Marks of Chaos Page 4

  “Kislevites, sir,” said Grenner.

  “Kislevites?” Lord Udo looked startled. Johansen worked hard to suppress a smile. He was glad Grenner was doing most of the talking; his own abilities as a liar weren’t strong at the best of times.

  “Yes, sir,” said Grenner. “The modus operandi matches a group of Kislevite agents that we’ve been tracking. At least one of them was in the crowd at the north gate this morning. And everyone knows about Kislevite shamans.”

  “But why would Kislev attack the Elector of Middenland? We don’t even border Kislev.”

  Grenner’s face was blank, like a good soldier. “Exactly, sir. They aim to destabilise the political hierarchy, not settle grudges. The Grand Duke has no links to Kislev, and that makes him an ideal target.”

  “Kislevites.” Lord Udo sounded thoughtful. “The crossbowman, you’re sure he was a Kislevite? His weapons too? Crossbows aren’t a regular Kislevite weapon.”

  “Everything was too badly burnt to be identifiable, sir, but our Alchemics people are working on it.”

  Lord Udo toyed with the glass goblet on the table. “What are you doing to stop these… Kislevites?”

  “Agents are watching their known safe-houses and equipment stores. Six of them are already in interrogation,” Grenner said. Johansen was impressed by the direct quality of the lie. “Meanwhile we believe there may have been a leak of information from inside the Elector’s household. Tomorrow morning we’ll begin interrogating everyone in his employ.”

  Lord Udo took a mouthful from his goblet. Johansen noted how his loose sleeve conveniently shielded his expression for a second. The noble replaced the glass carefully on the table and asked, “How long will that take?”

  “Not long, my lord,” Grenner said. “We’re very efficient about these things.”

  There was a pause. Johansen and Grenner waited. Lord Udo chewed a pomegranate seed. He seemed to be thinking.

  “Tonight,” he said. “Getting to the palace. What are the arrangements?”

  “A secret, my lord. Only the people who need to know actually know.”

  The table flew across the floor, crashing down, the goblet shattering, fruit and silverware clattering across the carpet. Lord Udo was on his feet, one fist clenched. Johansen did not move. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Grenner hadn’t either.

  “How dare you say I should not know about my father’s safety?” the nobleman said, spitting each word across the room. “Tell me the plan, you insolent arse, or I’ll have the Palisades closed down tomorrow. My father’s life is at risk.”

  So far today we’ve saved your fat father’s life twice, and I’ve taken a crossbow bolt for my pains, Johansen thought, and you’re the reason why. “As you wish, my lord,” he said softly. “At seven bells the Grand Duke and his household will enter five carriages in the courtyard here. They will be escorted from here to the palace by Middenland soldiers, as well as Palisades riders with crossbows and agents on the stree-”

  He paused; his wound had shot a bolt of pain across his chest. Motes of black swam across his vision. Lord Udo was looking at him strangely. He took a breath, held it a second, and resumed.

  “Etiquette states the Grand Duke should be in the first coach. That makes it the obvious target, so it will be empty. The Grand Duke will be in the second coach, along with his nominated successor Duke Siegfried, and the rest of the family will follow in the usual order. Each carriage will have its curtains drawn, so nobody will be the wiser. Not even the coachmen will know which passengers they are carrying.”

  Lord Udo sat back in his chair, holding his chin in his hand. The jewels on his rings gleamed in the candlelight.

  “That sounds workable,” he said. “And your secret plan, how many people know it?”

  “Only the Palisades agents involved in the operation. And now you, my lord,” said Grenner.

  “Who else? My father?”

  “Nobody else, my lord.”

  “Good,” Lord Udo said. “That is enough. Leave me. I must get ready for the dinner.” He turned away from them. Johansen and Grenner bowed and left.

  The oak front door of the townhouse closed behind them. The sun was low over the rooftops and the street outside was filled with people on their way home.

  “You think he swallowed it?” Johansen asked.

  “He doesn’t have to digest it all,” said Grenner. “But if he thinks we’re pinning the blame on Kislev instead of Tilea then he knows his uncle isn’t going to take the fall for him. He knows he’s got to act tonight, and we’ve given him the idea of blaming it on us. Let’s hope he’ll bite off more than he can chew.”

  The long shadows of evening had darkened and melted into each other, and a few evening stars shone from the clouded sky. Below, the courtyard of the Grand Duke’s townhouse was filled with carriages, horses and uniformed men. The workmen and servants had gone, leaving only a corridor of dark fabric between the house’s main exit and the first of the carriages. Just inside the gate, an escort guard of Middenland soldiers waited.

  Something was making Grenner’s horse uncomfortable, and he leaned forward to pat its neck and adjust its blinkers. By the gate he saw Hoffmann and Johansen talking, their horses still. Even in the grey light he could see Johansen’s face was pale and pained. Duty like this, even on horseback, was no place for an injured man.

  He rode up to the two of them and saluted. The gesture felt odd, but this was a formal occasion and all protocol had to be observed. Hoffmann was in full uniform, his campaign medals spread proudly across it.

  “Grenner. Good,” he said. “How are the preparations?”

  “Done, sir. The coachmen and servants are briefed, the family are waiting inside the house. Nobody will know who’s riding in which carriage, not even the people inside them.”

  “Nobody except us.” Hoffmann smiled slightly. “Seven bells is about to sound. Give the signal.”

  “Yes, sir.” He paused. “We’re putting an Elector’s life at risk, sir.”

  “I know. But better we draw our man out now than let him try to slit the Elector’s throat in his bed tonight. Give the command.”

  Grenner turned his horse and rode to the first carriage, the painted carvings on their ornate woodwork dull in the torchlight. He nodded to the driver, dismounted and walked through the cloth-walled passageway to the house door. He knocked twice and it swung open.

  They were all there, standing in the anteroom beyond, glistening with silks, gold and jewels. The Grand Duke and his wife, Baron Siegfried and his wife and son, Lord Udo, Lord Sigismund and Lady Anna, Lord Helmut and Lady Margaret, with their attendants and servants. He snapped to attention.

  “Your Grace, my lords and ladies, the carriages are ready,” he said.

  None of them looked at him. None of them acknowledged he was there. As Grenner turned smartly and walked back out to the courtyard he asked himself, not for the first time, why he cared.

  The carriages were loaded, their passengers concealed behind thick velvet curtains. The Middenland guards began to move forward, out into the street that led north to the Imperial palace. Grenner waited at the gate, signalling to each of the coach-drivers when it was their turn to move into position in the line. One started too early, following the one next to it, but he waved it back in time. If they lost the right order, they lost everything.

  Outside, a thin crowd lined the route to the palace, held back by bored members of the City Watch. Grenner found himself riding alongside the second carriage and deliberately slowed his horse, dropping back until he was next to Johansen.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I feel like hell. I shouldn’t be here. I’ll be useless if anything kicks off. And I wish it would—better than hanging around at the palace until these fat mosquitoes are ready to come home.”

  “If something happens you can bet Hoffmann will have us making reports and interviewing witnesses till three bells tomorrow,” Grenner said.

  “T
he old man’s taking a hellish risk.”

  “I know. If this goes wrong it’s the end of the department. They’ll hang Hoffmann. I’m worried that we’ve based all this on the word of the Untersuchung. Is their information good? Do you trust them?”

  Johansen didn’t reply. Then he groaned.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” he said. “Time to find a nice young widow who owns a pub, some tall strong blonde who’s not too old, settle down…”

  Grenner snorted. “You’re not thinking of that northern girl who owns the Black Goat? You wouldn’t get an easy life with her. She’d keep you-”

  Ahead of them, the second carriage exploded in a burst of white light and a wave of heat. Its body lifted three feet off the ground and hung for a second at the centre of a fierce bright world, until the Shockwave slammed it down into the ground. A crashing roar blew past them, echoing off the buildings. Wood and metal whizzed through the air, ploughing into the walls and the crowd.

  Grenner reined in his horse, turning its head away from the blast so it wouldn’t be panicked. People were screaming and running around him, falling, blocking the street. The other carriages were trying to turn, to get away from the scene. He saw someone fall under the wheels, crushed. Horses were screeching and rearing. The wreckage blazed. Where debris landed, new fires were starting. People were burning, flailing as they died.

  “Think fast!” Johansen yelled.

  “They always attack from above!” Grenner shouted back. He stared up, looking for a figure silhouetted at a window or against the dark sky, but the afterimages of the explosion were blinding him. He heard the thunk of Johansen firing his crossbow, glanced to see where it was pointed, followed the line, and caught a movement on the roof.

  He dropped the reins, stood on the saddle and leaped for the front of the nearest building, grabbing its exposed corner-beam with both hands and climbing, hand over hand, grabbing ledges and windows, pulling himself up the wall. He’d done this enough times in the Watch, chasing thieves and cat-burglars, but never in full uniform. He could feel the heat of the fires on his back through the thick fabric.

  Three storeys up he heaved himself over the eaves and looked round. The weird landscape of chimneys and tiled slopes was filled with dark shadows. Would the wizard have run, or be lying in ambush?

  Grenner moved forward silently, trying to block out the sounds of panic and pain below, straining to hear anything ahead. There was a scraping of stone; a tile slipping, he guessed. He moved towards it, keeping low, climbing the inclines of the roofs. Then something exploded at his feet and he jumped back with a shout of shock. A roost of pigeons scrambled into the sky in front of him on noisy wings.

  Something moved. His quarry knew he was there. Running footsteps headed south, towards the city’s south gate. He followed, using chimney-stacks for cover at the top of each roof, keeping to places where faint starlight let him see his footing.

  There: a fleeing silhouette, robed, moving across the rooftops, not looking back. It was only thirty paces away. Grenner drew his dagger from its shoulder-sheath and moved ahead. They were getting close to the city wall; soon the wizard would have nowhere to run. Keeping the figure in view, he crouched as low as he could and moved forward.

  The robed figure reached the edge of the last house. Ahead, across a wide street, was the Altdorf city wall, bright with torchlight from its watch-towers. The wizard stopped and looked back, and Grenner saw her face for the first time. She was younger than he’d expected. A strong face, handsome, not beautiful. Long, dark hair in a braid. She looked frightened.

  Grenner stood, his knife in his hand, ready to throw. For a moment neither of them moved nor spoke. Then she lifted her hands, almost as if in supplication. She was saying something, but he couldn’t make out the words. He moved toward her slowly.

  She was casting a spell.

  Grenner threw himself back, behind a chimney stack, away from the blast. When, after a second it had not come, he looked up. Her arms were spread like a bird and as he watched she lifted a foot into the air.

  Grenner thought for an instant about the exploding carriage, the stampeding horse, Lord Udo, the Untersuchung, Johansen burnt and bleeding, and he flung his knife. It flashed through the air, missed her, struck the stone wall and fell. The wizard hung in the night for a second, then soared across the street and up, over the wall, out into the darkness beyond the city.

  He walked to the edge of the roof and began to climb down, slowly, like a man who is thinking of other things.

  Johansen and Hoffmann were waiting on their horses on the street below.

  “You threw a knife at her,” Hoffmann said.

  “I aimed to miss,” Grenner said. It was a lie.

  “The Untersuchung will be happy she got away.”

  There was a pause.

  “The authorities are going to need a good explanation.” said Johansen.

  “Leave that to me. When the Grand Duke hears that Lord Udo was the only person who had been told he would be in the carriage that was targeted, he should understand.”

  “The Grand Duke’s safe?” Grenner asked.

  “Yes, and his brother. They were in the last carriage, as we planned.”

  “How’s he going to take the news that his son was in the carriage that exploded?”

  “A tragic error by the coachman,” said Hoffmann. “Lord Udo will have a grand funeral, and there will be no trial for treason and attempted patricide to embarrass the von Bildhofen family. The wizard will not be mentioned. The Grand Duke knows how these things work.”

  “What happens to the coachman?”

  “He died in the explosion, of course.”

  There was another pause. Grenner swung himself up into the saddle. “It’s been a long day,” he said, “and I need a drink.”

  “Have it at the Palisades. Johansen needs rest. And I’ve got a nice quiet job for the two of you tomorrow.”

  “What is it?”

  “Finding those Kislevites and making people believe they were behind this.”

  Grenner groaned. “More bloody donkey work.”

  “No rest for the wicked,” said Johansen.

  Hoffmann smiled. “Except Lord Udo.”

  Grenner was silent for a moment, thinking. “With your permission, sir,” he said. “I’d prefer to drink alone this evening.”

  “Very well.” They rode north, back towards the Palisades. Grenner watched them go, noticing that their route would take them past the burning carriage. Then he turned and walked towards the river, and a quiet tavern he knew where he could be alone with a bottle of Estalian wine and his thoughts.

  NIGHT TOO LONG

  “Two beers, Frau Kolner, and a kiss for Hexensnacht!” He swooped at her, arms outstretched. She dodged around him, laughing, a tray of tankards held level with a polished skill of avoiding amorous drunks.

  “Sit down, Herr Johansen, and I’ll bring your ale presently.”

  “And the kiss?”

  “Hexensnacht’s tomorrow night. And no kisses till you finish finding those poor missing women, and pay off your ale bill.” She swept away towards the bar. Johansen watched her go, then ran his hand over his short-cropped dark hair, smoothing it into place, and sat back down next to his companion, Dirk Grenner.

  “She’s great, isn’t she?” he said.

  “She’s a short, penny-pinching shrew with a half-wit for a brother and a string of suitors as long as the Great North Road,” Grenner said. “I don’t understand what you see in her.”

  Johansen looked across the plain wood of the inn table with incomprehension on his face. “She’s a blonde widow who owns a pub,” he said.

  “So you say, too often,” Grenner said. “The landlady of the famous Black Goat Inn. What makes you think she’d go for someone like you?”

  “Me? A high-ranking officer in the prestigious Palisades, charged with protecting the Emperor and his Elector Counts?” Johansen puffed out his chest. “I’m a fine catch.”
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  “You’re an overworked, underpaid captain in a small division most people have never heard of. You’ve got a humourless tyrant for a boss—”

  “A sarcastic ex-Watch sergeant for a partner,” Johansen said and reached for his tankard.

  “—you don’t wear a smart uniform most days, and you spend your time watching Kislevite insurrectionists or Bretonnian spies. Or, Sigmar help us, seconded to the city Watch, who couldn’t find their arses if a horse bit them.”

  “They’re not doing much better with our help,” Johansen said. “Four women missing in two weeks. It’s not good.”

  “And while we were fooling around, Schmidt gets himself killed.”

  “His own fault. He knew they suspected he was watching them.”

  “Bretonnians,” Grenner said with vehemence. “Sons of bitches. Killing him is one thing, but stuffing his mouth with his—”

  “Here’s to his memory,” Johansen said. They raised their beer-mugs, drank, and were still. Grenner broke the moment.

  “Still, Hexensnacht tomorrow and Hexenstag the day after. Things should be quiet. The city’s practically deserted.” He pulled his tankard closer and inspected it, thinking.

  A deep boom echoed from outside. The building shook, sending ripples across the beer.

  “What was that?” Grenner said.

  “You tempting fate,” Johansen said. “Gunpowder. A lot of it. About half a mile.”

  “Not magic?”

  Johansen shook his head. “No, the echoes were wrong. Come on.” He was on his feet. Grenner stood up, staggered and leaned on the table. “Are you sure we’re on duty?” he asked.

  “We’re always on duty,” Johansen reminded him.

  “I’m too drunk to be on duty,” Grenner protested.

  “Dunk your head in the horse-trough,” Johansen said.

  They staggered to the door. Outside, flames lit the night sky above the wide empty space of the Königplatz. Altdorf, capital of the Empire, lay still and cold under a blanket of thin snow and stars, the streets lightened by the eerie light of the two moons, one crescent and the other a day from full. Tomorrow would be Hexensnacht, witches’ night, the last night of the year.