The misshapen story - as if the truth were not bad enough - got bigger and bigger, invited Satan in, introduced him to howling blood-lipped wolves, involved witches and all manner of hideous demons, as it lumbered along from village to village. Fortunately, the River Danube meanders through a varying landscape of dialects, and the three fugitives had been given a head start.
Passing through farms and villages, they exchanged their labour for food, doing anything and everything that was asked of them. On the road out of Linz, however, they met a band of travelling gypsies, who entertained the crowds with their sword-swallowing, juggling and fire-breathing. They made friends with Karl and Magdalena and spent a week with them learning the tricks of the trade. Holger perfected his knife-throwing skills. Birgitta saw how to dance with grace and charm, hailing the onlookers to come and watch and part with a few coins. But Julian was the one who could leave an audience with mouths hanging open. He could leap higher than anybody had seen before. Scale a tree in no time. Pluck a knife out of the air, even as it flew towards his heart. So by the time they waved goodbye to Karl and Magdalena and took to the roads of Bavaria, they had transformed themselves into performers, engaging the locals with singing, dancing and stories of brave knights and fiercesome monsters.
Things might have settled into a comfortable pattern, but for two events which changed their lives forever.
On the final day of their stay in a small, wealthy town on the border of Austria and Switzerland, Holger was walking behind the circle of onlookers attracted by Birgitta's sweet rhapsodies. Holger stopped. Fixed to the spot. A pouch of coins hung from a gentleman's belt. He looked at the owner up and down - a rich man, judging by the neatness of the periwig, the gold stitiching of his jacket, the fine cut of his breeches, the silk of his stockings and the shine on his shoes. A man such as this, thought Holger, with so many similar pouches of gold at home, could surely live without one of them. Birgitta's eyes darted around the audience. She wondered why her husband was not appearing. Black lines of paint exaggerating the shape of his eyes, and a long arrow-shaped tail trailing behind him, Julian was already drawing near, playing out the drama they had devised.
Holger couldn't take his eyes of the purse of gold.
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