The Blood Debt: Wolf of the North Book 3

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  Wulfric shifted in his saddle. The banneret-captain and his men led the way, but kept to themselves, which suited Wulfric. The fewer questions they asked, the better. His concern at being discovered far outweighed his irritation at riding away from Elzburg rather than toward it. The fame Jagovere’s stories had brought them made him doubly uncomfortable, however. Not only was he a wanted man, but it seemed he was now famous and a focus of attention.

  ‘I think it’s best if everyone calls me Ulfyr from now on,’ Wulfric said, cutting across what Jagovere was saying.

  ‘I thought that might be the case,’ he said. ‘It’s part of the reason I called you Ulfyr in the stories.’ He smiled. ‘It wasn’t just because you don’t like it. My memory isn’t so short as that. Remind me though, was it fifteen soldiers, or twenty?’

  Wulfric cast him a filthy look, and Jagovere was smart enough to know that a period of silence would be sensible.

  They rode quietly for a while, before Jagovere spoke again.

  ‘If I’d known how successful my stories would become,’ he said, ‘I think I’d have taken the chance on making myself the hero. Or Enderlain.’ He chuckled. ‘I’m sorry if this brings you attention you didn’t want.’

  ‘It is what it is,’ Wulfric said.

  ‘Did you hear him, though? "Ulfyr’s mercenary company"? It seems you’re now the leader of our merry little band.’

  Wulfric looked across to Jagovere.

  ‘Not to worry. I never wanted to lead a company, and I certainly don’t now. This gives me the chance to focus on my stories, at last. It’s your fellows we’re on our way to kill, so it makes sense, you taking the reins.’

  ‘What do you mean “we”?’

  ‘I mean, after all we’ve been through together, you hardly think we’d let you ride off for heroic vengeance and certain death alone?’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Wulfric said. ‘And death isn’t certain.’

  ‘We do,’ Jagovere said, ‘and death is always certain. It’s only the when that’s up for debate. With us by your side, it’ll come a lot later than it would otherwise.’

  ‘I should have kept my mouth shut,’ Wulfric said.

  ‘You might have tried, but a burden like that is always going to be too hard to keep from your friends.’

  Wulfric fell silent.

  ‘Anyhow, we don’t have anything better to be doing. None of us will ever have to work for a living again, and you know what they say: “Idle hands are Fanrac’s workshop.”’

  Wulfric sighed, and Jagovere let out a guffaw.

  ‘I’ll make sure the others know to only call you Ulfyr from now on,’ Jagovere said, as he wheeled his horse to ride back to them.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘How did you lose it, my lord?’

  Rodulf looked down along the courtesan’s naked body and smiled to himself. While many had stared at the patch covering his eye, she was the first to have the audacity to ask him outright what had happened. He appreciated that.

  ‘In a fight with a belek, many years ago,’ he said.

  She cooed in admiration, not questioning the lie for a second. Considering how much he was paying her, that was not entirely surprising. Nonetheless, his visit to the bordello had failed to take his mind off things as he had hoped it would. In the past couple of weeks, matters had not gone entirely his way.

  He was still angry that the Intelligenciers had not deemed it necessary to arrest the young woman Aethelman had used to distract him. She had sworn that she thought Aethelman was an elderly relative or friend playing a joke, and had enthusiastically given the Intelligenciers every piece of information she had. There was something to envy in the fear they could inspire, but their obstinacy was an irritation. The Stone had not been able to bend the investigating Intelligencier to his will. He knew it would, given time, but that was not a commodity he had to spare—nor did he want to pay what he was coming to think of as the Stone’s price for use to achieve something he should have been able to effect with temporal power and influence alone. It was a defeat, and defeats were not a setback he could ever let go of with ease.

  That was not his only distraction, however. As the Markgraf’s plan advanced, so too did his own, and the pressure built exponentially. There were times when he was gripped by a crisis of confidence, and the resolve which usually came so naturally abandoned him completely. His failure to get the Intelligenciers to do what he wanted had caused a crack, which gave way to a flood of other worries. His mind raced with thoughts about what he had done, and what would happen to him if he was caught.

  If the Markgraf discovered that Rodulf had murdered his young daughter, even the Stone’s powers used to their maximum would not be enough to save his life. He had heard stories of what the Ostian torturers employed in Ruripathia could do, how they could keep a man on the edge of life for days while subjecting him to the most horrific abuses. He had seen torture firsthand in Shandahar years before, but by all accounts, they were brutish amateurs compared to their Ostian counterparts.

  The thing that played on his mind the most, however, was that he had no clear idea of how to proceed. Thus far he had acted on opportunities that had fallen in his path. The Markgraf’s boy being killed in a fall from his horse had shown Rodulf that the Markgraf’s strength of will was not unshakable, and his daughter’s mourning afterward had provided the ideal opportunity to break it completely. Now the Markgraf was all but Rodulf’s puppet, but Rodulf felt like a puppeteer with no story to tell.

  He had taken control of a solid foundation for a rebellion, and had been dazzled with the idea of making himself a king. Ideas were all well and good, but they did not make for reality by themselves. He could hear his father’s self-righteous voice of chastisement in his head as he had the thought, but the irritation was interrupted as the whore’s fingernail snagged on his skin.

  ‘Leave me,’ he said. He wasn’t in the mood for company any longer. ‘Send more wine up. And some dream seed.’

  He lay back on the bed and waited until he heard the door close behind her before letting his thoughts drift back to how he was going to take advantage of his newfound position, without getting himself killed in the process. The best approach seemed to be to leave the Markgraf where he was until secession had been declared. After that, Rodulf could wait in the wings until the time was right, and replace him.

  It sounded simple, but it would be far more complicated than that. The southerners liked their laws, and everything had to be done officially. If he were to seize power by force alone, he would fracture the fledgling country, likely lose the war of independence, and probably end up dead. He was under no illusions that the nobles in his pocket were loyal to him—they would turn on him the moment the opportunity presented itself. His accession to power would have to have a legal foundation, to be built on a mountain of paperwork and law so tall that even the most ambitious legal challenge would be unable to scale it. Even then, he reckoned he would need steel to back it up.

  That was easy enough to come by. He had taken upon himself the recruitment of the mercenary forces the Markgraf needed for his rebellion. Their coin came from him, which meant their loyalty was to him. Now that he controlled the Markgraf, he could siphon off as much of Leondorf’s silver as he needed, without worry.

  The legal part would be more difficult. He had little more than a passing understanding of Ruripathian law, and no idea how it could be manipulated to make him next in line to the throne. He would have to find himself a lawyer whom he could make his own to investigate these things and find a way to make it work. The Markgraf had no living relatives now that his son and daughter were dead, so one complication had been cleared out of the way. Inserting himself into that vacuum was the challenge, one of many he knew would face him in the coming days.

  Rodulf had quickly learned that the foundation for any project in the south was firm support among the nobility. There were a number of ways this could be achieved, but the two easiest methods were doing something the
y wanted as much as you did, or buying them off. Even with the silver wagons coming south from the Leondorf territories on a weekly basis, the Markgraf’s treasury was not unlimited. Indeed, his cash flow was starting to strain under the burden being placed on it. Purchasing the services of enough mercenaries to make the princess think twice about declaring war was going to be eye-wateringly expensive. There would only be enough spare money to be spent on those nobles most important to their plan. That meant that for the others, blackmail, threats, and assassination were the only options. There was a delicate balance to be struck, however. Creating too much instability could finish them before they had even started.

  He had a long list of the nobles who would need to be subverted or removed, and a very short list of people he trusted to do it. Much of it he would have to take upon himself, but he had no intention of doing all that work unless it was going to benefit him directly. His agenda had to be given priority. Where it coincided with the Markgraf’s, the choice was easy. First, he had to get the mercenaries hired and marching to Elzburg. Then he needed to find a lawyer, and make sure that when the Markgraf met his untimely demise, Rodulf was the one to take his place. After that, he would go about the Markgraf’s tasks like the dutiful servant he most certainly was not.

  THE MERCENARY GUILD house in Elzburg was a larger building than one might expect for a peripheral city. Being so close to the border with the barbarous Northlands, there was a constant need for armed men to deal with border incursions. As much as Rodulf wanted to set in motion his plan to seize power, he needed to first make sure there would be power to seize. The Princess of Ruripathia had an army of veterans, men who had fought in the war with Ostia, and they would cut through regiments of conscripts like a hot knife through butter. Mercenaries were needed to bolster the Markgraf’s levies. However, for sell-swords to be of any use, a large number of them were needed—their courage was always suspect if they didn’t outnumber their opponents, and it took time to amass a major force.

  The house was easy to find, dwarfing its smaller neighbours. He went in and cleared his throat as loudly as he could, but the four men sitting around a large oak table by a fireplace ignored him. He reckoned that not one of them was under six feet tall. They were dark skinned, dressed in scarlet cloth supplemented with fur, and even their muscles had muscles. Rodulf had seen their kind before in Shandahar, while on one of the trading trips his father had sent him on. They were Blood Blades, elite Shandahari warriors named for the curved broad-bladed knives they always carried. They chattered away in Shandahari and continued to act as though Rodulf were not there.

  A man with dark hair streaked with grey came out of a back room, and followed Rodulf’s gaze to the men sitting by the roaring fire.

  ‘The lads get a bit cold when they’re sitting around doing nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m Guildmaster Kunler. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m here to engage some men,’ Rodulf said.

  ‘Well then, you’ve come to the right place. If you’d like to come this way.’

  He led Rodulf to the room he had exited, a good-sized office. He sat at the desk and gestured for Rodulf to do likewise.

  ‘How many men were you thinking of?’ Kunler said.

  ‘Ten thousand,’ Rodulf said. ‘A proper fighting force.’

  Kunler nodded. ‘The world’s a quiet place at the moment,’ he said. ‘Plenty of companies looking for work, and prices will be reasonable as a result, but that’s quite a force. What will you be needing them for?’

  ‘Military operations,’ Rodulf said.

  Kunler rolled his eyes. ‘Didn’t think you wanted them for babysitting.’

  ‘I represent the Markgraf,’ Rodulf said. ‘This is a sensitive matter. Were word of his plans to get out, it would make the objectives of any subsequent operations far harder to achieve, if you follow me.’

  ‘I follow you perfectly, and as an old soldier myself I appreciate the need for discretion. Nothing worse than an enemy who knows you’re coming.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Rodulf said. ‘I can trust you to keep all matters we discuss completely confidential?’

  ‘You can,’ Kunler said. ‘On my oath as Guildmaster. My brethren would flay me alive if I had a loose tongue.’

  ‘Good,’ Rodulf said, although he had no intention of trusting the man with the truth. ‘The Markgraf has encountered more hostility in the new Leondorf territory than he expected. He plans to put an end to it in the coming campaigning season.’

  ‘Well, as I said things are quiet, so the Markgraf will be a popular fellow.’ He opened a ledger book and leafed through several pages. ‘I know of six companies within a month’s travel of here currently looking for a contract. On a quick tally, that’ll add up to about seven thousand men.’

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘There’ll be others a bit farther away, and I’ll have to contact other houses to get details on them. I’ll send some pigeons off directly, and should have an answer for you day after tomorrow. In the meantime, I can give you a breakdown of the rates for the companies that I have on my books.’

  ‘That would be perfect,’ Rodulf said. ‘Those fellows outside, the Blood Blades, are they looking for work?’

  ‘They are. Were working for a burgess who fancied himself a big fella. Turns out he wasn’t, and couldn’t afford to pay them. Did you see the smoke yesterday?’

  Rodulf nodded. He had noticed a plume of smoke in the south of the city.

  ‘They gelded him and burned down his house. That’ll teach him to punch above his weight,’ Kunler said, laughing.

  ‘Indeed,’ Rodulf said, a sick feeling settling in his stomach. Was he doing the same, albeit on a far grander scale? Still, he was fully committed, and the only way through was by digging deeper.

  ‘Do they speak any Imperial?’ Rodulf said.

  ‘They do,’ Kunler said. ‘Not fluently, but more than enough to do their jobs.’

  ‘Good. I’ll hire them too. Right now.’

  ‘You certainly have an eye for talent, my lord.’

  RODULF HAD PUT out his feelers and discovered a jurist whose legal opinions were esteemed and convincing, and whose morals were virtually non-existent. His name was Joffen, or ‘The Honourable’ Joffen, as lawyers in the south called themselves. The title put them in a grey area of the social hierarchy—below the nobility, but arguably above the burgesses. It was something of a conceit, but in a society so stratified, he could understand why they did it.

  Possessed of perfect credentials, Rodulf decided to engage the Honourable Joffen’s services. However, from the off, he needed Joffen to know exactly where he stood. Rodulf might not have been able to invoke the bowel-loosening terror that the Intelligenciers did with such aplomb, but having four Blood Blades flanking him when he walked into a room came very close. They were an intimidating sight—tall, dark, and broad, with tattoos scrolling around their eyes, and their wicked-looking knives hanging at their hips. The Blood Blades opened the door to Joffen’s offices and pushed past the clerk in the reception area, and on into the lawyer’s chambers.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’

  A portly man with cropped hair stood from behind a desk, his face a picture of indignation. He was not at all what Rodulf had imagined. Rodulf stepped in front of his Blood Blades.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Rodulf said.

  ‘I… Yes, I do, my lord,’ Joffen said. ‘How may I be of assistance?’

  Rodulf gestured for the Blood Blades to leave, and sat at the opposite side of the desk without waiting to be invited. He looked around before saying anything. The office was lined with bookshelves filled with expensive leather-bound books. A black lawyer’s gown was arranged neatly over a stand, with a well-worn white powdered wig sitting above it.

  ‘Are you still a regular feature in the courts?’ Rodulf asked.

  Joffen sat down and smoothed out his tunic. ‘Not so much anymore. My clients prefer to avoid judicial proceedings, and many of those who canno
t tend to elect for trial by combat. Something to do with the ego and pride of being a banneret or a nobleman, I expect.’

  Rodulf could hear the nervousness in his voice, which pleased him. The correct tone for their association had been set right from the start.

  ‘I have a legal matter I was hoping you could apply your mind to,’ Rodulf said.

  ‘I would consider it a privilege, my lord,’ Joffen said.

  ‘I’ve recently been appointed the Markgraf’s Lord Lieutenant, and he has passed over to me a number of matters of great personal concern to him.’

  ‘I understand,’ Joffen said.

  ‘Chief among those is the tragic loss of his children, and the question that raises with regard to succession.’

  ‘That tends to be a matter at the forefront of most noblemen’s concerns,’ Joffen said. ‘My understanding is that the Markgraf has no living blood relatives.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Rodulf said.

  ‘In which case his possessions and titles would revert to the crown in the event of his death.’

  ‘I believe that is also correct,’ Rodulf said, ‘and it’s something the Markgraf would very much like to avoid.’

  ‘He’s still a young man,’ Joffen said. ‘There are any number of ladies of the correct standing to whom he could be introduced. Although that is not necessarily my area of expertise, I could certainly look into compiling a list of suitable matches.’

  ‘That’s not what the Markgraf has in mind,’ Rodulf said. ‘The pain of losing a wife and two children has taken a substantial toll on him, and it’s not an experience he could bear to repeat.’

  ‘So an alternative will have to be found?’ Joffen said.

  ‘Not found,’ Rodulf said. ‘Legitimised.’