C. Werner - Dead Winter

Walther intercepted Zena just as she reached the kitchen door. ‘Zena,’ he whispered, catching her by the string of her apron. She spun around, her hand raised to strike her accoster. When she recognised the rat-catcher, her expression softened from anger to annoyance.

‘Schill,’ she sighed. ‘Of course. No night is complete without being pawed by a ratman.’

Walther winced at the reprimand, releasing the apron string as though it had suddenly been transformed into a hissing serpent. ‘I didn’t mean…’

‘You never mean anything,’ Zena said. Her eyes dropped to the rat-catcher’s hands, becoming hard when she saw the blood on them. ‘You might have washed a bit before coming here.’

‘I’m sorry. A few of them nipped me tonight,’ Walther explained, trying to wipe his hands clean on the rough wool of his breeches.

‘One of them is going to gnaw off your fingers,’ Zena warned him. ‘I’ve told you before you should find better work.’ Her eyes softened when she saw the ugly gash Walther’s efforts had reopened. ‘Oh! One of those filthy things is going to bite off your fingers!’

The rat-catcher made no protest when Zena unwound her scarf and ministered to his wounded hand. The sting of his torn flesh was nothing beside the warm rush that pounded through his heart.

‘No hunter is completely safe from his quarry,’ Walther said. ‘It is just one of the risks he accepts.’ He reached down, cupping Zena’s chin in his hand, lifting her face until her eyes met his. ‘I’m doing it all for you. I’ll make enough to support you, to raise a family.’

Zena pulled away, her expression becoming angry again. ‘A penny a tail?’ she scoffed. ‘You’ll raise children on a penny a tail?’

Walther smiled, reaching to his belt and removing the coins Ostmann had paid him. An exultant feeling filled him when he saw Zena’s eyes light up at sight of the silver. She snatched them from his hand and stared at them in wonder, almost as though she couldn’t believe they were real.

‘That’s just the beginning,’ Walther assured Zena. He was thinking of the steadily increasing numbers of rats he’d been seeing in the sewers. He was also thinking of Ostmann’s empty shelves and the embargo against Stirland.

Gently, the rat-catcher closed Zena’s fingers around the coins and kissed her hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her.

‘The happy times are coming.’

Middenheim

Kaldezeit, 1111

Snarling wolves glowered down upon the oblivious men, stone fangs bared. The flickering fire of an enormous hearth cast weird shadows across the lupine gargoyles, the shifting play of light and dark lending the marble wolves a semblance of savage life.

Far below the stone wolves, two men sparred across a polished wooden floor. The boards creaked and groaned as heavy boots stamped down on them, as thrust and parry whirled the combatants along the empty gallery. The clash of steel against steel rang through the concourse.

One of the combatants was a middle-aged man, lean of build, his close-cropped hair in retreat, his thin moustache displaying a scattering of grey. His face was thin and hard, his eyes as sharp as the edge of a knife. He wore a simple leather tunic, his only affectation being the golden pectoral that hung about his neck. He wielded his sword with suppleness and surety, his every move bearing the cool confidence of long experience.

His opponent was much younger, little more than a boy. Thick black hair hung to his shoulders, catching in the high collar of his garment. Unlike the simple tunic of the older man, the boy’s gypon was extravagant, stripes of silver thread woven into the burgundy cloth, gold buttons crisscrossing the breast. An enormous buckle, cast into the profile of a running wolf, fastened a belt of dragonhide about his waist. The scabbard which hung from the belt was gilded across most of its length and engraved with elaborate scrollwork.

The boy’s face was handsome, stamped with all the finer qualities of noble blood and careful breeding. There was pride in his deep blue eyes and a swagger to the curve of his mouth that betokened an innate confidence that needed neither practice nor experience to engender it. The will to accomplish was enough to embolden the boy and drive him to success.

His swordsmanship displayed a less refined, more primal style than the studied motions of the older man. It was emotion rather than skill which governed his blade, but such was the fire of his passion, the quickness of his reflexes that his guard was impenetrable, his attacks avoided only by the narrowest margin.

The older swordsman smiled as he twisted his wrist and blocked a slash from his adversary’s blade. ‘That would have been an impressive feint — if you had intended it as such,’ he told the boy.

A smirk tugged at the corner of the boy’s mouth. ‘I don’t need feints to sneak past your blade, old man.’

The other swordsman smiled back, rolling his blade across the back of the boy’s sword and stabbing the point towards his breast. His foe dropped and shifted, swatting the thrust aside with the pommel of his own weapon. The older fighter nodded, impressed by the move. ‘Nice work. I’d think you’d been studying the tricks of the Estalian diestro — if I didn’t know you have no patience for books.’

The boy jabbed his sword at his foe’s left arm, then turned his entire body so that he followed through with a rolling slash at the man’s right leg. Both attacks crashed against the other swordsman’s intercepting blade.

‘Why read if there’s nothing more to learn, van Cleeve?’ the boy quipped.

The old man snorted with amusement, then brought his boot stamping down, not upon the floor, but upon his adversary’s foot. The boy danced back in surprise. For an instant, his guard was down. It was all the opening his instructor needed. The point of his sword pressed against the youth’s belly, the cork cap sinking into the cloth of his doublet.

‘If all you want to do is get killed, then there’s nothing more I can teach you, your grace,’ van Cleeve said.

Laughing, the boy brought his sword whipping around in a stunning display of speed and flourish, the edge pressing against his instructor’s neck. ‘That is a mortal wound, but not immediately fatal. We die together, old man.’ Smiling, he withdrew his blade, pausing to remove the nub of cork before returning it to its scabbard.

Van Cleeve sighed as he attended to his own weapon. ‘I think his excellency the Graf would take small comfort from knowing his only son dispatched his assassin before he died.’ The swordsman shook his head. ‘You have an impressive natural aptitude, Prince Mandred. If you would only apply yourself to the science of the sword…’

Mandred frowned. It was an argument he had heard many times and one that he didn’t appreciate, especially since it was a train of thought van Cleeve shared with his father. ‘Techniques and schools of sword would ruin me. Tame a wolf and you dull his fangs.’

‘A tame wolf lives longer,’ van Cleeve observed.

‘A wild wolf is happier,’ retorted the prince. Van Cleeve could see he would make no points sparring with his student’s wit. Clicking his heels together, the Westerlander bowed to the prince and withdrew from the gallery. Mandred waited only until the swordsman was out of sight before turning and dashing down the stairway at the far end of the gallery.

His sparring with van Cleeve had been frustrating today and the prince had been impatient to extract himself from the duel. There were more important things than sword practice going on within the halls of the Middenpalaz. Noblemen and dignitaries from across the city had been arriving all day. Something big was going on and he was determined to learn what it was.