Arcanum

by Simon Morden

  He carried on and made for one of the barges tied up, nose pointing upstream towards the bridge.

  Sophia folded her arms and regarded the length and width of the vessel. “You’re probably right. You’re not the first person to mention it either.”

  “Oh, they’re not going to take on Felix. The boy’s got a good arm on him and fights like a Jötun. And he’s a son of Carinthia, no matter that he’s a Frankish prince too. You? The magic might have gone – if just for a season – but there’re many that accuse you of witchery.” He jumped aboard with practised nonchalance. “You’ve got away with it so far by being proud and fierce. It won’t always be enough.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Master Vulfar.” She held out her hand, and he steadied her as she stepped up. The boat wallowed under her. “You’ve a cargo already?”

  “Salt. That can go back on the quay if you need the space. What’s the job?” Vulfar sat astride the covers of the cargo deck and stretched his legs ahead of him.

  “I need you to go to Simbach, arriving at night somewhere upstream of the town, and unloading men and cargo there. Can you navigate that far without your river-magic?”

  Vulfar’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard the gossip. Are you planning to kill the rogue earl?”

  “No,” she answered mostly truthfully. “Although if he ends up dead, then so be it. We want to give the people of Simbach something to fight with, and something to fight for. What happens after that is up to them. We’re not going to mass an army and march it across the river, but neither can we ignore what Fuchs is doing.”

  The bargemaster drummed his heels. “If it goes wrong, I’m stuck on the Bavarian side of the river in the dark, with angry earl’s men wanting to separate my head from my neck.”

  “If it goes wrong, you can swim the half a stadia to the other bank,” countered Sophia. “I’d recompense you for the loss of your boat.”

  “Still a risk. I’ll be straight with you, my lady; while trade isn’t what it used to be, and being laid up for such a long time is hurting my purse as much as the next man’s, that’s no reason to throw caution to the wind and take on a job that might end up with us drowned or hacked to pieces.”

  “Master Vulfar, stop building your part up and name your price. We can take it from there.” She looked away to the north, down the river and the steep-sided valley that contained it.

  “A hundred florins.”

  She turned slowly back. “If I returned to that stinking pit of depravity you call a beer cellar and slapped a hundred florins on the counter, I could find half a dozen bargemasters that would follow me to Sheol and back. Why don’t you try again?”

  “If you went with any of those chancers, you’d still be trying to land as you passed through the Iron Gates. I’ll get your men and your weapons – and you, if you want to come along – to the right place at the right time. A hundred florins to stop a war before it starts is cheap, my lady.” Vulfar swung his feet over the far side of the hold and slid down to the deck. “Besides, it’s not likely that this earl could afford to buy us out at that price.”

  “And, to your credit, you decided to talk to me when no one else would.” She smiled at him. “Such generosity of spirit shouldn’t go unrewarded.”

  Vulfar patted his thinning hair. “I’ve an eye to the few years I might have left, my lady. If I’m not to die with my hand at the tiller, I need to invest in a different business.”

  Sophia stamped her foot against the wooden boards. The barge was solid and heavy, and it was difficult to imagine such a vessel moving without magic. “A smaller, slimmer boat? One you could sail or row, or even pull upstream?”

  “That sounds like a young man’s game to me. Now, if you wanted someone to build such boats and sell them to idiots seeking their fortune …” His voice trailed off and he faced away from Sophia, staring out at the river and the woods beyond.

  “A hundred florins would go a long way to setting up a boatyard and buying timber.” She relented. “A hundred it is then. To be settled in full on completion.”

  Vulfar looked over his shoulder at her, eyebrow already raised. “My lady—”

  “You and your crew won’t see so much as a red penny until we’re done. I’m not having drunken bargees broadcasting our business in the brothels and beer cellars of Juvavum. Tell them as little as you can get away with, promise them money, and leave it at that. You wouldn’t want Fuchs hearing about this any more than I would.” She jumped across to the quay unaided. “Afterwards, they can do what they like, and probably will.”

  The bargemaster stroked his beloved moustache again. “A deal, then. I won’t insult you with written contracts or a spit and a shake. Your word is good, Mistress Morgenstern.”

  “I’m still unconvinced I had the better of this bargain,” she said. “Start unloading your salt, Master Vulfar. We’ll need the space.”

  66

  The armoury wasn’t empty, and there seemed to be still more rooms further and deeper that were piled with weaponry. Quantity wasn’t a problem. Neither was the quality of spears being carried out in bundles of ten and twenty. The spearheads were discoloured with age, and on occasions blunt, but they could be cleaned and sharpened. The shafts were old, but of seasoned timber that could still take an impact. They’d do the job, even if they just looked the part.

  Ullmann’s worry was that they were handing over perfectly good pole arms to the Bavarians without any guarantee that Carinthia wasn’t going to see the wrong end of them at some point.

  He watched while Reinhardt closed and locked the door behind him, rehanging the key around his neck. Then they walked out into the courtyard together, where a handcart was already laden with spears. The servants fitted the extras on top and tied them on.

  “This had better work,” he said to himself, but Reinhardt heard him and scrubbed at the back of his neck while he formulated a response.

  “I agree, Master Ullmann, but we do as we’re ordered.”

  “That goes without saying. But I’d be happier with Carinthian weapons in Carinthian hands. The Bavarians owe us nothing.” He looked up at the Hare Tower. “There’s two up there who can’t agree on anything except their hatred for all things Carinthian. One of them thinks we interfere too much, the other that we intervene too little. Whichever it is, it’s all our fault.”

  “Press them, I say. We’re wasting good food on them.”

  “My lord Felix says they stay for now.” Ullmann was worried about them. Incompetent spies though they were, they could still do damage if they got away. Perhaps it’d be better for everyone if he could engineer both their escape and their immediate recapture, followed by their inevitable visit to the main square.

  Later. He’d think about that later. The cart was loaded and ready to be rolled away, a man at the front and a man behind.

  “If everything goes to plan,” said Reinhardt, “it won’t matter one way or the other. Without Fuchs, they’ve no reason to cause us trouble.”

  “You think they need a reason?” Ullmann let it pass and called to the servants. “Come on, then. Let’s get going.”

  The cart rattled away, and once it was out of the fortress precincts, it attracted attention: there was no hiding what they were moving. A glare from Ullmann seemed to send people on their way, but he was aware that doing all this in daylight where they could be seen by anyone was a risk.

  Mistress Morgenstern wanted them to leave now so that this Frankish bargemaster Vulfar could get in position by nightfall, but to his mind it seemed rushed. They weren’t ready to extend their rule over other towns. They didn’t even know if they could keep hold of the ones they had: what had happened in Simbach could just as easily have happened in Villach or Hallstadt or Linz with their own earls, and they’d only just be learning about it now.

  They passed through the main square again, and his gaze was drawn to the house on the corner with Gold Alley. He wasn’t going to be there tonight, or the night after that, or even … and
he had to admit that the thought of Aelinn was distracting him from his duties, just as she’d warned him it shouldn’t.

  He told the carters to take the wide road to the right of the square that led to the quays, rather than try and steer through the narrow alleys, a path that would lead right past her front door.

  Vulfar was standing next to a pile of barrels, each of them as tall as his waist, and stacked two-up so that the pile looked like a wall of wood. The previous cart-load of spears was almost stowed away, the last of the bundles being threaded between the supporting struts of the hold, and overseeing everything was Mistress Morgenstern, sitting on a single barrel of salt.

  She waved him over, and he inspected the barge sourly.

  “Not partial to the water, Master Ullmann?”

  “Far from it, my lady. The quality of the boat and the crew are more my concern.”

  Vulfar curled his moustache around his finger and scowled, while Sophia laughed. “Master Vulfar has assured me on both those matters. At the price we’re paying, that’s the least he could have done.”

  She stood up as the second load of spears was unloaded onto the quay and the laborious task of carrying them into the barge began.

  “Gentlemen? We need to conduct a few introductions in the Town Hall.” Sophia pointed the way, and the two men fell in behind her. Ullmann was a little taller and considerably younger than the Frank, but it didn’t help him to feel safe in his company. A hundred florins was a huge price, five years’ wages in his old job as an usher – and all for two or three days’ work. While it had been a wise decision to keep every last penny away from the bargees until the deed was done, the amount itself was just another worry.

  He wondered if they couldn’t have found a Carinthian bargemaster instead.

  For his part, Vulfar seemed happy with the deal he’d struck, and why wouldn’t he be? The risk was all Carinthia’s.

  In the Town Hall, there were men waiting for them. Master Wess, of course, as this was his lair, and three men he’d never seen before. One reminded Ullmann of his father: broad and barrel-like, with rough hands and a weather-beaten face. The other two were smaller, shorter, less used to a life of hard physical work.

  Sophia gathered them together. “This is Mr Ohlhauser, a farmer on our side of the river, and these are Mr Metz and Mr Kehle: they’ll all be travelling with you. Master Vulfar will let Mr Ohlhauser off on the east bank before the turn to Simbach. You know what to do when it gets dark?”

  Everyone nodded, Metz and Kehle more nervously than the others.

  Wess held out a sheet of parchment to Ullmann, a map of sorts, with lines and shapes. “This is roughly” – and he rolled his eyes – “what Simbach looks like. Spend your time on the boat wisely, Master Ullmann.”

  Ullmann took the map, turned it this way and that, then folded it into quarters. “Very useful, I’m sure, Master Wess. Thank you.”

  “Are you ready, Master Vulfar?” asked Sophia.

  “More or less, my lady. We have our barge polls and our cargo, Master Ullmann and his gang. All that remains is to gather my crew and we can cast off.”

  “Then gather away, bargemaster.” She thanked Ohlhauser for his assistance in taking care of the families who’d ended up in his barn, slipping him a purse when she thought no one else was looking, and told the Bavarians that it was up to them from now on. They looked as convinced as Ullmann felt.

  He lingered, when everyone else had been released.

  “Mistress Morgenstern,” he started.

  She cut him off. “I’m aware of your concerns, Master Ullmann, but both you and Felix are still obsessed with the lines on the map, and with who lives on which side of them. Do you really think a river or a mountain makes that much difference? Do you think that Mr Ohlhauser is any different from Mr Metz, except for who he pays his taxes to? Do you think that ideas and people see a bridge and refuse to cross over?”

  All he could manage was an “I—” before her lips formed a thin line, and a little growl escaped from her throat.

  “If you were a Jew, Master Ullmann, you’d realise just how ridiculous that is. We Jews have washed like a tide across this map for millennia: sometimes we stay, sometimes we go. If we’ve learnt anything in the last two thousand years it’s this: the lines mean nothing.”

  Ullmann gazed at his feet, which only served to enrage Sophia more.

  “This is the first time since the magic failed that we can turn a whole situation to our advantage. We don’t have to burn Simbach down, and we don’t have to occupy it. All we have to do is offer them what we have here. The Bavarians want the same things for themselves and their children as we do.” She huffed. “To the boat, Master Ullmann.”

  They walked side by side across the wide quay, and she softened her voice.

  “We can’t afford not to share everything we are and own, because if we try to hang on to it with our clenched fists, it’ll leak out and we’ll be left with nothing. So we’re sharing you and the others, our weapons and our money, and, in return, Simbach will become a good place to live and work in again.”

  She stopped and pinned him in place with her gaze until he had no choice but to back down. He’d had his way concerning the hexmasters, but not here, not now. She was becoming increasingly confident and assertive. It was something he needed to watch carefully.

  “I understand, my lady. We’ll see Fuchs gone and everything as it should be.” He drew back and stalked to the riverside.

  The barge was loaded, and the two Bavarians, together with the Carinthian farmer, were waiting on the quayside in one knot of people, Horst and Manfred – two of Ullmann’s fellow ushers – waiting in another. The carts and the servants had gone – everyone was waiting for Vulfar.

  The bargemaster arrived back with his four crew, each of whom looked so disreputable they could have been dredged from the bottom of the Salzach. If appearances were what counted, the trip down river was going to be both short and eventful.

  In all, there were eleven men and a barge full of spears, and Ullmann was responsible for all of it. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d been a plain usher, yet it felt like a lifetime away. He glanced at the Jewish woman, who was smiling at Vulfar and even joking with his bargees.

  Control, he decided. It was all about control.

  “Are we ready now, Master Vulfar?” he called.

  “We certainly are, Master Ullmann. Everyone on board, and try not to break anything.”

  Ullmann looked askance, and Vulfar laughed at him. The other passengers clambered into the hold through the open doors, and Vulfar’s crew started to untie the ropes that held the barge fast to the quay, downstream first and working their way up until just one lead wrapped around a cleat held it in place.

  “Master Ullmann, please. We’ve reached the point of no return.”

  Apart from the biggest bargee, braced with the rope in his huge hands, he was the only one left to board. He stepped across the widening gap, glancing down at the rippling water, and onto the barge-board.

  Sophia Morgenstern raised her hand in farewell.

  “Carinthia will win this, my lady,” said Ullmann.

  “If only it were that simple, Master Ullmann. It’ll suffice, though, until the next problem needs fixing; all we can do is fix the ones we can see. Go, with HaShem’s blessing.”

  He would rather go with the expectation of this being only the first of many great victories for Carinthia, but a small one would do for now. The bargee unhooked the rope and jumped with it alongside Vulfar, and the other crew set about the barge poles, pressing them against the stone quay and stern of the next boat, steering the bow out into the faster-flowing mid-river.

  “It’s probably too late to ask,” said Ullmann, as he watched the scene unfold, “but have you ever done it like this before?”

  “Such little trust, Master Ullmann.” Vulfar gauged their progress and adjusted the tiller accordingly. “But since you ask, no. I am, however, certain of two things. First, of m
y knowledge of the river, and second, of the competence of my crew. Fortunately, your Mistress Morgenstern is paying handsomely for both.”

  The bow started to slew to the left, and the stern to the right, threatening to turn the barge sideways-on to the river banks. Vulfar dragged the tiller back, and shouted down the length of the barge in a language only the bargees knew. They climbed on top of the hold and lowered their poles over the side.

  They pushed, with their faces red and knuckles white, and slowly – much slower than Ullmann would have liked – the bow came about. They were already downstream of the quay, passing the edge of the town wall.

  “You see?” said Vulfar, moustache bristling. “Nothing to it.”

  Horst leant out of the hold to tug at Ullmann’s breeks. “Max? Are you going to tell us now what we’re doing on this tub? Or does that stay a secret forever?”

  Reluctantly, Ullmann ducked back down and left their erratic progress down the river to Vulfar: there was nothing he could do except scowl, and he’d rather the bargemaster’s full attention was on keeping the boat pointing roughly in the right direction.

  He reached into his jacket and retrieved the map that Wess had drawn. Unfolding and smoothing it out, he beckoned the Bavarians over to try and explain it.

  “This is where we’re going, lads. This is Simbach.”

  67

  “Who’s the boy?” Morgenstern murmured without looking up.

  Thaler, who was passing, stopped and leant over to inspect the work. He had proven to Morgenstern that objects fall at the same speed, no matter how heavy they are. Consequently, the Jew was deep in his al-Haytham, translating the Persian into Latin. They had discussed whether German would be better, but Latin was widely read and understood among the educated of their part of Europe.

  “Oh, some Greek slave my lord Felix rescued. Apparently the Byzantine ambassador called this morning, and didn’t receive the answer he wanted.”