The frigid air of the dungeon became impossibly colder as the warlock worked his magic. Engel could feel the tears freezing to his eyelids, could hear the blood crystallising against his skin. His ears rang with the sinister sing-song incantation rolling from Fleischauer’s lips.
Then, before his amazed gaze, Engel saw the buboes marring the pit of his arm growing smaller. The discolouration of his skin faded, his flesh becoming smooth and unmarked, flush with the ruddy glow of health and strength.
‘I can take it all away,’ the warlock promised. ‘All you need do is tell Commander Kreyssig what he wants to know. Then I will take away the plague. I will fix all your injuries. You will be free. You will leave this place on your own two feet.’ The warlock’s hand brushed across the burnt, oozing mess where the iron boot had been used on Engel’s right foot.
Engel’s eyes rolled, a piteous moan of torment rising from his lips. He wouldn’t break. He would stay strong. He owed that much to all the Marchers he’d brought to Altdorf, the men who had died because he had been naive enough to think the Emperor was a reasonable man. He had to protect Meisel and the others, engaged upon their great work, fighting to depose a tyrant.
Against his will, he looked at the spot the warlock’s magic had cleansed. Engel’s resolve shattered. Before he was even aware, words were spurting from his tongue. He tried to stop himself, but it was an effort he knew he couldn’t win. That part of him that was willing to die for the cause was too small beside the part of him that wanted to live. He heard his own voice telling the lurking Kaiserjaeger about Lady Mirella and her cellar. He damned himself as a traitor, falling silent before he could reveal any more than he already had.
Adolf Kreyssig’s evil laugh told Engel that what he had already confessed was enough. The commander stepped out from the shadows, his cruel face lit up by the glow of victory. ‘That is all I require, warlock,’ he said.
Fleischauer wiped his brow with the sleeve of his robe. ‘That is well,’ he said. ‘The enchantment is a taxing one to sustain.’ As he spoke, the atmosphere in the dungeon became noticeably warmer. Engel could feel the change in the air, a lessening of the nameless dread crawling over his skin.
In its place came pain and horror. Searing agony coursed outwards from his chest. Craning his neck, Engel could see the buboes popping back into noxious existence as the warlock’s illusion was broken. As he heard Kreyssig growl commands to the Kaiserjaeger, Engel knew he was worse than a traitor.
He was a fool.
Erich listened with growing disgust as Baron Thornig discussed the coming marriage of his daughter to Adolf Kreyssig. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t accept the woman’s shameful sacrifice. It was easy to get his head around the hazards of torture and death, even of disgrace. But something as unseemly as to exploit a woman’s virtue simply to learn the enemy’s secrets? It tainted the entire cause, took their noble purpose and dragged it through the mud.
Lady Mirella noticed the knight’s disquiet. Detaching herself from the conversation, she drifted over to where he stood against the curtained wall of her sitting room. ‘It disturbs you, such talk?’
The captain nodded, his eyes never leaving the chair where Princess Erna was seated. She was taking no part in the conversation, content to let Baron Thornig explain the arrangements that had been made, the nuptial vows that had been exchanged. No, he corrected himself. Content was too indifferent a word. One look at the princess made it clear she was anything but indifferent to her fate. Resigned was a better word to convey her sentiment. Resigned to her doom, a doom whose horror she fully appreciated.
‘How can Prince Sigdan and the others seriously allow this?’ Erich wondered. ‘What will become of her?’
‘If everything works out, she’ll be a widow before summer,’ Lady Mirella predicted.
Erich’s jaw tightened. ‘But everyone will still know. She’ll still have his stink on her.’
Lady Mirella gave the young captain a curious stare. ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were jealous. Maybe her willingness to go through with this has aroused that knightly passion. Maybe you sense a kindred spirit, someone willing to sacrifice personal honour for the good of people who will never thank her, people she doesn’t even know.’
The captain turned away, pulling at the heavy curtain, peering through the frosted glass at the street outside. ‘I wonder when Konreid will be back,’ he said, brusquely changing the subject. ‘If we knew where the Reiksmarshal stands, we could make our plans accordingly.’
‘And what are your plans?’ Lady Mirella asked, resting her hand on the knight’s arm. ‘I mean beyond the overthrow. After Boris is deposed.’
Erich scowled as he heard the question. It wasn’t something he’d considered before. ‘Rebuild the Reiksknecht, I suppose. Try to get things back to what they were.’ His body suddenly stiffened, his eyes fixing on a dark figure he’d glimpsed on the street. He had seen the man for only an instant before he ducked back behind a corner, but he was certain he’d been wearing the uniform of the Kaiserjaeger.
Even as he turned to warn the rest of the conspirators, Lady Mirella’s manservant came rushing down from the garret. ‘Kaiserjaeger!’ Gustav gasped.
‘What?’ Prince Sigdan exclaimed. ‘Where? How many?’
‘In the street, your grace,’ the servant said. ‘At least a score moving to surround the house!’
‘They must know we’re here!’ bellowed Duke Konrad. All the poise drained out of the nobleman, leaving only terror behind. ‘We’ve been betrayed!’ he shrieked, casting an accusing eye over everyone in the room.
‘That’s impossible,’ grumbled Baron Thornig. ‘Everyone who knew about this meeting is here!’
‘Arch-Lector Hartwich isn’t,’ Mihail Kretzulescu observed.
‘Wilhelm Engel knew about this place too,’ Meisel confessed. ‘He was too sick to come, but as leader of the Marchers, I felt he should know.’ The statement brought a flurry of angry recriminations racing through the room.
‘It doesn’t matter who told them!’ Erich barked, trying to shout down the others. ‘What matters is that we get out of here before they can close the noose.’ He let the curtain fall closed. A disturbing thought occurred to him.
‘You say you saw only twenty Kaiserjaeger?’ he asked Gustav. The peasant nodded. ‘That’s not enough to rush the building. Kreyssig may be a demented madman, but he’s no fool.’
‘What are you thinking?’ Prince Sigdan asked.
Erich was already racing towards the kitchen and the stairs leading down into the cellar. ‘If he found out about the house, he may have found out about the cellar! The men in the street are just there to keep us in! The real attack will come from below!
‘They’re going to use our own tunnel to trap us!’
Nuln
Ulriczeit, 1111
Walther paced along the alleyway behind the Black Rose, his hands stuffed deep inside the pockets of his coat in an effort to defend against the cold, a thick scarf wrapped around his face to defend against the omnipresent stench of the streets. The snow falling from the sky was almost white, scarcely smirched by the smoke rising from the city’s chimneys. For the first time he could remember, the city was blanketed in white, not the dirty grey of soot.
The image was beautiful, but it was a terrible beauty. The reason the snow was white was because there weren’t enough fires left to stain it. There weren’t enough people. Nuln was dying. By day the corpse carts prowled the streets, men already sick collecting those who were dead. Great pyres blazed at the heart of every district. The priests of Morr had been dying by the bushel, leaving no one to bury the dead. The only solution left was to consign the corpses to fire.