The three Kaiserjaeger reached for their swords. Instantly, Nehring had his own blade unsheathed. The Reiksmarshal remained seated, motioning for his guests and his adjutant to be calm.
‘You came here to arrest me?’ Boeckenfoerde asked.
The officer’s voice was filled with scorn when he answered. ‘This tent is surrounded,’ he hissed. ‘I have twenty Kaiserjaeger outside and they only wait my word to butcher you like a pig!’
Boekenfoerde nodded, as though considering the threat posed by the Kaiserjaeger. ‘Has it occurred to you where you are?’ he asked. ‘Have you given any thought to where this tent is? I have four thousand soldiers out there and at the slightest sound of violence coming from this tent, they will take up arms and… as you put it… butcher you like a pig.’ He smiled as he watched the colour drain out of the officer’s face. ‘Nehring, take their swords. These gentlemen don’t need them any more.’
‘You won’t get away with this,’ the officer growled as Nehring plucked the sword from his unresisting grip. ‘That is the army of his Imperial Majesty! When I tell them you are a traitor…’
The Reiksmarshal rose from his chair and stepped out from behind his table. He tapped his finger on the map pinned to the wall of his tent. ‘His Imperial Majesty has just sent this army marching through the worst of winter with barely enough provisions to provide for half of them and winter gear for even less. And what enemy draws us to such reckless and heroic pursuits? Some new orc invasion or marauding Norscans? No, we march to force the Grand Duke of Talabecland to open the markets in Talabheim so Boris can get a few more crowns in tax revenue.’ Boeckenfoerde’s eyes were like daggers as he glared at the men from Altdorf. ‘I don’t think you’ll find too many here with any great love for Goldgather. Loyalty to me is the only thing that has brought them this far.
‘If you tell those men who you are and why you came here, they won’t leave enough of you left for the crows to pick at.’ The Reiksmarshal turned away from the map, retrieving his sword from where it leaned against his cot. ‘I suggest you ride back to Altdorf before I tell them myself.’
The Kaiserjaeger were quick to heed the warning, nearly falling over themselves as they scrambled out of the tent. Boeckenfoerde was an excellent judge of a man’s mettle, and he’d had these pegged as ambitious thugs the moment they stepped into his tent. Their kind would kill for their leaders, but they wouldn’t die for them. Faced with the choice of dying to accomplish their mission, they could only turn tail and run.
Nehring watched the Kaiserjaeger mount their horses and ride off, then slipped back inside the general’s tent. He was surprised to find the Reiksmarshal packing his gear. He gazed quizzically at the general.
‘Call the officers,’ Boeckenfoerde told him. ‘They’ll have to be told about this.’
‘But you said the men would stand with you,’ Nehring reminded.
The Reiksmarshal sighed. ‘Some of them might. I hope many of them will, but a lot of those men have families back in Altdorf and in the Reikland. If the conspirators have failed to depose Boris, then those families would be imperilled if these men took up arms against the Emperor.’
‘What about you?’ Nehring asked. ‘What will you do?’
‘I’m certainly not going back to Altdorf,’ the Reiksmarshal said. ‘I’ll take whatever men stand with me and head for someplace out of Boris’s reach. Talabheim would be a good prospect.
‘They might need an extra army soon.’
Nuln
Ulriczeit, 1111
The blaze of a rushlight drove back the darkness. Walther blinked against the harsh glare. For days now he had existed in perpetual blackness, the only sensations he could experience limited to the chill of his cell and the skittering of rats behind the walls. His eyes, deprived of vision for so long, burned with agony. The rat-catcher pressed his bloodied palms to his face in an effort to shield himself from the rushlight.
Fellgiebel stood in the doorway, his icy eyes studying the man sprawled on the stone floor. The cell, a little room buried beneath the Freiberg Hundertschaft’s watch station, was scarcely six feet across and only a little taller. It was without furnishing or accoutrement; the straw pallet had already been stolen by an opportunistic watchman to sell as fodder and the wooden slop bucket had met a similar fate.
When he told the guard to wait outside and closed the door, Fellgiebel and his prisoner were utterly alone and without distraction. The captain nodded when he saw the look of horror that crossed Walther’s features. Clearly the man appreciated the situation he was in. Officially, peasants were the property of their lords and the watch wasn’t allowed to mutilate them or render them any harm which would cause permanent injury. To do so would require compensation to the lord, something a simple Dienstmann couldn’t afford. Thus, by the letter of the law, there were limits to what tortures a militia like the Hundertschaft had recourse to.
Of course there were loopholes. An accident, for instance, would place the onus of compensation upon the peasant himself. It was frightening how many accidents there were in Nuln.
‘I grow weary of these discussions,’ Fellgiebel said, his gloved hands clasped together before him. The captain’s cold gaze fixed upon Walther’s bloodied face. ‘You are going to talk, you know. It is just a question of time and pain.’
Walther struggled up from the floor, using the icy stone wall to prop up his battered body. With every motion, broken bones ground against each other, bringing moans of anguish from the rat-catcher. By an effort of will that seemed to tax his very soul, Walther forced himself to meet Fellgiebel’s gaze and address his tormentor.
‘What… what has… happened…’ He closed his eyes, dredging up some last speck of courage to steel his faltering voice. ‘The Black Rose, how…’
‘The Black Rose is under quarantine,’ Fellgiebel said, his voice like a knife. ‘No one goes in, no one comes out.’ A cruel sneer curled his lip. ‘Plague, you know. The place is alive with it. At least for now.’
Walther sagged back against the wall, his broken body heaving as dry sobs racked his frame. ‘Zena,’ he groaned. In his mind he could picture her, alone and shunned in some corner of the tavern, her body covered in the black buboes of the plague.
Fellgiebel stepped out from the doorway and began pacing across the small cell. ‘Ah, yes, your girl. You’ve mentioned her a few times now. She must be very close to you.’ There was a menacing gleam in the reptilian eyes as the captain stared down at Walther. ‘Perhaps I should collect her for a little discussion. Just a short one. I doubt a woman would share your stamina, Schill. Or your stubborn endurance.’
Walther shook his head. The threat had been made so many times now that it held no further horrors for him. Fellgiebel had used that particular method of persuasion too often. If he had any intention of carrying through with it, he would have done so by now. The fact that he hadn’t convinced Walther that plague really had beset the Black Rose. Even Fellgiebel wasn’t so arrogant in his authority as to brave the Black Plague.
‘Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?’ Walther said. ‘Or do you want the truth?’
Fellgiebel stopped pacing. His cheerless smile spread. ‘The truth, Schill. That is all I have ever wanted. The truth about your friend Aldinger and the others. Where they are. What they know. What they are planning to do.’ The captain’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Aldinger was a knight, you know. A refugee from the Reiksknecht. The others are probably Reiks-knecht too. Our great and glorious Emperor has placed a bounty on all Reiksknecht. They are traitors and it is every man’s duty to turn them over to the Emperor.’ Fellgiebel tried to make his smile a bit friendlier. ‘If you tell me where they are, I’ll share the reward with you.’