“There are a lot of sick people who appreciate it.”
“Quite so.” Johannes nodded too, as if they understood something implicit, which Rudi couldn’t quite see. “These are hard times all right. Stuff like that is getting pretty expensive.”
“Magnus is a wealthy man,” Rudi said, stating the obvious. “And generous with it.”
“Quite so,” Johannes said again. He licked his lips, and glanced round again, making sure that there was no one else in the bar to overhear them. “And I’m sure he wouldn’t mind spreading that generosity a little further. After all, no one knows quite how much there might be in each of those packages, do they?” He licked his lips again, waiting for Rudi to catch his meaning.
“I know,” Rudi said slowly, comprehension and outrage building almost as one. “And if you think I’m going to let you take some of it you’ve another thing coming.”
“Not take, no, of course not.” Johannes looked unconvincingly shocked at the suggestion. “Buy, perhaps? A small contribution to the temple of your choice, a few coins for you to dispose of as you see fit?”
“I’ve had enough,” Rudi said, standing slowly. The taverner cowered a little. It was only then that Rudi realised his fists were clenched. The very idea that someone would try to profit from the misery of others revolted him, and he tried to fight down the anger which coloured his face and thickened his voice. A faint mocking whisper at the back of his mind reminded him that he’d been thinking something similar not too long ago, but he ignored it. That had been idle musing, not a calculated plan to sell foodstuffs destined for the needy for personal profit.
“No offence meant,” Johannes said, rising too. And more rapidly he went on, “It was just a thought, nothing in it of course, that would be far too unethical. Purely a hypothetical conversation.”
“Good,” Rudi said, without the faintest idea of what hypothetical meant. But he recognised squirming when he saw it. Not trusting himself to speak further he shouldered the satchel and strode out into the daylight again, squinting as the sun struck his face.
Forcing his anger aside with difficulty, he tried to concentrate on the matter at hand. He still had two packets of medicine to deliver for Greta, and three packets of food. And the letter for the Altmans’ farm. He’d been heading for Tomas Lindemann’s cobbler’s shop when his thirst had diverted him, he remembered, but that was now several streets away, and a couple of his other destinations lay closer at hand.
With a sudden sinking feeling he realised that the closest address he had to visit was the Katzenjammer house. He took a deep breath. Might as well get it over with, he supposed. Hans would probably be just as reluctant to see him, as he was to see Hans, so he doubted he’d have to face the youth in person. All he had to do was deliver the medicine, and go about his business as usual.
Right then, fine. He squared his shoulders and set out for the house of his enemy, little suspecting the surprise that awaited him there.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Katzenjammer house was like any other in the street, which meant it looked subtly different from all of its neighbours, having been thrown up as quickly as possible with whatever materials had been to hand. A sturdy construction of timber and brick, its upper storey projected out over the thoroughfare in the manner typical of houses throughout the Empire to provide a modicum of shelter in inclement weather and facilitate the emptying of chamber pots.
Rudi took a deep breath and knocked briskly on the door pulling the package of medicine from his pouch ready to hand it to whoever answered it. He certainly had no intention of remaining there any longer than he had to, whatever Greta might want. After a long pause, which probably stretched out in his mind for a great deal more than it did in actual time, the latch rattled and the weathered timber creaked open.
“Thank you for coming.” It was Frau Katzenjammer. She was a small, stout woman, her hair grey, and her eyes were dark with fatigue and worry. Her voice was so quiet, and slurred with exhaustion, that Rudi had to bend his head to catch her words. He held up the packet so she could see it.
“I’ve got some medicine for Hans,” he began, but the old woman had already taken hold of his wrist and was urging him inside. She carried on speaking as she did so, almost as if his words hadn’t registered.
“He keeps asking for you. No one else. He won’t leave his room, won’t let anyone else in there.”
“Not even you?” Unwilling to break her grip by force, Rudi let himself be led into the gloomy passageway. Frau Katzenjammer nodded, stifling something rather like a sob.
“No. He says he doesn’t want anyone to see him like this, or to run the risk of catching whatever he’s got. He’d keep Fritz out too if he could, but someone has to take him his food.”
“Of course.” Rudi was surprised and touched, more than he’d have believed possible. He’d always thought of Hans as nothing more than a contemptible lout, so this display of concern for the welfare of others was an unexpected facet of his character. “Why does he want to see me?”
“He won’t say,” a new voice cut in. He turned to see Fritz standing at the bottom of the narrow stairwell. For a moment he bristled, prepared to defend himself if he had to, then relaxed. The hulking half-wit’s body language was anything but hostile. It reminded the young forester of a nervous dog approaching someone for a pat, but prepared for a kick. “Just keeps asking. How did you know?”
“Frau Reifenstal sent me with some medicine for him,” Rudi said, skating around the truth. Fritz became uneasier at the mention of the healer’s name, if that were possible. “She said he wouldn’t see her when she called, and hoped I’d have better luck.”
“I hope so,” Frau Katzenjammer said, clearly distressed by the memory. “The fuss he made… it wouldn’t have been possible, you see. I tried to calm him, we both did…” Tears were visible in her eyes now, and Fritz patted his mother on the back, in an awkward gesture of sympathy.
Well, whatever he felt, Rudi was committed. He couldn’t refuse to see Hans now; the poor woman would be distraught. And who knew how Fritz would react?
“Where can I find him?” he asked. Might as well get it over with. Then he could get on and deliver the rest of his messages.
“Up here.” Fritz led the way up the staircase, his bulk filling the narrow passageway so that Rudi could see little of the landing at the top. As they reached it, Fritz pointed to a nearby door. “In there,” he said.
“Right.” Rudi took a deep breath, and pushed it open. The shutters were closed, and the room inside was dark and foetid, the hot air rank with the smell of old sweat and unemptied chamber pots. Despite himself he coughed.
“Get out!” The voice was a harsh croak, completely unlike the habitual sneering tone he was used to. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom enshrouding the small chamber he made out a dark shape lying on the narrow bed, swathed in blankets, the head wrapped in bandages. “Damn it Fritzie, how many more times…” The voice trailed off in a spasm of coughing.
“It’s Rudi Walder.” Rudi hesitated, not sure of the reaction he’d get, before continuing. “Your mother said you wanted to see me. But I can go if you prefer…”
“No!” The rasping voice took on a tone of desperation. “You’re my only hope!”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Rudi said, unsure how to respond to this. “I’ve brought some medicine…”
“That won’t help.” Hans stirred weakly. He was trying to raise himself in the bed, and Rudi took an instinctive step forward to help. Hans forestalled him with a gesture. “No. Don’t come any closer. Believe me, you don’t want to see this.”
“See what?” Rudi felt his confusion growing by the minute. “I don’t understand. How can I help?”
“Persuade her to lift it. Please.” The words were interrupted by a racking cough. “I’m sorry, all right? Just tell her. I’ll do anything…”
“Tell who?” Rudi asked, completely baffled.
“The witch. She did this!”
The distorted voice rose in desperate appeal. For a moment Rudi thought he understood. So that was why Hans had refused to let Greta see him, he thought she was responsible for his condition somehow. He must be hallucinating from the fever.
“Greta wouldn’t do anything like that,” Rudi said, trying to sound reasonable. “She helps people…” He was interrupted by a harsh laugh from the bed.
“Not her. The young one. She was with you, you must have heard…”
Finally the pieces fell into place. He remembered the fight in the street, Hanna’s intervention, and Fritz hauling his brother away babbling about curses. Hans had fallen ill soon afterwards, and in his delirium he must have become obsessed with his brother’s words and come to believe that the girl had indeed put a hex on him. The very idea was ludicrous, of course, but while Hans remained convinced of his delusion he was never going to recover. Rudi squinted at the huddle of blankets, trying to make out a discernable shape, but failed.
“I’ll talk to her,” he promised. “But I’m sure you’re wrong. You’re not the only one with the fever, you know. She can’t have cursed everybody.”
“The fever?” Hans laughed again, a harsh sound devoid of any mirth. “If that was all I had wrong with me I’d sing praises to Sigmar.” Clearly there was no convincing him, at least until he started to recover. If he ever did. No one had yet, and the best Greta had been able to manage was to stabilise a handful of cases, the rest just continued to decline. No point dwelling on that, though, so it would probably be best just to offer encouragement.
“Can I get you anything?” Rudi asked. A faint motion in the darkness might have been Hans shaking his head.
“No. Thank you. Just talk to the witch. Please.”
“I will,” Rudi assured him, and finding nothing else to say left the room as quickly as he could.
“Well?” Frau Katzenjammer was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. Her face was a mixture of hope and the expectation of disappointment. “What did he want?”
“He wants me to take a message to someone,” Rudi told her, unwilling to burden the poor woman with anything more. “Nothing really important, but it’s been preying on his mind.”
“I see.” The woman nodded, and her shoulders slumped. The disappointment she obviously felt was palpable, it filled the room. She turned to her son. “Find some money, Fritzie.”
“There’s no need for that,” Rudi said hastily. “It’s only a verbal message. I’ll be seeing them anyway. I couldn’t charge you for just helping out, it wouldn’t be right.”
“Nonsense.” Frau Katzenjammer pulled herself erect, and for a moment she displayed a dignity and a fixity of purpose that surprised him. “We Katzenjammers always pay our debts. We’ll not cheat anybody.” Realising that it would be futile to protest any further, and that to do so would only insult her, he acquiesced and took the smallest denomination from the handful of coins Fritz thrust at him. After a few more mumbled pleasantries, which no one consciously spoke or listened to, he regained the street at last.
The door swung closed behind him. On it was the fresh red paint of the crudely daubed hammer of Sigmar that marked it as a dwelling touched by the pestilence. Rudi sighed with relief. The experience hadn’t been as traumatic as he’d imagined, but it had been a great deal more surprising. He shrugged. No doubt Greta would be able to make something of it.
Now there was a thing. He wasn’t looking forward to telling her about Katzenjammers bizarre delusion. Such accusations could run out of control, he knew, and the consequences could be dire. Come to that he wasn’t looking forward to delivering Hans’ message to her daughter either. Hanna could be trying at the best of times, but to be openly accused of being the one thing she most loathed, a witch, would be bound to lead to a spectacular loss of temper. Though he quailed inwardly at the prospect, he knew he’d have to do it. The Katzenjammers had paid him to deliver the message, and he was obligated to do so.
Oh well, there was plenty to do before that had to be faced. He still had three more food parcels and the letter for the Altmans to deliver. That at least was a prospect to look forward to: a long walk out to the farmstead, far away from the claustrophobic streets of Kohlstadt and the ever-present reeks of contagion and fear. Perhaps the clean air of the countryside would clear his head a little, and he could start to make a bit more sense of things. The thought cheered him, and there was something approaching a spring in his step as he readjusted the shoulder strap of his satchel and set out for the next destination on his itinerary.
The rest of his deliveries within the precincts of Kohlstadt took little time to complete, since he was familiar with all three of the houses Magnus had dispatched food to. One household had been an early victim of the plague, while the other two had been among the poorest in the village, and would surely have been in dire straits by now had it not been for the merchant’s generosity.
Dishearteningly one of them now carried the red hammer sigil of the pestilence on its door, so it seemed to have been in vain, although the fresh supply of provender was received as gratefully as ever. Reasoning that he’d already been in the presence of a plague victim today Rudi felt there was no point in timidity. He stood his ground to hand over the package of food instead of knocking, leaving it, and scurrying away as he otherwise might have done. He was rewarded with a warm smile from the housewife who, a few weeks before, would barely have acknowledged him if she’d tripped over him in the street.
After that, with a profound sense of relief, the young forester approached the gates in the stockade around the village, which, as before, were half closed.
“Rudi, lad.” Heinrich Littman was on duty. He still seemed strong and in command, despite the weary set of the shoulders of the two militiamen accompanying him. “Any news from the forest?”
“No sign of the beastmen,” Rudi told him. “We both went out yesterday. I’m sure my father must have told you.”
“Aye, that he did,” Littman nodded slowly. “I’m beginning to think they’ve gone after all.”
“Let’s hope so,” Rudi said fervently. A thought suddenly struck him, something he’d been meaning to ask the sergeant when he saw him. “Do beastmen make campfires?”
“Generally,” Littman nodded. “They’ve got that much intelligence at least. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Rudi shrugged, relieved that his father had been right after all. “Just another sign we didn’t see.”
“Ah. Right,” Littman nodded, as if he understood what Rudi had meant. “Seen Franz at all on your travels?”
“A few hours ago,” Rudi shook his head sympathetically. “He looked about all in. Why?”
“I sent him home for some sleep. He needs it,” Littman looked grave for a moment. “But I wasn’t sure he would.”
“He’ll be fine,” Rudi said, without much conviction. Another thought occurred to him, some extra news that Littman might need to know. “Hans Katzenjammer’s sick, by the way. His brother’s looking after him. So you won’t be seeing either of them for a while, I guess.”
“No change there,” Littman shook his head. “Sigmar knows they’re useless enough at the best of times, but right now I could use even them.” He shrugged. “Still, it can’t be helped. Take care of yourself, lad.”
“I will,” Rudi said, and slipped out of the village with a sense of profound relief. As he passed through the gates into the open countryside he felt his spirits begin to lift. A faint breeze was blowing in across the fields, the scent of ripe growing things as yet untouched by the spreading corruption came sweetly to his nostrils, ruffling his hair like an affectionate hand. Out here the sun felt warm and comfortable against his skin. The rank stifling heat of Kohlstadt dropped away as if he’d stepped out of a bake house into the street.
It was a long way to the Altmans’ farmstead, he knew, but the prospect of the walk was a welcome one. He strode out along the highway, his chest swelling with the fresh clean air, feeling better than he had done all da
y.
CHAPTER NINE
Rudi’s buoyant mood lasted for most of his journey, until he saw the smoke.
At first he paid it no mind; on his errands for Magnus he had become used to seeing threads of smoke rising from the chimneys of the cottages which stood about the valley. Some were clustered together in small hamlets of three to a dozen, others were isolated in the middle of the smallholdings which provided the residents with their livelihoods. Sometimes the scent of burning wood was accompanied by the appetising aromas of baking, cooking vegetables, or occasionally roasting meat. With a sudden shock he realised that these days the chimneys were all denuded of smoke. The farmers and their families were too busy packing all the necessary jobs into the small portion of the day they had left. Between leaving Kohlstadt in the morning and hurrying back to it before the night fell, they had no time to spend cooking. The Altmans, who had the farthest to travel, least of all.
As he looked back along the length of the valley he could see no sign of other fires. A few dispirited figures still toiled in the fields, desperately trying to save what they could before the spreading blight snatched it away from them. It was beginning to look more and more like a losing battle. From where he stood, halfway up the left-hand side of the valley on a path he knew well, he could see the dark stains spreading remorselessly across fields which should be golden with ripe grain, or green with growing vegetables. Despite himself, he caught his breath. It had been some days since he had come this far, and seen so much of the countryside laid out before him. The extent to which the blight had spread in even that short space of time was shocking.
Rudi shaded his eyes and peered into the distance. The tiny black thread, which stood out clearly against the blue summer sky like a crack in a bird’s egg, was definitely rooted in the Altmans’ smallholding. A tingle of unease ran down his spine. He told himself he was being foolish. No doubt the Altmans were burning rubbish, in a desperate attempt to keep their fields free of the spreading taint. Nothing short of burning would prevent an uprooted plant from passing on its corruption. Reassured by the logic of his reasoning he readjusted his satchel, now comfortably light and empty, and resumed his walk towards his destination.
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