by ich du
The shorter of the two guards answered, his words coming out in a rush as the other closed the embassy door. 'We was on gate duty as normal and we saw Herr Korovic staggering towards us, except we didn't know it was him at first. He tried to get in the gate, but we weren't having any of that. We thought he was some mad beggar or something.'
The other guard picked up the tale as Sofia bent to examine Pavel's wounds.
'Aye, then he comes up and tries to barge through the gate. Course, we weren't having none of that and showed him the business end of a halberd, but he weren't taking no for an answer.'
'Then what?' snapped Kaspar as the guards shuffled embarrassed from foot to foot.
Sofia waved over a group of Knights Panther, who had emerged from their quarters at the rear of the building upon hearing the commotion, and ordered them to carry Pavel to his room.
Kaspar straightened as the knights struggled to lift Pavel's weighty body upstairs, following close behind and indicating that the guards should follow him.
'Well, sir...' said the first guard, hurrying to keep up. 'We tries to stop him, but he just shouts something in Kislevite and starts laying about with his fists. He knocked Markus flat on his arse, then put me down next to him sharpish. Then he pushes open the gate and marches right through to the door, raving something about rats before collapsing in a heap. That's when we recognised who he was and called for Madame Valencik.'
Kaspar turned to face the guards as the knights carried Pavel into his room. 'You did the right thing. Now get someone else to man the gate and have someone take a look at your faces. Dismissed.'
The guards saluted and returned to the vestibule. Kaspar strode along the corridor to Pavel's room to find Sofia barking quick-fire orders at the knights.
'Prepare a warm bath as fast as you can! A warm bath, mind, not hot, you understand? And get me some clean, warm water in a basin and some cloths to wash these cuts with. Heat as many blankets as you can find as well, we need to get him warmed up quickly. Someone get my satchel as well, the one with my needles and poultices. And prepare some sweet tisane, it'll help his body fight off the cold from within.'
As the knights hurried to obey her commands, Kaspar said, 'What can I do?'
'Help me get his clothes off. It looks and smells like he's been outside on the streets for a week or more. These cuts have festered with dirt and it looks like some of them have gone septic.'
'Sigmar's blood, how could this have happened?'
'Knowing Pavel, anything's possible.' said Sofia, cutting away Pavel's trousers using a long, thin bladed knife with a serrated edge and Kaspar winced as he saw the hurt done to his friend's body.
Kaspar began pulling off Pavel's shirt, tearing it where necessary and tossing the bloody scraps of linen to one side. The ashen skin of his friend's shoulders, face and upper body were scored with deep gashes, many of which still glittered with glass fragments and were crusted over with dried blood. He saw that his fingers and arms were similarly crusted with blood, though the wounds there were much smaller.
As Sofia finally cut away Pavel's trousers and undergarments, Kaspar saw that his ankles and lower legs were covered with similar wounds to those on his arms and wondered again what had happened. These smaller wounds looked like bites, but what could have caused them?
'Holy Sigmar.' whispered Kaspar when he saw the full extent of the damage done to Pavel. 'What the hell trouble has he gotten himself into now?'
'We can worry about that later, Kaspar.' snapped Sofia. 'We need to get him clean and warmed up. He's almost frozen to death and if we don't raise his body temperature he may die anyway.'
News of Pavel's condition spread quickly throughout the building and the embassy staff hurried to procure everything Sofia had asked for. Anastasia had joined the effort to help Pavel also, cutting linen bedsheets into swathes of bandages and helping to warm water for a bath. The fire in the grate was lit and warmed blankets were wrapped around Pavel's shivering body while Sofia used thin forceps to remove the jagged splinters of glass from his cuts.
As each wound was cleaned, Kaspar gently doused a cloth in warm water and washed it as gently as he could. Pavel moaned, but did not regain consciousness as they carefully cleansed him of dried blood.
Kaspar heard the door open behind him and a group of knights, Kurt Bremen among them, dragged a heavy iron bath into the room. Water splashed over the side and Sofia said, 'Put it in front of the fire and lift him in. Carefully now.'
The knights lifted the naked form of Pavel and gently lowered him into the warm bath. More water splashed onto the floor, as the bath was too small for someone of Pavel's size, and under any other circumstances, the sight of such a big man in the bath would have been comical.
'Is there anything else we can do?' said Kaspar, suddenly very afraid for his friend.
Sofia shook her head and put her hand on Kaspar's arm. 'No, all we can do now is hope that his body temperature has not dropped too far. We'll need to leave him in the warm water for a while then get him dried off and just keep him warm. Then we need to worry about those bites. I'm pretty sure they are rat bites.'
'Rat bites? Is that what they are?'
'Yes, and I am worried that they might be infected. It's possible Pavel's been wandering the streets delirious and in a fever for days. It's a wonder he found his way back here at all.'
'But so many bites? I've never heard of so many rats attacking a grown man.'
'And there is something else,' said Sofia.
'What?'
'Some of the city doctors think the contagion that's broken out in the city is spread by rats, so we're going to have to keep everyone out of here from now on in case Pavel is infected.' 'Oh no, Pavel...' whispered Kaspar as a wave of sadness threatened to engulf him. He had lost one great friend in Kislev already and fervently hoped he would not lose another.
'I'm sorry, Kaspar,' said Sofia as Pavel stirred, muttering something under his breath.
Kaspar knelt beside the bath and said, 'I'm here, old friend.'
Pavel's eyes flickered open, though Kaspar saw no recognition there, and he tried to speak, but only succeeded in making a series of barely audible groans.
'What is it Pavel?' said Kaspar, though he was unsure if Pavel could even understand him. 'Who did this to you?'
He placed his head next to Pavel's as his deathly ill friend tried to speak once more, uttering a string of slurred Kislevite. Kaspar listened intently, his expression hardening into one of cold, lethal anger as he made out a single word amongst Pavel's delirium.
He stood and marched swiftly to the door, saying, 'Look after him, Sofia.'
'Wait, what is it, Kaspar? What did he say? Did he say who did this to him?' asked Sofia, hearing the murderous edge to Kaspar's voice.
Kaspar gripped the door, his knuckles white and face flushed.
'He said "Chekatilo".'
V
'AMBASSADOR, THINK OF what you're doing,' said Kurt Bremen.
'I don't want to hear it, Kurt,' snapped Kaspar, buckling on his pistols and looping his sword belt around his waist. 'You saw what he did to Pavel.'
'We don't know that for sure,' pointed out the knight. 'This is Pavel we're talking about, anything could have happened to him.'
'He said Chekatilo's name, damn it, what am I supposed to think?'
'That's just it, ambassador, you are not thinking. You are allowing your hatred of Chekatilo to blind you to reason.'
Kaspar pulled on his long cloak and turned to face the leader of the Knights Panther, who stood between him and the door.
'This is something I need to do, Kurt.' Bremen folded his arms and said, 'I told you once before that we could not perform our duties to you if you behaved in a manner that forced us to violate our orders code of honour. I am telling you that again.' 'So be it.' snarled Kaspar, moving towards the door. Kurt Bremen's hand shot out and gripped the ambassador's shoulder, holding him fast. Kaspar's eyes flashed with sudden anger and his fists bunch
ed.
As clearly and evenly as he could, Bremen said, 'If you murder Chekatilo then neither my knights or I will remain oath-bound to you.'
Kaspar locked eyes with the knight, knowing that he was right, but too consumed with anger to countenance any other course of action. He reached up and slowly lifted Bremen's hand from his shoulder.
He looked straight at the grim-faced knight and said, 'Either come with me or get out of my way. Because one way or another, I am going through that door.'
'Don't do this, Kaspar. Think about what you are about to do.'
'It's too late for that, Kurt. Much too late.' Kaspar pushed past the knight and hurriedly descended the stairs to the vestibule. He paused at the bottom as he heard Kurt Bremen coming down after him, and looked up to see him buckling on his own sword belt. 'What are you doing, Kurt?' 'Sigmar save me, but I'm coming with you.' 'Why?'
'I told you, I won't help you murder Chekatilo, but someone has to try and keep you from getting yourself killed, you damn fool.' Kaspar smiled grimly. 'Thank you.'
'Don't thank me too soon,' snapped Bremen, 'I may have to put you on your arse to do it.'
THE COLD OF the early evening could not cool the heat of Kaspar's rage, but he was wholly unprepared for the sight that greeted him when he and Kurt Bremen rode up to the brothel where they had last met with Chekatilo.
Instead of the nondescript building of sagging black timbers and random blocks of rough-hewn stone, there was only a swathe of fire-blackened timbers and rubble. Soot-coated fragments of coloured glass and the burned remains of a crimson sash flapping from the melted finial protruding limply from the ruins were all that remained of Chekatilo's brothel. The buildings to either side of the brothel had escaped the fire's worst attentions, saved from destruction by the snows that had doused the blaze and allowed the fire watch to extinguish the conflagration before the entire quarter went up in flames.
Not that Kaspar imagined there would have been much of a public-spirited attempt to save Chekatilo's establishment. The people huddled in the lee of the buildings were a pathetic sight, wrapped in furs and covered with a fresh dusting of snow, and Kaspar could not picture them helping Chekatilo. If anything, he imagined they had simply gathered to enjoy the fleeting warmth offered by the burning structure.
'What the hell happened here?' wondered Kaspar as he dismounted. He kicked a scorched piece of timber in frustration.
'Perhaps someone with a grudge against Chekatilo?' suggested Bremen.
'Well that only leaves an entire city full of suspects,' replied Kaspar, crunching through the snow towards the remains of the brothel. Even in the chill air he could smell a sickeningly cloying aroma he knew to be burnt human flesh. He had lit enough funeral pyres in his time to recognise the familiar smell.
Kaspar pointed to the people gathered in their shelters against nearby buildings and said, 'Kurt, you speak more Kislevite than I, ask these people if they know what happened here.'
Bremen nodded as Kaspar hitched Magnus to a protruding spar of timber and clambered over the rubble of the destroyed building to begin sifting through what little wreckage remained of the brothel. It had been thoroughly scavenged by the people of Kislev, those timbers not completely burned to ash taken for firewood and any trinkets that had survived stolen that they might be traded for a little food. As he was about to give up, Kaspar noticed the corpses of several rats, their bodies burned and twisted into unnatural angles by the heat of the flames. As he studied them, he was amazed at their size - fully eighteen inches or more from tip to rump.
He knelt beside the charred corpse of a rat and used a broken piece of furniture to turn its stiff body over. Its black fur had been crisped from its body, but the flesh of its back still remained and Kaspar could see three crossed red welts on its skin that formed an uneven triangle.
'What is it? Have you found something?' called Bremen from the edge of the ruins.
'A rat, and a big one at that,' said Kaspar, 'but it looks for all the world like it's been branded with a mark.'
'Branded? Who in their right mind would bother to brand a rat?'
'I have no idea,' said Kaspar, 'but...'
'But what?'
'I was just thinking of something Sofia said about the plague. She said that the city's doctors feared that it was being spread by rats. I'm seeing this brand and wondering if it is possible that such a thing could be somehow directed by someone?'
'You're saying that the plague is deliberate?'
'I don't know, maybe,' said Kaspar, standing and brushing ash from his britches. 'Did you find anything out from these people?'
'Not much,' admitted Bremen. 'Their Reikspiel is as almost as bad as my Kislevite. The few that were here when it happened say they heard screaming from inside just before it went up in flames.'
'That's it?'
'That's it,' nodded Bremen with a shrug. 'I couldn't understand much more than that.'
'Damn, there's something important here, I can feel it, but can't see it.'
'Maybe the Chekist or the city watch know something. They are bound to have been here already.'
Kaspar nodded. 'True, I can't imagine Pashenko won't have taken an interest in one of Vassily Chekatilo's haunts being burned to the ground.'
'Even if he does, do you think he will tell you anything?'
'It has to be worth a try,' said Kaspar, emerging from the brothel and climbing back onto his horse. 'The worst he can do is say no.'
Bremen took a last look into the ruined brothel and said, 'I wonder if Chekatilo was inside when it burned down?'
Kaspar shook his head. 'No, I don't think we could be that lucky. I'll wager that bastard is too slippery to be killed that easily.'
KASPAR FELT A flutter of nervousness as he and Bremen turned their horses into the Urskoy Prospekt, remembering the last time they had come this way and the carnage that had followed. The Knight Panther who had been shot had lost his arm and shortly after succumbed to a malignant sickness that Sofia could do nothing to halt.
They kept to one side of the thronged prospekt, Kaspar noticing that Bremen too was scanning the rooflines and dark windows that overlooked the street and taking comfort in the fact that he was not alone in his caution.
A group of armoured kossars marched down the centre of the street, resplendent in scarlet and green and armoured in a mix of iron and bronze breastplates. They carried wide-bladed axes and had short, recurved bows slung at their sides. All wore furred colbacks and had thick scarves tied around the lower portion of their faces. The black armbands they wore told Kaspar that they had been detailed to those areas of the city closed off because of the plague and he saw that the people camped in the prospekt shrank back in fear from the soldiers.
Kaspar nodded to the leader of the kossars, but the man ignored him and he and his men passed, barely registering their presence.
Eventually they reached the Chekist compound and announced themselves to the two guards at the gate. Both men seemed taken aback by Kaspar's request for entry, more used to people begging not to be taken within. But, recognising the Empire ambassador, they opened the gate with some difficulty and allowed Kaspar and Bremen to ride through into the cobbled courtyard beyond.
As the gate closed behind them, Kaspar saw it had been heavily reinforced with thick spars of timber, the hole blasted by the marksman's weapon patched with a sheet of iron. Pashenko was obviously taking no chances that a skilled marksman might use the same hole to put another bullet through.
The black door in the grim facade of the Chekist building opened and the leader of the Chekist emerged into the evenings twilight, his dark armour reflecting the light from the torches either side of the entrance.
'Ambassador von Velten,' said Pashenko in his clipped tones. 'This is a coincidence. I do hope you are not bringing trouble to my door once more.'
'No, not this time,' said Kaspar. 'And why is it a coincidence?'
'Never mind, why are you here?'
'I have j
ust come from where a brothel belonging to Vassily Chekatilo once stood. Do you know anything about what happened?'
'It burned down.'
Kaspar bit back an angry retort and said, 'I wondered if you might have had any idea who might have done it.'
'I might, but it would take from now until this time next year to arrest all the possible suspects. Chekatilo was not a well-liked man, ambassador.'
'A friend of mine is badly hurt and may die. I think he might have been there the night the brothel burned down. I just want to find out what happened.'
Pashenko waved a pair of stable boys forward to take Kaspar and Bremen's horses and said, 'Come inside, there is little I can tell you about the fire you probably do not already know, but as I said, it is a coincidence that you have come here tonight.'
Kaspar and Bremen handed their reins to the stable boys and followed Pashenko into the Chekist building, removing their heavy winter cloaks as they entered.
'So you have said, Pashenko. Why?' said Kaspar, his patience wearing thin.
'Because less than an hour ago, Sasha Kajetan began begging to be allowed to see you.'
VI
FLICKERING LAMPLIGHT ILLUMINATED the brickwork passageway that led to the cells beneath the Chekist building and Kaspar felt his skin crawl as a low moaning drifted from below. The echoes of their footsteps on the stone steps rang from the walls and, though he had never been particularly susceptible to claustrophobia, Kaspar had an instinctive dread of this place, as though the walls themselves had seen too many miseries and could contain them no longer, bleeding its horror into the air like a curse.
Flaking paint coated the walls and old stains the colour of rust were splashed across the brickwork. Pashenko led the way, carrying a hooded lantern that swayed with his every step and cast monstrous shadows around them.
How many men had been dragged screaming down these steps, never to return to the world above, wondered Kaspar? What was the word Pavel had used? Disappeared. How many people had been disappeared in the cold darkness below this feared place? Probably more than he dared think about and he felt his loathing for Vladimir Pashenko grow stronger.