01 - Honour of the Grave

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

Franziskus put up his hands. “I’m sorry, Lukas, but I’ve made avow…”

  “I’ll be at the Hat and Pony,” Lukas said. Then he ran out of the courtyard.

  “Go ahead,” said Angelika, as Franziskus watched him go. “Go with him. I can tell you want to.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  The coach pulled away, exposing them to the rapidly thinning crowd. They moved into it, receiving little attention from the people of Grenzstadt. They listened in as the consequences of Marius’ appearance were debated:

  “Death and woe will be the result of this, I tell you.”

  “—seemed right in the head, comparatively—”

  “—won’t miss him one inch—”

  “—didn’t seem happy to do it, did he?”

  “—won’t have the strategy we did with Jurgen, but Runefang will make up for it.”

  “So you hope.”

  They broke from the crowd at Jurgen’s gate. “And what of us?” Franziskus asked. “What do we do? Where do we go?”

  “Our business here is not quite concluded,” Angelika said, making her way north, toward the estates of the wealthy. Franziskus followed, thinking of the quick glimpse he’d had of the count’s face. There was a scar on it, old, and well-healed, but noticeable nonetheless. It was a white diagonal line that stretched from the hairline, over the bridge of his straight and sloping nose, all the way to his jawbone. Something about the scar’s position on the elector’s face tugged at Franziskus’ memory, and he was sure that if he could just kept thinking about it, its significance would spring eventually to mind.

  The two of them found Brucke’s carriage, identifying it by its Leitdorf colours. It was in the manor lane, not far from where they’d been when they passed it in the carriage. The manor, a thin, dark building, had seen prouder days; greenish stains ran down its walls from its roof troughs. Scorch marks marred the wooden posts of its lopsided porch. As for the grounds, crickets croaked from thorny patches of untended vegetation. Neglect freed topiary trees from their obligations; new shoots and leaves struggled to shrug off their old forms. Soon they would not look at all like blocks, or domes, or spires; they would just be yews again. Old stone statues, faces worn into complacency by centuries of rain, regarded them with satisfied complicity.

  The pair hopped—Angelika first, then Franziskus—over the low stone walls and onto its mossy lawn. Franziskus crept low. Angelika told him to stop looking like a thief or night-skulker. She straightened her posture, and strode boldly up the laneway. They saw no signs of life or movement, not through the shuttered windows, or on the narrow porch.

  Angelika walked past the porch to the side of the house. She found a wooden cellar door, secured with a rusted padlock. With the flat of her dagger, she easily pried it open. She lifted the door and slipped in.

  Franziskus landed behind her, touching down on a moist earthen floor. They stood among bundles of carrots and parsnips. Franziskus had left the door open, giving them sufficient light to see a set of well-worn steps leading up to an unpainted door. Angelika tested the third step with the toe of her boot, wincing when it creaked. She stepped delicately up onto the steps, moving with slow fastidiousness, minimising the noise they made. She got to the top, tried the handle, and found it unlocked. She teased the doorknob from its mechanism. When opened, the door revealed a small pantry, which adjoined a larger kitchen, hung with pots and cooking implements. A black-bellied stove sat cold in a cobwebbed corner. She beckoned for Franziskus to remain below, and vanished from his sight.

  A few exhausting minutes later, Franziskus heard a crash directly above his head. He bounded up the steps, through the kitchen, and into a drawing room filled with furniture that smelled faintly of mildew.

  “You should have stayed in the cellar,” Angelika told him. “I was about to bring her down to you.”

  She held her knife to Petrine Guillame’s throat. Petrine sat on a low couch, upholstered in dusty green. Her flaxen hair, perched up on her head, in an elaborate coiffure, was held in place by jade-tipped pins. She wore a gown of blue brocade, much finer than her previous garb. Her delicate hands lay on her knees with relaxed composure. A complex aroma of spice and persimmons wafted from the back of her neck to Franziskus’ nose.

  “Have a seat, Franziskus,” Petrine said, patting the cushion beside her. Now she spoke with only the slightest whisper of a Bretonnian accent. Though she’d replaced feminine breathiness with a piercing clarity, Franziskus could not say that he found the new voice entirely unseductive.

  “Go ahead,” Angelika told him. But he knew better, and looked towards an open archway that led to a set of narrow stairs.

  “Is anyone else here?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” answered Petrine, “though you’re welcome to look. The count maintains his own local manor, near the north gate. Anton has his staff over there, helping to reopen it. It’s been neglected for many years, I’m afraid…” Franziskus saw that she was slowly feeding a long, needle-like device from the sleeve of her gown.

  “Drop it or die,” Angelika told her.

  It tinkled to the floor. A small quantity of green tincture had been applied to its sharp end. Angelika sniffed the air. “Erasmal’s Wort?”

  “A new hybrid, unique to my herbarium.”

  “Dangerous, if it pricks you.”

  “I’ve rendered myself immune, through consumption of antidote.”

  Angelika kicked the needle under the couch.

  “You would lose respect for me if I didn’t try anything,” Petrine explained, shrugging slimly.

  Franziskus saw a variety of strange metal parts laid out on a side-table, and walked over to examine them. He picked up gears, wheels, belts, and an ornamented casing that looked as if it were meant to be placed on the head. Dark grease smeared his fingers. He rubbed them clean on the lacy edge of a doily.

  “One of the count’s inventions,” Petrine told him. “I’m not sure what it’s meant to do. Cure his moods, perhaps. He tinkered away at it as he waited to make his grand entrance.”

  “How long has he been here?” Angelika asked.

  “He arrived a few days before you.”

  “And it’s him you answer to, through Brucke. Prince Davio has nothing to do with this.”

  Petrine curtly nodded. “We required a scapegoat if things went awry. Jurgen’s campaign against the border princes made Davio the obvious candidate.” She suppressed a feline smile.

  “You feel no shame for your base deceit?” Franziskus blurted. Both women’s faces turned to him; his cheeks bloomed red.

  “If it is any consolation, mon cher, there would surely be no man happier than Davio to see Jurgen stripped of all rank.” She shifted her attention back to Angelika. “Obviously, the count’s stratagem fails if his hand is seen in it. Will his hand be seen in it?”

  “That remains subject to negotiation,” Angelika said, pulling up a chair to sit opposite Petrine. She kept the dagger pointed at her fine Bretonnian breastbone. “First, you tell me if I have it all correct. The count enjoys few things more than leading his troops into battle, but every so often he goes embarrassingly mad. Until recently, he’s been in a lunatic phase, and during that time, his man, Jurgen, became a little too popular for his own good.”

  “It has happened before in Averland’s history—tension between the elector and the head of the Sabres.”

  “The count wants to get rid of him, without looking ungrateful and petulant.”

  “When lucid, Leitdorf suffers from a curious need to be loved by his rabble. Some might call this a greater madness.”

  “Or maybe he’s clever,” Franziskus interjected, “and knows he stands a better chance of winning the war if the soldiers stand behind him.”

  “Perhaps,” Petrine allowed.

  “So the count gets word that one of von Kopfs has possibly fled from battle, and gets word to the Brucke, who gets word to you, and you hire Goatfield and his cronies. All to get Lukas here, to Grenzstadt, to engine
er the scene we saw this morning. Marius knew of the Sabre vow, and of Jurgen’s inflexible cast of mind. So he showed Jurgen up in public, as the heartless, arrogant fanatic he is. In that way he could take up his command again without a hint of mutiny.”

  “All went according to plan, then?”

  “The soldiers are still doubtful—but for men who only yesterday considered Jurgen second in importance only to Sigmar himself, I’d say your count accomplished his objectives.”

  “Then I am proven wrong. I was sure that Jurgen would become clever at the last moment. I never like a scheme that relies entirely on one man’s stupidity.”

  “Not stupidity—blindness. And blindness is extremely reliable.”

  “I bow to your superior insight. You were present, I take it? Did you need sparing? I told Anton to make sure you were pardoned, if necessary.”

  “You saved us the nuisance of escaping. Why the concern?”

  She shrugged. “You caused us some trouble, granted, but ultimately you served us well. You kept Jurgen distracted and angry,, which is how we wanted him.”

  “And that’s why you sprang us from Jurgen’s jail cell.”

  “Naturellement.”

  “Thank you for that, incidentally.”

  “Not at all. Please put the knife down, so I needn’t say this under duress.”

  Angelika kept the knife steady.

  “Very well.” Petrine sighed. “I think you two might be of future use to us. You can’t imagine how tiresome it is, trying to get the likes of Toby Goatfield to execute a delicate mission properly.”

  “As a matter of fact, I can imagine that.”

  “There’s good pay in it. You won’t need to soil yourself anymore, rooting through wormy corpses. And Franziskus, you can still be of great service to the Empire. To a crucial part of it, at any rate.”

  “What kind of pay?” Angelika demanded.

  “It will depend on the nature of the work, but it will be much more than you earn now, I guarantee it.”

  “And if I say no?”

  Petrine looked at the knife. “You have me at your mercy. But it is not me who will determine the ultimate outcome here, as you well suspect. If you leave without making a commitment, my benefactor may well feel uneasy. You know too much to be left to roam about, unfettered by loyalty. The count has taken a close interest in your story, Angelika.”

  Angelika edged her chair nearer to Petrine. It scraped loudly. “Even with the threat,” she said, “my answer is no. My answer is: not for a second would I even dream of serving Marius Leitdorf in any way. Franziskus, what say you?”

  “I do as you do,” he said, straightening his back.

  “We will both regret this, Angelika,” said Petrine.

  “You’ll regret it sooner than I do,” replied Angelika. She stood up, seized Petrine by the nape of her neck, and pushed her velvety throat toward the point of her blade.

  “Don’t,” said Petrine. For the first time there was an edge in her voice.

  “You had us nearly killed. Casually, when we were inconvenient to you, you sent us off to be beaten like dogs. By people who had nothing to do with anything, and who lost their home as a result. You used us all, like pawns to be swept off a chessboard. I don’t have the words to describe the agony we lived through, in that pit. Did you think I wouldn’t want to make you pay for that?”

  “Remember the money,” Petrine said.

  “There’s a few things even I find more precious than gold.”

  “Franziskus,” she choked, as Angelika pushed her closer to the blade-tip, “stop her.”

  He crossed his arms.

  “Please!” Petrine shrieked.

  Angelika seized her hair and pulled her, wailing, onto the floor, until she was on hands and knees. “If it were you with the knife, and me helpless before you,” Angelika said, “I’d already be dead. Be thankful I’m not as much like you as you thought.”

  Thunder rolled overhead. Angelika turned to the shuttered windows, through which bright sunlight streamed. She opened them. The sky was blue and clear. The thunder continued, it grew louder; it was coming from the south.

  “War drums,” she said. “Orcs!” She hesitated. “Lukas!” she said. She ran.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  They stood on the city walls, looking south to the mouth of the Blackfire Pass. Now she could see where its name came from. Billowing, inky plumes rose into the air above it. The orcs were burning the forests. They had decided that the trees in the foothills were their enemies. And orcs did only one thing with their enemies—they destroyed them. They would deprive their human foes of the cover Jurgen had used so well against them in previous battles.

  The crashing of the drums continued, relentless, like waves on a stony shore. Angelika could not guess how many green-skinned drummers it would take to produce such a cacophony. And for every drummer there would be at least a hundred warriors, armed with heavy axes and massive swords. Angelika did not need to see them to imagine how they looked. She could still remember them as they had been when she rescued Franziskus from an orcish war wagon: their enormous frames, their blocky muscles. Their great, mask-hard faces, mottled with warts and scars. Mouths dripping slime. Nails sharp and fecund with disease. Gulping in good air and breathing out the stench of hell. But most of all, it was their eyes that jabbed through her recollections, to terrify her all over again: narrow, beady, and filled with malice and a craving for blood.

  On the plain outside the town, Marius reared on his charger, spearing the sky with his well-polished sword, as his sergeants did the real work of assembling the Averlandish regiments into battle formation. The state of Marius’ preparations was not Angelika’s main interest, and she wasted little time counting columns or identifying war banners. Still, she saw nearly a thousand infantrymen, several units of cavalry, and a good scattering of scouts, militia, and mercenary irregulars, attracted to the battle scene by the promise of gold. Wide-eyed flagellants had gathered, in their hot and itchy robes, ready to throw themselves onto the blades of the foe, in fatal expiation of crimes real or imagined. There were cannoneers, who would be fairly useless in a rolling skirmish against advancing orcs. Off to one side, the full complement of Black Field Sabres uncertainly milled, as a commander Angelika did not recognise shouted down at them from horseback. He was gesticulating with wild vigour. This would be one of the other illegitimate Kopfs, Angelika surmised, raised up from the ranks of Benno and Gelfrat’s unnamed rivals. He exhorted their obedience without detectable result.

  She tore her eyes from the scene outside the town walls. She reminded herself why she’d come here—to look down on Grenzstadt’s streets and laneways, in the hope of finding Lukas. With Marius gone to war, his protection would be absent, too.

  “The Hat and Pony,” she prompted Franziskus. “You’re certain you have no idea where it is?” She was sure, at least, that this is where he said he was headed, when he’d run off.

  “Just as certain as the last time you asked, and the time before that. It’s just one tavern in this enormous town. And I certainly don’t see a sign with a hat and a pony on it from here.”

  “What’s got into you? You’re the one who likes the little snot. You spoke with him, on the trail. What did he tell you about his friends?”

  “He didn’t have any. Everyone shunned him, he said. He said he tried to recite his epic poetry, but the talentless scribes in town laughed at him.”

  “So it will be near a bookseller’s, perhaps…”

  “But why don’t we just ask someone where it is?”

  Angelika shook her head in exasperation. “Because we’re wanted by—” She stopped herself short. A crimson flush rose up to colour her chalky face. “No, we’ve been pardoned. So there’s no good reason why we couldn’t just ask someone.” She worked her lower lip beneath her teeth. “So you could have told me this earlier,” she recriminated, spinning on her heel and rushing for the nearest set of stairs.

  The first Gren
zstadter they found was a red-hatted old man with only a few teeth left. He claimed to know the Hat and Pony well, and happily provided elaborate and incomprehensible directions. They ran through the lanes and alleys of Grenzstadt, Franziskus puffing to keep up with Angelika. They ducked under planks carried by scurrying townsfolk, who were rushing home to board up their doors and windows. They careened through a brawl of beggars, fighting over squatting rights to an abandoned basement. They shrank back against a wall to evade the charge of a loose and maddened horse, its reins flying out behind it. They found the bookseller’s, its shutters already nailed together, its iron-shod door securely locked.

  Angelika turned her head to listen for laughter and the clattering of flagons against tables. Even in a town under threat of invasion, the last places to close were always the taverns.

  “There!” she pointed. Across the lane and four doors down, a painted sign protruded out over the street on a wrought-iron bracket. A swelling wind creaked it from side to side. On the sign, a grinning pony wore a ridiculous hat. Angelika sprinted for the door beneath it.

  The smell of boiling chicken made siege on her nostrils. A sleepy-eyed man with a well-fattened face stood before an iron cauldron, wearing only a leather apron and a pair of worn trousers speckled with paint and gravy. He stirred the soup with a wooden paddle. With his free hand, he wiped sweat from his balding pate. Angelika leapt over the threshold.

  “Have you seen—” she asked him. She turned and saw Lukas, sitting amid a knot of drunken, red-faced men. Lukas did not have a cup in front of him, but he did have a bowl of soup, filled to the brim. The men wore ragged finery; their fashions, on average, two decades out of date. Years of methodical drinking had brought twisting veins to the surfaces of their cheeks and noses. Pot bellies bulged above their belts.

  “Poets,” said Angelika, grimly.

  One of them, the oldest but with hints of handsomeness still clinging to his ruined face, had been in the middle of a rude stanza when Angelika had burst in. It was the old one about the charwoman from Altdorf. The man stood with open mouth and flagon frozen stupidly up beside his head. Angelika sneaked a dagger from her belt and held it in his general direction. “Clear out,” she told them.