‘What about the Bread Marchers?’ Erich asked. ‘How many of you can we count on?’
Meisel sighed. ‘Not enough, I fear. We’ve been able to contact most of those who escaped the massacre, over four hundred men. But they’ve been hiding in the worst slums and shacks in Altdorf, constantly on the move to escape Kreyssig’s spies. A lot of them are sick.’ His eyes became like chips of ice. ‘The plague,’ he hissed, almost choking on the word.
‘We don’t need an army,’ Prince Sigdan said. ‘The right men in the right place will serve us better than a thousand swords. What we need is someone close to the Emperor. Someone who can get inside the Palace and inform us first-hand of his plans. There will be a time when it will be right to strike, when even a few men can seize the Emperor.’
‘Then perhaps I can be that man,’ Princess Erna said. The statement brought a grunt of amusement from Duke Konrad.
‘Boris would have to be blind to take you for a man,’ Konrad quipped.
Princess Erna scowled at the Drakwalder’s jest. Before her temper could rise, Baron Thornig came forwards, placing a hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
‘Hear her out,’ he said, his words heavy with regret and shame. ‘There may be a way to slip one of our own into the heart of the enemy camp.’
Erna gripped her father’s hand. Taking a deep breath, knowing that she wouldn’t have the courage to repeat what she had to say, the princess hurried to make her proposal. ‘For some time, Adolf Kreyssig has attempted to court me. He has spared no effort to secure my father’s blessing, from the most vile threats to the most tempting gifts. At any time, my father could pretend to be swayed by Kreyssig’s demands. As the wife of that monster, I could be the eyes and ears of this cause.’ She could see the disgust on the faces of the men listening to her. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘let me do this, let me make this sacrifice. All of you are willing to risk your lives, your names, your very legacies to depose a despot. Is what I risk so much more precious?’
‘Your highness, you cannot allow this?’ protested Erich. ‘You cannot sacrifice this lady’s virtue and honour this way!’
Prince Sigdan shook his head. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘The very horror of the idea is what tells me Princess Erna is right. The enemy will never suspect her. She will be privy to confidences we should never be aware of otherwise.’
‘But to ruin a lady’s reputation?’ the knight persisted.
Erna smiled at Erich’s chivalry. ‘When the moment comes, you may avenge me upon my husband,’ she told him. ‘The person of the Emperor may be inviolate, but a scheming creature like Adolf Kreyssig deserves only a nameless grave. Send him there, my dashing knight, and give all of his victims justice.’
Erich’s hand tightened about the hilt of his sword. ‘I will,’ he vowed.
Frost clung to the stone walls of the cellar, twinkling in the glow of Kreyssig’s rushlight as he descended the stairs. An angry squeak from the shadows reprimanded him for leaving the light unshaded. The commander of the Kaiserjaeger grinned at the distempered vocalisation. It was always a good thing to remind his sneaking friends of their place.
‘What have you learned?’ Kreyssig snarled, arresting his descent at the foot of the stairs. He didn’t like being even this close to his subhuman confederates. They were useful, but that didn’t change how disgusting they were.
‘Prince-man meet with other-more traitor-meat,’ a nasally voice hissed from the darkness. Kreyssig could just pick out the scrawny shape with its hunched shoulders and hooded face. Even that much left too vivid an impression upon him. Only once had he gotten a good look at his slinking associates, an incident that continued to haunt him in his nightmares. The Sigmarites were right to burn mutants if such horrors as what he had seen could spring from a collusion of corrupt souls. He promised himself that once these vermin had ceased to be useful to him, he would hunt them down and destroy their lairs.
‘They spread-bring plague-cough,’ the voice said. ‘Make many-more sick-die. Weaken city-place, then make attack-slay!’
Kreyssig nodded as he heard his informant’s statement. Useful spies, these skulking mutants, and they had provided him with the information that had made him the most feared man in Altdorf. There was no one they had failed to dig up dirt on, no secret they had failed to uncover for him. The revelation that Prince Sigdan was moving against Emperor Boris, and that the rebels were behind the plague, was something Kreyssig had long suspected.
‘You can bring proof of this?’ Kreyssig demanded. In the shadows, he could see the mutant’s hooded head bobbing up and down emphatically. ‘Bring it then. Whatever support the prince thinks he can count on will wither and die if he is shown to be the source of the plague.’
‘More-more,’ wheezed the mutant. Kreyssig’s hair stood on end as the creature uttered a titter of ghastly laughter. ‘Saw-scent Sigmar-man meet-seek traitor-meat. Haart-witch, say-called.’
Kreyssig’s smile broadened. Arch-Lector Hartwich conspiring with rebels? It was almost too good to be true. For years he had struggled to find a way to put the temple of Sigmar under his thumb. Evidence of what had happened in Nuln hadn’t seemed enough for what Kreyssig needed, but combined with evidence of a more recent scandal it would be just the lever he needed to bring the Grand Theogonist down to his level.
‘Well done,’ Kreyssig told his spy. ‘Your Emperor thanks you for your service.’
A titter of inhuman laughter sounded from the darkness, then the mutant spy was gone, vanished back into the subterranean depths from whence he came.
Kreyssig turned and ascended the stairs with slow, deliberate steps. It was an effort not to run, to flee back into the clean world of light.
Yes, once these vermin had served their purpose, he was going to take extreme delight exterminating them.
Nuln
Ulriczeit, 1111
Walther leaned against the counter inside the Black Rose, a pleased smile on his face. The tavern was a bedlam of activity, people clustered about the tables, gathered about the bar or simply squeezed into any corner where there was room enough to stand. Every fist was filled with the handle of a tankard. The rat-catcher had it on good authority that Bremer had been forced to send to other taverns in the neighbourhood for more beer and Reikhoch to replace what he’d sold.
It made sense. Nuln was in the grip of plague. There was no denying that fact now. Panic had settled upon the city. There had been a crazed culling of cats and dogs after a rumour started that the plague was being spread by the animals. Walther had lost his two ratters to a mob of terrified peasants, helpless to do anything but watch while the wretches beat his dogs to death — all the while crying out to Shallya to preserve them from the plague. In their fear, none of them bothered to consider that all life, even that of a little dog, was sacred to the goddess of mercy.
The prudent folk of Nuln had taken to barricading themselves inside their homes, hoping that by sequestering themselves they could avoid contact with the disease. Others, without the affluence or temperament to be prudent, had thrown themselves into a frenzy of licentiousness, determined to indulge to excess before the shadow of Morr fell upon them. It was to such grimly exuberant clientele that the Black Rose and a hundred other taverns now catered, each struggling to capture the dragon’s share of the wilfully reckless libertines.
Thanks to Walther’s contribution to the Black Rose’s ambiance, Bremer was taking in the dragon’s share. The rat-catcher looked across the crowd, his eyes lighting upon the oak stand where the giant had been mounted. In a bit of irony, the brute had been stuffed by a tanner from Tanner’s Lane. The tradesman must have possessed a touch of the thespian about him, for he had posed the giant rat in an attitude of such ferocious aggression that the first impulse of all who saw it was to recoil in alarm, ready to defend themselves from the snarling monster.