by David Bishop
“It’s Sergeant Woxholt,” Faulheit replied. “Our glorious leader’s gone and got Sergeant Woxholt.”
The colour drained from the cocksure face of Raufbold. “But he’s retired-I heard he’d retired.”
“Looks like he’s retired from being retired.”
Raufbold spat out a colourful curse before snapping to attention. The other watchmen all laughed at his sudden change in attitude-until they saw Woxholt approaching. One by one, they assumed the same upright stance, even Faulheit. When the captain and his sergeant reached them on the centre of the bridge, all the Black Caps were in line, their uniforms straightened, their attitudes all but unrecognisable.
“I think they saw you coming,” Kurt said, smiling broadly. “They must recognise you, Jan!”
Faulheit felt the sergeant’s eyes sweeping across the gathering piercing as the beam from a lighthouse on a moonless night. The flabby watchman closed his eyes, trying to wish himself invisible, but it did no good. Woxholt spotted him and laughed uproariously.
“Faulheit! Faulheit, is that you?” the big man’s voice boomed.
“Answer the sergeant,” Kurt commanded.
“Yes, sir,” Faulheit said, his voice little more than a whisper.
“What was that, Faulheit? My hearing’s not as good as it used to be,” Woxholt bellowed.
“Yes, sir!”
Woxholt moved closer to his target, a grim smirk of satisfaction on his features. “What did you call me, Faulheit, you disgusting worm of a man?”
“Sir. I called you sir, sir.” Faulheit found himself snapping into a salute for no explicable reason.
“I’m not a sir, I’m a sergeant!” Woxholt roared, his voice like a blast of hot wind as the words passed the fat watchman’s face, blowing the greasy bangs back from his eyes. “You can call Captain Schnell sir, if that’s what he wants, but you call me sergeant! Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sergeant,” Faulheit whimpered.
“I can’t hear you!”
“Yes, sergeant!”
“That’s better.” Woxholt slowly marched back and forth along the assembled line of watchmen, sighing and shaking his head sadly. “Dear, oh dear, oh dear. What have we got here? Probably the worst selection of miscreants and maladjusted wastrels ever to disgrace the uniform of the watch! Would-be heroes, sallow-faced freaks, blood-lusting bullies, bastards, backstabbers and lethargic lunatics-I doubt there’s one good watchman among the lot of you! Am I right?” None of the much berated band of men dared speak. “I asked you lot a question! Am I right about you?”
“Yes, sergeant,” a few of them replied, weakly.
“You’ll have to speak up!”
“Yes, sergeant!” They were bellowing as one now, even Faulheit finding his blood boiling with anger, a red mist of fury descending over his senses.
“That’s right. Now, I’m certain that all you deserve to be sent to this hole, but I’m just as certain that Captain Schnell doesn’t. He tried to set an example and most of you cowards didn’t have the guts to follow his lead. Well, this time you don’t have a choice. Together, we’re going into that tavern and we’re going to rid the place of every piece of scum inside who isn’t wearing the uniform of a Black Cap. Does anybody have any objections to that?”
Faulheit meekly raised his left hand. “Err, sergeant…?”
Woxholt snorted derisively before stomping across to him. “Yes? What is it?”
Now sweating like a stuck pig, Faulheit clutched at his heart. “I’m not feeling well. I think I need to see an apothecary, before my heart gives out completely.”
Woxholt grinned. “Is that a fact? Well, then there isn’t a moment to lose, is there? You can go.”
“You mean… I can leave?”
“Not exactly. You can go first-you can lead us into the tavern.”
“But I didn’t-”
“Didn’t want all the glory for yourself? Don’t worry, Faulheit, the others will be right behind you.”
Faulheit swallowed hard. I should know better than to open my mouth, he thought. It’s always more trouble than my job’s worth. By Manann, it was more trouble than my life’s worth.
“Off you go,” Woxholt said, gesturing towards the open doors of the former station on the opposite side of the bridge. “Show us how a real man marches towards near certain death.” Faulheit glanced beseechingly towards Captain Schnell, but found no sympathy there. Reluctantly pulling his club out of its sheath, the bloated Black Cap tiptoed towards the tavern. “Move!” Woxholt bellowed. “All of you, move!”
Faulheit heard someone else shouting a war cry as he charged in through the double doors. The strange thing was, he recognised the voice-it was his own. Kurt remained outside while Jan and the new recruits went into battle for possession of the Abandon Hope Tavern. After a few minutes of fists smacking against flesh, the sounds of furniture breaking and men crying out in pain, the sergeant reappeared, smiling broadly. “Shouldn’t be long now,” he reported. The unconscious body of Abram Cobbius came flying out of a first floor window and landed with a sickening thud on the cobbles. Scheusal leaned out the window from where Cobbius had departed and shook an angry fist down at the fallen figure. Kurt and Jan couldn’t help laughing at the spectacle.
“Of course, we loosened it for you,” Kurt said as the sounds of fighting slowly diminished.
“You loosened it?”
Kurt jerked a thumb towards the tavern. “Think of that place as a large jar of pickled herring that you can’t get the lid off. I loosened it by going in there earlier. Between us, Scheusal, Narbig and I took out most of the thugs inside. If we’d had a few more men backing us at the time, the job would’ve been done there and then. You and the new recruits had it easy this time. We loosened it for you.”
“If you say so, captain.”
Kurt clapped his friend on the back. “One question-when did your uniform get so tight?”
Jan shrugged. “Must have shrunk in the wash.”
“Must have done,” Kurt agreed. “Thank you for coming to help me.”
Jan’s smile faded. “Remember that, when this is over-when you know the price of my help.” Kurt was about to ask a question, but the sound of Faulheit screeching for help from inside the tavern took Jan’s attention. “Go and look at this murdered elf, while I help the men mop up inside. By the time you get back, we should have reclaimed the Three Penny Bridge station. That’s when our troubles really start.”
CHAPTER FIVE
To an outside observer, Marienburg was seemingly run and controlled by the Stadsraad, a parliament of elected representatives. To most of those living within Marienburg, the Stadsraad was controlled by the Ten-ten families who owned the city’s most wealthy merchant houses. To those who dealt with crimes both wet and dry in Marienburg, the city was run and controlled by two organisations-the Stevedores and Teamsters Guild, and those who gathered at the Marienburg Gentlemen’s Club. That both of these groups should have their headquarters on Riddra, the smallest island in the Suiddock district was unlikely. The fact both buildings should stand adjacent to each other was too unlikely to be a coincidence.
During his time in the city, Kurt had rarely encountered the true power of the guild. Its members controlled each and every piece of cargo that came into or departed the docks of Marienburg. In the greatest trading city of the Old World, that control represented an immensely powerful weapon. Almost all of the Empire’s imports and exports flowed through Marienburg, therefore the guild could paralyse the rest of the Empire if it so chose. The power of the stevedores and teamsters was absolute on the docks. Once out at sea, vessels became tempting prizes for pirates and wreckers. But most captains preferred their chances at sea to the tyranny of the guild.
Stevedores and teamsters held the docks in a merciless grip, but those who gathered at the nearby Marienburg Gentleman’s Club profited from every crime in the city. It was the nerve centre of all illegality, home to the League of Gentlemen Entrepreneurs, an
organisation more commonly and simply known as the League.
It was the guild for thieves, smugglers and robbers, a union for criminals and their masters. The League arbitrated disputes between rival gangs and made sure everyone concentrated on their true purpose: profiting from the misery and vices of others. Kurt may have hailed from Altdorf, but as a Black Cap he knew all too well about the extent of the League’s grasp upon life within Marienburg. But he had never had cause before today to venture on to Riddra, let alone stand on the steps that passed between the headquarters of these two powerful organisations en route to the water’s edge of the Bruynwarr.
The two buildings offered a stark contrast. The League’s home resembled little more than a modest, two-storey tavern, squatting on the southern side of Riddra, complete with tiled roof and slightly shabby exterior. A casual observer could little imagine the power that was wielded by those who gathered within those walls. By comparison, the guild headquarters was a lavish building.
An innocent mind would find it incongruous for an organisation of supposedly humble dockworkers to boast such an opulent structure, every level of the building larger and more ornately decorated than the last. As Kurt approached the scene of the crime, he studied the two buildings, looking for faces at the windows or some hint that those within knew about the corpse found so close by. But nobody appeared interested in peering out, and certainly the residents of Riddra had no intention of coming near this place. The curious were not long-lived around these cobbled streets and passageways.
Two figures were at the top of the stairs, but they kept apart from each other, like a pair of strangers waiting for the next ferry across the Rijksweg. The one on the left was dressed in a black cloak, the hood drawn back to reveal a hairless scalp.
Kurt couldn’t see their faces yet, but he had little doubt it must be Otto, the priest of Morr he had met earlier. The other person was also wearing a cloak, but cut from a different cloth and dark of hue. They had the hood up, hiding their features from Kurt’s gaze as he got closer. As he watched, the hooded figure crouched down, staring intently at something near the top of the steps. Kurt quickened his pace, moving from a brisk walk into a run. “Don’t touch that!” he called out.
“I wasn’t planning to,” a woman’s voice replied. Gloved hands pulled back the hood to reveal a mass of chestnut hair and the familiar, smiling face of Belladonna Speer.
“You again,” Kurt said. “I suppose the commander sent you. That didn’t take him long.”
She stood up and removed her gloves. “Actually, I’m here on your behalf.”
“I don’t understand.”
Belladonna offered the hand of friendship to him. “I volunteered to join your station. I’m one of the recruits assigned to Three Penny Bridge.” When Kurt did not shake her hand, she sighed and withdrew it. “Let me guess-you’ve never worked alongside a woman before, you don’t believe I’m up to the job and you’re worried I’m going to get myself into some sort of trouble-either with the other recruits or a criminal-that will cause problems for you and your ambitions for the station. Correct?”
“Well…” Kurt said. “Yes. And I’m not sure whether we have… err… facilities for women.”
“I’m sure we can find a way around that,” she replied. “Give me until this time tomorrow to prove myself. If you’re not satisfied I’ll be an asset to the station, I’ll get myself transferred back to headquarters or somewhere else, out of your way.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
Belladonna shook her head, nostrils flaring in frustration. “Fine, you do that. In the meantime, I want to get a closer look at the bottom of these steps.”
“Don’t touch the body,” Otto warned as she approached the top of the staircase.
“I wasn’t planning to. That’s your domain, not mine.” She stomped off down the stone steps.
“Quite a temper she has,” Otto observed dryly. “Her own worst enemy, no doubt.”
“That’s true of almost everyone,” Kurt replied.
“Not of me,” the priest said.
Kurt let that pass. “How did you hear about the murder?”
“As a servant of Morr, I am attuned to such things.”
“Ahh.”
“And I overhead a fat woman bragging outside my window about her involvement with the murder of an elf. She described where the victim was, so I came to administer what aid I could.”
“Gerta the Blurter strikes again.”
Otto frowned. “You mean she’s killed before?” Kurt explained about the woman’s confessional tendencies. “A sad case,” the priest decided. “So powerful a love, separated from its inspiration.”
“Actually, I’ve heard Gerta’s alleged lover can’t stand the woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if he let himself be caught in the hope of being sent to Rijker’s Isle, just so he could escape her attentions.”
Otto shrugged. “I know little of such matters. My devotion is to Morr and the ways of death.”
“You’ve examined the body?”
“Not closely, but well enough to confirm the dead elf was murdered-a wrongful killing.”
“All murders are wrongful killings.”
Otto pursed his lips. “Perhaps by definition, but I’ve found there is an infinity of possibilities in such matters. Murder may be a wrongful killing but not all wrongful killings are murder.”
“If you say so,” Kurt sighed. “How was he slain?”
The priest pressed his fingers together in a steeple shape in front of his chest. “That I cannot say.”
“Why? Is that the sort of thing you can only confide to the family? Or do you need more time with the body to be certain of your conclusions?”
“You misunderstand me,” Otto said before pointing down the steps. “That poor soul was slain in a way I’ve never observed before. An animal was involved, but also a blade and possibly other weapons as well. The vocal chords were ripped apart by claws, in an attack of inhuman savagery-but the decision to sever them suggests intelligence, reasoning, an attempt to stop the victim crying out for help. I believe that was one of the first wounds inflicted, perhaps the second. After that, the murderer took their time, savouring the slaughter. This was a celebration, a testing of strength almost. Whoever committed this atrocity will certainly kill again. They have a taste for it now.”
Kurt stared at the priest in disbelief. “And you saw all this from a brief examination of the body?”
“One brief examination of this body, and a lifetime spent studying death and dying.”
“Point taken. Well, time I had a look at this dead elf for myself.” Kurt moved towards the steps but felt a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. He turned to look at the priest inquiringly.
“You should give her a chance,” Otto said quietly. “I know a little about Belladonna Speer. She studied our ways for a time, before choosing a different path. That young woman knows much that is considered arcane or uncanny by most of your kind. Her attitude may be irksome, but she would be a valuable asset for your station.” Otto released his surprisingly strong grip on Kurt’s shoulder.
“I’ll bear that in mind.” Belladonna was standing astride the dead body, studying a droplet of blood on the stone wall to one side of the corpse, when she heard Kurt coming down to join her. “Don’t step in that pool of blood on the fifth step up from the water,” she warned, not bothering to look up at him.
“What pool of-” Kurt’s voice was stopped by a sickly squelch. “Ahh. That pool of blood.”
Belladonna shook her head. “Why do Black Caps always insist on walking through the evidence, thereby destroying clues that might help them catch the culprits?”
“You’re a Black Cap too, remember?”
“I was generalising,” she replied, before pointing at the bloodspot on the wall. “I don’t think that came from a human being. Some kind of animal, possibly, but certainly not from a human.”
“You’ve got a dead elf beneath you. Perhaps he wa
s the source,” Kurt said.
“Sarcasm is the poor man’s wit,” Belladonna observed.
“You would do well to remember I am your superior, at least in rank.”
She smiled, despite herself. “Sorry, Captain Schnell.”
“So am I,” he admitted. “My first day and a dead elf on my watch-hardly an auspicious start.”
“Well, if it’s any comfort, our friend here’s been dead longer than you’ve had your promotion. His body temperature suggests he’s been here since before dawn.”
“Wouldn’t the tide have affected that?”
“Normally, yes, but the body was dumped down here as the tide was going out. Whoever put this corpse here wanted it found by the Black Caps, not the River Watch.”
Kurt grunted unhappily. “You said it was dumped here-but not killed here?”
Belladonna gestured around them. “There’d be much more blood. This elf fought for his life, he didn’t die willingly. This was murder, have no doubt of that.”
“Otto said much the same.”
“Well, he would know, wouldn’t he?” When Kurt didn’t reply, she looked up to find him staring at her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“He was right about you-you see things other people don’t. Why is that?”
Belladonna shrugged. “To me, a case like this, it’s a puzzle, an enigma waiting to be solved.”
Kurt smiled. “What else can you tell me about this enigma, then?”
She stepped aside, to afford him a better view of the corpse. The elf was blanched white, his face a mask of pain and torment. The throat was a mess of rips and shreds, while the abdomen had suffered even more damage. The hands were just as brutalised, skin hanging from bleak, white bones. Curiously, one finger pointed up towards the sky-or perhaps towards the two buildings that overlooked the corpse. “This body wasn’t so much dumped here as carefully posed. Notice how one foot extends downwards, towards the water’s edge? That would have muddied the jurisdictional issues, depending upon when the corpse was found. The hands show the elf fought back, even unto death. The throat-”
