Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  Clay took his hand away from his pistol and rubbed his face. “It seems I have no choice.”

  “The Hansa god is good to you, Grand Mufti. He makes you rich.”

  Luman took the dough dog in hand and stood. “I’ll be outside.”

  He let himself out.

  “If you would be so good as to produce a pen,” he heard Notwithstanding Schmidt say as he closed the door behind him, “we can close this deal.”

  On the boardwalk, Luman looked left and right to be certain he wasn’t observed. Parkersburg’s crowds didn’t much flood into this narrow side street, perhaps out of deference to Clay. Excellent.

  Luman took one last object from a coat pocket; a never-used drinking vessel. It was a large shot glass, and to be certain of its virginity—and therefore its power—he had personally watched the glazier in Philadelphia blow this glass and its nine companions, packed in straw in a small box in the Joe Duncan. No need to fill every pocket of his coat with breakable glass; Luman Walters wasn’t punched very often, but when it happened, he didn’t want shards driven into his skin.

  Luman dropped to his belly on the ground and dragged himself underneath the boardwalk. He craned his neck to look up over his shoulder, positioning himself as near the center of the three-way crossroads as he could, and beneath the overhanging second story of the warehouse. No need to set up his sentinel in a spot where the next rain would simply wash it away, if he could avoid it.

  Luman dug a hole, six inches deep. The earth was damp from the river’s humidity, but packed solid, so it took him several minutes with his athame to scrape out a pit. He pressed his Homer amulet against the dough dog’s back, imprinting its three efficacious texts into the little model. Then he gently placed the dog inside the shot glass. He was careful not to deform the dough creature beyond recognition; a mere lump of dough wouldn’t do. But by curling the dog’s spine a bit and pulling its legs beneath it, he could nestle the construct down in the bottom of the glass without disturbing its hair tail or depriving it of its canine shape.

  Then he spoke to the dog.

  “I adjure you three times by Hecate, the Black Bitch of the Crossroads, phorphorba baibo phorborba, that Reuben Clay keep ever mindful his agreements with Notwithstanding Schmidt, and that he lie awake under every visible moon, thinking fearfully of punishments that await him if he breaches. I adjure you by Kore, who has become the Goddess of Three Roads, and who is the true mother of Reuben Clay, that you warn me in dream of any action Reuben takes to breach his agreement. Phorbea brimo nereato damon brimon sedna dardar, All-Seeing One, iope, make it so.”

  He placed the dog in the bottom of the small pit. With his athame, he cut his own palm and squeezed three drops of blood into the drinking vessel and its dog passenger. He covered the pit with his uninjured hand, to keep excess blood from the enchantment, and finally he pressed his Homer amulet into the disturbed earth.

  He dragged himself out from under the boardwalk and dusted himself off. Another advantage of his many-pocketed wizard’s coat was that it shed dirt and rain easily.

  As he stepped back onto the wood of the boardwalk, he felt it hum beneath his feet. He was not especially sensitive to magic, to his regret; they’d rejected him in Philadelphia for that very reason, setting him on this path of learning magic one scrap at a time, like a hedge witch with a grudge. Any person who stood still and paid enough attention, or who knew what to look for, could feel the same things Luman Walters felt.

  That knowledge was sour in his belly.

  He made up for lack of talent by working hard. There was no coven he didn’t desire to infiltrate, no esoteric lore he didn’t covet.

  And his magic worked. Hecate’s dog would watch. The dog would warn him.

  Notwithstanding Schmidt emerged from Reuben Clay’s office with the oilskin packet under her arm and a tiny smile on her face. Luman stepped easily into her pace—he had longer legs but she walked with more energy, and it evened out. Schmidt turned back toward the docks.

  “You disliked killing that bat, Luman,” she said. “Don’t deny it, I saw the expression on your face.”

  “I deny nothing. I prefer magic that doesn’t require me to kill.”

  “It could be worse,” Schmidt said. “One of the early Wallensteins, I think old Albrecht’s grandson Helmut, went to war with Acadia. Only then they called it La Nouvelle France. And he was losing, so he swore an oath to his All-Father that if the All-Father brought him victory, Helmut would make the greatest sacrifice he could—he would sacrifice himself.”

  “And did he win?”

  “He won the war, and it was obvious he’d won because the gods intervened—portents in the sky, Valkyries fighting his battles for him, the dead rising to march, and so on. So he duly proceeded with the sacrifice. Only his wife—his best wife, as I believe he had more than one—wanted to join him in Valhalla, so first he sacrificed her. At her request. Hanged her, then ran her through with a spear. Because the two gates to Valhalla are death in battle and death as a sacrifice to the All-Father, you see. Then he hanged himself and his son impaled him.”

  “People will do strange things to go to heaven,” Luman said.

  “That wasn’t the moral I intended, Bishop Franklin.”

  “Was the moral that the Germans of Chicago are insane?” Luman asked. “As I recall, after Albrecht’s death, they burned the flesh off his corpse and distributed his bones around to the German settlements to bring them good luck. At least, that’s what they told me when they showed me the thigh bones sunk into the mortar of the eastern gate of Waukegan.”

  “The moral,” Notwithstanding Schmidt said slowly, “was that you should feel relieved you don’t have to kill anything bigger than the occasional bat. And also, next time, don’t let your reservations show on your face. That rather undermines the terrifying effect we’re aiming at.”

  She was right.

  They walked in silence for a few steps.

  “I don’t suppose you really intend to make that Hansard rich,” Luman said.

  “I’ll fill his pockets for a short while.”

  “Ah.” Luman considered. “You’ll keep him on the company’s black payroll for awhile, and then cut him off, and what will he do? He’ll have to keep cooperating, or you’ll publish his contract and the accounts, with signed witness statements from Oldham, and he’ll be kicked out of the League. Or stoned.”

  “You will also provide signed statements. But I believe they prefer to stab their malefactors in the back, or poison them.”

  “You don’t love the Hansa.”

  “On the contrary. Were I not so committed to the Ohio Company, I might be trading as one of their number. They do a great work, St. Adam’s work, dispersing capital through trade and driving down prices and profits for the benefit of all.”

  “Would that be St. Adam of Bremen?”

  Schmidt snorted.

  “But you subvert your precious saint’s freedom of the market,” Luman said. “Don’t you feel guilty?”

  “Means to ends,” the director said. “Means to ends. A unified empire at peace will be the greatest market the world has ever seen.”

  “I believe all their Grand Muftis are men,” Luman pointed out. “I’m not sure the Hansa would take you.”

  “I slit the throats I had to slit to get where I am in the Imperial Ohio Company, my boy. I’d have done the same as a Hansard. Very well, my wizard, you’re thinking like a good company man now, like a director must think. But let me add nuance to your plan.”

  They emerged in a triangular dirt plaza surrounded by warehouses. Schmidt turned them unerringly toward the river.

  “Tell me, Madam Director.”

  Schmidt chuckled. “Yes, all in all, I believe I like that title more than anything the Hansa could hang around my neck. Consider this, my Balaam: what if we first have Oldham, one article at a time, little by little, drive down the prices we pay for Parkersburg’s surplus goods?”

  “There will be disconte
nt among the merchants,” Luman said. “Slowly increasing.”

  “Until what?”

  He considered. “Until Clay tries to get out of his contract. Until he tries to sell to the Ophidians again.”

  “And how do you handle that eventuality?”

  “Kill him. Oldham’s a good man with a knife, or he could hire someone.”

  “That is one road. Me, I prefer owning a man to killing him.”

  “In that case, you pay Reuben Clay more. And tell him it’s his problem to solve.”

  “Excellent.” When Notwithstanding Schmidt smiled, deep wrinkles formed at the corners of her eyes. “Of course, we more than make up for the extra we pay him with the cuts in what we pay the others. Repeat that several times.”

  “Parkersburg more desperate. Clay more complicit. The record looks worse and worse for him, because he’s been getting richer and richer by betraying his own.”

  “How does he get out?”

  “He could flee.”

  “He’d have to run pretty far, to get away from his own people.”

  “He could come clean, throw himself on the mercy of the League, tell them everything. Make restitution. Hope for mercy.”

  “The Hansa can be merciful. Do you think he’s the kind of man who would do that?”

  “No.” Luman shook his head slowly. “But if he tries, my spell will alert us.”

  “And the last thing Reuben Clay could do is turn to us for help,” Schmidt said, “which would be excellent.”

  “Is this what they mean when they say business acumen?” Luman asked.

  Schmidt laughed. “Out here in the Ohio? Yes. Blackmail, threats, wheedling, and hard-knuckle ball, all played like chess, only if the loser of the chess match had to be put to death.”

  “Are you going to buy all the Hansa towns?” Luman asked.

  “Not even the Emperor has that much money. But I’ll buy some of them. And our soldiers aren’t really following us to attack the Hansa.”

  Luman tried to think like the most calculating and bloodthirsty chess player he could imagine. “They’ll raid Adena.”

  “And Tawa, and the others. But they won’t waste their effort trying to capture castles.”

  “They’ll burn food.”

  “And warehouses and docks.”

  “Plow salt into fields.”

  “I don’t know whether that really works,” Schmidt said.

  “We should experiment.”

  One last turn brought them in sight of the docks. “It’s not too late, my Balaam,” Schmidt said. “This is an English Hansa town, but I’m pretty sure that cart over there is selling pork sausages.”

  Luman’s stomach turned. “You know I can’t.”

  “Such a curiosity you are, Luman Walters. You bribe, conjure, and backstab like a good Christian, but you eat like a Jew.”

  “It’s not a religious scruple.” Luman had explained this before; Schmidt was teasing him. “The Memphite grimoire from which I learned insisted that certain spells will not work for an eater of pork.”

  “Abstinence is hard.”

  “Abstinence is easy.” Luman snorted. “Not drinking liquor and not eating pork are nothing compared to achieving a broken heart and a contrite spirit.”

  They strode along the dock. Her traders, seeing Schmidt coming, prepared the Joe Duncan to cast off. Ira Oldham stood on the planks beside his luggage, awaiting any last-minute instructions.

  “Spells from old King Solomon?”

  “So they claim.” Luman shrugged. “They work. And that’s all you can ask from magic, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. I suppose this explains why half the spells you know are love charms and the other half are cures for impotence. These are the things people actually want done for them.”

  “Madam Director, I’m wounded,” Luman said. “Those techniques occupy no more than one third each of my repertoire. I also know how to remove warts.”

  “Shame about the pork, though,” Schmidt said. “The pig is truly a tasty animal.”

  “Bigger shame about the wine.” Luman grinned. “I do it for you, Madam Director.”

  The director laughed. “For your loyalty, then, my Balaam, I’ll give you a hint.”

  “A hint?”

  “I did indeed once know a man name Joe Duncan. He was not my lover, but my hireling.”

  “An employee of the company?”

  “Not even close. I hired Joe Duncan…to commit a crime.”

  “What sort of crime?” Luman felt shocked.

  Schmidt laughed. “Means to ends, my Balaam.”

  Luman Walters found himself deep in thought as he approached the mooring place of the Joe Duncan.

  “This is the reign of Simon Sword.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  They rode north for two days. Frost came on the morning of the first.

  Though off to the west, Cal occasionally saw birds—herons, for instance—that indicated the presence of the Mississippi, the river itself was far enough away he couldn’t see or smell it. The track they were on became a road, and then, passing an Adam-stone standing watch discreetly inside a blackberry bramble, turned onto a highway.

  The highway was paved, but unlike, say, the Charlotte Pike, or the other Imperial highways Calvin knew, this highway had not cobbles but perfectly flat, round stones. In fact, the paving stones reminded Cal not so much of the Imperial roads or the main streets of Nashville, as of the stones in the plaza atop Wisdom’s Bluff.

  The highway cut a straight path through tall forest, the land was flat, and the journeying was easy.

  They passed Ohioan Firstborn more than any other kind of traveler, dressed in long tunics and wool cloaks that looked vaguely archaic. The more Firstborn Cal saw, the more he saw the Firstborn blood in Sarah. She never had much color to her skin, but with the little summer’s shading she did have fading into winter’s pallor, she was really starting to look Ophidian. She wore her purple shawl and the bandage over one eye, though; she was still Sarah, and the more so as a soft fuzz of black hair again covered her skull. When it was cold she shrugged into the blue riding coat of one of the Philadelphia Blues.

  They also passed Germans, who wore wool coats and hailed the party with great gusto. Three riders moving north overtook and passed them, and Bill pointed them out as Free Horse Peoples of the north, most likely Sioux. And they passed one Wandering Johnny who tried really hard to sell Uris a dictionary.

  Uris declined.

  Bill, Jake, and Chikaak drilled their troop of beastkind warriors morning, noon, and night. Even after only two days, the beastfolk learned to advance shoulder to shoulder, retreat the same way, and stand in a line.

  Still, very few of them could actually hit anything with a musket.

  Alzbieta’s palanquin at night was strapped between trees and served her as a hammock. The Polite wizard Sherem slept on a bedroll near the fire, and Cal found himself waking every hour to be sure the damaged mage hadn’t accidentally rolled himself onto the hot coals.

  The farther north they went, and the closer to midwinter, the farther south the sun rose and set.

  On the evening of the first day, Uris organized the Firstborn warriors to join in the military drill. At first, they stood timidly, looking from side to side at the multiform beast-creatures that surrounded them. After an hour, they learned to stand calmly, and to advance and retreat together.

  The sheer strangeness of the mixed troop should count for something in battle.

  On the afternoon of the second day, they entered a clearing. To the west, toward the river, stretched cornfields and a scattering of buildings that amounted to a village. The fields had been harvested, and a few black birds, grazing goats, and villagers in long tunics now picked over the forlorn stalks that remained.

  To the east lay the forest, with tall trees mostly limbless on their lower trunks, leaving wide spaces to pass between them. Here and there thickets and smaller trees grew, but mostly the forest gave the impression of bein
g manicured, if not recently, then for a long time in its past.

  The trees almost looked like church pillars.

  Between the highway and the forest, withdrawn from the road a few hundred paces, stood the mound. At first glance, Cal took it for nothing but a grassy hill, growing in the center of a tall wooden palisade, with two lower mounds at the foot. Initially, the low mounds were more interesting, because they were clearly irregular, and appeared to have windows and doors.

  But the second time Cal’s head swung around and his eye landed on the mound, he realized that wind, water, and ice would never have made such a thing. There were no hills around it, for starters. The land was flat as a Hudson River pannenkoek, with this sole peak jabbing skyward.

  Also, whatever force had built the mound had rendered it a nearly perfect cone. God might move in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, but that just wasn’t how the good Lord made mountains.

  To Cal’s eye, the only flaw in the cone was that the top was flat, with a ring of stones on it that looked a bit like a crown.

  “Jerusalem,” he muttered. “You live in that?”

  “Such ferocious cursing,” Cathy Filmer said.

  Cal hung his head. “Well, I know Jesus said not to swear by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. But I reckon sometimes I git strong feelin’s, and it’s better I jest say ‘Jerusalem’ than some of the other choices.”

  Cal hadn’t been addressing any of the Firstborn in particular, but Yedera answered. “We do not live in that,” she said. “No more than Franklin lived in the rod-tower of the Lightning Cathedral. No more than you live in a preaching-tent.”