As your brother it is my duty, however, to tell you to beware of Josef’s advances. He is more than twenty years your senior and although I remember him to be a man of some standing in the village, when your duties to our father are complete, do you want to be forever keeping another old man? Do not make the same mistake our mother did.
The world beyond Hangenholz has so much more to offer a young woman such as you. Do not throw your life away, trapped forever within the village of our birth. I believe that we are meant for something more than that.
Please give my regards to our father. I remain ever your devoted, loving brother,
Dieter
There, he was done. The letter was a fraction of the length of anything he had received from Katarina but his new life was full enough as it was. He was rising at dawn to commence his studies and would then spend a full day at the guild, learning all he could from the senior members there, not just his apprentice-master Professor Theodrus.
Most days Dieter would leave after dusk had taken hold of the town and make his way back to his lodgings in Dunst Strasse, joining the labourers, traders and artisans returning to their homes for the night, passing watch patrols and evening revellers as they made their way through the streets of Bögenhafen. The streets were as full of hustle and bustle as they were during the day at this hour. Soon the revellers would be ensconced within their favourite drinking establishments and stews on the Hagenstrasse, the lamplighters work would be done until the morning snuffings, and those exhausted by a day’s work would be safely at rest at home. The streets then would only be home to the night watchmen, schilling and farthing whores and those who had no business being about at all.
Most nights Dieter would take his evening meal at the Pestle and Mortar, and sometimes Erich would join him and spend the time berating Doktor Panceus, mocking the boy Georg and their fellow students, or lamenting the state of his life in general. Erich was a talented and heartless mimic, and Dieter had to admit that he had the various characters from the guild down pat.
The meal was always modest fare—a hunk of bread, a slab of hard cheese, cold meats—and once it was done he would politely excuse himself from Erich’s company and return to the garret room they shared where he would work into the night by candlelight, filling his notebooks with all that he had learnt and continuing to peruse the works of other practitioners in the field that he had borrowed from the library.
Sometimes Dieter would hear Erich return to their lodgings as he was settling down to sleep but just as often he would be disturbed later in the night by his roommate’s drunken shushing, or then again, not at all.
Apart from Erich’s growing, self-pitying jealousy and resentment, life really couldn’t be better for Dieter at that time.
At least, that was, until Brother-Captain Krieger of the Templar Order of Sigmar arrived in Bögenhafen.
Dieter was unsurprisingly studying at the guild at the time. He was firmly ensconced within his favourite musty haunt of the library within one of the enclosed, heavy oak study stalls that stood in the centre of the high-ceilinged space between the groaning teak bookcases, studying the Il Corpo Umano, by the eminent and long-dead Tilean physician-philosopher Umberto Casale. His first awareness of a disturbance was when he thought he heard shouting and pounding footsteps in the corridor outside the draughty, two-storey hall of the library.
The students of the guild had already heard of the arrival of Brother-Captain Krieger in Bögenhafen, his name being linked as it was with that of the Corpse Taker. Rumour spread like an unchecked flood through the laboratories and common room of the guild. The word amongst the students was that Krieger had been sent from the headquarters of the order’s temple in that centre of Sigmar worship, Altdorf. Word was that he had come riding into the town on a midnight black stallion, arriving as the clock struck midnight on the twenty-third day of Jahrdrung, to put the Bögenhafen chapter house in order. Word was that he was in the town to discover the identity of the Corpse Taker and hunt the macabre felon down.
In fact it had been all anyone was talking about in the Pestle and Mortar two nights earlier. Erich was finishing off his second flagon of ale far too quickly, whilst Dieter was still supping at his first of the evening. “I’d pay anything to see their faces down at the guild when this Krieger gets round to investigating them,” Erich was chuckling cruelly. “And he will. There’s always been a deep distrust between the Order of Sigmar and the physicians’ guild.” Dieter had even smiled at the thought too. But that had been two days ago and things were about to take a very serious turn for the worse as far as Dieter was concerned.
With a crash, the heavy oak door of the library opened, shattering the scholarly, musty silence of the place. The library usually had an almost sacred stillness to it, like a holy sanctuary, but now that had been banished by the arrival of the witch hunter.
He had the bearing of a man used to having to get what he wanted by force, and who was happy to do so. And certainly no feeble physician’s apprentice was going to stand in his way.
The man stood over six feet tall in his leather riding boots and although he looked to have already reached middle age, rather than making him appear past his prime he simply looked all the stronger for it. Dieter could see cords of muscle tightening at the man’s neck as he laid eyes on him.
Krieger’s profile was one of chiselled nobility, his jaw jutting and distinguished, his grey hair and neatly trimmed beard close-cropped. His eyes were sharp, piercing points of brilliant sapphire blue and his bared teeth were set in a snarling canine grimace. He had the unmistakable look of a killer about him, even to one as naive and inexperienced of life as Dieter.
The witch hunter did not favour the wide-brimmed buckled black hat worn by so many of his kind, nor did he sport a whole array of talismans and holy symbols of his faith. He was simply dressed as a warrior, in leather armour sewn with metal rings. A sheathed sword hung from his belt, as did the various other tools of his trade, including a coil of rope and a set of thumbscrews. He did not need to dress to intimidate or prove his holy worth. There was an almost intangible air about him that suggested his actions and his deeds would be proof enough that he was the best man for the job.
“Herr Heydrich!” the witch hunter captain boomed.
Dieter felt cold shock at hearing the witch hunter call his name. But the commanding tone demanded respect and Dieter found himself slowly rising to his feet. “Yes, sir?”
“With me, now, heretic!”
Dieter noticed Friedrick Koss, a fellow apprentice in his first year of study at the guild, standing at the witch hunter’s shoulder. Koss, a whole head shorter than Krieger, was looking at Dieter with undisguised detestation. Dieter knew that many of the other apprentices were jealous of his ability and position within the guild, just as amidst the petty politicking of the guild some of the more senior physicians were envious of Professor Theodrus’ position. It was one of the reasons why Theodrus surrounded himself with an entourage of like-minded guild members and wide-eyed idolising students.
Dieter knew that Friedrick was apprenticed to Benedict Vergis, the renowned herbalist, who was known to be one of the strongest rivals to the professor’s position, even though he publicly paid fealty to Theodrus. If Theodrus’ most favoured pupil was to be handed over to the witch hunters then the guild master’s own position would be brought into question and put into jeopardy, and Vergis would be able to take subtle steps to wrest control of the guild’s interests from Theodrus. And if Koss were the one to provide Vergis with that opportunity, it would do his own advancement within the guild no harm at all.
Dieter felt physically sick. He had only encountered Krieger’s like once before, eight years earlier, back in Hangenholz. The villagers had only known the heavily cloaked and hooded stranger by the name Kreuzfahrer but Dieter’s father, had told him the man’s profession.
Kreuzfahrer had arrived as dusk was falling one Nachgeheim evening when the smoky autumn air was thick with the sme
ll of decaying fallen leaves and toadstool spores. He had made straight for the house of Old Gelda, the village wise woman, and dragged her out into the village square. She was accused of witchcraft and consorting with daemons.
Dieter still doubted the validity of the accusations to this day but what made it worse was how the witch hunter had made everyone in Hangenholz turn on Gelda, who had seen to all of their winter ailments and delivered fully half the population of the village as midwife. In order to prove themselves innocent of her corruption, the villagers had to profess the helpless old woman’s guilt with ever-louder voices and more strident accusations.
Gelda, terrified tears streaming down her panic reddened cheeks, had been unable to say anything in her own defence, Kreuzfahrer having already cut out her tongue. Then, in front of his father’s chapel, Dieter had watched the witch hunter tie Gelda to a fence post the blacksmith himself had hammered into the ground, and had her burnt to death, even forcing the village headman to put the blazing torch to the faggots piled around her decrepit body. It was this experience alone that had given Dieter nightmares as a child more than any warning tales of rat-headed men or brutish greenskin raiders ever had. The rest of the village had suspected each other of all manner of heinous crimes after Kreuzfahrer’s visit and as a result, certain families never trusted one another again.
And now one like him had summoned Dieter and called him a heretic!
Dieter dared not disobey the witch hunter. Feeling his blood ran cold in his veins, and his heart beating its own rapid tattoo of panic, he dragged his leaden feet towards the imposing figure of the Brother-Captain Krieger.
Now Dieter could see Professor Theodrus forcing his way into the library behind the towering witch hunter.
“This is preposterous! An outrage!” the guild master blustered. “First you come here practically claiming that we are harbouring a murderer and body-snatcher within our walls—”
“Where do you get the bodies for your studies?” the witch hunter’s grim snarl of a voice interrupted.
“We are not barber-surgeons! We are physicians!” Theodrus bridled. “And now I find you harassing one of our students as if he’s some dangerous criminal!”
Before Dieter’s patron could reach them, Krieger had grabbed Dieter roughly with a grip like an iron vice, clamping down on his arms and holding them tight to his sides. Dieter could feel Krieger’s breath, hot and rancid against his neck.
“Unhand this boy at once!” Theodrus’ face was flushed red with furious indignation and barely-controlled rage, like a caged feral beast struggling to free itself from beneath the professor’s usually composed demeanour.
“Would you stop the work of the Sigmar’s own templar?” Krieger challenged.
“I might have been foolish enough to let you in here in the first place but I’m not that addle-brained!” Theodrus railed. “But might I suggest that we continue this discussion behind closed doors.”
“You wish this interrogation to be carried out somewhere less public?” Krieger fixed the guild master with his piercing icy stare. “Very well. Where?”
“My study. This way.”
Dieter yelped in pain as the witch hunter grabbed him by the arm and forced it up behind his back until he was sure he heard something snap and pain stabbed through his elbow. Then he was frog-marched away.
Before he knew it, Dieter was being forced down into one of the well-upholstered chairs in Professor Theodrus’ study. As the professor closed the door behind them, a jostle of apprentices and guild servants already packing the corridor behind them, the witch hunter took a coil of rope from his belt and lashed both Dieter’s hands roughly to the arms of the chair. Dieter winced and gritted his teeth as the hemp rubbed and cut into the thin flesh of his wrists.
Then the questioning began.
“Where were you on the night of the first Wellentag of last month? And on the seventh night of Nachexen? What brought you to Bögenhafen?”
Krieger’s constant challenges didn’t give Dieter enough time to answer. Then the questions became more personal.
“Why did you leave… Hangenholz, was it? Why did you leave? What guilty secrets did you leave behind you there? Has death always followed in your wake? What of your father? What was it like having a priest of the death-cult for a father?”
Someone’s tongue had obviously been loosened on meeting Brother-Captain Krieger. Dieter wondered who had told the witch hunter about him.
“Morr, preserve me,” Dieter gasped under his breath, panic having gripped him fully.
“What? What was that?” Krieger turned on him. “Why not ‘Sigmar save me’? Was your father a heretic too? Did he teach you his heretical ways?”
“No,” Dieter struggled. “It was never like th—”
“What were you doing on all those long, dark, lonely evenings, whilst your father prepared the bodies of the dead for burial? I expect you used to watch, didn’t you? Watch and learn? How did it make you feel watching him strip the carcasses and wash them, anoint them, enshroud them? Did you become just a little too interested? Morbidly fascinated even? How long have you been practising occult heresies of the most abominable nature, raising the dead by means of foul necromancy?”
The witch hunter clearly wasn’t interested in what this naive country boy had to say. In Krieger’s mind, Dieter was already tried, found guilty, and burning at the stake.
“What made you do it, eh? What drove you first to kill?”
“I… I didn’t k—”
“Did someone disturb you when you were stealing the merchant’s body?”
“A merchant? I didn’t reali—”
“Was it the beggar Hubertus? Is that what happened to him? Did you make him disappear? What did you do with the body? Did you throw it in the Bögen? What did you do with the other bodies? Are you keeping them somewhere? Do they keep you company in the squalid charnel house that you call home?”
Spittle flew from Krieger’s lips into Dieter’s face as his incensed interrogator leaned closer. Dieter said nothing now. He could say nothing in the face of the witch hunter’s constant barrage of questions.
“I can have every house between here and the Langen Strasse searched. But why don’t you just tell me where you’ve dumped them? What will loosen your tongue? Shall I get out the thumbscrews or should I haul you back to the temple to introduce you to Madame Rack?”
Dieter was stunned into silence. It was all happening so quickly. To him the interrogation was passing in a daze, so traumatic was he finding the experience. He had retreated back inside his shell of shyness. He was a child again, back in Hangenholz, before his mother died, before his world ended, before this!
He could well understand why innocent men confessed to all manner of crimes. It wasn’t even just to make the incessant questioning stop. After several hours of this, Krieger could probably make you believe all manner of evils about yourself. And then there was the confessional of the torture chamber where stronger wills than Dieter’s were broken as easily as a hammer breaks an egg.
Dieter might have been cowed into silence, but Professor Theodrus could still speak, and did, in the boy’s defence.
“This stops now!” the guild master roared, slamming his hands down on the top of his desk.
Krieger rose, turning away from Dieter, his sapphire gaze cold as a Mondstille night.
“Why do you defend this wretch?” the witch hunter said, his voice as hard and cutting as a tempered steel blade. “Is it a sign of your own guilt, perhaps?”
“This interrogation is a farce!” Theodrus bellowed. “I would offer any member of this guild the same support in the face of such flagrant lies and fraudulent accusations.”
“Unless they were proved to be a servant of darker powers, of course.”
“Which Heydrich is not!”
“That is yet to be proved.”
“How can this boy be the Corpse Taker? He only arrived in Bögenhafen at the beginning of Nachexen and the disappearances b
egan as far back as last Kaldezeit, as far as we are aware.”
“Bodies have gone missing since, and with increasing regularity.”
“And there is nothing to suggest that these disappearances are the work of anyone other than the Corpse Taker.”
Through the haze of the trauma of his experience Dieter was gradually aware of a needling thought at the back of his mind. Professor Theodrus seemed very well informed regarding the disappearances and the Corpse Taker’s alleged crimes. What part had he played in these events?
He had been master of the physicians’ guild for a good number of years and enjoyed the patronage of many of the market town’s most respected noble families. There would be almost nowhere that he could not go within the town and almost no piece of information that would not be accessible to him, one way or another.
“And how could a youth of meagre means, who grew up in a backwater Reikland village, be able to carry out what it is claimed the Corpse Taker has done?”
“Theodrus, I came to this guild to gather information about events that have beset this town that I might uncover the identity of this foul carrion creature and hunt it down like the mongrel dog the malevolent fiend undoubtedly is. And then I find this heretic skulking in your very midst.”
Krieger turned his crystal-sharp gaze back on the restrained Dieter. “Consider this possibility, professor. Perhaps it is you who is tutoring the apprentice in the ways of dark magic.”
“This is preposterous!” Theodrus’ face was the very picture of fury. “I am calling an end to this farce right now. If you propose to question this student any more, then you had better take him off to your temple and you had better have some proof to back up your wild accusations. Or do I need to remind you of this guild’s influence within Bögenhafen? Now untie the boy at once!”
“Do not dare to threaten me, bloodletter,” the witch hunter growled like a mastiff, a vein pulsing unpleasantly in his neck, “or I shall take you in for questioning along with this wretch,” he said, half-pulling Dieter out of his seat by the scruff of his robes.
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