Arcanum (11 page)

“Well,” said Nadel, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, “
I
made it.”

“You’re not a kid. Whatever it is only takes kids. Kids and…”

“How many does that make? Five or six?”

“Torsten, this isn’t some counting thing like a banker would do. I know this boy’s uncle.” Irritated, Büber ripped a handful of grass out of the ground and threw it at Nadel’s horse. “Hey, you old nag. Wait your turn.”

“Any ideas?”

“Not a clue.” He wasn’t going to tell Nadel about the unicorns any more than he was going to tell Kelner. “Just hope they all turn up alive one day.”

Büber got to his feet and rescued the mash bucket, carrying it over to his own horse and setting it down in front of her.

Nadel looked off into the distance, and wisely changed the subject. “So these Teutons: how does His Majesty want it played?”

“They’re expected to stay north. Where they cross the Alps is up to them, but if they come into Carinthia, they’ll be slaughtered.”

“Harsh but fair.”

“Danzig was an arsehole. Remember what happened last year?”

Nadel cupped his balls. “I remember.”

“I’ll follow them on the Carinthian side until they’ve cleared our borders. If they turn south sooner, I’ll get a message back to the White Fortress so that Gerhard can do whatever it is he wants to do to them.” Büber wrestled the bucket away from his horse, and brought what was left over to Nadel’s. “That’s what I still plan to do, but what I could really do with is going to talk to the Bavarians and getting them to hurry the Teutons along. I’ve got better things to do than watch them crawl along for two weeks.”

“I can watch them for you. Doesn’t bother me how long they take.” Nadel got up and stretched again. “You go and talk to Leopold’s men.”

Büber weighed up the suggestion. He got on well enough with Nadel, who could be crass and coarse but was otherwise a decent enough man. Trustworthy, up to a point – but the prince had said that he, his huntmaster, should do it.

“I don’t know.” Then he came to a decision. “I’ll go and see the Bavarians once the Teutons have started east. You keep an eye on them, and I’ll catch you up. If they behave, good. If they don’t, one of us can take the message while the other shadows them.”

“Done. It’s been a long, hard winter, and it’s good to be outside.” Nadel caught his horse, who was busy kicking the last of the mash out of the bucket. He began to strip the tack away.

Büber nodded and thought about doing the reverse. “This side of the river only. Doesn’t bother me if they see you – it’s probably better that they do, but the water’s narrow in places. Easy enough to sling a quarrel into your chest.”

“I’ll stay out of bow-shot.” Nadel looked down into the valley. “Fires are going out. White smoke, being doused.”

“Better get going, then.” Büber picked up the saddle and blanket, and advanced on his horse, dressing it quickly and efficiently. It stood there and took it, occasionally turning its head to see what its rider was doing. Büber patted its neck and quietened the beast at the appropriate moments. He liked horses well enough, and they suffered him being on their back, but he wasn’t a natural. Not like the prince.

Horse ready, he packed his bags and hung them across the saddle. Sword, crossbow, seal of authority: the tools of his trade.

The steam from the quenched fires was dissipating, the thinning cloud stretched and fading over the town. Now that it was clearing, he looked beyond for the Bavarian army camp, and could see nothing.

“Maybe they struck earlier,” he said to himself, but Nadel heard and answered.

“That’s unlikely. Bavarians are lazy bastards at the best of times.”

Büber checked the tack one last time, then put his foot in the stirrup, heaving himself up and on. The horse shuffled its feet and champed on its bit as he took up the reins.

“Stay alert,” said Büber. “I’ll see you in a day or so.”

He nudged the horse into a walk and slowly made his way down the hill to the bridge. The first barges of the day were leaving the Simbach quays and heading east and west, and carts were heading to market.

The lower he got, the less he saw, and soon he was down among the houses on the Carinthian side. The bridge buttresses were ahead, their deep-set incantations shining faintly against the black rock.

Up in the mountains, where the border was less defined and held more in common than in law, he’d sometimes come across a group of soldiers or hunters from a neighbouring palatinate, and they’d share news and swap stories. Down here, in the lowlands where rivers and roads marked the beginning and end of territories, it was different. He was a prince’s man on the prince’s land. Outside it, he could only rely on Carinthia’s reputation and his own right arm, and he’d never liked issuing threats.

“Don’t be such a woman,” he growled, and tapped the horse’s flanks with his heel. “Get.”

The crossing was as long as the river was wide, across the arch of stone that carried him over the water.

“Hey,” said a voice, and Büber looked down to see four men, three of them holding spears, blocking his way.

“What?” He started paying attention. The unarmed man was better dressed than his companions, with a floppy hat perched on his head. The others were just townsmen, older, grey haired, but lean and competent enough. “What is this?”

“Toll.”

“Fuck off.” He said it more out of surprise than belligerence. “Since when did I have to pay to use a Carinthian bridge?”

“Everyone has to pay,” said the man, ostentatiously adjusting his clothing to show the painted wooden plaque hung around his neck. “Earl’s orders.”

“Does Leopold know about this? More to the point, does the prince know you’re taxing his subjects?” Not for the first time, Büber wished he could make a horse walk backwards. He was too close. Yes, of course he could afford a toll: he had money, but didn’t see why he should part with a single red penny.

“Are you refusing to pay?”

Büber looked down at the men. “What’re you going to do if I don’t?”

From the look of confusion on the spear-carriers’ faces, the question hadn’t arisen before. They looked at each other, then to the man with the hat.

“We … will …” he started, and finally an idea came to him, “…take you before the earl.”

“Good,” said Büber. “Lead on.”

“What?”

“Take me to this earl of yours.” He leant back in his saddle and felt for his own royal seal. “I can find out why he’s charging for something we provided for nothing.”

He held up the token long enough for the man to inspect it, but not for so long that it was still there when a hand came up to take it from him.

The man wearing the plaque shrugged. “Show him the way.”

“Why don’t
you
show me the way?” asked Büber pointedly. “That way you won’t tax anyone crossing our bridge.”

“You’re not in Carinthia, I’m not a Carinthian.” He jerked his head in the vague direction of the town. “You arrogant bastards need to be taken down a peg or two. Now go and have it out with Fuchs.”

One of the spearmen rolled his eyes and started walking up the street, and Büber followed slowly behind on the horse.

“I said it was a stupid idea,” said the man over his shoulder, and Büber stopped his mount, swung himself off and took hold of the reins.

“What do you mean?”

“That. Charging a toll. Stupid. Gerhard was going to find out sooner or later.”

“So why is your earl doing it? Did Leopold tell him to?”

The man spat on the ground and looked around for eavesdroppers. There were enough people around to suggest he shouldn’t be so free with his words, but he decided he didn’t care. “Leopold’s an inbred, web-toed, six-fingered mouth-breather, and Fuchs is just cruel and spiteful. But they’re both broke. Neither have a penny to their names.”

Bavaria should be rich. It had farms and pastures and forests – all of it lowlands, not like Carinthia that was half mountains.

“Why not?” Büber had a flask somewhere in his saddlebags, a little metal one that contained something a bit stronger than water.

“Fuchs paid off the Teutons. Cleaned him out completely. That’s why we’re at the bridge.”

“But you had a thousand spears at their back, hustling them through the land as fast as they could go.” They were in the town square, where there was nothing as grand as Juvavum could offer: no fountains, no high houses, no rich merchants, no wide-skirted ladies. “What happened to the soldiers?”

“Leopold’s cash ran out as well, didn’t it? He’s built too many stupid castles to be able to afford an army. So they all went home.” The man leant on his spear and pointed to a three-storey timber-framed house. “That’s the Town Hall. You’ll find Earl Fuchs inside. Doesn’t bother me if you go in or not.”

“Let’s just get this straight,” said Büber. “There’s no one guarding the Teutons?”

The man shook his head. “Thank the gods they took the bribe instead of sacking the town. They’re going away east now.”

“I know where they’re going. Or I thought I did.” Büber chewed at his fingers. He looked at the Town Hall, and back down the road they’d just come along. The man with the spear pursed his lips and started to wander away.

“Where are
you
going?” asked Büber.

“All Fuchs told me to do was stand by the bridge and get some money.” The man disappeared into the crowd of townsfolk, the top of his spear marking his progress towards a beer cellar at one of the corners of the square.

“Fuck,” said Büber under his breath. Earl Fuchs and his explanation would have to wait.

He spent a little time and money – Carinthian coin being good in most places – on some bread and sausage and cheese, and some beer.

Then he turned and rode back to the river.

The man with the hat was still there with his guards, still extracting tolls.

“Hey, Carinthian. I thought you were going to see the earl?”

“I changed my mind,” said Büber. He dug his heels in, and the horse trotted over the long span of the bridge. Once he had honest-to-gods Carinthian soil underfoot again, he turned east.

For anyone else, Nadel would have been hard to find. But Büber wasn’t anyone, and a man on a horse left tracks that a man on his own would not. Neither was Nadel trying to hide, not from him at least.

Büber followed the riverside at a distance, stopping every so often to listen, and after a while he got down and led his mount on foot. The southern bank was steep and wooded before it flattened out into the farmed plain between the water course and the hills behind. He was shielded from sight and could still move more or less freely.

Shod hooves stopped leaving marks in the soft dark earth, and the ferns at the side of the path were trampled. He bent down and peered into the shifting greens and browns. After a few moments, the outline of a horse resolved against the shadows, and Büber carefully led his own horse into the gap.

He tied it to a branch, and crept down the bank to where Nadel sat, motionless, behind a screen of milk parsley.

“That was quick,” murmured Nadel. He didn’t take his eyes off the opposite bank.

Büber lowered himself to the ground and looked through the green stems and broad leaves. On the north bank, where the slope was more gentle, and the soil had partially collapsed into the river, a chain of women were filling buckets.

He looked further inland and could make out the carts and horses of the Teutons, scattered through the thin woodland. Carinthian carts didn’t need draught animals, and it still surprised Büber that anyone else’s did.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said.

“What sort of problem?”

“Those Bavarian spearmen have gone home. No money to pay for them, so I’m told.”

“That’ll make things interesting. Have you seen some of these Teuton women? Faces like a robber’s dog chewing a wasp.”

“They’ll be more used to fighting than you.”

A Teuton mercenary rode slowly by the line of buckets and shouted something: encouragement or an insult, it sounded the same. The women took the opportunity to belittle his manhood, his bravery and his horse, in that order. That much Büber could make out from the gestures.

“And that,” said Nadel, “is why they’re barbarians, and we’re civilised men. Our women just don’t behave like that. Thank the gods they don’t look like that either.”

Büber gnawed at a finger. “They’ve got Simbach’s money. The earl there paid them off.”

“Really? Why would he do that?”

“Without the spearmen, maybe he thought he had to. The man I spoke to said it was either empty the purses or they’d tear up the town.” The horseman had ridden on, and the women resumed their bucket-chain. “I know they’ve got a shaman stashed somewhere, but I’m told just one of our hexmasters would be enough to take not only his skin off, but all the others too.”

“Where are they heading?”

“South, somewhere. I know the Doge is spoiling for a fight with Milano. Plenty of coin to pay for three hundred heavy horse on either side. And if Bavaria has given them enough money, they could get there without having to take one of the alpine passes.”

“All the way to the Adriatic,” said Nadel. “Horses hate travel by boat, but I can’t see that bothering this lot.”

“This … this should have been simple, right?”

“Nothing’s ever simple, Master Büber.” Nadel leant forward slightly, tilting his head. “Barge?”

Büber listened for himself, and could make out the rhythmic wash of water against the upstream-pointed bow of a river barge.

“At least the Teutons seem to be back on the road.” Nadel nodded at the direction of the women, who struggled up the bank with the last of their loads and disappeared back into the trees.

“We’d better get going ourselves.” Büber stared across the river. “I’m wondering if one of us shouldn’t go and tell the prince about the Bavarians being broke. I mean, apart from castles, what the Hel have they been spending it on?”

“Frankish wine? They’ve got this stuff called brandy. Very moreish.”

The Teutons seemed to have vanished completely. The cart Büber had made out earlier wasn’t there, but neither had he seen it move. Perhaps he’d been distracted.