Toymaker, The

by Quidt, Jeremy De

  Jacob had one hand across his chest. But his other hand was on the arm of the chair and that was what was wrong. Strangled men would claw with both hands at a rope around their neck, dig their fingers into it until their heels drummed on the floor as the last scraps of breath were throttled out of them.

  But not Jacob.

  He could have pulled at the cord with only one thumbless hand because the other was gripping tightly onto the arm of the chair. Tightly, that is, save for one finger.

  ‘He’s pointing,’ she said.

  Koenig turned round and looked at her, then at Jacob.

  ‘At the wall,’ she said. ‘Look. He’s pointing.’

  And he was.

  Koenig bent over the dead man and followed the line that his finger made, but there was nothing to see.

  ‘Maybe it’s inside the wall,’ said Katta.

  He knelt down, moving the flare to and fro, the better to see. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s something scratched here. A name and a date – two dates. It’s a woman’s name and two dates.’

  ‘Maybe it’s when she lived here,’ said Mathias. He’d screwed his eyes closed again, but he understood what was happening.

  Koenig shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They are big dates. This must be when she lived and when she died.’

  He bent closer. The name – Gelein Merlevede – was so lightly scratched in the plaster that unless you knew it was there, you wouldn’t see it at all.

  ‘There’s more,’ he said.

  He narrowed his eyes and moved the flame nearer. For several moments he didn’t say anything. Then he looked up at Katta. ‘It says, My loving wife Gelein Merlevede.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ she said.

  This time, Koenig smiled, but he didn’t answer.

  ‘How do we know it’s to do with him?’ said Mathias.

  At the door, Stefan hissed them quiet. Something had moved on the landing, but it was only a cat.

  Koenig lowered his voice. ‘Because it’s what he was pointing at when he died,’ he said.

  Straightening and standing up, Koenig began searching about. He picked up a dirty spoon from the table and scratched at the wall with its edge until there was nothing of the writing to be seen.

  ‘Maybe he was trying to tell us,’ he said. ‘Or maybe he was just trying to save his own life – he told me that’s what knowing about the other piece of paper was worth. But whoever killed him didn’t see it, or the writing wouldn’t be there. They’d have scratched it off.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ said Katta.

  ‘It means that Gelein Merlevede has the other piece of paper.’

  She looked at him blankly.

  ‘It’s an inscription on a gravestone,’ said Koenig. ‘Find her grave, and you find the other part of Meiserlann’s paper.’

  ‘Is that all there is to it?’ asked Mathias.

  ‘No,’ said Koenig.

  He moved Stefan aside and, opening the door, looked out into the dark of the landing, holding the flare up so that he could see the stairs above and below.

  ‘You have to do what Jacob didn’t do,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Mathias.

  Koenig turned and looked at him. ‘Stay alive.’

  They went through the dark, empty streets, back to the inn, Katta and Mathias jumping at every shadow. When Koenig shut the door of the room, he put a chair behind it, so that it couldn’t be opened. Then he told them to sleep – it was already the dead hours of the night. He blew out the candles and settled himself into a corner. By the moonlight through the long window, Katta could just make out his shape, see the blue glint on the barrel of the pistol he held in his lap. She was so tired. She tried to think of good things happening to her – of finding riches and treasures, of the procession of the golden angel with bells ringing and people in the crowd, but all she could see when she shut her eyes was the face of the Duke, and of Jacob, dead in his dirty chair. As sleep opened its arms for her, it was their faces that followed her into its darkness and filled every part of her dreams.

  ‘Wake up!’ said Koenig.

  He was shaking her. She blinked. The room was full of morning light. Mathias and Stefan were eating bread at the big table.

  ‘You needed sleep,’ he said. ‘Now you must get up. There are things to do.’

  ‘Like what?’ she said.

  He didn’t answer her. He was impatient to be out of the room, she could see that. He picked up the saddlebags and strapped them shut. Then he took the bread that hadn’t already been eaten and pushed it into his coat pocket.

  ‘Come. Now,’ he said.

  Stefan picked up his bag.

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Katta.

  ‘You ask too many questions,’ said Koenig.

  ‘It’s what you do when people don’t tell you nothin’,’ she said.

  But he didn’t pay her any attention. He checked the pistols and, putting one of them inside his coat, slipped the other beneath the strap of a saddlebag.

  ‘You already know,’ he said when he’d finished.

  Then she remembered Gelein Merlevede and the writing on the wall. ‘We’re going to find a grave?’ she said, and shuddered.

  ‘No,’ said Koenig, and only then did he look at her. ‘We’re going to find a doctor.’

  He led them down to the stables where Razor was tethered, and put the saddlebags on the ground beneath the horse’s head, then covered them over with straw. The stableboy pretended not to watch, but he did it too casually, and Koenig saw.

  ‘Don’t even think of touching them,’ he said. He ran his hand along the glossy side of the big horse. ‘He kicked the last man who was stupid enough to do that.’ He put his face close to that of the boy. ‘They never found one half of his head.’

  The boy grinned. Then, uncertain of the joke, he looked from Koenig to the huge horse. It turned its head and he could see the wild white of its eye and then realized that, just maybe, Koenig hadn’t been joking.

  Koenig patted him on the cheek. ‘Just leave them where they are,’ he said menacingly, and gave the boy a coin. ‘Another one,’ he added, ‘if you are still alive when I come back.’

  Katta hadn’t believed Koenig the day before when he’d said he’d take Mathias to a doctor. She’d thought he’d only said it to keep her quiet until he had the chance to meet Jacob again. But she was wrong.

  The doctor was a nervous young man, fresh from the University Medical School. His treatment room was the best he could manage on an empty pocket. Mathias sat grey-faced and shirtless on the examining table, his legs dangling over the edge. He made small keening sounds as the doctor ran his hands over the places that hurt.

  ‘This boy should be in a hospital,’ the doctor said.

  ‘We don’t have that choice,’ answered Koenig. ‘What can you do for him?’

  ‘His ribs are broken. He is not well.’

  ‘I think we already know that,’ said Koenig coldly. ‘I asked, What can you do for him?’

  Koenig had an unsettling effect on people. It was those hard, unwavering grey eyes. The doctor might have been a rabbit in front of a wolf.

  ‘I can stitch him,’ he began hesitantly. ‘Pull the broken ribs straight – they are against his lung; that is why he is so grey. I can strap him.’

  ‘Will that make him any better?’ said Koenig.

  ‘Yes,’ said the doctor uncertainly. Then, more confidently, ‘Yes, it will. But he needs to rest.’

  Koenig shook his head.

  The doctor didn’t seem to know what to say next, whether to argue the point or not, but Koenig stood, hard-faced, and said nothing. In the end the doctor let out a long breath.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ said Koenig and smiled. He managed to look even more dangerous when he did.

  Mathias watched uncomfortably as the doctor opened a cupboard and, laying out a tray, began to make his things ready.

  ‘If you die in this c
ity,’ said Koenig, ‘who knows where you are buried?’

  The doctor put the tray down. ‘Your family would, I suppose,’ he said hesitantly.

  Koenig frowned impatiently.

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean,’ said the doctor quickly. ‘You mean records. Well, that depends where you are buried – which quarter of the city. They each have their own records.’

  ‘How many cemeteries are there?’ said Koenig.

  ‘Four? Five? Not counting the crypts – you know, beneath the churches. And the ossuaries – but that would only be bones.’

  ‘How many crypts?’

  The young man blew out his cheeks. ‘Dozens,’ he said, shaking his head.

  Katta caught Koenig’s eye. ‘Where would you be buried,’ she said, ‘if you was to die near The Bear?’

  ‘I don’t think I know where that is,’ said the doctor.

  He wasn’t used to being questioned by scruffy girls, but Koenig saw at once what she meant.

  ‘Near the harbour,’ he said. ‘There’s a river and a bridge.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the doctor. He picked up his tray again and checked that he had the right instruments on it. ‘That – would – be,’ he said slowly, ‘Saints Maximilian and Mary. Or one of the crypts,’ he added. ‘Yes. Maximilian and Mary.’

  He put his hand on Mathias’s good shoulder and smiled at him, then looked up at Koenig. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘You need to hold the boy.’

  ‘You are very clever,’ said Koenig when they were in the street again.

  ‘Stands to reason,’ said Katta. ‘If it was Jacob what hid it, he wouldn’t have gone far, would he, see? So it has to be the nearest one.’

  She felt very pleased with herself. She might not know what was going to happen next, but she was a part of it now, and Koenig might need her yet.

  But she wouldn’t have felt so pleased if at that moment she’d turned round and seen the look on Stefan’s face. He was thinking that he could have been clever like her too. That he could have thought where Jacob had hidden the paper, if he’d been given the chance. But he hadn’t, and it was Katta who had taken it from him.

  Always Katta.

  Well, he could see to that.

  Mathias looked more grey than he had done before, but the doctor said that was to be expected. His shoulder had been cleaned and stitched. The broken ribs pulled, painfully, back into their right place with a piece of wire. Now he had to heal: all that he needed was rest. It was hardly what he was going to get, though.

  They walked across the city, through the winding alleys, until they found the cemetery of the Saints Maximilian and Mary. There was a high stone wall about it and it was closed with heavy iron gates. Koenig pushed the gates open. There was snow and ice on the paths. It was a soulless place. There was not a sound. People would not come here other than to bury their dead, or be buried. There were no noises of the living city – of people or barking dogs. It was as if the sounds had died too. There were only the dead here, and they did not speak.

  They stood together in the cold, looking at the rows of snow-covered graves and tombs. Some had iron railings around them; others were broken and fallen down. There was a chill wind. Katta shivered. She didn’t like graves – didn’t want to die and lie with the worms beneath all that suffocating earth.

  ‘There’s hundreds,’ she said.

  ‘We go different ways,’ said Koenig. ‘We each take a row. And we look.’

  ‘I’ll go with him,’ said Katta quickly. She put her arm through Mathias’s. ‘He might need help.’

  ‘All right,’ said Koenig. ‘Call out if you find it.’

  Holding onto him, Katta led Mathias between the graves. She broke sticks of ivy from a headstone and used them to brush the snow away from the letters.

  ‘You’ll have to read it,’ she said.

  Mathias carefully traced the words with his fingertips, his lips moving slowly as he did so, but it wasn’t the one. Nor was the next. Nor the next. Nor the next.

  Mathias felt as though they’d been looking for hours. He was cold and sick. He looked around at all the graves. It was hopeless. He could see Koenig far away amongst the tombs close by the wall. Stefan was sitting on a headstone, tapping a stick on his boots.

  ‘It could be anywhere,’ said Mathias, and there was despair in his voice. ‘It might not even be here.’

  But Katta was sure it was. The only thing she could think of now was finding it.

  ‘All we gotta do is look,’ she said. ‘Whatever it is, he’d have hid it in the nearest place, and that’s here.’ She took his arm again and drew him along the path to where the next row of graves began. ‘Come on,’ she said.

  And she was right.

  Gelein Merlevede had been buried without fuss. A simple stone. It had fallen sideways and was half grown over. It could have been any grave. And that perhaps was the point. It didn’t stand out as special. You would have to look for it to find it. Katta brushed the snow from it, as she had done a hundred times already. Her fingers were cold and raw. She was already walking on to the next stone when she realized that Mathias hadn’t followed her. She looked back at him and saw at once from the way that he was standing, staring at the stone, that they’d found the one they were looking for. She ran back towards him. He glanced up at her, then back at the stone. Her heart was pounding. Running his finger along the line of frost-worn letters, he said each word slowly so as to be quite sure he hadn’t made a mistake.

  ‘My loving wife Gelein Merlevede. It’s her,’ he said. ‘This is the one.’

  Then he looked at Katta and she knew what he meant without him saying a word. Whatever the secret was, they’d found it – and they didn’t have to tell.

  Koenig was still searching. They could see him, moving among the stones far away to their left. If he looked up now, he’d know straight away that they’d found it.

  Mathias couldn’t see where Stefan was. He turned one way then the other, but Stefan had been bending down reading a stone only a dozen rows away. As he stood up, he happened to look straight at Mathias and the expression on his face told him everything. He started shouting, ‘Koenig! Koenig!’ and began to run towards Mathias, pointing and beckoning to Koenig as he ran.

  When Koenig reached the place where they stood, he moved Mathias to one side and roughly brushed the last of the frost from the inscription with his hand. His breath left cold clouds in the air.

  ‘Gelein Merlevede,’ he said.

  He ran his hand around the edges of the stone, feeling for any crack or crevice where something might be hidden. But there was nothing there. Standing up, he kicked the snow away, clearing the grave, but there was just bare, frozen earth and yellowed grass.

  ‘It must be in it,’ he said.

  He cast his eyes around. Beside the cemetery gates was a small stone hut.

  Newly dead bodies were valuable things. The medical schools paid well for them. They didn’t always ask too carefully where they had come from. That’s why the hut was there. It stopped people from digging up the fresh body. Family or friends could shelter there and watch over the grave. After a few days a body was no use to anyone any more. Then they could go home, knowing that it wouldn’t end up on a medical school’s slab. The gravedigger used it as well, for his tools, and that was what Koenig was looking for. He began walking towards the hut.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ said Katta.

  There was a tremor in her voice. Stefan heard it and grinned. About them, the shadows were deepening, the sky beginning to redden as the day closed.

  ‘We wait until it’s dark,’ said Koenig.

  ‘Then what?’

  Stefan pushed his face close to hers. ‘Leje tel lankos,’ he whispered.

  She looked at Koenig but she already knew what the words meant.

  ‘We dig it up.’

  22

  The Small Lead Box

  The stone floor of the hut was raised higher than the cemetery it looked out upon. This made it easier for
people to watch over the graves. There were three steps up. A shutter served as a window. Inside, against one wall, the gravedigger had propped his pick and long-handled spade. His ropes and boards were there too. There was a bench, a stool, and the stub of a candle in a niche, but nothing else. It was colder inside than out.

  Katta and Mathias sat on the bench, pressed against each other for warmth. They watched the sky through the shuttered window as it steadily deepened in colour. Stefan sat at the bottom of the steps. As it grew darker, he came back in. He lifted the pick from the wall and began chipping holes in the stone floor with it. It made a hollow, empty thump.

  Thump.

  ‘Tell him to stop doing that,’ said Katta.

  Stefan looked up at her and said something to Koenig in Burner. Koenig glanced at Katta, then away.

  ‘What did he say?’ she said.

  ‘It does not matter,’ said Koenig.

  Stefan grinned at her. It made her want to slap his face.

  ‘I want to know,’ she said.

  Koenig didn’t answer. He went down the steps and stood looking out into the frosty air as the last of the light dwindled and faded. Mathias put his hand on Katta’s sleeve – she knew what he meant. She took a deep breath and turned her back on Stefan.

  Thump, went the pick again.

  She tried to shut her ears to it, but she couldn’t. It only made what she was thinking worse. It was wrong to open a grave, she knew that. If you did, you let dead things come out – rotting and eyeless – and they would creep after you for ever; even if you hid in a church, they’d scratch at the door outside. She’d been told once by someone who knew. She could feel her palms damp, her mouth like ash. She wiped her hands on her coat. What if the paper were right in the coffin? What if Gelein Merlevede were holding it in her hand? She looked at Koenig, standing in the fading light. It wouldn’t stop him, she thought; he’d dig it up all the same. But maybe, if she didn’t stand too close, it wouldn’t come after her.

  Koenig came back up the steps. ‘The moon is rising,’ he said, taking the spade from the wall.