Men of Winter

Chapter I

I asked the man his name again and this time he uttered a disturbing little laugh, a laugh more closely related to a wince of pain than an ejaculation of mirth. "My name?" His grin was a gash chopped through the crust of a frozen sea. "I am Nobody--is it possible you do not know?--I am Nobody." He laughed in pain again. He spoke with an accent I could not place. Why are you in the city? "I am traveling, forever the traveler. Perhaps that is my true name: Traveler." From where have you traveled? "From everywhere, from the ends of the earth--no, from beyond the ends--do my shoes not show it?" He uttered his broken-glass laugh as he made his feet dance upon the floor. I could not help but notice the light in the stranger's eyes and the play in certain features of his unshaven face as he spoke. The man had been handsome in his youth, that was certain. (Later, the police artist made a quick sketch of the man for me--it only cost me three cigarettes--but my editor decided he did not have space for it.) 

I tried again: Do you have friends or family in the city? This question seemed to stun him. His eyes stopped roaming the interrogation chamber; his head and his hands became as steady as a diamond cutter's. "No. There is no one. No one for Nobody." His wild eyes and his tic returned. 

The report I had from my friends in the police was that he was caught stealing from a second-hand store: a wine skin, a knotted rope, an oar and of all things--a silk opera cape. When the shopkeeper confronted him, the stranger hit him so hard that his jaw was broken. The commotion caught the attention of patrolmen in the neighborhood-probably drinking or seeing a prostitute, unlikely they were merely patrolling. He gave the police quite a chase. It eventually required the two officers and a dozen spontaneous vigilantes to subdue the stranger, who apparently sent a patrolman and another man to the hospital when the mob at last cornered him. 

I asked the Prince of Ithaka about the odd assortment he had tried to steal. "I am forever traveling," he repeated. The police said they suspected he had come from Iiloskova, which was fewer than fifty miles from the northern front. Very little normal citizenry remained in Iiloskova. There were taverns and brothels and gambling houses, and, of course, the infamous Iiloskova Sanatorium for the Insane. So if the stranger came from there he was probably a deserter, an escapee from the sanatorium, or a pawn of some black-market profiteer. Each seemed equally likely to me. 

My editor, Mezenskov, had been trying to coerce me to go to the front for some time. We received news in the form of official army dispatches but they lacked color--and, no doubt, accuracy. I had been putting Mezenskov off, but retracing the journey of the Prince of Ithaka attracted me. The publisher of our rival paper, The Nightly Observer, had been trying to seduce me to write for him for some time. The Observer specialized in lurid tales. Journalistically, it was inferior to Mezenskov's paper but there was no questioning its circulation. The Observer's publisher offered me five times the money, assuming of course the story was acceptably licentious. Obviously, I did not mention this as my true motivation when I spoke to Mezenskov about going north. He retrieved the lock-box from his desk and gave me traveling money. He reminded me to pack my warmest clothes and said that he wanted me to return in a fortnight. I felt a stab of guilt at using Mezenskov's money to pursue a story for his chief rival. But I thanked him and bid him adieu. 

I took the watch from my vest pocket and checked the time; it would be several hours before reaching Iiloskova, literally the end of the rail line. I decided to go to the dining car for a bit of breakfast. I wanted to be conservative with the newspaper's allowance--no telling how expensive things would be in Iiloskova. I stood and stretched. Several vertebrae popped. The train seats were thinly upholstered and quite uncomfortable for such a long journey. As I was gathering my heavy coat and my valise, someone brushed past: it was the woman who was traveling alone. I briefly saw her face in profile, and she was not a mere girl--though there was a youthful radiance about her fine features. She glanced over as she said, "Pardon me," and her eyes were a flash of deep purple, like electric current passing through amethyst. I nodded and managed a quick smile; I was too late, however.