Lord John and the Hand of Devils

by Diana Gabaldon

  The only conclusion of which he was sure was that he needed very much to talk to someone who had seen Koenig's body.

  Chapter 6

  Hocus-Pocus

  Finding Private Koenig's last place of residence was simple. Thoroughly accustomed to having soldiers quartered upon them, Prussians sensibly built their houses with a separate chamber intended for the purpose. Indeed, the populace viewed such quartering not as an imposition, but as a windfall, since the soldiers not only paid for board and lodging and would often do chores such as fetching wood and water--but were also better protection against thieves than a large watchdog might be, without the expense.

  Stephan's records were of course impeccable; he could lay hands on any one of his men at a moment's notice. And while he received Grey with extreme coldness, he granted the request without question, directing Grey to a house toward the western side of the town.

  In fact, von Namtzen hesitated for a moment, clearly wondering whether duty obliged him to accompany Grey upon his errand, but Lance-Korporal Helwig appeared with a new difficulty--he averaged three per day--and Grey was left to carry out the errand on his own.

  The house where Koenig had lodged was nothing out of the ordinary, so far as Grey could see. The owner of the house was rather remarkable, though, being a dwarf.

  "Oh, the poor man! So much blood I have before not seen!"

  Herr Huckel stood perhaps as high as Grey's waist--a novel sensation, to look down so far to an adult conversant. Herr Huckel was nonetheless intelligent and coherent, which was also novel in Grey's experience; most witnesses to violence tended to lose what wits they had and either to forget all details or to imagine impossible ones.

  Herr Huckel, though, showed him willingly to the chamber where the death had occurred, and explained what he had himself seen.

  "It was late, you see, sir, and my wife and I had gone to our bed. The soldiers were out--or at least we supposed so." The soldiers had just received their pay, and most were busy losing it in taverns or brothels. The Huckels had heard no noises from the soldiers' room, and thus assumed that all four of the soldiers quartered with them were absent on such business.

  Somewhere in the small hours, though, the good folk had been awakened by terrible yells coming from the chamber. These were not produced by Private Koenig, but by one of his companions, who had returned in a state of advanced intoxication, and stumbled into a blood-soaked shambles.

  "He lay here, sir. Just so?" Herr Huckel waved his hands to indicate the position the body had occupied at the far side of the cozy room. There was nothing there now, save irregular dark blotches that stained the wooden floor.

  "Not even lye would get it out," said Frau Huckel, who had come to the door of the room to watch. "And we had to burn the bedding."

  Rather to Grey's surprise, she was not only of normal size, but quite pretty, with bright, soft hair peeking out from under her cap. She frowned at him in accusation.

  "None of the soldiers will stay here now. They think the Nachtmahr will get them, too!" Clearly, this was Grey's fault. He bowed apologetically.

  "I regret that, madam," he said. "Tell me, did you see the body?"

  "No," she said promptly, "but I saw the night hag."

  "Indeed," Grey said, surprised. "Er...what did it--she--it look like?" He hoped he was not going to receive some form of Siggy's logical but unhelpful description, Like a witch.

  "Now, Margarethe," said Herr Huckel, putting a warning hand up to his wife's arm. "It might not have been--"

  "Yes, it was!" She transferred the frown to her husband, but did not shake off his hand, instead putting her own over it, before returning her attention to Grey.

  "It was an old woman, sir, with her white hair in braids. Her shawl slipped off in the wind, and I saw. There are two old women who live nearby, this is true--but one walks only with a stick, and the other does not walk at all. This...thing, she moved very quickly, hunched a little, but light on her feet."

  Herr Huckel was looking more and more uneasy as this description progressed, and opened his mouth to interrupt, but was not given the chance.

  "I am sure it was old Agathe!" Frau Huckel said, her voice dropping to a portentous whisper. Herr Huckel shut his eyes with a grimace.

  "Old Agathe?" Grey asked, incredulous. "Do you mean Frau Blomberg--the burgermeister's mother?"

  Frau Huckel nodded, face fixed in grave certainty.

  "Something must be done," she declared. "Everyone is afraid at night--either to go out, or to stay in. Men whose wives will not watch over them as they sleep are falling asleep as they work, as they eat..."

  Grey thought briefly of mentioning Mr. Keegan's patent preventative, but dismissed the notion, instead turning to Herr Huckel to inquire for a close description of the state of the body.

  "I am told that the throat was pierced, as with an animal's teeth," he said, at which Herr Huckel made a quick sign against evil and nodded, going a little pale. "Was the throat torn quite open--as though the man were attacked by a wolf? Or--" But Herr Huckel was already shaking his head.

  "No, no! Only two marks--two holes. Like a snake's fangs." He poked two fingers into his own neck in illustration. "But so much blood!" He shuddered, glancing away from the marks on the floor-boards.

  Grey had once seen a man bitten by a snake, when he was quite young--but there had been no blood that he recalled. Of course, the man had been bitten in the leg, too.

  "Large holes, then?" Grey persisted, not liking to press the man to recall vividly unpleasant details, but determined to obtain as much information as possible.

  With some effort, he established that the tooth marks had been sizable--perhaps a bit more than a quarter inch or so in diameter--and located on the front of Koenig's throat, about halfway up. He made Huckel show him, repeatedly, after ascertaining that the body had shown no other wound when undressed for cleansing and burial.

  He glanced at the walls of the room, which had been freshly whitewashed. Nonetheless, there was a large dark blotch showing faintly, down near the floor--probably where Koenig had rolled against the wall in his death throes.

  He had hoped that a description of Koenig's body would enable him to discover some connection between the two deaths--but the only similarity between the deaths of Koenig and Bodger appeared to be that both men were indeed dead, and both dead under impossible circumstances.

  He thanked the Huckels and prepared to take his leave, only then realizing that Frau Huckel had resumed her train of thought and was speaking to him quite earnestly.

  "...call a witch to cast the runes," she said.

  "I beg your pardon, madam?"

  She drew in a breath of deep exasperation, but refrained from open rebuke.

  "Herr Blomberg," she repeated, giving Grey a hard look. "He will call a witch to cast the runes. Then we will discover the truth of everything!"

  He will do what?" Sir Peter squinted at Grey in disbelief. "Witches?"

  "Only one, I believe, sir," Grey assured Sir Peter. According to Frau Huckel, matters had been escalating in Gundwitz. The rumor that Herr Blomberg's mother was custodian to the succubus was rampant in the town, and public opinion was in danger of overwhelming the little burgermeister.

  Herr Blomberg, however, was a stubborn man, and most devoted to his mother's memory. He refused entirely to allow her coffin to be dug up and her body desecrated.

  The only solution, which Herr Blomberg had declared out of desperation, seemed to be to discover the true identity and hiding place of the succubus. To this end, the burgermeister had summoned a witch, who would cast runes--

  "What are those?" Sir Peter asked, puzzled.

  "I am not entirely sure, sir," Grey admitted. "Some object for divination, I suppose."

  "Really?" Sir Peter rubbed his knuckles dubiously beneath a long, thin nose. "Sounds very fishy, what? This witch could say anything, couldn't she?"

  "I suppose Herr Blomberg expects that if he is paying for the...er...ceremony, the
lady is perhaps more likely to say something favorable to his situation," Grey suggested.

  "Hmm. Still don't like it," Sir Peter said. "Don't like it at all. Could be trouble, Grey, surely you see that?"

  "I do not believe you can stop him, sir."

  "Perhaps not, perhaps not." Sir Peter ruminated fiercely, brow crinkled under his wig. "Ah! Well, how's this, then--you go round and fix it up, Grey. Tell Herr Blomberg he can have his mumbo jumbo, but he must do it here, at the Schloss. That way we can keep a lid on it, what, see there's no untoward excitement?"

  "Yes, sir," Grey said, manfully suppressing a sigh, and went off to execute his orders.

  By the time he reached his room to change for dinner, Grey felt dirty, irritable, and thoroughly out of sorts. It had taken most of the afternoon to track down Herr Blomberg and convince him to hold his--Christ, what was it? His rune-casting?--at the Schloss. Then he had run across the pest Helwig, and before he was able to escape, had been embroiled in an enormous controversy with a gang of mule drovers who claimed not to have been paid by the army.

  This in turn had entailed a visit to two army camps, an inspection of thirty-four mules, trying interviews with both Sir Peter's paymaster and von Namtzen's--and involved a further cold interview with Stephan, who had behaved as though Grey were personally responsible for the entire affair, then turned his back, dismissing Grey in mid-sentence, as though unable to bear the sight of him.

  He flung off his coat, sent Tom to fetch hot water, and irritably tugged off his stock, wishing he could hit someone.

  A knock sounded on the door, and he froze, irritation vanishing upon the moment. What to do? Pretend he wasn't in was the obvious course, in case it was Louisa in her sheer lawn shift or something worse. But if it were Stephan, come either to apologize or to demand further explanation?

  The knock sounded again. It was a good, solid knock. Not what one would expect of a female--particularly not of a female intent on dalliance. Surely the princess would be more inclined to a discreet scratching?

  The knock came again, peremptory, demanding. Taking an enormous breath and trying to still the thumping of his heart, Grey jerked the door open.

  "I wish to speak to you," said the dowager, and sailed into the room, not waiting for invitation.

  "Oh," said Grey, having lost all grasp of German on the spot. He closed the door, and turned to the old lady, instinctively tightening the sash of his banyan.

  She ignored his mute gesture toward the chair, but stood in front of the fire, fixing him with a steely gaze. She was completely dressed, he saw, with a faint sense of relief. He really could not have borne the sight of the dowager en dishabille.

  "I have come to ask you," she said without preamble, "if you have intentions to marry Louisa."

  "I have not," he said, his German returning with miraculous promptitude. "Nein."

  One sketchy gray brow twitched upward.

  "Ja? That is not what she thinks."

  He rubbed a hand over his face, groping for some diplomatic reply--and found it, in the feel of the stubble on his own jaw.

  "I admire Princess Louisa greatly," he said. "There are few women who are her equal"--And thank God for that, he added to himself--"but I regret that I am not free to undertake any obligation. I have...an understanding. In England." His understanding with James Fraser was that if he were ever to lay a hand on the man or speak his heart, Fraser would break his neck instantly. It was, however, certainly an understanding, and clear as Waterford crystal.

  The dowager looked at him with a narrow gaze of such penetrance that he wanted to tighten his sash further--and take several steps backward. He stood his ground, though, returning the look with one of patent sincerity.

  "Hmph!" she said at last. "Well, then. That is good." Without another word, she turned on her heel. Before she could close the door behind her, he reached out and grasped her arm.

  She swung round to him, surprised and outraged at his presumption. He ignored this, though, absorbed in what he had seen as she lifted her hand to the doorframe.

  "Pardon, Your Highness," he said. He touched the medal pinned to the bodice of her gown. He had seen it a hundred times, and assumed it always to contain the image of some saint--which, he supposed, it did, but certainly not in the traditional manner.

  "St. Orgevald?" he inquired. The image was crudely embossed, and could easily be taken for something else--if one hadn't seen the larger version on the lid of the reliquary.

  "Certainly." The old lady fixed him with a glittering eye, shook her head, and went out, closing the door firmly behind her.

  For the first time, it occurred to Grey that whoever Orgevald had been, it was entirely possible that he had not originally been a saint. Some rather earthier ancient Germanic deity, perhaps? Pondering this interesting notion, he went to bed.

  Chapter 7

  Ambush

  The next day dawned cold and windy. Grey saw pheasants huddling under the cover of shrubs as he rode, crows hugging the ground in the stubbled fields, and slate roofs thick with shuffling doves, feathered bodies packed together in the quest for heat. In spite of their reputed brainlessness, he had to think that the birds were more sensible than he.

  Birds had no duty--but it wasn't quite duty that propelled him on this ragged, chilly morning. It was in part simple curiosity, in part official suspicion. He wished to find the gypsies; in particular, he wished to find one gypsy: the woman who had quarreled with Private Bodger soon before his death.

  If he were quite honest--and he felt that he could afford to be, so long as it was within the privacy of his own mind--he had another motive for the journey. It would be entirely natural for him to pause at the bridge for a cordial word with the artillerymen, and perhaps see for himself how the boy with the red lips was faring.

  While all these motives were undoubtedly sound, though, the real reason for his expedition was simply that it would remove him from the Schloss. He did not feel safe in a house containing the princess Louisa, let alone her mother-in-law. Neither could he go to his usual office in the town, for fear of encountering Stephan.

  The whole situation struck him as farcical in the extreme; still, he could not keep himself from thinking about it--about Stephan.

  Had he been deluding himself about Stephan's attraction to him? He was as vain as any man, he supposed, but he could swear...His thoughts went round and round in the same weary circle. And yet, each time he thought to dismiss them entirely, he felt again the overwhelming sense of warmth and casual possession with which Stephan had kissed him. He had not imagined it. And yet...

  Embrangled in this tedious but inescapable coil, he reached the bridge by mid-morning, only to find that the young soldier was not in camp.

  "Franz? Gone foraging, maybe," said the Hanoverian corporal, with a shrug. "Or got homesick and run. They do that, the young ones."

  "Got scared," one of the other men suggested, overhearing.

  "Scared of what?" Grey asked sharply, wondering whether in spite of everything, word of the succubus had reached the bridge.

  "Scared of his shadow, that one," said the man he recalled as Samson, making a face. "He keeps talking about the child; he hears a crying child at night."

  "Thought you heard it, too, eh?" said the Hanoverian, not sounding entirely friendly. "The night it rained so hard?"

  "Me? I didn't hear anything then but Franz's squealing." There was a rumble of laughter at that, the sound of which made Grey's heart drop to his boots. Too late, he thought. "At the lightning," Samson added blandly, catching his glance.

  "He's run for home," the Hanoverian declared. "Let him go; no use here for a coward."

  There was a small sense of disquiet in the man's manner that belied his confidence, Grey thought--and yet there was nothing to be done about it. He had no direct authority over these men, could not order a search to be undertaken.

  As he crossed the bridge, though, he could not help but glance over. The water had subsided only a lit
tle; the flood still tumbled past, choked with torn leaves and half-seen sodden objects. He did not want to stop, to be caught looking, and yet looked as carefully as he could, half-expecting to see little Franz's delicate body broken on the rocks, or the blind eyes of a drowned face trapped beneath the water.

  He saw nothing but the usual flood debris, though, and with a slight sense of relief, continued on toward the hills.

  He knew nothing save the direction the gypsy wagons had been going when last observed. It was long odds that he would find them, but he searched doggedly, pausing at intervals to scan the countryside with his spyglass, or to look for rising plumes of smoke.

  These last occurred sporadically, but proved invariably to be peasant huts or charcoal-burners, all of whom either disappeared promptly when they saw his red coat or stared and crossed themselves, but none of whom admitted to having heard of the gypsies, let alone seen them.

  The sun was coming down the sky, and he realized that he must turn back soon or be caught in open country by night. He had a tinderbox and a bottle of ale in his saddlebag, but no food, and the prospect of being marooned in this fashion was unwelcome, particularly with the French forces only a few miles to the west. If the British army had scouts, so did the frogs, and he was lightly armed, with no more than a pair of pistols, a rather dented cavalry saber, and his dagger to hand.

  Not wishing to risk Karolus on the boggy ground, he was riding another of his horses, a thickset bay who went by the rather unflattering name of Hognose, but who had excellent manners and a steady foot. Steady enough that Grey could ignore the ground, trying to focus his attention, strained from prolonged tension, into a last look round. The foliage of the hills around him faded into patchwork, shifting constantly in the roiling wind. Again and again, he thought he saw things--human figures, animals moving, the briefly seen corner of a wagon--only to have them prove illusory when he ventured toward them.

  The wind whined incessantly in his ears, adding spectral voices to the illusions that plagued him. He rubbed a hand over his face, gone numb from the cold, imagining momentarily that he heard the wails of Franz's ghostly child. He shook his head to dispel the impression--but it persisted.