01 - Honour of the Grave (32 page)

“He thinks the people love him because of the legend of the Black Sabres:
family honour, and the selfless pursuit of deadly purpose. And our swagger and
reputation, they’re part of it, I’ll grant. But the true reason people here
stomp and cheer for him is that he isn’t Mad Count Marius. He doesn’t suddenly
turn around and kill his own men, and later explain himself by saying they were
possessed by his dead mother’s daemonic spirit. He doesn’t fight like a
whirlwind one day, then ride off to mope in his castle the next. Now, with
Jurgen at the helm, we can count on winning battles without having to pray that
our commander won’t be too deranged to lead the charge today.”

“So if they find out that Jurgen’s killed his son, to satisfy some mouldy old
family ritual…”

“…then they decide he’s as mad as Marius, and that’s the end of everything.
They will only fight half-heartedly when the orcs come. So he loses his post, or
we get slaughtered by greenskins, or both. Me, I’d sooner just let Lukas slink
into exile, like the cowardly little snot he is. And the two of you,” he said,
pointing his cheese-blade at them, “you’re the ones who are going to slink him
off.”

Angelika leaned away and crossed her arms. “What makes you think we wish to
do that?”

“You explain it to me. For some unaccountable reason, you’ve appointed
yourselves his mother hens, haven’t you? So it happens that our interests
intersect. We both want the boy where my father can’t get him.”

“And why should we trust you?”

He refilled her cup. “It’s you who’s been playing crooked with me, Angelika.
Oh, I admit we didn’t tell you about Lukas, from the beginning. A mistake, it
seems, now that I look back on it. But compared to what you did to us… running
off without warning, reneging on the deal to turn our brother over… Not to
mention selling him to halfling mercenaries.”

She stood and stretched, feeling his hungry look on her as she arched her
back. “And I suppose you want us to do this for nothing, as usual.”

He held out empty palms. “I’ve told you a dozen times: I’m a poor man.
Perhaps one day, when I lead the count’s armies, I will toss you a golden cup or
a string of pearls.”

She took a final swig of ale. “Let’s get this over and done with, then,
before your largesse makes me swoon.”

They cleared a space in the cloth merchant’s back room; he laid out bedrolls
for them and left them to sleep.

“So—can we trust him?” Franziskus asked.

“We can never trust anyone,” she answered, closing her eyes. She hadn’t slept
much, on the armoury roof, and found it easy to slip into slumber. Soon she was
faintly snoring, leaving Franziskus to struggle for comfort on his bedroll.
Their plan called for night action, and he knew he should get as much rest as he
could. Knowing this just made it harder. He lay on his right side, then on his
left. He rested a bolt of cloth under his head. He pulled off his tunic and
covered his face. He thought about the heat. The dustiness of the room began to
concern him. He became sure that his throat was coated with the stuff. He sat up
to cough and sputter.

He looked at Angelika. He told himself he was checking to see how her cuts
and bruises had healed. Sometimes she was beautiful to him, sometimes not. Now,
with the muscles of her face entirely relaxed, and her lids of her eyes closed
and fluttering with dream, she was as lovely as he’d ever seen her.

He imagined himself reaching over to brush her soft cheeks with the backs of
his fingers. Then a thorny realism took over his daydream, and he pictured what
would happen if he did such a thing: her danger-sharpened reflexes would jolt
her immediately into action. She would burst up, produce a dagger from nowhere,
and probably plunge it deep into his eye. If he was lucky, she would stop short,
merely threatening him with blindness, disfigurement, and mortification.

He lay back down on the bedroll. He tried to picture a life for the two of
them, different from the one they now had. Franziskus envisaged a cottage. In
his mind’s eye, he thatched its roof, covered it in stucco—no—he would shape
it from blocks of shale, mortared together. Its stone floor would make it cool
in the summer, he decided, as sweat beaded his forehead and soaked the hair at
the back of his neck. In the winter, they would need to keep the fire roaring,
but that would not be such a hard thing, because this cottage of theirs would be
far from everywhere, in the depths of a forest, with no shortage of firewood.
But it would not be the prickly woods of the Blackfire’s mountains, nor one
populated by goblins, beastmen and mercenaries. Maybe somewhere in an elven
glen, he thought, quickly stipulating that they would be on good terms with the
elves, who would
not be like Elennath in any way.

He revised his vision again. The home he would truly like for their cottage
would be the Moot. Not the wretched place he now imagined, having met so many
awful halflings, but the storybook one. He pictured Angelika, rocking in a
chair, a blanket on her lap, surrounded by halfling children eager to hear
stories. There would be a touch of grey in her hair, and wrinkles at the sides
of her mouth, softening them. She would smile at the little halflings, and then
she would tell them of her adventures, from way back. She would tell them
about…

About robbing corpses, and about fathers who wanted to murder their sons, and
brothers wanting to betray their fathers and…

Franziskus sat back up again. Angelika moaned softly and turned over. He
imagined himself drawing a knife of his own, and putting it to her milky-white
throat, and demanding that she beg for his mercy. Voice barely cracking, she
would tell him how sorry she was, for opening his eyes to this filthy world. She would
admit that she should have left him with the orcs that were about to kill him.
He would get her to admit the truth—that, like Lukas, he’d be better off
mourned and dead than as a rootless survivor with no home to return to.

He considered slipping away, and going back to his father’s estate, to bow
his head and admit to his shame. He would not leave a note; he would just go.
Angelika would not weep to see him gone. She kept telling him this was what she
wanted. She was not lying to herself; she truly did wish to be rid of him. No
matter what he told himself, he was just a millstone, dragging her down.

He would leave.

He stood.

But then he was back on his bedroll. First on his right side, then his left.
He turned on his belly, and then on his back. He covered his face with his
tunic. He dozed, readying himself for the action to come.

He woke feeling that he’d slept for hours. His eyes were dry and his mouth
like glue. The room was empty, except for their clean clothing that was still
hanging on the length of twine. The strange feelings he’d had when he couldn’t
sleep—the crazy lusts and unforgivable bitterness—had evaporated. He wondered
how he could have thought them at all, and put them neatly out of mind.

He heard voices on the other side of the door. He walked into the shop, where
Angelika and the proprietor were idly talking. She was disinterestedly asking
him about the present state of his business. He, fastidiously clipping his
single set of fingernails with neat, straight front teeth, murmured that trade
could either get worse, or better; it depended on how things went. Franziskus
hailed them and asked where he might find a chamberpot. He relieved himself and
returned. A shrug from the proprietor told him that Angelika had returned to the
back room, and that the man was glad for this. Franziskus checked the shop’s
small, circular windows, noting the orange light of late afternoon. Rubbing his
eyes, he shuffled back into the store.

Benno reappeared not long after. He was empty-handed, so they finished off
the remains of breakfast. None of them was very hungry, anyway.

Benno unveiled the plan. It was simple: he’d take them in as if they were his
prisoners.

Angelika said, “I hope this isn’t merely a ruse to get us to march happily
into jail.”

“What an amusing comment that is,” said Benno.

He would banter with the guards, keeping them at ease. If they asked why they
were to go in the same cell as Lukas, he would shrug and tell them his father
wanted it that way. His tone would carry the suggestion that Jurgen was not to
be questioned. This would sound more authentic than an elaborately detailed
explanation.

“Won’t they already have contrary instructions? Not to let anyone in, under
any circumstances?”

“No doubt,” said Benno, “but I’ve checked the roster, and I know these men.
Olli Unruh grew up on the same streets as me, he is just a little bit younger.
I’ve cultivated him a long time. He thinks if he sticks by me he’ll have a fine
career. Maybe even end up as adjutant, when I command the Sabres, which would be
quite a step up for a man such as him. Then there’s young Renald; he’s a nervous
one, and not prone to asking questions.”

“Renald Wechsler,” Franziskus said. “He was among those who kept watch, as
you rode us north.”

“Ah,” said Benno.

“If he’s nervous, though, he might be a stickler, afraid to contradict his
orders?”

Benno twitched his shoulder; it would have been a shrug, if he’d put more
effort into it.

Angelika examined the daggers Benno had scrounged for her. He hadn’t been
able to lay his hands on the ones his men had taken from her. “So we get them to
open the cell door, then what?”

“Then we kill them.”

“Kill them?” Franziskus said.

Benno responded with a second shrug; this one had slightly more energy behind
it. “There’s no other way. They’ll catch on when we start to unshackle the boy,
won’t they?”

“We’ll have to make quick work of it, too. Make our first blows count.”

“Isn’t it enough just to overpower them?” Franziskus asked.

“That’s fine for you, maybe, but I can’t have witnesses.”

“Couldn’t you somehow coax them into silence?”

“Can’t risk it.”

Franziskus looked to Angelika, for support in his argument. She was jiggling
her wrist, testing the weight of her knives.

“If it’s any consolation, Franziskus, they’re both bad men. Olli would
happily cut your head off, if I told him to. Your friend, Renald, I’ve heard,
gets all sweaty whenever he spots a scrawny little boy. He follows street
urchins into dark alleys, that sort of thing.”

“It’s convenient you can say so.”

“If they were truly righteous men, I’d wait until the roster changed. Lukas’
life for Unruh and Wechsler’s—it’s a fair trade, I promise.”

“Franziskus,” Angelika said, “let him tell us the whole thing from the start,
without interruption.”

Benno shifted on his stool. “I go in. You’re my prisoners. I put Olli and
Renald at ease. They open the door. We kill them. We unshackle the boy, hustle
him down the steps, get him into a cart. The three of you drive away in the
cart, never to breathe Grenzstadt’s air again.
Voila!”

“Where do we take him?” Franziskus asked.

“That’s your choice. Just keep him away from me and my father.”

“The count’s man—Brucke. He told Jurgen not to harm Lukas. We were thinking,
maybe the count might protect him?”

Benno tongued at his teeth, clearing out errant food morsels. “I wouldn’t
recommend it. Fancy courtiers like him will betray you just for the pleasure of
running in circles.” His tongue found a large chunk of something; he reached in
with his fingers to extract it from his gums. He balled his prize between thumb
and forefinger and flicked it away. “And the count himself—Sigmar knows what
he would do with a boy like Lukas. Imprison him? Make him his catamite? Blow him
up, in one of his experiments? If it were me, I’d stay clear. Go south again.”

“Where the orcs are massing.”

“Then go to Wissenland. Go to the forgotten isle of the peg-legged dwarfs, for
all I care. Just get him free of here.”

To while away the time until night settled in, they played cards. The
shopkeeper joined them, rattling his tin cash box. He changed Angelika’s
half-crowns into smaller coins. Benno regarded this transaction with apparent
curiosity but did not ask where she’d got the money. Angelika gave Franziskus
half of her coins, which he promptly lost to her. To keep him in the game, she
gave them back. She won money from Benno and the storekeeper, too. Sometimes she
lost part of her stake, to one or the other of them, but always won it back on
the next hand. Franziskus never won. As the game wore on, his hands began
trembling. He dropped his cards, and they always landed face up. The storekeeper
glowered at him like he was an idiot. Benno seemed to feel sorry for him, which
was worse. The third time his cards slipped from his damp fingers and onto the
table, Benno asked Angelika: “I hope your friend here is ready, for tonight.”

“He’s ready,” Angelika said, exposing a winning hand, and sliding more of
Benno’s coins across the table and into her lap.

Finally they left the shop. The unnamed merchant had a small cart prepared
for them. A mule was already hitched to it. The animal sniffed the air, pointed
its snout at Angelika, and hissed. Angelika hissed back. The cart was covered in
canvas, dyed yellow and rusty red. Angelika and Franziskus clambered inside,
from the back. Benno took a seat up front; his friend handed him the reins.
Without further discussion, Benno urged the mule on. It clopped through
Grenzstadt’s streets. Angelika sat beside Franziskus, but he could tell she was
studying him for signs of lost nerves. He stuck his nose out and chin up. He
promised himself he wouldn’t fail her. He’d served her well so far, he thought.
When it was time to act, he’d done what was needed. It was the anticipation he
couldn’t stand.

* * *

The cart stopped. They heard the faint jingling of buckles as Benno hitched
the reins to a post. He came around to the back. Without lifting the canvas
flap, he said, “We’re here.”