Genevieve 03 - Beasts in Velvet

by Jack Yeovil

  Hasselstein, overhearing, stepped in. 'The fire-breather tried to kill the countess. Then he escaped, killing the dancer in the alley. He is the Beast.'

  Rosanna tried to think, tried to scry. She had only seen Yefimovich briefly and had not had time to probe him. There had been the aura of an inferno about him.

  'Miss Ophuls will confirm his guilt,' Hasselstein said.

  Johann looked at Rosanna.

  She thought carefully. Yefimovich had been an altered and, she scryed, an initiate of one of the Proscribed Cults. She fixed on the memory of his bright presence. Even trying to recall him made her eyes hurt, as fires appeared to dance in her vision. He had left a very strong impression behind him. She felt his devotion to the Dark Powers, to Tzeentch. There were countless crimes to his credit, each a flame in his body. But she could not fix him as the shadowed Beast she had scried from the dead women. Yefimovich was fire, while the Beast was darkness.

  'No,' she said, 'I'm not sure I do not think Yefimovich is the Beast.'

  The Lector looked at her as if she were the Beast herself, and his lips went tight, all colour squeezed out. She felt his anger boiling. He had thought he could count on her, and now he was feeling betrayed. He was prepared to be quite self-righteous about it. He could enforce all manner of penances upon her.

  'Yefimovich was the Beast,' he said.

  The Lector stared at her, trying to force his will into her mind. All he wanted was for her to agree with him, to wrap up the mystery, to end the investigation. It would have been so easy, and it would have satisfied everyone. She could not be sure of her intuitions. Maybe Yefimovich was the killer. He was certainly a killer.

  'Yefimovich was the Beast,' Hasselstein repeated.

  Rosanna gave him back his crown and answered, 'No.'

  Anger flared in the Lector's mind and he gripped his coin in a tight fist. Had Harald and Johann not been there, he would have struck out at the impudent scryer. He was not used to being defied and he did not like the taste of it. He turned and walked back to the countess×his secret mistress, Rosanna realized×trailing his wrath behind him like a kite.

  'What was that about?' Johann asked.

  'I think I've just been excommunicated from the Cult of Sigmar.'

  For the first time since she left her village, she felt free. It was a dizzying, slightly scary feeling, like walking a rope in a carnival with no safety net. She was, she realized, homeless, masterless, unemployed

  'Don't worry,' said the elector, 'you have my protection.'

  Rosanna wasn't sure about Baron Johann's sudden offer, sincerely meant though it was. Practically, it might serve some use if Hasselstein were to prove vindictive. But she had relished her taste of liberty and the prospect of serving again, under the colours of a noble house rather than a religion, was disappointing. Besides, she bristled at his casual assumption of her helplessness.

  But the men were thinking of other things now. She could see the same name in each of their minds. Wolf. Johann was seeing a lost youth, confused and afraid. Harald was remembering the twisted young man, barely containing his animal heart, they had encountered last night.

  'Yefimovich is not the Beast,' Rosanna said. 'The mystery is not solved.'

  'You're sure?' Johann asked.

  Rosanna nodded.

  'A pity,' said the baron. 'It would have been simple.'

  Rosanna shrugged.

  'The Blumenschein woman,' said Harald, 'the so-called Angel of the Revolution?'

  Rosanna concentrated. There had been blood in Yefimovich's mind. New blood. He was a strong presence. She had been able to read a lot×too much×from him during their brief contact.

  'I think he killed her. But not the others.'

  Harald swore and the baron looked troubled. They all knew that Rosanna's intuitions would not prevent the authorities from misidentifying the Revolutionist Monster as the Beast. That left them on their own against the real murderer.

  'Baron,' said Harald, 'if the Beast is your brother, then what?'

  'Then he must be stopped. That is all.'

  'Is it?'

  Johann was trying to do the right thing, Rosanna saw. It was something bred deep into him.

  'No,' he answered the captain, 'of course it isn't. Wolf is my brother and I shall do all I can for him.'

  Harald was grim. 'If it comes down to it, would you stand between us?'

  'Probably Would you go through me to catch him?'

  'Probably.'

  'Then we understand each other, captain.'

  De la Rougierre, who had quickly forgotten his dalliance with the dead dancer, was insisting that his guests be allowed free. He called Harald 'a stupid policeman,' and then backed off.

  The streets had been quiet for a few hours now. Johann had sent a Templar to the palace for carriages. The coaches the guests had come in were burned-out wrecks and the horses fled.

  Finally, the coaches came and de la Rougierre's guests were ferried back to their secure walls and well-armed retainers.

  The last to leave was Leos von Liebewitz. The youth seemed torn. 'Johann,' he asked, 'can I help here?'

  It was difficult for him, but he felt some obligation, if not to the commoner who had died then to the aristocrats who had not.

  'No, Leos,' the baron answered, 'perhaps later.'

  With the guests shepherded out, they were left alone at the inn.

  Rosanna, Johann, Harald.

  It took them a while to work out who was missing.

  III

  They followed the girl as she led them out of the function room, through a short passage, and towards a store-room. The place was mainly above ground, but it had the atmosphere of a cellar. Rosanna was in a half-trance, feeling her way along a cooling trail. The baron was by her side, like a courteous gentleman helping a blind person not to bump into walls, gently steering her round obstacles. Harald's stomach was beginning to ache and he felt the recent violence as surely as the scryer did.

  'He's here,' she said.

  'Where?' asked the baron.

  'In this room.'

  They looked around. This was the way they had come into the Matthias II last night. The window was still open, as was a barrel-door. The place smelled of old beer.

  'We looked here last night,' the baron said. 'Those two Leaguers were unconscious in the corner.'

  Harald's stomach complained.

  Rosanna went around the room, touching things, frowning.

  'He's here. Very close.'

  She touched a barrel that was standing on its end and leaped back as if it were a heated stove.

  'What is it?' the baron asked.

  Rosanna pointed at the barrel. 'Inside,' she said.

  Harald held up the lantern. The barrel was split near the base and blood had poured out through the taphole. It was sticky on the flagstones.

  'Merciful Shallya,' the baron swore.

  Harald found a cooper's hammer and tapped the barrel-lid. It gave, and he pulled the wooden circle out whole.

  Helmut Elsaesser looked up, his face white, his eyes empty.

  Johann could not help but feel responsible. He had, after all, intervened to keep the young officer on the Beast case. Rosanna had flinched away at the sight of the corpse and he had instinctively embraced her. He felt her body pressed warm against him, and a charge crackled from her hair, so close to his face. She relaxed for a moment and then stepped away from him, leaving only the memory of a touch. He wondered if she had seen anything in him that made her want to break contact. She was making herself look at poor, dead Elsaesser. 'Number ten,' Kleindeinst said, respectfully.

  'Get him out,' said Johann.

  'No, don't,' insisted the captain. 'Not yet.'

  'What is it?'

  'He didn't die straight away. He bled. There may be something.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'A message from the grave,' suggested Rosanna. 'Here.'

  She was holding the barrel lid up to the light. It was stained wit
h blood. Something was written on it.

  'He may have seen his murderer, recognized him.

  Johann looked at the scrawl. There were letters. No, numbers.

  As he was dying, Elsaesser had dipped a finger in his own blood and drawn numbers on the lid of his makeshift coffin.

  317 5037.

  'Is it a code?' he asked. 'Why would Elsaesser use a code?'

  'He was there when Dickon burned the cloak, wasn't he? He may have expected the message to be found by someone who would want to hush it up. Or even by the Beast himself.'

  Rosanna suggested the simplest code. 'Perhaps the numbers are letters of the alphabet. I for A, 2 for B and so on. That would read CA er, G E'

  'Yes? What's the nothingth letter of the alphabet, scryer?' asked Harald.

  'Obviously, it's not so simple. Elsaesser was just out of the University, wasn't he?'

  Johann tried to solve the riddle. 'Perhaps it's a map reference. At the University, they use the grid system. Elsaesser could have been pointing us to the murderer's house.

  Harald looked doubtful. 'What's the grid reference for the palace, baron?'

  'I don't know.'

  'And you live there. How could a simple copper know exactly a map reference in seven digits?'

  'You have a point/

  'Maybe the numbers should be in bunches. There's a gap in the middle, and a smaller one here. 317. 50. 37. It could still be an address. 317 could be a house number, and the other two a street and a district.'

  'I don't swallow it,' said Kleindeinst. 'Poor Elsaesser was dying, his stomach opened, his throat cut. He must have been in terrible pain. He wouldn't have had time for numerology games. It has to be something obvious/

  There's something about the number 317 that's familiar/

  Kleindeinst snapped, 'Of course there is, that's the code number for this district.'

  'Code?' Rosanna and Johann asked, at once.

  'Watch code. Every watch in the Empire has a number, like a regiment of the militia. 317 is the Luitpoldstrasse Station.'

  'And do individual officers have numbers?'

  'Yes but you would be hard-pressed to find any watch in the Empire, much less in a slum like this, which had over five thousand men.'

  '317. 5037.'

  '3. 17. 50. 37.'

  '3,175,037.'

  'This is silly,' said Rosanna. 'Maybe he was just delirious and doing mathematical problems in his head. People die with strange things in their minds. I should know.'

  They looked at her and she knew what they were thinking.

  'Yes,' she said, resigned, 'of course I'll try to scry him.'

  Helmut Elsaesser had died gasping for breath and thinking of his landlady. There were a lot of other things, but no coherent thought.

  Rosanna was still not used to violent death. She supposed she would have to go through Milizia's death, too, and still not be able to identify the Beast.

  'It's almost as if the murderer can blot himself out of his victims' consciousness.'

  'Is that possible?'

  'Anything is possible, Johann. It's not like opening a book. It's like trying to count heads at a ball, with all the dancers on the move. I could tell you a lot about this poor boy, but I think it's best to leave him some privacy.'

  'Girl,' said Harald, 'if you ever do this professionally, you'll learn that one of the things murder victims don't have is privacy.'

  The thought made her unutterably melancholic.

  'It's not like the melodramas,' Johann said, 'where murderers leave clues and the clever watchman sleuths them out.'

  'This number is a clue,' Rosanna said. 'I'm sure of that.'

  'And that green velvet Dickon burned,' said Captain Kleindeinst.

  'It's a shame you didn't get to scry that,' said Johann. 'It must have come from the Beast. I held it in my hands, but I've no gift. You know, I can see it now, in every detail'

  Rosanna felt the curtains open in her mind. It happened sometimes.

  'And so can I.'

  'What?' exclaimed Kleindeinst.

  'The velvet, I can see it. Worn along the bottom edge.'

  'Yes, that's right.'

  'The bottom edge?' asked Kleindeinst.

  Rosanna and Johann agreed.

  'But, those cloaks are thigh-length. How could it be worn along the bottom?'

  Johann made a gloved fist. 'It would be worn like that, if the Beast weren't a normal-sized man'

  In her mind, Rosanna saw a dwarf

  The Countess Emmanuelle was determined. They would be leaving for Nuln as soon as possible and remaining there until this frightful business was forgotten.

  She told Leos as much in the carriage and charged her brother with making the arrangements. 'Have Dany supervise the packing of my gowns,' she said. 'He'll like that.'

  She had been in this city too long, staying away from her social and political responsibilities to, be close to the heart of the Empire.

  Mikael had kept her here longer than she had intended. In the beginning, the intense cleric, whose desire for power was as urgent as his desire for her, had been an interesting conquest. Now, he was becoming a bore. Perhaps worse than a bore.

  Mikael would be a problem. He was being too ardent. He might prove unpredictably troublesome if he were not cast loose with some tact.

  In her dressing room, free from her maids, she scrubbed at her face, removing last night's fading paint. Her dress was ruined. She would never wear it again. And her tiara had been stolen while she slept.

  Upright in a chair, no less! She was lucky to come away from the Bretonnian ambassador's soiree with her life.

  Behind her, the door opened and a small figure slipped in.

  Outraged, she turned.

  'De la Rougierre!' she exclaimed. 'I hope you have some explanation for this uncountenanceable intrusion.'

  The ambassador grinned and, for the first time, it seemed to Emmanuelle that he really was more dwarf than Bretonnian.

  He bowed, his hat swept mockingly low, and sauntered across the room

  IV

  Johann felt as if his mind had been scooped out. Rosanna was apologetic, but more taken with Kleindeinst's suggestion.

  'Yes, it could be? The cloak must have trailed on the ground a lot. Don't you think so?'

  Johann stammered an agreement. He felt a fool for not noticing himself.

  Kleindeinst spoke deliberately. 'There was a rumour that the Beast was a dwarf. And most of the knifestrokes were upwards'

  He made an underarm stabbing motion.

  'Elsaesser said that the Bretonnian ambassador was intimate with several of the victims,' said Rosanna.

  Johann's mind came back to him. 'And he certainly knew the dancer last night. The murders started just after he was posted to Altdorf'

  'De la Rougierre,' said Kleindeinst, his knife out. The copper rolled the name around in his mouth.

  'It's just,' Johann began, trying to pin down a doubt, 'it's just that he seems to be such a clown, you know. The absurd little creature pretending to be a man. He's like a stage Bretonnian, all perfume and silly gestures, with that exaggerated accent, those ridiculous moustaches, the endless chatter'

  'He's still a dwarf,' said Kleindeinst. 'They can be vicious bastards. I should know, I've had to kill enough of them.'

  'There is more than one dwarf in Altdorf.'

  'That's true enough. But only one has been cropping up throughout this investigation.'

  'He's an ambassador. This will be a big scandal. Relations between the Empire and Bretonnia are always questionable. King Charles won't like us executing his envoy.'

  'Then we'll let him do it. A Bretonnian headsman's axe is just as sharp as an Empire blade. Just so long as the toad is squashed.'

  Rosanna cried out, a wordless gulp of noise. Johann and the captain looked at her. She had her hands knit as if in prayer. 'I'm an idiot,' she said, slowly, 'and you are too'

  Hasselstein pushed his way in without knocking and his heart shra
nk into stone. Yelle was not alone and the prospect of her companion replacing him in her bed made the Lector want to vomit bile.

  'What are you doing here?' he said.

  The dwarf turned away from Yelle, his hand going to the hilt of his ridiculously short sword.

  'Both of you,' the countess said, 'get out. You are here uninvited.'

  'I merely wished to apologise for last night, countess elector,' said de la Rougierre, dripping Bretonnian smarm.

  Hasselstein laughed bitterly.

  'I'm sure that was the extent of your motive, ambassador.'

  Yelle had her face off and was snarling like a cat.

  'I said 'get out', if anyone's interested'

  'Lector,' said the dwarf, 'you are a cleric, but your deity is a warlike one. I am not honour-bound not to fight you. Remember that.'

  Leos appeared at the door, his ready hand on his swordhilt. He looked at Hasselstein and de la Rougierre, unsure which to kill first. Yelle screeched and flung an enamelled brush at them. 'Mikael, ambassador out!'

  'It's not from a cloak'

  She should have known straight away. Before the Temple came for her, she had been apprenticed to her mother, the seamstress. She had hated every minute of it, preparing ridiculously decorated outfits for the local lord and lady. Her fingers were still grooved and scarred from the rough needles.

  'it's from a dress.'

  'What?'

  'The stitching is completely different. The hem is higher. Even the thickness of the velvet is wrong.'

  'A dress?'

  'Yes, a formal dress. Maybe a ball gown.'

  'Merciful' began Kleindeinst.

  'Shallya,' completed Johann.

  'Are you trying to tell us that the Beast is a woman?' asked Kleindeinst.

  Rosanna reached into herself, combining the images of the murderer she had picked out of the victims' minds. It was dark, slim and a sharp edge sparkled like a jewel.

  'No' she said. 'Yes.'

  'Which?'

  The Beast came out into the light and Rosanna saw her face.

  'Yes.'

  The Beast was beautiful

  'The palace,' Rosanna said, 'now!'

  beautiful and terrible.

  The man-shell shrank, the boy-shell shrivelled

  All the former selves were dead. There was only the Beast.