01 - Honour of the Grave (38 page)

Angelika walked past the porch to the side of the house. She found a wooden
cellar door, secured with a rusted padlock. With the flat of her dagger, she
easily pried it open. She lifted the door and slipped in.

Franziskus landed behind her, touching down on a moist earthen floor. They
stood among bundles of carrots and parsnips. Franziskus had left the door open,
giving them sufficient light to see a set of well-worn steps leading up to an
unpainted door. Angelika tested the third step with the toe of her boot, wincing
when it creaked. She stepped delicately up onto the steps, moving with slow
fastidiousness, minimising the noise they made. She got to the top, tried the
handle, and found it unlocked. She teased the doorknob from its mechanism. When
opened, the door revealed a small pantry, which adjoined a larger kitchen, hung
with pots and cooking implements. A black-bellied stove sat cold in a cobwebbed
corner. She beckoned for Franziskus to remain below, and vanished from his
sight.

A few exhausting minutes later, Franziskus heard a crash directly above his
head. He bounded up the steps, through the kitchen, and into a drawing room
filled with furniture that smelled faintly of mildew.

“You should have stayed in the cellar,” Angelika told him. “I was about to
bring her down to you.”

She held her knife to Petrine Guillame’s throat. Petrine sat on a low couch,
upholstered in dusty green. Her flaxen hair, perched up on her head, in an
elaborate coiffure, was held in place by jade-tipped pins. She wore a gown of
blue brocade, much finer than her previous garb. Her delicate hands lay on her
knees with relaxed composure. A complex aroma of spice and persimmons wafted
from the back of her neck to Franziskus’ nose.

“Have a seat, Franziskus,” Petrine said, patting the cushion beside her. Now
she spoke with only the slightest whisper of a Bretonnian accent. Though she’d
replaced feminine breathiness with a piercing clarity, Franziskus could not say
that he found the new voice entirely unseductive.

“Go ahead,” Angelika told him. But he knew better, and looked towards an open
archway that led to a set of narrow stairs.

“Is anyone else here?”

“Unfortunately, no,” answered Petrine, “though you’re welcome to look. The
count maintains his own local manor, near the north gate. Anton has his staff
over there, helping to reopen it. It’s been neglected for many years, I’m
afraid…” Franziskus saw that she was slowly feeding a long, needle-like device
from the sleeve of her gown.

“Drop it or die,” Angelika told her.

It tinkled to the floor. A small quantity of green tincture had been applied
to its sharp end. Angelika sniffed the air. “Erasmal’s Wort?”

“A new hybrid, unique to my herbarium.”

“Dangerous, if it pricks you.”

“I’ve rendered myself immune, through consumption of antidote.”

Angelika kicked the needle under the couch.

“You would lose respect for me if I didn’t try anything,” Petrine explained,
shrugging slimly.

Franziskus saw a variety of strange metal parts laid out on a side-table, and
walked over to examine them. He picked up gears, wheels, belts, and an
ornamented casing that looked as if it were meant to be placed on the head. Dark
grease smeared his fingers. He rubbed them clean on the lacy edge of a doily.

“One of the count’s inventions,” Petrine told him. “I’m not sure what it’s
meant to do. Cure his moods, perhaps. He tinkered away at it as he waited to
make his grand entrance.”

“How long has he been here?” Angelika asked.

“He arrived a few days before you.”

“And it’s him you answer to, through Brucke. Prince Davio has nothing to do
with this.”

Petrine curtly nodded. “We required a scapegoat if things went awry. Jurgen’s
campaign against the border princes made Davio the obvious candidate.” She
suppressed a feline smile.

“You feel no shame for your base deceit?” Franziskus blurted. Both women’s
faces turned to him; his cheeks bloomed red.

“If it is any consolation,
mon cher,
there would surely be no man
happier than Davio to see Jurgen stripped of all rank.” She shifted her
attention back to Angelika. “Obviously, the count’s stratagem fails if his hand is seen in it. Will his hand be seen in
it?”

“That remains subject to negotiation,” Angelika said, pulling up a chair to
sit opposite Petrine. She kept the dagger pointed at her fine Bretonnian
breastbone. “First, you tell me if I have it all correct. The count enjoys few
things more than leading his troops into battle, but every so often he goes
embarrassingly mad. Until recently, he’s been in a lunatic phase, and during that
time, his man, Jurgen, became a little too popular for his own good.”

“It has happened before in Averland’s history—tension between the elector
and the head of the Sabres.”

“The count wants to get rid of him, without looking ungrateful and petulant.”

“When lucid, Leitdorf suffers from a curious need to be loved by his rabble.
Some might call this a greater madness.”

“Or maybe he’s clever,” Franziskus interjected, “and knows he stands a better
chance of winning the war if the soldiers stand behind him.”

“Perhaps,” Petrine allowed.

“So the count gets word that one of von Kopfs has possibly fled from battle,
and gets word to the Brucke, who gets word to you, and you hire Goatfield and
his cronies. All to get Lukas here, to Grenzstadt, to engineer the scene we saw
this morning. Marius knew of the Sabre vow, and of Jurgen’s inflexible cast of
mind. So he showed Jurgen up in public, as the heartless, arrogant fanatic he
is. In that way he could take up his command again without a hint of mutiny.”

“All went according to plan, then?”

“The soldiers are still doubtful—but for men who only yesterday considered
Jurgen second in importance only to Sigmar himself, I’d say your count
accomplished his objectives.”

“Then I am proven wrong. I was sure that Jurgen would become clever at the
last moment. I never like a scheme that relies entirely on one man’s stupidity.”

“Not stupidity—blindness. And blindness is extremely reliable.”

“I bow to your superior insight. You were present, I take it? Did you need
sparing? I told Anton to make sure you were pardoned, if necessary.”

“You saved us the nuisance of escaping. Why the concern?”

She shrugged. “You caused us some trouble, granted, but ultimately you served
us well. You kept Jurgen distracted and angry,, which is how we wanted him.”

“And that’s why you sprang us from Jurgen’s jail cell.”

“Naturellement.”

“Thank you for that, incidentally.”

“Not at all. Please put the knife down, so I needn’t say this under duress.”

Angelika kept the knife steady.

“Very well.” Petrine sighed. “I think you two might be of future use to us.
You can’t imagine how tiresome it is, trying to get the likes of Toby Goatfield
to execute a delicate mission properly.”

“As a matter of fact, I can imagine that.”

“There’s good pay in it. You won’t need to soil yourself anymore, rooting
through wormy corpses. And Franziskus, you can still be of great service to the
Empire. To a crucial part of it, at any rate.”

“What kind of pay?” Angelika demanded.

“It will depend on the nature of the work, but it will be much more than you
earn now, I guarantee it.”

“And if I say no?”

Petrine looked at the knife. “You have me at your mercy. But it is not me who
will determine the ultimate outcome here, as you well suspect. If you leave
without making a commitment, my benefactor may well feel uneasy. You know too
much to be left to roam about, unfettered by loyalty. The count has taken a
close interest in your story, Angelika.”

Angelika edged her chair nearer to Petrine. It scraped loudly. “Even with the
threat,” she said, “my answer is no. My answer is: not for a second would I even
dream of serving Marius Leitdorf in any way. Franziskus, what say you?”

“I do as you do,” he said, straightening his back.

“We will both regret this, Angelika,” said Petrine.

“You’ll regret it sooner than I do,” replied Angelika. She stood up, seized
Petrine by the nape of her neck, and pushed her velvety throat toward the point
of her blade.

“Don’t,” said Petrine. For the first time there was an edge in her voice.

“You had us nearly killed. Casually, when we were inconvenient to you, you
sent us off to be beaten like dogs. By people who had nothing to do with
anything, and who lost their home as a result. You used us all, like pawns to be
swept off a chessboard. I don’t have the words to describe the agony we lived
through, in that pit. Did you think I wouldn’t want to make you pay for that?”

“Remember the money,” Petrine said.

“There’s a few things even I find more precious than gold.”

“Franziskus,” she choked, as Angelika pushed her closer to the blade-tip,
“stop her.”

He crossed his arms.

“Please!” Petrine shrieked.

Angelika seized her hair and pulled her, wailing, onto the floor, until she
was on hands and knees. “If it were you with the knife, and me helpless before
you,” Angelika said, “I’d already be dead. Be thankful I’m not as much like you
as you thought.”

Thunder rolled overhead. Angelika turned to the shuttered windows, through
which bright sunlight streamed. She opened them. The sky was blue and clear. The
thunder continued, it grew louder; it was coming from the south.

“War drums,” she said. “Orcs!” She hesitated. “Lukas!” she said. She ran.

They stood on the city walls, looking south to the mouth of the Blackfire
Pass. Now she could see where its name came from. Billowing, inky plumes rose
into the air above it. The orcs were burning the forests. They had decided that
the trees in the foothills were their enemies. And orcs did only one thing with
their enemies—they destroyed them. They would deprive their human foes of the
cover Jurgen had used so well against them in previous battles.

The crashing of the drums continued, relentless, like waves on a stony shore.
Angelika could not guess how many green-skinned drummers it would take to
produce such a cacophony. And for every drummer there would be at least a
hundred warriors, armed with heavy axes and massive swords. Angelika did not
need to see them to imagine how they looked. She could still remember them as
they had been when she rescued Franziskus from an orcish war wagon: their
enormous frames, their blocky muscles. Their great, mask-hard faces, mottled
with warts and scars. Mouths dripping slime. Nails sharp and fecund with
disease. Gulping in good air and breathing out the stench of hell. But most of
all, it was their eyes that jabbed through her recollections, to terrify her all over
again: narrow, beady, and filled with malice and a craving for blood.

On the plain outside the town, Marius reared on his charger, spearing the sky
with his well-polished sword, as his sergeants did the real work of assembling
the Averlandish regiments into battle formation. The state of Marius’
preparations was not Angelika’s main interest, and she wasted little time
counting columns or identifying war banners. Still, she saw nearly a thousand
infantrymen, several units of cavalry, and a good scattering of scouts, militia,
and mercenary irregulars, attracted to the battle scene by the promise of gold.
Wide-eyed flagellants had gathered, in their hot and itchy robes, ready to throw
themselves onto the blades of the foe, in fatal expiation of crimes real or
imagined. There were cannoneers, who would be fairly useless in a rolling
skirmish against advancing orcs. Off to one side, the full complement of Black
Field Sabres uncertainly milled, as a commander Angelika did not recognise
shouted down at them from horseback. He was gesticulating with wild vigour. This
would be one of the other illegitimate Kopfs, Angelika surmised, raised up from
the ranks of Benno and Gelfrat’s unnamed rivals. He exhorted their obedience
without detectable result.

She tore her eyes from the scene outside the town walls. She reminded herself
why she’d come here—to look down on Grenzstadt’s streets and laneways, in the
hope of finding Lukas. With Marius gone to war, his protection would be absent,
too.

“The Hat and Pony,” she prompted Franziskus. “You’re certain you have no idea
where it is?” She was sure, at least, that this is where he said he was headed,
when he’d run off.

“Just as certain as the last time you asked, and the time before that. It’s
just one tavern in this enormous town. And I certainly don’t see a sign with a
hat and a pony on it from here.”

“What’s got into you? You’re the one who likes the little snot. You spoke
with him, on the trail. What did he tell you about his friends?”

“He didn’t have any. Everyone shunned him, he said. He said he tried to
recite his epic poetry, but the talentless scribes in town laughed at him.”

“So it will be near a bookseller’s, perhaps…”

“But why don’t we just ask someone where it is?”

Angelika shook her head in exasperation. “Because we’re
wanted by—” She stopped herself short. A crimson flush rose up to colour her
chalky face. “No, we’ve been pardoned. So there’s no good reason why we couldn’t
just ask someone.” She worked her lower lip beneath her teeth. “So you could
have told me this earlier,” she recriminated, spinning on her heel and rushing
for the nearest set of stairs.

The first Grenzstadter they found was a red-hatted old man with only a few
teeth left. He claimed to know the Hat and Pony well, and happily provided
elaborate and incomprehensible directions. They ran through the lanes and alleys
of Grenzstadt, Franziskus puffing to keep up with Angelika. They ducked under
planks carried by scurrying townsfolk, who were rushing home to board up their
doors and windows. They careened through a brawl of beggars, fighting over
squatting rights to an abandoned basement. They shrank back against a wall to
evade the charge of a loose and maddened horse, its reins flying out behind it.
They found the bookseller’s, its shutters already nailed together, its iron-shod
door securely locked.