Spears stuck to his calves, and he felt dizzy to be at such a height above the ground. Goblins were scaling his trousers, hacking through his clothes and sinking hooks into flesh and bone. There were more fires. A ballista and several mortars were deployed. There were explosions all around him. His right knee went, and he was pulled down. Small roars of triumph went up, and his back was riddled with a million tiny shots. Knives small as headlice sawed at him. Spears like needles jabbed. He fell across the battlefield, crushing the remains of the castle, flattening the hill, murdering hundreds beneath him. He rolled onto his back, and the armies reached his face. They set off charges in his eyes, and he was blind. Berserkers set fire to his hair. Warrior wizards opened up channels to his brain. Pikemen attacked his neck. Fresh-conjured daemons burrowed beneath his skin, excreting their poisonous filth.
The general told him he was doing well and that he must keep up the fight. In the dark, the Emperor Luitpold and all his court waited for him. Maximilian knew he would soon be permitted to leave the field of battle, to take his well-earned rest. There were medals and honours and eggs for him. He would receive his just rewards.
The armies moved over him, laying waste to whatever they found. They captured the general, and executed him. To the end, the man was a hero. His lead head rolled across Maximilian’s chest and bounced lifeless onto the table.
Tired and relieved, Maximilian sank into the darkness…
The next morning his nurse found him, lying dead among his beloved toy soldiers. Physicians were called for, but it was too late. The old elector’s heart had finally given out. It was said that at least his death was sudden and easeful. The sad news was delivered to the new elector with his breakfast.
Oswald von Konigswald wept, but was not surprised.
VIII
Genevieve was on the battlements, watching the sun go down, feeling her strength rising. There was a full moon, and the view was lightly shadowed. With her nightsight, she saw wolves loping in the forests and silent birds ascending to their mountain nests. There were lights burning in the village. She was stretching, tasting the night, wondering how she would drink this evening, when Henrik Kraly found her.
“My lady,” he began, “if I might beg a favour.”
“Certainly. What do you wish?”
Kraly looked uncertain. This was not like Oswald’s smooth and efficient catspaw. His hand rested casually on his sword-hilt in a manner that instantly disturbed Genevieve. During the long trip from the convent, she had gathered that not all his services to the von Konigswalds involved simple message-bearing.
“Could you arrange to meet me in half an hour, and bring Mr. Sierck with you? In the chamber of the poison feast.”
Genevieve raised an eyebrow. She had been avoiding that particular place above all. For her, the fortress held too many memories.
“It is a matter of some urgency, but I would appreciate it if you could raise it without alerting anyone. The crown prince has charged me with discretion.”
Puzzled, Genevieve agreed to the steward’s terms and left for the great hall. She supposed the dead must have been taken from the table by now and given their proper burial. She would probably barely recognize the poison room. Thus far, she had encountered no ghosts, even in her imagination, at Drachenfels. No ghosts, just memories.
Rehearsals had finished for the day, and the actors were being served in a make-shift canteen. Breughel was haranguing the Bretonnian cook about the lack of a certain spice in the stew, and the cook was defending the recipe handed down to him by his forefathers. “Dwarfeesh buffeune, yiu ’ave not leeved unteel yiu ’ave taisted Casserole a la Boudreaux!”
Jessner and Illona Horvathy were all over each other in a corner, petting as they joked with other members of the cast. Menesh was talking intently to Gesualdo, the actor playing him, and gesturing extravagantly with his one arm while the other dwarf nodded. On the stage, Detlef and Lowenstein were stripped to the waist, towelling off the sweat they had worked up practising the duelling scenes.
“You’ve been giving me a fine dash-about, Laszlo. Where did you learn the sword?”
Without his mask and costume, Lowenstein was diminished, seeming rather dull. “At Nuln. I took classes from Valancourt at the Academy.”
“I thought I recognized that vertical parry. Valancourt taught Oswald too. You’d be a formidable opponent.”
“I hope so.”
Detlef pulled on a jacket, and buttoned it. Although plump, his muscles were well-defined. Genevieve gathered that he too was skilled with the use of the sword. He would have to be, given his fondness for heroic roles.
“Detlef,” she said. “Could we have a word? In private?”
Detlef looked to Lowenstein, who bowed and walked off.
“An odd fellow, that,” Detlef said. “He’s always surprising me. And yet, I get this feeling that there’s something not all there about our friend Laszlo. Do you know what I mean?”
Genevieve did. To her heightened senses, Lowenstein registered as a complete vacuum, as if he were a walking shell waiting to be ensouled. Still, she had met many people like that. In an actor, it was hardly surprising. It did not really matter who Lowenstein was offstage.
“Well, what’s up, elf lady? Do you want me to dismiss Lilli and hire a human being for the role?”
“No, it’s something mysterious.”
He smiled. “You intrigue me.”
She smiled back, on the verge of flirting. “Kraly wants to see you. Us. In the poison room.”
She caught his scent in the air, and felt the pricking of the old thirst. She wondered how his blood would flow.
“I wish you wouldn’t lick your lips like that, Genevieve.”
She covered her mouth, and giggled. “I’m sorry.”
He grinned. “The poison room, eh? Sounds lovely.”
“You know the story?”
“Oh yes. Children tortured, parents left to starve. Another one of the Great Enchanter’s charming little jokes. He’d have made a good match for Mistress Nissen, don’t you think? Imagine the fun they could have had exchanging recipes for the best use of babies. “Yiu ’ave not leeved until yiu’ave taisted Enfant a la Boudreaux! Lead on.”
She took his arm and they left the great hall. Detlef winked at Kerreth the wardrobe master as they passed through the door. The little man laughed and rubbed his neck. Genevieve blushed. She could imagine the stories that would be told during rehearsals tomorrow. Oh well, after all these years, her reputation could hardly be more tarnished by an association with an actor.
In the corridor, they continued to talk. Detlef was making a conscious effort to be charming, and she wasn’t putting up too much resistance. Perhaps if stories were to be told, she should make the effort to justify them.
“How does it feel to have those teeth anyway? Aren’t you forever cutting your lips?”
A witty reply came to mind, but then they entered the poison chamber and saw the looks on the faces of the people grouped around the table. And the mess that lay on it…
When Detlef had finished vomiting, Kraly told him who it was.
IX
Detlef was relieved to learn that he wasn’t the first to be sick. The body had been discovered by Nebenzahl the astrologer, and the little parasite had puked his breakfast at once. Even though he spent the greater part of his professional life peering into the entrails of chickens and cats, the exposed insides of a human being caused him much distress. Detlef wondered if there were a way of divining the future through the examination of vomit. Apparently, Nebenzahl had been looking for some trinket misplaced by his mistress and opened the wrong door. He had a talent for awkwardness and, as everyone had noticed but Lilli, absolutely no foresight.
Detlef looked from face to face. Henrik Kraly was expressionless, a hard man faced with a hard situation, intent on not giving anything of himself away. Genevieve seemed beyond caring, but she was not making jokes anymore. Besides, it would be difficult to tell if a v
ampire were shocked pale. Nebenzahl was still sobbing quietly, clinging to one of Kraly’s halberdiers, occasionally scraping at the regurgitated matter on his brocaded waistcoat. Vargr Breughel, whom Detlef had insisted on summoning, looked as he always did when faced with yet another problem, as if every disaster in the world were intended personally against him.
And Rudi Wegener did not look like much at all. His face was still there, but it hung loose like a soggy mask thrown over a skull.
Detlef’s first thought was that the old bandit had been flayed, but Kraly had already performed the distasteful task of closely examining the corpse and knew exactly what had been done to Rudi.
“The eyes are gone, you notice. Fished out with a dagger or small knife, I’d guess. An unsqueamish man could do the job with his fingers, but he’d best wear gloves.”
Detlef had the unpleasant feeling that Kraly was talking from experience. Electoral houses needed a servant or two with more loyalty than scruples. It was hard to associate open, upright Oswald with this lizard-hearted iceman.
“But that’s not what killed him?”
“No.”
“It looks like a wolf got at him, or a ravenous daemon. Something that attacked in a frenzy, devouring, tearing…”
Kraly smiled a one-sided smile. “Yes, I thought that at first too, but look here.”
He pointed into the body cavity, lifting a flap of skin from the ribcage.
“No bones are broken. The organs are untouched. That, in case you’re interested, is what a drinking habit like Wegener’s does to your liver.”
The organ was red, swollen and covered with pustules. It was obviously rotted through, even to someone who didn’t know what a healthy liver looked like. Detlef thought he was going to be sick again. Kraly poked at the wounds.
“Whoever did this, did it calmly and with great skill.”
Genevieve spoke. “What exactly was done?”
“My lady, all the fat has been neatly cut out of his body.”
Kraly left the dead thing alone, and the group moved away from it by unspoken mutual consent.
Detlef was outraged. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
The steward shrugged. Detlef realized that the man was enjoying this brief taste of command. For once, he was at the centre of things, not a simple creature of Oswald’s.
“There are many possibilities, Mr. Sierck. A religious ritual, dedicating the sacrifice to some dark god. A wizard needing the material for a spell. Many enchantments require peculiar ingredients. Or, it could be the work of a madman, an obsessive who kills in a bizarre manner in an attempt to tell us something…”
“Like ‘eat less and take more exercise’, I suppose! This is insane, Kraly! A man is dead!”
Genevieve took his hand. That helped somehow. He calmed down.
“I’m sorry.”
The steward accepted his apology without sincerity. “At the risk of being obvious, we must face facts. There is a murderer among us.”
They all looked at each other again, like participants in one of those dim haunted castle melodramas in which the cast drop dead at regular intervals until the high priest of Morr deduces who the killer is and the audience wakes up.
“And we must catch him without word of our troubles reaching the outside.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Whatever we do must be done in secret. The crown prince would not want this to disrupt the smooth running of his play. I am here to deal with just such occurrences. You need not concern yourself. Know only this, that I will work to bring the murderer to justice as soon as possible.”
Breughel spoke up. “Detlef, it might indeed be best to leave this to the prince’s men.”
“But we can’t just go on as if nothing has happened!”
“Can’t we? By my interpretation of the crown prince’s orders, we have no other course open to us.”
Nebenzahl was still shaking and moaning. Detlef nodded in his direction. “And how do we keep the popinjay silent?”
Kraly’s mouth did something that in another man might qualify as a smile. “Mr. Nebenzahl has just been recalled to Altdorf. He left early this afternoon, and has written to his employer severing their relationship…”
The astrologer started, and stared at the steward.
“I am given to understand that many who quit Miss Lilli Nissen’s employ choose to leave in a similar manner.”
Nebenzahl looked like a man just informed of his impending death.
“Don’t worry, gut-gazer,” said Kraly. “You’ll be better paid for shutting up and going away than you would have been for staying around and blabbering to everyone. I believe a position could be found for you in Erengrad.”
The halberdier left the room, pulling Nebenzahl along with him. Detlef wondered how the weedy little fraud would get by among the Norsemen and Kislevites of that cold port on the borders of the Northern Wastes. He was furious with Kraly by now, but had learned to be cool in his wrath. Nothing would be achieved if he threw a screaming fit like Lilli Nissen.
“And I’m supposed to continue with the play, and incidentally it is my play not Crown Prince Blessed Oswald’s, while people are being slaughtered all the while?”
Kraly was resolute. “If the crown prince so wishes it.”
“I wonder, my dear steward, if Oswald would entirely approve of your actions.”
This gave Kraly pause, but he soon snapped back. “I’m sure the crown prince has every confidence in me. He did assign me these duties. I believe I have not been a disappointment to him in the past.”
Genevieve had walked back to the table, and was taking a close look at what was left of Rudi. For the first time, Detlef realized fully that, no matter how she seemed, the woman wasn’t human. She had no fear of the dead, and indeed must have some familiarity with them.
“What are you doing?” asked Kraly.
“Feeling for something.”
Genevieve touched the corpse’s head, and shut her eyes. She might be praying for his soul, Detlef supposed, or doing arithmetic in her head.
“No,” she said, after a time. “He’s gone. Nothing remains of his spirit.”
“Did you hope to read his murderer’s face in his mind?” Kraly asked.
“Not really. I just wanted to say farewell. He was a friend of mine, in case you’d forgotten. He had a hard life, and was not well served by it.”
She left the body alone. “One thing,” she said.
“Yes?”
“You are aware of the common superstition that a dying man’s eyes hold the last sight he beholds? That a murderer may be betrayed by his image in his victim’s pupils?”
They all looked at Rudi’s face, at his empty eye sockets, and flensed cheeks.
“Of course,” Kraly was impatient now, “it’s rot. Physicians and alchemists no longer think…”
“Quite, quite. The foolishness of another age, like the belief that toad men from the stars ruled the world before the Coming of Chaos.”
“Besides, his eyes are gone.”
“That is precisely the point I wished to make. You and I know the story of the murdered man’s eyes is nonsense. But Rudi’s murderer might believe it. That would explain why he took the eyes.”
Kraly was taken with the thought. “A superstitious man, then? A gypsy, or an Ostlander?”
“I make no accusations.”
“Perhaps a dwarf? They are known for their superstitious ways. Brass pennies for luck, black cats drowned at birth…”
Breughel bridled as Kraly turned to him.
“I’m no dwarf,” he spat. “I hate the little bastards.”
Kraly waved his protest away. “Still, the vampire lady has a point. My lady, your intuitions are as sharp as they are said to be.”
“There’s another possibility,” said Detlef, “that this was done by no human agency. The supernatural is no stranger to these walls. Drachenfels was famed as a conjurer of daemons and monsters. They were supposed to have
been cleared out, but it’s a huge building. Who knows what could have lived here all these years, festering in the dark, waiting for its master’s murderers to return.”
Genevieve touched a finger to her chin, obviously following Detlef’s train of thought. She shook her head slightly, unsure.
“And we have brought back all the survivors of Oswald’s adventurers. As easy meat.”
Detlef was concerned for Genevieve—for Menesh and Veidt too—but Kraly had a single thought.
“The crown prince must be warned. He might not wish to come.”
Genevieve laughed. “You really don’t know your master very well, do you, Kraly? This would only make him the more determined to be here.”
“You could be right, my lady. Rest assured, I’ll charge the guards with extra vigilance. This will not happen again. You have my word on it.”
X
Alone in his room, Vargr Breughel drank and looked at himself in the mirror. He did not know who had assigned the various quarters for the company, and assumed no cruel slight had been intended. But, his was the only bedroom he had seen here equipped with a floor-to-ceiling mirror. This must have been where some harlot witch painted and primped. The Great Enchanter had had many mistresses down through the millennia. Unlike Vargr Breughel in his meagre forty-seven years.
Moonbeams filtered down through the windows and lit the room, casting a baleful light over everything. Breughel sat in his chair, feet dangling a hand’s-span above the carpet, and looked himself in the eye.
He remembered his parents, and the air of disappointment that always hung about them. His sisters, born before him, were above average height. His younger brother had been as tall, straight and handsome as anyone could wish until he fell in battle in the service of the Emperor, giving their parents another reason to be uncomfortable in his presence. His mother and father had blamed each other for his condition, and had spent their lives searching each other for signs of the deformity that had been passed down through their mating to their son. Of course, it had been embarrassing for them to explain to all callers at their home that, no, they didn’t have a dwarf servant, they had a dwarf son. And he wasn’t a true dwarf.
[Genevieve 01] - Drachenfels Page 13