01 - Honour of the Grave

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  “I recognise what you have done for me,” Lukas said. “Both of you.”

  “I am sure all will be justly resolved,” she said, conscious of the soldiers all around them.

  A gasp issued from the crowd; Angelika turned to see bodies on stretchers borne down the steps from the tower. Linen sheets had been draped over the corpses, but blood had already soaked through—especially on the lead stretcher, which she presumed to be Benno’s. The sight of the dead seemed to arouse something within the mob: a grim murmuring spread among them. Angelika watched as young boys were placed on the shoulders of their fathers and uncles: for a better view of the slain.

  The coachman waved angry arms at the sergeant. He repeatedly cited the name of Somebody von Something-or-Other. Finally he hopped off his perch, still gesticulating furiously. The sergeant took his place and whistled for his men. They opened the carriage doors and pushed the captives inside. Three soldiers cramped in with them, ordering the seating so that two of them flanked Lukas, and Angelika and Franziskus sat on either side of the third.

  Angelika worked out that their best chance would be to get out of the carriage before it reached von Kopf’s estate. Their guardians had made a stupid mistake: they had put her and Franziskus next to the doors. They were thinking only that Lukas was their most important prisoner. Any shrewd guard trains his attention on those most likely or able to escape.

  To get Lukas out with them, though, they’d have to do more than leap out. Force would be called for. She glanced unobtrusively over at the soldier next to her, seeing that he had a knife sheathed at his hip. Her luck was turning; this would prove most convenient.

  The coach lurched into motion.

  She would seize the knife, backhand it across its owner’s throat, then leap onto the guard opposite her. Franziskus would take this cue, and leap as well…

  The sounds of the crowd were too loud, too close. She leaned back to look through the window without touching the curtain. She saw lamps and lanterns held aloft. The stupid fools were following the carriage! The throng swarmed all around it, slowing its progress to a snail’s pace. Angelika heard laughter, as if it was a carnival.

  “What’s going on?” the youngest of the soldiers, at Claus’ left, asked. He had a high forehead, a bulbous nose, and a sharp, deep voice.

  “They think they’ve found themselves a little excitement,” drawled the sleepy-eyed soldier on Claus’ right. “Maybe they think it’ll be like the witch burning we had last solstice.”

  The young soldier smiled as understanding dawned. “Ah, yes. You know, that’s when me and this barmaid—”

  “Stuff it,” ordered the soldier next to Angelika, expecting obedience.

  Stuff it indeed, thought Angelika. The crowd had made escape impossible.

  The carriage trundled on for what felt like hours. From the noise around them, Angelika could tell that the crowd was swelling. Through the window, she saw pre-dawn light. It surprised her that it had been so long since they’d set out. The young soldier yawned. She was grateful for the afternoon sleep she and Franziskus had had; it might give them an advantage, when everyone around them needed rest.

  Maybe there would be a chance, as they were taken from the carriage, when they could dash for it, then blend into the crowd. Though blending was possibly an optimistic term, considering that the crowd was enthusiastically hoping to witness their summary executions…

  The door wrenched open. Jurgen stood there. His face was two feet from her own. He was clad only in a white linen under-tunic, which stretched to his knees. It was wrinkled and slept in. Anger drew his features taut. He propelled himself up onto the runner, then reached in to seize Lukas’ tunic in both hands. He lifted the boy from his seat and tore him from the carriage, throwing him onto the stones below. The crowd was silenced. Angelika leaned out to leap from the coach, but the soldier opposite her slammed into her, pinning her down. The one beside her seized a handful of her hair. She ceased her resistance.

  “Were you born to bedevil me?” Jurgen demanded of his son, who had gone limp on the ground. “Were you?” Lukas did not answer; sobs wracked him.

  Jurgen bent down to haul Lukas upright. His feet were bare. His hair, a moppy mess. “Answer your father!” he commanded. Lukas stammered. Jurgen slapped him in the face, spinning Lukas off his heels. Jurgen caught him, pulling the boy into his chest. “Answer!” he repeated, slightly lessening his previous ferocity.

  From the carriage, Angelika could see only a few dozen faces. Most had lost their jovial anticipation of violence; this was not the victim they’d come to see.

  “Sword!” Jurgen called. He turned back and seemed to take note of the crowd for the first time. “Get back!” he ordered them. “What are you doing here? Get back to your homes!” The spectators at the front tried to move back, but Jurgen’s courtyard was too tightly packed for them to have much success. Jurgen scanned the crowd for a retainer. “Sword!” he called.

  An odd note sounded, in the distance—a bugler testing his instrument. Annoyed by the intrusion of this irrelevance, Angelika hunched forward, to see better.

  A scraping servant pushed his way through the crowd, and handed a sheathed sabre to Jurgen. The prow-faced general took it from him without acknowledging his presence. He tore the scabbard from the sword, tossing it at his feet. Confused, unhappy sounds issued forth from the crowd.

  With naked toes, Jurgen pressed his foot down on Lukas’ ankle, pinning his scrabbling form to the ground.

  Angelika pushed forward, to get at Jurgen. Her guards bashed her head into the side of the carriage until she let up.

  Jurgen raised his sabre above his head. Onlookers moaned their protest. He hesitated, turning his head to them, but they would not be silent. Some brave soul lobbed a clod of unidentifiable trash; it barely missed the general’s white, exposed calves. He rounded on the crowd, sword upraised. “Listen, my people!” They roared back at him, displeased. “Listen!” he said. “Listen!”

  He waited until they made themselves quiet. “You must understand!” he demanded of them. “Yes, this is my son, and yes, he must die! He has broken our family oath. You all know this!”

  A chorus of murmurs said that the mob did not know, or begin to understand, this.

  “It is our oath! The boy’s very existence is a crime, one I have every right to end! No Black Sabre may walk away from a defeat. For us, it is victory or death!”

  Angelika shook her head in disgust. It was happening exactly as Benno had feared it would. Suddenly, she knew why. It was also clear what was about to transpire. What the bugle note meant. She took a breath. The tension fell from her body.

  “four safety depends on my family!” Jurgen spat.

  Lukas crawled away, but the sergeant, having hopped from the carriage, saw him, and blocked his way. Lukas quivered.

  “When my company has been strong, Grenzstadt’s walls have gone untested by the greenskin horde! When we have been weak, your ancestors have all paid the price! Our honour is your survival!”

  A few onlookers nodded their heads, as if this were a reasonable proposition. But most kept their eyes trained on poor, whimpering Lukas. One wizened woman, clad in well-worn velvet, took the liberty of dismissively pawing the air.

  Jurgen lunged at her. “How dare you even question my rights, in this private affair?” He widened his gaze to take in the entire mob. “How dare any of you?”

  Angelika saw the first of them: a raised fist, safely back in the crowd. Another, closer, joined it. Somewhere—just out of her field of view, Angelika guessed—a hand would now be going up. A signal given.

  “Pah!” Jurgen said, giving the collected busy bodies of Grenzstadt his back. He nodded to the sergeant, who threw Lukas at his feet. He lifted up his sabre.

  The bugles now cried out, with trumpets, and drums. It was hard to tell, with the echoes that came off the armoury buildings, but Angelika judged that they were back on the street. Heads turned. Jurgen stopped.

  “
What is it?” asked the bulb-nosed soldier.

  “Shut it,” replied the one beside Angelika.

  “What’s going on?” asked the bulb-nosed soldier. He opened the carriage door.

  “Get back.”

  “Something’s going on,” he said, hopping down.

  “Get back here!”

  Recognition wrote itself on the young soldier’s face. “Gods and daemons!” he exclaimed. The mob mirrored his expression.

  “It’s the count,” Angelika mouthed, to Franziskus.

  “It’s the count!” gasped the soldier, and the crowd.

  “Shallya’s teats!” the senior soldier swore.

  Angelika tore the curtains from their rod and switched sides for a better view of the procession. Townspeople crushed into one another, forced forward. Angelika could not yet see what pushed them, but she felt well prepared to guess. Elbows and curses flew. Finally the crowd parted, revealing the procession Angelika expected.

  Flanked by willowy, boyish lantern-bearers, who wore fancy Araby turbans and robes of silk, came a troop of fresh warriors in Averlandish livery. They held shields aloft; from each of these shields grimaced the solar emblem of Count Marius Leitdorf. Then came a cantering, coal-coloured charger, on which the count himself perched. A fan of monstrous plumes jutted up from his floppy cap of silk. Embossed sun emblems glowed from his massive plates of shoulder armour. A heavy gold medallion, of the same design, dangled from his neck. It glowed, as if imbued by magic—which it doubtless was. Chained to his ankle with mighty links was an enormous greatsword, an ornament of painted flames flaring above its hilt and onto the base of its blade. He held it up for the crowd to gawk at: some, hushed and reverent, couldn’t help but say its famous name: “Runefang!”

  Jurgen looked for the sheath to his quite ordinary sabre. Some gawpers were standing on it. He crossed his arms, sword still in hand. He faced away from Angelika, toward his count, so she couldn’t tell if he now, finally, wore a look of comprehension.

  Riding behind Marius, on a nondescript nag, wearing a moleskin robe and a drab-feathered felt chapeau, came his counsellor, Anton Brucke.

  The columns of attendants stopped, with smooth precision; even the pretty, purse-lipped boys in the turbans proved themselves expert horsemen. Marius clopped his magnificent horse onward until its front hooves stood no more than seven feet from Jurgen’s feet. With chiselled, craggy features, he surveyed the vast crowd. He reached into a brocade bag that swung at his hip on a golden rope. Scrupulously, he untied its top. From it he withdrew a cloisonné box, oval-shaped and a few inches long. He plucked its lid off, pinched a ball of snuff between his gloved fingers, and inserted it daintily into his nostril. He inhaled it noisily, blew out his cheeks, and loosed a plaintive sigh. “What occurs here, my good Kopf?” His horse pointed its head and red-rimmed eyes down at Lukas, its expression carnivorous.

  Jurgen looked down at the nightshirt he wore. “You find me at an awkward moment, your excellency.”

  Marius tittered. He licked his lips. “Apparently.”

  “Let’s retire into my receiving chamber, your excellency, and we can—”

  “Oh,” Marius said, drawing the word out. He wanted to show both his profound disappointment, and pity for Jurgen, as the cause of it. “The disarray I see before me sharpens my curiosity to fever pitch. I must know all.” He executed a half-turn on his horse, to look into the crowd. He raised his voice. “Don’t we all deserve to know what is happening here?” he asked his subjects. They murmured in an inarticulate affirmative, and stepped back from him. He turned back to Jurgen. “So explain, before my impatience curdles into… some other thing.”

  Jurgen finally repositioned himself so that Angelika could see his face and, yes, he already wore the knowledge of his undoing. He closed his eyes. “It is a family matter, your excellency. The oath of the Black Sabres—”

  “A colourful custom,” Marius interrupted.

  “Yes, your excellency, as you know, a Sabre vows never to flee from a battle—”

  “A quaint barbarism, I think you might call it.”

  “This is my son, Lukas, your excellency—”

  Marius peered over his horse’s neck. “Stand up, boy. Let me have a look at you.”

  Lukas meekly obeyed.

  “I see,” said the count. “Your father has sentenced you to death for sporting such an appalling haircut?”

  Marius waited, but no one dared respond to this witticism. “But surely,” he said, playing to the crowd, “that would be no more absurd than the thought that a noble of the Empire, a scion of Averland, would actually be slain by his own father, for failing to uphold such an antiquated decree? A rule which, I hasten to add, is not any kind of law that I have set down, not a law of the land, but a mere family vow?”

  “It is a family vow, your excellency,” Jurgen said.

  “Does it not seem,” Marius pondered, “that a vow is an individual matter, for a person to break, or not to break, as his conscience dictates? That neither state, nor familial patriarch, may enforce its terms on persons unwilling to uphold it?”

  “Honour is inflexible, your excellency, even when it conflicts with state prerogatives, or our personal wishes.”

  “The pronunciation is prerogatives, Jurgen. You know I hate that.”

  As Jurgen’s face fell, Angelika felt a sickly thrill pass through her. She no longer had any sense of where her sympathies should lie. Her pulse raced hard around her ears. Jurgen’s chagrin was plain on his face: of course he knew the proper pronunciation of the word. Any person can make a simple error in speech.

  “Surely, Jurgen,” the count continued, “this whole—this whole…” He waved his hand indistinctly about. This whole matter is but a theatrical, a ritual gesture. You meant, did you not, to pull up at the last moment, to spare your son the penalty of death?”

  Resolve and resignation seemed to settle on Jurgen in equal measure. He took a step forward. “No, your excellency, I did not. Because that would be immoral.”

  Marius lowered his voice. “Jurgen,” he began. The closest onlookers edged in to hear him better. “Do not deprive me of my battlefield genius. Tell us that you did not mean it.”

  “He must die,” Jurgen said. “No matter what the consequences.”

  “Then you leave me no choice.” Marius made his horse rear up. It bellowed a high note of protest, sharpening the mob’s attention. Marius projected his voice, so that all of his gathered subjects could hear. “I cannot bear it! My valiant servitor stands revealed, by his own admission, of barbaric and criminal intent! Can we allow such a man to carry forth the banner of our homeland?”

  The crowd rumbled its confusion.

  “Even though he has served us well, we cannot permit him to continue. Without the favour of our battle god, Sigmar, all is lost. History shows that, when we are wicked and apostate, we lose our wars, and die in droves before the heathen green-skin! Only when we act righteously does Sigmar reward us with his crucial favour.

  “You have seen it here tonight—we have given our Jurgen every chance to repent of his folly, yet he cleaves ever more tightly to it. O woe, this day is a day of sorrow!” He turned back to von Kopf. “Jurgen von Kopf, you are hereby removed from all duties as field general of Averland. All of your prerogatives and authorities are now revoked! You are stripped utterly of all military rank. You may command no soldier, issue no order, receive no deference! Until further notice, all your duties, including leadership of the Sabres, now devolve to me.”

  Jurgen hung his head. He let his sabre fall from his hand.

  “My people,” boomed Marius, “I shall personally lead you into the coming fray!” The throng responded with tepid cheers. Marius brandished his sword. “Runefang shall smite the foe!” The sight of the legendary weapon brought a measure of enthusiasm to the crowd’s shouting. “Victory shall be ours!” The third cheer was almost ardent.

  “The boy is spared, Jurgen,” Marius commanded. “Should any harm come to him
, by your hand, or by the actions of your loyalists or dogsbodies, I shall consider it an affront to my authority. And that, naturally, would force me to adopt remedies of the gravest and most permanent kind.”

  Jurgen maintained stony-featured.

  “Make some acknowledgement that you have heard me, Jurgen.”

  “I have heard you, your excellency.”

  Marius’ eyes rolled up suddenly. “Ah. Then. That is it, I believe.”

  Behind him, with exquisite delicacy, Brucke coughed.

  “Ah yes,” Marius said, in a conversational voice, “those two in the carriage. They are to be spared, also.”

  The soldiers inside the coach looked at one another for guidance. The commander leaned over to open the door nearest to Marius and Jurgen. Angelika opened the door on the opposite side, waited for Franziskus to exit through it, and then followed him out. They heard Marius’ procession turn and ride. Angelika leaned against the coach until it seemed they had gone.

  Franziskus held himself at a remove, examining her mood with what he hoped was a casual air. “We were not serving Prince Davio at all, were we?” he asked.

  “No, we were not.”

  Lukas popped his head around, and moved skittishly toward them. “What’s to become of me?” he asked Angelika.

  Angelika found some dirt under a fingernail. She slid the nail along her bottom incisors, then spat. “Didn’t you hear? You’re absolutely free. Your father can’t lay a hand on you.”

  “But what do I do?”

  “Do?”

  “Where do I go?”

  She appraised his grimy, bloodied state. “To an inn, I’d recommend. For a bath and some decent food. After that… You’ll have to think of something, won’t you?”

  He fixed her in his most imploring look.

  “Oh no,” she said. “You won’t be going with me. One displaced blueblood is enough to be stuck with. Maybe the two of you should head off together. Do whatever it is that people like you ought to be doing.”

  Lukas moved his beggar’s gaze from Angelika to Franziskus.