03 - God King (15 page)

Trade was Jutonsryk’s lifeblood, and it had brought undreamed-of wealth to
Marius’ city.

Yet only a few years ago, it had come to the edge of destruction at the hands
of the man to whom Marius now gave homage as Emperor. Smiling to himself, he
knew he should have allied with Sigmar a long time ago, but not for the reasons
the Emperor would have liked to hear.

Always independent, the Jutones had stood apart from Sigmar’s burgeoning
Empire, but as Marius looked at how his city and people had benefited from that
alliance, he knew it had been a worthwhile investment. The streets were clean,
part of an initiative proposed by his physicians as a means to alleviate
sickness among the poor, as was the building of a new almshouse to care for the
ailing and needy. Taxes on incoming trade ships had paid for these institutions,
and such was the influx of new trade that followed his Sword Oath with Sigmar,
that each year brought more gold than he could spend.

Marius rode past the Tower of Tides on a white stallion, a gift from Sigmar’s
warrior friend, and its caparison was of fine blue and green cloth woven by
Thuringian women as a tribute from the Berserker King. He leaned back in the
saddle as he negotiated the winding, cobbled streets that led down to the old
town and the docks. Citizens of Jutonsryk bowed as he passed and he favoured
them with his most magnanimous smile.

Yes, it was a good day to take the air, though a smear of darkness on the
horizon portended storms to come. He shivered, pulling his exquisite cloak of
bearskin tighter about his shoulders. His clothes were finely made, a tasteful
mix of eastern silks and hard-wearing Ostogoth tanned leather that gave him the
unmistakable appearance of wealth, yet retained the look of a man who knew how
to wield the sword buckled at his waist.

A troop of lancers accompanied him, their pale blue cloaks falling tidily
over the rumps of their mounts. Spoiling this image of perfection was the
wobbling form of Vergoossen, his latest aide, who rode his chestnut gelding
about as well as a bale of hay might.

Ever since Bastiaan had stabbed him at Middenheim in the height of the
fighting, Marius had forbidden his aides to bear arms. Looking at Vergoossen, it
didn’t look like he knew one end of a dagger from another, yet he had a head for
numbers and a total lack of ego to be bruised by Marius’ frequent tirades and
verbal abuse. All of which made him a perfect aide.

“My lord,” said. “If you’ll just look over these documents…”

Marius sighed, his good mood evaporating in the face of Vergoossen’s
pleadings.

“What is so important that you need to spoil a perfectly good day?” he
demanded.

Vergoossen held out a sheaf of papers. “My lord, I have petitions from a
number of merchants, and—”

“Let me guess, Huyster and Merovec.”

“Amongst others, but yes, the majority of correspondence is from them.”

“So what do they want, as if I can’t guess?”

“Master Huyster wishes to bring to your attention the latest increase in
berthing fees and the imposition of the new import tariffs,” said Vergoossen.
“And Master Merovec asks if you have had time to consider his request for
permission to extend his warehouses along the north shore.”

Marius felt his anger grow at these foolish, greedy merchants. Their coffers
were already swollen with gold, yet still they wanted more. It seemed a lust for
gold wasn’t simply confined to the mountain folk. What angered Marius most was
that he saw a reflection of his old self in their grasping transparent greed. He
took a calming breath.

“Tell Huyster that the berthing fees are paying for additional docks to be
built along the shoreline, which will allow him to double his revenue within the
year. And if he wants it known that he feels aggrieved with the berthing fees,
then he is only too welcome to bring that to the attention of the stevedores’
guild. I’m sure they would be happy to hear of his dissatisfaction.”

“Really?” said Vergoossen, missing his sarcastic tone. “I would have thought
it a recipe for disaster to say such a thing.”

“Of course it is,” snapped Marius. Vergoossen was efficient and thorough when
it came to organising Marius’ affairs, but he had no head for understanding
people. “The stevedores’ wages are paid from berthing taxes, and any shipmaster
who wants to pay less will find a greater than usual percentage of their cargoes
inexplicably lost or accidentally dropped into the sea.”

“But that’s blackmail, my lord,” exclaimed Vergoossen.

“All trade is blackmail of one sort or another,” said Marius. “But that is a
lesson for another day.”

“And what shall I tell Master Merovec?”

“Tell him that I know he already owns more quayside frontage than city
regulations permit. He may fool others with his straw men, but I was finding new
ways to earn gold while he was soiling his swaddling clothes. Tell him that if
he
really
wants me to have you investigate his assets to adjudge his
property holdings with a view to his future expansions, then I am more than
happy to oblige him.”

“I understand, sir,” said Vergoossen. “He wouldn’t want that.”

“No,” agreed Marius. “He wouldn’t. Now is there anything else that needs my
subtle hand of diplomacy, or do you think you can actually do your job and
handle the minutiae of running a busy sea port?”

“There is one other matter, my lord,” said Vergoossen.

“Go on then, what is it?”

“Some sailors from Tilean lands are refusing to pay their berthing fees.”

“Typical bloody Tilean,” said Marius with a shake of his head. “Their coin
purses are sealed tighter than a Brigundian virgin’s legs. Why are they refusing
to pay?”

“They say they don’t have any cargo to unload, so they don’t see why they
should pay a berthing fee.”

“No cargo? Then why are they here?”

“They claim they were attacked and had to ditch their cargo to escape.”

“Pirates?”

Vergoossen consulted his notes, as though reluctant to voice the reason the
sailors had given.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, my lord,” stammered Vergoossen.

“Oh, just spit it out, man!” ordered Marius.

“Yes, my lord. Sorry. They claim they were attacked by ships crewed by dead
men.”

“This is the place?” asked Alfgeir. “You’re sure of it?”

Cuthwin gave the Marshall of the Reik a look that said he was sure, and that
he’d have liked to see the knights find this place again. Instead he simply
nodded. A life lived in the wilderness was a solitary, silent one, and even when
in company, Cuthwin found himself limiting his speech to short answers.

“Yes, this is the place,” he said.

“There’s nothing here,” said Orvin, dismounting from his gelding and looking
around. “You said there was a fight here.”

“There was,” said Cuthwin. “You’d see that if you looked.”

Orvin stepped towards him. “Are you cheeking me, scout?”

“Leave it,” warned Alfgeir, and Orvin backed off, returning to his horse’s
side. Twenty of the Empire’s finest knights stood at the edge of the road, where
Cuthwin had forced them to dismount lest they spoil the tracks. It had taken
them two days to reach the road, much less than it had taken Cuthwin to reach
Reikdorf, but then he’d been on foot and had a wounded dwarf to carry.

He squatted at the edge of the road where he and the dwarfs had fought the
goblins and wolves. He could picture the wagons, where he had come out of the
forest and how he had moved through the fight. The road was empty now, no sign
of any bodies or wagons to indicate that a life and death struggle had played
out here.

At least to the untrained eye.

Alfgeir stepped onto the road, moving from smudged track, to discoloured
patch of earth and broken branch. He moved well for an old man, kneeling to dust
earth from a stone and follow the course of the fight through the telltale marks
such a struggle inevitably left behind.

“You killed the first one here,” said Alfgeir, miming the act of drawing a
bowstring.

Cuthwin nodded as Alfgeir wended his way through the fight, moving as though
he fought it anew. At last he turned to face Cuthwin, his face betraying a
grudging respect.

“You took a big risk in helping these dwarfs, scout,” said Alfgeir. “That
took courage.”

Cuthwin shrugged, uncomfortable with praise. “It seemed like the right thing
to do. It’s what Sigmar did.”

“And we all want to be like Sigmar,” laughed Alfgeir. “Good lad. Now the
wagons were over here, yes?”

Cuthwin rose and smoothly made his way to join Alfgeir, carefully avoiding
the earlier tracks and making sure to stick to the hardened ground to leave no
trace of his own passing. The knights followed him, leading their horses and
without the care he showed.

He pointed to a disturbed area of ground at a bend in the road.

“There,” said Cuthwin. “That’s where the wagons were.”

“So where are they now?” asked Orvin.

“Maybe the goblins took them,” he said. “Maybe the forest beasts broke them
up for firewood or weapons.”

“Can’t you tell?”

Cuthwin shook his head. “Maybe if your horses hadn’t trampled the ground I
could have.”

Alfgeir put a hand on his shoulder and said, “You do enjoy provoking people,
scout.”

“I reckon the goblins took the wagons,” said Cuthwin, pointing back down the
road. “There’s a stone path leads up into the mountains about a mile back. Could
be they took them that way.”

“Do you think they found what the dwarf buried?”

“Hard to say,” said Cuthwin. “Let me look.”

He waved away the knights and dropped to his hands and knees, lowering his
face to the earth, scanning left and right for any trace of something out of the
ordinary. Moving like a bloodhound with the scent of its prey in its nose,
Cuthwin ghosted over the ground as though listening to it. He ignored the
chuckles of the knights. Let them laugh; they’d be choking on it when he found
something.

He moved over where the wagons had been circled, touching the ground and
feeling the tension in the soil, brushing it with his fingertips. The earth here
was looser, less densely packed, as though disturbed. Where the wagons had been
pulled around and turned into makeshift barricades, the earth was hard-packed,
but this patch in the middle was loose.

Cuthwin rose to his feet, circling the area and searching for any other
obvious signs of something buried. He brushed the ground with the sole of his
boot, closing his eyes as he relied on senses honed in the wilderness over many
years.

“It’s here,” he said, dropping to his knees. He drew his dagger and sketched
a rough rectangle in the dirt, encompassing where he knew the dwarf had buried
what Grindan had called the Thunder Bringer.

Alfgeir knelt beside him. “I don’t see anything.”

“It’s here, trust me,” said Cuthwin. “The mountain folk are masters of
digging. If anyone can bury something they don’t want found, it’s them.”

“Aye, that’s true enough I suppose,” agreed Alfgeir. He looked over to his
knights. “Orvin, you and the others break out the shovels and start earning your
pay.”

“By digging?” said Orvin, as though the notion was beneath him.

“By digging,” confirmed Alfgeir. “Get to it.”

Orvin shook his head and, together with five other knights, began shovelling
earth from the spot Cuthwin had indicated. They dug relentlessly and swiftly
moved a large amount of soil. Cuthwin watched with Alfgeir as they dug down
around four feet into the ground without finding anything.

Just as he was beginning to entertain doubts that there was anything buried
here, Orvin’s shovel clanged on something metallic. Orvin used the end of his
shovel to clear away the black earth, using his hands when the shovel proved
insufficient for the task. At length, he leaned back to allow those above him to
see what he had uncovered.

Cuthwin looked into the hole the knights had dug. He caught a gleam of
tubular iron, like the funnels on Govannon’s forge, spars of splintered timbers
and what looked like an iron-rimmed wheel.

“What in Ulric’s name
is
that?” said Alfgeir, tilting his head to the
side.

“The Thunder Bringer,” said Cuthwin. “And we have to get it back to
Reikdorf.”

The ship was a long merchantman, sleek-hulled and coloured a garish blue and
green with wide, dark eyes painted beneath its prow. An elaborate figurehead
jutted provocatively from her forecastle, representing Myrmidia and Manann
entwined in an embrace that Marius was sure the temple priests of Jutonsryk
wouldn’t find in any of their holy books. Its flag was one Marius had seen
before, but he couldn’t remember to which distant princeling it belonged. He saw
so many ships in any given week, it was hard to keep track of them all.

Hundreds of people bustled to and fro: sailors, tax collectors in blue robes,
maritime enthusiasts, dwarf masons and shipwrights, rope-makers, labourers,
hawkers, map-makers, whores and sell-swords. The taverns were doing a brisk
trade, as a number of ships had just finished their unloading and their crews
were eager to spend their wages.

The air tasted of saltwater and hard work, and Marius felt his brow turn
thunderous as he saw the crew of the impounded vessel pressing against the ring
of armed lancers preventing them from leaving the quay. Olive-skinned sailors
from the south, they waved their arms and jabbered in their foreign tongue,
apparently oblivious to the fact that they were on Empire soil and ought to be
speaking Reikspiel if they wanted to be understood.

“To be fair, they do look rather unsettled,” said Vergoossen.

Marius waved away his aide’s comment. “Nonsense, these foreign types are
always ludicrously animated when they converse. The way they talk to each other,
they could be discussing the weather and you’d swear they were relating news of
the End Times.”