by Nathan Long
‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should wait yet a little.’
‘Perhaps…?’ Franka burst out laughing. ‘Reiner! What a joker you are! You almost…’ She paused. Reiner wasn’t smiling. ‘You aren’t joking?’
He shook his head.
‘But why?’ Franka asked, baffled.
Reiner couldn’t look at her. If she was only one of the legion of doxies and camp followers he had dallied with over the years they would already be hard at it, but Franka wasn’t the sort of girl you used and threw away. ‘We… we aren’t free. It would ruin it. I don’t want to be with you when we have to hide what we do.’
Franka scowled. ‘Is this the same man who wanted to have at me in a tent surrounded by our unwitting companions? Weren’t your arguments exactly to the contrary, saying we would be stealing moments of freedom? What has got into you?’
‘Poison!’ said Reiner. It exploded from him before he could stop it. ‘Poison has got into me.’
Franka shrugged. ‘But, it has been these many months. And you made no bones about it before.’
‘That isn’t the poison I mean,’ said Reiner. ‘I mean the poison of mistrust that has plagued us since—’
‘Since we found Abel.’
Reiner nodded. ‘One of us is a spy for Manfred. One of us cast the spell that poisoned Halstieg. You’ve seen how it has hurt us. I’ll wager our companions spoke not ten words to each other on our return to Altdorf.’
‘You certainly didn’t,’ said Franka. ‘But I understand. Gert and Jergen are good companions. I’m as reluctant as you to think that one of them might be Manfred’s creature.’
‘Who’s to say it must be Gert or Jergen?’ snapped Reiner, then cursed and clamped his mouth shut. Too late…
Franka looked up at him, blankly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing. Forget I spoke.’
‘Reiner. What do you mean?’
Reiner looked at the floor. ‘I know I am a fool, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since that day. Manfred might have turned one of us—one of the first lot—made some promise, offered freedom, gold, what-have-you, in exchange for spying on the rest.’
‘But, Reiner,’ said Franka. ‘All that’s left of us is Hals, Pavel, you, and myself. Surely you can’t suspect—’ She froze as a thought came to her, then stood abruptly, trembling. ‘This is why you don’t want to be with me.’
‘No, I…’
Franka stalked to the door. Reiner threw off his blankets and charged after her. ‘Franka, listen to me!’
She opened the door. ‘What is there for you to say? Do you truly think I am a spy for Manfred?’
‘No! Of course not!’ Reiner couldn’t meet her gaze. ‘But… I can’t be sure.’
There was a pause. Reiner could feel Franka’s eyes burning into him. ‘You’re mad,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone mad.’ She stepped into the corridor and slammed the door.
‘Yes,’ he said to the closed door. ‘Yes, I believe I have.’
THE BLACKHEARTS WERE fed in the servants’ hall to keep them out of sight of Manfred’s frequent visitors. These days the companions, who had once bantered and argued like Altdorf fishwives, ate like grim automatons, as they had since returning from the Black Mountains. Franka kept her eyes on her plate. Hals and Pavel muttered in each others ears, heads together. The brawny sword master Jergen stared into space as he chewed. Gert shot sad glances at the others. The barrel-chested crossbowman was a born teller of tales, and it seemed to physically hurt him not to have anyone to talk to.
It was a relief therefore, when, the next day at dinner, just as Reiner was swabbing his plate with his bread, boot heels sounded on the stairs and Manfred entered the kitchen, ducking his silver, leonine head under the blackened beams. The cooks and footmen vanished at a wave of his hand, and he sat down at their table with a sigh. Reiner saw that he was tired and worried, though he kept his face as placid as ever.
‘I go to Talabheim tomorrow,’ he said, ‘accompanying the elf mage Teclis on a diplomatic mission. You will accompany me, as my servants.’ He smiled as they reacted to this. ‘It would defeat your purpose if I called you my spies, wouldn’t it? And I am adding four to your number, who you will meet tomorrow.’
The others tensed at this news. Things were strained enough without adding strangers to the stew.
‘You believe you will have need of spies in Talabheim?’ asked Reiner. ‘It is not a foreign land.’
Manfred looked down and toyed with a table knife. ‘This is not to be spoken of, you understand, but something has happened in Talabheim—an eruption in the energies of Chaos so strong it woke the great Teclis from his sleep last night here in Altdorf. He fears that if it is not stopped, Talabheim will fall to Chaos, if it hasn’t already.’ He jabbed the table with the knife. ‘And when the tide of Chaos rises, it is my job to suspect agents of the Ruinous Powers. This is where you come in.’ Manfred looked up. ‘I head a Reikland embassy which will offer aid to our Talabec brothers in their hour of need. But while we are there, making speeches of mutual support, you will be hunting for the cultists and criminals and conspirators that I feel certain will be found to be the cause of the trouble.’
He sighed and stood. ‘We leave tomorrow before dawn. Sleep well.’ With a heavy tread, he walked up the stairs again.
Reiner and the others sat silently.
‘A tide of Chaos rising in Talabheim?’ said Pavel, at last, scratching under the patch that hid his empty eye-socket. ‘And we’re riding straight for it? That’s fine, that is.’
‘At least it ain’t the cursed mountains again,’ growled Hals.
‘Maybe we’ll all die this time and get it over with,’ said Franka, staring at her plate.
Her sadness stabbed Reiner in the heart.
TWO
An Honorable Profession
REINER SAT IN Manfred’s opulent coach, waiting for the counts train to get underway. It was still as dark as pitch, and the coach yard flickered with yellow torchlight. Reiner was dressed in a plain grey clerk’s doublet, which still smelled faintly of clerk. An inkwell hung from his belt, and a beautiful parchment case rested on his knees. Through the coach’s windows he caught glimpses of Pavel, Hals and Gert filling their new positions—Pavel whistling on the buckboard of a provisioning wagon, Gert huffing as he loaded cured hams and sacks of flour onto it, Hals securing chests and baggage on a second wagon, his bald head shining with sweat.
Other men also assisted in the preparations. Reiner eyed them closely. They were not servants of Manfred’s household. Were they the new Blackhearts? There was a swaggering, barrel-chested fellow with a bristling red beard seeing to the horses. A meek youth of about the same size, but with a slow, moping gait, followed red-beard around, helping him and laughing obsequiously at his constant jokes. Standing by a mule loaded with leather satchels was a thin young man in the grey robes of the College of Surgeons who blinked around him in a daze. Beside him was a tall, wiry villain with darting eyes who looked utterly unconvincing in the smock and leggings of a surgeon’s assistant.
Manfred climbed into the coach, accompanied by Jergen, in the uniform of the count’s guard, and Franka, in page’s livery emblazoned with Manfred’s gold lion. Jergen sat next to Reiner, trying vainly to keep his broad shoulders from crowding him. Franka sat beside Manfred. She wouldn’t meet Reiner’s eye.
Manfred smiled as he saw Reiner’s costume. ‘I believe you have found your calling at last, Hetzau. You look every inch a clerk. Perhaps one of those fellows who write letters for the unlearned at a pfennig a sheet.’
‘Thank you, m’lord,’ said Reiner. ‘It is at least an honourable profession.’
Manfred scowled. ‘There is no more honourable profession than defending one’s homeland. It pains me that a noble son of the Empire must be forced to the task.’
‘If I recall, m’lord,’ said Reiner, ‘we were not asked.’
‘That is because I am an astute reader of men.’ Manfr
ed rapped on the ceiling. ‘Kluger! Let’s be off. We’re late as it is!’
The coachman’s whip cracked and the coach rolled forwards. Reiner saw Hans and Pavel out of the window wheeling their wagons around to follow Manfred out of the gate.
THE PROCESSION WOUND through Altdorf’s cobbled streets in the pre-dawn grey. The grand palace of Emperor Karl-Franz loomed in the mist like a gigantic griffin guarding its nest, the buildings of the Imperial government clustering around it like its brood. After passing through the merchant quarter, they came to the river and the Emperor’s private docks, a gated enclosure hemmed in on three sides by barracks, stables and warehouses and on the fourth by the river.
As they entered, Reiner began to understand the importance of their mission. He had assumed Manfred would travel with, at the most, an escort of knights and swordsmen, but the yard was crammed to bursting with the men-at-arms of half a dozen different nobles, all trying simultaneously to load their horses, wagons and equipment on four large, flat riverboats.
Torchlight glinted off the helms of Count Manfred’s ten knights and those of the twenty spearmen and twenty archers from his Altdorf retinue, but these were a mere fraction of the assembled force. Here were the greatswords of Lord Schott, a captain of Karl-Franzs honour guard, arguing with the knights of Lord Raichskell, Master of the Order of the Winged Helm. Behind them, the handgunners of Lord Boellengen, undersecretary to Baroness Lotte Hochsvoll, Chancellor of the Imperial Fisc, were engaged in a heated shouting match with the Hammer Bearers of Father Olin Totkrieg, representative of the Grand Theogonist, Esmer the Third, while the hooded initiates who accompanied Magus Nichtladen of the Imperial Colleges of Magic watched impassively.
Each lord also had an entourage of secretaries, valets, cooks and grooms that rivalled Manfred’s own, as well as wagons full of chests, strong boxes, and provisions. Reiner had seen whole armies set out with smaller trains.
In the centre of this mad jumble was a white island of stillness that made Reiner and Franka catch their breath. Elves. Though Reiner considered himself a well-travelled, well-educated man, he had never seen an elf before. The fair did not leave their homeland often, and when they did, they didn’t mix in at the Three Feathers or the Griffin. They met with heads of state, were feted with official banquets, and sailed home laden with fine gifts. So, try as Reiner might to remain cool and aloof, he stared along with everyone else at the six statuesque warriors in silver breastplates and white surcoats who stood motionless before the gangplank of the lead boat.
The elves’ faces were as set as carved ivory: sharp, proud and cruelly handsome. Long, thin swords hung at their sides, and curved bows rose from leather scabbards on their backs. It was hard at first for Reiner to tell one from the other. They seemed cast from a single mould. But as he looked, he began to notice subtle differences—a beaked nose on this one, fuller lips on that one. He hoped, however, that he wouldn’t be required to remember which was which.
‘Wait here,’ said Manfred. He stepped from the carriage and crossed to a half-timbered building. Reiner and Franka’s gaze remained fixed on the elves, who looked neither right nor left, nor spoke among themselves.
‘I thought,’ said Franka softly, ‘that they would only be men with pointed ears, but… they aren’t men.’
‘No,’ said Reiner. ‘No more than we are apes.’
He and Franka exchanged a glance, then looked away.
To hide his discomfort, Reiner turned instead to Jergen, who looked down as if daydreaming.‘You seem unimpressed by our fair cousins, Rohmner.’
‘I am impressed,’ said Jergen. ‘They have great control.’
‘Control?’ Reiner asked. It was rare for the taciturn swordsman to volunteer an observation.
‘They are aware of everything, and distracted by nothing. It is a trait to emulate.’
Reiner chuckled. ‘You’re well on your way, laddie.’
The clamour of the courtyard abated. All heads turned. Reiner leaned over Jergen to see out of the other window. From the half-timbered building came Manfred and a cluster of officials, in the centre of which was an elf in snow-white robes and a high, mitred cap. He walked with a slight limp and steadied himself with an intricately worked white staff, but there was nothing weak about him. His demeanour commanded attention—majestic and terrifying at the same time. Reiner couldn’t take his eyes off him. Though the elfs face was as smooth and unlined as those of his guard, there was an impression of impossible age about him, a depth of wisdom and pain and terrible knowledge in his opal eyes that could be seen even across the dark quay. The men babbled at his heels, all trying to catch his eye.
‘But, Lord Teclis,’ cried Lord Boellengen. ‘We must come. The exchequer must assess the damages!’ He was scrawny and chinless, with a bowl of grey hair, and looked, in his parade armour, like a turtle in too big a shell.
‘The Emperor has asked me to survey the situation personally,’ barked Lord Schott, a squat soldier with a trim black beard. ‘I cannot disobey him.’
‘The Grand Theogonist must know the extent of this plague of Chaos!’ bellowed Father Totkrieg, a white bearded warrior-priest in black robes over polished armour. ‘We will not be left behind.’
‘If there is Chaos to be fought,’ said the towering Lord Raichskell fiercely, ‘the Order of the Winged Helm will not be denied the fighting of it. It is not honourable to stay in Altdorf while daemons stalk Talabheim.’ His blond beard hung down over his enamelled green plate in two thick braids.
‘The investigation of arcane threats is the responsibility of the colleges of magic!’ said Magus Nichtladen, a sunken cheeked grey-beard in a rich burgundy robe. ‘We must be allowed to do our duty!’
Teclis was deaf to them all. Accompanied by his guard, he walked up the gangplank onto the river boat, spoke briefly to Manfred, then disappeared below the deck.
Manfred stalked back to his coach and slammed in, furious. ‘Self-important fools,’ he said, dropping into his seat. The coach began to roll forward, manoeuvring to ascend a ramp onto the back of the first riverboat. ‘It was to be Teclis’s guard and mine. A legation, not an army. Now we are more than two hundred. But if any of them are left behind the Emperor will never hear the end of it. Sometimes I don’t blame the fair ones for sneering at the pettiness of men.’
THEY SAILED NORTH and east up the wide grey Talabec, winding slowly through farmland toward Talabheim, the City of Gardens, an independent city-state buried deep within the dark forests of Talabecland. Reiner looked forward to seeing it, for it was one of the Empire’s marvels, a city built entirely inside an enormous crater, the walls of which were said to be impenetrable.
The riverboats passed green pastures and brown fields in which gaunt peasants ploughed under the stalks of this year’s crop to make mulch for next spring’s planting. The earth was fresh in many a country graveyard as well, for it had been a hard year in the Empire. Many farmers’ sons had come home from Archaon’s invasion in coffins if they came home at all. And there had been famine even while the wheat ripened on the stalk, for much of last year’s grain had been sent north to feed the armies, and the farmers of the north whose farms had been burned by the invaders had come south and turned to banditry, stealing the rest.
Reiner, Franka and Jergen were kept busy all day, acting as Manfred’s servants, while the count held council with Teclis and the other members of the legation in his stateroom. Late in the afternoon, at the point the river entered the Great Forest, Manfred ordered the boats to land and the servants to make camp. No one thought less of him for this caution. Greater armies had disappeared without a trace under the thick canopy of the old forest, and even the river was not safe as it wound between the looming trees. As it was they would be within it for five days and nights before they reached Talabheim. There was no need to press their luck by passing a sixth night in its shadows.
Manfred had a great tent erected in a fallow field, and dined with the other leaders. Reiner and Jergen were dismisse
d and joined their comrades around a campfire, where Reiner was at last able to meet the new recruits. Only Franka, who was kept busy serving Manfred pheasant and wine, was not in attendance.
Pavel and Hals had already become friends—or at least amiable sparring partners—with the big redheaded groom, exchanging cheery insults with him as they spooned stew out of the pot as Gert chuckled appreciatively beside them.
‘One Talabecman is worth ten Ostlandmen,’ the redbeard was saying.
‘In a pissing contest mayhap,’ said Hals. ‘The only thing the Talabecland pike ever successfully defended was a brewery, and they surrendered after the beer ran out.’
‘Ha!’ countered redbeard. ‘The only thing Ostland pikemen defend is their sheep, and only if they’re faithful.’
Reiner laughed. ‘Hals, who is this fiery fellow you war with?’
Hals looked around, and it hurt Reiner to see the mistrust that crossed the pikeman’s face when he saw who addressed him. ‘Er, aye, captain,’ he said. ‘This is Augustus Kolbein, of Talabheim. He’s one of us. Kolbein, this is Captain Hetzau, our leader.’
Augustus nodded and touched his forelock with a hand like a ham. ‘A pleasure I’m sure, captain,’ he said. ‘Though I can’t say I’m happy with the terms of service.’
‘Nor are any of us, pike,’ said Reiner. ‘And while I’m pleased to have so strong a soldier with us, I am sorry you had the misfortune to be pressed into our cursed company. But, come, tell us how you fell foul of the Empire.’
Augustus grinned, making his beard bristle even more. ‘Ah well, it’s entirely my own fault, captain. Y’see I have a temper fiery as my hair, and there was a Reiklander captain of sword at a tavern in Altdorf, some nose-in-the-air jagger—er, beggin’ yer pardon, m’lord,’ he said, colouring suddenly.
