A murder in Marienburg w-1

by David Bishop

  He swallowed hard, his words when they came little more than a whisper. “Ratmen.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The sun was setting as Kurt and Faulheit made it back to Three Penny Bridge. The tide had been pouring through the empty window by the time the two men had spotted a boatman passing close to the western tip of Riddra. They had beckoned him over and clambered out of the window into his small vessel, Faulheit nearly capsizing it in the process. Kurt offered the boatman double the normal charge to take them directly to the cut nearest Three Penny Bridge. From there the two Black Caps had clambered up to street level and made their way to the station.

  Not once did either man breathe a word of what they had seen or discovered in the catacombs. Kurt was still mulling over the terrifying implications of what he had learned and Faulheit was simply terrified, his face ashen and hands quivering with fear. As they approached the station, Kurt took hold of his companion’s shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone what we saw down there. If people hear that the-that those things-might have been living beneath Suiddock, it’ll create a panic that would undo all our good work here.”

  Faulheit stared at the captain, wide-eyed. “You’re serious? You think we can stay here?”

  “We don’t know for certain those things are still in the catacombs. They could have moved on.”

  “You heard them down there-we both did. I saw what happened to Fingers Blake, just like you!”

  “Listen to me,” Kurt pleaded. “Most of the people in this city don’t know those creatures even exist. Taal’s teeth, I’ve never seen one myself, and I hope I never do. But even if they are still down there in the catacombs-and I’m not saying they are-that doesn’t make them a threat to us.”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut on one condition,” Faulheit hissed.

  “Name it.”

  “I want a transfer. I don’t care what station or where it is. Send me to Doodkanaal if you have to, but I want off Three Penny Bridge. Now. Today.”

  Kurt nodded. “I’ll send a messenger to headquarters, requesting your transfer. But it won’t come through today, you know that as well as I. Transfers need a minimum of three weeks to take effect.”

  “I want out of this station by Geheimnistag,” the watchman snarled. “Guarantee me that and I’ll keep quiet about what I know. Deal?”

  The captain sighed. “Deal.” Kurt offered the hand of friendship. “Shake on it?”

  “Just send the messenger,” Faulheit replied, before marching into the station.

  Kurt followed him inside and found Belladonna slumped at reception, yawning. She snapped to attention on seeing him enter. “You made it back. Where was Faulheit?”

  “I’ll tell you, but not here,” he said, keeping his voice low so Gerta couldn’t hear it from where she was standing at the other end of the long desk. “Where’s Jan?”

  “Sleeping. Raufbold’s keeping an eye on the guild headquarters, and I’ve just sent Scheusal and Bescheiden to relieve him.” She detailed the new two-shift system instituted by the sergeant. “Narbig and Holismus are out on patrol, covering Stoessel and Luydenhoek-Woxholt wanted two-man pairs on patrols.”

  “Sensible decision,” Kurt agreed. He noticed Belladonna stifling another yawn. “Not keeping you up too late, are we?”

  She smiled. “Manning reception isn’t my idea of excitement, and it’s not the reason I volunteered for your station. If I wanted to be behind a desk, I could have stayed at headquarters.”

  The captain walked to the entrance. “Come with me and you’ll get all the excitement you want.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To arrest Abram Cobbius for the murders of Mutig and Vink the Halfling-coming?”

  Belladonna laughed. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Faulheit!” The weary watchman was talking with one of the prisoners in the holding cells. He twisted round to look at her. “You’re in charge until Narbig and Holismus get back!” She ran out of the station before he could protest his shift had just ended. Abram was sick to the back teeth of staying inside the guild headquarters. He felt like he was being kept under house arrest in the ornate building, unable to go out and enjoy the dubious delights available for a price on Riddra. He was a Cobbius after all, a family that had worked on Suiddock’s quays and wharves for generations. He was used to having the smell of the sea in his nostrils, and the cry of gulls in his ears. Instead he had spent the past two days living in the lap of luxury and it was starting to go stale.

  At least, he thought it had been two days-it could have been more or less, but life inside the headquarters had a timeless quality that made it impossible for him to judge how many days had passed. Most of the windows were shuttered or covered by heavy curtains to stop anyone outside seeing what happened within the building. Night and day were little different, as the guild members’ bars served drinks around the clock and the private bordello also operated from one dawn to the next without stopping. We never close, that had been Abram’s suggestion for what to call the bordello. He’d enjoyed his own display of wits for hours afterwards, but even that joke was beginning to pall. He wanted to get out.

  Abram’s cousin had twice summoned him to the guild boardroom during this sojourn. The first occasion was not long after Abram arrived at the headquarters. The two men had met a few times before, but Abram had never been graced with an invitation to Lea-Jan’s sanctum.

  The room was simply furnished, little within it to suggest the occupant was among the most powerful men in Marienburg. Lea-Jan himself was tall and lanky, powerfully muscled despite the fact he must be at least sixty summers old. The snow-white hair cropped close to his scalp was the best clue to his age, but his steel-grey eyes were still as terrifying as Abram had recalled.

  Lea-Jan had welcomed his cousin warmly enough and asked how long Abram intended to stay. The younger Cobbius had been vague about this, failing to point out it was Lea-Jan’s men who had grabbed him off the streets of Suiddock and brought him to guild headquarters. Word had reached Lea-Jan about the long, slow murder of that stupid Black Cap who had challenged Abram to a fight in Vollmer’s Rest. Lea-Jan also knew all about the halfling who drowned, and suggested bragging about involvement in such an unfortunate accident was perhaps less than wise. Abram had nodded his agreement, knowing better than to refute his cousin’s advice. They had parted on friendly terms, although Abram had little doubt Lea-Jan was a reluctant host.

  The second summoning was considerably less convivial. Lea-Jan was infuriated by what that fool Deschamp had done in the sewers. That was bad enough, but he also knew of Abram’s decision to have the Black Cap’s corpse delivered to the watch station and what the threatening note sent with it had said. Lea-Jan was sat behind his desk when Abram was brought before him, the older man’s face seething with rage. Abram tried to apologise, but Lea-Jan didn’t want to hear it. “I understand you have allowed yourself to be linked with Henschmann and his League of Gentlemen Entrepreneurs.”

  Abram opened his mouth to deny this but closed it again, knowing a lie would only subtract from his life expectancy. Instead he nodded, staring at the floor to avoid his cousin’s venomous gaze.

  “You fool. The guild survives and prospers because it steers clear of such entanglements,” Lea-Jan snarled. “Men like Casanova come and go, but the guild is eternal. To stay that way, it must maintain an iron grip upon the docks of this city. They are the lifeblood of Marienburg and, by definition, of the Empire. What our stevedores and teamsters do affects the lives of innumerable people. By comparison, Henschmann is a petty thief who will one day be stabbed in the back by another petty thief. His time as leader of that so-called crime syndicate is limited. The guild has held true power in this city for more than a century. But your actions threaten to embarrass and endanger it, and I cannot allow that.”

  “I’m sorry, cousin,” Abram whispered. “I didn’t realise.”

  “That much is obvious,” Lea-Jan said with withering distaste. “Were you not related to me
by blood, you would already be floating face-down in a cut somewhere near Doodkanaal. As it stands, I’ve no wish to see your mother-my aunt-weeping for her son the simpleton. You will remain on these premises until Geheimnistag. My sources tell me the station on Three Penny Bridge is unlikely to survive beyond the Day of Mystery. If that proves accurate, you can return to the outside world as a free man.”

  “Thank you, cousin,” Abram replied, before the meaning of Lea-Jan’s words struck home. “A free man? Do you mean I’d no longer be a member of the guild?”

  “You have aligned yourself with Henschmann, so you have chosen your fate. I will continue to clean up after your messes for now. Come Geheimnistag I will wash my hands of you. Until then, you can stay here and enjoy my protection. Whatever you desire within these walls is yours for the taking. But set foot outside this building and I will not be responsible for the consequences.”

  Abram had walked backwards out of Lea-Jan’s office, not daring to look his cousin in the eye. Since then he had tried his best to savour the wine, women and song freely available to him, but the joy was gone. To lose his membership of the guild was to lose privileged status. He might still be able to trade on his surname for a while, but word would soon spread about Lea-Jan’s attitude toward him. A bleak future loomed and it hampered his enjoyment of the last few days he had left in paradise. That enjoyment was compromised by having two of his cousin’s bodyguards watching him around the clock to ensure he didn’t try to leave the building. Eventually, Abram got himself drunker than he’d even been before and decided there was only one course of action left-to cross the cobbles between the guild headquarters and the Marienburg Gentlemen’s Club. The sooner he threw his lot in with Henschmann, the better his prospects would be. Now all he needed to do was lose his twin shadows.

  Abram waited until one of them slipped away to the privy before offering to buy the other a drink from a thick, cut glass decanter of aquavit. The surly guard refused, turning away from him in disgust. Abram smashed the decanter down on the guard’s head, knocking him out cold. After that it was a simple task to walk from the building, though his double vision and uncertain feet did little to help.

  Eventually he found an external door and pulled it open, half expecting blazing sunshine to blind him. Instead it was dark and murky outside, a hint of blue visible in the bruised sky. That suggested the sun had set in the past hour and it was early evening, or else it was dawn and the sun would soon be rising. Neither made much difference to Abram, whose sole intent was staggering twenty paces to the gentlemen’s club. Filling his lungs with the sea air once more, Abram lurched out of his sanctuary and promptly flopped face-first into the cobbled street, breaking his nose for the second time in recent days. Scheusal yawned and stretched, stamping his boots on the street to force some life into his weary legs. He and Bescheiden had been watching the western side of the guild headquarters all night, waiting in vain for Abram Cobbius to show his ugly face. Twice Bescheiden had slipped away, supposedly to empty his bladder, but Scheusal had his own suspicions. He trusted Bescheiden about as far as he could throw the weasel-faced watchman, and it wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest if little Willy was making sly visits to the nearby Marienburg Gentlemen’s Club to report on the Black Caps’ activities. Scheusal wondered how far Bescheiden would go for guilders. Everybody had a price, he supposed, but how many guilders would it take to turn Bescheiden completely?

  Scheusal knew the captain and Belladonna were lurking in the shadows on the western side of guild headquarters. They had established a signal to communicate with each other, two long whistles followed by a short one every hour. If either pair caught sight of the elusive Cobbius, they were to whistle for help from the others.

  Like most of the Black Caps stationed at Three Penny Bridge, Scheusal had noticed Belladonna and the captain spent a lot of time in each other’s company. That had created no shortage of salacious gossip from the likes of Raufbold and Faulheit, but Scheusal felt it was driven by jealousy rather than fact. He made a habit of observing people, their habits and how they were together.

  You could tell a lot by the way two people stood when they were talking, how their bodies reacted to one another. Belladonna was at ease with the captain, confident in his presence, as if they were old friends. By comparison, he was more upright and formal around her, as if aware of her femininity but making an effort not to give any sign it meant something to him. No, they were not lovers -no matter what Gorgeous Jorg and Martin might be claiming in the men’s quarters.

  It was close to dawn when Bescheiden slipped away for his third bladder break, leaving Scheusal alone once more. He was looking forward to the shift ending and getting some sleep. Hard to believe it was Konistag, Scheusal thought. The watch had been back on Three Penny Bridge only three days, yet-

  His musings were abruptly broken by a door swinging open at the base of the guild headquarters, yellow light spilling out past a heavyset man. The silhouetted figure looked up at the sky for several moments, before lurching forward into the street. As he did, the light of a gas lamp fell on his face and Scheusal gasped. It was Cobbius! The Black Cap patted all his pockets, searching for the whistle every watchman was issued with at their induction. He pulled it clear of his tunic and pressed the end to his lips, ready to blow a shrill blast, summoning the captain and Belladonna. But when he looked across at the doorway again, there was no sign of Cobbius. Sweet Shallya, don’t tell me I’ve missed my chance, Scheusal thought.

  He lumbered towards the open doorway, running as fast as his bulky physique would allow. As he got closer, Scheusal saw a body sprawled face down across the cobbles. A pool of liquid was gathering beneath the head. Please don’t let Cobbius be dead, Scheusal prayed. He knelt beside the body and was relieved to discover Abram was snoring. He wasn’t dead, merely dead drunk and the blood was pouring from a broken nose. Scheusal found his whistle once more and blew with all his might. Once he heard the sound of footsteps and saw Kurt running towards him, Scheusal relaxed. “That was easier than I expected,” he muttered to himself, smiling broadly. It took all four of them to get Cobbius back to Three Penny Bridge, half carrying and half dragging his ale-sodden body as the sun rose over Marienburg. The quartet of Black Caps staggered into the station and dumped Abram on the floor in front of Jan. The sergeant folded his arms and glared at the snoring prisoner. “Well done,” he said to Kurt and the others. “It can’t have been easy subduing him.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Kurt grinned. “Where do you suggest we keep him?”

  Jan glanced at the holding cells, where half a dozen vagrants, drunks and cutpurses were staring in amazement at the unconscious Cobbius. “Not in there, that’s for certain. I don’t think we’ll be able to keep his arrest quiet for long but having him on display is asking for trouble and I think we’ve had more than our fair share of that already. So that leaves upstairs-”

  “Perhaps not,” Belladonna interjected. “Considering who’s up there in the captain’s office.”

  “He is still up there, isn’t he?” Kurt asked, his eyes looking to the ceiling.

  “Our friend is here alright,” Jan confirmed. “He’s spent most of the night whining and moaning but he’s still with us. Says if we don’t feed him soon, he’ll recant his witness statement.”

  “Has he made a witness statement yet?”

  “No. I was waiting until you got back,” the sergeant said. “How about we put the Suiddock snoring champion in the basement? We can chain Cobbius to one of the walls for now.” Jan sniffed the air, his expression souring at the strong odour of stale ale wafting from Cobbius. “He’ll probably get his legs soaked when the tide comes in later, but a free bath wouldn’t go amiss in his case.”

  Kurt nodded. “Scheusal and Bescheiden, drag our friend here down to the basement and get him secured. Once that’s finished, you can get some sleep. You’ve both done well.”

  “Shouldn’t we have someone guarding him?” Scheusal asked, nudging Cobb
ius with a boot.

  “The day shift will take it in turns,” Jan replied. “On you go.” Once the two watchmen had dragged the prisoner away, Kurt motioned for Jan and Belladonna to join him upstairs. They went into the mess to talk, gratefully accepting hot drinks and breakfast from Gerta. When she’d returned to the kitchen, Kurt shared with the others all he’d learned during his time in the catacombs. He concluded by saying the same name that had so terrified Faulheit. Belladonna rolled her eyes in disbelief.

  “Ratmen? You can’t be serious, captain. They’re a legend, a nightmare told by siblings to frighten children at bedtime. I mean, do you honestly believe there’s an entire race of ratmen living in underground cities beneath the Empire that has somehow escaped detection for centuries?”

  “Just because you’ve never seen them, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” Kurt said.

  “I believe in things I can see, smell, touch, taste or hear,” she replied. “Matters of faith are for priests and zealots. I believe in the evidence of my senses, no more and no less. It’s one of the reasons I abandoned my studies in the temples of Morr. Blind faith can stop you from seeing the truth.”

  The captain turned to Jan. “What do you believe in?”

  His sergeant shrugged. “If you believe in these ratmen, so do I. I don’t need to see the sun rising in the morning to believe it will rise again tomorrow. Besides, if what you say is true, it would explain a presence I’ve been feeling since setting foot in this station. An angry, malevolent hatred-and it’s growing stronger. Almost as if evil is gnawing at the foundations of this place, hungry for something it can’t have.” He noticed the other two staring at him. “Well, you asked what I believe in. That’s the truth.”