by Mike Carey
After some minutes’ digging, he struck something soft. He squatted down in the hole he’d made and scooped away the soil with his hands, revealing what looked at first like the fabric of a sack. A little further excavation, however, showed that this was not the case. Sacks have no buttons.
Klaes went and closed the gate that led to the stable yard. There was no bolt here, so he propped it shut with a stone. Then he returned to his work.
Ten minutes later he had dug all the way around the outline of the buried thing. It was six feet long, two broad, and had an army greatcoat draped over it. The greatcoat had been grey once, but now it was harlequined blue and white with mould and lustrous with the spoor of worms and snails. On its shoulders were the eagle and diamond lozenge that marked a captain’s rank.
By this time, of course, Klaes knew what it was that he had found. The foetid smell that was rising from the ground was as good in that respect as any gravestone. So he was not surprised at all when he peeled back the collar of the greatcoat and found himself staring into the sunken eye sockets of a corpse. He only winced as the stench intensified, billowing up like the dead man’s last pent breath.
‘Captain Nymand Petos, I think,’ he murmured, covering his mouth and nose with his cupped hand. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.’ But that was just a sort of graveyard humour, spoken in bravado to push against the quiet horror of the moment.
He was not pleased at all. Not when he thought of what this would bring.
If it were not for the floggings … But he had ample evidence now that Colonel August would react in an extreme and intemperate way to the news of Petos’s death. And Klaes did not really know, yet, what his death portended. It was even hard, at this remove, to determine what had caused it. There were rents in the front of the greatcoat that seemed to suggest violence. But perhaps the captain merely kept his coat in poor repair, or perhaps Klaes had torn it himself by thrusting in the blade of the shovel as he was digging. The dead man’s shirt had already rotted off his back and most of the flesh beneath had fallen away, so there were no clues there. The side of the skull was squashed in and misshapen, but was that from a blow or from being thrown into the hole?
He resolved that he would not act, or inform anyone of what he had found, until he had some answers to these questions. To do so, in the current climate of mistrust and resentment between Narutsin and the camp, would be to inflame emotions already roused and tender. He emphatically did not want to bring more fuel to the colonel’s fire.
So he would wait until the floggings were done, and then he would approach Bosilka again. He had trusted Meister Weichorek once, and would not do so a second time, but he believed he could explain to the girl what was at stake. She was intelligent enough and brave enough to tell him the truth, and once he knew the truth he would decide what needed to be done.
Until then he would keep his counsel.
He straightened, picked up the shovel and set to work to hide all over again what he had just uncovered.
Sergeant Molebacher returned to his kitchen, his mind distracted and his emotions agitated. His interview with Colonel August had had a favourable outcome, but he was still in a sort of suspended state, and would remain so until another interview – with Drozde – had taken place.
It was time to start the preparations for dinner, and he hadn’t even decided what the menu was to be. He had beets and hogweed, so he could make a proper borscht, and there were chickens for the main course if he could think of something suitable to do with them. He needed either carrots or potatoes, or possibly swedes. And flour for a staka.
He went into the larger of his two food stores to see what was there. Empty space, for the most part. Normally he could perform miracles even with empty space – and normally he would be calling up some of his little demons now, his light-fingered skirmishers, to go about among the fields and gardens and take a secret tithe from the farmers of Narutsin. But he had been thrown off balance by his discovery in the village. He could not face the privates he normally bullied and hectored so easily, knowing that they had seen him broken, for however short a time. Now he was running to catch up with himself, and a fat man running is an undignified sight.
As he was rummaging among the shelves, hoping to find some vegetables that had escaped his attention, he chanced to glance through the window. It looked out onto a walled space that might once have been a garden. It was a wilderness now, and offered nothing of any use to anyone except a dumping ground for scraps.
But there was Lieutenant Klaes in his shirtsleeves, squatting on the ground at the far end of the enclosed space. What was Snotwipe doing out there? Taking a shit? No, he was looking into a hole in the ground, with a mound of earth beside him and a shovel lying at his feet.
And now he was standing, and shovelling the soil back into the hole. Sergeant Molebacher put his face closer to the fly-specked pane. He could see the troubled expression on Klaes’s face, the furtive glances he cast over his shoulder as he worked. He looked towards the house once or twice too, but Molebacher remained perfectly still and let the lieutenant’s gaze sweep right past him. He must surely be invisible in the darkened room, the contours of his face lost in the window’s filthy constellations.
Klaes put all the earth back in the hole, and then heaped straw over the place where it had been. It was an extraordinary thing for an officer to do. Molebacher couldn’t think of anything the lieutenant might have to hide that would justify such a laborious procedure. Even if he’d killed a man in a fight, say (as if Klaes would ever have the balls to do a thing like that!), it would be easier to leave the body by the side of a road than to bring it home with him and give it a decent burial.
So there was something here, and it piqued the sergeant’s curiosity even in his present preoccupied state. He had not yet repaid Klaes for shaming him in front of his men, and Molebacher did not easily forget those sorts of debt. Besides, the colonel didn’t like Klaes, so anything that put him in a bad light would bring the added benefit of pleasing August and assisting Molebacher in his ongoing programme of ingratiation.
There were other things to see to first. There was dinner to prepare for the officers, which would need to be served up promptly. And the floggings were set for the next morning: it was important that he was present for that entertainment.
But he would keep an eye on Lieutenant Snotwipe, he decided. And he would find out, as soon as was convenient, what was buried in that hole.
27
On the morning of the twelfth of November, the able-bodied men of the town of Narutsin were drummed out of their beds at sunrise and escorted to the parade ground outside the temporary barracks at the mansion of Pokoj, to witness the punishment of their townsmen for the crimes of riot, public disorder and mutiny against the legitimate orders of a military representative of Her Imperial Highness, Maria Theresa.
The charge sheet had been drawn up by Lieutenant Klaes, on August’s dictation, but it was read out that morning, loudly and with relish despite some stumbling over the longer words, by Lieutenant Tusimov. Klaes himself was in disgrace, placed at the very end of the row of officers and given no active part in the proceedings. He much preferred it that way. He had made clear his objection to this day’s work, and could not now withdraw it even if he’d wished to. And damaging as the show of insubordination might well be to his career, he could not persuade himself that he was in the wrong. Because of his neat hand, or perhaps simply to humble him further, he had been tasked with recording the offence and its sentencing in every sorry particular, and the job had given him ample time for self-reproach – but his chief regret was that he had ever reported the affair in the first place. He doubted whether Colonel August had the authority he claimed to punish the townspeople. He was far from sure that mutiny was even an offence among civilians. And now, watching the little parade of convicted men led out to receive their punishment, he wished himself a thousand miles from Pokoj.
A soldier facing the lash would b
e allowed to keep his shirt on until the last minute, when he was accorded the respect of being allowed to remove it himself. The Narutsiners, knowing nothing of military protocol, had been forcibly stripped before leaving their makeshift prison. They shivered in the chilly morning air. From where he stood, just to the left of the whipping frames and at a right angle to the crowd, Klaes could see that Jakusch Weichorek was struggling to hold back tears. The prisoners’ fellow townsmen stood in ragged rows in the centre of the parade field, flanked on each side by soldiers.
As the condemned men were led towards them they let out a collective groan, which splintered into mutterings. A woman’s voice called out, ‘Shame! Shame on you!’ and the sergeant nearest her hammered his pike on the ground with a cry for silence. Klaes was momentarily stunned: there were women present! But of course there were, he reminded himself. Over at the edge of the field, where Lorenz the surgeon sat with his stretchers and his buckets of water, a small group of the camp followers had come to watch. Harpies, he thought bitterly. But their faces were as pale and distracted as those of the villagers, and Sarai had brought her bag of remedies.
The whipping frames looked even uglier in the low, pale sunlight, the crude triangles now staked in place by extra beams which propped them up like parodies of an artist’s easels. Only two had been properly joined; the third, erected in haste last night as the light began to fade, had its three beams crossed at the top like a giant bonfire, and lashed together with stout ropes. Word had it that the carpenter and his assistant had abandoned the work, leaving unskilled men to finish the job. August had only noticed the dereliction at sunrise: he had scowled, Private Leintz reported, till his eyebrows met in the middle, but seeing that it was too late to remedy, had said nothing. Perhaps by now the colonel had declared that this too was a punishable offence – Klaes would not have been surprised.
The prisoners were halted in front of the frames. Seeing them above him Jakusch let out an involuntary cry, which was answered by a hiss of shock and outrage from the crowd. Klaes steeled himself. Anything he said, any plea he might make for the boy, would do no good. But to his amazement the stolid Lieutenant Pabst was moved to protest.
‘Colonel, that one’s only a lad! He can’t be more than fifteen. Do you not think, sir, that in this instance—’
‘He is seventeen, and a man,’ August said. His eyes never left the group of prisoners. ‘Return to your place, Lieutenant.’
The old man saluted and did as he was told.
The boy would be sixteen in December, Klaes recalled. He had broken bread with the family not a month ago, and had thought the son was forward for his age. In the front rank of the Narutsiners Meister Weichorek stood, utterly motionless. For the first time Klaes saw that Dame Weichorek was beside him. She was dry-eyed and held herself as still as her husband.
Lieutenant Tusimov was to oversee the floggings. He barked an order, and three drummers stepped forward: Edek, Renke and Heinrich, beefy men who had done this work before. Others were waiting to take over from them when they tired. Cunel, the corporal in charge of the equipment stores, carried out the whips, each in its separate bag. Tusimov waited until each was in place; then, swelled with his own importance, he placed himself before the prisoners and barked out a name.
‘Jan Puszin, bootmaker. That you did, two days since, maliciously insult and feloniously strike an officer of the empire, and did inflict on said officer bleeding and con- contusions.’ Edek and Renke took hold of the unfortunate man, one by each arm. Renke could hardly restrain his smile, and Klaes suddenly noticed the bruises on the private’s face. ‘Fifty lashes,’ Tusimov intoned.
Klaes bit back an exclamation. A general gasp rose around him, and some of his own men began to murmur in protest. Fifty lashes was an extreme penalty even for a serving soldier, but the town magistrates’ courts imposed an absolute limit of thirty, kept down by custom to twenty-nine, so fearful were they of exceeding that number by mistake. Puszin cried out and began to struggle, but the two privates held him fast. They hustled him to the nearest of the frames and tied his hands above his head; splayed his legs to fasten an ankle to each upright.
Tusimov was already calling out the next name as they worked. Choltitz and Heinrich grasped the arms of Sivet Ulsner, who seemed paralysed with terror, and carried him to the next triangle, his feet not quite touching the ground. The last to be taken was Jakusch Weichorek, who was condemned to only thirty lashes, ‘on account of his youth,’ Tusimov said piously. The boy began to shake as Renke and Edek came for him. Dame Weichorek gave a single harsh sob but then fell silent, grasping her husband’s arm. Tusimov gave the order to begin, and the three drummers took up their whips. The lieutenant, feeling every eye upon him, waited a moment longer as if, Klaes felt, he expected a drum roll to accompany him. Finally, with an almost audible breath, he began the count, and the men struck in unison.
Klaes had attended several floggings, and had hardened himself to them. It did not do for an officer to turn faint when an offender was disciplined, no matter how distasteful he found the spectacle. But this was beyond anything he had experienced before. Soldiers were schooled to watch their comrades’ punishments in silence, but the townspeople had had no such training. As the first blows fell, the cries of the afflicted men were mingled with shouts from their neighbours.
‘Courage, man!’
‘Give them no cries!’
‘How do you say that, blockhead? It’s not you they’re beating!’
This last was from a woman, and the cries and wails of the women grew louder as the floggings continued. For all their shouts for silence and banging of their pikes, the sergeants could not shush them now.
‘Shame, shame!’
‘He’s just a boy! You’re killing him!’
‘SEVEN!’ Tusimov roared, and Edek, perhaps startled, lashed Jakusch so violently that the frame rattled. The boy screamed, and blood began to seep from several of the welts on his back all together. The surgeon stepped forward, raising a hand, and all the whippings stopped while he inspected the damage.
The intervention did what the sergeants’ orders could not: a silence fell, broken by the boy’s sobs and the intermittent groans of the other two sufferers. One of the men still awaiting punishment had fallen to the ground: a medical orderly was reviving him with a bucket of water, while the other two had been allowed to sit. They had both been fitted with leg irons, Klaes saw, though neither seemed in any state to flee. One, a stocky grey-haired man, was muttering obscenities with all the fervour of prayer. The other seemed to be praying in good earnest, his head lowered and his lips moving in silence.
Lorenz gave a cursory glance at the backs of the two older men and stepped back, motioning to Tusimov to continue. A deep groan arose from the crowd. Tusimov nodded in turn to the lashers, took up his stance and swelled his chest again.
‘Eight!’
Klaes thought that Edek tried to hold back for the next strokes, as if ashamed that he had done his victim so much damage all at once. It made no difference. The boy shrieked and writhed at every impact, and the watchers cried out with him. Dame Weichorek, white to the lips, had let go of her husband’s arm and stood without touching him, twisting her hands together. She had not joined in the wails and imprecations of the other women but fixed her gaze immovably on her son’s bleeding back, as if willing him strength or insensibility.
At the nineteenth stroke Jakusch fell silent. Lorenz inspected him and shook his head.
‘He’s fainted, sir. You must lay off.’
‘Get some water,’ Tusimov said impatiently. ‘That’ll revive him.’
Dame Weichorek made a small sound in her throat and moved forward, but Sergeant Kluzak stepped smartly in front of her, and her husband held her back. The surgeon gestured to an orderly, who ran forward with a bucket. The boy twitched once as the cold water hit him, then hung from his bonds as limp as before. His breeches were soaked red; the cuts on his back, revealed by the washing, began to ooze afresh.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the surgeon said. He addressed August. ‘I can’t answer for his safety.’
‘Cut him down,’ the colonel ordered. His face was impassive: Klaes could not tell if the man felt relief or reluctance. Tusimov, on the other hand, was nearly dancing with frustration.
There was a pause in the proceedings while Jakusch was released from his bonds. Klaes saw with approval that Edek did not let the boy drop, but held him over his shoulder while two of the camp followers ran up to free his feet. The surgeon and the two women laid the boy face down on a stretcher and carried him to the far side of the parade ground, out of sight of the watching crowd. One of the women was Drozde, her face set in a furious scowl.
Dame Weichorek craned after her son until he was out of sight, but August’s orders had been clear: the citizens of Narutsin were to watch the punishments through to the end, and the sergeants would not allow her to go to him.
Tusimov ordered the lashers to be replaced and the whips to be cleaned before continuing: the sight of the clotted blood and tissue being washed from the long strips of leather caused one Narutsiner to vomit noisily, forcing a further delay. And when the floggings resumed, Ulsner fainted after another six lashes. Tusimov left him hanging on the frame, still dripping blood and water, while Choltitz continued to flog the unfortunate Puszin, to the accompaniment of growing unrest from the crowd. The surgeon released Puszin after thirty-six strokes, to Tusimov’s obvious dissatisfaction.
But the mood of the townspeople was changing. Jakusch’s suffering had drawn sobs and cries from the women, but there were no sobs now, and no one called out as the two men were cut down. Instead they murmured to each other. A few had bent down: Klaes guessed they were scanning the ground for stones or anything else that might be thrown. He cast a quick glance at his fellow lieutenants, but Pabst merely looked sick and weary, and Dietmar was eyeing the men still marked for punishment, as if estimating how long they might last. August, though, had noticed. He gestured to the sergeants guarding the prisoners and summoned one over to him: Molebacher. August spoke a few quiet words to the quartermaster, who nodded self-importantly and went off at a trot. Klaes watched as he made the rounds of the pike-bearing sergeants and directed them into a line between the townspeople and the whipping triangles, weapons menacingly at the ready as the remaining three men were charged and taken to the frames.