by Robert Earl
“Is he dead?” Boris asked unhappily, and Bran felt for his pulse.
“No. You couldn’t even do that right, you great ox.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” Boris snapped back.
“Keep your voices down,” Mihai suggested, and peered down into the unconscious guard’s drink-sodden features. “Maybe we should kill him,” he said. “He’ll tell everybody we were Strigany, for sure.”
“Doesn’t mean that anybody will believe him,” Bran said, but they all knew that everybody would. In the past, their caravan had been blamed for floods, forest fires, disappearing villagers, and, even, on one memorable occasion, the outbreak of root weevil. If they had been blamed for these things, which they couldn’t have done if they’d tried, then they would certainly be blamed for this.
“Ushoran, I hate peasants,” said Boris, and for once his brother agreed.
“Even so, I don’t like the idea of killing him.”
“Neither do I,” Mihai said angrily, “but what else is there?”
The three of them sat in silence for a moment. They knew very well what else there was, but none of them wanted to say it. It was Mihai who broke the silence.
“Looks like it’s going to have to be the petru, then,” he said, sighing miserably, “and the domnu will probably find out.”
The guard grunted and his eyes flickered open.
“This is all your fault,” Mihai told him, and a short right hook sent the guard back down into oblivion.
***
Petru Engel sat, as still and as wrinkled as a lizard, within the confines of his wagon. It was as tightly organised, and as immaculately clean as all of the Striganies’ wagons. Like all of them, it also had its own distinctive smell. In this case it was a mixture of pipe weed, lamp oil and the scent of the petru himself.
The old man had lived within these wooden walls for more than seventy years, and Ushoran willing, he intended to live within them for another seventy. Tonight, as on most nights, he was as wide awake as the owls that hunted through the darkness outside.
The petru loved this time. In the stillness, it was so easy to silently recite the stories of his people, telling them, and retelling them to himself, so that the tracks of them were pressed ever more indelibly into his mind.
With his thoughts as placid as a pond, the tales virtually told themselves. In the peace and the tranquillity of the sleeping camp…
There was a flurry of knocks against his door.
The petru’s eyes cleared, brightening into alertness above the grey thatch of his beard. There was another flurry of knocks, and he stretched before going to open the door. The other good thing about these nocturnal meditations, he reflected, was that he was ready for callers. For some reason, the more distressed somebody was, the more likely they were to wait until the middle of the night before coming to ask his advice.
“No need to knock so loudly,” he grumbled, as he lifted the latch. “I was waiting for you.”
“How did you know we were coming?” his visitor asked. The petru just shook his head mysteriously as he tried to identify the men who stood in the darkness outside. There were three of them. No, not three, he realised, four. One was slumped unconscious between the rest.
He shifted so that lamplight spilled from his door. The scant illumination it cast was enough. He recognised Mihai, the domnu’s son, by his red hair, and his two friends by the fact that they were always with him.
“Come in, Mihai,” the petru said, drawing back into his wagon, and gesturing for them to follow. “You too, Boris and Bran.”
The trio bowed politely towards the petru’s family shrine as they entered, dragging their unconscious companion with them.
“Ah yes,” the petru said sagely, and nodded towards the stunned watchman, while wondering what in the seven hells had happened, “but first, why don’t you tell me in your own words what happened?”
“Had a bit of trouble on the city walls,” Mihai said. He had been ready to lie, but, against the all-knowing wisdom of the petru, deception was obviously impossible. “We were on our way back from the city when we bumped into the watchman here.”
The petru’s knees popped as he squatted down beside the watchman and felt the bruises on the man’s chin. To his relief, there was a pulse beneath them.
“Care to tell me what was worth creating all this trouble for?” he asked.
“You’re right, petru, it was stupid of us. It’s just been so long since we’ve had any fun.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“A ham, three bottles of brandy, four shillings and three pennies, and a bag of tobacco.”
Petru Engel nodded distractedly. He had taken the guard’s head between his hands, and started rolling it with the steady rhythm of a prospector panning for gold. After a few moments, the man’s bloodshot eyes blinked open and he grunted.
“Look at me,” the petru told him. The man looked.
Neither Mihai nor the twins understood what happened next, let alone how it was done. All they saw were the patterns that the petru’s thumbs pressed into the dirty skin of the guard’s temples, and all they heard were the numbers the old man chanted, his voice as steady as a hypnotist’s.
Petru Engel didn’t say anything else until the guard’s eyes had glazed back over, and spit had started to drool from his slack mouth.
“Tonight,” he said, “you drank some ale. What did you do tonight?”
“Drank,” the man slurred, “ale.”
“After you had drunk the ale, you went to vomit over the wall,” the petru told him. “What did you do after you had drunk the ale?”
“Puked,” he said, his gorge rising as he spoke, “over the wall.”
“That was when you fell.”
“Fell. I fell.”
“You won’t wake up until daylight comes. When you do, you will remember that you drank some ale, you vomited over the wall, you slipped and you fell.”
The man grunted.
“Now sleep,” the petru told him. “Sleep deeply. Sleep well.”
The man’s eyes snapped closed. Even his three captors yawned, their eyes watering and jaws cracking.
“Now, I suggest that you take him back to the base of the wall.”
“Yes, petru,” Mihai said, nodding gratefully, “we will. About the expedition… Will you tell the domnu?”
“No need for that,” the petru said, shaking his head, and letting the three feel a moment of false relief, “After all, you will be telling him yourself, tomorrow. Oh, and that pipe weed you mentioned, just pop it on the ledge there would you?”
“Yes, petru,” Mihai said miserably. Then he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and led his little group out of the caravan.
He’ll make a good domnu one day, the petru thought, as his visitors slipped back into the night, carrying the guard between them. That is, unless his father kills him tomorrow.
A grin split the old man’s face as he reached for the tobacco they had left, and filled his pipe.
CHAPTER THREE
“The fox fears the wolf, the wolf fears the boar, the boar fears the ogre. What an animal fears is as much a part of it as its fur or teeth. What an animal fears is part of what defines it, but Strigany are not animals.”
– From the Ode to Ushoran “It’s really quite simple, your lordship,” Stirland’s chancellor told him, as his liege paced up and down the great hall of his castle. “As we have discussed, there is a key for every lock, and the key for Averland is the Strigany.”
“But it’s ridiculous,” Stirland said. “What does he care what happens to the Strigany? If they rob the burghers it serves the swine right. To think of all the trouble I had getting my tribute from Arnborst this year. I still say we should have hung some of the burghers. Burghers! Like they’re any better than honest peasants who pay their tithes.”
“Yes,” the chancellor said vaguely as he watched his master pace. It was always this way. The elector count always ended up ar
riving at the right decision, but, by Sigmar’s balls, he always took the longest route to get there. The click of Stirland’s boot heels echoed off the granite walls of the empty hall, and his face worked with thought. It worked hard. The chancellor waited.
“Anyway,” Stirland said, gesturing towards his chancellor, “I like the Strigany. Old Tilly is the best damn horse trainer I’ve ever had. I think that even Heinz might have some Strigany in him, the old villain. We were lucky to have a man in the cells to behead in his place. As it is, he’s got to stay in hiding until Averland leaves, even though he was well within his rights to clip him.”
“Within his rights, your lordship? To strike a nobleman?”
“Well, no, not exactly.” A moment of unaccustomed doubt flickered across the count’s face. Then it was gone, washed away by a happier memory.
“I remember my younger days, too. When I was a student in Altdorf… Well, let’s just say that Strigany girls leave nothing to be desired, nothing at all.”
The count leered happily at the memory, and the chancellor resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“I doubt if Averland will be persuaded by that argument, my lord,” he suggested, and Stirland barked with laughter.
“I doubt you’re wrong,” he scoffed, “weak-blooded bastard that he is. He even sent Gertrude away, you say?”
“Yes, my lord,” the chancellor said, nodding. Gertrude had been sent to ease Averland’s discomfort after the hunting expedition. “She said he looked quite terrified when she offered to… well, you know, comfort him.”
Stirland chuckled.
“Doesn’t like hunting, doesn’t like drinking, doesn’t like women. I don’t know what’s wrong with…”
The count stopped pacing, a sudden suspicion burning in his eyes. He looked around, and lowered his tone, before voicing his concern.
“You don’t think he’s a cultist, do you? A follower of one of the Dark Gods, Sigmar curse them?”
“No,” the chancellor reassured him, “even the witch hunters would hesitate to equate a lack of appetite with the worship of the Dark Gods. No, he’s just weak-blooded, or perhaps more than that. I recently received a letter from my old friend Professor Fritz Van Jungenblaumen from Marienburg. He has a theory that the raising of a babe can affect the way it behaves in later life.”
“That’s Averland stuffed then,” Stirland leered. “Remember his mother? Challenged the top courtesan in Altdorf to a competition, apparently. Won, too. Not that she wasn’t a damned fine-looking woman in her day. I saw a painting of her once. Had an arse like two pigs in a blanket. Lovely.”
“Jungenblaum’s theory would certainly hint at a connection between the character of the countess and the nervousness of her son in these matters.” The chancellor nodded.
Stirland grunted. “Makes some sort of sense, I suppose. Still, don’t see why he should have it in for the Strigany.”
“Jungenblaum theorises that, in order to survive, the fragile mind projects those parts of itself that it finds disturbing onto other individuals or groups. In this way, it sublimates unpleasant feelings, and protects its vestige of pride.”
“What’s that mean in Reikspiel?”
“Averland’s a lunatic.”
“I could have told you that,” Stirland said. Then he sighed. “But I understand what you’re saying. By playing along with Averland’s foibles, and helping him to persecute the Strigany, we’ll make him our ally.”
“Precisely. It’s always better to go with the grain of a man’s character. That’s why, if you remember my liege, I advised against taking him hunting.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Stirland said, waving the comment away. “Never mind that now. What we have to decide is, what should we suggest be done to the Strigany?”
The chancellor looked down at his immaculately polished fingernails. “There have been precedents, from history.”
“What precedents?”
The chancellor looked at Stirland.
Stirland looked back.
“No. Oh no, there’ll be none of that. Nothing worse than the unsporting spilling of blood, even Strigany blood, damn them.”
“In that case, perhaps you would care to read the proclamation I have prepared? It should provide Averland with what he desires, and us with the basis of our alliance.”
Stirland unfurled the scroll his chancellor handed him with a wry smile. The old rogue always seemed to know where their deliberations would end. Then, he read the proclamation, and the smile left his face.
“This is a bit strong,” he said.
“As strong as it needs to be,” the chancellor said, “without spilling blood, at least, not too much.”
“And you’re sure there’s nobody else we could better ally ourselves with?”
“My lord, I believe that we have already discussed that exhaustively.”
“Well, stuff it then,” Stirland said, frowning, “I’ll do it. Damned if I like it though.”
“Yes, my lord,” the chancellor said, and, with a bow, he left his master to his thoughts. In the same hall, a couple of hours later, the Elector Counts of Averland and Stirland met, neither of them realising exactly what they were about to set in train. It was late afternoon, and the sunlight streamed in through the high, narrow windows. The light warmed almost every flagstone of the hall, but when the counts met to embrace they found that they were standing in a patch of darkness.
Stirland ignored the feeling that this was an omen. Instead, he gestured his guest towards a table, and the platter that awaited them.
“Take a seat, Lord Averland,” he said, “and have a glass of wine with me.”
“Thank you,” Averland said, “although I’d prefer a glass of boiled water.”
He still sounded as if he had the flu, Stirland noticed. The hunt master’s fist had crushed his nose nicely. Congratulating himself on saving the old villain by executing a poacher instead, Stirland poured a goblet of boiled water for his guest, and, after a moment’s hesitation, poured water for himself, too.
The things we do for diplomacy he thought, as he drank the damned stuff.
“So,” he said, sitting down at the table, and looking across at Averland, “it’s been a real pleasure having you as my guest. Your tastes are obviously more sophisticated than mine.” Sigmar forgive me for the lies, he thought. “I must say, I’m glad you were such a good sport about the hunting.”
“Yes,” Averland said, his tone miserable, and his eyes as downcast as always. “By the way, my aides tell me that the lunatic who attacked me was executed this afternoon.”
“That’s right,” Stirland said. “I did send you an invitation, but your man told me you were otherwise engaged.”
Averland shivered. “I’ve never liked the sight of blood,” he said, and took a sip of water.
“Anyway,” Stirland said, and, clearing his throat, he started reciting the lines his chancellor had given him. “Although I’m a little embarrassed by the rustic nature of my court, I am glad to have learnt so much from you.”
“Really?” Averland asked, scepticism evident on his face.
“Oh yes,” Stirland lied, “especially about the Strigany. I never realised quite what a plague they were.”
Averland looked as if he’d been slapped. His eyes, usually hooded and downcast, flashed as they fixed on Stirland, and his pallid complexion exploded in blossoms of red and white. Meanwhile, his mouth, usually a miserable frown, twisted into a feral snarl.
Sigmar, thought Stirland, what did I say?
Then Averland spoke, and Stirland realised that the sudden blast furnace of hatred that had opened up in his guest’s face had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the Strigany.
“Yes!” Averland hissed, and Stirland drew back from the man. He suddenly seemed a lot bigger. “Yes! They are a plague. They spread disease, like rats, and they consort with the Dark Powers, bargaining with them for our destruction. They say they don’t, but they do. You can tell just by loo
king at them.”
Averland, unable to contain himself, sprang from his chair, and paced towards one of the windows. He seemed a different man, a more powerful man. In fact, Stirland realised, he was a more powerful man. His permanent stoop had gone as he stood tall, his stomach in and his chest out. He wasn’t wringing his hands, either. He was punching the fist of one into the palm of the other.
“Ever since I was a boy, I’ve been able to smell the filth that clings to the Strigany, the disease. They come to our lands, polluting our air and corrupting the morals of our womenfolk and parents.”
“Yes, well, as you say,” Stirland said, agog at the transformation in his fellow nobleman. Averland’s hatred had filled him with such a terrible energy that he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. No wonder he didn’t have any passion left for anything more wholesome.
Averland, his eyes ablaze with the captured light of the setting sun, turned back to his host, his small, neat teeth bared in a hungry smile. Stirland shifted uncomfortably, and his fingertips brushed against the hilt of his dagger, as Averland came striding towards him.
Then he relaxed as Averland slapped him on the shoulder, the gesture obviously an awkward imitation of one of Stirland’s own.
“I am glad that you have seen the truth of this, my friend,” Averland said. “We may have different interests, but I can see you have a rare intelligence. Not many people understand the threat the Strigany pose, the horrible, horrible threat, but we do, and as noblemen of this great Empire it is our duty to do what needs to be done.”
By Sigmar’s fist, thought Stirland, amazed. Spirit, camaraderie, and maybe even the ability to tell a story, I might get to like this lunatic yet.
“And what needs to be done, as you know, are the Strigany,” Averland said.
“Ah, yes,” Stirland said, seizing the moment. “Yes, exactly. In fact, my chancellor…”
Averland, however, was no longer listening. Instead, he was gazing rapturously back through the windows towards the sun, staring right into the burning heart of it.
“There is only one solution,” he said, smiling, “and together, we can do it.”