Tales of the Old World (38 page)

“Just one?”

Johansen blinked, letting his eyes adjust till he could make out the faint
outlines on the floor. “Eight. No, twelve. More if they were stacked.”

“How many of that size would have blown up the Seven Stars?” Grenner asked.
“Three at most.”

“Damn!” He stood and prowled. “So… assume the prince’s mistress is feeding
information to the assassins. Maybe she knows their motive, probably not. Last
night she has a lucky escape and realises that they’d kill her too if necessary.
So she comes to confront them… why?”

“Scatterbrained,” Johansen said.

“They do kill her. So they were here between the explosion and now, probably
clearing the warehouse. But we still don’t know who they are.”

“My money’s on Ulrican fanatics. We could look for witnesses,” Johansen
suggested.

“It’s the docks. Nobody ever admits seeing anything here.” Grenner thumped
the wall. “It’s going to be a city records job, get a clerk to dig out the old
ledgers and find who owns this place. The cargo records too, where it came
from.”

“I’m more worried about where it’s gone. Cart tracks here.” Johansen pointed
to the floor.

“Cart. Barrels,” Grenner said. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“A good way to get gunpowder into an inn cellar. You?”

“I was thinking about a Bretonnian wineseller.”

Johansen stood, brushing dirt from his knees. “We’re late for Hoffmann. And
I’m hungry for lunch.”

Grenner took a length of twine from his pocket to tie the warehouse doors
shut. “Lunch? Some of us are still starving for breakfast.”

From the window of General Hoffmann’s room on the top floor of the Palisades
building, the thin plumes of smoke still rising from the site of the Seven Stars
were faint dark columns against the cold blue sky. Hoffmann stared out over the
city, his back to his two agents.

“Twelve hours,” he said, “and all you’ve got for me is an empty warehouse and
a dead girl.”

“An Elector’s mistress. That’s got to be worth something,” Grenner said.

Hoffmann shook his head. “She can’t tell us what’s going on, who these people
are or where they’ll strike next. So who’s behind this?”

“Ulrican extremists,” Johansen said.

“Bretonnians,” Grenner said.

Hoffmann turned his stare to them. “Make your minds up,” he said. “The city’s
in uproar, every noble is screaming for protection, we’ve got a report of skaven
in the sewers, and on top of it another woman’s disappeared. The last thing I
need is you two following a wrong lead.” He paused. “You do have more leads?”

The agents exchanged a tired look. “Can you send someone to the city records
office, to find out who owns that warehouse?” Grenner asked.

“And the customs records, to see if there’s anything on who brought the
barrels to the city,” Johansen said.

“Who do you suggest I send?” Hoffmann asked. “There isn’t anyone else. Get
the records clerks to do it.”

“You think there’ll be any records clerks there on Hexensnacht?”

“Then you do it. I’ve got my hands full.” Hoffmann turned back to the window.
“We got the explosion report from Alchemics,” he said. “Inconclusive. The
sulphur in the gunpowder was Tilean, the saltpeter was gathered near Wolfenburg
and the charcoal could be from anywhere. The ingredient ratio suggests a
Middenheim-trained alchemist, but that means nothing.”

“Couldn’t you send someone from Alchemics to the records office?” Johansen
asked.

Hoffmann snorted. “Nobody’s going to do your book-work for you. And don’t
dare fall asleep over them, or I’ll have your guts for garters. Go on, get
out.”

The street outside the Palisades was quiet. A cat padded silently down the
gutter. Grenner watched it go, yawned and flexed stiff muscles.

“If we’re going to the records office,” he said, “can we go by Weberstrasse?”

“What’s in Weberstrasse?”

“My tailor.”

“You and your clothes, I swear—” Johansen said, but Grenner wasn’t listening.
Movement had caught his eye: a laden cart moving past the end of the street. He
ran after it.

He was right: it was the Bretonnians cart, still piled high with barrels. The
short man was staring straight ahead, as if deep in thought. Grenner overtook
him and stood in the road, hand raised.

“Stop,” he said. “Where are you going?”

The Bretonnian reined in his horse. “Ah, m’sieur,” he said. “You have come to
buy some wine? Ze aftertaste of cinnamon, she has lingered on your tongue…”

“Where are you going?”

The wineseller shrugged. “The market is finished. I go to find some taverns,
maybe zey buy.”

“Where were you last night?”

“I put my cart in an alley, I sleep zere.” The little man raised his hands in
supplication. “M’sieur, I have no money. I am—”

“You’re under arrest. I want you off the streets.” The Bretonnian turned
white. He grabbed for his whip and swiped it across the horse’s rump. It started
forward, towards Grenner, who ducked sideways and groped in his jerkin for a
throwing-knife. A hand landed on his arm, restraining him. He turned. It was
Johansen.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m arresting this man.” The cart was rattling away behind him. “It’s not
him.”

“How do you know?” Grenner demanded, turning to give chase. Johansen gripped
harder. “It’s not him. It’s Ulrican extremists, trying to kill their Elector.”

“I think he’s working with them.”

“Why?”

“Because…” The cart was gaining speed. “Look, he’s up to something or he
wouldn’t be running.”

“Not our problem,” Johansen said. “Electors in peril, the safety of the
Empire to protect, that’s us, remember? Leave him for your friends in the Watch.
Besides,” he added, “if I was stopped by someone looking like you, I’d run too.”

“What do you mean?” Grenner ran a hand through his blond hair.

“You’re unkempt. Not to mention unshaved, haggard and smelling of last
night’s beer.”

“Visiting my tailor would let me—”

Johansen laughed, a short humourless bark. “Forget it. We’ve got records to
check.”

They went to three breweries, to ask about beer deliveries to the Seven
Stars. Nobody knew about anything unusual.

They knocked on the doors of the houses around the remains of the Seven Stars
to see if anyone had been awake before the explosion, or had heard or seen
anything. Nobody had.

They spoke to a couple of winesellers about the Seven Stars, but the inn had
only taken small casks. Grenner asked about a Bretonnian wineseller dying of
plague four months ago, but they didn’t know of anyone. Grenner looked at
Johansen significantly. Johansen raised his eyes to the ceiling.

They walked through the Konigplatz. The market-stalls had closed up early for
the day, clearing the space for the evening’s celebrations. There was no sign of
the stoneworkers who had been there earlier.

They went to Grenner’s tailor, who fitted his new clothes and wanted to know
how the search for the missing women was going. Even wearing a new shirt and
stylish short-cloak, Grenner still looked unkempt and sleepless.

After several hours, after putting it off for as long as possible, they went
to the city records office, in the basement of the council-hall. There was one
clerk on duty, but after he showed them the section of leatherbound warehouse
and tax records that they needed, he excused himself and they didn’t see him
again.

“Typical work-shy civil servant,” Johansen said.

“Not very civil either,” Grenner observed.

The books were cold, wide, dry and dusty. Their parchment pages were filled
with tightly written records of who owned everything in Altdorf, who had sold it
to them, and what percentage of the sale the tax collectors had taken. It was
slow, tedious work.

Johansen yawned and picked up the fifth ledger in the pile beside him. It was
hard to stay awake: the cold air and the candlelight were soporific, and outside
the narrow window daylight had fled hours ago. Across the table, Grenner echoed
his yawn.

“We’re doing this the wrong way,” he said.

“What?”

“We’re looking for where they’ve been. We should be working out where they’re
going. Who they’re going to target next.”

“Oh yeah?” Johansen raised a weary eyebrow. “How do we do that, a crystal
ball? You know what Hoffmann thinks about that scryer the Watch uses.”

Grenner passed a hand over his face, trying to wipe tiredness away. “It was
just an idea.”

Footsteps weaved through the racks of records towards them. Johansen raised
his head to look. It was Alexis, the prince’s bodyguard.

“Sigmar’s teeth, you two are hard men to track down,” he said.

Johansen thought of a snappy response, but swallowed it. It was too late and
he was too tired. “What’s this about?”

Alexis leaned on the edge of the table. “Anastasia.”

“You know we found her body?” Grenner said.

Alexis nodded. “We heard.” He paused. “The prince lied to you. He sends
apologies but he was trying to protect her.”

Johansen was suddenly very alert. Across the table, Grenner pushed his chair
back.

“What was the lie?” he asked.

“His wife wasn’t ill. He was going to stay the night at the Seven Stars, but
Anastasia told him he was in danger and he should leave.”

“So she was the person the cellarman heard leaving a few minutes later,”
Grenner said. Alexis nodded.

Johansen absorbed the information, fitting it together. “She wasn’t an
innocent,” he said, “she knew what the Ulricans’ plan was. But she couldn’t go
through with it. She may even have lit the fuse, knowing the prince had left.
And they killed her for that.” He looked up at Alexis. “When you learned the
prince was seeing Anastasia you checked her background, had her followed,
right?”

The bodyguard nodded. “We didn’t find any links to known troublemakers.”

“What other northerners did she meet regularly? Friends? Associates?”

“Her brother’s in the city.”

“What does he do?” Grenner asked.

“He’s a stonemason.”

Johansen exhaled sharply. “Grenner,” he said, “remember I said the dead girl
reminded me of someone?”

“Yeah?”

“The stoneworkers’ foreman in the Konigplatz this morning.”

Grenner stared at him, horror across his face. No words were needed. They
sprinted from the records room, out of the council building, heading towards the
Konigplatz.

It was later than they had realised and the darkened streets were thronged
with revellers. Johansen let Grenner take the lead, following the former Watch
sergeant move through narrow alleys and through short-cuts, avoiding the crowds.
After five years in Altdorf he still couldn’t understand why people celebrated
Hexensnacht, the night of witches. Back home in the south his family would be
around the fire tonight, doors locked and windows shuttered. Bad things happened
on Hexensnacht.

Above them the two moons sat, one thin and one fat in a sky that flashed with
bursts from fireworks, their explosions echoing off the buildings. It was not a
good omen. As he ran, Johansen clenched his fists and made a silent prayer to
Sigmar that he was wrong.

They burst into the Konigplatz. The square was a sea of people and movement,
lit by flickering braziers on poles. Johansen leaped onto a market-barrow to
scan the crowd.

“The statues,” he shouted to Grenner over the hubbub, and began pushing his
way to where he had seen the work-crew. They had been digging a trench, he
recalled, deep enough for several barrels.

A knot of merrymaking students blocked his way. “Clear a path! Imperial
officers!” he bellowed, shoving through them. Ahead a red-haired figure turned
sharply, slapped someone on the shoulder and raced away through the crowd,
towards the base of the statue of Sigmar. Johansen felt a rising dread, and gave
chase. They’d spent the day assuming an Elector was in danger. They hadn’t
thought about symbols of the Empire.

If the Ulricans had buried gunpowder, he thought, there would be a way of
lighting it, some kind of fuse. As if on cue a firework went off behind him,
throwing colours over the crowd. The red-headed man ducked between the bases of
the outermost statues. It was darker in there and the crowd was thinner.
Johansen saw Grenner to his left and gestured towards the maze of stonework.
Grenner nodded. That was all the plan they needed: they knew how each other
worked.

Johansen drew his hand-crossbow from its holster and stepped into the
shadows, heading for the statue of Sigmar. He surprised an entwined couple
between the feet of the Empress Magritta, and sent a black-lotus peddler
scurrying away from under Ludwig the Fat. Around the plinth of Leopold I, he
could see where the Ulricans had been working that morning. Above, Sigmar’s
mighty hammer eclipsed the moons, and in its shadow he could see the red-haired
man kneeling on freshly laid paving-stones, crouched over something. A spark. It
was a tinderbox.

Johansen knew he was out of time. He rushed forward, his crossbow raised,
shouting, “Drop it!”

The man didn’t turn as he’d hoped, but crouched lower, blowing on something
that glowed. Johansen charged in, firing as he ran. The bolt hit the Ulrican in
the arm and the tinderbox went flying. The man twisted, his face maddened with
rage, and Johansen kicked him in the teeth. He went backwards, his skull hitting
the base of the statue with a crack.

Johansen’s eyes searched the ground. A white cord lay between two flagstones,
one end raised and singed. He grabbed it, pulling it with both hands. It came
free, about three feet of fuse. He dangled it in front of the man’s eyes.

“Happy Hexensnacht,” he said.

The man grinned through broken teeth and raised something in one hand,
smashing it down onto the stones. Shards of clay splintered and a liquid spread,
covering the ground, seeping between the flagstones into the soil below.
Johansen punched the Ulrican in the side of the head, then dipped a finger and
smelled it. Oil.