Graf Rudiger von Unheimlich was the patron of the League of Karl-Franz, the famous student society of the University of Altdorf, and he was the unelected, unofficial leader of the old guard, the families who had served the Emperor since the times of Sigmar, the battered and hulking truebloods who commanded the Empire's armies, and who brought glory to the name of Karl-Franz with their victories.
The graf rarely deigned to visit any of the great cities of the Empire, but Karl-Franz and his heir Luitpold had many times been his guest at the hunting lodge the von Unheimlich family maintained in the great forest of Talabecland. Karl-Franz trusted Rudiger, and the graf was not the man to keep silent when he saw a plague of grey men with ledgers sapping the strength of the Empire. After the thumb tax riots it had been the alumni of the League of Karl-Franz who had helped restore order, not the ink-stained bureaucrats of the treasury.
While Mornan Tybalt had been in the hospital screaming over his lost thumb, and the Empire had been shaking a little as the news of the Altdorf uprisings spread out, it had been the Graf Rudiger who had convened the electoral college and the nineteen barons of the first families at his lodge, and formulated the plans which had forestalled a revolution.
'We shall be the Invincibles again,' he had said, and the Empire had remembered the old days, the days of warrior-statesmen like Count Magnus Schellerup. After bloody months, all had bowed again to the House of the Second Wilhelm.
Later this year, Graf Rudiger and the Emperor would meet again at the ceremony by which Prince Luitpold would attain his manhood. The electors would be there, and the nineteen barons. And Mornan Tybalt was afraid that a quiet conversation between these descendants of the Empire's great families would lead to the downfall of one grey clerk's son.
'The graf must die,' Tybalt had told her, 'and in such a way that there are no questions. An accident, if you can. Simple violence, if you must. Whatever, the finger of guilt must point away, to the winds. Von Unheimlich is a hunter, the foremost in the Empire. And you, Mademoiselle Dieudonne, are a predator. The match should be intriguing, I think.'
Tybalt already had one puppet in place, Balthus. But the guide was just a spy. The minister needed a murderer.
Genevieve suited the requirements.
Balthus finished his oblations and stood up. Genevieve wondered what Tybalt's hook was in his case. There must be something about him that could cause his ruin.
He hadn't mentioned her trespass of this afternoon. If anything, the slip made her seem more like an empty-headed plaything. The graf might have utter contempt for Genevieve now, but he wasn't afraid, or suspicious, of her.
She remembered his conduct in the woods. His treatment of his son, Doremus. His intolerance, impatience.
He had called her a vampire whore.
Her eyeteeth touched her lower lip, and she felt their keenness. There would be red in her eyes.
She remembered Doremus, gulping down the unicorn's blood to make a man of himself. She'd heard of the custom, but never seen it practised. It struck her as barbaric. And, born into an age of barbarism she'd outlived, she had a horror of such things.
'As an afterthought,' Tybalt had said, 'the graf has a son and heir, Doremus. A sensitive youth, I'm told. The hope of the von Unheimlich line. There are no brothers or male cousins to carry the name. It seems unlikely that Doremus could replace his father among the nineteen, but I detest loose ends left to dangle. They have a habit of snagging on something, and the whole design unravels. Once the graf has been eliminated, take care of the son as well. Take good care of the son.'
* * *
III
'The Grafin Serafina was a beautiful woman,' Count Magnus said. 'To die so young is a tragedy.'
Doremus had been looking again at the portrait in the dining hall, wondering what lay behind the face of the mother he had never known.
She had been painted in the woods, kneeling by a brook, surrounded by flowers of spring. There was an impossible touch of the elfin in her sharp, delicate features. And the trees above cast shadows upon her face, as if the painter had foreseen the accident that would befall her. Twenty years ago, in these woods, she had been thrown from her horse, and her slim neck had been snapped.
'If you are ever inclined to judge your father harshly, my boy, remember his great loss.'
Magnus laid a hand on his neck, and fondly squeezed, ruffling his hair.
'What was she like, uncle?'
Magnus had been 'uncle' to him ever since he was a child, although he was not a blood kinsman.
The count smiled with the half of his mouth that worked, and his scar blushed.
'Lovelier than the painting. She had gifts. She took away the cruelty of men.'
'Was she'
Magnus shook his head, cutting off his question. 'Enough, boy. Your father and I have too many old wounds. Past Mondstille, when the year grows old, they ache.'
The servants were setting the fire in the alcove, and a supper had been laid out. A hunt supper. Meats from the day's chase, fruits from the woods.
His father was at the head of the table, emptying his third horn of ale, recounting the day's exploits to his mistress of the moment, Sylvana de Castries, and to Otho, who had been on the hunt but seemed no less interested for that.
The graf had crawled out of the momentary gloom that had come upon him after his kill, and was enthused, explaining every step of the chase, every creak of the bow, every twitch of the quarry.
There was something about Sylvana that put Doremus in mind of his mother's picture although, nearing her twenty-sixth birthday, she was already five years older than Serafina had been at her death. He supposed the resemblance was what attracted his father to the otherwise undistinguished woman, an unmarriageable younger daughter×servants whispered she was barren×of a wealthy merchant of Middenheim. At twenty-six, Sylvana was getting too old for her station. The graf always bedded child-women. Doremus, astonished and appalled, had seen his father look at Balthus' vampire. Rudiger saw only the face of sixteen, not the soul of six hundred.
The graf held an invisible bow out, smile tight as he demonstrated his sure aim.
Otho Waernicke was matching Rudiger drink for drink, and showing it badly. He was the serving lodge master of the League of Karl-Franz at the University of Altdorf, and hence merited the patronage of the graf, who had once held the position himself.
Otho was a grand-duke of somewhere obscure, elevated from the commonplace not through any martial distinction of his family but because a toadying money-lender of a grandparent had extended unlimited credit to a profligate elector. After this term, Otho would leave the university to pursue his interests×gambling, whoring, drinking, brawling, spending×elsewhere, and it was his duty to choose his successor. It was important to his father that Doremus become the next lodge master, and continue the family tradition. In Altdorf, Doremus was a member of the League of Karl-Franz, but rarely chose to participate in its legendary, orgiastic celebrations, aligning himself with the more studious faction, the 'inkies,' within the university.
Otho laughed too loud at some remark of Rudiger's.
Otho had presided over Doremus' initiation ceremony, when the pledges had been made to pick up a crab-apple with clenched buttocks and run trouserless around the courtyard of the college three times without dropping the fruit, then required to consume five deep horns of heavy beer while reciting backwards the lineage of the House of the Second Wilhelm.
Doremus had not exchanged more than a few sentences with Otho since that memorable occasion and had been surprised to find Waernicke invited to this hunting party. Of course, Otho, the first lodge master of the league not to have come from among the families of the electors or the nineteen barons, had been impressed to be summoned by such an important personage as the Graf Rudiger. He had been annoyingly solicitous and matey towards Doremus ever since they set out from Altdorf for Middenheim, and then to the hunting lodge.
The graf released his invisible arrow, and laughed as h
e recalled his true aim and clean kill.
Sylvana clapped, arranging her face so as to express amusement without cracking the mask of powder around her eyes and mouth.
Otho was staring directly into Sylvana's valley-like cleavage, and dribbling beery spittle.
Rudiger, of course, must notice his guest's interest in his mistress. Doremus wondered just how hospitable his father was prepared to be to upstart Otho.
Doremus looked away from Sylvana, back to his mother's portrait. The Grafin Serafina had died on another of Rudiger's unicorn hunts. If there was any gossip, it had never been repeated within Doremus' earshot.
Magnus stood in front of the rising fire, toasting his behind, drinking wine from a goblet. Balthus sat at the table, on hand to give expert testimony should the graf need a detail of his stories confirmed or expanded. His vampire was about somewhere, lurking.
Doremus sat down at the table, and carved himself a slice from a haunch of venison.
'Fine meat, my son,' Rudiger shouted. 'The finer for its freshness.'
Actually, Doremus would have preferred it hung for a day or two, but his father was insistent that what he killed this morning should be consumed this evening.
'To fully appreciate the taste of a meat, you have to kill it for yourself,' Rudiger explained, loudly. 'It is the way of the forest, the path of tooth and nail. We are all hunters, all animals. I simply remember better than most.'
Doremus chewed the tender meat, and cut himself some bread. Anulka, the dark servant girl with the distracted eyes, brought him a jug of spiced wine. His legs and back ached from his day in the woods, but he was hungrier than he'd thought.
From somewhere, Otho found a lute, and began to sing bawdy songs. Tired of the noise, Doremus poured himself a goblet of wine, and hoped the liquor would make the racket go away.
'Oh, the bold Bretonnian barber has a great big pole,' Otho sang, 'And the doughnut-maker's daughter a fine-sugared hole'
* * *
IV
'A pity we couldn't have unicorn on our table, graf,' Otho ventured, voice tired from the fine entertainment he had granted the others. Some blasted servant had taken his lute away. He assumed Rudiger would have the fellow roundly flogged and booted for his impertinence, although the graf had unaccountably failed to intervene. He probably didn't want to make a fuss during dinner.
'Unicorn is not a game animal,' the old sportsman said. 'Unicorn is barely an animal at all.'
'Is that a unicorn horn on the wall?' Otho asked, knowing damned well it was, but wanting to keep Graf Rudiger occupied with stories. While he was boring everyone with tales of the hunt, he wasn't looking at Sylvana. And when he wasn't looking at her, the woman was nuzzling his leg under the table with nimble fingers, pinching his thigh, exciting his interest.
Sylvana de Castries had been eyeing up Otho for days, and tonight, if old Rudiger got sozzled enough, things would pass between them that would brighten up this dull holiday jaunt. It was a week since his last harlot, and his balls were bursting.
Otho choked back a laugh as Sylvana's hand strayed into his lap. From here, he could see down the front of her dress, almost to her belly-button. She had a ripe body, lightly freckled the way Otho liked his whores.
After a day of hunting, there was nothing better than an evening of food and drink, and a night of well-upholstered harlot. Among his league brothers, Otho was famous for his appetites in all directions. It was a point of honour in the fraternity that the lodge master be insatiable. Although, looking at weedy Dorrie, that tradition was due to take a nosedive in the new year.
Otho wondered if there were any way he could keep Doremus out of the office, and pass the cap on to one of the real bloods, Baldur von Diehl, Big Bruno Pfeiffer or Dogturd Domremy.
The unicorn trophy was mounted on a shield bearing the von Unheimlich coat of arms. Three feet long, and regularly polished, it was a perfectly tapered spear, threaded through with veins of silver. In the lodge, it was traditional for a little blood from any notable kill to be rubbed into the horn as a tribute, and the trophy's background was overlaid with crusted stains.
Rudiger emptied his horn, and called for it to be refilled. Anulka, the juicy maid-slut with the blue lips of a weirdhead, complied. If Sylvana didn't come through, Anulka was Otho's number two choice. She looked just the sort for a midnight game of hide-the-sausage.
'Yes, Lodge Master Waernicke,' Rudiger replied, 'that is the horn of a unicorn mare. A magnificent beast, hunted down and killed by my grandfather, the Graf Friedrich. As you know, only the female unicorn yields ivory. The stallions we saw today were poor things beside a unicorn mare. They are taller, swifter, beardless, possessed of an almost human intelligence. Among unicorns, things are different than among men. Each tribe consists of a mare and six or eight stallions. Lusty bitches, unicorn mares. Mothers gore their female foals at birth. Only the strongest survive to adulthood, to gather their own tribes. Unicorn mares are the longest-lived of natural animals, surviving several generations of stallions to tup with their grandsons and great-grandsons.'
Otho laughed loud, and elbowed Sylvana. Under the table out of Rudiger's eyeline, he slipped a spit-slicked forefinger into his fist and wiggled it in and out. Sylvana laughed like music, and her breasts shook like jellies.
Otho's mouth went dry with lust, and he had to gulp down a swallow of wine to keep himself from choking.
He had been drinking ale, wine, Estalian sherry and coarse Drak Wald gin. He believed in mixing his drinks, and his stomach had never let him down yet.
'You have hunted a unicorn mare?'
Otho looked around. Genevieve, the vampire girl, had dared to ask the graf a question.
There was a pause. Otho expected the graf to lash out at the intemperate bloodsucker. Instead, he sipped his ale, and shook his head.
'No, but I shall. Tomorrow. And you shall all accompany me.'
In the quiet that fell, Otho could hear the fire crackling.
'A two-edged privilege that,' Magnus said, 'considering the saying.'
Everyone looked at the old northerner.
'And what saying is that?' Otho asked, jollying the party along.
' 'Of those who hunt the unicorn mare, one comes home and he alone.' It's commonplace in the Drak Wald, and in the north.'
'A superstition,' Rudiger snorted.
'Nevertheless, it is often true. As a child, I was a guest in this lodge when Graf Friedrich set out to bring home his ivory. And I was here when he came up the hill, horn in his hand. Five had set out. Including your father, Rudiger. And only one returned.'
The graf fell quiet. Although Friedrich was often remembered in story and song, little was said about Dorrie's grandfather, Lukaacs.
'Are you afraid, old friend?'
Magnus shook his head. 'No, Rudiger, not afraid. I'm too old for that.'
' 'One comes home and he alone,' eh?'
Rudiger had explained earlier that he had waited years for the chance to go after a unicorn mare. Traditionally, they could only be stalked between the winter solstice of Mondstille and the new year celebrations of Hexenstag. And, despite the proliferation of stories, they were rare creatures.
'Today, we robbed our mare of two consorts. That will have angered her. Tomorrow, we must hunt her down, or she will come for us. That is all there is to it.'
Otho felt he better show some enthusiasm. 'Fine sport,' he said. 'I'm in.'
He slapped the table, rattling the cutlery, and shoved a hunk of meat into his mouth, washing it down with more ale.
Sylvana sat primly back, her hand withdrawing. 'Tonight,' she had whispered. 'Outside'
That would be cold, but a league man fears no discomfort.
'It will be an adventure,' Otho said, through a mouthful of food. Then, he belched.
Rudiger looked askance at his guest, but he too was drunk, although with a quieter, more dangerous inebriation.
'Sorry,' Otho said. Rudiger shrugged, and smiled.
'And I
,' Magnus said.
Dorrie kept his mouth shut. But there was no way out of it for the little inky, Otho knew. When Graf Rudiger called his unicorn hunt, he had spoken for his son too. The milksop would have to rush about in the open air, keeping up with the graf. If it weren't for his lineage, Doremus would come in for a lot more barracking at the university. He was just the type the league men liked to tar and feather, or tie naked to the statue of the Emperor in the courtyard. Didn't drink, didn't brawl, didn't wench. Nose in a bloody book all the time. The dead woman in the portrait must have put it about as much as Sylvana, because little Dorrie certainly didn't seem to be the type to have an old man like Graf Rudiger. Come to think of it, he had heard stories
The threads of silver in the mare horn caught the last of the fire, and shone like lines of molten metal.
'The unicorn mare is the most dangerous quarry in the world,' Rudiger said.
'And what's the second?' the vampire asked, boldly.
'Man's mare,' the graf said, smiling. 'Woman.'
* * *
V
After midnight. Here she was, again, creeping through dark corridors, night senses alive.
Rudiger would have understood, Genevieve thought. He was a hunter. In him, it was a need as keen as her red thirst.
This afternoon, she had thought Otho Waernicke might be a possibility. He was a fat-head, but certainly strong in his way, impulsive, hot-passioned. But now his blood would be thick with ale and wine, and she had tapped too many drunks in her barmaid days. She didn't need his hangover. Sylvana had been drinking heavily too, and she wasn't sure she should try her anyway. The graf might find out, and take extreme measures. That silver-and-ivory unicorn horn would be a very effective way of ending her vampire life. Doremus was off-limits for the same reason, although the youth appealed to her. He had depths that weren't immediately apparent, and that made him attractive.
Warhammer - [Genevieve 02] - Genevieve Undead Page 19
