The House of War and Witness

by Mike Carey

  He found his voice. ‘The Drench is in flood,’ he said, amazed at how steadily he could still speak. ‘Lieutenant Dietmar was swept away, and then when we crossed, the Prussians were there waiting for us.’

  Drozde sighed. ‘It’s done, then.’

  ‘You admit to it, woman?’ August demanded. ‘To causing all this?’

  She did not answer at once. Instead she turned in her seat, with what seemed agonising slowness, till she could focus on August’s face. And she laughed.

  ‘Colonel August, by all that’s wonderful!’ Her voice was suddenly stronger and clearer. She laughed again, not harshly as she had done last night but softly, as if at a private joke. ‘Oh, I should be honoured. The commanding officer himself! I was expecting Lieutenant Klaes.’

  She would never come to trial, August knew. Yet Fate had seen fit to appoint him her judge. She would acknowledge the charges against her before he killed her.

  ‘You brought down my men. You subverted justice, and betrayed this company, which has fed and sheltered you. You – you murdered Mole!’

  ‘Yes,’ Drozde agreed. Her brazenness astonished him. ‘I did all that. I had no quarrel with your men, and I’ll ask their pardon when I see them, though most would have died anyway. But the town is safe. I’ve put Narutsin out of your reach.’

  The words were wild. But her tone was almost that of a rational creature. She had set herself against him, she was saying; and she had won.

  August had always prided himself on his judicious nature. But the rage that woke in him then was unlike any he had known: it bore him up and carried him forward like flood water, and he welcomed it. The harpy had declared herself his enemy and he would destroy her.

  His sword was already in his hand. He came at her with a wordless roar while she sat unmoving, laughing at him.

  There were sudden footsteps behind him, and a voice shouting, ‘Leave her!’ He knew that voice. Knew and hated it. He spun round even as the man rushed at him.

  Klaes.

  The filthy little traitor had come back after all. Dripping wet and red faced, and as brash and self-righteous as ever. But he was unarmed! As the colonel slashed at him he flinched and leaped backwards. He would not outrun justice this time. In spite of everything, August smiled.

  Klaes had left his sword in the equipment stores after disarming Corporal Cunel: he had not wanted to go armed to meet the villagers. He should have remedied that as soon as he got back to Pokoj. Instead he had run straight to the ballroom and then to the kitchen, leaving Bosilka Stefanu to catch him up. By the time he heard August’s voice it was too late.

  Drozde was seated in a chair by the fire, slumped but alive: he saw the flash of recognition in her eyes. August reared above her, his sword raised. If Klaes had not shouted he would have murdered her there and then.

  The colonel whirled, his face contorted with fury, and lunged at Klaes. He sidestepped and backed desperately, searching around him for anything he might use to defend himself: the poker by the fireplace; a cleaver on the chopping board; pans hanging at the wall. Nothing within his reach. And Bosilka was not far behind him. He prayed that she would not arrive till this was over, however it fell out.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he cried. ‘Would you kill a woman?’ The colonel only bared his teeth in reply. He made no more lunges: he advanced steadily now, the hand gripping his sword-hilt white around the knuckles. Klaes feared the man was crazed: there would be no reasoning with him. But for now words were all the weapons he had. He took another step backwards. ‘Is this how you want to be remembered?’

  It sounded pathetically weak in his own ears. But something changed in August’s face: a moment of indecision, almost of grief. There was a movement behind the colonel, and Klaes saw Bosilka in the doorway. He wanted to yell at her to leave, but August must not see her, not mad as he was.

  Klaes pressed on wildly: ‘All you’ve done here: the floggings, the bombardments. It was nothing but mistaking your enemy. They’ll say you punished harmless men because you didn’t understand them. And now you’d murder the women as well!’

  August made a choking sound and took another step towards him. But if Klaes backed off any more he’d be against the wall, with nowhere to run. He stood his ground, willing the girl to take the hint and flee.

  ‘I’ll spit you like a capon,’ August said, as much breath as voice. ‘You and your kitchen whore …’ He leaped forward as he spoke, and Klaes ran. The sword nicked his arm, but he reached the fireplace, grabbed the poker and brought it up in a clumsy en garde. His first blow was deflected, but August merely laughed and came at him again.

  And was met by Bosilka, who had not run away. She held the cleaver from the chopping block, and she swung it at him two-handed, burying the blade in his chest. August fell forward without a sound. He twitched once and lay still.

  They stared at each other over the colonel’s body. She had blood on her, Klaes saw, spattering her face and dress; ‘Jesu!’ he blurted. ‘Miss Stefanu, I—I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said. Her voice was fierce. ‘He was the man who ordered the floggings. He had Anton murdered. I won’t shed one tear for him.’ Her face was white and set, but she stood her ground: she would not faint. Klaes withdrew the hand he had half-stretched out to support her. ‘Well,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’m very grateful for your intervention.’

  For a moment he saw a flash of something in her face: irritation, perhaps, or amusement at his absurd formality. Then she was grave again.

  ‘And now I’ve become what he said poor Anton was: a traitor. And a murderer.’

  ‘No!’ Klaes said, appalled. ‘Neither one! The colonel was mad: he’d have killed all of us. You struck him in self-defence. No court in the land would blame you.’ He was not at all sure this was true, and in his head his magistrate father reproached him. But he could at least spare her that burden. ‘If there’s blame to be given here, it’s mine, not yours. I was the one he meant to murder. I blew up the dam, and left my comrades to face the Prussians. I betrayed my commission. This was all my doing.’

  ‘Well, I’m answered,’ Bosilka said. ‘Though I think you’re too hard on yourself, Lieutenant.’ She gave him a wan smile. ‘But thank you.’

  She had used his proper title, Klaes noticed; now when he must set it aside for good.

  There was a sound behind them: Drozde. Klaes had forgotten the puppet mistress for the moment. She spoke so softly they had to bend over her to hear.

  ‘That’s three of us Gertrude has done for … Mole should be proud …’

  She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep. Her skin was greyish and her hands icy.

  Bosilka looked at Klaes in consternation. ‘But the colonel didn’t touch her, did he? How badly was she hurt before?’

  Drozde did not move as the girl unlaced her dress and pulled aside the stained shift. For a long moment Bosilka looked down at her in silence.

  ‘I think …’ she said, and stopped. She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Oh, this is bad.’

  Drozde’s wound stretched from ribs to stomach, red-black and suppurating. Her whole side was red, the skin swollen.

  Bosilka covered her again, for the moment. They moved a little aside from the hurt woman while they conferred, as if fearful of disturbing her.

  ‘She’s not bleeding.’

  ‘It’s gone beyond bandages. We’d need to use leeches, or cut her to let the infected matter out. But I’m not a surgeon.’

  ‘If we could get her to the town,’ Bosilka said. ‘Panov is a good doctor. Or Birgitta – she knows remedies.’

  ‘But look at her! She wouldn’t stand the journey.’

  ‘Don’t trouble yourselves.’

  Drozde had woken while they discussed her. Her voice was no more than a croak, but her eyes were clear. ‘Surgeon won’t help. Leave me here.’

  Klaes well knew her stubbornness; he tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. ‘Drozde. If we leave you like this you’ll die.’


  ‘I’ll die in any case. But I need it to be here.’

  It was a plain statement of fact, and Klaes had no answer. But Bosilka had not known the woman so long. ‘There must be something we can do!’ she wailed.

  ‘Could give me some brandy,’ Drozde said.

  A bottle and glass stood by her on the table. Bosilka filled the glass and held it to her lips; Drozde winced as she drank, but her voice was a little stronger afterwards. ‘Over behind you,’ she said, gesturing with her eyes, ‘my trunk. It’s for you; take it with you. I don’t want them wasted.’

  It was the big box from which she ran her puppet theatre. ‘We’ll take care of them,’ Klaes said. It would slow them down: they would struggle to get it across the river. But Bosilka looked as awed as if the dying woman had given her diamonds.

  ‘You have to go,’ Drozde said. Her voice was slurring and her eyes began to close as she spoke.

  Klaes went to fetch the trunk, holding it awkwardly by both ends.

  ‘We’ll need to wade through the river,’ he said. ‘Unless you know of a bridge further down.’

  Bosilka did not answer. She was looking down at Drozde, her eyes full of tears.

  ‘We can’t just leave her!’ she cried

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Klaes said. ‘But she’s right. We can’t help her. And the Prussians will be here soon.’

  ‘But she saved us. We all owe her our lives. How can we leave her to die alone?’

  Drozde opened her eyes. A dry, convulsive sound came from her: it took Klaes a moment to realise she was laughing.

  ‘Alone! Oh, save your pity, girl. I’ll have more company than I can well deal with. Go, get clear of here. Klaes, see her safe.’

  The speech had exhausted her, and she sagged like one of her own puppets. ‘I will,’ Klaes promised. He shifted his grip on the trunk, took Bosilka by the arm and pulled her away.

  Drozde listened till their voices faded, and waited a while to be sure. No sound of marching yet, no gunfire. She was too weary to move: even talking had been too much for her. She’d meant to give the two of them some advice: tell the girl to be a carpenter if that was what she wanted, even give her a tip or two on how to look after the puppets and how to work them. And tell Klaes that the army was no profession for an honest man. But her voice had let her down, and there was no time. No more time at all.

  Well, then. They’d have to work it out for themselves.

  39

  It helped that there was so much to do. Any repining or blame must wait until later.

  Stefan Glatzer and the Hohlbaum family had had their fields flooded by the Drench; now both had nothing but stretches of swamp and water. The Hohlbaum brothers were the richest in the neighbourhood, and owned other fields, but Glatzer would be ruined, having lost his house as well. Ten other houses had stood in the path of the flood, and might not be habitable again. The colonel’s bombardment had killed Pavel Hecht’s cow and left the church in ruins. And then there were the newcomers to the town: some seventy men and a dozen women, all of whom, the mayor ordered, must be given hospitality. Most of the men would only stay until the good weather came, and then move on to seek their fortunes elsewhere, but there were still strangers to fill every spare room or space where a bed could be laid, at least for the winter.

  Meister Weichorek had set out immediately to visit all the town’s solid citizens, while Dame Weichorek went to work on their wives. A heifer was donated to Hecht and new furniture and a bushel of seed promised for Glatzer. Then the real business began: felling the forest for some acres to the south of the town, clearing a field for planting and building new houses. At least the presence of the soldiers speeded the work. Fifteen men were deputed to help Meister Stefanu put together the house frames and another five, led by Private Leintz, who had been apprenticed to a stonemason before his conscription, set to work on the church.

  A few of the newcomers had asked for land to build houses of their own once the main work was finished. There were two men whose wives were with them (one of them a girl of no more than eighteen), and, astoundingly, two lone women, Libush and Alis, who proposed to set up together as seamstresses. Some of the townswomen looked at these two askance: who knew what threat women of that kind might pose to their menfolk and children? But Dame Weichorek was adamant. They had all done the town service, she maintained, and all deserved its help and its hospitality.

  For their part the newcomers were grateful for their reception, having seen the fate of the comrades they had left at Pokoj. They paid for their billets in storerooms, barns and attics with hard work, and with coin if they had it. That did a great deal to extend their welcome.

  Lieutenant Klaes – no longer a lieutenant, he had to remind himself – took no part in the work at first, and in fact wished fervently that he were anywhere but here. He had been offered lodging by the mayor himself, who proposed setting up a bed for him in the back parlour. The Weichoreks had received him with as much courtesy as if he had never wronged them, and even Jakusch, already back on his feet, greeted him with no sign of rancour. But the sight of the boy’s stiff walk, and his wince as he sat down, filled Klaes with shame. He protested that he could not give the burgomaster so much extra trouble, and found himself a billet at the town’s inn.

  He might have stayed at the carpenter’s house instead, he knew. Bosilka – Miss Stefanu – had politely offered him lodging as they walked the three miles upriver from the Drench’s southern bridge, the night after the deluge. It was the least she could do, she added, after his service to the town. Klaes could not share her good opinion: if his obstinacy had not uncovered the body of Petos, the whole exercise might not have been necessary. Nor Drozde’s death, he thought sadly. Nor his own disgrace, nor August’s blood on the girl’s head. On the other hand, he had got her safely home and carried her trunk for near six miles. That probably earned him a bed for the night.

  She had led him into a workshop and shown him a closet room almost filled by a narrow bedstead. It had been Anton’s, she said – and started to cry. She wept for a long time, hunched over the workbench, while Klaes stood by helplessly. He already knew that he could not sleep in Hanslo’s bed. When Bosilka’s sobs subsided a little he had led her into the little room and made her sit down, finding a blanket to cover her.

  Klaes had waited until he was sure she was asleep before leaving the workshop. He had walked about the town till morning, thinking that he could not stay in a place where he had caused so much misery.

  But he had stayed: he had nowhere else to go. And to his surprise, he found no-one to blame him. Quite the contrary: Meister Weichorek had instructed that the visitors be welcomed, and as their leader, Klaes commanded a certain respect. When he presented himself at the inn he was offered a room without demur, though the innkeeper had been one of those whipped. Possibly the man took some pleasure in his new guest’s embarrassment when he was forced to ask to pay for his keep by chopping wood. But there Klaes had no choice: he had barely enough with him to pay for two weeks’ lodging; less if he wanted to eat more than bread and beer. All he owned now were his coat, his pen and a few books.

  For the first week he ate at the inn and stayed in his room when not carrying out the owner’s chores, but one night at supper he was surprised to find himself surrounded by a group of local men. He knew them by sight: they drank most nights in the room next door and had nodded at him once or twice. But now they came up as soon as they saw him, and two or three wanted to shake his hand. It seemed that some of the men working on the new houses had been telling the story of the bursting of the dam to entertain their co-workers who had not been at the scene. Privates Toltz and Schneider, who had seen the fuse being lit, had cast Klaes as the hero of the day; had painted him, in fact, as some kind of reckless daredevil.

  ‘Meister Klaes! Pleasure to meet you, sir,’ an old man said. ‘Diverted a river with a stalk of dill, hey?’ Someone laughed and slapped him on the back. Two others contended to buy him a drink. The innke
eper himself came over to hear the story retold, and looked at his guest with a proprietorial pride.

  People had short memories, Klaes thought.

  His new-found popularity did not alter his predicament: he was no longer a soldier, and there was no life waiting for him outside the army. He could not stay indefinitely in Puppendorf as a hanger-on, living on charity or taking what work he could to pay his way. He would have to find a profession of some sort, and quickly. But running through the list of his accomplishments, he could not believe that the town required a sapper or a figures clerk, nor a magistrate for that matter.

  He had no skill with his hands, and no great strength: he could not train as a wheelwright or a shoemaker, and would be little use to them in the building. Maybe, he thought, he could find work on a farm. When he was a boy everyone in his village had helped with the harvest. And he could care for animals: he had groomed and fed the horses he rode, though he had never owned his own. There would be ploughing and sowing in the spring, and calving; maybe there would be enough for him to do.

  He walked to the north edge of the town where the cows were pastured. A group of children were playing at the side of a field, balancing on the stone wall and taking it in turns to swing from a pair of ropes tied to a tree branch. Klaes stopped to ask them the way to the nearest farm.

  ‘That’s my dad’s,’ said one of the boys. ‘But he won’t stop to see you today, sir; he’s out fixing fences in the back field.’

  That fitted well with Klaes’s agenda. He asked the boy if his father might have use for a man to help him with such work. The boy, looking at Klaes a little doubtfully, allowed that he might. ‘But you can’t ask him now,’ he repeated. ‘He don’t like to be disturbed when he’s working.’

  ‘Maybe I could leave him a note,’ Klaes said, unwilling to have come out for nothing. The boy laughed.