The door of the carriage swung open, and an elegant man got out. He was so simply dressed that, for a moment, Genevieve took him for another steward. Then, recognition came…
“Oswald!”
The crown prince grinned and stepped forward. They embraced, and she heard again the call of his blood. She touched his bare neck with her wet tongue, connecting electrically between beard and collar with his life force.
He broke the embrace and took a good look at her.
“Genevieve… my dear… it’s so hard to get used to it. You’re the same. It could have been yesterday.”
Twenty-five years.
“To me, highness, it was yesterday.”
He waved her formality away. “Please, no titles. It’s always Oswald to you, Genevieve. I owe you so much.”
Recalling herself unconscious and at the mercy of the iron-faced fiend of her dreams, she responded, “Surely, it is I who owe you, Oswald. I still live only by your sufferance.”
He had been a beautiful boy, with his golden hair and his clear eyes. Now, he was a handsome man, with darker colouring, lines of character and a man’s beard. He had been slender and wiry, surprisingly strong and agile in battle, but still slightly awkward with a sword in his hand. Now, he was as well-muscled as Sergei. His body felt hard and healthy beneath his jerkin, and his tights revealed well-shaped calves and thighs. Oswald von Konigswald had grown up. He was still barely a prince, but he looked every inch the elector he was soon to become. And his eyes were still clear, still bright with integrity, with emotion, with adventure.
Impulsively, he kissed her. She tasted him again, and this time it was she who drew back, for fear that her red thirst would overwhelm decorum. He helped her into the coach.
“There’s so much to tell, Genevieve,” he began, as they trundled through the crowds of the docks towards the city thoroughfares. “So much has happened…”
A street singer was performing by the Bridge of Three Towers, a comic song about a woodcutter’s daughter and a priest of Ranald. When he sighted the arms upon the approaching carriage, he switched to the ballad that told of the death of Drachenfels. Oswald reddened with embarrassment, and Genevieve couldn’t help but be a little satisfied to see his flush. This version of the tale was entitled “The Song of Bold Oswald and Fair Genevieve” and imputed that the prince had taken on the Great Enchanter “for the love of his long-dead lady.” She wondered, not for the first time, whether there had ever really been anything between them. Looking back on it, Genevieve supposed it would have been strange had they not fallen in love on the road to Castle Drachenfels. But, in his terms if not hers, that was half a life ago. Even Oswald was not about to present a vampire barmaid at court.”
When the bridge and the song were behind them, Oswald began to talk of his theatrical venture.
“I have engaged a very clever young man. Some call him a genius and some a damned fool. Both factions are right, but generally the genius outweighs the fool, and perhaps it is the foolery that fuels the genius. You will be impressed with his work, I’m sure.”
Genevieve allowed herself to be lulled by the creak of the wheels, the clap of hooves on cobbles and the pleasant fire of Oswald’s voice. The carriage was nearing the Altdorf palace of the von Konigswalds now. They were in the wide streets of the city’s most exclusive area, where the mansions of the foremost courtiers stood in grounds spacious enough to accommodate a veritable army of lesser men. Smartly uniformed militiamen patrolled the streets to keep out the bad elements, and torches burned all night to light the way home for the weary aristocrat after a hard evening’s toadying and prancing in the corridors of the Imperial palace. Genevieve had not often been in this quarter during her century in Altdorf. The Crescent Moon was back near the docks, in a bustling, lively, dirty avenue known as the Street of a Hundred Taverns.
“I’d like you to talk to Detlef Sierck, to give him the benefit of your recollections. You play a leading part, of course, in his drama.”
Genevieve was amused by Oswald’s enthusiasm. She remembered him as a boy declaring that were he not expected by his family to take the role of elector after his father passed on, he would have chosen to be a travelling player. His poetry had won many plaudits, and she sensed that the grown man regretted that the demands of public life had prevented him from continuing to wield his quill. Now, by association, he could return to the arts.
“And who, Oswald, is to play me?”
The crown prince laughed. “Who else? Lilli Nissen.”
“Lilli Nissen! That’s ridiculous. She’s supposed to be one of the great beauties of the age, and I’m…”
“…barely pleasing to look upon. I knew that’d be your reaction. In Kislev they say ‘beware the vampire’s modesty’. Besides, all is equal. I’m to be played by a dashing young genius who has broken more hearts than the emperor’s militia have heads. We are speaking here of the theatre, not of dry-as-dust historical tomes. Thanks to Detlef Sierck, we’ll all live forever.”
“My darling, I’ll already live forever.”
Oswald grinned again. “Of course. I had forgotten. I might also mention that I have met Lilli Nissen, and, startling through she undoubtedly is, she cannot compare to you.”
“So flattery is still considered an accomplishment at the court of the Emperor?”
The coach paused, and there was a rattling of chains.
“Here, we’re there.”
The great gates, inset with a wrought-iron von Konigswald shield, swung open, and Oswald’s coach turned into the wide driveway. There was some commotion up ahead, outside the palace itself. Trunks were piled high, and people were arguing loudly. An imposing, slightly overweight, young man in an elaborate and undeniably theatrical outfit was shouting at a quavering coachman. Beside them, a dwarf was hopping from one foot to another. There were other outlandishly dressed characters present, all serving as an audience for the great-voiced shouter.
“What’s this?” Oswald cried. He clambered out of the still-moving coach and strode towards the knot of arguers. “Detlef, what’s happening?”
The shouter, Detlef, turned to the crown prince and fell briefly silent. In an instant, Genevieve felt the young man—the young genius, if Oswald was to be trusted—catch sight of her. She was leaning from the coach. They exchanged a look each was to remember for a long time thereafter, and then the moment was past. Detlef was shouting again.
“I’m leaving, highness! I don’t need to be warned twice. The play is off. I’d rather be back in Mundsen Keep than persecuted by ghosts. My company and I are withdrawing from the project, and I strongly suggest that you drop the matter yourself unless you want to be visited by floating monks who speak without speaking and carry with them the odour of the grave and a strong suggestion that anyone who defies them will be joining them in the afterlife!”
II
Detlef had taken hours to calm down. But Crown Prince Oswald had spoken reasonably and at length, trying to put some less threatening interpretation upon the monkish manifestations.
“Ghosts can be petty, misleading even, and yet they are not known for their intervention in mortal matters.” He waved an elegant hand in the air, as if conjuring the harmless spirits of which he spoke. “The palace is old, haunted many times over.”
That was all very well, Detlef thought, but Oswald hadn’t stared the deathly things in the face and been given direct orders by the dead.
“It is said that whenever a von Konigswald draws near death, the shades of his ancestors return to bear him away with them. When the grandfather for whom I am named lay comatose with the brain fever, the noseless spectre of Schlichter von Konigswald was seen waiting implacably at his bedside…”
Detlef was unconvinced. He still remembered the ghost monk’s piercing eyes and bony forefinger. “You’ll pardon me for mentioning it, highness, but in this case, you seem to be in the pink of good health while it is I, who can boast no relationship to your noble house, who has been placed unde
r the threat of death.”
A grave look came over the prince. “Yes, Detlef,” he said gently, “but my father, the elector…”
The crown prince nodded towards the corner of the room, in which the elector of Ostland was coughing gently as he played with his toy soldiers, mounting an assault on the coal scuttle.
“Hurrah for the general,” cried Elector Maximilian. It must have been near his bed-time.
Oswald looked at Detlef, and Detlef felt suitably chastened. The old man was indeed on the point of expiry. His mind had long since crumbled under the sieges of age, and his body was rapidly failing. But there was still the matter of the daemon monks and their levitation tricks.
“A drink, Detlef?”
Detlef nodded, and Oswald poured out a generous measure of Estalian sherry. Detlef took the goblet, and ran his thumb over the embossed von Konigswald shield. Here, in the warmth of a well-lit room, with the calm, unaffected Oswald and a battery of well-armed servants, the phantoms of the night seemed less menacing. If he came to think about it, the monks were far less impressive a manifestation than the tricked-up appearance of Drachenfels’ daemon-pig servitors he was planning for the play. If it came to it, the afterlife could not compete with a Detlef Sierck production for supernatural spectacle.
“So, that’s settled? Your production will continue?”
Detlef drank, feeling better. There was still something that troubled him, but he instinctively trusted the crown prince. Anyone who could walk alive out of the fortress of Drachenfels must have some experience with the unearthly.
“Fine. But I’ll want you to detail some of your guards to watch over the company. There have been too many ‘accidents’, you know…”
Kosinski had broken his ankle thanks to a carelessly anchored—or tampered with—piece of scenery. Gesualdo the Jester had been struck down with a mysterious sweating sickness, and Vargr Breughel was having to read his lines in rehearsal. Someone had broken into Laszlo Lowenstein’s rooms and shredded his collection of playbills. And every bit player and scene shifter was telling a spook story of some sort. The only thing that was running as expected about the production was that Lilli Nissen was proving awkward and hiding in her rooms most of the time. She had expended more energy on fluttering her doubtless counterfeit eyelashes at Oswald than on learning her speeches. Detlef had heard of blighted productions before, and none could have been more thrice-cursed than The History of Sigmar, but there were more tripwires and hidden pits along this route than he had a right to expect. And the company had not even made its way to Castle Drachenfels yet.
“That might not be ill-advised, Detlef. We both have more than enough enemies in Altdorf.”
Oswald summoned a servant, and gave him brief instructions.
“There’ll be twenty men, under the command of my trusted aide Henrik Kraly, at the disposal of your company tomorrow. Your rooms will be guarded by night.”
The servant hurried off.
“And I’ll have your chamber exorcized by the priests of whichever god you favour. I don’t hold out much hope, though. This place is too old for exorcisms to take. It’s been tried many times, I believe, and there are always new ghosts springing up. There’s a story about a bleeding child who trails his grave garments behind him, and there’s the skull-faced governess who radiates an eerie blue light, not to mention the phantom dog who recites passages from Tarradasch…”
Oswald seemed to warm to the subject, and was displaying an unhealthy, childish relish in the dark history of his home.
“There’s no need to elaborate, highness. I believe I appreciate the situation.”
“And our ghosts are as nothing to the ghosts of the Imperial palace. The first Emperor Luitpold was reputed to have been witness to no fewer than one hundred and eighty-three spectral manifestations in his lifetime. And Albrecht the Wise’s hair was white before he was thirty thanks to the sudden apparition of a daemon of the most frightful appearance dressed in the uniform of the Imperial Guard…”
“The general has triumphed again!” shouted the elector, holding high one particular lead hero. “Eggs all round! Eggs for the troops!”
The old man’s nurse quieted him down, and led him away by the hand to his bedroom. Oswald was embarrassed, but clearly felt for his father’s condition.
“You should have seen him as he was when I was a boy.”
Detlef bowed slightly. “Men are not responsible for their dotage, any more than they are for their infancy.”
There was a brief silence. The troubles passed from Oswald’s face, and he turned to his other guest.
“And now, you must meet the heroine of your piece… Genevieve Dieudonne.”
The pale girl came forward, curtsied prettily, and offered her slim, white hand to Detlef. He bowed to her, and kissed her knuckles. She was cool to the touch, but didn’t have the dead, slightly rancid appearance of the two other vampires Detlef had met. It was difficult not to think of her as the equal in age and experience of any of the young actresses and dancers Detlef had known in the theatre. She hardly seemed more than a year or two at most out of her schooling, ready to embark upon her first freedoms, fully prepared to be young. And yet she had seen six and a half centuries go by.
“Enchanted,” he said.
“Likewise,” she replied. “I’ve been hearing about you. I trust that my reputation is in good hands with your quill.”
Detlef smiled. “I shall have to rewrite several speeches now that I have seen you. It would be unnatural for anyone to chance across such beauty and not remark upon it.”
Genevieve smiled too. Her eyeteeth were a fraction longer and sharper than a normal girl’s would have been. “Evidently, you and Oswald have studied bottom-kissing flattery under the same tutors.”
The crown prince laughed. Detlef, to his surprise, found the bizarre woman charming.
“We must talk,” Detlef said, suddenly keener on an interview. “Tomorrow, in the daytime, we could take tea and go through my text. It is still developing, and I would greatly appreciate your thoughts upon the drama.”
“Tomorrow it shall be, Mr. Sierck. But let’s make it after sunset. I’m not at my best in the daytime.”
III
His patron had done so much for him. It was about time Lowenstein did something for his patron. Even something as distasteful, dangerous and illegal as grave robbery.
Besides, it wasn’t really grave robbery; the woman wasn’t yet buried. His patron had told him she could be found packed in ice at the shrine of Morr. The corpse was awaiting the Emperor’s coroners. And Lowenstein’s pleasure. The tall, gaunt actor passed through the door of the shrine, glancing up at the black stone raven that stood on the lintel, its wings spread to welcome the dead, and those whose business was with the dead.
Opposite the shrine was the Raven and Portal, the tavern favoured by the priests of Morr. The black bird on its sign swung in the wind, creaking as if squawking to its cousin across the way. Nearby were the Imperial cemeteries, where the richest, the most lauded, the most famed were interred. In Altdorf, as in every city, Morr’s Town was the district of the dead.
The man in the mask had smoothed Lowenstein’s way considerably. A guard had been drugged, and lay in the foyer of the low, dark building, his tongue protruding from a foamy mouth. The keys hung precisely where his patron had told him they would be. He had been in mortuaries before, for recreational purposes, and had no undue fear of the dead. Tonight, leather against his face, he had no undue fear of anything.
He pulled the watchman out of the way, so he could not be seen by any late passerby. The shrine smelled strongly of herbs and chemicals. He supposed that if it didn’t, it would stink of the dead. This was where those who died questionably were brought. The Emperor’s coroners examined the bodies for traces of foul play, or hitherto unlisted disease. It was a shunned place. Just to make sure, he felt for the watchman’s heart. It was strong. He pinched the man’s nostrils and put a hand to his sticky mouth unt
il the beat was stilled. His patron wouldn’t mind. Lowenstein thought of it as an offering to Morr.
There were sounds outside, in the night. Lowenstein pressed himself into the shadows, and held his breath. A party of drunken revellers passed by, singing about the woodcutter’s daughter and the priest of Ranald.
“Oh, my pretty laaaad, what you’ve done to me,
My father will do with his aaaaaxe to thee…”
One of them relieved himself loudly against the marble wall of the shrine, bravely cursing Morr, god of death. Lowenstein grinned in the darkness. The soak would come to know the god eventually, as do all, and his curse would be remembered.
Morr, god of death, and Shallya, goddess of healing and mercy, were the deities who really ruled the lives of men. The one for the old, the other for the young. You could placate the one or beg for the intercession of the other, but, in the end, Shallya would weep, and Morr would take his prize.
Lowenstein felt closer to Morr than all the other gods. In the Nuln production of Tarradasch’s Immortal Love, he had played the god of death, and had been comfortable in the black robes. As he was comfortable now in the armour and mask of Drachenfels.
Tonight, he could meet his patron mask to mask, he thought. He had kept his costume with him, and worn the mask for his trip to the shrine. It served to shield his identity, but also he felt a strange ease when hidden behind it. Two days ago, he had noticed horny ridges budding under the skin of his forehead, and felt a roughening of his normally sunken cheeks. He must have caught a touch of warpstone. The mask served to conceal his alterations. With the leather over his face, he felt himself stronger, more alive, more powerful. If his patron had given him this mission in Nuln, he would have been anxious, jittery. Now, he was cool and decisive. He was changing, altering.
The drunks were gone. The night was quiet. Lowenstein proceeded to the back room of the shrine, where the bodies were kept. It was down a short stairway, its walls set into the earth. He touched tinder to a candle, and carefully descended the broad stairs. It was cold, and slow-melting ice dripped to the flagstone floor. Strong-smelling herbal possets hung from the beams, so the nostrils of visitors would not be offended. On raised biers lay the suspiciously dead of Altdorf. Or, at least, the suspiciously dead the Emperor’s court cared about.
[Genevieve 01] - Drachenfels Page 10