Tales of the Old World (70 page)

With that, Frau Forst held out her hand, smiling in delight as she saw the
boy raise his own hand to meet it. It seemed, finally, she had made her choice.
And, privately, Sister Altruda found herself forced to admit the search had been
worth it. There was indeed something different about this one. There was
something about his eyes, a sense of pure and untarnished innocence. If that was
what Frau Forst had been looking for all this time, no wonder it had taken her
so long to find it.

It was rare, after all, to find much that was innocent on the streets of
Marienburg.

Afterwards, sitting within the shuttered comfort of his coach as it sped away
from the orphanage into the night, Gunther Forst allowed himself the luxury of a
small moment of satisfaction. It had gone better than he could ever have dared
hope. The efforts he had invested over the last several years—all the
donations, the grand and charitable gestures—had finally paid a handsome
dividend. There had been no resistance, no awkward questions; the priestess and
her novitiate had given him the boy gladly. And though he might have only a few
scant hours left in which to put the rest of his plan in motion, if it proceeded
half as smoothly as matters had at the orphanage he should achieve his wider
aims with ease.

“My, but you’re a quiet one aren’t you, boy? I don’t know, we save you from
that nasty orphanage and not even a word of thanks. What’s the matter, my little
prince? Cat got your tongue?”

It was the woman. His erstwhile “wife”. Evidently bored, she produced a
small golden heart on a string of teardrop-shaped garnet beads from within her
glove and began to dangle it in front of the face of the silent boy beside her,
teasing him.

“Surely you can tell us your name at least,” she cooed. “Every boy has a
name. Tell me yours and perhaps I will give you this pretty thing as a gift. You
would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Looking at the ruby light jumping from the dancing beads, the boy said
nothing. Grimly, Gunther recognised them as the same set of Shallyan prayer
beads he had seen on Sister Altruda’s wrist earlier. It seemed the dubious
talents of the woman opposite him went beyond the obvious. Though it had seemed
a masterstroke when he had conceived the idea of hiring a courtesan to accompany
him to the orphanage and play the part of his wife now he was beginning to find
her tiresome. Granted, she had lent a veneer of legitimacy to his attempts to
adopt the child, but now the woman had served her purpose, her presence here was
at best an irrelevance, at worst an irritation.

“Leave the boy alone,” he told her.

Pausing, the woman turned to look at him as though trying to read the limits
of his patience in the lines of his face. Then, turning back to the boy once
more, she began again in the same idiot tone.

“Did you hear that, little prince?” she purred. “Poppa sounds cross. Do you
think he is angry because you won’t tell us your name?”

“Far from it,” Gunther said, enough of an edge to his voice to let her know
she was trying his temper. “I have long counted silence as a virtue, in both
children and harlots alike.”

At that, the woman fell quiet. Crossing her arms, she turned to face the
lowered shade of the coach window with her mouth set in a sulky line. But if the
boy felt any gratitude towards Gunther for his intervention, he gave no sign of
it. Instead, seemingly interested in nothing in particular, he continued to sit
in wide-eyed silence. Looking at him, Gunther found himself struck once more by
the child’s manner. The boy seemed possessed of a flawless, almost otherworldly
aura of innocence. Seeing it, Gunther felt a rising feeling of hope. The vital
task of finding someone possessed of a perfect and utter purity had always
seemed the hardest part of his plan.

Now he had the boy, the rest should fall into place.

The coach lurched to a halt. Hearing the coach roof above him creak as the
driver left his seat, Gunther waited for the door to be opened. But when it was,
instead of the coachman he saw a dark figure appear in the open doorway with a
black kerchief tied around the lower half of his face, though of more immediate
concern was the loaded handbow the man aimed at Gunther’s heart.

“My apologies for the inconvenience, mein herr,” the interloper said. “But I
would count it a personal favour if you and the boy would step down from your
compartment. Oh, and you will be careful to keep your hands where I can see
them, won’t you? I would hate for either of you to have to suffer a misfortune.”

Doing as he was told, careful to keep himself between the handbow and the
boy, Gunther stepped down from the coach with the boy behind him. Once outside,
he saw the coach had stopped in a refuse-strewn alleyway the uncobbled surface
of which declared it to be among one of the city’s more isolated and
disreputable thoroughfares. A second kerchief-masked footpad stood behind the
first, a short wooden cudgel in his hands, while to their side the coachman
lurked nervously beside his horses. Seeing the coachman unharmed and apparently
unguarded, Gunther realised at once that he was part of it. Just as he realised,
outnumbered three-to-one and with the added distraction of having to protect the
boy, he would have to weigh his options carefully.

Having long feared the twin evils of disease and violent death, Gunther had
devoted no small number of years to learning the skills necessary to defend
against the latter. He was an excellent shot, and hidden out of sight beneath
his cloak were a pair of duelling pistols purchased some years past from the
grieving widow of hot-headed nobleman whose passion for honour had been exceeded
only by the incompetence of his marksmanship. But for all the finely-crafted
elegance and accuracy, the pistols were loud and clumsy weapons. And, even in
this isolated spot, the sound of shots might serve to draw the attention of the
Watch.

It would have to be the knife.

“Here,” he said, lifting the chain from around his neck, “I will give you
anything you want so long as you let the boy and I go in peace.”

“A most commendable attitude,” the handbowman said. “Really, mein herr, your
clear-sighted grasp of the situation does you credit.”

“Not at all,” Gunther replied, holding the chain out in his right hand and
watching as the man took two steps towards it. “I am simply a pragmatist. All
the same, I must confess to some surprise. I would have thought a handbow far
too expensive a weapon for the purse of a pimp.”

Abruptly, the advancing figure stopped, his eyes above his mask grown
suddenly hard and tight.

“He knows, Ruprecht,” the one with the cudgel said, breaking the ugly
silence. “He knows who you are.”

“Well, if he didn’t before, Oskar, he certainly does now,” the other replied,
pulling his mask down to reveal a sallow yet handsome face. As Gunther
suspected, it was the woman’s pimp. “Bravo, Herr Forst. You are right about the
handbow, of course. It came into my possession in the wake of a financial
dispute with one of Greta’s gentleman clients. But, tell me, how did you know it
was me?”

“You let the woman stay in the coach,” Gunther said. “No matter the tales of
the gallantry of highwaymen, it seemed unlikely you would leave her possessions
unmolested unless they were effectively yours already. That alone was enough to
make it clear you were her pimp come to rob me.”

“I am afraid you overrate your value to us, Herr Forst,” the pimp sneered.
“Robbing you was never anything more than an afterthought. It is the child we
want. To the right buyer, a boy like that is a valuable piece of merchandise.
And, I assure you, I make it my business to know all the right buyers.”

“Now,” the pimp said, taking a step forward as he raised his handbow to fire,
“seeing as you have been so helpful as to make us aware you know who we are, it
would seem foolish to leave you alive to tell of it.”

With a sudden twist of his wrist, Gunther threw the amulet at the pimp, the
chain hit the man in the face just as his finger tightened on the trigger. As
the bolt flew wild over his shoulder, Gunther stepped forward, pulling his knife
from its hidden sheath with his left hand and thrusting it deep into Ruprecht’s
side. Eyes startled with pain, the pimp tried to scream, the sound emerged as a
wet gurgle as, dying, his body pitched forward towards the ground. But Gunther
was past him already. Seeing the other footpad lift his cudgel and charge
forward to attack, Gunther tossed the knife from left hand to right with a fluid
motion, raising his left arm to block the descending wrist holding the cudgel
while, with his right, he slid the knife between the man’s ribs and into his
heart.

Pulling the knife free as the second man collapsed, Gunther turned to see the
coachman still standing beside his horses. Holding the butt of his coachwhip
before him as an improvised weapon, the coachman seemed glued to the spot,
caught between the urge to attack and the fear Gunther would dispose of him as
easily as the others.

“All I want is to go in peace with the boy,” Gunther told him. “And I want
the coach. Run now, and I will let you live.”

For a moment, the coachman stood staring in disbelief. Then, the prospect of
escape overcoming his distrust, he turned and ran. Only for Gunther to throw his
knife the instant the man turned his back, taking the coachman high in the neck
and dropping him before he had gone three steps.

Striding forward to pull his knife from the dead man’s neck, Gunther’s first
thoughts were for the safety of the boy. Turning to look behind him, he was
relieved to see the still strangely silent child standing, uninjured, beside the
coach where he had left him.

“Get into the coach, boy,” Gunther said, stooping to pull his knife free. “We
are leaving.”

Instead of moving, the boy turned his wide eyes to stare at something on the
coach, before looking back at Gunther once more. Noticing for the first time a
slumped figure hanging halfway through the window of the coach door, Gunther
stepped forward to investigate and saw something which soon had him silently
cursing his luck.

It was the woman. She was dead: the flight of her pimp’s errant bolt jutting
from a wound in her neck. Evidently she had been standing watching the
confrontation through the window when it struck her. But what concerned Gunther
more was the woman’s blood. It was everywhere, staining the side of the coach
and the running board beneath it. The coach was next to useless to him now. He
could not afford the chance some over-eager watchman would see the blood and be
moved to ask questions Gunther would rather not answer. Nor could he simply
clean the blood away—even had a suitable supply of water been at hand, it
would take too long. And tonight, more so than at any other point in Gunther’s
life, time was of the essence.

His decision made, Gunther opened the coach door, stepping to one side to let
the woman’s body fall past him. Being careful not to get any more blood on his
clothes, he retrieved his belongings from inside the coach before stepping
outside once more to take one of the night-lanterns hanging from the coach’s
side and fashion a makeshift carrying handle for it from a piece of cloth. Ready
at last, he turned to the boy. For better or worse, if they were to reach their
destination in good time tonight, they would have to walk.

Or one of them would at least.

“Get onto my shoulders, boy,” Gunther said. “We are going to play
piggy-on-my-back.”

Silently, the boy did as he was told. Getting to his feet with the boy
clinging to his shoulders, Gunther started on a brisk walk headed southwards. At
best estimation they were at least a mile and a half from their destination. He
would have to walk fast: the confrontation with the pimp and the others had cost
him too much time already. No matter what else happened tonight, all his
preparations needed to be ready by midnight.

If not, there would be hell to pay.

He was sweating by the time he got to the docks. And when he reached the
outside of the burnt-out tavern in an alleyway just off a deserted wharf, the
weight of the boy on his shoulders seemed to have grown so much it was as though
he had an adult perched upon his back. Relieved to have arrived at his
destination at last, Gunther sank down to his knees to let the boy climb off.
Then, rising to his feet and pleased to see no sign of life anywhere along the
alley, he made his way toward the tavern with the boy behind him.

It had a history, this place. In its heyday the Six Crowns had been the nexus
for much that was illicit and illegal in Marienburg; a place where deals could
be struck and bargains made with no questions asked. Most recently, it had
served as de facto headquarters for the Vanderhecht Organisation, a ruthless
gang of smugglers whose leader had lived a double life as one of the most
respected merchants in the city. But Hugo Vanderhecht was dead, killed by a
bounty hunter after fleeing to the marshes, while the Six Crowns had been gutted
a year ago in an unexplained fire, rumoured to have been set by the gang’s
second-in-command in an attempt to hide his identity from the Watch. Still, it
hardly mattered to Gunther who had set the fire. Whoever had done it, he owed
them a debt of thanks. His work tonight needed privacy, and the derelict,
ramshackle building before him would suit his purpose admirably.

Besides, he had his own history with this place. Years ago, it had served as
the backdrop to an event which had changed the course of his life. And now that
life had come full circle and brought him to the Six Crowns once more.

Advancing towards the fire-blackened doorway, Gunther found himself briefly
troubled by thoughts of his own mortality. Something of the tavern’s current
state, the crumbling plaster of its walls and the gaping heat-warped windows,
brought to mind unpleasant echoes. For a moment he felt the weight of every one
of his years bearing down upon him, greater even than the weight of the silent
boy who now walked beside him. Perhaps it was nostalgia, or the last spasms of
conscience of the man he had once been, but he suddenly felt a sadness he had
not known in years. Then, shaking his head to clear it, he put sentiment behind
him and pushed the door aside to enter the tavern.