Gotrek & Felix- the Third Omnibus - William King & Nathan Long

by Warhammer

  ‘Ah, no. Mine were singed somewhat. And these are borrowed,’ said Felix. ‘And I don’t suppose we could eat at Wulf’s instead?’

  Otto made a face. ‘Wulf’s? Why would you want to go there? It’s a dreadful place.’

  ‘I hear it’s more, ah, sporting than the Golden Hammer,’ said Felix.

  Otto sneered. ‘Bunch of preening jackdaws who’ve never done a day’s work in their lives. A lot of Gustav’s schoolmates go there.’

  ‘Does Gustav go there?’ asked Felix, suddenly hopeful. That would make things easier. He could ask the boy about the other members. Perhaps he would have noticed something.

  Otto shook his head. ‘Not Wulf’s. He thinks it represents the antipathy of true speech, or whatever he calls it. Besides, they bully his sort there.’

  ‘I still want to see it,’ said Felix. ‘If I’m going to live here, I want to know what sort of amusements are on offer.’

  Otto smirked knowingly. ‘I see how it is. Tired of the privations of the road and want to live a little. Well, I don’t blame you. Wulf’s is certainly sporting. The evening isn’t complete there until some young fool is carried to the surgeons by his friends. But if you want to go…’

  ‘Sounds amusing,’ said Felix, with what he hoped was a properly snobbish voice.

  ‘Very well.’ Otto fumbled in his pouch. ‘Go see my tailor. You remember where he is? Good. Tell him it’s on my account. I’ll subtract it from your book profits later. And take this and get yourself a shave and a trim. You look like a Kurgan.’ He dropped a handful of coins in Felix’s hand – gold, silver and copper. ‘Rodi!’ he shouted.

  After a moment the little boy looked in. ‘Aye, sir?’

  ‘Show my brother out and ask in the bargemen.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Come by my house at seven, Felix,’ said Otto. ‘We’ll go from there.’

  ‘Right,’ said Felix. ‘See you tonight.’

  He followed Rodi out into the office.

  Before they got to the front Felix paused. ‘Rodi,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said the boy, stopping.

  ‘Do you want to be a clerk?’

  A terrified expression flashed across his face, and he shot quick looks towards Herr Bartlemass and Otto’s office. ‘Oh, yes, sir! More than anything, sir.’

  Felix scowled. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And if you didn’t want to be a clerk, what would you want to be?’

  ‘A sailor on a ship,’ said Rodi instantly. ‘My cousin Lani was a mate, sir. He told the most wonderful stories. Been everywhere, my cousin has. Do you know what apes is, sir? My cousin seen one once.’

  Felix shuddered, remembering a night under jungle moons, with huge, shaggy shapes lumbering up the steps of a ruined temple towards them. He pushed the scene away and smiled at Rodi. ‘A sailor, eh? Well, in case you ever change your mind about clerking, here’s something towards your sea chest.’ He picked a silver coin from those his brother had given him and handed it to Rodi.

  The boy’s eyes grew wide as he stared at the coin. ‘Thank you, sir!’ he said, then darted a wary look at the other boys in the room and slipped the coin quickly into his belt pouch.

  Felix shrugged as he wove through the streets towards Otto’s tailor. The money would most likely go to Rodi’s mother or father and the boy would never leave Otto’s office, but at least Felix had tried. He wondered if he would have given him the money if he had said he wanted to be a soldier or an adventurer.

  Probably not.

  Wulf’s occupied a grand brick and stone building on Commerce Street in the heart of the Handelbezirk. Golden light spilled from its tall windows, each decorated with a stained glass wolf’s head. Wide stone steps led up to its stout oak doors. A huge, uniformed man with the look of an ex-soldier pulled them open for the garishly dressed young men who came and went, chatting boisterously with each other. He seemed to know them all by name, and joked with them as they passed.

  The giant sized Otto and Felix up as they stepped out of Otto’s enclosed coach and Otto told his coachman and two bodyguards to wait for them down the street. Felix blushed under his scrutiny. He was certain the man had seen in an instant that his doublet and breeches were brand new, and that his gaze could see through the finery to the penniless wanderer beneath. He felt an utter fraud in these clothes, an actor masquerading as a rich man. An uncomfortable actor at that. The stiff lace of the collar chafed his neck. The tight green velvet of the doublet constricted his chest. The glossy, knee-high boots pinched his feet. His face felt dry and hot where the barber had scraped his chin and cheeks clean.

  ‘Your names, meinen herren?’ rumbled the giant deferentially as he and Otto mounted the steps.

  ‘Otto Jaeger and a guest,’ said Otto.

  ‘Herr Jaeger,’ said the giant, bowing. ‘Forgive me for not recognising you at once, sir. It has been some time since you visited. Welcome.’ He pulled on a huge brass ring that was clamped in the jaws of a brass wolf’s head, and the door swung open. ‘Please remember that guests are only allowed in the dining room and smoking room, sir.’

  Otto nodded and they stepped inside. The entry way was clad in dark wood. The banners of several mercantile guilds hung from the walls. Young men laughed and gossiped on a wide stairway that rose up to upper floors. A deafening torrent of merriment and clinking plates poured from a door to the right.

  After depositing their cloaks and swords with a porter, Otto and Felix passed through the door into the dining room. Something flew past Felix’s face and he flinched back, wary. The missile hit a young diner in the back of the head and plopped to the floor. It was a hunk of black bread. Laughter erupted to Felix’s left.

  The diner jumped up, armed with a hunk of bread of his own. ‘Who threw that?’ he called, eyes flashing. ‘Mieritz! Was it you?’

  A young man in orange and green velvet spread his hands, grinning. ‘Me, Fetteroff? Why would you suspect me?’

  Fetteroff flung his bread. Mieritz snatched it deftly from the air and took a bite. ‘My thanks, sir,’ he mumphed as he chewed. ‘My bread seems to have fallen on the floor.’

  His friends erupted at this witticism, as did Fetteroff, and everyone returned to their dinners.

  ‘I warned you,’ said Otto out of the side of his mouth.

  A steward in a high collar bowed and led them to a table for two against the far wall. The dining room was large and high ceilinged, with roaring fires in grand fireplaces at both ends. Rich tapestries – all of them depicting wolves on the hunt – hid the plaster walls, and gold stencilled wooden pillars rose to carved and painted beams. Large circular tables filled the centre of the room, all crowded with preening, posturing young men, each apparently trying to outdo all the rest in the richness and elaborateness of their clothes. Felix had never seen so many colours under one roof. It was as if a rainbow had been violently sick.

  ‘Sigmar’s beard, what a cacophony,’ said Otto, wincing as loud laughter erupted again from one of the tables. ‘Do you really prefer this to the Golden Hammer?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do,’ said Felix. ‘But I wanted to see for myself.’

  A server came. Felix ordered duck in plum sauce while Otto ordered roast beef, and Bretonnian wine for the two of them.

  Felix tried to listen to his fellow diners while Otto talked about what job he might do for Jaeger and Sons. He wished he could close his eyes in order to concentrate better on their voices, but Otto would remark on that, so he kept them open. He cursed at the constant din. The room was too loud and echoed too much.

  He tried to concentrate on picking one voice out from the hubbub, then another, but found it hard to focus on them without getting caught up in their conversations, and the more he heard, the more his teeth clenched and his hackles rose. It wasn’t the noise or the high spirits of the young men at the tables that made him angry – in his travels with Gotrek he had seen more than his fair share of wild taverns and boisterous inns. In fact he liked carousing now and then; s
inging bawdy songs, arm wrestling, dancing with ladies of less than sterling reputations, having deep philosophical conversations with total strangers that he forgot entirely the next day. He had met Gotrek on such a night.

  This was different. There was a cruelty to the laughter, a hatefulness to the jokes and jibes that were bandied between the tables, that was peculiar to the idle rich. These young men were not friends, they were rivals, and deadly rivals at that, for all their blaring bonhomie. Their jokes were not meant to entertain, but to belittle their victims and bolster themselves. They chose their companions not because they liked them, but because knowing them offered some advantage. The symbol of the wolf had been well chosen for this place, Felix thought, for the society of its members seemed based on the pecking order of the wolf pack, where the biggest, meanest, and most cunning predator savaged those below him, and they in turn savaged those below them.

  Felix had always despised such behaviour, ever since his days at the University in Altdorf when the nobles had sneered at him for his mercantile upbringing and denied him entry to their clubs and fraternities. It distressed him to see the sons of merchants aping precisely this vile behaviour. One would have thought that, having been snubbed and condescended to by their ‘betters’, they would have wished to belong to a more egalitarian society. Instead, they were worse snobs than the nobility, exaggerating their viciousness and vainglory until they were little better than beasts in velvet.

  The wine came. The server poured glasses for them and retired.

  Otto had a sip of his and made a face. ‘Gods,’ he said. ‘Their cellar isn’t what it used to be either. Their importer must be cheating them.’

  Felix took a sip. It tasted all right to him, but then, after all his years with Gotrek, he was more used to ale.

  ‘Ah well,’ said Otto. ‘As I was saying…’

  Felix turned his attention to the other diners again, trying to blot out their words and concentrate on their timbre and tone while thinking back to voices of the Cleansing Flame. He groaned. Why had Ulrika and the countess invested so much hope in so tenuous a thread? There might be no connection between Wulf’s and the Brotherhood of the Cleansing Flame except that they shared one member in common – the man Ulrika had killed when she took his pendant. This whole evening might come to nothing. He might be subjecting himself to dinner with his brother for no reason at all.

  He gazed around at his fellow diners, hoping some quirk of gesture might spark a memory. He sighed. They all looked like villains to him, but he tried to measure them objectively. It was difficult. That fop in the purple, with the rouge on his cheeks and the ruff so wide it nearly hung over his shoulders, he certainly looked like the member of some sort of debauched cult. And that fellow in the lemon yellow, with the permanent sneer and the earring. Felix could just imagine him performing blood sacrifices when Morrslieb was full. And the rogue in red and gold who was playing cards with his companions, was he using magic to change the cards? And the handsome, sallow-cheeked dandy who was coughing convulsively into his handkerchief. Was he spreading the pox through every brothel in Nuln? And that fellow…

  He almost spat out his mouthful of wine as he saw a man watching him suspiciously from across the room. Was it a cultist? No. Wait a moment. He recognised him. But from where? Where had he see that strong jaw before? That perfectly curled moustache? That proud nose? Then he knew, and almost laughed. It was one of Lady Hermione’s beautiful gentlemen, keeping an eye on him. Almost literally. He couldn’t have been more obvious if he tried. Perhaps that was the point. Lady Hermione was reminding Felix of her omniscience. Suddenly he didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

  He gave the man a glare and continued to survey the room. Then stopped again as he saw another almost-familiar face peeking out from behind the nearest pillar. Who was this? He knew the hair, which hung down before the man’s sleepy eyes, but the clothing was unfamiliar. Of course! That was because the last time he had seen him, he had been naked. It was the Captain Reingelt, the countess’s current swain. It seemed she didn’t trust Lady Hermione to share information. And why should she?

  Their dinners came, and Otto tucked his linen napkin under his chin and dug in. Felix gave up his search and joined him. Trying to pick out cultists by sight seemed as impossible as trying to recognise them by their speech. He was no witch hunter. He didn’t know how to differentiate normal human villainy from the baser horrors of daemon worship. He could recognise a mutant if it looked at him with two heads, but until their corruption showed he was as lost as the next man.

  ‘I know you’re not much for sitting at a desk all day,’ Otto was saying. ‘But we have plenty of jobs that would have you out and doing in the fresh air. Someone needs to go to Marienburg every spring for instance. We buy many of our dyes for our wools there from Bretonnians, Estalians and Arabyans. Araby makes the best indigo. But getting the best prices and making certain the filthy foreign devils aren’t cheating us requires being there in person. Does that appeal to you?’

  Felix shrugged. ‘I’ve never been much of a one for haggling.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Otto. ‘Well, we also provide guards for our convoys, and we’ve expanded that service to providing guards for the convoys of other companies. Perhaps you’d like to be involved in the recruitment and training of these fellows. That sounds more in your line.’

  Felix was trying to think of an appropriate answer when he overheard an exchange from a group of young men who were passing their table.

  ‘That looks nasty, Gephardt. Get your hand caught in some lady’s window when her husband came home?’

  ‘No. Burned it. Stupid, really. Left the poker in the fire by mistake, and when I grabbed it I seared myself.’

  Felix looked around at the speaker as the young men laughed. He was a wiry youth with the unlaced doublet and tousled bedroom hair that seemed popular among the more fashionable university students that year. He wore lavender and cream velvet, and had a bandage around his left hand.

  ‘Ha!’ said a chinless lad in pink. ‘When I leave my poker in the fire too long, it melts! Ha ha!’

  Nobody laughed.

  ‘My poker, you see,’ said the boy in pink, giggling. ‘In the fire.’

  ‘Do shut up, Kalter,’ said the youth with the bandage.

  Felix watched him walking away. Burned his hand, had he? And was it Felix’s imagination, or was he hiding a limp? He tried to imagine that sly, sneering voice raised in command. It might have sounded something like one of the voices he had heard in the burning cellar, then again it might not, and he needed to be sure. It would be a cruel trick to set the vampires on an innocent man.

  He turned to Otto. ‘Who is that? The young man in purple and white?’

  ‘Eh?’ said Otto, looking up. ‘What’s this, now? Have you been listening to me at all?’

  ‘Of course I have, brother, but that fellow looks familiar to me. Do you know who he is?’

  Otto frowned, annoyed, and squinted across the room. ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one in purple and white,’ repeated Felix, turning. ‘Just now sitting down. He has a bandage on his hand, you see?’

  ‘I see,’ said Otto. ‘The one next to the fire, yes? I’ve no idea. Why you would think I would pay attention to the spoiled ne’r-do-wells who frequent Wulf’s I don’t know. This is why I dine at the Hammer.’ He sniffed. ‘Looks a bit like old Gephardt, the wine importer, and he’s wearing the colours of Gephardt’s trading house. Might be one of his sons, I suppose. I couldn’t say.’

  Felix nodded. Gephardt was the name the youth’s companion had called him. Give Otto credit for keen observation. Now the question was, was he a member of the Brotherhood of the Cleansing Flame, or had he only burned himself on a hot poker like he had said? If only Felix could get closer and eavesdrop on his conversation.

  Gephardt looked idly around the dining room as one of his companions told a story. His eyes flicked past Felix, then came back. Felix looked away, heart racing. He had forgo
tten he was staring.

  ‘So, does that appeal to you?’ asked Otto, picking up their conversation again. ‘Would you like to help us with finding men to guard our wagons? With all your experience fighting – ahem – ratmen and dragons, and so forth, I imagine you know a practiced blade when you meet one.’

  Felix stole another look over his shoulder. Gephardt was staring fixedly at him, his eyes wide, whether in fear or anger Felix couldn’t be sure. Felix turned back, heart sinking. Well, he had his answer. Gephardt recognised him. He must have seen him during the fighting in the Cleansing Flame’s meeting house. Felix could have wished he had learned the information without revealing himself in the process. Now Gephardt knew he knew. Felix would have to catch him before he left Wulf’s, or soon all of the Cleansing Flame would know as well. But how was he going to do that with his brother around? He couldn’t very well say ‘Excuse me, brother, I have to knock out and capture this young man. Do you mind helping me bring him to the College of Engineering so Gotrek can have a word with him?’

  Perhaps his so called allies would help him. He looked over at Lady Hermione’s man. He was getting up to leave, his gaze fixed on Gephardt. He must have seen the exchange of glances and deduced what they meant. Felix turned towards Captain Reingelt. He too was rising, eyes darting from Gephardt to Hermione’s spy to Felix and back again. He knew too. But why were they leaving? Were the two of them going to go wait for Gephardt to exit the club, or were they off to their mistresses to tell them what they had learned? Whatever the case, he couldn’t rely on either of them. He would have to take care of Gephardt himself, somehow.

  ‘Felix? Did you hear me?’ Otto was looking at him strangely.

  ‘Er,’ Felix said, struggling to remember what his brother had been saying. ‘Er, yes, that, uh, certainly sounds like the most appealing alternative. I’ll most definitely give it some thought. You make a compelling argument.’