Hour of the Wolf

by Andrius B Tapinas

  “He was from the Lowlands,” interrupted Jokubas. “Maybe his counting was too slow and he hadn’t got to three by the time the sheet unfolded.”

  Jokubas was a recent addition to the gang and spoke in a medley of several languages, at times making it difficult to follow his train of thought. Even Rickus would ask him to repeat what he meant. Nevertheless, Jokubas was a real crack shot and so everyone got used to this strange bird in no time at all.

  “Maybe the wind-catcher was faulty?” butted in Chechka, who was bald with the back of his head dotted with brown blotches, resembling a sweaty quail’s egg.

  Rickus gave his buddy a cross look. Chechka was always the first to crap his pants as soon as something happened and was always finding fault with everything.

  “Keep your trap shut, Chechka,” yelled Rickus, as he was the one taking care of wind-catcher procurement. “These are first class wind-catchers. Untulis, my dear friend since our days in the army, would never sell you rubbish. Kuzavas must have had issues with numeracy, so it’s his own tough luck.” Rickus looked around and pointed his finger at several men. “Now you, you, you and you get in the air basket for the second jump. And try not to knock yourself down like the other one did.” He jerked his head at their former associate, now lying in a pool of blood. “And you Chechka, take care of the corpse.”

  “And how do I take care of him?” gaped Chechka.

  “Whichever way you like,” snapped Rickus. “Put him in the ground, drown, burn, feed to the pigs. Or maybe you would prefer getting yourself in the basket, you slimy louse?”

  Chechka had been preparing to object but his boss’ last words made him shut up so fast that it made his teeth rattle. He squinted at the dead body and shuffled to the village to look for a spade. The foursome selected by Rickus trudged warily over to the air basket, which was swinging in the wind.

  Rickus looked around. The seven men had arrived in a large air basket, which had landed on a grassy hill near the village of Buda. The area was renowned for its natural beauty – in the distance opened up the expansive Galve Lake with an island and old castle ruins; on the left, next to the stone building of an estate, cowered a few village huts; and beyond loomed a deep dark forest, gigantic cumulus clouds floating in the sky above it. But the beauty of nature was not enough to raise Rickus’ spirits.

  “Things are not good,” he thought, not letting the men out of his sight. “If it goes on like this, we might be on the brink of a mutiny.”

  He’d been unable to shake this apprehensive feeling since that unfortunate meeting in the Lowlands, in the old Uzventis town inn.

  “I’ve got some serious work”, Veksleris, a slimy Jew who never refused to shelter stolen goods and always settled his accounts right away, had whispered to Rickus. “You know me, I wouldn’t talk about it if it was not serious,” he assured. “And the money is good.”

  Stepas Rickus, captain of the dirigible The Broom, was proud of his robber’s reputation and his nickname of air pirate, which had been assigned to him by the quill drivers. However, dropping bombs from the air on top of carriages moving below was one thing, but carrying through the request of a revolting man, who was introduced to him by the Jew Veksleris as Mr Fetch Senior, was a different kettle of fish altogether. Right from the start, Rickus hated the man’s guts. He was bald, with eyes as black as marshwater, and was dressed in a black gown made from top quality drap. It was obvious that he wasn’t local.

  That time in Uzventis Inn, Veksleris had barely had a moment to introduce the character, when he flashed his eyes at the Jew and made him disappear. Rickus felt like rejecting the deal and quickly slamming the inn door behind him, but then the stranger tossed a rather large pouch across the table, and it was full of gold roubles. “This is the advance,” he murmured. “When you complete the job, you’ll get five times that.” Rickus let out a whistle of surprise. Somewhere like Brazil, that much lucre would have paved the way to becoming a respectable public figure. Or would have paid for a decent, even if not brand new, dirigible and the chance to really make a name for himself.

  A stranger could have regarded Stepas Rickus as a clumsy and simpleminded character, but in reality this man was just the opposite – a true Lowlandian with a gut feeling as strong as that of a wild animal. He held firm to his principle: a clear boundary between his and other people’s business. Among his clients, whom he would happily rip off for their belongings, he counted merchants, local shops, members of minor gentry lost in the woods or some well-off chump who had taken to the air at the wrong time. However, the colossal passenger dirigibles of the Alliance were forbidden territory for him and his accomplices.

  “It’s possible that there are rich passengers on board there, but let them go their way and we’ll go ours,” he would tell his partners. Besides, Stepas Rickus had more work than he could handle. He had never had any interest in politics but he did have a hunch about the place of work of the gentleman with slicked-back hair who had offered a very handsome reward in return for planting a bomb on the Reval–Vilnius train, or in fact, about any other client. Such matters reeked of the German Kaiser or the Tsar, the Father of Russia, and Rickus would never take on jobs like these. However, this case was different. A small fortune was being offered. Furthermore, the man in the black gown made sure Rickus understood that refusing the offer wasn’t an option. No, the man didn’t threaten him, but it was a feeling that Rickus had. So now he was facing a very unpleasant challenge: having taken to the air in The Broom, they were to land on top of the Alliance’s dirigible with the help of wind-catchers, then eliminate the guards and kidnap a person.

  “My people can’t really jump with wind-catchers”, Rickus made a feeble attempt to get out of the deal.

  “Tell them to get in the air basket and practice,” the bald man retorted dryly. He then sneered and added, “The more of your helpers miss the dirigible, the fewer sharers of the reward there will be.”

  Rickus sighed. He thought of Kuzavas, who didn’t need gold roubles anymore. But if someone else fell to their death, he would not escape a mutiny and then nothing, not even roubles, would be able to help him. Rickus pulled up his trousers and went over to check if the second team had already got into the air basket. He hoped that every man would count to three and pull the wind-catcher out at the right time. They didn’t have much time for practice – the object of their assault, the passenger dirigible from Kraków, was scheduled to travel through these parts three days later.

  Chapter VII

  Vilnius, morning

  22 04 1905

  “Don’t hurt me, honourable pirate, you can ask me anything you want, and my parents will fulfil your every wish”, a young maiden begged him. But the vicious pirate only bellowed out an evil laugh. “I don’t need your parents’ fortune, young maiden, all I need is you!” he yelled. Even before the girl’s brothers had time to lift their rifles, the horrid pirate grabbed the girl in his arms and jumped out of the flying machine, plummeting down, closer and closer to the hard surface of the earth.”

  Three rows of children and a few adults gasped in unison.

  “And what happened next?” asked the youngest listener in a trembling voice, who had been sitting there with his mouth agape. “Did the pirate and the young maiden get killed?”

  Old Efraim gave a short hoarse laugh and stroked the little boy’s head.

  “Patience, patience my little child,” he remarked with a single wink. “The sun is as hot as an oven, I am feeling weak and my throat is really dry, ahh how strong my thirst is.”

  The regular listeners of Efraim’s stories took the hint right away and started patting their pockets with their little hands, even though they were fully aware that they were empty; then their eyes wondered over to the adults standing nearby. One of them rummaged in his pocket, drew out a five kopeck[19] coin and handed it over to the boy. He jumped out of his seat and ran madly to search for a kvass seller.

  At the edge of City Hall Square, a fat tabby cat, a
resident of Vilnius, lay comfortably spread out on the ground. At first his sleepy eyes followed a one-horse carriage receding into the distance, then focused on the sparrows pecking at a pat of manure. His feline nature and consciousness incited him to take action and punish the cheeky sparrows, but the touch of warm spring sunshine on his fur was so pleasing and sleep-evoking, that he merely swished his tail and purred quietly, “Let them be...” But hardly a few seconds later the cat was already frowning, as the blissful stillness around him had been cut short by the harsh whistle of a steam trolley and a barefoot boy who had dashed by right in front of his nose looking for a kvass seller.

  The frightened sparrows fluttered up into the air. One soared above the square, made a large circle and landed on City Hall’s first floor window ledge. It fluffed its feathers with its beak, turned its head to one side and then the other, and released a merry chirp, announcing that life wasn’t so bad after all.

  The bird would have been astounded to learn that the eminent men and one lady who had gathered in City Hall on the other side of the window were in no way inferior to sparrows when it came to chirping.

  “Quiet, quiet, Councillors! This is no farmers’ market,” shouted the Burgomaster of Vilnius, Vytautas Venslauskis-Venskus. Then, reaching the end of his patience, he banged a thick book against the table.

  The Councillors, who had allowed themselves to get carried away, hushed immediately, at which the Burgomaster felt better. Such impudence shown at home would have merited a slap on the wrist by Mrs Venskus, but she wasn’t in the Town Hall.

  “There is no doubt, Mr Buksa, our... erm... former colleague’s... former colleague’s actions were rather reckless but...” continued the Burgomaster. At the beginning of his career this man had worked as a court herald and still couldn’t get rid of his annoying habit of repeating the same words over and over again.

  “Reckless?” sniffed Councillor of Wanderers Faina Fryzel, who was the Council representative for Jews, Tatars, Karaites, Hungarians, French and other minorities, which made up a considerable part of free Vilnius’ population. “You are reckless when you step on a nail with your bare foot, but Buksa has appropriated income from two estates that actually belonged to the city. By the way, the larger part of the money was collected by my people. So I would now like to see Buksa in front of the Cathedral with his chest decorated with a board saying Thief. Because that’s what he is!”

  The Councillors exchanged glances.

  It was customary in Vilnius for those who had overindulged in hard drink to spend a night repenting in custody, and in the morning, suffering from a murderous headache, have a long rope with a wooden drunkard’s plate tied around their neck and be taken to St Peter And Paul’s Church for half a day’s kneeling. Needless to say, Vilnius residents loved going to this church.

  In fact Faina was a scandalmonger, who was described behind her back as all hat and no cattle, and minority problems were the least of the Councillors’ worries.

  “Let’s leave the Cathedral out of this, shall we?” Prelate Masalskis, Spiritual Councillor and Leader of The Knights of the Cathedral, remarked with a chill in his voice. He was dressed in black, with a purple zuchetto covering his bald head and a heavy silver cross adorning his chest. This man radiated such a biting chill that Health Councillor Doctor Rimkevicius, who had been sitting beside him, moved his chair a few centimetres away, leaving the Prelate alone in his audacious solitude. “I have told you more than once: it’s time we put an end to these barbarian methods of punishment in churchyards. If you want someone’s soul to squirm with pain, let my knights take care of them. They will hear the confession and assign penance.”

  A thought passed through the minds of all the parties that the glum cellars of the Cathedral must have witnessed more than just fierce knights listening to confessions and assigning Hail Marys, but their respect for the Prelate made them refrain from putting it into words.

  Knowledge Councillor and Rector of University Dominium Stanislovas Gimbutas took a carafe and poured himself a glass of water. The hall where they all sat around a large round table was spacious and not cluttered with furniture, but the tension in the air was slowly becoming oppressive.

  “Whatever happened with the money, Buksa was a Councillor, he was one of us,” the Rector spoke after a sip of water. “Do we want the Councillor’s name to be dragged through the city’s mud, casting a very dark shadow on each and every one of us? Buksa paid back the money and resigned from service due to ... erm... ill health. He is prepared to leave Vilnius and never come back. Are public punishments, confessions and trials still necessary? We should let him go.”

  Prelate Masalskis gave a disapproving sniff.

  “Well... you are right but...” stammered Burgomaster Venslauskis-Venskus. “And anyway we shouldn’t forget... let’s not forget that...” He was about to dive into one of his long and elaborate narratives, labyrinths where he would often lose track himself and make others do the same, but suddenly someone cut him short.

  “Dear Councillors, I realise that matters related to Mr Buksa are of great concern to you but today we were planning to discuss an even more serious issue,” said a rather short man with uneven teeth who also sitting at the table.

  It was Gerhardt von Ott, the city’s Money Councillor and the Rothschilds’ official envoy to Vilnius. His clothes were extremely elaborate, as if he had come prepared for a ball, and he spoke in an exceptionally soft voice, but as soon as he uttered his first words, the hall became permeated with the most respectful silence, the like of which Burgomaster Venslauskis-Venskus had never managed to achieve. This happened every time the man opened his mouth in Council meetings.

  He slowly studied the members of the Council – the high-strung squabblers and the others who had chosen to remain in the shadows – the Councillors of Health, Direction, Steam and Alchemy.

  “It is only a few days until the Summit,” Gerhardt von Ott continued. “The majority of states have already announced their representatives. Some participants will be travelling a considerable distance.” Gerhardt von Ott paused and gave his listeners a condescending smile. “Some of them have already set out on their travels in order to arrive in good time. Therefore, I think it’s about time we forgot our little manipulations and local scandals and united our efforts in assuring a smooth welcome for our guests.”

  The Alliance’s annual event attracted high-ranking envoys from various countries, who took part in presentations on the latest inventions, bought and sold technical discoveries and played an active role in talks and in a mixed bag of back-stage games. Entertainment consisted of masquerades and the legendary travelling harlequin parties. Great fairs were set up, processions paraded, musicians played on the streets, and people filled up the squares to watch free performances or the new invention – the moving pictures; while the last night of the celebration was given over to the Alchemists and their festival of fire, which painted the sky with the manifold colours of fireworks. There were some highly esteemed men who came to the Summit for the entertainment alone. Every year the free city that would host this luminous event was selected amidst heated arguments.

  This year the honour had been granted to Vilnius.

  Everyone present was extremely pleased by the news, except for the Prelate Masalskis, Master of the Knights of the Cathedral. He frowned.

  “If you must turn the city into Sodom and Gomorrah, you are welcome to do that,” he said, thrusting his bony finger at the Burgomaster. “But don’t forget that the sins of infidels and all unbaptised people will backfire on you. At the time in question all the decent people will be praying in church and they would like to know if the city will be safe. This is something that we should discuss before anything else. But the Public Order Councillor does not seem interested in the subject at all. And neither he is here with us. Where is he, Mr Burgomaster?”

  Burgomaster Vytautas Venslauskis-Venskus cast an embarrassed glance across the hall and shrugged his shoulders.

&nbs
p; When the meeting was over, the Councillors parted company. Gerhardt von Ott walked down the sweeping Town Hall staircase and, having made a circle around the building, marched along the streets of Rudnicka, and then Spitalnia. When he caught sight of a sizeable crowd of people in a little park, he walked over to have a closer look.

  Old Efraim, completely oblivious to his audience getting more and more impatient, and exuding great pleasure even through his closed eyes, was gulping down his cold, sour kvass. Sensing an intent stare directed towards him, he opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on its origin – city Councillor Gerhardt von Ott. This refined figure nodded slightly to the old man and rubbed his freshly shaved cheek with his fingers. Efraim, a shabby shoemaker, acknowledged the gesture with the slightest movement of his chin, after which the Councillor turned on his heel and walked away. The storyteller emptied his glass and rubbed his hands.

  “So where was I?” he asked.

  “The pirate and the young maiden jumped out of the flying airship,” several impatient voices immediately reminded him.

  Chapter VIII

  Vilnius, afternoon

  22 04 1905

  During his long and successful time as a Legionnaire, Public Order Councillor and Legate of Vilnius Antanas Sidabras had laid eyes on many corpses. He had seen them shot, stabbed, poisoned, chopped up, drowned, strangled – sent to meet their maker in many different ways. In some cases he had also happened to be the Grim Reaper’s accomplice, and he felt no shame – he was just doing his job. But the body on the edge of the ravine next to the Cemetery of Cholera Victims, which was now being tended to by the kneeling medical expert Dr Radzinskis in a filthy doctor’s coat, had rendered Sidabras speechless.

  With a few quiet grunts Radzinskis lifted himself up and started brushing the soil off his knees.

  “An amateur’s work,” he sighed and turned to Sidabras. “The wound isn’t clean, the cut isn’t straight, the edges are jagged. It seems that the killer didn’t know how much pressure to apply. Although his instrument was outstanding, the blade sharpened like a dream! Possibly a scalpel, as that could explain the neat flow of blood.” The expert’s narrative ended with a respectful note in his voice. “If anyone was after my opinion, I would say it’s been done by one of us, a medic.”