1 the claws of chaos

by ich du

  'Aah, but that's the rub isn't it?' Fleischkemp replied with a grimace. 'The prices go up but profits are down. The food is running out, we're totally ill-prepared for this, and that will be blamed on the guilds. Kirche lined his pockets over the last years when the going was not too bad, but now he's going to have to pay back on those assurances when businesses close because we have nothing to sell, and there's no love for the guilds amongst many of the common people.'

  They reached the shop and the baker shouldered open the door, kicking the snow off his boots before stomping inside and pulling his cloak off. Ursula followed suit, taking the cloth off the top of her basket and shaking the snow onto the low step. Inside it was warm and welcoming, filled with the smell of freshly baked bread, the oven glowing ruddily from behind the counter. The racks that flanked the door to the oven room were almost bare, the few loaves on the shelves were small and misshapen.

  'I'm eking out the flour as long as I can.' Fleischkemp explained after noticing Ursula's look. 'I've got three and a half sacks left, but if the weather doesn't ease there'll be no more from the mills for a while yet.'

  'I heard there were rats in Stein's store.' Ursula commented, placing her basket on the counter.

  'That's the real rub.' Fleischkemp replied with a sad shake of his head. 'That's been the real disaster, and there's no explaining it. The granaries over on the other side of town have had no problems, but like everyone else they've raised their prices. The rich folk don't want to come out in this snow and I can't afford to keep a delivery boy, so they go elsewhere. That means I can't afford more flour, and I pay good money to keep a shop here so close to the market square.'

  'Well, here's a little custom, though not much I'm afraid.' Ursula said with a rueful smile, picking a handful of pennies from the pocket of her coat and dropping them on to the counter top. Kurt always gave her a little money while he was away, but she was loth to spend too much, as she had no idea when he would return. At the same time, she hated living on charity, whether it was Brother Theobald's or Kurt's.

  'I feel a little bad, putting prices up and taking more money from people at a time like this,' the baker told her, but he still swept the coins into his hand and placed them in a drawer beneath the counter. He took a loaf from the shelves and deftly wrapped it in the cloth proffered by Ursula. 'But I guess it helps nobody if I starve as well.'

  'You're too kind-hearted to be a merchant.' joked Ursula, receiving a woeful nod in reply. Placing the loaf in her basket, she took a step towards the door before turning back to the baker.

  'I could do with a couple of shillings to add to what I have.' she said. She preferred not to talk about the money Kurt left her; the townsfolk would no doubt twist the meaning behind it to something sordid. 'I could make deliveries for you if you like, and I'll be cheaper than anyone else.'

  Fleischkemp avoided her gaze and busied himself under the counter for a moment.

  'What's wrong with that?' Ursula demanded, feeling her temper rising. 'Why not?'

  'Well.' the baker replied without meeting her eye, 'I'd lose more customers than I gained.'

  'How so?' Ursula asked, striding back to the counter. 'You said yourself you'd get more of the households from around the square.'

  'Yes, and lose the ones on the Sigmarstrasse and Bechafenstrasse.' he replied defensively. 'There's families round here asked me for jobs for their sons or daughters who I've had to turn down, and they'd not come back if they see I've given one to you. You know you're not the most popular lass in the town, and some folks would turn their backs on me too. And besides, those that can afford delivery can afford to send servants out, and people with money prefer not to spend more than they have to.'

  Ursula's anger subsided and was replaced by sadness. Without further word, she turned and started to walk out. As she pushed open the door, she looked back at Fleischkemp.

  'In two years here, no one has given me a chance,' she said bitterly. 'How long am I going to be the outsider, the stranger? Kurt wasn't born here, yet he's welcomed like a long lost son.'

  'I'm afraid that's people for you,' the baker said after a moment. 'He's a knight, he makes them feel like Badenhof is important. What do you do for them?'

  IT WAS THREE more weeks of tension, arguments and recriminations before things came to a head. More bodies had gone missing from the graveyards, the weather had let up slightly and news had arrived from outside the town. The news was not encouraging. Livestock had died in droves out on the farms, and many were still cut off by the extremely harsh conditions. The roads were still too clogged with snow for carts and what little food that came in was carried on horseback. These meagre supplies had been quickly snapped up by the richer town inhabitants, who offered more money for fresh meat than the bulk of the population could even dream of matching.

  There was also news from further afield. With the sporadic arrival of merchants and farmers came growing rumours that a small army was currently moving across the north of the Ostermark, led by the witch hunter Marius van Diesl. Some speculated that he was going to the capital, Bechafen, but others claimed that his route was more southerly, and that he was on his way to Badenhof. This caused mixed reactions. There were those who said the witch hunter would be welcome, and that he would root out the cause of the grave-robbing and missing children. The town leaders argued against this, claiming that outside interference was the last thing that was needed, and that the perpetrators of the ghastly crimes would go to ground if such a force arrived. The more suspicious of the townsfolk began to point accusing fingers at their neighbours, and under pressure from the merchants and craftsmen, three dozen more men had been drafted into the town watch to patrol the richer neighbourhoods and the market square. This in itself had caused upset, since they were all guild members currently out of work due to the collapsing economy of the town.

  In that time Ursula had tried to keep to herself, out of harm's way and the ever more spiteful accusations of Emerelde Linde. Despite this, she went to the shrine every day and prayed. She prayed for the people of Badenhof to show patience and tolerance, even though she cursed them inwardly for their narrow-mindedness and superstitious natures. It was during her morning ritual that trouble caught up with her.

  Ursula was kneeling before the statue of Sigmar as usual, having placed her garland about his arm. The main doors slammed open and the tramp of booted feet caused the young woman to turn and look to see what the commotion was. Four men marched into the church. They wore red ribbons tied around their left arms, identifying them as deputised watchmen. Behind them, Ursula could see Frau Linde.

  'That's her, she's the one!' the housewife called out in her shrill voice, pointing at Ursula.

  As the men approached closer, Ursula stood, annoyed at the interruption.

  'Leave me to pray in peace!' Ursula snapped, tossing her head in agitation, wisps of red hair falling across her face.

  'You're Ursula Schek?' one of the men demanded, an unshaven and unkempt fellow only a little older than Ursula herself.

  'Who are you?' Ursula shot back, jabbing a finger at the four of them. 'Who are you to barge into Sigmar's house and disturb his worshippers?'

  'I'm Klaus Kurntz, town watch,' the man replied, stepping forward. 'Accusations have been made, and I've orders to take you to the watch house to answer some questions.'

  'Accusations?' Ursula replied, fighting to keep her temper. She looked at Emerelde. 'From her?'

  'Look, just come with us and it'll be sorted out, alright?' said the portly man just behind Kurntz. He was an ex-joiner she knew, called Fredrick Bille, who had been out of work for a year at least. He seemed embarrassed to be there, and when she looked at the others, she could tell that she had been overly harsh on them. They looked plaintively at her, obviously not at ease with what they had to do, silently willing her to come quietly with them.

  'Wait for me outside while I finish my prayers,' she told them. When they hesitated, she crossed her arms and gave them a withering
stare and they started to walk away.

  'What are you doing?' shrieked Emerelde. 'Arrest her like you were told to!'

  The group of men ignored her, one of them grabbing her gently by the arm and guiding her outside. Ursula took a moment to calm herself, breathing deeply to regain some composure. She would go when she was good and ready.

  THE OLD WATCH house had been very busy of late with the growing troubles of the town. It was situated at the northeastern corner of the town hall, on the opposite side to the market square. Cut into the street where the cobbles met the watch house wall were a dozen small cell windows, each a semicircle in shape and roughly a foot across, unglazed and barred with wire mesh. The smell of effluent wafted out from the cells beyond, tainting the crisp winter air. The clink and rattle of chains and echoing murmur of voices broke the early morning silence.

  As Klaus opened the heavy iron door to the watch house, a wave of noise washed over the group. Babbling voices competed with shouts, sobs, bellows of anger and wailing children. With two watchmen in front and two behind her, Ursula was shepherded into the building into the roiling crowd.

  The hall in which they stood was a low and wide square. Just overhead the wooden ceiling was supported by thick beams that brushed the top of people's heads, and at its centre the town's arms were carved out in age-worn relief. The stone walls were blackened by smoke from torches in open sconces, and the air was thick with the smell of people and guttering brands. Packed between the bare stone brickwork was a sea of people. The red flashes of the watchmen's armbands were everywhere; scuffling with surly-looking youths, comforting crying women, arguing with their charges and each other. Behind a counter built up out of the stone floor itself, three watch captains vainly tried to instil some form of order; alternating between outright threats and unashamed pleading. Ursula's group shouldered their way through the throng until they were stood in front of one of the captains.

  'Ah, Kurntz,' exclaimed the man, a bleary-eyed fellow in his middle age, with a distinctive jagged scar running from his chin across his right cheek. Ursula recognised him as one of the regular watchmen who used to patrol the Bechafenstrasse near the shrine, who had obviously been promoted to try to control the recent influx of inexperienced recruits. 'Yes, this is the Schek woman. Take her to the magistrate!'

  Before she could say anything, Ursula was pulled by the arm through an archway to the right of the counter and pushed unceremoniously down the corridor beyond into a small antechamber. There she was made to sit on a bench ornately carved from dark red wood and told to wait until she was called for, the door slamming shut behind the guards as they left. She heard a cough and the scraping of boots, which indicated that at least one of the men was stood just outside the door.

  Two doors led off from the room, flanking an alcove containing a statue of Verena, goddess of justice and law. It was bronze, about twenty inches high and depicted a tall, beautiful woman, with thick hair, swathed in a long robe. On her right shoulder sat an owl, its head inclined towards her as if whispering in her ear. In her right hand she held a thin sword by her side, while in her left she carried a set of scales. It was plain and not particularly well sculpted, and the bronze was tarnishing in many places. Ursula hoped it was not a bad sign that the goddess of fairness and wisdom was allowed to fall into decay.

  Growing bored, Ursula started tapping her foot on the plain stone floor. She turned her attention to the bench she was sitting on.

  With a disgusted gasp, Ursula jumped to her feet, staring at the piece of furniture in horror. What she had taken to be ornate scrollwork was in fact a design wrought from the intertwining bodies of writhing daemons, in all manner of violent and lascivious poses. Horned beasts consorted with serpent-like devils, alongside winged faeries grappling against many-breasted birds. Horrified that such a grotesque thing could be found in the centre of the courthouse, she looked pointedly at the statue instead, trying to push the images from her mind. It was typical, she thought, that this kind of blasphemous art could be allowed to exist, while churches were left bare, impoverished and dilapidated.

  Ursula found herself shaking, and a shiver ran through her body. She could not explain what was happening to her. Surely, the images carved into the bench were not that shocking. Examining her feelings, she concluded that there was something familiar about the twisting, perverted images, like a half-remembered dream, or perhaps a scene from a vision she could no longer recall.

  The sound of the door to her right creaking open snapped Ursula from her contemplation. Magistrate Fenster stalked through, muttering to himself. Despite his advanced years, he stepped nimbly enough across the flagstones, neck craned forward like a carrion bird, his sharp eyes darting around the room before settling on Ursula. His face was painfully thin, the skin hanging in folds over sunken cheeks and around deep eye sockets. Only a few wisps of pure white hair sprouted at irregular angles from his bald scalp, mottled with liver spots, warts and scars. A small fleck of spittle moved at the corner of his mouth as he smiled grimly at Ursula. He beckoned to her with an emaciated hand, his long, pointed fingernails yellowing and cracked. As he moved, the layers of the severe black robes he wore swung heavily, hanging limply off his frail frame.

  'Come with me,' he told her in a hoarse whisper, before breaking into a rasping cough that caused him to almost double up. Gasping for breath, he leant against the open door and instinctively Ursula moved forward a step in case he needed help, though she was reluctant to get any closer to the withered wreck of a man. Straightening up after a while, eyes watering and with blood-flecked saliva spattered on his chin, Fenster snarled wordlessly and pointed through the door.

  Ursula followed the silent command and walked through, finding herself in a cramped but lushly appointed study chamber. One wall was covered with a bookshelf from floor to ceiling, filled with mouldering tomes of law and precedents. A high desk dominated the study, a small bell hanging on a stand next to it. Ursula felt a bony finger prod her in the back and she stumbled forward. Fenster shuffled quickly around the room, his hands flicking out to pluck a parchment from a stand to the door's left, before he dropped down into the overstuffed armchair behind the desk, wheezing gently.

  As he peered at the parchment held in his left hand, Fenster's right hand seemed to act with a life of its own. Fascinated, Ursula watched as it crawled its way across the desk to pick up a leather pouch. Opening the pouch, Fenster's single-minded fingers pulled out a short clay pipe, independent of attention from the magistrate who now looked at Ursula from under drooping eyelids. The hand plucked free a wad of pipeweed, then rubbed it for a while between thumb and forefinger before tamping it down into the bowl of the pipe.

  All of the time Fenster's attention focussed on the young woman. Raising the pipe to his lips, Fenster turned in his chair and leaned to his left, opening the shutter on the lantern in the corner of the room and plucking the candle out. Lighting the pipe with the candle's flame, he placed it back in the lantern and closed the shutter with a loud snap that made Ursula jump.

  'Frau Linde has levelled charges of witchcraft... heresy, kidnapping... child murder and immoral living against you,' croaked the magistrate between puffs on the pipe.

  'That's complete nonsense!' Ursula blurted out incredulously. 'What proof does she have?'

  'Oh, we'll come to that at your trial, young woman,' Fenster admitted with a dismissive wave of the pipe. Leaning forward, he jabbed the stem of the smoking pipe towards her.

  'What laws have I broken?' demanded Ursula before Fenster could speak, crossing her arms.

  'What am I to do with you?' he asked quietly, eyeing up Ursula like a piece of meat. She went to reply but a raised hand quelled her arguments. 'You are a stranger here, who I am told has turned out to be a frequent disturber of the peace, perpetrator of unorthodox religious practices, and general troublemaker. You are a corrupting influence on one of our fine sons, the knight Kurt Leitzig, and in the two years you have been in Badenhof you have done not
hing to contribute to the well-being of our citizens or the peace and calm of our quiet society.'

  'And who told you this?' asked Ursula. 'Emerelde?'

  'For two years she has complained incessantly to her sister,' the lawmaker said quietly, as if talking to himself. 'And for those two years her sister has complained daily, loudly and vociferously to her husband, in turn making his life a misery. Unfortunately, young lady, that means that for two years I have had to sit down to my breakfast hearing every detail of your life, I go to bed learning every nuance of every slight you have levelled against my sister-in-law. A pox on all women I say, they should leave me in peace, but do they?'

  'I'm here because you're Emerelde Linde's brother-in-law?' Ursula butted in, but Fenster did not appear to notice and continued his diatribe.

  'They chatter incessantly, they smell funny and my wife has all the cooking skills of a drooling simpleton,' he continued with his rant. 'She cannot even keep a clean house without me paying out a small fortune for a maid. And now she's left, driven away by that vindictive bitch of a sister's lash of a tongue and so it's rancid cold meat on the table for me.'

  'This is ridiculous, I'm not standing around listening to this nonsense any longer!' snorted Ursula, spinning on her heel.

  'You walk out that door and I'll have you clapped in irons!' snapped Fenster, his voice cracking with anger. Ursula turned back to face him, fuming.

  'I came to this town and offered to do any work, for little money, and they all turned me down,' Ursula spat, striding across the room, glaring at the magistrate. 'I've been treated as an outsider and freak ever since I came here. The hospitality of your quiet town leaves a lot to be desired, and if it wasn't for Kurt, I would have left this dismal, petty-minded, superstitious hole a long time ago.'

  'Your tone is completely at odds with the respect my position demands, young woman.' Fenster hissed back, before being wracked by a coughing fit. 'Your ill-tempered nature and unnatural beliefs confirm the tainted nature of your birth evidenced by your daemon-tinted locks.'