‘Commander Kreyssig sent us,’ he told the guard. ‘He wishes us to offer the prisoner the grace of Morr. I need not tell you that in order to receive that grace, he must unburden himself of sin. The commander was quite interested in hearing that confession.’
The guard behind the gate nodded in understanding, but he still had his suspicions. ‘One of you may pass,’ he said. ‘It needs only one set of ears to listen to a traitor’s words.’
Erich shared a look with his fellow knights. As soon as the gate was pulled open, he stepped across the threshold. For an instant, the guard’s attention shifted to the priests he had told to stay outside. In that moment of distraction, Erich struck, seizing the guard’s neck with one hand and the edge of the gate with the other. Savagely he brought the two together with a sickening crunch. The guard didn’t utter a sound, he just collapsed in the doorway.
The others rushed into the tower, closing the gate behind them and dragging the stunned guard behind the curve of the structure’s spiral stairway.
‘Othmar, take Josef and spike the trap leading up to the guardroom,’ Erich said, his voice falling into his accustomed tone of command. ‘The last thing we need are all of those archers walking in on us. The rest of you will look for the Grand Master. Subdue any guards, but only kill if it is absolutely necessary.’
The knights quickly separated, hurrying to the tiered levels of the tower. Such resistance as they found was quickly vanquished. Erich winced at each conflict, fearing that the sound would alert the garrison, but here the ponderous construction of the Courthouse served them well. The thick walls smothered all noise. This close to the Imperial Palace, silence was an essential. Emperor Boris found the cries of his captives disturbing.
It was Konreid who located Baron von Schomberg’s cell. Erich knew something was wrong when instead of freeing their Grand Master, Konreid came went to find his captain.
‘The Grand Master says he won’t go,’ Konreid reported, tears in the old veteran’s eyes. It was with a sad desperation that he led Erich and the Sigmarite priest to the tower room where von Schomberg was imprisoned.
The Grand Master was thin, a pale shadow of the nobleman who had led the Reiksknecht through countless battles and had dared to defy a tyrant over a matter of conscience. He lay sprawled upon a bed of straw, his only garment a threadbare linen gown. His cell stank of filth, ugly black rats scurrying about in the dark corners. A pot of brown water that looked to have been dredged from the bottom of the Reik rested on the floor beside the captive’s bed. A wooden slop bucket was the only other accoutrement. If not for the rushlight Konreid had wedged between the bars of the cell door, the Grand Master would have been consigned to complete darkness. No window marked the walls of his cell.
Erich took one look at his leader and felt a cold fury blaze up inside him. His knuckles cracked as he gripped the bars, jostling the door in its frame, testing the strength of its construction. It was solidly built, but it wasn’t going to stop him from freeing the Grand Master.
‘Stop,’ the wheezing voice of Baron von Schomberg arrested his attack on the door. ‘That will serve no purpose. You must leave me. It is important that you leave me.’
The young knight peered through the bars, wondering what delusion gripped his master. He could not imagine what tortures von Schomberg must have endured at the hands of Kreyssig’s minions.
Feeble as he was, the Grand Master was still sharp-eyed. He could read the thought he saw etched upon Erich’s face. ‘No, I am not mad. But there are bigger things to concern you than preserving my life. Boris Goldgather has become a tyrant. If he isn’t stopped, he will tear down the Empire with his greed. You must find others, gather an alliance to depose him. That is the only quest left to the Reiksknecht now!’
Erich shook his head. ‘We will do all that,’ he vowed, pressing his shoulder against the door. ‘And you will lead us,’ he grunted as he tried to force the barrier.
‘I will be more valuable to your cause as a martyr,’ von Schomberg declared. ‘I am to be beheaded in two days by Gottwald Drechsler, the Scharfrichter of Altdorf. My death is intended to make the other nobles cower in fear before Emperor Boris. You must make my death have a different meaning. You must make it a lesson that none of them are safe, that if he dares execute the Grand Master of the Reiksknecht, then he will dare even greater outrages. You must make the great and the powerful understand that they can only be safe if they rise up against this tyrant!’
‘Prince Sigdan is already with us,’ Erich told von Schomberg, trying to make his master see that his martyrdom wasn’t necessary.
‘You will need more than just the Prince of Altdorf,’ the Grand Master said.
‘They have other allies,’ the Sigmarite priest declared. Throwing back the hood of his robe, Sigdan’s nameless clergyman friend revealed the face of Arch-Lector Wolfgang Hartwich. Erich and Konreid stood in stunned silence, never suspecting that the second-most powerful man in the Sigmarite temple had been their accomplice.
Hartwich came to the door, smiling kindly at the Grand Master. ‘You see, there is no reason to make this gesture. You can help this great cause much more as a living soldier.’
A ragged cough shook von Schomberg’s frail body. ‘It is too late for that, father,’ he said. ‘That choice has been taken from me.’ Panic shone in the Grand Master’s eyes as Erich made another attempt to force the door. ‘No!’ he commanded. ‘Stay outside! Do not come near me!’ His voice dropped to a mournful whisper. ‘Death sits here beside me. The Black Plague.’
‘You… you have the illness?’ Erich asked, instinctively recoiling from the door.
Grand Master von Schomberg nodded his head sadly. ‘At first Emperor Boris wanted to save my execution for the anniversary of his accession. Now he fears I will die before the Scharfrichter can take my head with his sword.’ The prisoner’s thin hands clenched into fists. ‘But I will survive that long. I must survive that long.’
Erich turned away from the cell door, his hand reaching for the sword hidden beneath his priest’s robes. He relaxed slightly when he saw Othmar and Josef come rushing into the hallway. The troubled expressions on their faces made it clear there wasn’t any more time to debate the question.
‘The archers know something is wrong,’ Othmar reported. ‘We could hear them trying to smash open the trap. It won’t be long before one of them decides to shout down to the courtyard for help.’
The captain turned back to the cell, a bitter taste in his mouth. Snapping to attention, he saluted the sickly von Schomberg. ‘The Grand Master has decided that he can best serve our cause by remaining here,’ Erich told the other knights. Othmar looked ready to object, but the sad resignation he saw on his captain’s face made him realise there was something more, something that made rescue pointless.
‘Get the others,’ Erich ordered. ‘We can use the cellar beneath the tower to gain entrance to the dungeons.’ The other knights nodded. They had studied the floor-plans of the Courthouse carefully before setting out. The dungeons connected to an older network of catacombs, which in turn led back into the dwarf-built culverts. The underground route had been too risky to effect entrance to the tower, but with the alarm raised, there was nothing to lose using it to escape.
‘Sigmar’s strength be with you,’ von Schomberg called out to his knights as they reluctantly left him to await his doom.
‘We will not forget your sacrifice, Grand Master,’ Erich vowed.
Nuln
Ulriczeit, 1111
Gaining access to poor old Erwin’s tannery wasn’t especially hard. After the man’s murder, the place had become shunned, more for the belief that plague victims had done the crime than any fear of the crime itself. A belief was taking hold that the plague was spread by the sickly breath of the diseased. There was a chance that the sickly exhalations of the killers might be lingering in some dark corner of the building. No one wanted to take any chances.