Bloodborn (31 page)

The harlot looked up from climbing into a sway-backed bed as the door swung open and Gabriella and Ulrika stepped into the squalid little room.

‘Hoy!’ she cried. ‘Bugger off! I got a customer!’

The bravo grinned, revealing yellow teeth. ‘More th’ merrier, says I.’

Gabriella closed the door, then extended her left hand and opened her fingers. ‘Sleep,’ she said.

The squirming shadow dissipated into a cloud of mist that drifted towards the harlot and the bravo. They drew back, frightened, as it came at them, but then smiled and sagged to the pillows as it enveloped them, their eyes closing.

Ulrika hesitated as Gabriella stepped forwards. ‘Are they…?’

‘Only dreaming, my child,’ said Gabriella as she crossed to a trunk at the foot of the bed and began to rummage through the mound of colourful clothes within. ‘And having a more pleasant encounter than they would have awake, I’ll wager.’ She pointed at the slumbering basher. ‘Come. Strip him and yourself. Too much of the night has passed already.’

Ulrika crossed to the man and began her unpleasant task. The basher’s sword had been of quality once, as had his doublet and breeches – dark red gabardine with black brocade panels – but it looked like he hadn’t laundered them for several years, and they smelled strongly of stale food and unwashed flesh. His shirt and small clothes were even worse, and crawled with vermin, just as she had feared.

‘Mistress,’ she said. ‘I… I cannot.’

Gabriella looked over and made a face. ‘Very well. Here.’ She threw a frilly white blouse at her. ‘You must wear the doublet and breeches, but you may wear that underneath. Indeed it will add to your imposture.’

Ulrika took the undergarment with relief. It was threadbare and tattered, but at least marginally cleaner. She stripped out of her lady’s clothes and pulled on the harlot’s blouse and the bravo’s kit. It was tight in the hips and the chest, but fit well enough otherwise. The unfamiliar sword hung oddly at her side, and the boots were loose, but she stuffed them with rags ripped from the harlot’s skirts and they were a little better. Finally, to appease her tortured nose, she searched among the harlot’s combs and rouges until she found a vial of scent, and doused her new clothes in it. She still reeked, but at least now it was of rose water.

When she was finished, she turned to Gabriella to find the prim lady’s maid gone and a saucy wanton standing hip-shot in her place, her breasts nearly spilling from a low-cut yellow bodice, and a leering smile on her painted face.

‘Fancy a go, m’lord?’ Gabriella drawled in a harsh slum accent.

Ulrika smiled in spite of herself. ‘I’m beginning to think you have not always been a countess, countess,’ she said.

Gabriella smiled. ‘Our queen asks us to play many roles in our service to her.’ She stepped to the shuttered window and opened it, then looked down. ‘Now gather up your things and put them in that satchel with mine. We must go.’

Gabriella played her part to the hilt as she and Ulrika walked through the empty streets of the Faulestadt slums, swinging her hips and tossing her hair like a professional though there were precious few passers-by to see her show. Ulrika supposed she was playing her part correctly as well, for she strode stiffly behind the countess, looking uncomfortable and wary – which was no act.

‘The witch hunters at the bridge will still stop us, mistress,’ she said. ‘Even dressed as we are.’

‘If we are alone they will,’ said Gabriella. ‘Which is why we must find some company.’ She peered down an intersecting street. ‘I am only looking for the right sort of tavern, and the right sort of men. Ah! That looks promising.’

She threw back her shoulders, then sauntered towards a building lit from lintel to eaves with red lanterns – a beacon of light in the dark sea of the fear-fraught night. There was a line of rich carriages drawn up near the door, over which hung a sign that proclaimed the name of the place to be the Cannon’s Mouth.

‘Come, my dashing drake,’ Gabriella said, looking back. ‘The Altestadt is but a wink away.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

LADY HERMIONE REGRETS

‘And what brings such refined noblemen as yerselves south of the river, m’lords,’ asked Gabriella.

The four drunk boys who surrounded the countess laughed. Ulrika, leaning against a shadowed pillar nearby, doubted they were nobles, but rather the sons of wealthy merchants, flaunting their fathers’ money in loud clothes and jewellery that true noble sons would disdain as tasteless. The Cannon’s Mouth seemed to cater to their ilk. It was an overdone parody of the true squalor of the Pitcher and Ramrod, with the same trestle tables and blackened beams, but with better-looking harlots, dice and cards in a back room, and enormous bouncers to keep the peace. A place for rich boys from across the river to come, drawn by the promise of danger – but not too much – and a little naughty fun. Well, they had been drawn by the score this night. Just like it had been at the Pitcher and Ramrod, the crowd was five deep at the bar, and giddy with edgy laughter and loud talk – huddling around the fire in fear of the dark.

‘We came t’hunt vampires,’ slurred the drunkest of the merchants’ sons, a moonfaced redhead in sky-blue doublet and breeches. ‘Drive ’em into the sunshine and watch ’em turn to ash.’

Gabriella raised an amused eyebrow. ‘And did you catch any, m’lords?’

‘Nah,’ said a pudgy boy in orange velvet with his hair plastered across his forehead in an elaborate spitcurl. ‘Saw plenty burning, though. That was good sport!’

‘Thirsty work, though,’ said the third boy, who seemed to be the leader. He was shorter than the others, but more handsome, and with a sharp glint to his eyes. ‘And rousing as well.’

‘Aye,’ said Gabriella, stroking his chin. ‘I don’t doubt it.’ She ran a finger down his velvet-clad chest. ‘And what would y’say if I was to tell ye
I
was a vampire?’

The boys laughed again, louder.

‘You?’ said the fourth, a blond wisp of a boy in an emerald doublet and earrings. ‘You ain’t pale enough! Nor skinny enough!’

Gabriella kept her eyes on the handsome leader. Her finger trailed lower. ‘But if I was? Would y’pound yer wooden stake into me? Would y’make me scream and turn to dust?’

Handsome’s eyes glazed with lust, but the others jeered and shoved him.

‘And what about us, then?’ said Moonface, pulling Gabriella around by the shoulder. ‘We’re hunters too, you know!’

She smiled slyly at him, then around at the others. ‘Oh, it might take more than one stake t’kill me,’ she murmured. ‘It might take a whole night of pounding to see me dead.’ She leaned against Spitcurl’s chest, arching her back and pushing out her chest. ‘If only we had some quiet place away from all this smoke and villainy t’do the deed.’

There was a quick exchange of looks between the boys as they began to weigh the reality of going through with what Gabriella was suggesting.

The countess seemed to sense the hesitation, for she twisted again, rubbing up between Handsome and the boy with the earrings. ‘Haven’t ye a place of yer own, then?’ she purred. ‘Are ye not men of the world?’

Watching the boys’ faces, it seemed to Ulrika that Gabriella was using more than words and her beauty on them, for their eyes had the dull look of stunned cattle, and though they obviously had objections and questions, they seemed to find it nearly impossible to voice them.

‘What about your carriage house, Sebastian?’ asked Handsome, turning to Moonface. ‘You’ve taken girls there before, haven’t you?’

‘I… I don’t know,’ Moonface mumbled. ‘My father–’

‘Your father’s face-down in his port by now,’ sneered Spitcurl. ‘Come on, Sebastian, don’t be a woman. Did we not make blood oath together?’

Moonface licked his lips. ‘I… oh, very well. But you best remember that blood oath if we get caught.’

They all slapped him on the back and cheered.

‘There’s a good lad,’ said the boy with the earrings.

Handsome linked arms with Gabriella and started for the door of the tavern. ‘Come, vampire. We have you under arrest now. You shall face the iron tower.’

‘Four iron towers!’ crowed Spitcurl.

She laughed merrily, then beckoned to Ulrika as she passed her with the young men. ‘This way, Rika. We’re going with these gentlemen.’

This brought the boys up short. They turned and stared at Ulrika, angry frowns furrowing their foreheads.

‘What’s this?’ said Spitcurl.

‘You didn’t say anything about a friend,’ said Handsome.

‘Is it a man or a woman?’ said the boy with the earrings, grimacing.

‘I’m not sleeping with that!’ said Moonface.

Gabriella smiled and stroked their arms and chests. ‘Rika’s nothing to worry about, my lords. She only keeps me safe down here in the smoke.’

‘Then she can stay here,’ said Moonface. ‘You’re perfectly safe with us.’

‘Of course I am,’ said Gabriella smoothly. ‘But I wouldn’t want t’trouble any of you gentlemen fer a ride back in the morning, would I? And it’s a long lonely walk through rough quarters ere I get home.’ She leaned against Handsome and looked straight in his eyes, her lips inches from his. ‘She’ll stay out of sight and out of mind, I promise you, but I’m afraid I can’t come if she stays behind.’

The four boys exchanged another round of glances, with Handsome pleading and the others uncertain, but at last Spitcurl shrugged.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But she can ride with the coachman. She reeks of rose water.’

Ulrika’s hand dropped to the hilt of her stolen rapier as the coach approached the bridge and the four witch hunters who watched the traffic that crossed it. If Friedrich Holmann was among them, their masquerade was over before it began. She relaxed somewhat when she didn’t see his face, but kept her hand where it was. She felt like she was sticking her head in a dragon’s mouth.

The head witch hunter stepped forwards and held up a hand, then stepped around to the window, carrying a lantern. He hadn’t given Ulrika, huddled beside the coachman, a second glance.

‘Show me your faces,’ said the witch hunter, lifting his lantern to the window.

There was laughter from inside the coach, then came a shriek from Gabriella and Spitcurl’s braying voice. ‘Look, templar! We’ve caught a vampire! She’s going to be the death of us!’

‘Aye!’ came Moonface’s cry. ‘Show him your teeth, fiend!’

Ulrika tensed and gripped the bench, ready to leap down and kill the witch hunter before he could draw his blade, but then she heard a soft slap and Gabriella’s laughter.

‘Those aren’t my teeth, beloved! Shame on you!’

Looking down from above, Ulrika couldn’t see the witch hunter’s expression under his broad-brimmed hat, but his rigid posture spoke eloquently of his disgust.

‘You young fools,’ he growled. ‘This is no laughing matter. Death stalks the streets of Nuln and you carouse with strumpets.’ He stepped back from the coach and waved it on with a curt hand. ‘Away with you, and may Sigmar forgive you your frivolities.’

Ulrika relaxed her grip on her sword as the coachman geed the horses and the coach started forwards again, but she didn’t relax entirely until they had crossed the bridge and rattled onto the cobbles of the Neuestadt.

As they drove through the commercial district, Ulrika saw that, despite the witch hunters’ best efforts, some of the day’s madness had spread north of the river. There were many shops with broken windows, and hammers of Sigmar were painted on many doors and walls. Though the streets were empty but for a few double-strength watch patrols, the taverns were doing booming business here as well.

Seeing such signs of panic, Ulrika feared another stop at the gate to the Altestadt, but it didn’t occur. The guards there seemed to recognise the coach and its occupants. They only saluted, while their captain nodded at its windows.

‘A dangerous night to be out, young masters,’ he said. ‘Best get home.’

‘Aye, captain,’ came Handsome’s voice. ‘Home to bed.’

The boys laughed at that, and they rode on.

It was harder to tell if the Altestadt had succumbed to the rest of the city’s fright. The streets were always quiet there at night, and the watch always on patrol, but Ulrika thought she felt a more than usual uneasiness in the glances of the guards who patrolled the mansions they passed, and in the faces of the rich merchants who hurried by them on their way home.