Gotte Spake Musica

Gotte Spake Musica

by

Miles Rothwell

Published by Miles Rothwell at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 Miles Rothwell

Cover photo by Ceinturion

Source: manuscript from Igreja ds Sao Francisco, Evora, Portugal (public domain)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Table of Contents

Hälle

Soldieers

Lorus

Vianlat

Familia

Signals a’la Messagas

Rewsnaehtsicisum

Haiven

Muttadaadskye

Flowamomenta

Kobenhavn

Tour Diary

Taltastre

Muttadaadskye Discography

Other Titles and Connect with Miles Rothwell

Draems acht nachtt flowamomenta

- Aosho -

Halle

Soldieers

Egon Valmat looks at his watch. The morning train is late - again. He adjusts his thick scratchy coat. The wind picks up but there is still no sign of the Sun. He looks up and down the platform then to the cold grey sky.

Tremka is the last stop on the Syeam line. Depending on the direction of the wind, trains can be heard as they pass the lake with long trails of steam ascending over the hills, floating to the south however, Egon has not heard or seen any sign.

A few soldiers gather at the end of the platform. They share cigarettes and mugs of tea. It has been a long time since Egon can remember a morning without the sight of soldiers on his platform.

The cold underscores everything - the presence of the soldiers, the lateness of the train and the gnawing hunger that scratches at his patience.

Egon fidgets with his coat collar. The material is harsh and the button holes are tight. He can’t open the slit with his gloves on to secure the top button.

Egon has already placed the mail bag on the platform. He knows a soldier will check its’ contents before allowing Larz the conductor to take it onboard.

If everything had gone to schedule, he would already be inside his station master’s cabin resting over a hot mug of tea and a rye loaf covered with thick butter dipped into a bowl of honey.

Egon had sent his reluctant assistant Lorus to the village square for any news that had reached the checkpoint - perhaps an accident, snow on the tracks or the most likely cause; soldiers commandeering the train and harassing passengers. He heard many instances of army trucks halting trains to confiscate much needed supplies.

A soldier approaches. Nikolay’s hometown of Cremanski was not too dis-similar to the wretched hole he found himself in. He’d been conscripted to save the world from fascism. His face cast down against the chilled wind. He too struggled with layers of clothing, his gait struggled under the load, muddy boots went out in a semi-circular motion before finding the platform.

As he got closer to where Egon was standing his baby blue eyes came into view. Egon thought he could be no more than nineteen or twenty, around the same age as his son. The young soldier smelt like urine.

Egon tipped his hat, barely able to recoil from the stench. Probably hadn’t washed this week, Egon surmised.

Nikolay queried the lateness of the train. Egon shrugged. With little conversational Russian he could not communicate to the young soldier, which he knew he would find frustrating, but the late train was more of a problem.

Egon did not care anymore what the soldiers thought. Egon’s day was governed by the timetable. It controlled events and his relationships. The train being late triggered a chain of events over which he had no control.

The young soldier, muttered under his breath, cursing the powers that had sent him to such an uninviting desolate outpost, with their smelly ugly inhabitants. He missed his grandmother’s cooking. The cold he could put up with but not these ignorant country hicks who spoke like they were throwing up and smelt like rotting cheese.

Nikolay looked at Egon who could offer nothing more, so he wrenched his coat as far around his throat as he could and walked back to his Corporal who had sent him to interrogate the Station Master. Walking back he admonished himself for not gathering more information for he too was caught in a chain of events outside his control.

Egon could hear the soldiers muttering, so he moved further away than was necessary along the platform. His concern for missing morning tea was exacerbated by not having Lorus by his side in case the train did show up.

A few villagers lined up at the shutter, wanting to escape the brutal life that had descended, but not before papers were checked and suitcases searched.

Egon’s eyes drooped, he was sleepy. The inactivity caused his mind to wander. He thought of a time when there were no soldiers.

The Germans had come and gone. They were impressive, always present, shiny uniforms with body language which left no one uncertain as to who was in charge, but that too was as distant as the non-existent steam Egon was waiting for.

Nobody had been able to explain why the Russians were here. To Egon they certainly didn’t act or speak like they wanted to be. They had no consistent uniform, smelt and threw rubbish into the streets.

Egon often passed a contingent of soldiers leaving the Barnhausse as he walked through the square on his way to the station in the morning. The same soldiers checked papers and luggage on the platform, sometimes still drunk from the night before.

There were reports they interfered with local businesses; taking what they wanted and never paying. At least the Germans had left locals to their own devices and allowed normal day to day life to continue.

In the early days of the occupation it had become clear the town of Tremka was not a threat, it’s only interest to occupying forces was the train line; to ensure no insurgent activity was detected but as they were on the end of the line it was easily patrolled, now the Russians had been sent to re-assign Tremka for whatever role it had been designated.

At least the rain had ceased. Egon didn’t mind the cold, or the wind, but the constant piss of rain got into everything. The Sun would not be seen for a few more hours as the mountains hid the morning from view.

Pale bluish streaks of light could be seen over the chimneys as smoke plumed a few feet before being buffeted by the stirring breeze. The threat of light brought the coldness into focus. The dark and cold seemed natural allies, and with the expectation of morning, the cold dug in its heels.

Egon counted fourteen people on the platform including six soldiers, which looked absurd, as most of the passengers were elderly, returning to Gramsk. Some he recognized, so accordingly tapped the worn felt tip of his cap.

Egon had long ago stopped checking tickets, as the soldiers did so while ensuring each bundle of papers were in order. They were checked so often, that the loose bindings almost invariably came undone, and then soldiers would have to help each other as the stamps and signatures were revealed in the gloom.

Lorus appeared at the end of the platform. He was stopped by a soldier but was soon recognized and allowed to pass.

Stinking soldiers, Egon muttered. What did they expect the nitwit boy to be carrying?

Lorus slipped on the icy platform. Constant traffic of boots made small potholes of dark slush. He shuffled under many layers of clothing. His old boots squeaked and slid which made him frown.

Egon’s hunger was getting impatient, as the boy edged his way along the platform. Egon was anxious to know anything about the missing train. A glance at the overhead platform clock - it had passed six o’clock.

Well! Well! What news?

Lorus struggled to catch his breath. Nothing! No one has heard a thing. It’s a mystery!

Egon frowned, There are no mysteries, the train is late, that’s all.

Egon left the young man and walked towards the station master’s cabin.

Well come on, don’t stand there, we must call Embrezza, immediately!

The hapless Lorus followed, head bowed, feet shuffling, as if it weren’t enough to be shunted from pillar to post, now he was being shouted at.

Lorus wondered what his boss had been doing since he had been away. The village square was not easy to get to in the dark, and it was cold. The brick paving was treacherous and where it wasn’t covered in ice, mud took over.

He was stopped by soldiers twice and searched before being allowed into the village square. He knew they were looking for cigarettes and food, but Lorus had thought ahead stuffing a wad of tobacco down a sock.

He waited in the town square next to the waterless fountain; the pipes frozen. A statue with a face everyone knew from childhood looked straight ahead; impassive, the same no matter what the season.

Kata Ramuk had not known the Germans or Russians; his heroic deeds were of a time when the enemy was less defined, regional and spasmodic. Ramuk had summoned the warring tribes under the banner of returning to Vianlat.

Lorus admired the granite statue - the edges of his moustache weather beaten, his peasant clothes a motley blur of grey and blue-green moss where the granite was exposed.

The Post Office which bore the town's founder name was closed. Lorus’ instructions had been to wait for an army truck, approach and ask for any news. He didn’t see the point at the time and still didn’t as he waited in the pre-dawn dark. The bakery was open. The chimney was alive while all around seemed dead. He checked his pockets for a coin to buy a loaf but found only holes.

He’d done all that had been asked of him and was now being treated like a fool.

Who cares if the train is late? There’s never anyone on it, the soldiers don’t care. How I wish I was one of them. One day I will leave here and go far away to have adventures.

Lorus wanted to be home, in his bed, even though he shared it with his younger brother. He loved lying in his bed smelling the smoke from the kitchen fire as it permeated everything he owned including his prized woollen gloves.

For as long as he could remember, smoke had been central to his life. The long winter months were only barely tolerated by the constant fire in the kitchen; where meals were cooked, clothes were dried and where his family congregated.

He had been charged with the most important - in his eyes - job of all; keeping up the supply of dry wood to quench the insatiable hunger of the fire.

The hearth was the heartbeat of the family, the depot of the central nervous system. Without it they would certainly perish.

Lorus had helped his father build a drying room made of bricks from mud dug and carried from the pit at the bottom of the gully that ran in front of the house.

Careful not to venture too close to the ablution area, they had carved a square hole out of the earth to get to the thicker less porous mud. It had taken weeks of back breaking work to cart the thick heavy black soil out of the ground, up the slippery rock face and across the moss covered hill to the area cleared for the drying hut.

They made bricks out of the pile of mud by scooping it into wooden frames his grandfather had made. Lorus remembered sitting at his grandfather’s feet in the yard surrounded by chickens as he carefully sawed the wood for the drying frames.

Lorus and his father with the occasional help from his younger brother spent hours scooping the mud into the frames then laying them in rows to dry.

It had been planned so the bricks would dry in the hottest part of the year, which meant the hard back breaking work had been done when the humidity was at its highest. They baked each brick in a kiln which took ten bricks at a time. The entire process took months to complete - months he would never get back.

Lorus walked inside the Station Master’s cabin watching his breath vapour before passing through it.

Lorus remembered how hot and sweaty he had been while the drying hut was built, but now his fingers felt like icicles and tears