Arcanum (71 page)

He gazed evenly back, trying not to show what he was thinking.

King Ironmaker turned his attention back to the letter. It was presumably written in Dwarvish, thought Büber; either that or German-speaking was more common than he’d realised.

It took a while for the king to look up again.

When he did, he let the parchment hang from his hand, allowing Büber to catch sight of a forest of little runes as spiky as pine needles. Ironmaker leant forward to examine the human, then said something to Heavyhammer.

“The king wants to know why you are so scarred. He thought all humans were smooth-skinned.”

“Tell the king I’m huntmaster of Carinthia. Tell him I’ve never been healed because spells would have left a taint on me and left me unable to carry out my duties.”

Heavyhammer translated, and the king listened. He spoke again.

“The king wants to know if your Felix can be trusted to keep his word.”

Büber looked askance. “I’m not the Oracle,” he snorted, “and it ill fits the Master of Farduzes to expect me to judge my own lord’s honesty.”

Rather than passing Büber’s words back, Heavyhammer explained further. “Carinthia’s offer is to the dwarves. Will he honour his offer now we are changed? Will he reject us or enslave us instead?”

“Ah,” said Büber, and he froze. The king had sent him to ask for help in operating the machines below Juvavum, expecting no more than a few dozen dwarves to make the journey. King Ironmaker now seemed to be suggesting the entire dwarvish kingdom decamp for Carinthia. How many of them were there? He’d seen, in all, no more than … well, less than half a century for sure.

But he’d passed numerous galleries on the way down. There could be legions more dwarves, more of them even than Carinthians. He had no way of telling.

What he ought to do was go back to Felix and explain. He was the prince. It was up to him to decide. That was why they had princes, after all, so that people like Büber didn’t have to make decisions of this magnitude.

All the dwarves were looking at him, waiting for him. He didn’t know whether a wrong word now might mean death. He’d no idea, even, what the wrong word might be.

He’d always believed himself a capable enough man – he knew his areas of expertise, and understood also when he was out of his depth, as with the unicorn horns – but here was a decision that might decide the fate of whole peoples and nations.

He remembered how Felix had ordered him to kill the Teuton prisoners, and his later mumbled regret. He remembered his banishment with Nikoleta, and the apology that had followed. He remembered standing on the bridge, and defending the library, and how the boy had matched him blow for blow, afterwards marking every man who’d taken up arms against him. He remembered his insistence that Eckhardt had to die. The boy had steel in him, for sure. And he was man enough to recognise his mistakes.

What would Felix have done if he was standing in front of King Ironmaker? Büber knew what he’d have said: that he was a twelve-year-old prince whose fledgling sense of honour had just been questioned by a once-mighty dwarf-lord.

Büber cleared his throat: “The Prince of Carinthia’s word is always trustworthy,” he said. More than that, he found himself believing it.

Heavyhammer translated, and the king’s expression didn’t change a jot. Perhaps something was lost in the interplay of words, from German to Dwarvish and back. Büber felt he’d played his part as best he could: let them do what they will.

Ironmaker swapped Felix’s letter for his sceptre. He spoke briefly.

“The king says Carinthia will have his answer soon.”

They weren’t going to kill him yet, then. One corner of Büber’s mouth curled up.

“It is time to go, human.”

Büber turned to see that his escort had already reformed behind him.

“Thank the king for his time,” he said, and he walked away, not knowing whether protocol demanded that he should reverse out, bowing all the time.

Behind him, Heavyhammer, approached the throne on his own, and spoke with his lord.

The climb was long, and without rest. It seemed that one thing the dwarves hadn’t lost was their ability to simply keep on going. Büber had descended perhaps half the height of the peak in one go, and it was a struggle to keep breathing on the journey back. By the time they led him back into the hallway, he was exhausted.

And now what? Were they simply going to push him back out into the night?

Apparently not. The horse had already been fed, and there was food and drink and blankets set out for him.

The stone was hard and cold, even with the odd-smelling rugs, and the food tasted, not poisonous, but off – mushroomy. The drink was beer with dwarvish character, bitter and heavy and dark. It sent his head reeling, and if he hadn’t been tired before, he was now unable to stay awake a moment longer.

He all but fell down the wall he’d propped himself against, and he barely had time to rearrange the blankets around himself before he was gone.

Ullmann turned over, and realised there was an arm across his chest. Not
his
arm, either. Light fractured the curtain, and gave him enough to see the back of a crown of golden hair.

It was a narrow bed. They were jammed in together like piglets, naked and pink, and their clothes lay strewn with indecent haste across the rest of the mean lodgings – a room at the top and back of her master’s house.

“Aelinn? Aelinn, wake up. It’s morning.”

She stirred, felt behind her to touch the outside of his thigh, and sat up suddenly. “I need to lay the fires and boil the water.”

“Wasn’t there enough laying and boiling last night?”

She hit him lightly across his bare chest. Her breasts bounced, and Ullmann was distracted.

“Work is hard enough to come by these days, and there’ll be a dozen like me wanting to take my place if I don’t get on.”

“Aelinn…”

“Up, dressed, and out, before the rest of the household wakes.” She pushed his questing hand away. “We can talk about last night later.”

“Aelinn—”

“Max, please. This is important to me. I have a job to do, even if prince’s men can order their own hours.” She slid from the bed and went hunting around the room, gathering up her clothes and throwing Ullmann’s at him. He was hit in the face by his own breeks, and he laughed inappropriately.

She gave him a look – no,
the
look – that made him realise that he really ought to do what she said, but she was still as blonde and slim and pretty as she had been before, and they hadn’t been drunk except on each other.

He’d sought her out. They’d walked and talked and eaten and flirted. He had, up to the point they’d kissed on the doorstep, been the perfect gentleman. It became a little blurred after that point, but they’d ended up in her room doing all manner of things to each other, for quite a long time, before falling sated onto the mattress.

She was dressing, and reluctantly he started to do the same. Ready long before he was, she found his boots for him. He didn’t recognise them, then remembered they were the Bavarian’s.

“Thank you,” he said, and she waited, arms folded, while he pulled them on, unfamiliar and ill-fitting.

“Max, you’re going to have to go. Now.”

He dragged his shirt on over his head, and struggled into the sleeves. “You seemed more than happy last night to have me stay.”

“That was last night. There may well be other nights.”

“May?”

She half smiled. “Yes, may. But it’s morning now, and I’ve a day’s work to do.” She reached out and snagged his arm. She was surprisingly strong, and he didn’t have the will to resist her anyway. He found himself propelled towards the door.

“Can I call on you again?”

“Yes.” Her hand was on his back, pushing him down the narrow stairs.

“Tonight?”

“I thought prince’s men had important duties: ones that might keep them from calling.”

He stopped at the turn of the stairs, and looked up at her shadowed face. Above her was a defunct light. “Aelinn, have I done something wrong?”

“No,” she said. “This is a bit quick, that’s all. I didn’t mean to …” – and she gave a small squeak of frustration. “Give me a little while, yes?”

Ullmann worked his jaw. “Whatever you want.”

“Don’t be like that.”

He started down the stairs again, thought about deliberately making some noise, but resisted the urge. He didn’t know what was going on here. It should have been simple, but apparently it wasn’t. “Like what?”

“Huffy,” she said. “All I’m doing is trying to get you out of the house before I get into trouble. Any more trouble.”

“I’m going. I don’t mean to be a nuisance.”

“You’re not, it’s just everything else. Now, quiet as you can.” She squeezed past him, front to front, stifling a giggle at his startled expression, then tripped through the remaining rooms on her tiptoes.

The front door was substantial, and bolted. He helped her draw the bolts back and ease the latch up. Outside, the sky didn’t look promising, and it was colder than it had been the day before.

He raised his eyebrows at her and started to slip through the gap between door and frame. She caught his chin and kissed him hard on the lips before sending him across the threshold with a shove.

The door clicked shut again, and Ullmann found himself looking out over the main square. The fortress was a grey slab above the rooftops and greening branches of the sacred grove, and wood smoke flavoured the air. Breakfast, then. No man could tell him he hadn’t worked up an appetite.

He could find a beer cellar or street vendor: he had a purse of florins and shillings now, but was unused to wealth. What he should do was send some of it back to his parents to help them pay for the things they’d need for the farm that would soon be theirs by right, no longer beholden to any master or earl.

His only immediate desire was another pair of boots. And another night with Aelinn. Not just because it had been the first uninterrupted sleep he’d had after stabbing Nikoleta Agana, but because he liked her more than he thought possible in such a short time.

His daydreaming had brought him to Library Square. A trickle of workmen were beginning to arrive – apprentices and journeymen – making ready to begin their labour, even though the doors to the library itself were still shut. The library refectory would be open, though, he remembered, so – ignoring the few enterprising bratwurst sellers who had turned up in their carts to make the most of the prince’s coin – he slipped in the side door.

It was early, even for librarians. The hall was almost empty: a sprinkling of people at the kitchen end of the table. He thought about turning around, but was called over.

“Master Ullmann!”

It was Master Thaler, waving across at him. Ullmann took his place next to the man.

“Good morning, Master Ullmann. Up with a larks and ready to seize the day?”

“Carpe diem indeed, Master Thaler.” He reached forward to claim a wedge of bread and chunk of cheese. “The world is full of possibilities, and it’s up to us to make the most of them.”

“Indeed it is. As I was just explaining to our newest librarian, our circumstances may have changed but our skills are still valued by the learned.” Thaler affably raised his mug to his colleagues.

Ullmann raised his own and glanced around the table. His skin prickled.

On the far side of the master librarian was a man not much older than Ullmann, who he recognised as Fottner. Opposite the junior man was Braun, and next to him … The man … no, woman – though with her rough, short-cropped hair and pale northern features, she could have passed for a boy – reached out for her mug to return the toast. Her black robe pulled back from her wrist to reveal a maze of tattoos.

“She’s …” His first bite of bread remained unswallowed.

“As you yourself argued before the prince, it is what she is and can become that now directs all our behaviour. What she was is immaterial. The past is indeed a foreign country. We know it not.” Thaler swigged his watered-down wine. “To the future, where we will journey together, as one.”

The woman fixed Ullmann with her pale eyes. She lifted her mug, but her salute was mocking, and her gaze never left him as she drank.

He was instantly suspicious. She’d swapped her white robes for black, but she couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else. He’d taken the instructions regarding the Order to Wess only yesterday afternoon. He wet his mouth with his wine. “You move quickly, Mistress.”

That was an understatement: it was almost as if she’d been waiting for such a letter to be written, possibly even predicting its appearance. Had he made a mistake?

“I’ve learnt through bitter experience to do so, Master.”

All Ullmann could see was Nikoleta. Her tattooed hands trying to cover the wound in her chest. Her fever-bright eyes wide and round as she recognised her murderer. The flames as they caught the clothes she was wearing, her hair, her skin.

His hand brushed the place on his chest where she’d touched him, marked now by five silvery oval scars, and composed himself. The woman opposite wasn’t Nikoleta, and didn’t resemble her in any way. She had a thin, sculpted face. Almost elfin. Ullmann couldn’t see the tops of her ears. They were hidden in her hair, but it was entirely possible that they ended in points.

“Apologies,” he mumbled. “I was just surprised at the speed of your arrival. I should have been told if and when hexmasters enter the town.”

“There’s scarcely been time,” said Thaler, “and now you know. We must also remember that the mistress is not a hexmaster, and never was. But whether a novice or adept, she is literate, and gods know I need as many of her as I can get. She is both welcome and wanted.”

“If I could still do magic,” said the woman quietly, “do you think I’d be here?”

Thaler beamed at his newest recruit. “If you thought the transition to our new world is painful for us, Master Ullmann, can you begin to imagine what it is like for those who are now adrift in it like shipwrecked sailors? The library is their Pharos, showing the way home.”

The tension that had built up started to spill away. With conscious effort, Ullmann reached out for the jug and offered to refresh his dining partner’s drink. After a brief moment in which he thought she might refuse, she held up her pottery mug, still resting her elbow on the table.