Dead Winter Page 3

  As he strode the empty streets, the priest felt the weight of his office like a great stone tied about his neck. His heart cracked a little more each time he passed a body lying strewn across someone’s threshold. His eyes misted with pity when he saw the ugly red crosses daubed upon mud-brick walls, marking another home where the plague had struck. He shared in the frustration of the peasants when he saw crude corn-doll effigies lying half-burnt in the mud or the carcass of a shaved cat nailed above a threshold. In their terror, the people turned to every superstition recalled by their Fennone ancestry, evoking any kind of magic to combat the forces of Old Night. Many of the dead lying in the street had ropes tied about their necks, marking them as offerings to Bylorak, the ancient marsh god whose worship persisted even in the face of kinder, more enlightened gods. These bodies would be taken not to the gardens of Morr, but to the quagmire of Bylorhof Marsh, consigned to the muddy deep and the keeping of the god who dwelled there.

  The priest smiled sadly as he watched a hay cart come trundling down the lane, bodies piled in its bed like cordwood. He watched it stop outside a mud-brick hut and observed as the men pulling the cart set the yoke down and started lifting corpses from the street. They took no especial precautions, these collectors of the dead, and their wasted frames wore the same woollen breeches and jackets as any peasant. Only the black caps crunched down about their ears denoted their occupation, that and the hollow, sunken faces that stared out from beneath their hats. There was no need for precaution, not for these men. In the minds of friends and family, the corpse collectors were already dead. They were another reason why the streets were empty when the bells tolled. The men who dragged the cart through Bylorhof were already infected by the plague.

  The men loaded their grisly burden into the cart. The plague left little of its victims, withering them into desiccated husks. Even for the sickly collectors, it took no great effort to carry their macabre cargo. There were twenty or thirty bodies in the cart this morning, but the collectors were still equal to the task of dragging it down the street in search of more bodies. After a bad night, they might make ten trips between town and the marsh. The priest hoped it hadn’t been a bad night.

  Making the sign of Morr as he passed the cart, invoking the protection of his god for the souls of the dead, the priest proceeded through the deserted town, his black robes whipping about him in the crisp autumn breeze. The breeze brought the stink of the marsh slithering through Bylorhof, a smell which was ordinarily as unwelcome as a goblin but which was now considered far more wholesome than the reek of the unburied dead.

  The priest, a servant of the god of death, was accustomed to the smell of corpses, but he shared the sentiments of the townsfolk. There was nothing wholesome about this plague and anything that would oppose it should be welcomed.

  The priest rounded a corner, noting with some misgiving the gnarled old oak standing in the square ahead. A horrible crime had employed that tree as its centrepiece. In their terror of the plague, the townsfolk were ready to embrace any rumour or superstition. An old-wives tale about dwarfs being able to curse men with hairs from their beards had provoked a mob into lynching the three dwarf smiths residing at Bylorhof Castle. The crime had outraged Baron von Rittendahl and in his anger he had appealed to Count Malbork von Drak for aid. A second tragedy had resulted from that unwise decision. Too disinterested to uncover the perpetrators, von Drak ordered twenty peasants chosen at random and flayed alive, their skins sent to one of the dwarfholds high in the mountains.

  It had fallen to the priests of Morr to attend and bury what von Drak’s men left behind. One of the dead had been a little girl not more than twelve winters old. The von Draks were infamous for their cruelty and the thought that Sylvania might break away entirely from Stirland with Count Malbork as its voivode was one that kept many people awake at night.

  The priest hurried past the hanging tree, turning his thoughts away from lynchings and tyrants, even from plague and bells. It was Angestag and that meant he would break his fast with family. It was a ritual as old as his own childhood, the son of a sea captain in the great city of Marienburg. With so many of the family scattered all over the city or away on ships, it had been a strictly obeyed tradition among them that on Angestag, as many of the family as could would gather together for breakfast.

  The priest stopped as he reached a narrow lane bordered on one side by the workyard of a cartwright and on the other by the stone walls of a granary. Further down the street rose a huddle of tall timber houses, the homes of Bylorhof’s more prosperous tradesmen and burghers. It was to one of these homes the priest’s path led. He smiled as he looked up at the threshold of his brother’s home. No shaved cat nailed above the door or appeal to ancient gods chalked up on the wall, only a simple iron fish tacked to the door itself, an old Marienburger custom meant to promote good fortune.

  After his first knock, the door was tugged open and an exuberant boy with blond hair and deep blue eyes grinned up at the priest. ‘Uncle Frederick!’ the boy hailed him, then turned around to shout his news to the rest of the household. ‘Pappa! Mamma! Uncle Frederick is here!’

  The priest stepped inside, setting his staff in a vase just within the entranceway. He turned and made the sign of Morr, a gesture meant to keep any wayward spirits from slipping into the house alongside him. It was always a good thing to be careful where restless ghosts were concerned. Especially in such unsettled times as these.

  ‘The prodigal brother returns!’ A tall, clean-cut man came striding towards the door, his face split in a broad smile. He bowed his head in respectful recognition of the priest’s rank before taking a brotherly jab at Frederick’s shoulder.

  ‘It is wrong to scold him, Rutger,’ a soft voice admonished the tall man. The speaker was a young woman, her golden tresses bound by a headscarf in the Sylvanian fashion, her slender figure pressed into a fashionable cotehardie gown after the Marienburg manner. Her pretty features formed a welcoming smile as she extended her hand to the priest. ‘With what is happening in Bylorhof, a priest of Morr must have much to do.’

  Frederick bowed, kissing the woman’s hand. ‘I am sorry I brought you here, Aysha,’ he apologised. ‘This is a poor place…’

  Rutger scowled at his brother. ‘If we’d stayed in Marienburg, we’d have been carved up by Snagr Half-nose by now. I’m only sorry more of the family didn’t leave when they had the chance.’ He smiled and reached to his neck, drawing out a brass pomander fitted to a chain. As he did so, his wife and son followed suit, displaying their own pomanders. ‘See, we are all protected against the plague. A lot easier than to dodge a Norscan’s axe!’

  The priest couldn’t share in his brother’s jest. He’d buried too many people with posies in their pockets and pomanders about their necks to believe ‘bad air’ was the source of the plague and that a strong fragrance could protect against the disease. ‘I still feel responsible. If you’d gone to Altdorf or Wurtbad…’

  ‘There would have been no one there to welcome us and help us make a home,’ stated Aysha.

  ‘And from what I hear, the plague is there too,’ Rutger said. He frowned a little as he looked down at his son. He reached over and tousled the boy’s hair. ‘I think we should save this discussion for another time. As my wife points out, you are a busy man.’ The smile returned to Rutger’s face as he led the priest into his home.

  ‘Who knows when the brothers van Hal will have another chance to break their fast together?’

  Nuln

  Nachgeheim, 1111

  Dead leaves crinkled beneath Walther Schill’s boots as he picked his way through the dark streets. The flickering glow of the rushlight he carried was just enough to reveal the half-timbered buildings squatting to either side of the narrow lane. This was an old part of Nuln, dating from the city’s infancy, when it was just a little trading town nestled in the marshland where the River Reik joined the River Aver. The plaster walls rose from thick stone foundation walls, relics of the roundhouses
of ancient Merogen fishermen. The combination gave the structures a peculiar appearance, with curving ground floors of heavy limestone and clay supporting timber upper storeys which were sharply angular. In more prosperous sections of the city, the buildings had a more harmonious appearance, but no one in the Freiberg district had the resources to rebuild. Those few who did had already removed themselves to the wealthy Altestadt across the river or the growing sprawl of the Handelbezirk south of the Universität.

  A warm breeze whistled through the deserted streets. Except for a pair of dung gatherers, Walther was alone. Any decent folk, common wisdom claimed, should be abed at such an unseemly hour. The powers of Old Night, the wise said, were at their most malignant just before the dawn and the rising sun forced them back into their netherworld lairs.

  Walther scoffed at such old superstitions. He’d never seen any evidence of Old Night and the Ruinous Powers, any proof of vampires and werewolves prowling the countryside seeking whom they might devour or malevolent warlocks biding their time until they could use their magic to change the unwary into snakes and toads. He relegated such talk to nursery nonsense like the Black Boar and the Underfolk, fairy tales meant to frighten small children into behaving.

  Walther shifted the heavy linen sack slung across his shoulders, smiling at the weight of his burden. All his life he had laboured in the dark, making his living during those cursed hours when other men slept. A hunter had to bide by the nature of his prey. If that creature was one of darkness, then he had to become a creature of darkness himself. It was as simple as that. Even Verena would concede the logic of such a conclusion.

  As he strode past the dung gatherers in their grubby woollen hoods, one of them looked up at Walther, wrinkling his nose and making an expression of distaste. Walther glowered at the grimy man, shifting his step so that he could kick a loose stone at the muck-raker. ‘I’ll make more tonight than you’ll see all month,’ he grumbled at the dung gatherer.

  ‘At least it’s clean work,’ the hooded man snarled, wiping refuse from the back of his hand on a strip of soiled felt.

  Walther scowled at the dung gatherer and marched on. What did the scum know? In a few more weeks, the fellow would be begging pennies and picking eggshells from the gutter! The harvest was in, no one would want manure for their fields until spring. The muck-raker would be reduced to surviving on the pittance Count Artur paid to keep the streets clean. In the best of times, that would be just enough to allow a man to starve his way through the winter, allowing he didn’t have a family to support. And these were anything but the best of times.

  By contrast, there was always a demand for Walther and his profession. The very repugnance with which even a dung gatherer regarded his trade ensured there would always be work for a rat-catcher. It had always puzzled Walther why most people looked upon rats with such fear and loathing. Certainly they were noxious little pests, but hardly things to evoke horror. Still, if people wanted to be stupid and afraid, Walther was quite happy to exploit them. Five rat-tails would bring a bounty of two pennies from the city coffers, as much as a dung gatherer would be paid for an entire week of shovelling the streets.

  The rat-catcher cast a backwards glance at the hooded men and their little cart filled with dung. They’d be hard-pressed selling the night soil this time of year. No farmer would need manure now. It was possible they might be able to sell some of it as fuel, but only the poorest of the poor in the shantytown beside the south docks would resort to such measures. Hardly the most wealthy clientele.

  Again, Walther reflected upon the benefits of being a hunter. In addition to the bounty offered by the burghomeister, there was always a market for his catch.

  From out of the darkness, a battered wooden sign swayed upon rusty iron chains. There was no lettering upon the board – few in this part of the city were literate – but the painted image of a hog’s head did a serviceable job of proclaiming the sort of business housed within. Walther shifted the heavy sack from one shoulder to the other. Using the haft of the pole he employed in his work, he knocked against the door.

  It was a few minutes before the door was tugged open. A balding, overweight man dressed only in his nightshirt stood blinking in the doorway, a foul-smelling candle clenched in his fist. He stared bleary-eyed at Walther. The rat-catcher knew he must present quite a sight, his wool garments caked in the filth of Nuln’s sewers, his hands stained with blood, his face drawn and haggard from the long night crawling after rodents.

  ‘Are you going to let me in?’ Walther said, his tone gruff and impatient.

  ‘Schill,’ the fat man said, stepping aside to allow the rat-catcher entry. ‘I’ve told you before to come by the back way,’ the man grumbled as he closed the door behind his visitor.

  ‘I’m in too much of a hurry,’ Walther told him, blowing out the rushlight and stuffing the remains of the taper into a cowhide holster. ‘Hunting was good tonight. I lost track of time.’ He strode through the little shop, around bins of pig-feet and goat-ears, past racks of ham hocks and the plucked carcasses of chickens. With a sigh of relief, the rat-catcher set his bag down on a wooden counter at the back of the shop.

  ‘In a hurry,’ the fat man scowled, coming around the counter. He set the candle down beside a pair of bronze scales. Fumbling about behind the counter, he produced a number of tiny stone weights. ‘You mean you’ve been dry too long.’ He reached over and untied the twine closing the bag. ‘You should talk Bremer into making you a partner with all the money you drop at the Black Rose!’

  Walther’s eyes narrowed with annoyance. Angrily, he drew the bag away. ‘I don’t go there to see Bremer and I don’t come here to be lectured, Ostmann!’

  ‘Have it as you want,’ Ostmann apologised. ‘Let’s see what you have.’ The butcher reached into the linen bag, removing the long furry body of a rat. He jostled the dead rodent for a moment in his hand, trying to estimate its weight before resorting to the scales. ‘A big one. Might be sixteen ounces.’ He cast a glance at the bulky bag. ‘Are they all like that?’

  Walther nodded. ‘I said the hunting was good. Forty-three longtails and not a runt among them.’

  Ostmann made an appreciative whistle, sliding the first rat over to the scales. ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you much coin,’ he said. ‘There’s not too much demand for dog fodder…’

  ‘You’ll pay what you always pay,’ Walther told him, reaching for the bag. Ostmann quickly laid a protective hand atop it. The rat-catcher drew back, waving his hand at the empty meat hooks hanging from the ceiling and the empty bins lined against the wall. ‘I’m well aware of what you need. This talk of plague has made the burghers nervous. Count Artur has outlawed the transport of cattle from Stirland to try and keep it from spreading into Nuln. The guildmasters assure that they can buy enough Reikland beef to make up for it, but one look at your shelves makes me think otherwise. The burghers might be peasants but they aren’t serfs. They want some meat with their supper.’

  The butcher drew back, his face aghast. ‘Surely you aren’t suggesting…’

  ‘I might do more than suggest,’ the rat-catcher threatened.

  Ostmann licked his lips nervously. He began drawing rats from the bag, setting each in turn on the scales, scribbling figures on a scrap of sackcloth. ‘Care for something to eat while I tally this up? Some sausage?’

  Walther gave the man a crooked smile. ‘Ostmann, just because I catch them doesn’t mean I want to eat them.’

  Chapter II

  Altdorf

  Nachgeheim, 1111

  The meeting of the Imperial Grand Council broke apart some hours later, disgruntled noblemen slipping back to their private manors scattered about Altdorf’s Palace District, others retreating to their chambers within the Imperial Palace itself. There was no arguing with one of the Emperor’s diktats and nothing but anger and frustration to be gained by trying.

  Some of the dignitaries, however, felt enough resentment to accept the invitation of Prince Sigdan Holswig
. The titular ruler of Altdorf, much of Sigdan’s power was subordinate to that of Emperor Boris, leaving him with few duties and even fewer responsibilities. Since assuming the title from his late father, Sigdan’s chief concern had become soothing the tempers of those who had felt the sting of the Emperor’s decrees.

  Situated overlooking the river, Sigdan’s castle was a relic of older times. It was said to have been built by Sigismund II as a bulwark to command the approach to the Reik. In those distant days, Norscan reivers had been bold enough to sail their longships down the river as far as Nuln and Pfeildorf. It had been the river castles built by Sigismund II which had finally ended the depredations of the longships.

  Gazing down from the lead-lined window overlooking the river, Dettleb von Schomberg could almost see the longships coming again, Snagr Half-nose sailing down the Reik with a fleet of berserkers to plunder and pillage the heart of the Empire. Only a few years ago, the nobleman would have found such a thing impossible. Now, he wasn’t quite so certain. He’d just had a very forceful reminder that the greed of his Emperor knew no limits.

  ‘Of course they will discharge their warriors,’ Baron Thornig’s voice drew von Schomberg away from the window. A dozen or so noblemen and their retainers were gathered at Prince Sigdan’s table, picking at the remains of a roast boar and plates of pickled eel. ‘What other choice do they have?’

  ‘You make it sound as if you don’t intend to discharge your own soldiers,’ observed Palatine Kretzulescu. The Sylvanian dignitary looked even more drained and exasperated than he had in the Imperial Palace.