02 - Death's City

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  Rudi glanced at it and then to the street behind, wondering which of the buildings was the Imperial embassy. There was no time to wonder how he was going to contact Fritz. Now, though, even loitering as much as he dared, he was almost halfway across the titanic span of the bridge.

  Glancing back, Rudi took in the prospect of the southern bank, trying to identify the landmarks in the part of the city he knew. From up here it dawned on him just how little that really was.

  Far in the distance the sun struck gold from the dome of the temple of Manann in the Templewijk, and from that starting point he was easily able to pick out the college. He wondered what Hanna was doing now and narrowed his eyes as he had in the wilderness to try to make out distant details, but even if she’d been standing on the roof waving at him he would never have been able to see her from this distance.

  Still moving as slowly as he could, and trusting in his watchman’s hat to deflect the wrath of other road users, he tried to pick out some more familiar landmarks. He found the Scrivener’s guildhall easily enough, where he was due to visit Artemus again the following day, then turned his attention to the Winkelmarkt. The watch barracks was easy enough to find, along with the watch house he was assigned to, but he couldn’t make out the location of the Dancing Pirate.

  The Westernpoort gate was easy enough to see, however and beyond that he was able to trace the ribbon of the coach road back to the point where it diverged, heading westwards to Gisoreux and Bretonnia and south-eastwards towards Altdorf, roughly parallel to the broad blue highway of the Reik. Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon and the vaguely defined border of the Empire, was Kohlstadt and the life he’d left forever.

  Between the city and the strip of mud flats enclosed by the thick, broad line of the Vloedmuur, the Doodkanal struck highlights from the rippling water. From up here it looked little different from any of the other waterways, the thick, oily tide of mud and effluent indistinguishable from the more wholesome fluid surrounding it. The blight which had struck the neighbourhood was less obvious too, although even from this distance the buildings showed signs of structural weakness, sagging rooflines and haphazard patches of tumbled masonry pointing up their poor state of repair. A thin thread of smoke was rising from somewhere in the quarter, which at first Rudi put down to someone seeking refuge from the autumnal chill, then a shock of recognition made his heart race. That broad avenue, so different from most of its neighbours, had to be the Schwartzwasserstraat.

  A quick glance at the surrounding topography confirmed it. There was the bridge over the open sewer where he’d fought off the footpads. Even before he looked again, his suspicions were hardening into certainty. There could be no doubt about it, the thread of smoke marked the site of the von Blackenburg mansion. There was only one conclusion he could draw.

  “Gerhard!” The name escaped him involuntarily, drawing a couple of curious glances from passers-by who met his eyes and hurried on, turning away as they did so. It seemed the witch hunter had found allies in the city after all.

  Rudi picked up his pace, conscious that now he had even more reason to talk to Fritz. If he was right, their lives, and Hanna’s too, hung in the balance just as much as they ever had.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The headquarters of the River Watch were easy enough to find, Captain Marcus’ directions having been clear and concise, and Rudi located it with little difficulty. The Paleisbuurt was the least congested part of the city he’d seen so far, the streets broad, and many of the houses even had modest gardens around them. That had seemed impressive enough at first sight, but even this profligate use of the city’s limited space was eclipsed by the largest open area he’d seen since his arrival in Marienburg. The square in front of the staadholder’s palace was wide enough for a company of soldiers to have drilled in without difficulty, unless they got tangled up in the large, ornate fountain in the centre of it encrusted with dolphins and other sea life.

  Unable to resist the impulse, Rudi slowed his pace, taking in the magnificent frontage of the palace. It towered over the buildings surrounding it, and everything apart from the windows seemed decorated with carvings.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Rudi turned in response to the voice at his elbow, which sounded vaguely familiar. Mathilde was grinning at him, clearly enjoying his expression of surprise. “Screaming bad taste, of course, but that’s Wastelanders for you. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Come to that, they like to flaunt it even if they haven’t got it.” She looked at him speculatively. “What are you doing here? Decided the Black Caps can manage without you after all?”

  “I’m taking a message to the River Watch,” Rudi said. Now his mind was working again, the coincidence of meeting the woman was too fortuitous not to follow up. “I thought it might be a chance to catch up with Fritz, see how he’s doing.”

  “He’s doing all right,” Mathilde said, smiling at something Rudi didn’t quite get. She shrugged. “I’ll tell him I’ve seen you. You know the Gull and Trident?”

  “I’ve never been this side of the river before,” Rudi said.

  “Not a problem, it’s hard to miss.” Mathilde gave him directions to the tavern. “Bit poncey for my taste, but Fritz likes it. I’ll send him over there when I get back to the embassy.” She started to turn away, then glanced back at him, her eyes holding a hint of mischief. “Better take your hat off before you go in, though.”

  “I’ll do that.” Rudi wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that, but he’d got into the habit of doing so before entering taverns on anything other than official business in any case. Most landlords felt a visible watchman on the premises was bad for trade even if they had nothing to hide, and he was beginning to suspect that there were precious few people in Marienburg who did.

  He watched Mathilde disappear in the direction of Embassy Row, behind the palace, and resumed his leisurely walk towards the headquarters of the River Watch. Like most of the buildings connected with the administration of the city’s affairs, it was adjacent to the palace, down a narrow side street ending in a dock. Several skiffs and other small craft were moored there, most of them flying the distinctive pennant of the Watch, which depicted a protective hand wrapped around the crest of the city.

  Rudi made his way to the landward entrance, an imposing wooden door giving way to a wide lobby floored with a mosaic of frolicking fish. It was a far cry from the austere facilities the Winkelmarkt watch had to make do with and he tried to stifle a grimace of disapproval as he walked in.

  “Can I help you?” A waterboy barred his way, with a disdainful glance at his City watchman’s hat.

  “Message for Commandant Vanderfalk.” He held up the missive.

  The River watchman nodded, making no attempt to get out of his way. “I’ll see that he gets it.”

  “I’m supposed to give it to him in person,” Rudi said. He smiled ingenuously. “In case there’s an answer.”

  “Fine.” The waterboy stood aside with ill grace. “Wait here. I’ll see if he’s available.” He disappeared through a polished wooden door at the other end of the entrance hall, leaving Rudi to sit on one of the chairs lining it. They were upholstered in leather and overly padded, and he squirmed uncomfortably for a moment before standing again and helping himself to a mug of kaffee from an urn on a nearby table.

  After a moment, the watchman returned and regarded Rudi with a jaundiced eye.

  “Make yourself at home. Have a drink.” He went back to watching the door with every sign of complete indifference.

  “Hard luck about last night,” Rudi volunteered after a moment, unable to resist responding to the man’s churlishness with a little teasing.

  The watchman’s jaw tensed a little. “Luck had nothing to do with it,” he said shortly. “They must have been tipped off. One of your mob taking a backhander, probably.”

  “Maybe,” Rudi replied cheerfully. “But then you’d have expected them to warn our local villains too, wouldn’t you? And we bagged the lot.
” He smiled, trying not to think about the single exception. “Maybe your leak was a bit closer to home.”

  “And maybe we just got a bad tip-off. It happens.”

  A portly man in early middle age entered the hallway and held out a hand impatiently. “You’ve got a letter for me, I hear.”

  “Yes sir.” Rudi saluted smartly, to the commandant’s visible surprise, and handed him the note. Vanderfalk took it, slit the seal with his thumbnail, and skimmed the contents.

  “At least your end of the operation seems to have gone well.” He sighed. “That’s something I suppose. It says here you’ve got hold of the account books.”

  “That’s right.” Rudi nodded.

  “Maybe that’ll tell us something.” The commandant shrugged. “Unless those were the books we were supposed to find, of course.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” Rudi said. “I just kicked a few doors in.”

  “No doubt.” Vanderfalk thought for a moment. “Thank you for waiting, but there won’t be a reply. We’ll send a barge over to pick up the suspects.” He turned back on the verge of leaving, to add an afterthought. “You’re welcome to hitch a ride on it if you like.”

  “No thank you, sir.” Rudi took his hat off and tucked it inside his shirt. “I’m off duty now. I’m meeting a friend for a drink.” There was no real reason to mention that, but it wouldn’t hurt to make his cover a little more solid. He was beginning to suspect he had a gift for duplicity, and the thought wasn’t altogether comforting.

  To his relief Fritz was alone when he arrived at the Gull and Trident, which turned out to be far larger and more prosperous than the simple tavern he was expecting. Most of the patrons were well dressed and he felt uncomfortably conspicuous in his simple attire. The bow and arrows he carried attracted a fair amount of attention too, and he was sure he overheard a couple of whispered comments about them.

  “Rudi! Over here!” Fritz stood and waved at him from a table in the corner of the taproom, next to a large glazed window with a view across the river. With a wave in return, he wove his way between the tables to join the hulking youth. “I’ve ordered already. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Rudi said, feeling a little bemused. Fritz seemed more confident than he remembered, less sullen and far less defensive. He was wearing a dark blue doublet, with matching britches, and a cloak of the same material was draped over the back of his chair. His hair had been neatly trimmed and a small, perfectly symmetrical beard adorned his chin. No one from Kohlstadt would have recognised him as the awkward bully he used to be.

  “Good.” Fritz poured some wine from a flagon on the table into a waiting goblet and handed it to him. “Is wine all right? I can get you some ale if you prefer.”

  “This is fine,” Rudi said, taking his seat. He sipped at the drink cautiously; he’d never tried wine before. It was richer than he expected, with a sharp aftertaste which cleansed his palate and left his tongue tingling pleasantly.

  “I’m glad you like it. They’ve got a pretty good cellar here.” He sipped from his own goblet and looked at Rudi over the top of it. “I was surprised when Mathilde gave me your message though.”

  “Well, you know how it is.” Rudi shrugged. “I had to come over the bridge this morning and it wouldn’t have felt right going back without asking how you were.”

  “Pretty good, actually.” Fritz paused, while a serving girl set plates in front of them. “I ordered the turbot, I hope that’s all right.”

  “It’s fine,” Rudi said again, staring in some perplexity at the cutlery in front of him. The knife and spoon he recognised, but there was another implement there too, three short prongs fixed to a handle. Fritz picked it up and speared a morsel of fish with it, transferring it to his mouth with practiced ease.

  “You flake it off the bones with the fork,” he explained. Rudi nodded and followed suit. Evidently von Eckstein had arranged some instruction in formal etiquette for his new bodyguard.

  “Working for the nobility obviously suits you,” he said. “New clothes, new…” he choked himself off before adding “table manners,” and nodded at the rapier Fritz now carried at his belt in place of the cudgel he’d seen before. “Sword,” he finished instead.

  “Mathilde’s been giving me fencing lessons,” Fritz said, and to Rudi’s astonishment blushed a little. “She says I’m very physical.”

  “I suppose that’s an asset in a bodyguard,” Rudi said, trying to nudge the conversation around to the information Sam wanted.

  “We’ve had a couple of scrapes. Nothing too serious though.”

  “Really?” Rudi took another mouthful of the fish. It had been poached to perfection, dissolving on his tongue, and the rich, creamy sauce offset it perfectly “Where was that?”

  “Not on your patch,” Fritz assured him. “We had a run-in with a gang of footpads in the Guilderveld a couple of nights ago.”

  “The Guilderveld?” Rudi repeated. “I didn’t think there was anything much there in the way of entertainment.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Fritz said. “Those bankers really know how to throw a party. But we were on our way back from Elftown at the time.”

  “Really?” Rudi feigned only the mildest of interest, although his pulse began to race. Sam had mentioned that von Eckstein was meeting someone in the Elfsgemeente and was particularly interested in finding out who. “What were you doing over there?”

  “Eating, mostly,” Fritz said. “They’ve got some of the best restaurants in the city.” He shrugged. “Of course most of the chefs are halflings, but the elves try not to mention that. Most of them are so stuck up you’d think their farts didn’t smell.” Evidently his earlier fascination with the race hadn’t survived much close contact with them.

  “I’m sure there are some who are all right,” Rudi said, topping up his companion’s drink.

  “Oh yes, there’s this friend of the boss’ who’s all right. Lamiel Silvershine. They hang out a lot together.” He took the refilled goblet and drank. “They’ve got similar interests.”

  “Losing money at cards?” Rudi asked, refilling his own cup. The turbot had vanished and he pushed his empty plate aside.

  “That too. I think the main thing is they’re doing some kind of business together. Silvershine’s involved in one of the merchant houses.” Rudi nodded, not wanting to push the simpleton too hard. Sam, or his paymasters, would know which one, or could find out easily enough now they knew the identity of von Eckstein’s contact. His mission completed, he began to nudge the conversation onto safer ground.

  “I saw Hanna the other day,” he said. “She asked after you.” Fritz waited while the serving girl cleared the plates before replying.

  “Was she well?” His face took on an unexpected expression of concern. “I saw her a few weeks back and things sounded really rough for her.”

  “Not much improvement,” Rudi said, unwilling to discuss the details in public. A new suit and a haircut might have made Fritz look like a gentleman, but he was still an idiot and he didn’t trust his discretion at all. Especially given the ease with which he’d just been able to worm the information he wanted out of him. Fortunately, it seemed, even Fritz wasn’t that stupid. He just nodded.

  “I was afraid of that,” he said. “But it was nice seeing her again. Even made what happened afterwards seem worth it.”

  “What happened afterwards?” Rudi asked, leaning to one side to let the serving girl put a bowl of something on the table in front of him. To his unspoken relief Fritz picked up a spoon and attacked his portion with evident enthusiasm, so he wouldn’t have to juggle with unfamiliar cutlery this time. He followed suit cautiously, finding something hot, creamy and tasting of apples under a thick, brittle crust.

  “We got into a fight,” Fritz said. He shrugged. “Shouldn’t complain, I suppose—it’s what I’m paid for. But I never killed anyone before.” He turned his eyes on Rudi for a moment and the two of them shared a moment of silent
understanding. “It’s a big thing to come to terms with.”

  “It is,” Rudi confirmed. “What happened?”

  “We were just getting back in the boat when they jumped us,” Fritz said. “Mathilde and I fought them off, but one of them fell in the water after I hit him and went down like a stone.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Rudi assured him.

  Fritz took another drink of wine and nodded. “The stupid thing is, they were after the boss’ bag, and there wasn’t anything valuable in it anyway. Just some old papers he picked up from the college.” Something else seemed to strike him and he laughed out loud, without humour. “It’s just struck me, that’s all the footpads in the Guilderveld would have got too. Hardly worth dying for, is it?”

  “I suppose it would depend on what the papers were,” Rudi said, privately certain who had sent the luckless desperados to their deaths.

  “No idea. Just old maps. I suppose they must just have seen a rich man and assumed he was carrying something valuable.”

  “Sounds right to me,” Rudi said. He poured the last of the wine into Fritz’s goblet. “What did von Eckstein have to say about them?”

  “Nothing much,” Fritz said. “He did say something funny to Silvershine though. Something about someone being desperate to keep Riemaan from being vindicated.” He shrugged. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing at all,” Rudi said. The rest of the meal passed in small talk, and it wasn’t until after they’d left the tavern, Fritz insisting on paying the bill which would have swallowed a week’s wages for Rudi, that he got the opportunity to warn him about Gerhard’s arrival in the city. Fearful of being overheard, he waited until they were passing through the square in front of the palace before broaching the subject, and glanced around cautiously to make sure no one else was in earshot.

  “Are you sure it’s him?” Fritz asked, pausing to throw a copper coin into the fountain. It was apparently a custom of the place, to ensure good luck, and Rudi followed suit. Right now he felt he needed all the luck he could get. Privately, though, he suspected that the only good fortune the fountain provided was reserved for the beggar’s guild. “There are plenty of other witch hunters in the Empire.” Rudi nodded and looked around to make sure none of the other passers-by had wandered close enough to overhear their conversation.