Hammers of ulric, p.32
Hammers of Ulric, page 32
Throughout the palace, servants were at work, changing linen, scrubbing floors, polishing cutler-ware, laying fires and wiping frost off the insides of the guest apartment window panes.
The staff had all been wondering what was afoot since the moment Breugal set them to work suddenly in the late evening as if it was early morning. A visit, that much was certain. When Lenya overheard Ganz and von Volk talking in the main hall, she became the only member of the domestic staff of a rank lower than chamberlain to know the details. And she had no one to tell. Even now she was working as part of the house-staff, she was alone and friendless.
In the palace, that was. As she hurried down the west gallery with two buckets of warm water to replenish the girls working on the main staircase with hog-brushes, she saw the snow out of the windows, settling down in the light of the braziers down the drive, and wondered how Kruza was faring on a night like this.
Just before the chime of vigiliae, a detachment of Wolf Templars rode up Palast Hill and in through the Great Gate, whipped by flakes, their thunderous hooves muffled by the snow. Aric led them, the Bannerole of Ulric held high in his left hand. Behind him, Morgenstern, Drakken, Anspach, Bruckner and Dorff in a tight pack, and then a dozen more Templars, six each from Red and Grey Companies. A Panther knight at the Gatehouse hailed them, and directed them around the inner courtyard to the Royal Guardhouse.
They reined up in the stone square before the guardhouse, the breath of their chargers steaming the air. The horses trod uncomfortably on the unfamiliar depth of the snowcover. Uniformed pages, their cold faces as flushed pink as their silk coats, scurried out to grasp reins.
Aric dismounted smartly and, flanked by Bruckner, Olric from the Grey and Bertolf from the Red, marched across the doorway where a squad of Knights Panther in full armour, torches raised high, waited for them under the portico. Aric saluted the lead Panther.
‘Aric, of the White, Bearer of the Standard. The Great Wolf watch you, brother. Ar-Ulric, bless his name, has given me command of this reinforcement detail.’
The lead Panther had raised his ornate gold visor. His face was stern and dark, and his flesh looked pasty and ill next to the rich gold and reds of his steepled crest.
‘I am Vogel, Captain, Graf’s Second Own Household. Sigmar bless you, Temple Knight. Herr Captain von Volk told me to expect you.’
Aric sensed tension. The man seemed ill, and unlike von Volk, he still seemed to harbour some of the stiff rivalry that had become tradition between the Templars and the Bodyguard. Relations between the Wolves and Panthers may have thawed in von Volk’s eyes, mused Aric, but the old prejudices are deep rooted.
‘We appreciate the assistance of the Temple in this fragile hour,’ Vogel went on, sounding anything but appreciative. ‘Border scouts report the ambassador’s party is just a few hours away, despite the snows. And the brotherhood of Panthers is… unmanned. Many of us are bedridden with the fever.’
‘We will say deliverance litanies for them. They are strong, robust men. They will survive.’ Aric sounded confident, but Vogel seemed unsteady as he turned to lead them in. The Wolf leader could see dark tracks of sweat on the Panther’s exposed, pallid cheek. And there was a smell. A smell of rank, sickly sweat, of illness, half-cloaked in the pomander scent of the courtly knights. Vogel was not the only Panther here who was sick.
Ulric protect us too, Aric thought. It smells the way the city air does when the plague visits. And hadn’t Anspach reported some loose rumour about plague in the stews and slums?
The Panther honour guard fell in behind Aric and Vogel, and the Wolves followed en masse. They marched down a marble colonnade into the draughty main halls of the palace, where candles and – such luxury! – oil lamps burned in wall sconces, for mile after mile, it seemed to Aric, in every direction down the tapestry- and mirror-lined promenades.
‘Just tell us what you’d have us do, and we’ll get to it,’ Aric said. ‘What duties would you have us perform?’
‘I don’t expect you Wolves to have a working knowledge of this labyrinthine palace. The layout can be disconcerting to strangers.’ Vogel seemed to enjoy the word ‘strangers’, as it emphasised the fact the noble Wolves were on Panther turf now. ‘Don’t stray, or you’ll get lost. We need patrols to sweep the palace, so I’ll draw them up from the Panther companies. You Templars would do us a service if you agreed to stand watch on the guest apartments.’
‘It will be an honour to serve,’ Aric said. ‘Show us the area and the places to watch.’
Vogel nodded. He waved up two of his knights. Their visors were shut and they seemed like automatons to Aric. He had never realised before how much he appreciated the Wolf custom of going to battle helm-less, hair flying. Faces and expressions communicated a lot, particularly in the heat of war.
‘Krass! Guingol! Show the Wolves the layout of the guest quarters.’
‘Aye, sir!’ said Guingol. Or Krass. Who in Ulric’s name could tell behind those golden grilles?
Vogel turned to Aric. ‘Stand firm, Wolf. All of you. The watch-word is “Northwind”.’
‘Northwind.’
‘Repeat it only to your men. If any you meet can’t provide it, detain them. Or slay them. No exceptions.’
‘I understand,’ Aric said.
Vogel saluted.
‘May the day pass well,’ he said. ‘May none be found wanting.’
‘As you say,’ smiled Aric courteously.
Vogel and his men turned and clanked away down the gallery, armour jingling. Aric turned to Guingol and Krass. ‘Let’s get on, shall we?’ he asked.
They nodded and strode forward. The Wolves followed.
‘This place smells bad,’ whispered Bertolf of the Red.
‘Like sickness,’ Bruckner agreed.
‘Like plague,’ Olric said dourly.
Behind them, in the ranks, Drakken glanced uneasily at Morgen-stern.
‘The Grey Wolf is right, isn’t he? Plague?’
Morgenstern chuckled deeply, richly, stroking his vast, cuirassed belly as he stomped down the hallway. ‘Boy, you’re too much the pessimist. Plague? In this cold snap? Never!’
‘Ague, maybe,’ Dorff said sullenly from behind them, his directionless whistling drying up for once.
‘Oh, ague! Yes, ague! Perhaps that!’ Morgenstern chortled. ‘Since when did anyone ever die of the sneezes?’
‘Apart from the dozens who died last Jahrdrung?’ Dorff asked.
‘Oh, shut up and whistle something cheerful!’ snapped Morgenstern. Sometimes morale was just too difficult to build.
‘What’s the betting,’ said Anspach, who had been silent up until then, ‘what’s the betting that this is the worst mess we ever got into?’
The Wolf Templars slammed to a halt, the White Company men bottling the Red and Grey behind them. Aric, with his Panther escort, had gone on a few more paces before he realised they had all stopped behind him, squabbling and confrontational.
‘I was only saying!’ Anspach said.
‘Keep it to yourself!’ one of the Red Company snarled.
‘He’s right!’ a Grey Templar snapped. ‘Doom is coming to the Fauschlag!’
Others murmured agreement.
‘Plague… it’s true…’ Drakken said, wondering.
‘I’ve heard that!’ said another Red Wolf. ‘Thick and rife in the Altquartier stews!’
More agreement.
‘We’re on the brink of disaster!’ said Olric, shaking his head.
Bertolf was beginning to explain something about ghosts walking the streets when Aric pushed past the bemused Panther escort and rounded on the gaggle of Templars.
‘Enough! Enough! This kind of talk defeats us all before we’ve even begun!’
Aric had thought his voice was fierce and commanding. This was his first duty as a commander, and he intended to prosecute it with all the firmness and vigour of Ganz. No, of Jurgen. He was going to prove himself a fine leader of men. But he found himself shouted down by the arguing Wolves, comments blasting back and forth quicker than he could counter them. A boiling hubbub of voices filled the passageway. Aric had anticipated some trouble from the men of the other companies put under his command, but he had expected the men of White to follow him. Now there was nothing but mayhem, fierce conversation, disruption. And no discipline.
‘Enough!’ said a deep voice next to the increasingly frantic standard bearer. Silence fell, hard as an executioner’s axe.
All eyes turned to Morgenstern. Very softly, he said, ‘There’s no plague. There’s a touch of fever, but it will pass. And since when have we been afraid of rumours? Eh? Eh? This great rock-city has stood for two thousand years! Will such a place fall in one night? I think not! Doom on all our heads? Never! Not when we have armour on our backs, weapons in our hands and the spirit of Ulric to lift us!’
The silence was broken now as men of all Wolf Companies voiced their agreement with the great White Company ox.
‘Let’s do what we have to do and make the morrow safe for all good souls! And the morrow after that! For the Graf, for Ar-Ulric, for every man and woman in this beloved city!’
Morgenstern’s throaty voice rose above the men’s murmurings. Like the holler of a hero of old.
‘Wolves of Ulric! Hammers of Ulric! Do we stand together, or do we waste the night with dispiriting rumour? Eh?’
They cheered. They all cheered. Ulric take me, Aric sighed. I have a lot to learn.
Guingol and Krass showed them the layout of the guest block. Aric appointed duties to all of the seventeen Templars in his command. He remembered, at a nudge from Morgenstern, to tell them the watchword.
He was left at the main doors of the guest apartments with the portly soldier.
‘Thank you,’ he hissed, a full three minutes after he was sure they were alone.
‘Aric, Aric, never thank me.’ Morgenstern turned to look at him, compassion in his huge, bearded face. ‘I did as much for Jurgen when he was young.’
Aric looked at him.
‘In panic, no one listens to a commander. They listen to those in the ranks beside them. They know the truth comes from the common man. It’s a trick. I’m glad I could help.’
‘I’ll remember this.’
‘Good. I remember when old Vulse used it, back when I was a pup. Who knows, in years to come, you’ll be the old ranking veteran who can do the same for another generation of scared cubs.’
They both smiled. Morgenstern pulled a hip-flask out from under his pelt. ‘Shall we bless the night?’ he asked.
Aric paused, then took the filled cap Morgenstern offered. They drank a shot together, Aric from the cap and Morgenstern from the flask, clinking both together before sipping.
‘Ulric love you, Morgenstern,’ Aric whispered, wiping his mouth and handing the cap back to the big Wolf. ‘I’ll do a circuit of the men, make sure they’re all in place.’
Morgenstern nodded. Aric slid away down the passageway.
As soon as the standard bearer was gone, Morgenstern sank back against the door jamb and knocked back a deep swallow from the flask.
His hands were trembling.
Plague, yes. Doom, yes, Death to them all, certainly. It had taken all his strength to speak out. To keep Aric’s position as leader.
But in his great heart, he knew. He knew.
This was the end of everything.
Kruza awoke in the last hours of the night. His low, spare attic was cold as hell. His scar itched damnably.
He tried to remember what had woken him. A dream.
Wheezer.
He had been telling Kruza something. Wheezer had been standing next to the Graf and the Graf hadn’t seen him.
Something about… the serpent, the self-biting monster. The world-eater.
Kruza shook so hard he had to crawl across the attic boards and pour a drink from the flask on the table. It was chilly, almost icy. Only the lead-weight of the liquor had kept it from freezing. He swilled it down, and the heat of the drink hit the back of his gullet.
Wheezer… what were you trying to tell me? What were you trying to tell me?
Nothing. Silence. Yet something was there.
The trinket? Was that it? The ceremonial necklace? Or something else?
Mist floated around him. His limbs felt hard and rigid with the cold. He took another drink. It warmed everything above his throat and everything else was rigid and dead.
Lenya. He remembered now. Lenya. You want me to watch for your sister! She’s in danger!
That was no problem. Defending Lenya was something he didn’t feel was an arduous task. Ranald take that Wolf of hers… Lenya…
Then he realised – or remembered, or simply imagined – what Wheezer had really been trying to tell him from the quiet world of phantoms. It wasn’t just Lenya, though she was important.
It was everyone. It was Middenheim. It was the whole city.
He got up, pulling on his leather breeches and jerkin. His face was troubled, but he was not shaking any more.
First light came, pale and clear, the sky a translucent blue. Snow lay a foot thick on the countryside and the city. Only the sheer black sides of the rock were free of it.
A train of gilt carriages and emblemed outriders churned up the southern viaduct, now just recently repaired, and flew in through the gate, puffing up sheets of snow. Holding the regal pennants of Bretonnia high, the vanguard of knights stormed up through the empty streets, leading the convoy of coaches towards the palace.
At the Great Gate, an honour guard of Panther Knights was mounted, and they turned to ride in with the speeding coaches. As the hurtling procession reached the entry yard, and pink-clad pages with torches ran out to form a fan of fire to greet the honoured visitors, housemen rolled out a velvet carpet to the foot-rest of the ambassador’s carriage.
Nones was yet to strike as Gruber led Ganz in through the porch of the Temple of Morr. They looked up at the burned sections of the eerie temple, and the stretches that artisans were beginning to rebuild, many covered in tarpaulins against the weather. The day was clear and very cold, snow threatening again. Behind them, the escort detail of Schell, Schiffer, Kaspen and Lowenhertz.
Brother Olaf admitted them into the Factorum. The chamber was a cold, dank place, vaulted, smelling fiercely of astringent lavender-water and embalming fluids. Under the swinging ceiling lamps, Father Dieter looked up from the body on the cold slab as the Wolf Knights entered, rowel spurs clinking on the hard steps.
Gruber led them down the steps into the dark chamber. Even he was unnerved by the plinth slabs and the cold air. And the shrouded corpses laid out on those blocks. He had seen Father Dieter once before, in Osstor Street by the Wolf-Hole. Now Gruber saw him un-hooded. A tall, grim man, tonsure-headed, his eyes clear and cold, as if driven by some great, old regret.
Dieter looked up. ‘Wolf Brother Gruber.’
‘Father. This is Ganz, my commander.’
Ganz approached the priest of Morr and made a brief, respectful bow.
‘What can you show us of this horror, father?’ he asked simply.
Dieter led them across to the slab in the centre of the room where a male corpse lay, naked. The only distinguishing mark, as Ganz could see, was the wound through the white chest.
‘The Wolf-Hole killer,’ the priest said quietly, his hand flowing out to indicate the body. ‘He was covered from head to foot in the blood of others when he came in. I have washed the corpse.’
‘What has it told you?’ Gruber asked.
‘Look here.’ The priest ushered Ganz and Gruber closer, indicating the sunken features of the dead man. ‘When all the blood was gone, and despite the rigor, I saw a sallowness, a pale, sweaty pain.’
‘Meaning?’
‘This man was sick. Very sick. Out of his mind.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ asked Ganz.
‘Because he’s not the first like it I’ve had in here. Or the last. He was sick, brother Ganz, death-sick. Madness was in him.’
‘And is that why he attacked and murdered?’ Gruber asked.
‘Most likely.’
‘And the desecrations? On the Wolf-Hole and the house?’ asked Gruber.
The priest of Morr opened a small chapbook. ‘Like you, I didn’t recognise them, but I took them down carefully. I have since compared them to writings in our Librarium.’
‘And?’
‘They are names. The script is antique, and thus curious to our eyes, but the names are… common. The names of people. Citizens. Amongst them, the name of our killer here, Ergin. Also the names of his brother, his brother’s wife, his neighbour, and three others who lived in the quarter nearby.
‘A roll-call of the dead,’ breathed Lowenhertz quietly.
‘Indeed,’ the priest said, looking up sharply, as if surprised by the Wolf’s insight. ‘Or a roll of those that would be dead, if we assume they were written by the killer. A list then, almost a celebration of the sacred murder.’
Ganz frowned. ‘Sacred? What was sacred about that act?’
The priest smiled slightly, though it reminded Ganz of the way a dog smiles before it bites. ‘Not in our terms, commander. I meant no blasphemy. But can you not see how this was a ritual thing? A ritual crafted by madness. The setting, for instance. It was more than chance that the murders desecrated a shrine holy to the patron deity of this city.’
‘Have you seen this before?’ Ganz asked.
‘Yes, twice now. Twice in the last two days. A butcher ran amok in the Altmarkt, exhibiting similar signs of fever-madness. He had gouged the names of his five victims and himself in a side of meat hanging from his awning. Also, a scrivener in Freiburg, at the start of the week, just before the snows. Three dead there, stabbed with a quill-knife before the man threw himself from a window. Again, the fever-madness. Again, the names… the killer and his three victims, entered into a ledger the scrivener was working on, in a delicate copperplate hand.’
