Arcanum

by Simon Morden

  “Thank me? For what, my lord?”

  “For giving Master Thaler the help he needed in securing the library, and later underground.” Felix scraped his chair back and found a jug with wine, and another with water, and two cups. He poured Ullmann half a cup, and watched as the man added the same amount of water. Sober, then. Self-reliant and self-restrained. If he was putting on an act, it was a good act. “Without you, the expedition would have failed, and for that, you have Carinthia’s thanks.”

  Felix realised, sitting there in the solar with Ullmann opposite him, that both of them were playing the grown-up and that it wasn’t just that he had to take risks, but that any decision he made was a risk. The map on the table between them was instructive, but it told him what things used to be like, not how things were now. The borders of Carinthia, a pale yellow wash on the paper, meant nothing if he couldn’t defend them. That was the threat. The opportunity was that borders went both ways.

  If he was going to count holding on to the lands his father had left him as success, he could guarantee the similar calculations were being made in throne rooms the length and breadth of Europe.

  “Land for service,” said Felix, returning to Ullmann’s earlier suggestion. “What you’re suggesting overturns a thousand years of history. We Germans have never done anything like this before.”

  “We know it worked for the Romans.”

  “Up to the point we destroyed them,” said Felix.

  Ullmann pressed his hands together. “We had magic then, my lord. Now all we have is muscle, like the Romans had. In a straight fight, it served them well enough.”

  “An empire.” The Romans had carried their eagle standards to some unlikely places, and it had only been the dark woods, deep rivers and raw magic that had prevented his barbarian ancestors from being overrun. “I don’t think I want the Carinthian leopard to travel at the head of an army and conquer my neighbours.”

  “But my lord would like them to leave your lands alone.”

  “Yes.” Felix looked again at the map, the smallness of Carinthia. “Professional armies are expensive, and from what I’ve read of the Romans, they had to conquer to keep the money coming in.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a big army, my lord. It might even be better if it was small. Elite soldiers, trained to the hilt. A cohort or two. And you’d have your own Praetorians to guard you. The cohorts would support local militias; that way, you’d be able to field a large number of men quickly, anywhere.”

  “You’ve thought about this a lot, and you’ve clearly read your Roman histories. I’ll have to see.”

  “There’s something else my lord needs to consider, too.”

  “Which is?”

  “Spies, my lord.” Ullmann circled the border with his finger. “We need eyes that will see for us, and tell us about those plotting against us in secret.”

  Felix made some sort of decision. Again, it was a risk, but doing nothing would be worse. “I want you to find me another dozen people, just like you, and bring them here. Don’t tell them what I want them for, just ask them if they’re willing to give their lives in the service of the prince. Because, if they say yes, that’s exactly what they might end up doing.” Felix nodded towards the door. “Time is short, Master Ullmann.”

  “Mas …?” Ullmann jumped to his feet, almost knocking the chair over in his haste. “My lord.”

  He almost ran to the door and out. Felix realised he’d found a fanatic, more deadly in his way than the berserker tendencies of Büber. What could he do with loyalty like that?

  He wondered just how many more Ullmanns there were out there, wasting their time and talents ploughing the fields and tending chickens. How could he find them, and use them?

  52

  Even Büber couldn’t help but look up. The peaks either side were enormous white-wrapped spires that pierced the clouds and tore swags of fog free so they could roil down the high Alps and into the valley below.

  The river rumbled and fluttered, fed by fast-flowing tributaries that tumbled as waterfalls from the rock walls. The spring meltwaters had only just started to form this far up in the mountains, nowhere near full spate, but it looked full and cold.

  He’d been this way before, and knew how far he had to go, but then again, the route would have been obvious to even the most inexperienced lowlander. There were the mountains soaring either side of the flat-bottomed valley. There was the river at the bottom. There was a path that went along next to it. Trees covered everything that wasn’t rock or river or road. That was it.

  The air was clean and sharp. No taint of smoke on the wind, no greasy, meaty smell of cooking flesh, no cloying reminder of alchemy and death. It was, for a while, easier to forget than it was to remember.

  Sometimes he rode the horse. Mostly, he led it. There’d been a Roman road here once, but that had all but gone in the annual cycle of flooding and freezing. And these were debatable lands, nominally on the edges of Carinthia, of no use to the Bavarians, and outside the Franks’ influence, which ended where the mountains started.

  Then there were the dwarves to consider.

  He stopped by the bank of the river, ostensibly to refill his water skin, but also to watch the half-sunken remains of a small boat bob past, surrounded by grey wavelets.

  His horse tore at the scrubby grass behind him as the broken bow dipped down, then re-emerged, lower in the water than before. There was no obvious cause for the damage: it seemed just to have been knocked about as if it had gone uncontrolled through one too many rapids. He kept his eye on it until it was well downstream, heading towards the warmer plains to the north.

  There weren’t any rapids on the Enn until well beyond the bridge, and he couldn’t account for the wreck. Filling the skin, he splashed some of the freezing water on his face and neck, wiping it across his stubbly head.

  His horse, a stubby cob still with its shaggy winter coat, shook its head and made its bridle rattle. It raised its head at the same time Büber did, to look around and check that nothing was coming to eat it.

  There used to be giants here; still might be for that matter. He didn’t know if they were magical or mundane, but he’d bet a bag of silver shillings on some kind of enchantment.

  Büber slung the waterskin on the saddle and patted the horse’s neck.

  “Steady now.”

  The horse whiffled at him, and he took hold of the reins inside his misshapen fist.

  Apart from his horse and a couple of eagles soaring spread-feathered above him, he could see no sign of any other creature. His gaze bored into the forest, but nothing stared back.

  There might be wolves out there somewhere, though it was early in the year for them to have crossed the pass. And wolves couldn’t sink a boat, of course.

  No; as Büber had found to his cost, men made the worst monsters. He unhooked his crossbow from its place near the pommel, and hung a quiver of bolts from his belt.

  He walked on, passing a well-weathered mile marker a little further along. If he’d been numerate, he could have counted them all the way from Juvavum and known how far he had left to go. As it was, the corroded stone was mute. All it told him was that it was a mile since the last one, and a mile until the next.

  A noise up ahead broke through the rushing of the river and hushing of the trees. He could hide himself, but concealing his horse wouldn’t be so easy. He tugged on its bridle and pointed its head to the valley-side, where the forest was thicker and a silhouette less likely to show against the shining water.

  Crossing what was left of the roadside drainage ditch, he cajoled his horse in among the trees and tied it to a low-hanging branch. Then – because despite everything, he still valued his life – he moved half a stadia away where he could keep one eye on it and the other on the road.

  Büber wasn’t an expert with horses. It might not stay quiet even with his best efforts. He cranked the wire on his bow and slid a bolt into place. At least he could be still, even if his mount couldn’t.


  Then he waited patiently. A handcart rolled into view, piled with parcels. It was being pushed by a man, and every time the wheel went around, it groaned. Just when Büber thought to relax, he saw another figure, a woman. Then trailing behind her, one, two, three children. Following her, another man – no cart this time, just his back to carry his load. Then still more. The few ponies and donkeys were heavily laden.

  He quickly lost count of the procession. From the set of their shoulders, their subdued voices, their whole demeanour, the people weren’t enjoying their journey, and since all of them, from the youngest to the oldest, seemed to be carrying something, it looked like they’d packed up their possessions and walked out of their homes.

  Which they probably had, but he was never going to find out why by skulking around in the woods. He broke cover, moving back towards the road, but no one seemed to spot him until he stepped out of the trees.

  The stragglers of the column eyed him cautiously, and his loaded crossbow even more so. He’d be damned if he was going to unstring it any time soon, though, so he just held it loosely, his hand nowhere near the trigger.

  “Where are you from?” he asked. No one seemed to want to stop, so he was forced to walk along with them, back the way he’d come.

  “Who’s asking?” said an old man. His load was tiny, but his back was bent with the effort and he was using two sticks to help him along. If, as Büber suspected, they hadn’t long left their town, this man was soon going to find himself struggling on alone.

  “Master Büber, huntmaster of Carinthia.”

  “Is that so?” The man turned his good eye on Büber and totted up the number of scars. “There’s nothing for you up there.”

  “You’re from Ennsbruck, aren’t you?” Büber looked down the line. “You’re abandoning it.

  “Nothing for us there any more, either, Master Büber.” He said Büber’s name with no little sarcasm. “So we’re going down the valley, to start somewhere else.”

  “Why?”

  “The magic’s gone, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  Büber bit his tongue. Actually put the tip of it between his teeth and closed his jaws around it until it hurt and he knew he wasn’t going to spear the old man through the heart.

  “Yes,” he finally managed. “I had noticed.”

  “Go and ask the dwarves why we’re leaving. You’ll get your answer from them.”

  Büber stopped and the man walked on. The last few people drifted by, stepping around and ignoring him, and soon enough they were swallowed up by the bend in the road.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he said out loud. He turned again and went to collect his horse, but this time he kept his crossbow in his hand. He led the animal back onto the path, and continued up the valley.

  He kept hearing things: a keening noise, almost a lament, that carried on the wind. It could have been the sound of a high col catching an updraft, or he could have imagined it.

  Eventually, the trees thinned out into grazing land. Ennsbruck sat in the fold of the river in the distance, seemingly secure behind its ramparts. There should have been a pall of woodsmoke above it, but there was nothing.

  As he approached the city, he passed goats and long-haired cattle eking out a rough existence between drystone walls, waiting for the brief, rich months of summer. Their herdsmen appeared to have left them. They’d abandoned their wealth, and no one did that lightly.

  The bridge that gave Ennsbruck its name was stone and solid, flat and supported by two piers. It ran right up to the gatehouse, and the gates were open, entirely unguarded. And the boats tied up by the river bank appeared to have all been deliberately holed; they sat wallowing on the gravel bar, their ropes wet and slack.

  Büber looked at the gates, at the town inside, at the lateness of the hour, and decided that he wasn’t going to get a better offer of a decent bed, perhaps some left-overs, and maybe even a forgotten bottle of schnapps.

  He led his horse through the gates, its hooves sounding hollow as they passed under the arch, and then he stood for a moment, wondering which way to turn. A cat, black and sleek, trotted across the cobbles on the way from one alley to another. It stopped dead in the middle of the street as it spotted the man and his horse, green eyes wide. Then it was off again, and vanished from view.

  It had been years since he’d been there, yet he vaguely recalled a marketplace beneath the wall, set in an open space at the end of the right-turn.

  When he got there, he found the stalls tucked way against the corner turret, the market empty, and a crude picture of a lidded beer mug swinging in the wind from one of the buildings. He needed to see to the horse’s feed, but there was no reason why he couldn’t do it on a full stomach.

  He tried the door, and it opened. Light showed through the dusty window glass: a crude bar, barrels behind it, rough tables and chairs, and a cold fireplace. The ceiling was low enough that he had to duck, though this was no cellar. He laid his crossbow on the end of the bar as he went around the edge of it, and tapped the barrels with a knuckle. One was half-full, and he poured himself a beer.

  Why would the owner just up and go? Ask the dwarves, the man had said, but the dwarves lay at the other end of the valley, almost a hundred miles away.

  Büber raised his mug, tasted the beer, then drank. He came up for air with a frothy moustache, which he wiped away with his hand. He’d ask the dwarves when he got to Farduzes.

  A movement beyond the window caught his eye, something that was more than his horse striking one of its hooves against the cobbles. He ducked down behind the bar, then half-rose to collect his bow.

  As he did so, he caught sight of the vague shape of a man patting down his saddlebags. He guessed that when Ennsbruck emptied, not everyone had gone. What was left was likely to be the dregs.

  He raised himself up again, sighting over the bar. The man was still there, working his way through each and every pocket, delving down to the bottom of the deepest bags. Not that he was going to find anything of particular value, or anything that couldn’t be found in one of the abandoned houses, but it was Büber’s horse and Büber’s meagre belongings.

  He didn’t like thieves, no matter what. He’d paid his way in the world, and saw no reason why everyone else shouldn’t. Moving quickly and quietly, he leant around the door, bow first.

  “Stop there,” he said, but the man ducked under the horse and started off at a rare turn of speed across the market square.

  So he wanted to make it interesting? In two steps, Büber had a clear view of the man’s back and the bob of his blond hair. The idiot didn’t seem to realise that he should dodge from side to side to make hitting him more of a challenge. The huntmaster raised the bow-stock to his shoulder and squeezed off a shot.

  The bolt blurred and spun across the distance between them. The whirring noise it made preceded it, but only just.

  The edge of the broadhead sliced a line of flesh on the outside of the man’s thigh, and he stumbled as he ran. Büber cranked the bow again and lined up another quarrel.

  “Next one’s through your heart,” he said, and this time his target skittered to a halt, still feet away from any useful cover.

  Büber walked over, and when he was close enough to guarantee his next shot would be an easy hit, he told the man to strip.

  The man had his back to Büber, and there was blood staining his breeks, the cloth gaping around the wound. “Strip?”

  “You’ve stolen from me. I’d like back whatever you’ve taken.”

  The man finally turned, and it wasn’t a man after all, but a boy of somewhere around Ullmann’s age, thin faced, thin limbed, thin fingered.

  “I’ve taken nothing.”

  Büber was reasonably certain it was a lie, and he didn’t have to worry about niceties, either. “I can take whatever you’ve got from your corpse.”

  “You’re not from around here,” observed the boy. The gash he’d been given had to hurt, but he played it as if it was of litt
le consequence.

  Never one for small talk, Büber raised the bow and tickled the trigger with his finger. “If you wanted to parley like a Frank, you should have announced yourself. Now, strip or find yourself with an extra hole in your head. I’m not in the mood.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “Find someone who gives a fuck.”

  “You shot me.”

  Büber sighed. “I could count to five, but I’m likely to lose my way. So I’ll just kill you now.”

  The boy put up his hands. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

  He did. Neither Büber’s crossbow nor his forensic gaze wavered. Yes, it was humiliating, and now there was blood dripping down the kid’s skinny leg as far as his knee, but the huntmaster was unmoved.

  “Step away. Over to the wall. Put your nose on the stonework.”

  Barefoot, bare everything, he complied, and the huntmaster shook out the boy’s clothes. There was Büber’s purse with his silver and copper, and there was also a thin leather thong with a seashell tied to it.

  The money, he’d expected that: the rat-faced kid was a thief and a chancer, after all. The bracelet? That was a different level of injury. Sticking him to the wall would have been surprisingly easy, and momentarily satisfying. He considered it, but eventually decided against it.

  Picking the bolt from the stock, he slid it back inside the quiver, before easing the bowstring off the catch. He looked up and saw the boy watching him.

  “Did I say you could turn around?”

  “You’re not going to murder me?”

  Büber’s eye twitched. Murder was a strong word. Justice was another. “There’s no law here except my own scruples, and I’d be within my rights.” He held up his recovered loot. “Keep away from me, boy. I’m in a dangerous mood, and you’ve used up what little mercy I keep about me.”

  “Can I put my clothes back on?”

  “You can prance naked from now until midsummer’s day for all I care.” Büber turned his back on him and stalked back across the empty market square to the beer cellar.