Arcanum

by Simon Morden

  Thaler counted, and reached five on the first attempt, before fire and smoke belched out. Morgenstern did a little jig, and looked uncommonly pleased with himself.

  “Again?” he grinned.

  “Oh, most certainly.” Thaler swept away the residue and reset the experiment. “We need to be certain of the burn rate, or we’ll be losing our lives soon enough.”

  Each one they tried burnt through between a count of four and six. Morgenstern skipped away to make more, his speed belying every year of his age.

  “This is progress,” Thaler announced. “We should try and test-fire a shell.”

  He hadn’t dared do so before, as he’d had no reliable way of setting it off from a distance, even though the idea was one of the first things he’d thought of: to deliver a charge of exploding powder, right into the heart of the enemy. He wasn’t martial, like Sophia. He wasn’t cunning, like Max Ullmann. He wasn’t, gods preserve him, like Peter Büber. The only contribution he could make to the war lay in this field.

  At a push, he could hold a spear, and blunt an axe with his bones which seemed a waste of his life, and indeed of anyone’s life. The dwarves hadn’t needed to pick a fight with them; Felix had offered them a share of both land and gold, but they, greedily, wanted it all.

  “Master Thaler?” said Tuomanen.

  “Sorry. I’m angry. Angry with having been put in this position, of having to design machines that kill rather than ones that save. Everything we do is bent towards war: if it has no military application, we have to put it to one side. But do you suppose this’ll be the end of it? We’ll fight the dwarves of Farduzes this year, the Protector of Wien the next, and the Doge the year after.”

  “You’re a peaceable man, Master Thaler, because a thousand years of peace breeds a peaceable people.” Tuomanen glanced at the wick she was carrying, still smouldering away. “It was a peace that was won with fear. Fear of hexmasters like me.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There are no buts here. You’re trying to do with these powder weapons what we did with our spells; make your enemies afraid to face you, and leave you alone to your books and your brass.” She pinched out the ember with no more thought than before. “Peace is not the absence of war. I understand this – this world of fire and smoke – far better than you do, and King Ironmaker is an idiot for risking everything on a single throw of his dice.”

  “He tried to kill Felix, Mistress. In response to a friendly treaty.”

  “So we are at war. What happens if we win? News of these great powder-driven monsters will be broadcast from Hibernia to Persia. Everybody will have them soon enough. We’ll build better weapons and have more of them, of course. We’ll have exchanged the white robes of the Order for the black robes of the library. That’s all.”

  “So what do we do?”

  She shrugged, and went back to packing away her materials. “Prosperous people, content with their lot, never went to war willingly. What can you do about that? Can you abolish famine and disease? Can you say when the rivers rise and the snow falls? Can you meddle in the affairs of kings and princes so that they don’t cast envious eyes on their neighbours?”

  “Perhaps.” He answered without thinking. “Yes. Why not?”

  She laughed, and she rarely laughed. “Hubris, Master Thaler. The gods have made you mad.”

  “Why not?” he repeated. “It’s not me who shoulders the burden alone, but us and all Carinthia. All are equal before the law. The earls’ estates are broken up. We hold no slaves. We choose our civic leaders. We haven’t even pressed anyone since Felix came to the throne.”

  “You believe it.” Her laughter died. “Yet Ironmaker will sweep you off the map, and you’ll either flee or be enslaved. Resist and you’ll be killed. Within a generation, Carinthia will be forgotten, except in old maps.”

  “He won’t win.”

  “Which is why we devise ever more intricate ways to kill. See why I wear grey robes?” Tuomanen looked down at her stained and burnt front. “It doesn’t matter what we aspire to. This is the way things are from now on.”

  Thaler tasted sourness, and screwed his mouth up. “I believe it does matter. I believe it matters a great deal.”

  A cry went up from across the field, and they both turned, expecting to see a roil of smoke and hear a crack of thunder. Instead, it was Bastian and some carters, dragging his latest piece to the proving grounds.

  “We have a new toy,” said Tuomanen, going to join the crowd that was gathering around the cart, and Thaler had to accept that she was, at least for the time being, right.

  He eased his way through his powder-makers and called up to the smith, who rode on the cart with his new creation. “Come on then, sir, unveil it. Let’s all see what you’ve brought us.”

  A waxed cloth sheet was draped artfully over the piece, and Bastian gripped one corner of it.

  “Master Thaler. I beg your indulgence,” he started, and Thaler’s gaze went straight from the blond-haired giant of a man to the shape of the hidden pot. It was too long, like a felled tree. Certainly not squat and fat as it should have been.

  “Gods, man. What have you done?”

  “I’ve found my destiny, Master Thaler. This is what I was born to make.”

  He pulled the cover free, and Thaler didn’t know whether to be horrified or excited. The tube was as long as he was tall, and he could just about manage to fit his fist in the muzzle.

  It was made from black iron, with bands of steel.

  “This … this isn’t what we agreed. This isn’t the design I showed you.”

  “No.” Bastian kicked open a box at his feet, and inside were iron balls, made to match. He dropped one into Thaler’s hands. “Think of this, not falling from above, but charging straight at the enemy.”

  Thaler felt the weight of the shot, and slowly realised that everyone was waiting for his judgement. He looked at their faces and weighed their expectations, together with his own.

  He came to a sort of decision. “Let’s get this unloaded and set up. Preferably before the Lady Sophia finds out.”

  79

  Ullmann’s table was covered in little slips of paper. Each one was a message, sent back from his spies. They needed to be sifted, ordered and collated. They needed action.

  The news from Bavaria was simply confusing. With Leopold’s death, every earl seemed to be taking it as his right to follow him down the same road to madness. Some, like Fuchs, were uncomplicated robbers, accumulating wealth for themselves from their own lands. Others had larger ambitions: München had swapped hands twice already, each of the usurpers styling themselves Ruler of all Bavaria, and the Earl of Augsburg was now marching on it – at least, he had been at the time of the message. Ullmann hadn’t received another, either from his agent inside München, or outside it.

  The Austrians were as broke as the Bavarians. People were leaving Wien by the cart-load every day to return to their distant kin still in the countryside in the hope of bread and beer. Some of them were inevitably moving into Carinthia because of family ties, but he judged it wouldn’t be long before what the situation at Simbach had presaged wasn’t written large on the east of the palatinate. Felix had parcels of land that he could give away, taken from the defunct earldoms, which would absorb some of them. There would come a point, though, where it might be necessary to tell the Protector enough was enough.

  The situation beyond the mountains of Over-Carinthia was a confused jumble of contradictory noises. This duke was fighting that duke, alliances were made and broken in the space of a day, cities were besieged, crops burnt, fleets of square-sailed ships vied for control of the seas. Just as long as they didn’t look north: he’d given orders to close the high passes. Over-Carinthia would have to take its share of refugees and use them as a buffer against any army that wanted to march over the mountains.

  Further afield, it was nothing but a cloud of rumour. The dwarves had taken the Enn valley, but no one had any idea if they had also g
one north and west to the plains. Perhaps Horst and Manfred might send news when they reached the Franks, but their route might just as likely be cut off. Was that why the Earl of Augsburg was marching?

  He had thought that he’d feel powerful, sitting in Juvavum, being able to see and hear everything that happened in courts near and far. What he did feel was impotent. His network was as ill-prepared as the prince’s army, both consisting of amateurs who had to learn the job as they went. Inevitably, some of them were quickly out of their depth.

  If that wasn’t enough, there was Carinthia itself to deal with. He had to know what was being said in the beer cellars and across the market stalls throughout the whole length of the palatinate. The people were fearful, and there was little he could do about that. There was plenty to be afraid of. At least they weren’t rioting or planning insurrection. Yet, Eckhardt had shown that rebellion could come suddenly, from unexpected directions.

  How could he best serve his prince? Not by merely telling him who sat on which throne, but by placing Carinthian arses on those thrones and making the people regret he’d not done so sooner. That was the lesson of Simbach, and later of Rosenheim, which they’d taken over after the earl had fled with his household and the little treasure he could scrape together.

  A mayor now sat in his place, and the farmers of the manor found themselves owning the land they’d once inhabited as serfs. It was a tactic Ullmann was eager to export, Felix less so.

  As far as Ullmann was concerned, now was the time to do it, when kings and princes – other than the Carinthian one – were weak, and earls isolated. Introduce Carinthian law and Carinthian practices to unseat a foreign earl, and there was another century or two of fighting men to call on.

  He needed to prepare the day’s report, ready for Felix, Sophia, Thaler and Wess to debate with him. And, more recently, the hexmaster Tuomanen. He didn’t like that. Neither did Sophia, he knew.

  The witch had pledged her allegiance to Felix, and promised to inform on her former Order to Ullmann, He couldn’t shake the suspicion that she was playing a game which involved both the fortress and the library. He watched her closely, and wondered if he should have her killed.

  It definitely wasn’t because she reminded him of Nikoleta Agana.

  Then there was Aelinn.

  What was he to do about her? He thought of her all the time – all the time his life wasn’t in mortal danger, at least. As for her, she didn’t seem so bothered. She enjoyed his company when he called. She shared his bed when the mood took her. But she continued to keep house for the Odenwalds, and nothing he could say to her could tempt her away. He had offered her handfasting more than once, and she’d laughed it off. He’d offered her her own house, with her own servants. She’d kissed him and told him he was being foolish.

  He was a farmer’s son from the banks of the Mur. She was Juvavum born-and-bred. He had ascended to the prince’s court. She seemed content to sweep floors and wash pots. He simply didn’t understand.

  Gods, he couldn’t concentrate.

  He forced himself to sit down. Cracking his knuckles, he moved the pieces of paper around – placing them according to the area they related to – so that they resembled a map: Bavaria to his left, Wien to his right, Over-Carinthia and the Italians closest to him, Carinthia proper in the middle. That left a small handful of messages that came from further north.

  One of those mentioned the Teutons.

  Ullmann hadn’t been at Obernberg, but he’d heard all about it. How a few hundred Teuton horse had ambushed, then destroyed the Carinthian line, killing Gerhard in the process. Only Nikoleta Agana had managed to salvage anything. Why did it have to be her?

  Now the Teutons seemed to have left their frozen, fly-infested swamp and taken a swathe of land along the Baltic coast as far as the Mark. That news had to be passed on to Felix, even if it might be something to worry about next year rather than this. It wouldn’t do to leave them unopposed for too long. The south traded with the north through the Baltic ports, and using the Teutons as middlemen wasn’t something civilised people did.

  Out of the whole of Europe, it looked as if only the dwarves were capable of fielding a sizeable army. And it was Carinthia’s bad luck to be first in the way. One thing was certain: they couldn’t field a sizeable army for themselves. Not yet.

  Ullmann drummed his fingers on the table. There were two small forces, relatively intact, close by – those of München and Augsburg. If they’d stop fighting each other, and join Carinthia … there was a core of an effective fighting force right there. What would that take? The death of the Bavarian pretender, perhaps? So that when the Earl of Augsburg reached München’s gates, they were already open?

  Felix would never sanction that. He would talk about his brother princes again, and Sophia would simply gainsay any murder, no matter how necessary.

  Did either of them need to know, he wondered? It was for the good of the palatinate. It might even be necessary for its survival. He’d stabbed Nikoleta for exactly the same reasons.

  He’d do it again. He wasn’t some sort of monster who delighted in death, but he hadn’t become Master Ullmann through ducking difficult decisions.

  He had a book of codes, given to him by Thaler. He leafed through it until he found the one used by his München contact, and wrote out on a scrap of parchment a brief, unambiguous message: kill pretender-king, open gates to Augsburg. Then, using the code to work out the encrypted form of the message, he wrote out those out onto a second slip of paper. The first copy, he consigned to the flames of the fire, and made certain that the whole thing was ash.

  The message could go as soon as a rider was ready. It was a short journey, forty miles, no more. He toyed with the idea of sending a second message to Augsburg to see if there might be the opportunity to finish off the earl and have two ripe plums fall into Carinthia’s hand.

  Best not. Carinthia needed someone in charge for them to deal with; someone to hold the troops together and commit them to fight against the dwarves.

  He picked up the slip of paper he’d written on. The ink was dry. He only needed to roll it up and seal it in wax. The messenger would secrete it about his person – even inside his person, as the wax coating would pass through the gut undamaged – and deliver it to his man. Would he baulk at the order to kill? If so, would he still do his duty?

  He screwed it up and dropped it into the fire.

  Someone would guess that the death wasn’t merely a happy coincidence for Carinthia. They’d openly blame Augsburg, but, in secret, they’d know. Thaler and Wess would be appalled, and all their disappointment and squeamish horror would be on show. Sophia, incandescent with rage, would demand that Ullmann be thrown into the same tower cell as the two hapless fools from Simbach, who still languished there, despite the cause that had brought them to Juvavum being long gone.

  Felix wouldn’t overrule them. Ullmann would be dragged away, protesting not his innocence, but his guilt in an earlier, equally significant death. Thaler would feel himself obliged to tell Peter Büber, and no jail door in the palatinate would be thick enough, no dungeon deep enough, to spare him from the wrath of the berserkergang.

  His hands were tied. He was impotent. The things that needed doing couldn’t be done because everyone in charge was infected by scruples. If his prince commanded it, he’d do it. Gods, he’d do the deed himself. But Felix wouldn’t allow him free rein. Was that the lesson of Nikoleta Agana? Not that he was trusted with running the Carinthian spy network, but that he’d been chosen to run it because he was the one person who couldn’t be trusted. Wess would be useless at the job, Thaler too distracted, Sophia too honest.

  Thaler was an idealist, a loyalist, intelligent and ardent. So was he. What made the people love Thaler so, yet fear Ullmann? They loved Thaler even though he stank of sulphur and smoke, and despite the fact that his explosions echoed across the rooftops of Juvavum from early morning to late evening. “Good old Master Thaler,” they’d shout as they mad
e way for him in the streets and alleys. He couldn’t buy a drink anywhere in town without rich or poor slapping their coppers down on the bar ahead of his fumbling fingers. He even made the witch Tuomanen respectable by association.

  Thaler was making killing machines in the shadow of the White Tower and was a hero as a result. Ullmann was organising information from all corners of the map and was entirely reliant on decent, upright Carinthians who’d chosen to put themselves in mortal danger every day, yet he was treated with suspicion.

  The last curl of his coded message fluttered away up the chimney, and his shoulders sagged.

  Was there another way to achieve the same goal? Could he get Augsburg and München to stop fighting long enough to realise that if the the dwarves escaped the Enn valley, there’d be no Bavarian crown to claim? The fact that they were arguing about a worthless symbol made their quarrelling all the more pathetic. Bavaria was broke, and unless its serfs had planted in the spring, there would be famine by winter.

  By seizing Rosenheim and Simbach, Carinthia had taken over a full third of historic Bavaria. Carinthian administrators, wherever they’d travelled, had carried with them copies of the first book off of Wess’s printing press: Of the Theory and Practice of Mundane Farming, as Practised by the Jews of Carinthia. There would be shortages in the palatinate’s storehouses, but no one would starve.

  See? They were doing good things. They weren’t burning houses, killing those who fought and enslaving those who didn’t, stealing their goods and their livestock. It was likely that if Augsburg and München didn’t join with Carinthia this summer, by the next they would be begging for any crumb that might fall from Felix’s table.

  Better that one man die than thousands.

  Ullmann gnawed at his fingernail, staring into the red, shimmering glow at the heart of the fire.

  He could see clearly. It wasn’t just in Carinthia’s interests that the fighting between men ceased. It was in everyone’s. The German people didn’t want to end up like Italy, with city states constantly at war with their neighbours, year after year, pissing their treasure away over the same scrap of ground. They were a peaceable, civilised race, descended from gods-fearing Goths, so unlike the hot-headed Romans.