Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Matthew McFarland

  “Yes. But if he’s casting one of his spells that requires the entire night… Hmm. Either an alibi or a very convenient excuse. He used Albin as a pawn once before, if you recall.” Jürgen rolled his eyes. The affair with the Toreador sword had simply been the beginning of a very long debacle. The stars must have been in very strange places that year. “I doubt very much that he is attempting to betray me so soon after establishing his precious chantry, but if he is involved, I’m sure Albin will tell me.”

  Chapter Four

  From the moment Jürgen saw Albin the Ghost, chained to the wall in the priory dungeon, he knew something was wrong. Albin was standing straight.

  Albin never stood straight. Albin the Ghost was a pathetic fool, a clanless, weak-blooded pizzle. He did have one useful trait—he knew Magdeburg better than any living or unliving soul, Jürgen included. But Jürgen had never allowed him to take pride in even that, instead reminding him at every turn that the Ghost owed his unlife to the Sword-Bearer.

  As Jürgen watched, Albin faded from sight. The chains were still there, but they appeared now to be hanging limply from the wall. Jürgen cocked his head and stared piercingly at where he knew his prisoner was still standing. Caine had granted some of his children the gift of vanishing from plain sight, and the implementation of it was unnerving to watch. Indeed, the ghoul who had taken Hans’s place gasped as the prisoner disappeared. Jürgen knew that Caine had granted that gift only to vampires who were unworthy of greater power. The deceitful, the mad, the hideous—they could disguise themselves with trickery. Jürgen stared, and the power covering Albin faded away. Albin couldn’t command shadows as Jürgen’s confessor, Gotzon, could—his power instead caused others to ignore him. Fitting, thought Jürgen, that the Ghost’s only notable gift should be the power to become more ignominious. He noted, however, that Albin’s control of his power was stronger. Jürgen actually had to concentrate to see him, willing his eyes to acknowledge the fact that Albin was, in fact, standing there. The prince frowned; Albin’s power could never surpass Jürgen’s ability to find him, but he seemed surer of himself, as though someone had finally treated him like the valuable person he clearly was not.

  “Albin, what on Earth are you doing? Even if you could fool me into thinking you had escaped, you’re hardly like to do so when I’m standing in front of you.”

  Albin the Ghost cracked a smile, something else that Jürgen had never seen him do. And then he spit blood in Jürgen’s face.

  It was by no means the first time Jürgen had suffered such an insult. Men in power, he had come to recognize, suffered all manner of slander and envy from those beneath them. He had long suspected that Albin hated him, but before that hatred had always been submerged beneath a healthy dose of fear and respect. But now the wretch had apparently grown some balls, and thought that this development entitled him to stand up to the Prince of Magdeburg.

  And that simply would not do.

  The jailor, whose name Jürgen hadn’t bothered to ask, was fortunately quick on the uptake. He did not react to Albin’s suicidal action, but stepped forward and asked, “What shall I bring you, my lord?”

  Jürgen wiped the congealed blood from his face. “Build a small fire outside the room and bring me a sharp knife. And a sharpened stake, please. Nothing else will be required.” The jailor left, and Jürgen stepped forward.

  “Come closer,” hissed Albin. “I would love to bite your lips off.”

  Jürgen smirked. “You have the look of a man who intends to perish come the dawn, or else be rescued. Neither is likely, Albin.” The Ghost’s only response was to spit at Jürgen’s feet. “Come now. Keep that up and you’ll starve yourself into torpor, and then I’ll have to sacrifice some perfectly decent rats to bring you around. Isn’t that your chosen fare? Rats?”

  “I have not supped on rats for some years now, Jürgen.” Jürgen refrained from breaking the man’s jaw for the slight, but reminded himself to do so later. “And all I mean to do is return to you the blood of yours that you forced me to drink.”

  Jürgen bristled. “I never forced you into anything, Caitiff. You came to me for protection and I took you as my vassal. You swore an oath before me and God—”

  “As if I had a choice!” The voice was so bitter that even Jürgen was taken aback. “I came to you to beg for mercy, that much is true, but had I known what you would do to me I would have died in the sun first.”

  Jürgen shook his head. “Believe me when I tell you that other Cainites have had it much worse than you ever did, Albin. I ask my vassals for very little in comparison to—” he almost said “Alexander” but then corrected himself. The Ghost would know little of the former Prince of Paris, and he had no desire to say the man’s name again in any case.

  “As Hardestadt?”

  Jürgen shut his eyes. His Beast politely asked permission to separate Albin’s head from his torso. “You would do well to avoid speaking of my sire, wretch. You will wish for the Final Death come the dawn in any event, but whether that wish is granted or not is another matter.”

  “Really? You love Hardestadt then? You took the oath willingly to him, did you? You find him a kind master? Such things I could tell you of Hardesta—”

  Jürgen surged forward and caught the Caitiff under the jaw, slamming his head against the stone wall. He stared into Albin’s eyes and commanded him, his words backed by the power and blood of the Third Mortal himself. Jürgen felt Albin’s mind like a thin covering of ice on a pond, felt it splinter and then shatter under his power. “Do not speak of Hardestadt, boy.”

  The command filtered through Albin’s mind. Jürgen had seen the same look before on many faces, kine and Cainite alike. But the look was different—commanding Albin not to speak of Jürgen’s sire shouldn’t have any real effect on the Caitiff, emotionally. Yet Albin looked confused, even crushed.

  Jürgen did not release Albin from his mental power immediately, but rather searched through his memories, looking for what had happened to the Ghost. He saw his former spy looking in on other Cainites, doubtless members of the Silent Fury. He saw five of them and recognized one, a Brujah called Armin Brenner whom he had imprisoned some eight years before for burning down a warehouse in Magdeburg. The other four, he did not recognize. Two were women, two men. One of the women was wild-looking, surely ruled much of the time by her Beast, but he didn’t think her one of the animalistic Gangrel. Such Cainites often sported fur and claws and wolf-like eyes; this woman looked human enough. Her features weren’t German, however—possibly Slavic?

  One of the men bore the mien of a boy, eighteen summers at the most. If Jürgen didn’t know that Brenner was the nominal leader of these fools, he’d have guessed that this one was. He regarded the others with a careful eye, and as the four of them sat crouched around a table in some dingy room, he watched the walls and windows. Jürgen realized that Albin must have been watching invisibly while this meeting took place.

  The other two Cainites sat near each other. The man’s clothing was French, and Jürgen wondered if Rosamund or someone else in the Courts of Love might know who those vampires were. The woman—a waif not any older (before her Embrace) than Rosamund, clasped the man’s hand. Far from looking frightened, though, they both had a lustful look about them. Jürgen stared through Albin’s memory at the woman—she looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite decide why.

  As he watched, the scene began to fade, the colors becoming washed out and muted, the sounds of the memory falling to distant echoes. Jürgen tried to remain rooted in the memory, but minds—even one so weak as Albin’s—were fluid things, and holding one was sometimes like holding a handful of water. Albin’s eyes cleared. He laughed, and curled his lips back to spit again. Jürgen balled up a fist and broke his jaw before he got the chance, and then stalked out of the room.

  Chapter Five

  Christof and Heinrich waited outside the prison. Jürgen joined them, wiping blood from his fist. His two vassals looked at him expectantly. />
  “Well,” began Jürgen, “someone of his acquaintance is fairly skilled at manipulating memories. His have been crushed into paste in places.”

  “Could you decipher them?” Christof had some skill with the minds of others, but not so much as Jürgen.

  “Given time, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”

  “But there’s obviously something they don’t wish you to see,” offered Heinrich.

  Jürgen shook his head. “That isn’t the point. It seems fairly clear what the Silent Fury is doing; they’ve allowed Albin to become captured and made him swear, upon every loyalty he has, not to tell me some inane fact. That I will beat that fact out of him will no doubt come as a great shock to Albin, but not the Silent Fury. When I put that fact, whatever it may be, although I suspect it is the location of a meeting, to use, the Silent Fury intends to kill me, or at least whomever I would send to rout them.”

  “Could they be so brazen?” asked Heinrich.

  “I wouldn’t have thought so,” said Jürgen, “if they hadn’t managed to convince Albin the Ghost to spit in my face.” Heinrich gasped. “He’s still intact. Mostly.” He decided not to tell his vassals about Albin’s other insult, speaking familiarly of Hardestadt. It embarrassed him to think of it.

  “So what shall we do? Surely you aren’t going to play into their hands.”

  Christof nodded. “Yes, my lord. Leave him chained up here and continue with your journey as planned. If the Silent Fury follows you to Livonia, they are bigger fools than we thought. If they remain here in Germany, my knights will find them surely enough once I piece Albin’s memories back together.”

  Jürgen looked past them, towards the Embassy of the Rose. Every detail out in the world is another weapon the enemy can use, he thought. For Albin to steal into the city undetected would be child’s play—no one knew the city better. For any other Cainite to infiltrate the priory was almost unthinkable, but Albin the Ghost could accomplish it. Once inside Jürgen’s haven, he might remain unseen for nights. Destroying—or even attacking—Jürgen would be difficult if any trace of the blood oath remained, but it didn’t seem to. And yet, Albin’s role in the “plan” of the Silent Fury seemed clear. He was to be sacrificed to lure Jürgen to wherever they wanted to stage an assault.

  “But it doesn’t follow,” said Jürgen aloud. “The Silent Fury’s best hope for harming me would be to send Albin in and have him set a fire, or otherwise cause chaos here. Sending him here to bait me makes too many assumptions—it assumes that I can’t repair his memories enough to discover the true plan: I can. It assumes that he’ll break under torture. He will, but it’s still a gamble, if even a slight one. It assumes that I won’t just order him set on fire after killing one of my lady’s servants, which I admit is tempting.” He shook his head and pointed at the Embassy of the Rose. “Christof, send another two knights to guard Rosamund. Make sure they are sober and alert men, and that they have sworn oaths before the Black Cross.” Christof trotted off in the direction of the order’s house. Jürgen turned to his seneschal. “Heinrich, bring me Jervais. I don’t care if he’s communing with Satan Himself. If that sorcerer is going to reside in my city I am going to make sure he’s useful.” Heinrich nodded. As he turned to go, Jürgen stopped him. “Heinrich, one other thing. Have there been any arrivals from Brunswick? Not Cainites, necessarily, but merchants, mendicants, anything?”

  Heinrich shook his head. He knew Norbert von Xanten, the Lasombra Prince of Brunswick was a rival of Jürgen’s. “No, my lord.”

  “Good. Do as I ask. Have Jervais meet me at Albin’s cell.” With that, Jürgen turned and descended the stairs again. The jailor had the fire lit and blazing merrily and handed Jürgen a dagger. Jürgen nodded, and then opened the door to Albin’s cell and spoke loudly enough for him to hear. “Now, kindly hold the blade of this dagger in the fire until it glows. When it is ready, knock on the door.” The jailor nodded, but Jürgen wasn’t looking. He entered the cell and shut the door.

  Albin was still working his jaw back into place, which Jürgen imagined was difficult with his hands chained the to wall. He waited patiently for the Caitiff to finish.

  “Well, Albin, since you’ve gone to all the trouble of breaking in here, betraying your master—”

  “You are not my master any longer,” he snarled.

  Jürgen ignored him. “—and committing murder in my city, all the while carrying around clumsily concealed memories of the Silent Fury, it’s fairly obvious that you want me to find something out.”

  “I don’t know what the Silent Fury is!”

  Jürgen shook his head. “If you’re going to lie, at least tell a lie that has a hope of being believed. I told you to investigate the Silent Fury some time ago. You did. They caught you. You probably begged for your pathetic unlife. I have to admit, I wonder what manner of power they had to infuse you with for you to grow a spine—that unkemptlooking woman in your memories, is she a Tzimisce, by any chance? Did she graft a backbone on you, worm? Perhaps a pair of balls, as well?” He crossed the room towards Albin. The Ghost had apparently given up on spitting and instead kicked his leg out at Jürgen in a futile attempt to strike him. Jürgen batted down Albin’s foot. He considered snapping his leg, but decided against it—Albin was stupid enough to waste precious energy on healing himself, and Jürgen didn’t want to bother feeding him yet. “Albin, I am a better man than you, and so I shall be honest. You will never leave Magdeburg again. Your ashes will float down the Elbe, probably very soon. But you know more about this city than most Cainites, and doubtless you know me better than most Cainites. Please consider what I’m capable of doing to you. And don’t make me do it.”

  “Does your pretty Toreador not fulfill you, Lord Jürgen, that you have to torture peasants for your pleasure?”

  It was an obvious thing to say, as insults went. Jürgen had endured all manner of slights, both as a mortal warlord and as a Cainite. Part of being a leader was recognizing which slights had to be answered for in blood and which ones were simply born of desperation, a prisoner or foe trying to take whatever he could before the inevitable. This, Albin’s petty insult, was very much the latter. The Caitiff knew that he was doomed, and was trying to salvage his own dignity. Jürgen’s mind said all of this, but his Beast said something quite different.

  Uncharacteristically, Jürgen listened to his Beast.

  The look on Albin’s face when Jürgen surged forward, teeth bared, eyes fairly glowing with hate, made it quite clear that he hadn’t expected such a reaction. Jürgen sank his fangs into the Caitiff’s sallow cheek and ripped downwards, tearing away a long flap of skin. The frenzy passed almost immediately, and Jürgen spat Albin’s cheek at his feet and wiped the blood from his chin.

  Albin was trying to retain his earlier bravado, but it wasn’t working. His ruined face was twisted in panic and pain. His own toothless Beast was working its way to the surface. Jürgen decided to leave him alone for a moment. He left the room, and found the jailor busily heating the knife.

  “Almost ready, my lord.”

  “Good,” growled the prince. Footsteps echoed down the stairs. Jürgen couldn’t clear his mind enough to tell whose they were, but expected them to belong to Jervais. He was very surprised to see Rosamund. “My lady?”

  “I wanted to see the prisoner. I wanted to see what kind of creature killed one as innocent as Blanche.”

  Jürgen shook his head. “Surely you know, my sweet, that to many of our kind innocence is meat and drink. You have met such Cainites.”

  “I have.” Her manner was strange. She seemed cold, numb, but very much in control. “But even so, please let me into his cell.”

  Jürgen stood in front of her. “Lady, I cannot. I am loath to deny you anything, and I know how you grieve, but you cannot see him, not now.”

  “Do you think that I will quail at the sight of him? Is he so fearsome?” The words should have been lightly sarcastic, but Rosamund’s voice was so bitter that the jailor tu
rned away, tears in his eyes.

  Jürgen shook his head. “No. It isn’t that I don’t wish you to see him.” I do not wish you to see what I did to him, what I can do in your name. “I cannot allow him to see you, for even the lowliest wretch might find himself uplifted by your beauty.”

  She didn’t believe it, but she acted as though she did, and for that Jürgen silently thanked her. She turned and walked out of the jail, leaving the room colder and emptier in her absence.

  “Is the knife ready yet?”

  The jailor took a moment to compose himself, and then rasped, “Yes, my lord.”

  Jürgen took the red-hot blade from the jailor. The blade’s handle was hot enough to sear human flesh, but to Jürgen it was merely uncomfortable. “When Jervais arrives, he is to wait here.” With that, Jürgen opened the door.

  Not more than twenty minutes passed from when Jürgen entered the room to when Jervais descended the stairs, but to the jailor, listening to the screams from inside the room, it certainly felt longer.

  Chapter Six

  “It is, in fact, Albin,” Jervais said flatly, rubbing a drop of blood between his fingers.

  “Please tell me something more useful than that, Jervais.” Jürgen sat at his table, rubbing his temples. Albin’s newfound resolve had lasted less than a minute from when Jürgen reentered the room. It was by no means the fastest he’d ever broken a prisoner, but then he’d never bitten off anyone’s face before. Jervais had been tactful enough not to ask about it when he saw Albin.

  “You have a much greater gift for rooting out spoken lies than I, my lord.” Jervais smiled. “To my infinite regret.”

  Jürgen smirked mirthlessly. “That’s just the problem. All that Albin says, he believes. But some of what he asserts simply isn’t possible.”

  “My lord?”

  Jürgen sat forward and glanced over the notes he’d written. He’d scrawled out as much of Albin’s “confession” as he could on a wax tablet (and reflected ruefully that Albin was, if nothing else, succeeding in costing him time). “He said that he left my employ because of the way that I treated him. That’s not true; I imprisoned him because of his betrayal of me. He said that he escaped, but then remained by my side for some time. He insists—insists—that the Silent Fury has a spy at my court….” Jürgen trailed off and raised his eyes to Jervais.