Although goat-legged and horned, the creatures might once have been men. Their melted features still bore signs of humanity, and Erikson’s eyes widened when he noticed what appeared to be a regimental tattoo on one of the thing’s sinewy arms.
He was stooping to examine it when, from the depths of the forest, a horn sounded. He straightened at the sound and, selecting only a water skin and a pouch of dried meat from his luggage, set off down the path.
When the horn sounded again he broke into an easy, loping run along the shadowed track that led to the north.
Chapter Three
“So you are the famed Otto Viksberg, hero of the battle of the Waldenstein?”
Viksberg, his breastplate and gorget sparkling beneath the chandeliers of the palatial ballroom, bowed towards the young woman who gazed up at him with such puppy-dog admiration in her eyes.
She was perhaps the twelfth who had approached him tonight, and the ball had hardly begun. The ice sculptures still had sharp beaks and hard claws, through the windows Hergig’s roofs could still be seen in the dusk, and the most fashionable of guests had just arrived.
“I’m hardly a hero, madam,” Viksberg replied, modestly dropping his eyes and peering down her bodice. Despite the fact that she was a count’s niece, she didn’t seem to mind his indelicate attentions. Quite the opposite.
“But you risked your life to recover the standard,” she insisted, and wriggled seductively beneath his gaze. “You must have been the bravest man there.”
“Not at all.” He glanced briefly up to meet her eyes. “The bravest men died on the battlefield. I was merely unfortunate to lose the standard so close to the city walls.”
It was the standard reply. Complete nonsense, of course. Those who had stayed to die had been idiots, not heroes. Still, it was what people wanted to hear, and one of the more successful of the lies he had polished over the last few weeks.
It hardly seemed credible now that he had actually considered going into exile after the battle. He had been terrified that the solid tactical good sense he had shown in fleeing would be misconstrued, and even if he wasn’t hung for desertion he would have become a social pariah. It was only on the second morning of his flight that the extent of his good fortune dawned upon him. The battle had been a complete slaughter. There was nobody, nobody at all, who could accuse him of anything.
At least, nobody who could accuse him of anything and prove it.
The orchestra, the finest in Hochland, struck up a waltz and Viksberg’s admirer cooed happily.
“This is my favourite piece,” she told him. “Would you care to dance?”
Viksberg did. Before he had become a hero only the most desperate daughters of Hergig’s poorest families had ever asked him to dance. Not anymore, though. Now he was not just the toast of society, but the baron’s newest colonel. He swirled the girl around the dance floor, and if he squeezed her tight she squeezed him even more tightly back.
Before the music stopped Viksberg felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned, one eyebrow raised in annoyance.
“I would prefer it if you didn’t cut in,” he told the young man who had accosted him.
“This is my sister,” the interloper said. “I would be grateful if you would unhand her.”
Viksberg glared at him, considered arguing, and then changed his mind. He didn’t like the set of the brother’s jaw, or the width of his shoulders. And anyway, there were plenty of other women.
Hiding his embarrassment by rolling his eyes, he kissed his partner’s gloved hand and retreated, the sound of squabbling siblings following him.
“Very wise, Viksberg.”
Viksberg looked down to see the provost marshal, Otto Steckler, smirking up at him. Whereas Viksberg was tall and angular, as he believed all true aristocrats were, the provost marshal was a squat, solidly built man. But beneath the bulk of hard muscle and soft fat he was as physically agile as he was quick-witted.
He needed to be. Keeping the baron’s regiments fed and clothed and armed, not to mention housed and disciplined and paid, was no job for a fool. Although the provost marshal enjoyed neither the prestige nor the glory of a field commander, he certainly wielded more authority.
That was one reason why Viksberg so disliked him. The other was the look of suspicion that always glittered in his beady little eyes. It always made Viksberg feel uneasy. Ignoring the feeling, he laughed easily and gestured towards the young woman who was now stomping off, her brother trailing behind her.
“No point in causing trouble between a brother and sister, Steckler,” he said indulgently.
“No point in getting into a duel with some young tough either, eh?” The provost marshal winked insolently.
Viksberg shrugged.
“Anyway,” the provost marshal continued, “I just thought I’d drop by to let you know that another survivor has just turned up. He’s in a hell of a state, but he should live. It will be interesting to hear about the battle from another point of view. Even a humble captain’s.”
Viksberg froze. He tried to force a look of uninterest onto his face, then realising that this was inappropriate, tried for sympathy instead. The suspicion in the provost marshal’s eyes turned to contempt.
“A captain, provost marshal?” Viksberg asked him, his voice croaking. “From what regiment?”
“One of the halberdiers. At least, I’d say so from his build. We’ll find out in due course. He’s at the hospital of the Merciful Sisters of Shallya at the moment, and you know how skilled they are in healing a man. At keeping him breathing. And talking.”
Viksberg swallowed a lump in his throat. It felt as big as the knot in a hangman’s rope.
“I am looking forward to hearing what he has to say,” the provost marshal continued, looking at the glittering crowds that eddied and swirled across the dance floor.
“Excuse me,” Viksberg told him weakly. “I want a drink.”
The provost marshal watched the younger man plough through the crowd towards the nearest table.
Then he turned and, a smile of satisfaction playing across his chubby features, slipped from the room. Making the arrogant little fraud sweat had been enjoyable, but as usual he had a thousand and one more important tasks to be doing.
When Viksberg slipped from the ball and into the night, he had a bottle of peach brandy with him. He would need it, he knew. He would so desperately need it.
After stopping at his quarters to swap his embroidered tunic for a hooded cloak, he made his way through the darkness towards the hospital. The streets were swarming with refugees and those who preyed upon them. The darkness was alive with screams and arguments and sobs. In the occasional splashes of light Viksberg saw miserable knots of humanity huddled in every available corner. Some stretched their hands out as he hurried by, but others just stared, their eyes dead.
Viksberg cursed them as he made his way through the winding alleys of the weavers’ quarter and then up the hill to the hospital.
It wasn’t until he arrived at the always-open doors that led into the building that he hesitated. They led into a lamplit courtyard, and after the gloom of the street he had scurried down, everything seemed awfully bright. Bright enough to reveal the snarls and grimaces of the gargoyles which hovered against the night sky above, and certainly bright enough for the porters who slouched at their post to recognise him.
To recognise him and to remember him.
Viksberg dithered, shifting from one foot to the other as he waited in the shadows. Then he took a long, gurgling swig of the brandy he had brought with him and, riding the temporary flash of courage it brought, he stepped into the yard.
“You, porter,” he said to one of the men who guarded the courtyard and the doors which led off from it. “I’ve come to visit one of the patients.”
If the porter liked the tone of Viksberg’s voice he did a good impression of hiding it. He merely exchanged a glance with his companion and spat dangerously close to Viksberg’s feet. Typical, Vik
sberg thought, and produced a coin. It glittered in the lamp light with a lustre that was impossible to ignore.
“Visiting hours are over,” the porter told him, scratching his armpit with the cudgel he was armed with.
“They are,” his companion agreed. “They’re over.”
Another coin appeared between Viksberg’s fingers, as similar to the first as the two porters were to each other.
The two men exchanged another glance.
“Who is it you wanted to see?” the first one enquired with a forced insouciance.
“We would need to know,” the second explained.
“A captain,” Viksberg told him. “A halberdier. I hear he’s in quite a bad way.”
“I know who you mean. But no, not him. He’s in close confinement. If Mother bleedin’ Superior finds out we’ve let members of the public go traipsing through his room we’ll be out on our arses.”
“Without a penny.”
Viksberg sighed theatrically, although he was relieved. The less eager these two were to talk about his visit the better, and they would hardly care to discuss accepting a bribe.
“Well, in consideration for your trouble, then…” he plucked another coin from his purse and offered all three to the first porter, who took them with an expression of a man doing him a huge favour.
“What about mine?” his partner asked. Viksberg, whose unease was growing every moment he stood in the lamp light, bit back his curse and gave the man his due. He tried not to look smug as, with a long-suffering expression on his face, the first porter led Viksberg into the depths of the hospital.
They made their way down twisting corridors lit by small lamps in glazed alcoves, and through tiny courtyards surrounded by towering walls. Occasionally the porter, his ears attuned to the footsteps of the sisters, would freeze with the instinctive caution of some wild thing in a forest, or suddenly veer off down a side passage. After perhaps fifteen minutes of this circuitous route Viksberg noticed that the porter was fidgeting with his cudgel, twisting it between his hands as if he were a child with a security blanket.
Eventually he stopped outside an oaken door.
“He’s inside,” he said with a quiet misery. “But we shouldn’t really be in here.”
“If the sisters catch us, I’ll explain,” Viksberg reassured him, and took another swig of brandy to prepare himself for the ordeal ahead.
“It’s not that. It’s just that this part… well, it’s haunted.”
Viksberg smiled weakly and patted the porter on the shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he said, glad to have so easily found the means of getting rid of the man. “I’ll find my own way out after I’ve seen him.”
The porter hesitated, torn between the ragged remains of his sense of duty and superstitious dread.
“Go on,” Viksberg told him. “I might be here for a while.”
There was a distant scream. It was too much for the porter. With a thankful expression lighting his beady eyes, he turned and retreated swiftly down the passageway. Viksberg desperately wished that he could follow him.
But no. No, he had to make sure.
He waited until the porter had scuttled around the corner then lifted the latch on the door and stepped into the injured man’s bed chamber. The narrow cell was lit by a single oil lamp which sat on a shelf beside the bed. In the flickering light it was impossible to make out much of the bed’s occupant. His head was swathed in bandages, and one eye was covered in linen gauze which was stained yellow with either ointment or pus.
“Who’s there?” the patient rasped out, and with a thrill of horror Viksberg recognised the voice. It was no more than a shade of the barrack-room bark that it had once been, but he recognised it.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he choked back a sob of terror. This place was haunted after all. Haunted by the living.
“It’s just me, captain,” Viksberg said, stooping over the man he’d left to die on the battlefield. “I’ve just come to make sure that you’re all right.”
He stooped over the wounded soldier, and saw the cast that bound one leg and the webbing that held his bandaged arms in place. Now that he was so close Viksberg could smell the sweet, gangrenous stink of corruption. There was no doubt now that it was poison that was weeping from his bandaged eye.
The other eye was still bright. When it focussed on Viksberg it grew brighter still.
“You!” the captain said, and the word was a curse. “You coward. You deserter.”
Viksberg clutched at his throat as though the noose was already around it and stepped away. His back hit the unforgiving stone of the wall as his nemesis tried to sit up.
“I’ll see you hang,” the captain hissed, then with a sob of frustration, allowed his body to fall weakly back onto the bed.
In one terrible moment Viksberg saw the future that was laid out before him. The public humiliation. The court-martial. The execution. The prospect lent him a resolve he had never known that he possessed.
“It’s not my fault,” he told the patient as he rolled up his cloak.
“It is,” the soldier sneered at him, teeth as sharp and yellow as one of the beasts that had almost done for him. “And you’ll pay for it, Viksberg. You’ll pay. I’ll see you swing, and I’ll spit on your corpse afterwards. I’ll… wait. Wait, what are you doing?”
They were to be his last words. Emboldened by the dying man’s weakness, and driven by the terror of what his loose tongue would bring, Viksberg had acted. He brought the bundled cloak down over his persecutor’s face, and pressed it into his nose and mouth. The man struggled, but the fire in his blood had been chilled by the approach of Morr. He flailed helplessly, his broken bones and ruined muscles useless against his assailant’s desperate strength.
“You’re making me do this,” Viksberg told him and, biting back a sob, leant forwards so that his entire weight was on the rolled-up cloth. Soon his victim stopped moving. Viksberg, fearing some ruse, just pressed down harder. Something snapped beneath him and finally he relented, stepping back to view his handiwork.
The patient was dead. One eye stared accusingly upwards, and the blood from his broken nose had already stopped running. Viksberg reached out and, with one trembling hand, felt for a pulse. There was none. He hadn’t expected there to be.
“So,” he told the corpse. “I did it.”
The words were the key to open a floodgate of terror. What would happen if he were caught? If that door opened, right now, and somebody stepped in? Or what if, he wondered hysterically, somebody had been watching through the key hole? The porter, or perhaps one of the sisters?
Seized with a sudden, unreasoning impulse to hide the evidence of his crime, Viksberg’s eyes fell upon the oil lamp. The glass reservoir was still over half-full. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand, and stared at it. He stood like that for a full five minutes, mesmerised by the slosh of oil and the flicker of the flame. Then he placed it on the linen bedclothes that now served his victim as a shroud. They were so well mended, these sheets. So well laundered.
So perfectly flammable.
“You made me do it,” he told the corpse accusingly as, with the hilt of his dagger, he smashed the glass.
The ferocity of the flame took him by surprise. He whimpered as he staggered away from it, and suddenly it occurred to him that he’d made an awful mistake.
“No,” he said, and looked aghast at the tongues of fire that were already licking their way up to the desiccated timbers of the ceiling.
“Oh no.” He flapped ineffectually at the burning bed. “I didn’t mean it!”
But mean it or not, the fire had taken hold with a ferocious enthusiasm. Viksberg’s eyebrows were singed and his skin was already beginning to blister when he staggered out of the room and slammed the door shut.
The hallway was gloomy after the eye-watering brightness of the fire, and it took Viksberg a moment to realise that he wasn’t alone.
“What have you d
one?” the voice asked.
Viksberg turned, his face a mask of horror, to see the youth who had spoken. Beneath his mop of red hair he was skinny, perhaps in his mid-teens, and dressed in the grey shift of the foundling hospital.
“I heard arguing,” the boy said, and it seemed to Viksberg that the accusation in his wide eyes was even more dangerous than the flames. His hand strayed to the hilt of his dagger. But before he could draw it the door exploded outwards with a roar of flame.
“Take me to the entrance,” Viksberg told the boy.
“This is your doing,” the boy said with a dull certainty.
“Move!” Viksberg raised his hand and the youth bolted.
As he followed his guide Viksberg heard the first cries of alarm ringing out behind him and then, over the quickening roar of the inferno, the first screams. One of the sisters barrelled into him, her robes undone and her hair awry. She bellowed a question at him, but he just pushed her aside and rushed on. The red-haired youngster he was following led him out into the courtyard where the two porters stood open-mouthed as they watched the first snicker of flames emerge from the roofs.
“Stop him,” Viksberg said, with an invention born of desperation. “He started the fire.”
The porter who had led him to the cell thought faster than at any time in his life. He saw Viksberg’s singed eyebrows. Saw his reddened skin. Saw that the only thing between him and the gallows was the scapegoat who was now running so conveniently towards him.
He swung his fist. There was a crunch as it connected with bone, and the fleeing youngster was knocked back to the cobbles, his eyes rolling back into his head.
“Better keep an eye on him,” Viksberg said with a shard of hysterical laughter in his voice. “Who knows what else an arsonist may be capable of?”
“Right you are, mein herr,” the porter replied, and as his companion started ringing the alarm bell, he tied the youngster up nice and tight and ready for the magistrates.
Broken Honour Page 4
