by James Wallis
The Seven Stars Inn was ruined and ablaze. The fire raged against the cold, its leaping heat forcing back the crowd of gawping citizens. Stirrup-pumps forced futile jets of water into the inferno and nearby buildings were being emptied in case the flames spread.
Grenner gazed at the blaze. Almost nothing was left except the ground floor. Nobody could have escaped this cataclysm, but he couldn’t work out why someone would blow up a prosperous merchant-inn at one of the few times of the year when it was almost empty.
He saw Johansen moving through the crowd, circling the building. The man had studied pyrotechnics when he was in the army; he’d be able to tell where the charge had been set and how large it was. Grenner’s speciality was less technical and more dangerous. He was a student of human nature.
“So, Grenner, what’s the situation?” The voice jolted him from his thoughts, made abrupt by its strong northern accent. Grenner didn’t have to turn to know General Hoffmann, the leader of the Palisades and the only man whose orders he respected, had arrived.
“Probably nine dead, sir,” he said. “No survivors found so far, nor witnesses. No reports of threats or recent trouble.”
“A hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder in the cellar,” Johansen added as he joined them. “Blast went straight up, killing everyone inside. Very effective. Good evening sir, you’re up late.”
“Hard to sleep with so many disturbances,” Hoffmann said, his eyes dark against the flames.
“Don’t give us that,” said Grenner. “Something’s up or you wouldn’t be here. Why this inn, and why tonight?”
Hoffmann held his stare for a moment. “You’re on the ball for a man who’s been drinking all evening, Grenner. Yes, this is no routine tavern-bombing. Grand Prince Valmir von Raukov, Elector Count of Ostland, is known to share a room with a female associate here late at night. We’ve warned him it’s a security risk, but…”
“Was he inside?” Johansen wanted to know.
“He was but he left earlier, luckily for us. Someone just tried to kill a senior officer of the Empire, and in a very public way. I need to know who and why, and I need them stopped. Your job.”
Johansen looked mock-aghast, Grenner dismayed. “Can’t you put someone else on it?” he said.
“There isn’t anybody else. It’s almost Hexenstag. Everyone’s out of the city or on leave, except the Meer twins who are working incognito and Schmidt, who I don’t need to remind you is dead. Get to work.”
“We’ll start first thing,” Grenner said.
Hoffmann’s face was in shadow, the raging fire behind him. “Someone’s trying to kill an Elector, you don’t wait till morning. Start now, and don’t stop till their bodies are in jail or cold.”
Johansen groaned. “When do we sleep?”
“Perhaps the explosion deafened your ears.” The general’s voice was ice. “You don’t stop until they’re jailed or dead.”
Chains of people passed buckets of water to watchmen who flung them at the burning inn. The inferno consumed the water and blazed on, turning the sky above the city red.
The Königplatz is the wide market-square separating the University of Altdorf from the merchant district. By day it is crowded with traders, peddlers, goodwives looking for a bargain, street-thieves looking for unguarded purses, pilgrims, soldiers and messengers, gawkers staring at the huge statues of past emperors that dominate the square with the hundred foot-tall figure of Sigmar, the founder and patron of the Empire, towering over them.
By night the square is quieter, the market-barrows left stacked and bare at the side of the cobbles. On cold nights between the midwinter feasts of Mondstille and Hexenstag, when the river Reik flows through the city slow and sluggish like thick blood in the veins of old tramps huddled in warehouse doors, Altdorf’s streets are deserted apart from a few drunken revellers, a few Watch patrols, those who prefer not to go home or who have no homes, stray dogs, and rats scurrying in the garbage. Those with more clandestine business stick to less well-let areas.
“Gunpowder in the cellar,” Grenner said as they headed across the square towards the Black Goat. “How did it get there?”
“Probably a barrel,” said Johansen. “Who’d notice an extra barrel in a beer-cellar?”
“The cellarman would. And they’d have to get it down there. First thing, we check out the Seven Star’s regular brewers, wine-sellers, anyone who might supply them with casks. Find witnesses. Find out who’s got a grievance against the prince.”
“A lot of work,” Johansen said, “for just two of us.”
Grenner groaned. “I know. And I’ve got a fitting at my tailor.”
“Oh yes?”
“Couple of shirts and a new short-cloak. Dark blue, Tilean style.”
“Very nice. Big evening?”
Grenner gave him a scathing look. “Hexensnacht. In case you’d forgotten.”
“Oh yes. Let’s hope we’re done by then.” Johansen, distracted, glanced across the empty square. “Wait, what’s that?” He pointed into the maze of shadows among the bases of the emperors’ statues.
It was a pile of displaced paving-stones, the bare earth beside them rude and frosted. Grenner and Johansen regarded them.
“Odd,” Johansen said. “I didn’t see that earlier.”
“Maybe you weren’t looking. Maybe it wasn’t here. We can check on it in the morning.”
Johansen looked up as if realising where he was for the first time. “Why are we back here?”
“Because we need to do some planning. And the best place for that is over a mug of mulled wine, with the chance Frau Kolner’s still around to bring it to you.”
Johansen grinned. “Let’s get planning.”
It was a long night. For an hour they talked and thought and speculated over hot wine brought by Frau Kolner’s idiot brother who was less interesting to look at than the landlady, but who understood instructions and did not sleep. Then they left the inn again, into the biting cold of the night to bang on the doors of informants, rousing them to answer questions in exchange for a few silver coins, a promise of future favours, leniency for relatives or associates in jail, or a stare that said nothing but threatened much. Grenner did the talking. Johansen stifled yawns, fingered his sword and blocked the escape routes.
As six bells sounded across the city, the sky still dark, they found themselves in the merchant district a few streets away from the Königplatz, hammering on a door that didn’t respond. Johansen looked at Grenner.
“Probably spending Hexenstag in the country,” he said.
“Wish I was.” Grenner gave the door a kick and stepped away. “Enough for now. Breakfast at the Goat?”
“You’re on.” They began to walk back to the square, Grenner slapping his hands to ward off the frost.
“And what has this wasted night taught us?” he said, only partly to his partner. “That the prince has a lot of enemies. The Bretonnians and Kislevites hate him because of his trade-treaties with Norsca, his neighbours in the north hate him because his army drove a greenskin force into their lands last year, the Chaos-worshippers hate him because the witch-hunters run freely in his province, and even his own people hate him because he left the church of Ulric and became a Sigmarite. All of which we already knew. None of them have agents working in the city, as far as we know, and he’s not annoyed anyone for at least two months. We have nothing.”
“Perhaps he wasn’t the target after all,” Johansen said.
Grenner looked at him with eyes smarting from the cold. “If he wasn’t then it stops being our problem.”
“He left the inn. Perhaps he was in on the scheme.” Johansen paused, peering ahead. “Hang on. They’ve started early.”
In the Königplatz market-traders were setting out their stalls, but Johansen’s attention was on the crew of workmen among the emperors’ statues at the centre of the square. He tapped Grenner on the shoulder, but Grenner was looking elsewhere.
“You go. Shout if you need help,�
� he said and walked away. Johansen shrugged, rubbed tiredness from his eyes and walked across to the crew of masons and apprentices, working with shovels and picks, digging a trench among the forest of plinths. One stopped and watched him approach, arms folded, his thin red hair a dash of colour against his sombre clothes and the dullness of the morning.
“Cold day for working,” Johansen said, raising a hand in greeting. “You the foreman?”
The man nodded, lips tight and eyes guarded.
“You’re starting early,” Johansen said.
“Aye.” The mason’s northern accent was thick as porridge. “Work’s got to be done by t’night.”
Johansen nodded, looking at the work crew. “Are all your men members of the stonemasons’ guild?” he asked. “They don’t like it when—”
“Affiliate members. From Wolfenburg,” the foreman said. “It’s rush work. Base subsidence. No local masons to do it.”
“You’ve got a guild certificate?”
“Not here.” The foreman turned his head, his eyes suspicious. “Who’s asking? Are you from the masons? Checking on us?”
“Just a concerned citizen,” Johansen said, and walked across the square to where Grenner was.
Grenner rapped the side of the cask on the cart. “All the way from Bretonnia?” he asked. “Why? We make wine in the Empire.”
The diminutive wineseller looked mock-shocked. “Not like zis!” he exclaimed. “Zis, she is grown under zer sun of Bordeleaux, the vines viz no frost, no fungus—ze finest wine, rich and complex, a subtle bouquet viz afternotes of cherries and oak…”
Grenner held up a hand to stop him. “I meant transport’s expensive. How can you make money on one cartload?”
The Bretonnian shook his head sadly. “Monsieur, I do not know eizzer. My buyer, who supplies ze houses of Bretonnians in Altdorf, I find ’e is dead of the plague since four months. I cannot find my customers, so I must sell in ze market like a- a- a peddler.”
Grenner nodded, studying the casks, turning thoughts over in his mind. There had been trouble with Bretonnians the summer before, and rumours said there might be more trouble next year. Not to mention the business with Schmidt. He thumped one of the barrels and it shook solidly. “Open it. I want to check.”
“Check?” The merchant looked puzzled. “Check what?”
“That there’s wine inside, not something else.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Just open it.”
“But zat would ruin ze wine!” The short man’s hands were raised beseechingly. There was silence for a moment. “Maybe I draw you off a cup?” he suggested.
Grenner shrugged acceptance, and the Bretonnian filled a metal beaker from the spigot at the base of the barrel. The liquid flowed deep and red. Grenner took it, sniffed and swigged, looked contemplative.
“Well?” The little man’s eyebrows raised into questions.
Grenner looked at him. “You say this is the finest wine in Bretonnia?”
“Oui, m’sieur.”
“Stick to making cheese and seducing married women. This stuff’s swill.” He put down the cup, to greet Johansen as he walked over. “You get anything?”
“Non-guild workers doing repairs.”
“Suspicious?”
Johansen scratched his unshaved chin. “Maybe. If the work’s urgent there may be no guild men available, given the time of year. But the order must have come from the city council, and the local guilds get all those contracts.”
Grenner pushed open the door of the Black Goat. “The Königplatz will be packed with people this evening. If the statues are unsafe and there aren’t any local masons to do the work, then…” He let the sentence trail off as he slumped into a seat by his regular table. Johansen pulled out a chair and sat.
“What did you get?” he asked.
“Bretonnian with a flimsy story, selling what he said was expensive wine from a market-stall. Big barrels of the stuff.”
“Barrels, right. Did you see the wine?”
“I tried a cup. It tasted like fruity tar. Ho, Frau Kolner, how are you this morning?”
“As concerned about the size of your bar-bill as I was last night,” the landlady said. “Don’t settle yourselves. I have a letter for you.”
Johansen reached out but she gave it to Grenner, who smirked at his colleague as he snapped the seal and unfolded the paper.
“What is it?” Johansen asked.
“Hoffmann. He guessed we’d come back here. Breakfast is cancelled, we’re to get back on the streets. Hunger sharpens the mind, he says.”
“Sarcastic old sod.”
“There’s more. We report to him at noon. Alchemics should have analysed the explosion by then. And meanwhile he’s got us an interview with the Elector.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“So much for your appointment with your tailor.” Johansen swiped a half-finished mug of beer from a neighbouring table and swigged it. “Let’s go.”
Grand Prince Valmir von Raukov, the Elector Count of Ostland, sat upright in his four-poster bed. A tray lay beside him, hot breakfast scents rising from it: sausages and kippers. In a chair on the other side of the bed a tall man in the grand prince’s house uniform sat, not saying a word, his hand never leaving the pommel of his sword.
“Can you think of anyone who’d want you dead, your Highness?” Grenner asked from where he and Johansen stood at the end of the bed. He knew how scruffy and tired they must look compared to the opulence of the prince’s bedroom. They ought to be in dress uniform, scrubbed and shaved, answering questions instead of asking them.
“Of course people want me dead. I’m an Elector, for Sigmar’s sake. It’s not my job to be liked. You know that.” The prince regarded them from under bushy eyebrows and chewed bacon. “No, nobody has threatened me lately beyond the usual cranks—correct, Alexis?” The man in the chair nodded, his eyes never leaving the Palisades officers. “So you know of no reason why—” The prince raised a hand. “Captain, if I knew anything useful I would tell you now. I’m not oblivious to danger, I have people like Alexis who monitor my enemies’ activities. If we knew anything we would tell you.”
Grenner stared ahead, but in the corner of his eye he saw Alexis move, shifting position. Perhaps, he thought, he’s uncomfortable at his master’s words. He wanted to ask more, but knew better than to pose heavy-handed questions of an Elector.
“Perhaps,” the prince continued, “what you should be asking is why the Seven Stars was blown up if I wasn’t there? The assassins would surely have checked I was in the building before they set the fuse.”
“Why would they have thought you would be there?” Grenner asked.
“Because that is my habit,” the prince said. “I usually stay till morning. Last night I returned home early because I received word my wife was ill. Yet they blew up the inn all the same. Captain, either I wasn’t the intended victim, or the bombers had an informant who misled them, by accident or on purpose. There’s the next piece of your puzzle.”
“Thank you, your highness. We’ll look into it.” Grenner felt disdain but masked it. He hated it when officials did his job for him, particularly when they did it better. “Can you tell us who your companion was?”
The prince shrugged. “Her privacy makes few odds now. Her name was Anastasia Kuster. I met her in the Street of a Hundred Taverns a few months ago, when I was—I was dressed plainly, let’s just say that. She’s an honest girl, works in a glove-shop. A little scatterbrained but works hard. She’s originally from Ostland, a northerner like myself. When I’m in Altdorf we meet once or twice a week.”
“Might your wife have had something to do with the explosion?”
“My wife?” The prince snorted. “If I die, she loses everything: her title, her status, her palace, her income, the lot. She’s terrified by the thought of my death. Her relatives too, they all ride on my coat-tails. None of them would do anything to harm me.”
“Scorned? She doesn’t love me. We married because it was politically advantageous to link our families. If I want warmth and emotion and life in a woman, I’ll go to—I went to Anastasia.”
“Yet you returned home because your wife was ill,” Grenner said.
“She is heavy with my son. It would not have been seemly for the boy to be born while I was away from the house.”
“Are you sure it’s a boy, your highness?” Johansen said. Grenner flinched. It was a flip remark, inappropriate and irreverent. Such things were dangerous.
The prince regarded them from under heavy brows, and did not smile. “It had better be.” His tone was cold.
Grenner’s heart dropped. Lower ranks should know their place, and Johansen’s remark had crossed the line. They’d get no more useful information here. “Thank you for your time, your highness,” he said. “We will report anything—”
The prince’s cough stopped him. “Not so fast. I have questions too. Were any bodies recovered?”
Grenner snapped back to attention. “No, sir. The place was an inferno. It’s almost certain that everybody was cremated in seconds.”
“Not everybody,” the prince said. “The inn’s cellarman survived.”
“What?” said Grenner. “We weren’t told.”
Across the room, Alexis sat forward in his chair. “Hans Kellerman was in the stableyard,” he said. “The blast blew him twenty feet and broke his every bone.”
“He’s alive?” Johansen asked.
“No, he died three hours later. But I was able to ask him some questions first. The Shallyan priests had given him herbs to numb the pain and he was almost coherent.”
“What did he say?”
Alexis glanced at the prince, who gave a slight nod. He turned back. “A few things. He told me there were four other people staying in the inn, but nobody of consequence. Just before the explosion he heard someone leave the inn, but didn’t see who. And one of the cellar keys had gone missing a few days earlier, and he suspected Anastasia, who had taken things bef—”
