The Truth

be there tomorrow, won’t it?”
    She hesitated.
    “Well, an hour or two won’t hurt, probably,” she admitted.
    “Good. Let’s go.”
    They’d reached the junction of Treacle Mine Road and Elm Street when it caught up with them.
    There were cries further along the street. William swiveled his head, saw the four-horse brewer’s dray thundering out of control. He saw the people diving and scuttling out of the way. He saw the soup-plate hooves throw up mud and ice. He saw the brasses on the harness, the gleam, the steam…
    His head swiveled the other way. He saw the old woman with two sticks, crossing the street, quite oblivious to the onrushing death. He saw the shawl, the white hair…
    A blur went past him. The man twisted in the air, landed on his shoulder in the center of the street, rolled upright, grabbed the woman, and leapt—
    The wayward wagon went by in a rush of mud and ice crystals. The team tried to corner at the crossroads. The dray behind them did not. A melee of hooves and horses and wheels and sleet and screams whirled onwards and took the windows out of several shops before the cart rammed up against a stone pillar and stopped dead.
    In obedience to the laws of physics and the narrative of such things, its load did not. The barrels burst their bonds, crashed down onto the street, and rolled onwards.
    A few smashed, filling the gutter with suds. The others, thumping and banging into one another, became the focus of attention of every upright citizen who could recognize a hundred gallons of beer which suddenly didn’t belong to anyone anymore and was heading for freedom.
    William and Sacharissa looked at one another.
    “Okay—I’ll get the story, you go and find Otto!”
    They said that at the same time, and then stared defiantly at each other.
    “All right, all right,” said William. “Find some kid, bribe him to get Otto, I’ll talk to that Plucky Watchman who grabbed the old lady in A Mercy Dash, you cover the Big Smash, okay?”
    “I’ll find the kid,” said Sacharissa, pulling out her own notebook, “but you cover the accident and the Beer Barrel Bonanza and I’ll talk to the White-Haired Granny. Human interest, right?”
    “All right!” William conceded. “That was Captain Carrot who did the rescue. Make sure Otto gets a picture and get his age!”
    “Of course!”
    William headed towards the crowd around the smashed wagon. Many people were in distant pursuit of the barrels, and the odd scream suggested that thirsty people seldom realize how hard it is to stop a hundred gallons of beer in a big oak cask when it’s on a roll.
    He dutifully noted down the name on the side of the dray. A couple of men were helping the horses up, but they did not appear to have much to do with beer delivery. They simply appeared to be men who wanted to help lost horses, and take them home and make them better. If this meant dyeing areas of their coat and swearing blind they’d owned them for the past two years, then so be it.
    He approached a bystander not obviously engaged in any felonious activity.
    “Exc—” he began. But the citizen’s eyes had already detected the notebook.
    “I saw it all,” he said.
    “Did you?”
    “It was a ter-ri-ble scene,” said the man, at dictation speed. “But the watch-man made a death-defying plunge to res-cue the old lady and he de-serves a med-al.”
    “Really?” said William, scribbling fast. “And you are—”
    “Sa-muel Arblaster (forty-three) stone-mason, of eleven-b The Scours,” said the man.
    “I saw it too,” said a woman next to him, urgently, “Mrs. Florrie Perry, blond mother of three, from Dolly Sisters. It was a scene of car-nage.”
    William risked a glance at his pencil. It was a kind of magic wand.
    “Where’s the iconographer?” said Mrs. Perry, looking around hopefully.
    “Er…not here yet,” said William.
    “Oh.” She looked disappointed. “Shame about the poor woman with the snake, wasn’t it? I expect he’s off taking pictures of her.”
    “Er…I hope not,” said William.
    It was a long afternoon. One barrel had rolled into a barber shop and exploded. Some of the brewer’s men turned up, and there was a fight with several of the barrels’ new owners, who claimed rights of salvage. One enterprising man tapped a barrel by the roadside and set up a temporary pub. Otto arrived. He took pictures of barrel rescuers. He took a picture of the fight. He took pictures of the Watch arriving to arrest everyone