“Wait!” someone shouted from the doorway. It was another ruffian, dressed and armed similarly to his companion. “Wait, that’s the violinist! Take him and the girl alive!”
The big man nodded but said nothing as he lowered his guns. Taking the hesitation as an opening, Stanislav charged again, punching viciously. Again the big man did not seem to care. He caught Stanislav’s right arm and, with a single sharp tug, yanked it from its socket. Stanislav’s eyes widened and he screamed, trying to lash out with his good arm despite the pain. The attacker grabbed him by the throat and struck him in the head a few times until Stanislav finally succumbed and fell into a swoon.
“No, no, no!” Erzsebet cried. She struggled to her feet, slipping on Nicolas’s blood as she ran at the big man, her eyes wide with desperation and hatred.
On the ground, Friedrich had regained his senses. He clambered to his feet and made another lunge for his friend’s attacker. He punched the man across the face hard enough that he felt something give—whether it was bone cracking or merely meat being shifted from the force, he could not tell. The big man stumbled slightly, but again he seemed to take no notice of the pain. Friedrich punched him again, this time in the gut, as Erzsebet joined them from the side, kicking and clawing and biting.
Looking more annoyed than anything, the big man grabbed Erzsebet’s collar and threw her clumsily across the room. Unable to keep her footing, Erzsebet tumbled backward and landed in a heap atop Nicolas’s body.
“I’m coming, Erzsebet!” Friedrich shouted, as he landed another blow against his enemy’s unfeeling flesh.
Having dispensed with one irritation, the big man turned to Friedrich. He tried to bring his two revolvers to bear, but Friedrich refused to give him so easy a solution. Friedrich knocked one hand away before it could aim properly and then snapped his forearms together around the man’s other wrist, forcing him to drop the gun. Friedrich then drove in with his shoulder against the man’s chest and swatted the second pistol away with a vicious blow from his hand.
And yet, the big man was not deterred, only annoyed, if even that sentiment could be discerned from his dull expression. He punched Friedrich in the chest, knocking the wind out of Friedrich and leaving him hunched over, gasping for breath. The man shoved him away to get a little space and then took his arm, giving it a strong tug just as he had done to Stanislav.
But despite the pain, Friedrich’s shoulder refused to give, the joint held firmly in place by the muscles and tendons that seemed to actively resist the attack. Instead, the force of the pull made Friedrich stumble forward into his attacker with enough momentum that the man had to scurry back a step so as not to lose his footing. Taking advantage of his enemy’s confusion, Friedrich grabbed the man by the collar and slammed his forehead into the man’s nose.
Bleeding and snorting, the man returned the favor, hitting Friedrich just over the eye. Friedrich reeled backward as lights exploded in his head. He had not quite regained himself when the big man grabbed him by the collar, punched him again, and threw him into the adjoining hallway with enough force that Friedrich almost passed through the doorway into the parlor.
For the moment stunned, Friedrich heard gunfire followed by the sound of windows shattering. Wilhelm and Ilya were shouting something. The revolutionaries were returning fire. People were screaming. Jadwiga the cat was yowling as she scurried about, looking for a place to hide. Amid the chaos around them, Friedrich saw Zoya grab Karel and pull him away from the fighting, which neither of them was equipped to help with.
Erzsebet’s cries snapped him out of his daze. The revolutionaries could handle themselves. Stanislav and Erzsebet were on their own. Friedrich pulled himself up and ran back to the kitchen. He arrived just in time to see the big man slap Erzsebet across the face to silence her, before shoving her into the waiting hands of his accomplice in the alleyway. Stanislav was on the ground struggling to rise, but the big man kicked him a couple of times, and he collapsed again.
“Bastard! Leave them alone!” Friedrich shouted.
He ran for the attacker and threw himself on the big fellow, punching and kicking and tearing. Amid the pain and panic, he felt himself grow mad with fury, suddenly seized with the impulse to bite and tear, to gouge and claw.
Snorting blood from his broken nose, the big man took Friedrich by the throat and began choking him, ignoring Friedrich’s fingers as they tore at his face. Even as Friedrich grew dizzy from loss of oxygen, the intensity of his violence only increased, driven by some deranged instinct to drag his enemy to the grave with him.
But it seemed his death was not sufficiently interesting for his enemy to be bothered with it. Instead, as Friedrich’s attacks grew clumsy from the dizziness, the man slammed him against the wall a few times and threw him again, this time across the kitchen. Friedrich struck the iron stove and went limp for a few moments. Satisfied, the big man lifted Stanislav’s body with both hands and hauled him into the alleyway.
For what felt like the better part of an hour, Friedrich lay where he had fallen, screaming inside his head for his body to move. He heard more shouting from the front of the house, more gunfire, more cries of pain and fear. Jadwiga was yowling. Then the yowling suddenly stopped.
He finally willed his hands to move again, clenching and unclenching his fists. Then he could lift his arms. Then he could turn his head. Then he was on his feet, leaning against the stove. His body ached from the abuse it had suffered, but with the pain came the intoxication of adrenaline. The headiness of violence.
He stumbled to the back door, his footing growing more sure with each step. Reaching the alleyway, he realized that his hour of senselessness had been perhaps a minute or two. The two men were still there, one carrying Stanislav, the other restraining Erzsebet and forcing her into a carriage that waited in the street. When she was finally inside, despite the vigor of her struggles, the men shoved Stanislav in after her and then climbed aboard at the back.
Friedrich started to run, somehow crossing the length of the dark alleyway without stumbling more than once or twice over the refuse that had been left there. He reached the carriage as the driver cracked his whip and it began to move. Now the men saw him, for though the moon was dark, the stars were out, and the street was lit by a few feeble lamps. The accomplice riding on the back called out, and the big fellow reached for Friedrich, but Friedrich ignored them. He jumped up and grabbed onto the door. Shattering the glass of the window with his elbow, he looked inside, searching for his friends.
He found them and the men who had taken them. The unconscious Stanislav was slumped in the seat on one side as his hands were being bound by a handsome, middle-aged man with very fine blond hair. On the seat across, he saw Erzsebet, her eyes wide with terror and hopelessness. Beside her sat a man Friedrich recognized from photographs as her unwanted fiancé, Count von Steiersberg. Von Steiersberg held Erzsebet’s wrist with one hand while the other gripped her firmly by the back of the neck, making it clear that he did not intend to let her escape him again.
“Let go of her!” Friedrich shouted, as he struggled half to tear open the door and half to climb in through the window.
From the injury, the adrenaline, and whatever instinct of violence had taken him, his sense of reason had more or less fled, leaving behind a confused muddle of action that drove him forward, onward, seeking his friends, seeking his enemies, seeking their blood.
The breaking of the window made Von Steiersberg and the blond man look up. Von Steiersberg was alarmed, startled even. He had sent men to retrieve his prize, and he clearly did not anticipate having to become personally involved. The blond man was more composed. He looked at Friedrich and tilted his head, a slight smile playing on his lips.
“Now that is interesting,” he murmured, reaching into his coat. “Quite a resemblance. Such a pity.”
There was a flash of steel in the darkness, and suddenly the blond man was at t
he window, though Friedrich had not seen him move. Another flash and Friedrich felt fresh pain blossom in his chest, just below his heart. Startled, he looked down and saw a knife protruding from his chest.
Suddenly the carriage jolted as it struck some uneven paving stones, and Friedrich’s grip slipped. He grabbed wildly for another handhold, but his fingers found only air as he tumbled backward into the street. He struck the ground painfully and felt his will to rise again ebb.
As the rattling of the carriage receded into the distance, he stared at the knife protruding from his chest. His head lolled backward against the stones, and he gazed up at the moonless sky until the darkness took him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In the back room of Mordechai’s bookstore, Iosef sat with a small glass of wine in his hand, periodically sipping as he compared passages from three books that his host had kindly provided for him. Mordechai sat nearby in much the same state: a little wine, several texts, and a collection of curiosities waiting to be identified. They had spoken little since Iosef’s arrival several hours ago, save to exchange thoughts on a point of mutual interest or to offer a query from one scholar to another. But, Iosef reflected, Mordechai did not seem to mind the silence any more than he did.
Presently, Iosef finished his glass and went to a nearby table to refill it. As he did, a thought came to him and he paused.
“Mordechai,” he said, “the Hoffmann artifact came from a tomb in Poland, is that correct?”
Mordechai looked up from his work and removed his spectacles. “Yes, near Poznan, I believe. I am told it was a remarkable find with all manner of ancient relics. Alas, I was not privy to it myself.”
He stood and joined Iosef at the table as Iosef refilled both their glasses.
“So you would not know about the tomb’s other contents?” Iosef asked. “Its layout? Composition? For whom it was built?”
“Well, the latter I can surmise,” Mordechai replied. “From what I was told, it was quite clearly built for a Slavic chieftain. And having seen some of the more commonplace items taken from the excavation, I am certain of it. You recall several items from the Hoffmann estate came into my possession.”
“Of course.”
Mordechai looked off into the distance as he recalled the list. “Two swords,” he said. “I still have one. The other was recently acquired by a gentleman from Salzburg. Several pieces of jewelry. I believe that was the extent of it.”
“Were there any statues?” Iosef asked.
“Statues?”
“Idols,” Iosef clarified.
“Ah.” Mordechai gave him a knowing smile. “You want to know whether the tomb was for a worshipper of the Horned Serpent.”
“Indeed.”
“Count von Raabe asked me the same thing some time ago,” Mordechai said, chuckling softly with genuine amusement. “Unfortunately, in that regard, I can only answer with ignorance. Having never inspected the tomb myself, I can only surmise from the artifacts I acquired. But I suppose it would not surprise me. The region where the tomb was found does have a long-standing association with the cult—if certain rather esoteric legends are to be believed.”
“Kaminskus Magnus,” Iosef said.
He sipped his wine and tried to ignore the whispers in the shadows. They always troubled him late at night, but recently they had become more pronounced. It was possibly the result of some impending madness, but that fear was fanciful. It was more likely stress and long hours coupled with the overhanging guilt at Sophio’s death, a guilt that grew worse and worse the more he pursued his studies into her final area of scholarship.
“Kaminskus Magnus indeed!” Mordechai exclaimed happily. “An excellent scholar, if a little political in his motivation.”
“When one serves at the pleasure of the king, one cannot easily avoid that,” Iosef noted.
“Perhaps not.” Mordechai smiled. “But that is why I labor in a bookstore and not at court.”
“Much more sensible.”
“Kaminski’s account of witchcraft in Poland almost certainly uncovered a very real, persistent cult of the Horned Serpent,” Mordechai said, “in addition to countless benign practitioners of the old Slavic faith or various folk traditions.”
“Certainly,” Iosef agreed.
“The problem we face is in clearly separating the one from the other, as so much of the varied and nuanced practices of pagan worshippers have repeatedly been dismissed in favor of a rather absurd notion of some monolithic ‘devil worship’. Kaminski’s observations are generally more objective than most, but he too falls under the sway of simplicity.”
Iosef gave a thin smile. “It is a dark temptation.”
“I hope that is not a touch of sarcasm, Your Highness,” Mordechai replied, though his tone was jesting. “We might enjoy our tidy libraries and reading rooms—”
Iosef coughed softly. Mordechai might be regarded as organized, but he was anything but tidy.
“—but the world is messy with nuance. Whenever we scholars accept simple answers for complicated questions, we fail in our task. Religion pretends that things are simple. We know better.”
“You reject the notion that one of those many simple answers might be right?” Iosef asked.
“Without hesitation,” Mordechai said, sounding very pleased. “There was a time when I was a religious man, but in my youth I traveled and I encountered a great many religions and a great many religious people who very eloquently explained why their faith and theirs alone was unquestionably correct.” Mordechai frowned for a moment, remembering a pang of disappointment. “Eventually they began to sound more or less the same and none of them very convincing.”
Iosef paused for a moment, considering whether to voice the question that tickled his curiosity. It was quite a presumptuous thing to ask, and he still enjoyed having access to Mordechai’s books and knowledge and to Mordechai himself, whom Iosef found to be an agreeable study companion.
Mordechai must have read the sentiment in Iosef’s eyes, for he said, “You want to ask me something.”
“It is…very forward, I fear,” Iosef replied. “I do not wish to be rude to a new friend.”
“Ask it anyway,” Mordechai told him, smirking a little. He did not seem troubled by the ambiguity of Iosef’s statement. Perhaps he already anticipated the question.
“Are you an atheist, Mordechai?” Iosef finally asked.
“Ah.…” Mordechai nodded with understanding. “A worthy question. I would say that I am a deeply religious man still waiting for a revelation from God rather than the dubious claims of men. Though perhaps ‘religious’ is not the proper word for it. I distrust anything that demands obedience when it ought to demonstrate merit.”
“God demands faith,” Iosef countered. He did not really believe it, but Mordechai’s philosophical revelation intrigued him.
“Man demands faith,” Mordechai said. “The docile acceptance of unproven things. It guides the peasant to obey his lord, the wife to obey her husband, the laity to obey the clergy, and all people to obey their divinely appointed king. And when obedience fails, faith sooths the conscience of the survivors when the rebellious have been put to death.” He paused and gazed into his wine as it gently swirled inside his cup. “I do not trust faith, young Iosef. By its power, I have seen atrocities proclaimed as good deeds and justice condemned as heresy.”
Iosef snickered under his breath at being referred to as “young”, but he did not allow his amusement to show. Mordechai looked perhaps ten or even fifteen years his senior. Of course the man regarded him as some untested youth. It was almost as bad as Julius, but not quite.
His amusement slowly faded as he felt the shadows lengthening, murmuring “Sophio, Sophio, Sophio” in his ear. Iosef quickly shook himself.
“After all,” Mordechai continued, “what is religion but a conspiracy between the warrior class
and the intellectual class to exploit everyone else? The warriors protect the priests, and the priests legitimize the warriors’ rule. Those who do not fight and do not pray must work…and they must work so that the other two need not.”
“A rather cynical view of things,” Iosef said.
“Perhaps,” Mordechai agreed. “I often suspect that cynicism is the logical result of age and experience. But then, I have been told that I am far too cheerful to be a cynic, so perhaps not.”
Iosef smiled a little. “I suspect that to be true.”
He paused as he heard the bell above the front door ring.
“Ah! Customers at this hour?” Mordechai asked. He set his glass down and hurried to the front room.
Iosef followed him a few paces back. “Are you still open for business?”
“I suppose I never really close,” Mordechai replied. “Customers simply stop visiting for a few hours each day.”
“Indeed,” Iosef murmured.
He found the bookstore very dark. The gas lamps burned low, and there was precious little light. Despite the darkness, Iosef had little difficulty in seeing a group of men who had just entered. Mordechai raised a hand in greeting as he turned the gas knob on the wall. The lamps blossomed to life, but in the claustrophobic confines of the bookstore, they did little good.
“Good evening, gentlemen!” Mordechai exclaimed. “Welcome to my humble store. What do you req—”
Iosef saw three men, by now spread out a few paces. One was inspecting the contents of a nearby case, another stood by the door, and a third approached Mordechai with a friendly smile and an outstretched hand. It was only as Mordechai began his final sentence that Iosef noticed a fourth man, lurking in the shadows, aiming a pistol at Mordechai’s head.
In the few seconds it took for Iosef to see the threat, to turn and lunge, the man fired twice. Mordechai seemed to notice too, in the moment just before the pistol’s report. He snapped his head around just as the bullets entered through one eye and the bridge of his nose, tearing apart his brain and shattering his skull. He gasped a noise that might have been a surprised “Oh!” and collapsed in a heap.
A Sojourn in Bohemia Page 19
