Dead Winter

by C. L. Werner

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ Erna told the manservant. Immediately she felt a twinge of regret as she watched Fuerst’s composure crack. From a tremulous optimism, his entire bearing crumbled into dejection. It was like kicking an enthusiastic puppy and despite her noble upbringing, she felt guilty for being the cause of such disappointment. She laughed at the ridiculousness of so petty a thing causing her concern. Here she was, married to the worst monster in Altdorf and she was agonising over the sensibilities of a peasant.

  ‘My lady?’ Fuerst asked, his voice timid, his mind confused by Erna’s sudden humour.

  Princess Erna stepped away from the elaborately carved wardrobe dominating one wall of the room and strode purposefully towards the door. ‘It doesn’t matter, Fuerst. This is Commander Kreyssig’s room. I won’t be staying here.’ She gave the manservant a friendly smile. ‘I’ll depend on your help getting one of the other rooms fit for me.’

  ‘Of course, my lady,’ Fuerst agreed, bobbing his head in obsequious fashion. His earlier disappointment was forgotten and there was an excitement in his face as he turned away. The excitement died as he faced the doorway. Quickly, he bowed before his lord and master.

  Adolf Kreyssig leaned against the open door, his eyes glittering with an ophidian gleam. ‘That won’t be necessary, Fuerst,’ he told his servant. ‘My wife will be staying here. Where she belongs. With her husband.’

  Erna’s face turned crimson and she threw back her head in outrage, her long hair whipping about her creamy shoulders. ‘I do not intend to linger among this… this squalor.’

  ‘That squalor cost a lot of people a lot of pain,’ Kreyssig said. ‘Sometimes, people can be quite stubborn. Especially when they think they are better than… well, the man with the whip.’

  The princess glared at her husband. ‘Don’t presume to threaten me, peasant,’ she warned. ‘I am not some schilling-a-tumble dock strumpet to be awed by your tawdry pretensions at society! I am the daughter of Baron Thornig of Middenheim, and you had best remember it! You’ve bought an option on a noble title, nothing more! And you had best remember it! Because a peasant born is always a peasant!’

  Kreyssig turned his cold gaze on Fuerst. ‘Out,’ he hissed, stabbing his thumb at the hallway behind him. The manservant cast a shamed, apologetic look at Erna, then scurried from the room. Kreyssig closed the door behind him.

  ‘I’ve bought the whole damn thing!’ Kreyssig snarled. ‘The title, the wife, and everything that goes with it!’

  ‘Believe what you like,’ Erna said, her voice a withering lash. ‘But lay one of your filthy peasant hands on me, and you’ll regret it!’ The defiant words didn’t keep a pallor from Erna’s cheeks as she watched Kreyssig step away from the door and saw for the first time the coiled whip he’d been holding behind his back.

  ‘Now I will tell you something,’ Kreyssig hissed. ‘In a little while you will be begging to have peasant hands on your noble flesh.

  ‘Stubborn people always learn their place. Nobles just take a bit longer to teach.’

  Nuln

  Ulriczeit, 1111

  There weren’t any answers in the stein of beer resting on the table but Walther stared into it as though all the secrets of the gods were to be found hidden within the foam. He’d lost count of just how many beers he had ordered since the plague doktor left the tavern. Sometimes he would call out to Bremer for an accounting, but whatever tally the proprietor rattled off it was soon forgotten by the rat-catcher.

  That was the entire point. To forget. To forget about the man lying down there in the cellar. To forget about the reeking buboes spreading across his flesh. To forget that Hugo had saved his life. To forget that keeping the plague-stricken man here jeopardised himself and Zena and everyone who patronised the Black Rose.

  Where were the gods? Walther hadn’t led a good life, but he knew many people who had. Old Petra the midwife, for one, a woman so open-hearted that she would adopt any baby whose mother didn’t want it. She had been as good and gracious and fine a person as could be found in Nuln. How could the gods allow the plague to strike her down? How could they let disease decimate her children, breaking her heart by inches and degrees even before the Black Plague stilled it forever?

  If this was retribution, the vengeance of the old gods against those who had followed the creed of Sigmar, then why had this terrible curse not fallen when the Cathedral was still standing, when the music of the Grand Theogonist’s parties had echoed across the city? Why had the gods stayed their hand until now, now when so many people needed their benevolence, not their judgement?

  Or were the gods as powerless as everyone else? Walther took a long draught from his beer as he considered that terrible thought. The priesthood of Morr was all but exterminated in Nuln, felled by the plague lurking in the bodies they had gathered for burial. The priestesses of Shallya had likewise perished in droves, unable to combat the magnitude of the plague with their rituals and prayers. Many of the acolytes of Verena, trying to augment the ranks of the overtaxed barbers and doktors, had also sickened and died. Even the druids of the Old Faith, calling upon the magic of Rhya and Taal, had been powerless to protect themselves. The death of the high druid had sent the rest of the Old Faith’s priesthood into retreat, scattering back into the countryside to hide in their sacred groves.

  The world was crumbling all around him. Everything Walther had known and believed had been turned upon its head. It seemed impossible that such a chaotic upheaval could come about in so short a time. The luxurious greensward around the Universität had been overrun by refugees, transformed into a mire of tents and shacks. Count Artur, the bold ‘Lion of Nuln’, the city’s great master and benefactor, had forsaken his home to remain at the Emperor’s palace in Altdorf. The dwarf sewers, that wonder of engineering which kept the city pure and clean, had become a breeding ground for hordes of vermin, vermin that were unafraid of man.

  It was all madness! Nothing made sense any more! Walther tipped back his stein, draining the last dregs from the cup. He started to wave to Bremer, then noticed Zena standing in the doorway to the kitchen. His cheeks flushed with shame. She wasn’t some prudish Verenan, but just the same she didn’t approve of a man who drank in some deluded effort to escape his troubles.

  Anger flared up inside the rat-catcher. Who was she to disapprove of him! What else was there to do except drink! Drink and forget! Drink and forget.

  Walther waved to Bremer, motioning for another stein. Zena stepped over to the bar and retrieved it from the taverneer, carrying it over to the table.

  ‘No lash of the tongue?’ Walther grunted when she set the beer beside his hand.

  Zena stared down at him, pain etched across her face. Walther became sober almost at once. She started to speak, but he pressed his fingers to her lips. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say. If he didn’t hear it, then it wasn’t real. It he didn’t know what had happened, then it didn’t happen.

  Hugo! He’d been a stupid, naïve boy, something of a country bumpkin. But he’d been brave and loyal, and Walther had owed his life to him.

  The rat-catcher pushed the stein away and closed his hand around Zena’s. He looked up at her with eyes that had no hope in them, only a terrible emptiness. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I should never have asked… never have risked…’

  Tears rolled from the woman’s eyes. ‘He saved your life,’ she sobbed. ‘I was indebted to him too.’

  Walther felt his chest swell. Old Night could take the rest of the world, if it would only leave him and Zena alone. He’d allowed himself to agonise over things that were beyond him, he’d allowed himself to be distracted by his sense of obligation to Hugo. None of it mattered. All that mattered was the woman he loved and making sure she was safe.

  ‘Zena, I…’

  The rat-catcher never finished what he was going to say. At that moment, the tavern door burst inwards. A squad of men in the rough brigandine armour and yellow sleeves of the Hundertschaft came rushing into t
he Black Rose. The few patrons tending drinks at this late hour cried out in fright and cowered before the menace of the soldiers’ halberds and swords.

  Captain Fellgiebel sauntered into the Black Rose like a wolf trotting through a flock of sheep. There was a merciless, vengeful smile on his lean face when he spotted Walther. He glanced over the other occupants of the room, frowning when he didn’t see Aldinger the Reiklander.

  ‘Herr Captain!’ Bremer cried out, circling out from behind the bar. ‘What brings the Hundertschaft to Lord Plessner’s establishment?’ It was seldom that Bremer invoked the name of his liege-lord, the nobleman in whose service the taverneer operated the Black Rose and paid a portion of the profit. For him to resort to such a tactic was evidence of the fear pounding through Bremer’s veins.

  Fellgiebel raised a gloved finger, making a warning gesture for Bremer to keep quiet. The captain turned and waved his hand at the stuffed rat. ‘Remove that abomination and burn it,’ he told his men.

  Walther leapt to his feet and stormed towards Fellgiebel. ‘You can’t do that!’ the rat-catcher snarled.

  ‘Ah, the charlatan,’ Fellgiebel hissed. He nodded and one of the watchmen drove the butt of his halberd into Walther’s belly, knocking the wind out of him. As the rat-catcher doubled over in pain, Zena rushed towards him. A snap of Fellgiebel’s fingers sent a guard to restrain her.

  ‘You’ve been a busy dog, haven’t you?’ Fellgiebel sneered. He turned and watched as more of his soldiers marched into the Black Rose. There was a third man walking between the two guards, a man with a bloodied face and the torn remains of a long linen cloak. Walther groaned when he recognised the garment. Though he had never seen the man’s face before, he was certain the prisoner was the plague doktor who had visited Hugo. Belatedly, Walther recalled the lone beggar who stayed out in the cold. Doubtless a spy for Fellgiebel, charged with watching the tavern.

  ‘This establishment is hereby placed under quarantine!’ Fellgiebel declared, removing a parchment proclamation from his sleeve. He shook the parchment at Bremer. ‘You will nail this to your door and daub a red cross over every entrance and exit to this building. There has been plague in this place. No one here is allowed to leave for a period of thirty days. If any of you are seen upon the streets, my men have orders to cut you down on sight.’

  Fellgiebel dismissed the entreaties and protests that followed his declaration. Still smiling, he watched his men remove the giant rat. Then he turned and stared down at Walther. ‘You will return to the watch station with us,’ he said. ‘There are… questions that need asking.’

  A cry of horror rose from Zena’s throat. She struggled to free herself from the guard. ‘It was my idea! All mine! Hiding Hugo was my doing!’

  ‘Don’t lie to him,’ Walther coughed. ‘He knows it was me. I’m the only one he wants.’

  Fellgiebel’s eyes were more snakelike than ever as he stalked towards the rat-catcher. ‘Very sensible,’ he said. The captain shifted his gaze to the frantic serving girl. ‘We are only interested in the rat-catcher. She can stay.’

  The watch captain’s eyes became even colder as he hissed into Walther’s ear. ‘She can stay… for now.’

  Altdorf

  Vorhexen, 1111

  The mangled body slammed down against the old oak table, causing the legs to creak and sway. Gasps of startlement and shock coursed through the dingy room, the basement of a candle maker who had been stricken with the plague. No one’s shock was greater than that of Erich von Kranzbeuhler. The features on the corpse’s pale face were ones he had seen many times before. Konreid of the Reiksknecht had fought his last battle.

  ‘Where did you find him?’ the captain asked the man who had brought the body into the hideout. The morbid courier was a rough-looking man with a military swagger, one of Engel’s Bread Marchers. He stared uncertainly at Meisel, the Nulner who in Engel’s absence had assumed leadership of the dispossessed Dienstleute. Meisel nodded, motioning for the peasant to forget his suspicions and answer the nobleman.

  ‘He was in the sewers,’ the dienstmann said. ‘The rats had been at him, but it was a Kaiserjaeger dagger that did for him.’ He reached into the grimy wool tunic he wore and tossed a steel knife onto the table, its hilt bearing the heraldry of Kreyssig’s enforcers. The dienstmann withdrew another item from his pocket, handing it to Meisel despite the man’s lack of letters.

  ‘He had that clenched in his hand,’ the dienstmann reported. ‘It looks like it was torn off.’

  Meisel handed the scrap of letter across the table to Baron Thornig. The hairy Middenlander studied the murky ink, struggling to make sense of the faded letters. The muck of the sewer had effaced most of the writing, but he was certain it didn’t match the message the conspirators had sent to Reiksmarshal Boeckenfoerde. Then he uttered a sharp curse. Down near the bottom of the letter, partially effaced, was the general’s signature.

  ‘This is a letter from the Reiksmarshal!’ Baron Thornig exclaimed. His outburst brought the other conspirators rushing to his side, eager to see what little there was of the missive. It wasn’t a large group; only Palatine Mihail Kretzulescu and Count van Sauckelhof were present. Prince Sigdan was busy trying to get Lady Mirella out of Altdorf. Princess Erna was busy experiencing the nuptial bliss of her new life as wife to Adolf Kreyssig.

  Erich pulled the scrap away from Kretzulescu’s bony grip and studied the jagged tear, trying to judge how much of the letter was missing. The Kaiserjaeger dagger made it clear who had the rest of the letter. If they had enough of it…

  ‘Two days ago a troop of Kaiserjaeger rode out from Altdorf,’ Baron Thornig said. ‘They might have been going to Talabecland. They might be looking for Reiksmarshal Boeckenfoerde.’

  Erich crushed the remnant of the letter and stared down at Konreid’s corpse. ‘We have to assume they have. And depending on what was written on the rest of this letter, Kreyssig might know exactly who is conspiring against Boris.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Count van Sauckelhof asked, panic written across his face.

  Erich stepped around the table, wondering if he had the authority to make such a decision. By rights, it was Prince Sigdan’s prerogative to sound the call to arms. To take that responsibility would be to flout the prince’s position and leadership. At the same time, to delay might be to give Kreyssig the time he needed to smash their uprising before it could even start.

  ‘We have to put our plans into action at once,’ Erich decided. ‘Have Aldo’s people get word to Prince Sigdan and the others. Meisel, you will muster as many of your Bread Marchers as you can reach. If we wait, we play right into Kreyssig’s hands. So we won’t wait. We’ll seize the Imperial Palace tonight!’

  The declaration seemed to terrify the other conspirators. For as long as they had talked about it, the magnitude of their plot, the fact that they were really going to storm the Imperial Palace, had never really sunk in. Now, faced with the imminence of history, their courage began to falter.

  Erich gestured down at the body of Konreid. First the execution of Arch-Lector Hartwich, now the murder of the old Reiksknecht veteran. How much blood would it take to stop a tyrant’s outrages? ‘It is too late to back out now. Too many people have sacrificed their lives and their honour to bring us this far. We will not fail them now. And if that isn’t enough, consider this. Right now, Kreyssig is reading the other half of this letter. He might be reading each of your names. If the thought of saving the Empire from a tyrant isn’t enough to make you commit to this cause, then fear for your own lives is!’

  Baron Thornig leaned against the wall, his eyes haunted, his breath coming in frightened gasps. ‘There’s another way. Erna is with that monster right now. If I told her to, she could eliminate any threat from Kreyssig.’

  Erich rounded upon the baron, grabbing him by his tunic and hoisting him to his feet. ‘We’re not using your daughter as a murderess!’ the knight snarled. ‘All of us are committed to this cause! We won’t back out now!’

&
nbsp; ‘But we’re not ready,’ protested Count van Sauckelhof.

  ‘Then we’d better get ready,’ Erich snapped, releasing his hold on Baron Thornig and turning his ire on the Westerlander. ‘Because time is running out. Not only for us, but for the whole Empire.’

  Chapter XV

  Altdorf

  Vorhexen, 1111

  In twos and threes, grim-faced men began to gather in the streets and alleyways bordering the Widows’ Plaza. They came with clubs and knives; hammers and axes; swords of every size, shape and condition; home-made spears and curved bows of Reikland elm wood. Muffled in fur cloaks and wool coats, the men braved the bite of a mid-afternoon snow flurry, using the falling snow to mask their approach and hide their numbers.

  Meisel had drawn upon some three hundred survivors of Engel’s Bread March and to this core of experienced warriors he had added as many of Altdorf’s disaffected peasantry as he could muster. It was a considerable mob that moved against the Courts of Justice. Rumours that the popular Arch-Lector Hartwich had been executed on orders from Emperor Boris had found fertile soil among Altdorf’s suffering masses. Men who had silently endured all of the Emperor’s other diktats and abuses had found this last one insufferable. Now, it seemed, the Emperor was trying to extend his tyranny into the realm of the gods and that the commoners would not allow.

  The watchmen high atop the Tower of Altdorf didn’t notice the approaching mob until packs of armed men emerged from the drifting snow and began marching into the Widows’ Plaza. At once they sounded the alarm bells, nocking arrows to bows. The officer in command of the archers hesitated, however, as the numbers of men in the square continued to increase. He didn’t want to make the decision to provoke the unrest further by shooting into the crowd. Precious minutes were lost as he awaited orders from his superiors to tell him what to do.