02 - Sacred Flesh

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  “Even after I die, these weary bones of mine will know no rest. If I am lucky, my body will be hauled down to the mausoleum, where eventually it will be unwrapped and laved for bits of holy grease. But I know Manfried. He has been waiting for a gift from heaven, to free him from his exile here. He will haul my corpse onto a cart and take it back to Averheim. He’ll lay it out before his rivals as the greatest of treasures, and say, ‘Give me my cathedral back and I will give you an unending stream of miracles.’ And then I’ll be installed there, on display, under glass, for the pleasure of every gaping curiosity seeker. Every year, perhaps, I’ll be taken out and put on display. My miraculous state of preservation will be remarked upon. From these few moments together, Angelika, I can see there’s nothing you hold dearer than your dignity. Would you want such a thing to happen to you?”

  “A grim fate, to be sure. But you’ll manoeuvre me into no foolish promises.”

  “This is what I want you to do: make sure I am buried in my home village. It is a place called Ruhgsdorf, about a league south-east from Averheim. Bury me with no marker, no special ceremony—I want no one to guess who I was, and dig up my bones. If anyone’s to get the benefit from them, it should be the people I abandoned, years ago, to come to this place. Ruhgsdorf. You’ll remember that name?”

  Angelika shrugged. “Remembering it doesn’t mean I ever have to go there. Especially not with the mouldering body of a presumptuous old woman bundled over my shoulder.”

  Elsbeth held the tip of the wolfs-head dagger close to her face. “Is this a sharp blade?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Angelika.

  “Devorah said there was another whose promise you refused. What was the name?”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Thomas Krieger. That was the name.”

  Devorah pushed up close to Franziskus. He felt the warmth of her body through the thin fabric of her habit. His back was pressed against the shed wall; its splinters tried to prick him.

  Devorah opened her mouth but struggled to find her words. Finally she said, “But if I am to sacrifice all chance at ordinary, human love, in favour of a pure, disembodied love for the goddess, should I not acquaint myself with its nature, a little first? Otherwise, what does the sacrifice mean, if I give up a thing I have never known, except from songs and poems?”

  “I am no expert in theology,” hesitated Franziskus.

  She touched his face, the tips of her fingers lingering over his bottom lip. “Kiss me,” she breathed.

  The shed door banged open. A short man hunched in the doorway, backlit by the grey sky behind him. He grabbed the doorframe for balance, paused for a moment and then lurched into the shed, drawing a sword from his belt.

  Franziskus shoved Devorah away from him guiltily. She whirled, checking her wimple to hide any escaped locks of hair.

  The man stopped. He frowned. “You’re not Ivo,” he said.

  Franziskus altered his angle for a better look at the man’s face. It was bruised purple and pitted with superficial, pinprick scabs. “Richart?”

  Richart Pfeffer wrinkled his brow and winced from the effort. “They told me they’d caught my relic thief. What are you doing here, Franziskus?”

  “We thought you were dead,” said Franziskus.

  “Ivo did his best to see to that. He threw me off the side of the mountain—but I fell only a dozen yards or so before I hit a green patch and bounced. I lay hurt for a good long while. Still, here I am.”

  “You can clear our names then. Among other charges, Kirchgeld has us accused of murdering you. He said you were working for the Sigmarites. The two of you found evidence to prove Angelika and me guilty of stealing sacred relics from the abbey—or so his story went.”

  Richart groaned and propped himself against a wall. “I was hired by Father Manfried to find out who had stolen holy implements from the sisters here.”

  “You’re not a landowner at all then?” asked Devorah.

  Richart shook his head, “Just a lowly man at arms,” he grinned, painfully. “I traced the pilfered items to a dealer in Grenzstadt. He purchased them through an intermediary, without ever meeting the thief face to face. Though he couldn’t describe him to me, I made him tell me what he did know: he planned a second expedition to the Holy Mountain, to steal what he couldn’t the first time. Supposedly he’d just joined a group of pilgrims led by an old cavalry officer. When I found Krieger’s party, I reckoned his was the group I was looking for. When Altman was slain for his holy relic, I knew I was right.”

  “But if Kirchgeld’s a stealer of relics, why didn’t he keep the one he took from Altman?”

  “He looked at it long enough to decide it was a fake, then planted it on Muller to throw me off his trail.”

  “And I’d judged Kirchgeld a mere fool.”

  “From the beginning, there was a wrong smell about him,” Richart said. “He’s no more a pardoner than I am a landsman. But it wasn’t until he showed detailed knowledge of the mountain landscape that I knew he’d been here before, and so he was my man.”

  “So you went to confront him?”

  “And he got the better of me. His clownishness led me to underestimate him. He can handle a weapon. So you have no clue where he might be?”

  “No, but he must be planning to rob the abbey again, mustn’t he?”

  “Doubtless. He was clever to have someone else arrested for his crimes—he’s put Manfried’s men off their guards.”

  “Take Angelika and me to this Father Manfried, and see to the clearing of our names. Then I am sure there’s nothing she’d sooner do than help you catch up with Ivo Kirchgeld.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mother Elsbeth held the knife. She’d rolled up the sleeves of her habit, uncovering sallow forearms traversed by a marching legion of scars and discolorations. She saw that Angelika was looking at them. “The healing bath is powerful, but the worst of the wounds still leave permanent marks.” She held the edge of the blade against her skin. “You won’t try to stop me?”

  “What you do is your business. But I don’t see why I have to watch.”

  “It is not my intent to distress you, but I am rarely left alone these days. This may be my only chance for quite some time.”

  “There’s a guard outside the door. If you do it, I’ll be blamed.”

  “You are a resourceful woman. And Shallya shall unfold you in her mercy, and protect you from harm.”

  Angelika faced the door, uneasily figuring her chances of getting away from Bernolt. He was older than she was, so she might be faster, if she could just get past him and into the hall… “Surely if you tell Bernolt to return me to my prison, you’ll have enough time then to—”

  “I can wait no longer.” Angelika heard a faint but telltale squish of flesh parting on either side of a blade, and turned to see that Mother Elsbeth had pierced her forearm with the knife. Gouts of dark blood, sluggish as molasses, dropped reluctantly from the wound and onto the floor. Elsbeth shuffled backwards, regarding the dripping knife. A whimper slipped free of her barely parted lips. The blood made a suppressed slapping sound on the stone floor as it fell around her feet.

  “That’s not enough,” said Angelika, her voice hushed. “If you want to die quickly, you have to keep going.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’ve got to widen the cut.”

  “Please…”

  “Then do the same with the other wrist.”

  “I can’t.” She held out her arms, the wounded one still speared through by the dagger blade, in a gesture of pleading and supplication. “Please.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “Damn it,” Angelika said.

  She wrapped her left hand around the blade’s decorative hilt and yanked it out of Elsbeth’s arm. The old woman lost her balance and fell into Angelika, who held her up. With the blade still in her hand, Angelika embraced Elsbeth, pulling her into her own body and holding her tightly. Angelika could feel
the wetness of the old woman’s blood as it soaked through the sleeve of her own tunic. She cradled Elsbeth’s head. “You want this fast,” she said.

  “Yes,” Elsbeth managed.

  Angelika placed one hand on the holy woman’s shoulder and another on the back of her head. Then she jerked Elsbeth’s head, snapping her neck. The old woman gasped once and then went limp in Angelika’s arms, dead.

  The door opened. Angelika turned, her hands and face sticky with Elsbeth’s blood.

  Richart Pfeffer stood there. Behind him was Franziskus. Bernolt Steinhauer peered in, too.

  Richart shouted: “Murderer!” He rushed into the room, drawing his sword. He took it out too soon, so it clanged against the doorframe as he bolted in. Angelika fumbled for the ornamental dagger, which had fallen into Elsbeth’s bed sheets. Richart charged into her sideways, his shoulder pointed at Angelika like a battering ram. She leapt up on the bed, but its rickety frame gave way under her weight, sending her crashing into Richart, who swung wildly back at her with his sword. She pushed his arm aside, adjusting her position, wrapping her long legs around his chest and neck.

  Pitching forward at the waist, Richart tried first to throw her off, then to smash her head into the sloping stone ceiling over Elsbeth’s ruined bed. Her hands flat against it, her knees now firmly pressing against Richart’s temples, Angelika twisted herself around. Richart wrenched himself out of her grip and then collapsed. Angelika fell on top of him. She groped for the dagger but came up only with a handful of bloodied bed sheet. Richart rolled back and up to his feet. He charged at her with a swinging sword. It banged against the low, inclined ceiling. He tossed it aside and leapt on her, fists clenched tight. She threw the blanket over his head and then proceeded to punch his injured face. He cried out in muffled pain.

  Franziskus and Bernolt stood shocked and gaping. As Franziskus jerked abruptly into the room, Bernolt seized him by the shoulders and dashed his head into the doorframe. His vision blurring, Franziskus reached down to yank Bernolt’s baton from his belt. Bernolt grabbed his arm and twisted, but Franziskus stomped his boot, forcing him to let go. He wrapped a hand around each end of the baton and jammed it into Bernolt’s throat, pressing him against the doorframe. Bernolt shot a muscular knee into Franziskus’ groin. Franziskus groaned but maintained his choking grip on the baton. Bernolt’s face went slowly blue.

  Angelika manoeuvred her way behind Richart, twisting the bed sheet to tighten its grip on the nut-brown man’s head and neck. He clawed at it.

  “Relent,” Angelika commanded. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  The sheet over his mouth smothered Richart’s response. “You murdered our saint!”

  “I’ll explain if you relent,” Angelika told him.

  He drove an elbow into her ribs. She held the sheet snug around his head and smacked it into the wall. “Relent!” she cried. He struggled. Again she dashed him into the wall. “Relent!” He sank to his knees, trying to force her down. He choked. She kicked him; he fell flat against the floor. She kicked at his ribs until he stopped moving.

  Bernolt Steinhauer passed out. Franziskus supported the man’s weight as his legs gave way beneath him, then laid him gently out on the floor. He fished two fingers around his mouth to make sure he did not swallow his tongue.

  Angelika surveyed the wreckage of the room. “Help me get her onto the sheet,” she told Franziskus.

  “What? We have to run!”

  She picked up the sheet and unfurled it, laying it out on the floor. “Roll her onto it,” she said.

  “Are you mad?”

  “Yes, undoubtedly, because we’re taking her with us.”

  Franziskus heard shouts and rushing footsteps. “Someone’s heard the fight! We must go!”

  Angelika took a final look at the holy woman’s body and then followed him out of the door and into the corridor. They checked right and left for oncoming guards.

  “What’s the best route down the mountain?” Franziskus asked.

  “We have to stay and hide,” said Angelika.

  “Pardon me?”

  “We can’t let them take her body.”

  * * *

  Devorah poked her head outside the shed. A dry, cold wind buffeted her face, yanking back her wimple and tugging at her lush chestnut locks. She was sure that there was a place she ought to report to, but did not know where that might be, or even how she might find out. Elsbeth had made her a sister of the Heiligerberg Abbey, but had not thought to tell her where her quarters might be, or which priestess or senior sister would supervise her devotions. Devorah’s spirits sank. She was as lost as ever. She put her hands on her forearms, to warm them, and set off back toward the abbey gate. It would be a terrible struggle to get through all of those poor wailing pilgrims again. Perhaps she would find Lemoine, or the others, and could tell them of her new status. Say final farewells. She would not tarry with them, however, as the twin voices of regret and doubt were already whispering in her ear, telling her to cast off her habit, flee this place, and never again set her slippered foot inside a cloister.

  She stepped through the trampled garden and hugged the abbey wall as best she could, ducking and dodging her way through the mass of pilgrims. Some of them, seeing her habit, grabbed at her, implored her, and wheezed into her face. She was one of the sisters, they told her. She could help them. She could get them in to see the holy woman. Devorah wanted to scream and tear herself away from them. She wanted to kick at their spindly, weakened legs, with their sores and their bandages. “No,” she told them, she could not help. She had only just started here. “Let me through,” she told them. “Please let me through.”

  It took her half an hour to push through the crowd. Just as she was thinking she should have waited at the shed for an escort to take her back through the throng, one of the guards stationed at the gate saw her and pointed. “That’s her, isn’t it?” he asked his fellow. They both plunged into the crowd. They took her by the shoulders and pulled her through the last few layers of mobbing, crowding penitents. Two guards opened the gate, as another four stood ready with warhammers, to repel a surge at the gates. “Order!” one of them screamed. A liver-spotted hand shot up above the level of the crowd to hurl a rain of pebbles and stones at him. A chant swelled through the throng. “Let us see her! Let us see her!”

  When Devorah was on the other side of the gates, a new pair of guards took her, each taking a firm grip on one of her upper arms. “You can’t touch me like this,” she said.

  “Father Manfried wants you,” they replied, slightly off unison.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Devorah stood waiting in the middle of Elsbeth’s abandoned healing tent, alone, fighting back a wave of nausea. About a quarter of an hour had passed. The place still smelled of burnt oil, blood and pus. Every so often she heard a distant, muffled eruption of hoarse male shouts, or the rattling footfalls of running, armoured men.

  The tent door parted as Father Manfried entered, striding directly at her. He wore a breast-plate and armour on his arms and legs, but had no helmet and carried no weapon. Black leather gloves encased his wide hands; he flexed them, and the leather creaked. “You were bold with me earlier,” he said.

  Devorah could not think how to reply. When she’d demanded that Angelika be taken to see Elsbeth, she’d spoken not with her own authority, but with the holy woman’s. As she hesitated, Manfried studied her voraciously. She shrank back from him. He moved nearer. He stooped to pick up an oil lamp, then he held it close to her face. Her mouth and throat dried out.

  “What?” she stammered. “What is it in my face you search for, father?”

  “Evidence of guilt,” he replied, calmly.

  “Guilt?”

  “I am curious how knowing a confederate you were.”

  “Confederate?”

  Manfried smiled. He brought the lamp closer; Devorah could feel its heat on her cheeks. “That is true innocence I see, isn’t it?” Manfried said, more to himself than t
o her.

  “Innocence of what?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” he said, turning his back on her, setting down the lamp. “She sullied herself, but left you pure.”

  “Sir, I am just a poor sister, unschooled in sophisticated discourse. You must speak more clearly, if I am to understand you.”

  He spun gracefully on his heels, plucking up a small wooden stool and moving it over beside her. He gestured grandly to the stool. “You should sit yourself down, my poor little fawn. I have news that will break your heart.”

  Devorah sat. “It is a heartbreaking world,” she said.

  “Wise words.” He knelt beside her and spoke with the gentleness of a country priest. “Mother Elsbeth is dead.” Devorah quivered and Manfried caught her hand in his, steadying it. She had not noticed him doing it, but at some point he had slipped his hands free of his dark leather gloves. His hand was callused but warm.

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, dear Devorah. And worse, it was not a natural death. Richart—you know Richart Pfeffer, though not as one of my men—came upon Angelika smeared in Elsbeth’s blood. She was standing over her freshly killed body, a knife nearby. Naturally, he thought it a case of murder.”

  “Murder?”

  Manfried let go of Devorah’s hand. He gave it a paternal pat. “Yes, you are quite innocent. Richart was mistaken—it was suicide. Certainly Elsbeth was feeble and used your guide, Angelika, to bring about her own death. But self-slaughter it was. A terrible thing, don’t you agree, to deprive all those people out there of her blessed touch?”

  “Suicide?”

  Manfried gravely nodded.

  “Why did she do it?”

  “Shallya’s power became a burden to her. It weighed her down, and finally broke her. At first I thought it selfish, her decision to end her life. But then I came to wonder.” He paced, deftly circumnavigating the various piles of soiled linen. “I’ve been studying the chronicles of this abbey,” he continued. “Never once has there been a time when more than one woman was gifted with Shallya’s healing touch. Sometimes—always when the forces of Chaos slumber—there is no one at all to act as conduit for the goddess’ miracles. Yet in troubled times, like those we live in now, there is always one. As near as I can tell, a new recipient’s powers manifest shortly after the death of her predecessor. Do you see what I mean?”