Necromancer (3 page)

At the north-eastern corner of the towering town wall
another, much lower dry-stone wall enclosed the town’s graveyard, covering an
area of some two acres, by the looks of it. Dieter could see only one gate
leading into Morr’s field and he caught sight of a squat, grey chapel through
the pillars and lintel of the lych-gate, hunched between the tumble of ancient
gravestones and statues of mourning angels. For a moment, on seeing this, Dieter
felt strangely at home. The sight of the cemetery was strangely comforting to
him.

Beyond the graveyard a stand of trees ran down to the banks
of the River Bögen in the distance.

The carriage continued along the main highway until it
reached a broad, churned and rutted crossroads. The winter had made a muddied
mess of the road here and work crews had yet to be sent to put it right. The
last frost of winter still speckled the muddied channels formed by the passage
of cart wheels and the hoof holes of animal traffic, making it look like the
ground had been liberally sprinkled with tiny, glittering diamonds.

They turned right, approaching the town’s imposing east gate.
It certainly was an impressive edifice, two tall, arrow-slitted towers
dominating this view of the town wall, rising as they did on either side of a
narrow, unassuming gateway. Lacking a castle, the walls and guard towers of
Bögenhafen were impressive fortifications in their own right.

Hearing the strident, croaking caw of a carrion bird, Dieter
turned his gaze on the thick oak post he could see firmly hammered into the
ground beside the road. Looking up, he saw a cartwheel silhouette starkly dark
against the dove grey sky. Hanging from it by the wrists were three naked
corpses—those of thieves or murderers no doubt—secured by their ankles to
the post itself. The carrion birds were already taking their breakfast from the
peck-hole riddled cadavers, the flesh greening, the congealed blood black.

A trundling farmer’s cart laden with bales of straw was on
the road ahead of them, being drawn by two lumbering oxen. They passed the cart
as it turned off the road and passed between the hazel hurdles demarcating the
perimeter of the livestock market. The Schaffenfest, renowned throughout the
Reikland as one of the greatest livestock fairs to be held in the Reikland, was
still two months away, but there was always a semi-permanent market based here
for most of the year, only really closing down for the coldest winter months of
Ulriczeit and Vorhexen. With Nachexen already a week old, the market had started
up again.

Beyond the hurdle fence Dieter could see that the tents and
temporary lean-to structures of the livestock market had already been erected
for the new season. In truth, however, many of the barns had become
semi-permanent also, possibly only changing location within the market field
itself between the monthly gatherings there, but never really being taken down
or dismantled entirely.

The gentle lowing of cattle and the pitiful bleating of early
lambs, separated from their dams, drifted to Dieter’s ears across the wet
meadow, along with the distinctive manure smell of livestock markets everywhere.

A heavy shadow fell across the carriage, a pall that reduced
the bright morning light to a dusky twilight, as the imposing town wall rose up
to meet them.

Buried at the heart of the massive gatehouse was the east
gate itself. The town watch were in the process of changing shifts. A
weary-looking older man saluted the two, yawning, unshaven men who had come to
replace him before trudging through the gate himself, no doubt heading back to
the guard barracks and thence to bed. All of the watchmen wore the yellow
tabards over their leather armour displaying the town’s coat-of-arms—a
merchant vessel above, the image of a fish below, separated by a bar set with
three roundels.

Now that they were actually at the gates, which were already
open to the day’s traffic, Dieter could see that they were in fact wide enough
to admit two carts together, at a push. This realisation only served to make the
towering gatehouse seem even more threatening and impressive. That, combined
with the macabre reminder of the town’s justice system he had already seen
outside the gates, gave an ominous message indeed to the young, would-be
physician: once you are inside these walls you will live by our rules, follow
our edicts, or pay the ultimate price.

The driver stopped the carriage at the gate. There was a
rustling of papers and a muttered exchange between the driver and the watchmen.
One of the two gate guards opened the door to the carriage and stuck a
broken-veined, unshaven face inside, much to the chagrin of the dowager and the
merchant. Then the carriage was moving again and they were through the gate, and
Dieter enjoyed his first proper view of the town that was to be his home for the
next two years at least.

Dieter sat in his seat at the window, his jaw agape as he
took in the wonders of Bögenhafen. The carriage followed the main road, the
Nulner Weg, into the town, rattling over the cobbles of the paved streets.

Dieter had visited towns before in his eighteen years, of
course. Once or twice a year he had accompanied his father to the market-hub of
Karltenschloss to collect alms from the Church of Morr and obtain supplies for
the Chapel in Hangenholz. But Bögenhafen was something else again, three times
larger than Karltenschloss, with a population four times the size. It was
wondrous for the young scholar to behold.

The houses rose to a height of three, four or even five
storeys above the street, with many of the upper floors jutting out further than
the walls of the buildings. This meant little on the main thoroughfares through
the town, but down the side-streets, the upper storeys jutted out so far that
they turned the streets into darkened tunnels, where the sun, if there was any,
only penetrated their chill depths for a few minutes during the hour when the
sun was at its zenith. In the winter months this could mean that the streets saw
no light at all and so only those who did not want their business known, or
those who preyed on the business of others used those streets. It was worst in
the poorest areas of the town.

The streets of Bögenhafen were still quiet this early in the
day. In a few hours’ time they would be thronged with people going about their
daily business. For the moment they were still the preserve of watchmen
returning to their barracks following the night shift, market traders arriving
early to set out their stalls and business-minded clerks ready to make the most
of the day, having left late the evening before. A town like Bögenhafen was only
as successful and as wealthy as its mercantile classes.

Dieter could see other streets running off to the left of the
Nulner Weg, into the well-to-do mercantile district of the town. To the right
narrower streets wound more torturously into the artisans’ quarter and the
poorer parts of the town to the east.

And then, only two hundred yards along the cobbled street, a
sign, creaking from a rusted iron bracket outside a solid stone building. The
building was an imposing four-storey edifice with small, lead-paned windows on
every floor, rising to a proliferation of turret rooms and slate-tiled pitched
roofs.

Dieter glanced at the sign as it creaked in the gentle
morning breeze being funnelled along the main street into the town from the
river, bringing with it the aroma of stagnant mud and rotten fish. And then he
was no longer glancing but staring, his heart racing and an elated smile
breaking out on his face. The sign bore an image in peeling paint of a pestle
and mortar: the sign of the physicians’ guild.

Dieter wanted to jump up, to cry out that the coach should
stop and deposit him here, at his goal, the place that would mark the beginning
of a new direction in his life, here in Bögenhafen. But Dieter had never been
the most confident of individuals and his inherent shyness got the better of him
now. He remained where he was, saying nothing.

And then the carriage had passed the guild house and Dieter
saw the street opening out ahead of them, his attention drawn back to Bögenhafen
as new wonders of the town were revealed to him. The carriage passed out of the
Nulner Weg and into the paved expanse of the Göttenplatz. The wide-open space of
the square was in stark contrast to the close-clustered tenements, shops and
town house offices of the rest of the town. And a grand sight it was too, for
the acre of the Göttenplatz contained the principle temples of the town.

The square was dominated by the grand Temple of Sigmar, a
great hall of a building with a towering spire at either end, contained within
its own walled grounds. The dowager made the sign of the hammer, while the
merchant—also now awake—was busy pointing out the colonnaded hall that
looked more like a merchants’ basilica court than a holy place. It was the
centre of worship of Bögenhafen’s own patron deity, the merchant-boatman
Bögenauer.

The carriage was currently passing a smaller building adorned
with carved stone likenesses of wolves, this temple being dedicated to Sigmar’s
rival within his own holy Empire, Ulric, god of war and winter. Ulric was more
highly favoured in the northern provinces of the Empire, particularly in and
around the city of the White Wolf itself, Middenheim. Beyond it, Dieter could
see parts of a dome and tower belonging to another, more elaborate structure.

The frost was fading from the cobbles and slabs of the
square. Dieter suddenly felt very small and insignificant in the face of such
enduring, heavenly majesty.

To the right was the plain, unassuming frontage of a Temple
of Shallya, goddess of healing. The temple-infirmary appeared to take the form
of two wings surrounding an inner courtyard.

A few of the most dedicated, or desperate, faithful were
already making their way to morning prayers at the various temples, most heading
for the dominating presence of the Sigmarite temple. The clear tone of a tolling
bell could be heard ringing out over the spires of the other temples across the
Square of the Gods.

Then the carriage had passed through to the other side of the
Göttenplatz and into the town’s administrative hub, the Dreiecke Platz, beyond.
It was only a short journey from there, past Bögenhafen’s impressive town hall,
with its pillared facade and impressive spires, and past the huge building
housing the merchants’ guild, arriving at a two-storey coaching inn going by the
name of the Reisehauschen.

Dieter eagerly disembarked from the Four Seasons coach,
clutching his scrip, containing his few precious books and what little money he
had, tightly to him. But he then had to wait to have his trunk unloaded as the
dowager bossily demanded that the coachman help her down from the carriage
before doing anything else.

Dieter was tired and sore from the journey but full of
excitement and quiet enthusiasm for the adventure that lay ahead, for he was
here at last, in Bögenhafen.

The corpulent merchant anxiously oversaw the unloading of his
possessions as soon as he could and then disappeared inside the inn, followed by
the fop and their bodyguard. The last thing Dieter heard from him, through the
open door of the establishment, was the merchant demanding a room for him and
the young man, who he was at pains once again to introduce as his nephew on his
sister’s side.

Dieter’s trunk was unceremoniously dumped in the street
outside the Reisehauschen, almost as an after thought by the grumpy coachman and
his assistant. Then they climbed back onboard and guided the two horses, pulling
the creaking carriage behind them, around to the back of the inn towards the
stabling yard. With his travelling companions ensconced inside the inn, Dieter
was left alone in the Bergstrasse. At the far end of the street he could see the
fortified structure of the town’s west gate—as impressive and forbidding as
that of the gate he had entered the city by, passing beneath portcullis and
murder holes set into the mighty fortifications.

Dieter turned away from the west gate. That was not the way
he wanted to go. He was here to stay. Taking a firm hold of the leather strap at
the end of his trunk and hefting its end up, he began to make slow progress back
along the Bergstrasse towards the physicians’ guild.

Taking a deep breath, his heart racing in anticipation and
his mouth dry with nerves, Dieter knocked on the door at the top of the creaking
stairs three times. He had wanted the knocks to sound strong and confident but
in reality they sounded weak and pathetic.

Dieter felt tired, what with the re-commencement of his
journey from Vagenholt and having had to drag his trunk containing all of his
worldly possessions from one end of the town and halfway back again, it seemed.
He had not been able to afford to pay for a private carriage or sedan chair, or
even an unemployed stevedore from the docks, to ease his burden. His finances
were a finite resource, until he was qualified at least, and not a bottomless
pot to be dipped into whenever he felt the passing need.

Dieter was aware of movement in the room beyond and then the
door opened. Standing in the doorway, the bare wood and lathe and plaster of the
attic rooms visible behind him, was a tall, gangly youth, about Dieter’s age but
possibly older, judging by the undisguised embittered expression of
world-weariness on his face. He obviously did not appreciate being disturbed.

The young man was wearing an ill-fitting robe that was
patently too short for his gangling frame. It was worn and threadbare in places,
most obviously at the knees and elbows. He looked gaunt and as if he had not
eaten well for some time. His hair was greasy and untidy. In his long-fingered
hands he held a scrawny, ginger cat, which looked as if it had eaten only
slightly better than the youth.

“Yes?” the youth asked irritably.

“Um,” Dieter hesitated, “I’m the new lodger. I’m sharing your
rooms.” He was feeling the strain in his arm from holding the trunk at the top
of the bare floor-boarded stairs.