Angelika, who faced the opposite way, could not see her. “Who is it?” she
asked.
Petrine clasped Franziskus’ shackled hands in hers. “I am so, so, sorry for
what I have done to you, dear good Franziskus,” she breathed.
“Who is that?” Angelika called, louder.
“It was entirely unforgivable, and I beg your forgiveness for it,
Franziskus,” said Petrine. “I hope you came to no harm, against those
halflings.”
“Half!—is it that woman?” Angelika demanded. “Guillame? Petrine Guillame?”
The guards found this amusing, and chortled and jabbed one another in the
ribs.
The woman went on, ignoring Angelika: “Tell me no harm came to you, sweet
Franziskus.”
“As a matter of fact…”
“Oh no! They hurt you! I swear, I thought from Toby’s description of them
that they’d be no match for you, or that you’d realise you’d been led on a goose
hunt before things ever came to blows! My guilt is terribly, terribly
compounded!”
“Is that her?” Angelika cried.
“Yes,” said Franziskus, weakly.
Angelika shook her chains furiously. “Count yourself lucky I’m shackled!”
“You,” Petrine said. “You are the one.” She stood, stepped over to face
Angelika, and looked down at her grimly. “You are the one.”
“The one what?”
“You.” Hard, downward-sloping lines appeared on her brow. “You made yourself
a…
friend
to…” She cast her eyes over to the guards, to show why she
didn’t refer to Davio by name. “It is because of you that I am sent here,
through hardships and dangers. He wishes you to know that he meant for no injury
to come to you. It was a most terrible error.”
“I hear you are also a friend to the one we speak of.”
“And it is said of you that you antagonise every one of the persons you meet,
because that is the way you are. But that is not why I am here. He wants you to
know it was me, not he, who had you misdirected. He is responsible for none of
your pain. I thought it would be best to prevent you from recovering a certain
important hostage you sought. But it was not.”
“And this is what you came here to tell us?”
“When he heard you were in trouble, he found it most imperative to prevent
you from thinking ill of him.”
“How very thoughtful of him. Especially since it’s only your neck he’s
risking to say it.”
“You are not fit to judge him. I do his bidding with the utmost willingness.”
“He is still well, I take it? Well and safe?”
She ignored Angelika’s question, returning instead to Franziskus’ side. She
squeezed the muscle of his upper arm.
“I never dreamed you would end up here, bound to die in Grenzstadt,” she said
to him, eyes sparkling with tears. “It was never the intention. Never did we
think you would be so persistent. I beg of you, Franziskus, absolve me of blame.
Do not go to your grave with hate for me lodged in your heart. Go with an
unfettered soul, so that you may not be blocked on your road to heaven.”
Franziskus drew back from her. “You play false with me, I know it.”
“Yes, yes, I have, curses be on me, but I am here hoping you will absolve
me.” Her slim fingers wandered along back and down to his belt. “Promise me, as
you die, that you’ll blame neither me, nor Davio.” Too late, she realised her
blunder. Franziskus saw the guards take mental note of the name. “Do not blame
us,” she whispered. The tip of her nose brushed the lobe of his ear. “Do not
send your ghost to haunt us from beyond.”
“It’s nice of you to offer him one final roll in the hay,” said Angelika,
“but you’re turning my stomach.”
Petrine stood up, huffed, and swept from the room. The guards banged the door
shut; the loud clicks reverberated off the stone walls as one of them turned the
lock’s tumbler with his key.
“It’s none of my business, Franziskus, but your taste in women is appalling.”
“When we met back at the Castello, it was not her shape, or the softness of
her skin, that fooled me. It was the sincerity of her plea.”
“Sincerity?” Angelika asked.
“She was different this time. More like an actress, treading the boards.”
“That was a performance, to be sure—but to what end?”
Franziskus answered her with a metallic clicking sound. Then a louder clank.
Another click, another clank. He stepped quickly over to Angelika, dropping both
sets of his shackles at her feet. He held up a pair of iron keys on a ring. “We
are the beneficiaries of a classic diversion. She slipped this into the folds of
my tunic as she pretended to weep and wheedle.” He squatted to insert the key’s
end into Angelika’s wrist cuffs.
“When she brushed past the guards…” Angelika said.
He unlocked her leg-irons. “I didn’t see it, and they didn’t feel it. Most
impressive technique, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’ll say I like her better when her deceptions work in our favour.”
“She slipped me this, too.” He handed her a knife, its blade a little shorter
than the daggers she favoured. She weighed it in her hand. They gathered up the
chains and crept over to the door. Alert, they waited, starting each time they
heard noise from the corridor.
About an hour later, the lock clicked as a jailer turned a key from the
outside. Franziskus flattened himself by the door frame. Angelika stood poised
with the knife ready for an inward swing; scratches on the stone floor left a
mark for her to aim for. The door opened. Franziskus lunged. He looped chains
around the jailer’s throat. He drew the man into the cell. Angelika showed him
the knife, sticking its tip to his throat. Checking to make sure he was alone, Franziskus eased the door shut
and impelled him further into the room. Sweat bubbled from the jailer’s face.
“There are several in Grenzstadt I’d like to stick this knife into,” Angelika
told him, “but if you stay quiet you won’t be one of them.”
Franziskus led him to the beam and clapped him in his own shackles, tying
them tight so he couldn’t rattle them. Angelika used the knife to cut a swatch
of fabric from the tail of his tunic, and stuffed it in his mouth. He whimpered
and nodded, to show them he would cooperate.
Angelika stepped to the door, then backtracked to the chained jailer. She
reached into his belt and snatched his purse. He dropped his head in
resignation.
“This is for your own good,” she told him, opening it to find four
half-crowns. “If Jurgen caught you with a bribe dangling from your belt, he’d
have you hanged for sure.” The guard seemed unconvinced of her altruism.
Then they slipped into the corridor and ran quickly down the tower stairs.
Emerging from the tower and onto the curving stone steps that led from the
top of the wall to the courtyard at street level, they held their heads high and
moved unhurriedly downward. The square was mercifully empty of uniformed men.
Angelika listened intently, waiting for a shouted alarm. She looked for places to
hide: there was the statue of Parzival Leitdorf, but that would not grant much
cover. She noted a stack of barrels, piled on their sides, against the town
walls, but, to get to it, they’d have to dash right across the length of the
courtyard.
About thirty feet from the foot of the stairs, a four-wheeled wooden cart
waited. High-backed chairs sat at attention inside it, tethered in place with
cords. They were wooden and stained black; red leather pads covered their backs
and arms. The disassembled parts of a matching table lay among them. A
spindly-legged man in a dark frock coat emerged from a shop to peer inside the
cart and then sniff up into the darkening sky. He held up a palm to feel for
raindrops.
Angelika flattened herself against the stone wall that abutted the steps.
The dark-coated man took no notice of the escapees. Pointing his sharp nose
in the direction of his open shop door, he snorted out a command, then strode
inside. He soon emerged with three stooped, unshaven men in shirts of grimy
linen. As he clucked imperiously at them, they battled a tarpaulin of waxy,
blackened canvas clumsily over the back of the cart. They threw cords over it,
and hastily tied them down. Their master patted his coat pockets, grimaced with
annoyance, and bustled on clicking heels back into his shop.
Franziskus glanced nervously up at the tower.
The workmen finished their task and ambled back inside. Angelika sprang out
from the wall, and rushed sideways to the cart. Franziskus took long strides to
match her. With her dagger, she severed a couple of the cords, then held up a
flap of canvas for Franziskus to crawl into. He crawled awkwardly beneath it,
scraping a shin on the cart’s side. Angelika ducked in behind him, and pushed
Franziskus deeper into the cart. She crouched between a pair of chairs; he found
a place opposite her. They heard the clicking heels of the sharp-nosed furniture
merchant approaching the cart, then felt it spring on its axles as he climbed up
onto the seat in front. The sound of reins smacked against horseflesh, and the
cart lurched onward.
As it made a wide, slow turn, Angelika lifted the canvas to peer over the
side of the cart. Franziskus looked, too, and saw Jurgen’s estate up ahead. They
did not breathe until the horses had clopped right past it. The von Kopf manor
was neighboured by fat, blocky armoury buildings, each ostentatiously displaying
the seal of a different province or city above its big bronze doors. It made
sense that various electors had taken permanent measures to store armaments here—so many wars were launched from here.
The cart slowed as the armouries were replaced by opulent manors, each
surrounded by a garden or courtyard. Angelika did not find these interesting, so
she let the tarpaulin settle back down over her head. But then she heard a coach
approaching in the opposite direction, and she looked out. The approaching
carriage was blue and gold, with Count Leitdorf’s sun emblem emblazoned on its
side door. As it drew nearer, its driver whipped his team to a halt. Their cart stopped, too. Angelika moved the curtains carefully back into place and held
her breath.
She heard a voice, addressing the furniture dealer. It was the rouge-faced
courtier, Anton Brucke, inquiring after the state of the merchant’s inventory.
Angelika rolled her eyes and clutched her knife.
“Several classic and antique sets have recently come into my possession,”
said the merchant, his voice cuttingly nasal.
Anton said something about wanting a new formal dining set, in a style the
name of which she could not make out.
“We have no Nulnish carvers in town, good sir, but I can offer you a set just
like—” He reached back to lift up a corner of canvas.
The two stowaways shrank back.
“No, no,” came Anton’s muffled voice. “It must be the new style.”
The merchant let the canvas drop back down. “I have a set in the
tragische
neuausgabe
manner, which inspired the style you speak of—
“No,” said the courtier, smacking his horses with his reins, “it must be the
other.” If he said anything more, the clopping hooves of his team obscured it.
Angelika watched as Brucke’s coach pulled into the grounds of a modest manor,
past topiary trees and eroded old statues. The merchant sniffed his
disappointment loudly and then spurred his own horses on.
The carriage continued on; the estates it passed grew progressively smaller
and shabbier. Finally it stopped outside a shabby manor, with a garden overgrown
with weeds. Storm-damaged shutters hung precariously from its window-frames. The
furniture seller rang a hand-bell, to alert the servants within. No one seemed
to stir, so he rang it again. Angelika took advantage of the distraction to flap
the canvas over the cart’s sides and slip out. She leapt over a hedge, and
landed in a garden opposite the dead woman’s estate. Franziskus rolled after
her. They waited, crouching, until servants came out and occupied themselves
with unloading the cart’s contents. When none faced their way, they returned to
the lane, walking along it as if they belonged there. The road narrowed and
snaked back into the heart of Grenzstadt. Shabby estates gave way to derelict
ones, and then to shops and taverns.
Dusk had settled on the town. With feigned confidence, Angelika and
Franziskus walked along a narrow, curving street, looking past shopkeepers as
they locked up for the night. Angelika saw empty expanses of stucco wall and
imagined them with bounty posters on them, like the ones Benno had plastered to
the walls of the burned Castello.
A boy lit a candle in a ball lamp outside a tall, thin tavern with a plain
brick facade. On a cushion beside the door, a troubadour sat, legs tucked
beneath him. He pumped away on a squeeze-box, bawling out a triumphant ballad in
which a hero named Konrad dispatched a succession of skaven and goblins, each in
a different, gore-spattered way. A pair of soldiers, already staggering drunk,
stumbled past him, and threw pennies at his head. He ducked and gave thanks as
if they’d meant to reward him.
Angelika’s stomach reminded her that it was empty; she headed into the
tavern. She and Franziskus took seats in the darkest of several available
alcoves. They ordered ale and sausages from a toothy barmaid and sat together
without speaking.
“What I say is this,” a loud voice proclaimed, from the table behind them,
“the longer he stays in his black-shingled tower of his, the better.”
“You say that because you don’t remember the Battle of Nebelhohle,” came an
equally deafening, slurry reply.
“You don’t remember Nebelhohle neither, no matter what you say. You was drunk
the whole time.”
Raucous laughter drowned out the inebriated soldier’s spluttering reply.
“They don’t call him Mad Count Marius just because he’s out of sorts, you
know.”
“I survived Nebelhohle because of that madness, thank you very much. Watch
him go into one of them rages on the battlefield, I say, and then tell me you’d
rather have that stick-up-the-backside Jurgen von sourface Kopf.”