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 Universitat.
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.