird had come much closer. I would not wish to exaggerate, but this creature was of monstrous size. I have never seen a bird elsewhere to rival it. It was an eagle quite clearly capable of carrying away a man, perhaps even a horse. It circled high overhead and the old peasant, watching it anxiously, took a firm grip on his crude firearm.

In the ferocious heat of the late morning the two young men pulled themselves ever closer to the top of the ridge to where their father and I waited. They had come halfway when the eagle took its chance to swoop in, it shrieked and came within inches of snatching the lead climber from the rock wall. I stood amazed at its terrible power.

As he swung out of the way of the talons, the climber slipped and he lost a handhold; he didn’t fall, but he slipped down until he was almost alongside his brother. The eagle circled and came in again.

As the second brother lost his footing and the rope shuddered taut with the extra weight, the old man leapt to his feet, shouting defiantly at the eagle. I too got up, and drew my sword. As it came in again, as no doubt the old man had hoped, the monster diverted from the climbers and clearly decided that we made a much easier target. The peasant raised his blunderbuss and I my blade.

‘Climb, My Boys, Climb!’ the old man shouted, the eagle let out a screech and was suddenly no more than ten feet away from us, hurtling in claws at the ready. At that very last of possible moments my companion fired. The explosion from his blunderbuss almost blew me sideways.

Feathers and blood filled the air and I swear that that monstrous eagle fell from the sky between the old man and myself in the only place where it could have fallen without bowling one or the other of us over. It rolled on after its impact and lay twitching for a long while in the thorny bushes nearby.

I watched the young men finish their climb; they clambered so fast now that their hands bled and the sweat poured in rivulets down their faces and their arms. All the while the old man watched and waited with me until, at last, we pulled one climber over the ledge to safety, and then the next.

*

‘And that, Your Majesty’ Lord Ertel. Marquis of Lend, said with an ostentatious bow of his head, ‘is how I come to be here with this bottle, perhaps the very last bottle of Imperial Reserve. I learned even before I made sail from Ochia for home, that in one of the last campaigns of their civil war, the valley was ravaged by armies of both sides.’

‘And the peasants?’ the King asked sadly.

‘Your Majesty, one can only hope that the silver I paid them for the wine, a small fortune by their standards, served to see them through the hard times. It was surely enough to allow them to reach more peaceful lands.’

‘I am most fond of your tales of adventure, Lord Ertel, and of course I do not forget that this means that you have won your wager.’

‘You are gracious, Your Majesty.’

‘It seems to me that it is my prerogative to taste this famous wine here and now. As it will cost me so dear, I am disinclined to share it with anyone.’

‘Shall I call your taster, Your Majesty?’

‘My taster? For the last bottle of Ochian Imperial Reserve? I think not Ertel. Now open it up and pour a cup for your King.’

‘Your Majesty.’

The deep red wine coursed smoothly into the King’s cup. Without hesitation he reached out and took it. Ertel watched, fascinated, a half smile on his bronzed face. The King put the cup to his nose and breathed in deeply.

‘I fancy that I can smell the vineyards of distant South Ochia, Ertel.’

‘Your Majesty’ Ertel replied.

The King sipped, eyes closed he savoured the moment. He drank more deeply then. Ertel watched, and waited.