by Warhammer
He looked around the luxurious room as she rummaged in the armoire. Gephardt’s father’s house was visible through the front window. ‘How did you find this place to watch from?’ he asked. ‘Don’t tell me the countess just happens to own a house directly across from Gephardt’s?’
Ulrika pulled a dressing gown of blue Cathay silk from the wardrobe and held it out to him. ‘Here. This should fit. Put it on.’
Felix took it and set it on the bed, waiting for her to withdraw.
She sat down in an armchair. ‘As I mentioned once before, the countess has many clients among the nobility, and she is very good at…’ She frowned at Felix. ‘What’s the matter. Get dressed. You’ll catch your death.’
‘Ah…’ said Felix, colouring.
‘Oh, don’t be an idiot,’ said Ulrika, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s not as if I haven’t seen it all before, when we were…’ She stopped as she saw Felix’s expression, and snorted. ‘All right, all right.’ She stood and picked up the chair – a heavy oak and leather behemoth – as if it weighed nothing, then turned it to face the fire. ‘Now, go on. I won’t look. I promise.’ She sat down in it and looked into the flames.
Felix glared at her back, then shrugged and began to peel off his sopping clothes.
‘Where was I?’ said Ulrika to the fireplace. ‘Ah yes. The countess has many rich clients, and she is very good at getting them to do what she wants. Her voice can be very hypnotic when she wishes.’
‘As can yours,’ said Felix, recalling the befuddlement of the watchmen.
‘I am learning,’ said Ulrika, then continued. ‘This is the house of Lord Jorgen Kirstfauver. When Captain Reingelt reported to the countess – that is, to Madame du Vilmorin – that you had revealed the son of Linus Gephardt to be one of the Cleansing Flame, she knew where he lived – Gephardt senior being of course another client of our house. So it was simplicity itself for her to call upon Lord Kirstfauver and invite him to sample the newest and youngest girls in the house, for as long as he liked, in exchange for the use of his house and servants for a day – with the greatest discretion, of course. Lord Kirstfauver is besotted with Madame du Vilmorin, as are all men, so he readily agreed.’
‘And if we must wait longer than a day?’ asked Felix, shucking out of his wet linen shirt and taking up the robe.
Ulrika chuckled. ‘Time has a way of passing almost unnoticed in Madame du Vilmorin’s house. Lord Kirstfauver will find that he was so bewitched by the beauty of his bedmates that the days just slipped away.’ She paused, frowning. ‘Where is Gotrek, by the way?’
Felix felt a hot flash of shame. He had been here talking all this time while Gotrek was still out in the rain, watching from the back alley. ‘Sigmar! He’s watching Gephardt’s coach yard. As I should be from the front.’ He started angrily for the door. ‘You’ve lured me from my post. Gephardt may have gotten away.’
‘Fear not, Felix,’ said Ulrika. ‘I have seven spies watching the house. We will know if he leaves.’
‘Seven!’ Felix stared at her. Seven spies? And he had seen none of them?
She spread her hands. ‘You see? Had you told us as you should have, you might have slept in a warm bed tonight. Your stubborn insistence on going it alone soaked you to the bone, and the fox might have slipped away while you slept.’ She smirked. ‘Do you want to relieve Gotrek from his misery now?’
Felix flushed again. He did want to bring Gotrek in out of the rain, but the thought of the Slayer finding him in a silk robe in the company of Ulrika made him cringe. ‘Yes, I’ll… Just a moment.’
He crossed to his sword and unsheathed it. Ulrika looked alarmed until he stepped to the side window, which looked over the alley he had spent the night in. He opened it and rang the flat of the blade against the stone window ledge. Ulrika looked at him curiously.
‘Our signal,’ Felix explained.
He leaned out of the window until he saw Gotrek’s squat form appear at the end of the block and look down the street towards Gephardt’s house.
‘Hssst!’ said Felix.
The Slayer looked up, and Felix waved at him, then pointed to the front door. He saw a look of angry confusion cross Gotrek’s face before he started across the street.
Felix and Ulrika reached the entryway just as the butler opened the door.
‘What is this foolishness?’ said Gotrek as he stepped through the door, water dripping from his beard in rivulets. ‘You were only to signal if…’ He stopped when he saw Felix’s silk robe, then looked past him to Ulrika. He sneered. ‘Ah. Not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘Let me explain,’ said Felix.
‘Is it you explaining?’ asked Gotrek. He closed the door behind him. ‘Or is it her, jerking your strings?’
‘I…’ said Felix.
‘Felix is not beglamoured, Slayer,’ said Ulrika. ‘I merely invited him in out of the rain, as I invite you now. Had you both come immediately to the countess when you learned about Gephardt, you might have waited out the night in comfort here instead of soaking yourselves out there.’
Gotrek growled. ‘And who watches the house while we wait in comfort?’
‘I have seven spies watching the house,’ said Ulrika. ‘Trust me, your quarry will not slip away while you enjoy the countess’s hospitality.’
The Slayer grunted, apparently unhappy that all his questions had been answered so reasonably. For a moment he looked ready to turn around and walk back out into the rain, but finally he ran his thick hand through his wilted crest and flicked the water on the floor. ‘Then get me a cloth and some food and a pint.’
Ulrika curtsied, her lips twisting into a sly smile. ‘At once, sir dwarf. We live only to serve. You will find a fire in the parlour to your left.’
She turned and disappeared through a servant’s door.
Gotrek crossed to the parlour door, then looked back at Felix. ‘Go and sleep, manling. Alone.’
Felix stiffened. ‘All these years, and you don’t trust me not to be a fool?’
Gotrek looked as if he was going to snap back with some retort, then he paused and shrugged, looking almost contrite. ‘I trust no human when one of those things is around. Now get some sleep.’
He turned and entered the parlour. Felix glared after him for a moment, then started up the stairs for the bedroom where he had left his clothes.
Felix woke slowly. The room was dark but for the low flicker of firelight. The big four-poster bed was soft and warm and enveloping. The patter of rain on the windows was soothing. The smell of fresh linen and wool was comforting. He yawned and stretched – and yelped like a trodden-on dog as the stitches in his side stabbed at him anew.
He curled up in a ball, hissing and blinking away tears. He saw a face in the blurred dimness. There was someone next to his bed! He jerked back and yelped again as the wound caught him once more.
‘Good evening, Felix,’ said Ulrika, laughing.
Felix glared at her, panting and sweating. She sat slouched in the arm chair, dressed in her manly garb again, looking as if she had been there for a long while.
‘What… what… what do you want?’ he finally managed. ‘Is it time?’
‘No no. Our fox has not yet left his den,’ she said. ‘But night has come. He may soon. I thought you might want to feed – sorry – to eat, before he moves.’
‘Yes.’ Felix sat up gingerly. ‘Yes. That’s a good plan.’
She stood and turned the chair around, as easily as before, then sat down again facing away from him and pointed to the chest at the end of the bed. ‘Your clothes have been dried and mended, and there is a wash basin by the fire and a pitcher of water warming before it.’
Felix rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then grunted and hissed his way out of bed. He pulled on his hose and breeches and padded to the fire.
‘You will be relieved to hear,’ she said from behind him. ‘That while you slept, I sent a message to the countess, telling her that you and the Slayer did not betray my existence to
Makaisson after all, and asking her to call off Lady Hermione and Mistress Wither.’
‘Thank you,’ said Felix. ‘And has she replied?’ He poured the water into the basin. It was the perfect temperature.
‘Not yet,’ said Ulrika. ‘She is unlikely to tonight. Most of her servants are busy, either at the brothel, or looking for the Cleansing Flame.’
Felix shivered as he soaped his hands and face. He was glad to hear that Ulrika had sent the note, but he would be unable to relax entirely until he knew the countess had withdrawn her order of execution.
‘You look very young when you sleep, Felix,’ said Ulrika. ‘Like you did when we first met.’
Felix choked. He looked up, covered in suds. ‘You… How long were you watching me?’ The thought made him uneasy.
‘Our kind do not sleep,’ said Ulrika.
Felix frowned and splashed his face. That wasn’t really an answer.
‘Which is unfortunate,’ she continued. ‘For it leads to contemplation, and perhaps madness.’ Felix heard her sigh. ‘I was remembering how it was with us, when last we knew each other, and wondering if things would have been different – if this might not have happened – had you not lost interest in me.’
Felix snorted and water squirted painfully through his nose. He coughed and hacked, convulsing, tears streaming from his eyes and the wound in his side screaming. ‘I…!’ He wretched and tried again. ‘I lost interest in you? You left me for Max!’
She turned in her chair and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. ‘Come now, Felix. That was long after things were over between us.’
Felix glared at her. He was surprised at how much the old wounds still stung. ‘Is that so? I wish you had thought to tell me.’
‘Maybe we didn’t speak of it,’ said Ulrika, then chuckled. ‘We were very good at not speaking of things then, weren’t we? But we both knew.’
‘I’m not sure I did,’ said Felix stiffly. ‘I seem to recall your losing interest in me before I lost interest in you. Why else did you start all those pointless arguments? Why else the sullen moods? The sudden anger?’
Ulrika barked a laugh. ‘You describe yourself!’
‘I was only reacting to you!’
Ulrika’s eyes flashed like a cat’s, and she sprang from the chair to face him. Felix shrank back, suddenly aware that he was half naked and facing a well-armed and inhumanly strong monster.
Ulrika seemed to come to the same realisation, for all at once she deflated and sat down on the arm of the chair, hanging her head. ‘I apologise, Felix. You are entirely right. I started many of those fights, and I did have bouts of sullenness and anger. But you did as well.’
‘I… I suppose I did.’
‘We were both very young then,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we still are.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘I certainly haven’t gotten any older.’
Felix crossed to his shirt and drew it on as memories flooded back to him across the years. ‘You were very hard to figure out,’ he said. ‘At times it felt as if you thought me an amusing commoner, not worth more than a summer fling. Other times you seemed to act as if I was your saviour – someone to lead you out of the oblast and show you the world. I didn’t know what you wanted.’
‘That is because I didn’t know what I wanted,’ said Ulrika. ‘I wanted… I wanted…’ She paused, her eyes far away, then laughed suddenly, a great guffaw of surprise, and stood, running her hand roughly through her short white hair. ‘Shall I tell you when it was over?’ She held up a finger. ‘And this will prove that you were correct, and that it was me who decided to end it, though I didn’t realise that that was so until this very moment.’
‘All right,’ said Felix, as he tugged on his boots, though he wasn’t sure, now that she said it, that he did want to know. Had he said something ridiculous? Had he proved himself a peasant in some obscure manner?
‘I set you a test,’ she said, leaning against the mantelpiece and crossing her arms. ‘Though I didn’t know that was what it was at the time. And it was a test that you could not win, no matter your answer.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Felix. ‘What test?’
Ulrika smiled. ‘Do you remember, at Karak Kadrin, when I asked you if you would leave the Slayer and come away with me to Kislev?’
Felix’s face hardened. ‘I do remember. I said yes, I would. It is the only time I have ever betrayed my oath to Gotrek.’
‘Yes,’ said Ulrika, nodding. ‘And because of that, you failed the test. From then on I began to think of you as a man who would go back on a vow, and I no longer had the respect for you that I had previously.’
‘So,’ Felix said, anger rising in him, ‘I would have passed the test if I had said I would not go with you?’
‘No! Of course not,’ said Ulrika. ‘Had you said no, it would have proved that you did not love me enough to go back on a vow.’
Felix blinked. ‘But then it was…’
‘Impossible. Absolutely!’ Ulrika laughed. ‘You see? Young and foolish! I thought myself a noblewoman, and a noblewoman must have a lover of unimpeachable honour – a man who would die before he broke an oath. And yet, at the same time, I wanted from my lover such passion and devotion that he would be willing to trample his honour in the mud and forsake his friends and family at my lightest word.’
Felix shook his head in wonder. ‘Shallya’s mercy, it wasn’t Krieger who made you a monster. What madness!’
Ulrika flashed a sharp-toothed grin. ‘There is no more dangerous monster than a nineteen-year-old girl with ideals.’
Felix laughed, then winced, and eased gingerly into his doublet. ‘I… I must confess to a similar struggle.’
‘Oh?’
Felix looked at her sheepishly. ‘You were everything I ever wanted – a beautiful girl with spirit and intelligence, who loved life and adventure and…’ He paused, ‘…and love. And yet, you were also everything I ever hated, a noblewoman who’d never done a day’s work in her life. A sportswoman who would rather hunt than read, and whose idea of poetry was a Kossar drinking song.’
‘Lies!’ cried Ulrika, interrupting. ‘I worked harder than you ever–’
Felix held up his hands. ‘I know. I know. You were not really any of those things. Only a symbol of them. I knew it then too, but I couldn’t help it. I spent all my school years being snubbed by the sons and daughters of nobles, and I held it against you. By loving you, I was betraying every ideal I ever held about overturning privilege and ending the tyranny of class, and so I felt guilty. But when I looked at you, and listened to you, and saw you for who you were, rather than what you stood for, I felt guilty for the pigeonhole I had put you in.’
‘And so grew sullen,’ said Ulrika.
Felix nodded. ‘And angry.’
‘And started arguments for no reason,’ they said in unison, then laughed and caught each other’s eyes.
A whole conversation flashed between them in that look. A recognition of regret, of longing, guilt, of understanding come too late – and a pain went through Felix’s chest that had nothing to do with his stitches. He turned away, suddenly angry, though whether at Ulrika, or himself, or cruel fate, he didn’t know. By the gods, the foolish nothings that drove people apart! It was all so unfair.
‘Why couldn’t we have had this conversation twenty years ago?’ he asked.
‘Because we were twenty years younger,’ said Ulrika, sighing. ‘And twenty years more foolish. And could not name our trouble to ourselves, let alone each other.’
Felix spun back to her. ‘But think what those years might have held for us! Think how different our lives might have been if…’
‘Aye,’ said Ulrika, and the pain in her eyes was like an open wound. ‘I do think on it. Often.’
Felix flushed. ‘Ulrika.’ He stepped towards her. ‘Forgive me. It didn’t even occur to me.’
He raised a hand to clasp her shoulder, but she flinched back, thrusting out a warding hand and showing her fangs. ‘No! You may not touch
me!’
Felix stopped, confused.
Ulrika turned away and stared into the fire, hugging herself. ‘I could not bear it.’
Felix’s hand dropped, his heart breaking. He wanted comfort her, but how? He stared at her back, unable to think of anything to say.
The door opened. Gotrek stood in it. ‘He’s leaving.’
Ulrika sighed. It sounded to Felix like a sigh of relief.
But all Gephardt did was go to dinner at a nearby restaurant, alone, and then, after an hour, return home, still alone. It was maddening. Felix was certain that somewhere in Nuln the Brotherhood of the Cleansing Flame was preparing to use the black powder for some nefarious purpose, and that something terrible might happen at any minute. But where? When? And what would it be? He had thought Gephardt would be part of it, and would bring them to it, but he appeared to be in for the night.
‘Maybe I made a mistake,’ he said. ‘Maybe I picked the wrong man.’
Having returned from spying on Gephardt’s dinner, he and Gotrek and Ulrika now watched his father’s house from the window of Lord Kirstfauver’s darkened front sitting room. Gephardt’s lamps were on and his figure moved back and forth through the rooms.
‘Maybe the look I saw in Gephardt’s eye was nothing but indigestion,’ said Felix miserably.
‘You were attacked,’ said Ulrika.
‘It could have been some other member of Wulf’s who recognised me and sent those men.’
‘It’s him,’ said Gotrek. ‘He is nervous. He paces. He drinks. He is waiting for something. Something will happen tonight.’
‘It had better,’ said Felix. ‘The Spirit of Grungni flies at dawn.’
‘And I will let it fly, if need be,’ said Gotrek.
Felix looked at him, surprised.
‘I will not leave until Heinz is avenged,’ Gotrek rumbled. ‘No matter how long it takes.’
Another hour passed.
‘What if Gephardt’s not part of what is going to happen?’ said Felix, from where he slumped in a chair. ‘What if he’s only waiting to hear of the success of the plan? What if it has already occurred?’
