by Simon Morden
“Come on then, Captain.” He was weary of this already. “Let’s get it done.”
Reinhardt ordered his men to haul on the rope that passed through the block-and-tackle, and together they watched the stone winched, inch by inch, from the socket in the ground.
The Teuton had been spread-eagled and each limb tied to an inset iron ring. He’d been struggling and screaming and cursing, and it had taken strong men to hold him down. It would take only one to cut him free and remove him from the pit.
Büber pulled out the knife from his belt and went round each corner to saw through the cords, even as the stone carried on rising. As he stepped back, there was a sucking sound and a wet thud. That would be the Teuton’s head.
There was a drain, but that didn’t stop the flags that formed the floor of the pit from being stained almost black. It smelt of everything that had been in the man before the stone came down.
“It’ll need sluicing out,” said Büber, and when Reinhardt grimaced, he added plainly: “You want my job?”
“Thank you kindly, but no, Master Büber. The men’ll see to it.”
Büber unfolded the waxed canvas sheet next to the pit, and took hold of the Teuton’s arms. He gave a tug, and decided that the rest would probably follow. He stepped backwards, easing the body onto the sheet. It was so disarticulated as to appear boneless.
The face was the worst. Danzig looked almost, but not quite, unrecognisable. The chest was a forest of white bone splinters, and his stomach had burst. In contrast, the hands and feet were pristine. Büber used the toe of his boot to arrange the body, then folded the edges of the heavy cloth together. He knelt down and started to sew the shroud up with a bodkin and thick thread.
Reinhardt and his crew chocked the pressing stone up on blocks of timber, and started pouring buckets of water collected from a fountain into the pit. They had stiff-bristled brooms to attack the gore.
Büber looked up from his task occasionally, catching Reinhardt’s gaze. They wore the same expressions of grim-faced resignation. They had their orders, and they knew better than to disobey, even if some of the things they were told to do didn’t make sense, or were foul.
At some point, someone from the stables brought a horse for him, and the Teuton’s own. He wasn’t much of a rider. He could do it, but preferred his own two feet.
The smell made his own horse shy away, but the shaggy Teuton mount seemed less affected: perhaps where it came from had inured it to the stink of blood and shit.
“Give me a hand here,” said Büber, and he and Reinhardt lifted the sewn shroud across the Teuton’s saddle. Some leakage was inevitable, as his needlework wasn’t perfect. Reinhardt looked down at his surcoat. They both shrugged, and Büber tied the shroud on to the shuffling horse.
“Go carefully, huntmaster.”
“I’ve no intention of getting within a mile of the Teutons,” he said. “I’ll leave that to the Bavarians.”
“All the same, these things can come back and bite us little people on the arse.” Reinhardt gave up and wiped his hands clean of sticky liquid, of the whole business. “The prince knows best, I suppose.”
“Whether he does or doesn’t is no concern of mine,” said Büber. He fixed a lead to the Teuton horse’s bridle and fastened it to his saddle, then mounted up. He had a way to go: he’d be lucky to make the thirty old Roman miles from Juvavum to Simbach before it grew dark. “He’s the prince, and that’s the end of it.”
He rode down to the quayside and across the bridge, picking up the via that ran north. The river was on his left, the hill country to his right, and he hadn’t gone far before he met two men.
The first was on one side of the road, the second on the other, walking almost in the ditches of the via, but both were shouting out the same name. Through cupped hands, they called for Georg.
Büber’s horse drew level, passing between them. The man on the left turned to glance at Büber. Both of them were expecting just another traveller, and were surprised by the flare of mutual recognition.
“Peter?”
Büber looked again. It was Kelner. “Martin. What in the gods’ names are you doing?”
Kelner put his hand to his forehead and tightened his fingers across his temples. “My brother’s boy’s gone missing.” He looked around at the woods and the hills, and further away at the snow-covered mountaintops. “Can’t find him anywhere.”
The other man crossed the via and passed Kelner a water bottle. “The kid was looking after the pigs. The pigs were all there, but …” and he shrugged, “no Georg.”
It wasn’t his business, but Kelner was, if not a friend, certainly an acquaintance. Büber patted his horse’s neck and swung himself out of the saddle and onto the stone road.
“No reason for the lad to run off, I suppose?” Life could be rough-and-ready in the wilds. Children had to be taught to attend to their duties, sometimes with the back of a hand. Even Felix was beaten by the signore.
“My brother’s a good father,” said Kelner, “and Georg has never given him any real trouble. He’s no paragon, but you know, he’s a boy. It’s not like him to just disappear.”
“And the other kids?” Büber worried at one of his finger stumps.
“All accounted for. Peter, he’s only nine. He hasn’t run off with one of the other children, and he’s not out chasing girls: his balls haven’t dropped yet.” Kelner turned slowly again, aware that he should still be searching for his nephew. His gaze took in the Teuton horse and its load. “What in Midgard have you got there?”
“I’m a prince’s man, and I’m about my duties,” he said.
“That’s a body,” said Kelner’s kinsman. “Whose is it?”
“Some Teuton mercenary who pissed off Gerhard. He got pressed for his troubles.”
“But why have you got it?”
“Martin, I don’t have to explain myself to you, and I need to be on my way.” Büber put his hand on his saddle pommel, ready to remount. Kelner snagged the reins in his fist.
“Has this got anything to do with Georg?”
“No.” Perhaps he said that too quickly, or too slowly, because Kelner grew suspicious.
“Peter?”
“I don’t know anything about where the boy is. Really I don’t.”
“And we’re looking for my nine-year-old nephew.” Kelner ground his heel in the dust. “Peter, remember when we had that bother up at the lake? The nixie?”
He did. The drowned man had come from Kelner’s wife’s family. But water spirits didn’t make people – or unicorns – vanish.
“Nothing like that’s going on, as far as I know.”
“But you know something, right?”
“Look, Martin. I can’t help you with the lad. I’m under orders, and it’ll be my head if I screw up.” His mouth had gone dry. “I want you to do something for me.”
“We’re out here until we find him. I’m not your errand boy.”
“Martin. Calm down. This is the best I can do, okay?”
“What, then?”
“Keep looking. He could have wandered off. If … if you don’t find him by evening, I want you to go to Juvavum and tell someone – one of the librarians.”
Kelner was insulted. “A librarian? What the fuck for?”
“Because I want you to tell him about this, and him alone. A man called Frederik Thaler. It’s really important you do. Don’t pass a message on, don’t be put off by their black-gowned ways. Him and him alone. Got that?”
“And what’s this Thaler going to do? Organise a search? He’s a cocking librarian!”
Büber put his hand onto Kelner’s shoulder. “Listen, Martin. I’m really sorry about your nephew.”
His hand was thrown abruptly off.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Kelner moved up close, so that Büber could smell wood smoke and sap. “This has happened before, hasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. It’s …” Büber turned his head away. “It’s complicated,
all right?”
“I don’t care how complicated it is, Peter.” Kelner reached out and turned Büber back to face him. “This is about a kid. Nine years old.”
Büber took a deep breath. Kelner was right. Of course he was right. But the boy had gone, and none of the others had come back.
Tell him enough, then. But not the whole truth.
He pushed Kelner’s arm down, firmly but slowly. “There’s something out there. I don’t know what. I know that the masters know, but they haven’t told me anything. I have to assume the prince knows too, but he hasn’t told me either.”
“And this something is taking children?”
“Maybe four over the last year. No one sees them go. Kids run away all the time, for all sorts of reasons. But probably four like this. Unexplained.” Büber kicked at the stone road. “That’s why you need to tell Thaler. Someone else other than the masters needs to know about this.”
The urge to fight slipped away from Kelner, and he let go of the horse. “This Thaler? Can he help?”
“He’s got all those books. That must mean something, right?”
“The masters, though. They can just cast a spell and find him, can’t they?” Kelner didn’t want to give up hope.
“That’s been tried.” Büber shook his head. As far as he knew, it had: the Order could have lied and there’d be no way of telling. Whichever it was, that particular child, a girl, was still missing.
“Crap. Peter, I can’t go back to my brother and tell him some … thing has taken his boy. What’s the prince doing about this?”
“I’m his servant. He tells me what to do, and I go and do it. When I’ve done it, I come back and tell him I’ve done it. That’s the way it works. And at the moment, I’m not doing what he told me to do.” Büber reached up for the pommel again. “Tell Thaler. He’ll take this seriously, and you won’t get your arse kicked by one of the chamberlain’s men. Which you will if you go directly to the prince.”
He swung himself up, and his horse stepped right, forcing Kelner’s kinsman away. Büber took the opportunity to jab his heels and get the animal moving.
“Good luck,” he called, and Kelner half-heartedly raised his hand.
Büber felt wretched as he rode away north. Arguing over whether or not to look for missing children wasn’t what he’d signed up to do – of course he should – but there’d be chaos if the Teutons chanced their arm and decided to head straight for the passes under the prince’s control. There weren’t just the horsemen to consider, either; it was their baggage train too. Carts of stuff, pots and pans and tents and blankets and weapons and armour and spare tack and clothes, piled onto low-bedded wains and pulled by cart horses. Packed in among the effects, almost as an afterthought, were women and children. Whether or not the women belonged to the men, and the children to the women, was a matter of conjecture. They were there, and they all needed feeding.
Three hundred horse. Pasture alone for that many would make sufficient fields bald to starve the local cows into stopping giving milk. That’s if the Teutons didn’t just eat the cows, kill the farmer and enslave his family for good measure.
What he was doing was important. He was saving many other Georgs, and their mothers, from going missing. Only if he did it right, though: he had to make sure the Teutons got the prince’s message.
The Roman via was a broad road with a dressed stone surface that managed to stay usable in most weathers – but he could cut the corner off to get to where he needed to go more quickly.
So he headed up into the wooded hills and lake country where Kelner and his like lived, on tracks wide enough for a wagon and no more. This was Büber’s country, too, more so than the high alpine pastures and the naked mountain slopes. He was never happier … no, not happier, for he was rarely happy, but content. He was at ease, at one with the landscape.
Except for today. When the trees closed overhead, he brooded over what had happened to Georg. He didn’t know exactly, but something that could take a unicorn without a single sign of struggle could spirit a child away. Unicorns were tough bastards; he didn’t let all the romantic talk about virgins and purity cloud his judgement, because he’d never forgotten the look in one stallion’s eye as it levelled its horn at Büber’s heart across the width of a forest clearing.
They were killers. And something had contemptuously left nothing but the most valuable part of it behind. Twice.
He hoped he’d done the right thing, sending Kelner to find Thaler. This knowledge was a dangerous commodity. He’d told the librarian about the unicorns, but not about the children, because, until now, he hadn’t made the connection. Thaler would chew him out for that, since it was obvious.
What else had he missed?
He didn’t know, because he wasn’t used to thinking like that. His world was – it used to be – simple. Everything that happened had happened before. It was, if not explicable, predictable.
He kept on going, following the map in his head, through the villages that were no more than a strung-out ribbon of wooden houses by the track. Smoke and cooking smells reminded him he was hungry. He stopped occasionally, ostensibly to feed and water the horse, but really for his own sake. Wherever he dismounted, someone would come out and greet him, ask his business, and, satisfied that he was one of them, either go back in and leave him alone, or return with some bread, or cheese, or sausage, or beer.
Peter Büber, in the company of the dead, was craving the company of the living. He wasn’t used to that feeling.
When he finally crested the last rise and saw the Enn in front of him, he was grateful to have something to do. His head hurt.
Simbach was across the wide river, a little Bavarian town with its own market and minor earl in charge. On the Carinthian side, nothing but five houses close to the bridge, and then widely spaced farm buildings dotted along the road.
The bridge, though. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in a great city like Rome or Byzantium. A low, single span arched over the water, high enough at the midpoint for barges, but its slope sufficiently shallow for the rise to be barely perceptible. Wide, too: traffic could cross north and south and still have room to stop along the way and admire the view.
It was, of course, physically impossible. No stone arch could support its weight shaped like that. But the bridge didn’t depend on architecture for its existence, even if it was cast as a single block of black rock. There were engravings on each buttress bearing testament to that.
The bridge had been there a long time. The Romans had thrown a pontoon across on their way to conquer the known world, replacing it afterwards, during the time of peace they established, with a concrete and brick construction similar to their viaducts. That, despite the empire’s engineering skills, had been swept away again and again. The hexmasters had come once and conjured a marvel, then left it for mortals to use.
Büber used his elevation to scout out the land. Simbach wasn’t walled, and the compact centre gave way to farms and gardens. Everything seemed normal there: hazy air over the town, the sense of people moving in the streets, pack animals crossing the bridge.
Over to the west, however, was another, more concentrated source of smoke. That would be the Teutons, then, waiting for their leader to return.
The sun was setting, and had already started to slip behind the ragged mountain peaks to the south. Büber leant forward and patted his horse on the neck.
“Good boy,” he said. The horse, sensing the day was almost over, looked around, sniffing at the saddlebags.
7
Thaler made his way through the town, his gown flapping around him. Nothing had happened in quite the right order that day, from Büber’s early message to Kelner’s late arrival.
The woodsman’s story had left him confused and concerned. Missing unicorns, missing children, and Büber’s almost child-like trust in the power of books which he himself couldn’t read. Some force – an arcane force for sure – was at work, and it was becoming clear that
the hexmasters couldn’t or wouldn’t confront it.
Which was deeply disturbing in itself. There was nothing that was collectively beyond them.
And now it was dark, and he was late.
He hurried up the side of the library to Franks’ Alley, and then into the open space at the heart of the town, with its carefully kept ring of ash trees. They were in leaf again after a bare winter, their branches meshing with their neighbours’ and providing a continuous circle of protection for the central pillar, whose top was lost at night in shadow and sky.
Tall, high-roofed houses, rich with money and servants, lined the square, and it was their uncovered lights that shone down and illuminated his way. Gold Alley on the far side was just as bright, even though the assayers and coiners had long since closed for the night.
Thaler trailed down the narrow passage, and came to another crossway in the labyrinth of streets. This alley was in shadow. No magical lights here: just a line of seven flickering candles in a window. It was a sign that a Jew lived there, and that he was at the entrance of Jews’ Alley.
He found the right door and knocked on it. Old Aaron was getting a little deaf, so Thaler gave the small brass knocker some extra taps, loudly enough for faces to appear at other windows in the surrounding buildings. Maybe they recognised the shape of Thaler, or were just satisfied that there was only one man out in the street. Their faces receded, and eventually there was a shuffling behind the door.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” came the voice raised in complaint. “Who is it?”
“It’s Under-librarian Thaler, Mr Morgenstern.”
The door had bolts top and bottom, and they thwacked back like axe-blows. A chink of light appeared and, halfway up, a glistening-wet eye. “Sophia said you might call. I suppose this is about the Maimonides?”
“Partly,” said Thaler.
“Partly?” Morgenstern shuffled aside and Thaler stepped into the hallway. “There’s something else?”
Thaler dragged his fingers through his thinning hair. “It’s been a strange day, Mr Morgenstern.”
