[Empire Army 01] - Reiksguard

by Richard Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  Krieglitz lifted his right shoulder pauldron an inch. “You remember what these stood for?”

  Siebrecht did. “Brotherhood.”

  “For a knight stands shoulder to shoulder with his brothers,” Krieglitz recited. “As the pauldrons defend a knight from the gravest strokes, likewise a knight is defended by his brothers and without them is in peril of death.”

  Krieglitz paused for a moment, then continued. “How do I feel? I feel strong. I feel connected. Like a true brother.”

  “I’ll help you take it off,” Siebrecht offered.

  “Wait, I would take a turn in it. I would like to walk a way, feel how it moves.”

  Krieglitz led the way, through the corridors. Siebrecht had expected the armour to make a fearful noise, but it was quiet, so well constructed and maintained that the plates slid over each other with ease.

  “Have you heard of the inner circle?” Krieglitz asked as they walked.

  “I’ve heard the name. They are some of the older knights, no?”

  “Oh, they are that. But they are much more. You know the power a single Reiksguard knight carries. Imagine the power that those who direct the actions of hundreds of knights have. Knights who serve by the Emperor’s side, who guard his rooms in the palace. Knights who campaign with every Imperial general.”

  “I can well believe it. What of them?”

  “I have a mission from them. I can say no more, not even to you.”

  They stepped out of the building. Above them the stars and moons shone in the dark. “I’m going to walk a little further,” Krieglitz announced.

  “Gunther, no.”

  “Just once around the walls.”

  “Then I will come with you.”

  “No, Siebrecht. It is you who drag me into mischief, remember?”

  “You’ll get yourself in trouble, Gunther.”

  Krieglitz laughed. “They can hardly do any more to me. Go. Go back. You cause a clamour and they’ll find us both. I just need the air.”

  Siebrecht hesitated; he thought to insist, but if Krieglitz resented his company then it might push him away still further. If he stayed within the walls, there was little harm he could do; and there were sentries enough to make leaving the citadel difficult even without a full suit of armour. “You will not leave without saying farewell.”

  “You have my oath as a Reiksguard knight,” Krieglitz said lightly.

  “I’d rather have your wager. I think you value those greater.”

  “If that were true, then I would be a sorry knight indeed.” Krieglitz held out his hand for Siebrecht to shake. “I must prove to you the contrary, and hereby wager never to collect the crown you so rashly lost to me just now.”

  Siebrecht took his hand and smiled. “How much is the wager?”

  “A crown, of course.”

  “And that was the last you spoke to him.”

  “Yes, constable. That was the end of it. He left and I returned to the dormitory,” Siebrecht stated again, but still the scribe wrote it down. The constable leaned back and stared at Siebrecht hard, as though he could strip away falsities and lies simply through his gaze. Siebrecht did not care how he looked at him. A few hours ago Siebrecht would have feigned courage to cover his fear, exercised his wit to prove he was not afraid, but now there was simply no fear to feel. Nothing of anything.

  The search for Krieglitz had begun soon after first light, when a sergeant had gone to escort him to morning prayers and discovered that he had not returned. The constable had sent stewards down through the streets to pick up his trail. Before lunch they had returned with a ferryman who had a story to tell. By the afternoon, the order’s strongest swimmers were diving into the Reik off the bridge. Before the sun went down, they had dragged poor Krieglitz’s body out of the river.

  They had not had to search far. The heavy Reiksguard armour had dragged Krieglitz straight down and anchored him to the muddy bottom. Once they pulled his body to the bank, the order stripped the armour off. Sergeants from the Marshal’s household had collected it up and returned it to the citadel, for it to be cleaned, oiled and used again. As Siebrecht’s uncle had often reminded him, a good set of armour was most expensive and not to be lightly cast aside. The body itself, however, was not returned to the chapter house. There was no place for an unquiet spirit in the Reiksguard’s garden of Morr. A priest was found, who mumbled a few words over the body, and it was wrapped in a shroud for transportation.

  “You saw no one else on your way back to your quarters.”

  “No.”

  “And there was nothing else that occurred that night, that you discussed? Think one last time please, Brother Matz.”

  He had already told them everything, everything less Krieglitz’s mention of the inner circle. Shattered as he was, Siebrecht could sense that such a revelation would make them redouble their questioning. He just wanted to leave, find a corner, find a drink.

  He felt himself beginning to shake and saw the constable share a glance with the other knight: Griesmeyer. Siebrecht knew his name. He was the one Delmar had brought back to show off to the rest of the novices that day.

  Griesmeyer leaned forwards and entered the conversation. “We are not looking to place shame on others, Matz. Novice Krieglitz took that with him. You should not have assisted him with the armour, but you cannot blame yourself for his death.”

  Siebrecht looked up at that. “I do not blame myself! I blame the perjurers and the zealots who brought such baseless accusations, with no further cause than their own advancement. Rumours and lies, these are the weapons they wielded to kill my friend!”

  Siebrecht felt the anger burn within him, and the constable and Griesmeyer shared another look. Griesmeyer nodded and then dismissed the scribe, who put down his quill and left. The constable followed him out. Griesmeyer turned back to Siebrecht.

  “Rumours and lies there may have been, but the accusations were true,” Griesmeyer stated plainly. “Baron von Krieglitz has been tried and condemned; there was unquestionable evidence of his physical corruption. Amulets imbued with dark power have been discovered in his household, to heal him they claimed. One of his stewards has been exposed as a practitioner of illegal magics and has been burned. The Countess of Talabheim has denounced that line of her family and allowed the Order of Sigmar to seize the baron’s estate and possessions. The baron himself has disappeared, as has one of his sons. There can be no doubt. This is the news that we brought Novice Krieglitz last evening before he saw you.”

  Siebrecht reeled. All of Krieglitz’s behaviour the night before, his protestations that there might be hope, had been pretence. Unlikely as it may have been, Siebrecht had never given up the belief that there might be some other explanation for what had happened to his friend, that there may have been some foul play or accident that had thrown him into the river. But if he had already been told that his father’s taint was certain, if the inner circle already knew… In an instant, Siebrecht saw the thread that connected the discrepancies he had noted over the last day. His uncle’s admonition rang in his head: understand the unspoken reasons.

  “It is all a great tragedy.” Siebrecht straightened up; he found it easy to control himself now. “But not as great a tragedy as if my unfortunate friend’s shame had touched this most noble order. As you said, he has taken all that with him.”

  Griesmeyer, noting the young knight’s new composure, cautiously agreed. “It is a great tragedy.”

  “It is, in its own way, fortunate then that Novice Krieglitz’s actions have allowed us to sever the order’s ties with that family so speedily. That he was able to escape his custody last night and then that he, fully armoured, could scale our wall and slip past our keen-eyed sentries without raising the alarm. But then, can we ascribe it all to fortune? For surely there is no way to restrain a man who is determined to meet his end.”

  Griesmeyer gave Siebrecht an odd look.

  “Novice Krieglitz was never bound here. He was free to leave at w
ill. As you all are. And as you say, a man who longs for death will find his way.”

  Siebrecht saw a shadow fall over Griesmeyer’s face for a moment, as though he were lost in remembrance. Then he stood to take his leave, but there was one more question Siebrecht wished him to answer.

  “My lord Griesmeyer, if I may ask, you are a knight of the inner circle?”

  “I am,” he replied. “Your interest?”

  “Just to know your lordship better.”

  “There are few secrets here, Brother Matz, though active minds do wilfully perceive them where they are not. If to expunge your grief you must create your villains, then that is your concern; but do not drag your fellows down into your pit. For if you do, then it will no longer be your concern, it will be ours.”

  “That is ridiculous, Siebrecht,” Gausser repeated.

  “You weren’t there. It was written across his face.”

  They were out on the practice field, watching Bohdan conclusively trounce Hardenburg with the halberd. They stood apart from the Reiklanders, or perhaps the Reiklanders stood apart from them. It was only a day after Krieglitz’s body had been found, and neither faction was eager to share company with the other.

  “Was it written across this Griesmeyer’s face?” Gausser asked. “Or was it written across the inside of your eyes?”

  Siebrecht was in no mood to be doubted.

  “Ulric’s teeth, brother, do you even remember Krieglitz? Just a few weeks ago he was standing here with us. Think back then, was there any of us less likely to take his own life? Bohdan over there is as strung as tight as a crossbow, Falkenhayn’s so paranoid that he throws down a challenge at the slightest whiff of disrespect, and Reinhardt has such a morbid obsession with his dead father that he named his own horse after him!”

  “That I hear, but I also hear your voice when you told me how changed our brother was when you discovered him that night.”

  “But don’t you see? That was after they got to him. Poured their poisons into his ear and pushed him towards a resolution designed for their own convenience.”

  “Only gods may know men’s souls, Siebrecht.”

  “Then perhaps there are some men here who believe that they are a god’s equal. Look, there he is.” Siebrecht indicated off to one side. It was Griesmeyer, riding down towards the white gate. He stopped beside the Reiklander contingent and exchanged salutes. Delmar stepped forwards and the two of them had a warm, comradely exchange, though Siebrecht could not hear the specifics.

  “Of course,” Siebrecht spat. Gausser grunted without comment. Siebrecht continued, “I can’t stay confined in here this evening. I’m going over the wall. Will you come with me, brother?”

  Gausser considered it for a moment and then stirred. “Aye, if only to ensure that you come back.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GAUSSER

  Each month the Reiksguard squadrons were in Altdorf, they were subject to inspection. Typically this was performed by the Reiksmarshal and it was his opportunity to ensure his order was fully manned, with its arms and armour in good repair. New knights who had stood their vigil and taken their oaths in the period since the last inspection were given particular attention, a tradition dating back from when the Reiksguard’s training and testing was not nearly so formal nor so strict. In more recent times, a new knight’s first inspection had become a symbol of his final acceptance into the order, and for the noble families of Altdorf, it was the perfect opportunity for them to attend and bask in the reflected honour.

  As the Reiksguard had just returned from the victory at Middenheim, and as it became increasingly known that they would shortly be departing again, the inspection took on a greater significance. And when, a few days before, the palace announced that the Emperor himself would take the inspection, it became a far grander event entirely.

  The knights adopted the full Reiksguard battle armour, less the helm, in place of which they wore a cockaded hat bearing the badge of the order and red and white plumes, the colours of the ruling Emperor. They formed up not by the chapter house, but in the grounds of the Imperial Palace, and presented themselves there for the eye of the Emperor.

  When Delmar and his brothers awoke that morning, it was clear that Siebrecht and Gausser had not returned from the night before. They eventually appeared, Gausser as upright as ever, Siebrecht ashen-faced and obviously the worse for the night’s excesses. They were all full brother-knights now, not novices, and so enjoyed far greater liberty. But that did not mean that the others would make Siebrecht’s life the least bit easier for him as a result. It was only Gausser who made sure that the Nulner reported with the rest at the appointed time.

  Many of the families of the Reikland knights were in attendance. The Graf and Gravine von Falkenhayn, the Baron and Baroness von Proktor, and, Delmar was overjoyed to see, his mother and grandfather had made the journey to Altdorf as well. Delmar was doubly honoured that day for he had been chosen to carry the standard for the new knights’ squadron. The weather proved to be scorching hot and the palace servants ran back and forth with shades and canopies for the nobler sections of the crowds. The new knights slowly boiled in their battle armour, but they would rather be toasted alive than show any sign of discomfort before the Emperor.

  Karl Franz himself gave no indication that he felt the heat. He sat calmly on the back of his steed with his champion, Ludwig Schwarzhelm, by his side, as though he would be quite content to remain there for the entire day. When the Reiksguard were ready to begin, Helborg rode to the Emperor, saluted and took his position on his other flank. His eyes flicked to Schwarzhelm, and the two locked gazes for an instant before the Reiksguard began to march.

  The Emperor accepted the salutes of the Reiksguard regiments, first the Reiksguard’s trumpeters, mounted as cavalry, and then the rest marching on foot. When the time came for the new knights to present themselves, he dismounted and walked up their line. The knights stood at painfully strict attention, eyes forwards, but none of them could resist stealing a glance at the Emperor as he stepped before them. In that split-second, each of them believed that they had discerned some unique insight into the great man. The most mundane moment for him was, for them, a moment of the greatest significance.

  As for Karl Franz, he was long accustomed to such curiosity and knew not to dishonour them by catching their eyes as they glanced. There was only a single knight of them whom he truly noticed, and that was one who had a particular look of fierce concentration carved upon his face. He was the only one whose eyes did not flicker as he passed. In truth, Siebrecht von Matz barely noticed the shadow fall across his face. He had begun the morning with a throbbing head and a tongue as dry as the desert. After hours baking in his armour, it was all he could do to endure this new type of damnation.

  At length the inspection was over, the audience was duly impressed by another display of the military might of the Empire, and the Reiksguard broke up to make their way back to their chapter house in individual squadrons. The new knights were left until last-some of them were allowed to disperse to greet their families, but Delmar, as standard bearer, had to remain central, to act as their rallying point. He looked over at his own family again and saw the steward taking care of his grandfather. His mother, though, was not with them. Delmar scanned the milling crowd and caught a glimpse of her further along. She was talking with someone, and so Delmar shifted his position to be able to see her better. She was talking with none other than Griesmeyer. Delmar was surprised; he had never seen the two of them utter a word to each other in his company. What had they to talk about now?

  The standard from another squadron fluttered through his line of vision as they marched away. When he could see them again Delmar realised that they were not simply talking, they were in the midst of an argument. He could not hear the words, but it was clear his mother was nearly shouting at the knight, she had one hand on her hip and with the other she was yanking a necklace around her own throat. Griesmeyer meanwhile had half-slip
ped back into a defensive guard, almost as though he expected to be physically attacked. Though Delmar had no idea what had happened, whether he was standard bearer or not, he could not stand apart. He made a move towards them. But then it was over, his mother stormed away leaving Griesmeyer behind.

  Delmar stood in the arming room, fixed upon his thoughts. He had found his mother after the inspection; she had been too upset for him to ask what had happened between her and Griesmeyer. She had merely held him tight and implored him to return home from the campaign alive. Delmar had felt torn; the boy’s heart within him was wrenched to see his mother in such a state and did not wish to leave her. Now, however, he discovered that his childhood heart was tempered by a man’s spirit. For the first time the display of the emotion itself had made him feel awkward, he had wished to comfort her but found himself holding back, and was relieved when the steward had announced that they were returning to the estate immediately. His secret relief only exacerbated his feelings of guilt. How could he honour his oath to the order, knowing that in doing so he could never make any pledge as to his safety to those he loved, whose lives were rested upon his?

  Worse were these new questions about his father and Griesmeyer. Delmar was not a man comfortable with secrets. Secrets, his mother had drilled him as a child, led only to lies, and lies led to damnation. In the countryside, especially as the lord’s son, he lived his life in the plain sight of his neighbours, and what one of them saw or heard would inevitably make it back to his mother’s ears, so there had been little purpose in trying to conceal anything. But now she was keeping secrets from him, as was Griesmeyer as well.

  In the midst of his doubt and uncertainty, though, there was at least one accomplishment of which he could be proud: that he was a knight of the Reiksguard. The order’s demands upon him were great, but at least they were plainly put. Even as the other pillars of his life shook, the order would stand firm.