1 the ambassador

  'But do you think you can defeat them?'

  'Honestly? I do not know. A lot depends on what is happening in the Empire just now. I have heard that the great horde that destroyed Wolfenburg has retreated north for the winter and that Boyarin Kurkosk gathers a pulk in the skirts of the Kislev oblast.'

  'Is that true?'

  'It's hard to be sure, there are so few runners these days, but it sounds likely. If there are still Kurgan forces in the Empire, then Kurkosk could cut off their retreat and starve them to death.'

  'What will happen if the Kurgans have already marched north?'

  'Then they will meet the boyarin's army, blade to blade, and from what I have heard of Kurkosk, theirs will be the worst of that encounter.'

  Anastasia pulled herself closer and ran her fingers through the silver hair on Kaspar's chest. 'Do other pulks gather in the oblast? Surely some of the other boyarins must be trying to amass their soldiers.'

  'It's possible,' allowed Kaspar, 'but the bulk of the Kislevite soldiery are scattered throughout the oblast and steppe in their stanistas for the winter. It will be a devil of a task to gather them before the snows break.'

  'Oh, I see,' said Anastasia, her voice fading as she drifted asleep.

  Kaspar smiled indulgently and kissed her forehead before closing his eyes and eventually slipping into an uneasy sleep.

  A COLD SLIVER of winter light awoke him hours later and he blinked in its unforgiving brightness. He yawned and smiled to himself as he felt the comfortable warmth of Anastasia's soft feminine body beside him.

  Careful not to wake her, he slipped from the bed and pulled on his robe. Kaspar eased open the door to his study and softly closed it behind him. Once again, he missed the familiar smell of the harsh-brewed tea that Stefan always had prepared for him each morning.

  He stood by the window, staring out at the snow-covered roofs of Kislev. At any other time, the scene would have been picturesque, even beautiful, but now all he could think of was the brutal killer out there that had taken Sofia.

  Anastasia had tried to prepare him for the worst, gently pressing him to accept that she was gone, but Kaspar resisted the notion stubbornly.

  Sofia was somewhere in this hard, northern city. He was sure of it.

  II

  THE WATER WAS gloriously cool and Sofia forced herself not to gulp huge quantities of the liquid. She knew well enough that her dehydrated body would rebel at too much water taken too quickly. Her eyes had long since grown accustomed to the gloomy attic and she no longer noticed the stench of rotted meat.

  The mutilated body of Gerhard had gone, but his killer had not bothered to clean up the sticky pools that had collected beneath his hanging body and the vermin and carrion creatures had feasted well on the merchant's leavings.

  Her body was a pain-filled mass, the hot agony from where her thumb had been severed then sealed with hot pitch merging with the ache of hunger in her belly and the rope burns on her arms and ankles. Rats had taken bites from her legs and the physician in her wondered about the likelihood of infection. Each time she found herself slipping into unconsciousness, a fiery bite on the flesh of her feet would hurl her back into her waking nightmare.

  Her captor stood before her, his mask draped over his face as always, but his manner altogether different than before. Even through her pain, she had noticed that, for the last few days, he had been much less aggressive than usual, as though some better angel of his nature was slowly swimming its way to the surface of his madness.

  The clay jug of water he held to her lips was just one indication of the change that had come over him. And before offering her the water he had, bizarrely, roughly brushed her hair with an antique brush of silver and inlaid pearl. It was an expensive item - obviously once the property of a woman of some means - perhaps a trophy taken from a previous victim.

  'Please, some more,' she croaked as he withdrew the jug.

  'No, I think you've had enough for now.'

  'Just a little more...'

  He shook his head and put down the jug.

  'I don't understand, matka,' he said in a voice not unlike that of a little boy. 'Why do you want me to kill you? It's not fair.' 'Kill me? No, no, no, I don't want you to kill me,' begged Sofia.

  'But I heard you,' he wailed. 'You said.'

  'No, that wasn't me, that was something else.'

  'Something else? What?'

  'I... I don't know, but it wasn't your matka,' said Sofia, warming to her theme. 'I'm your mother. Me. And I want you to untie me.'

  'I don't understand,' he said, rubbing the heels of his palms hard into his forehead. He let loose a plaintive moan and slid his knife from the flesh sheath on his stomach, dragging the edge across his forearms and leaving dripping blood trails. He wept as he cut himself.

  'He used to do this to me, you remember?'

  Understanding that her life hung by the most slender of threads, Sofia knew she had to play along with whatever internal fantasy was being enacted in his head.

  'I remember,' she said.

  'He used to burn me with hot embers from the fire,' he went on, tears running from beneath the stiffened flesh of his mask. 'He laughed as he did it as well, said I was a snivelling little brat and that he was cursed with me.'

  'You weren't to blame, he was an evil man,' said Sofia, keeping her answers neutral and hoping that she would not step outside the boundaries of whatever history he was reliving.

  'Yes, yes he was, so why did you stay with him? I watched him beat you unconscious with the flat of a sword once. He made me violate you time and time again and you did nothing. Why? Why did it take you so long to help me?'

  Sofia struggled for an answer, eventually blurting, 'Because I was afraid of what he would do to us if I resisted.'

  He dropped his knife and knelt before her, resting his head on her lap. 'I understand,' he said softly. 'You had to wait until I was strong enough to stand up to him. To kill him.'

  'Yes, to kill him.'

  'And I've killed him ever since. It was all for you,' he said proudly.

  'Killed who?' said Sofia, and stifled a gasp as she realised the danger inherent in what she had just asked.

  But he seemed oblivious to her slip from character and said, 'My father, the boyarin.'

  He reached up and ran his fingers down the leathery mask, his words dripping with barely suppressed rage. 'That's why I wear his face; so that every time I see its reflection I see the man I must kill. I killed him once for you, and I'll keep killing him until we're safe, matka. Both of us.'

  Sofia felt his chest heave with the effort of confession, but pressed onwards, knowing she would never get a better chance to perhaps direct his lunacy.

  'But we are safe now, my brave son. I know you have suffered terribly, but we can be safe, you just have to help me do one thing.'

  He lifted his head and stared, pleadingly into her eyes. 'What? Tell me what I have to do.'

  'Untie me and let me go to Ambassador von Velten, he can help us,' said Sofia.

  He shuddered and she felt him go rigid, as though in the opening throes of a seizure. His head snapped up and he pushed himself to his feet, snatching his knife up from the floor.

  'Don't!' he roared, jabbing the knife against her belly. 'Don't try and trick me.'

  Sofia cried as the tip of the blade drew blood. 'I'm not trying to trick you. I just want us to be safe, I just want us to live.'

  'I... that's... I mean, so do...' he mumbled, dropping the knife again.

  He gnashed his teeth and took great strides around the attic, punching the timber roof supports and bloodying his knuckles.

  Eventually he stopped his pacing and stood before her, his chest heaving.

  'I love you,' he snarled, 'but I might have to kill you now.'

  'No, please...'

  He bent to pick up the knife, his hand instead closing on the handle of the antique hairbrush. He raised it before him with difficulty, as though some inner part of him resisted, an
d held it close to his face. He gave a strangled laugh of release as he smelled the scent of her hairs that had caught on its bristles.

  'Ambassador von Velten can help us?' he said in his little boy's voice.

  'Yes,' nodded Sofia, through a mist of tears. 'The ambassador can help us.'

  III

  KASPAR DRAGGED THE wire brush through his horse's silver mane, smoothing it to a gleaming fringe that spilled over its powerful shoulders. The animal stamped the ground, its breath misting in the cold air and its tail whipping its rump for warmth.

  'Steady there,' whispered Kaspar, rubbing his hand across the horse's flanks, feeling the thick muscles bunching beneath its skin. A bay gelding from Averland, its pedigree was clear and its bearing noble. His morning ritual of brushing the beast was cathartic and cleansing, and Kaspar enjoyed the simple, manual labour involved in maintaining a fine warhorse like this, despite Kurt Bremen's assertion that such work was for the squires.

  Kaspar knew it was not a young beast, but it was strong and had spirit. He knew that its stubborn streak and silver mane had earned it the nickname 'Ambassador' amongst the embassy guards, men he could now be proud of thanks to Kurt Bremen's punishing regime.

  The name did not trouble him, in truth he was flattered. As an infantryman by nature, Kaspar did not have the affinity with his mount that cavalrymen were supposed to have - often the subject of many a bawdy joke told in the ranks, remembered Kaspar - and he had never troubled himself to learn the horse's name before leaving Nuln.

  But an animal as fine as this deserved a name chosen by its rider.

  He had given the matter a great deal of thought, knowing that a name can carry great power and had finally settled on one that carried a weight of history to it, that Kaspar thought appropriate.

  He would name his horse Magnus.

  Finished with the brushing, Kaspar scooped a handful of grain from a feedbag hanging outside the beast's stall and offered it to the horse. The animal gratefully fed on the grain, good Empire feed that kept the beast's strength up and spurred its growth to the extent that, save for the majestic destrier ridden by the proud knights of Bretonnia, the warhorses of the Empire were the best in the world.

  Kaspar turned as he heard a tentative knock on the stable door, seeing a sheepish-looking Pavel standing framed in the doorway, leaning against the gate of the horse's stall. Ever since the meeting with Chekatilo, Pavel had kept a low profile and this was the first Kaspar had seen of him since then.

  'Is fine animal,' said Pavel at last.

  'Aye,' replied Kaspar, tidying away the paraphernalia needed to care for a horse, 'he is indeed. What do you want, Pavel?'

  'I wanted to explain about other night.'

  'What's to explain? You let Chekatilo get his claws into Teugenheim and led him into disgrace. It all seems fairly clear to me.'

  'No, that not what... well, is kind of what happened, yes, but Pavel was only doing what Teugenheim wanted to do. I not take him there myself.'

  'Come on, Pavel. You're not a fool, you must have known what would happen.'

  'Aye. Pavel thought he could look after him, but Pavel was wrong. I am sorry, Kaspar, I did not think it would get so bad.'

  Kaspar pushed past Pavel, the sweat he had worked up cleaning Magnus chilling his skin as he came outside. He gathered up his leather pistol belt and strapped it on. Ever since discovering the hearts outside the embassy, he had made a point of never travelling unarmed. Pavel turned and trotted after the ambassador. 'Kaspar, I am sorry, I not know what else to say.'

  'Then don't say anything,' snapped Kaspar. 'I thought you had changed, that you had found a sense of honour. But I suppose I was wrong, you're just the same selfish, self-obsessed man I knew all those years ago.'

  Pavel flinched. 'Perhaps you right, Kaspar, but then you the same self-important Empire man with a stick up your arse.'

  Kaspar bunched his fists and stared at his old friend for long seconds before taking a deep breath and shaking his head. 'Perhaps.' he allowed, 'but if there's anything else you've been up to in Kislev before I got here, then it ends now. Do you understand me? We have fought together for too many years to allow our friendship to be broken, but there is a war coming, and I can't afford to be looking two ways at once.'

  Pavel smiled broadly, puffing out his chest and producing a leather canteen from his belt. He took a mighty swig and passed it to Kaspar, saying, 'Pavel will make priestess of Shallya look like gutter whore next to his saintliness.'

  'Well, you don't need to go that far, but I appreciate the sentiment.' said Kaspar, taking the canteen and taking a more moderate mouthful of kvas. He handed back the wineskin and asked, 'Do you think we should contact Chekatilo again, see if he has managed to find out anything?'

  'No.' said Pavel, shaking his head, 'he will contact you, but Ursun forgive me, part of me hopes he will find nothing. Chekatilo not a man you want to be indebted to.'

  'I know what you mean, but I can't give up on Sofia. Anastasia keeps trying to prepare me for the fact that she may be dead, but...'

  'Yes.' said Pavel, understanding. 'She is good woman is Sofia. Pavel like her.'

  Kaspar did not reply, hearing a commotion that sounded as though it was coming from around the front of the embassy. He heard shouts and the sound of a horse's hooves stamping on cobbles.

  Pavel heard it too and they shared a look, wondering what new mischief was afoot. Kaspar checked that his pistols were primed and they jogged around the side of the building to the grounds before the embassy.

  Two Knights Panther stood behind the gates, their swords drawn, while on the other side, two of his liveried guards lay sprawled unconscious.

  Circling the angel fountain in the small courtyard before the embassy was a single horseman clad in simple cavalry troos and a baggy white shirt. The fluid skill with the beast and the trailing topknot instantly identified the rider as Sasha Kajetan and Kaspar immediately drew his pistols and marched to stand with the two Knights Panther as more armed men hurried from the embassy.

  Kajetan walked his horse towards the embassy gates and Kaspar raised both his pistols, pointing them at Kajetan's chest.

  'Don't come any closer, or I swear I'll put bullets in you,' he warned.

  Kajetan nodded, and Kaspar could see he was in tears, his face twisted in grief.

  'I'm sorry,' he said, casting a plaintive gaze towards the embassy.

  'What are you doing here, Sasha?' shouted Kaspar. 'Anastasia is not your woman, she never was. You have to accept that.'

  'I need help,' answered Kajetan and Kaspar could see blood seeping through the sleeves of his linen shirt. 'I need to speak, now, before... before I can't do it any more.'

  Kaspar had no idea what the swordsman was talking about and took a step forward, keeping his pistols trained on Kajetan's chest.

  'Say what you've got to say and be gone,' he ordered.

  'She said you would help!'

  'Who?' asked Kaspar.

  'Matka,' wailed Kajetan and hurled something gleaming at Kaspar.

  Kaspar's instincts as a soldier took over and he ducked, squeezing the triggers of his pistols. Both weapons boomed, the bright muzzle flare and clouds of smoke blinding him temporarily. Men shouted and he heard a horse whinny in fear. The Knights Panther quickly moved to protect the ambassador and he was swept away from the gates in a bustle of armoured bodies.

  'Stop!' he yelled, fighting his way free of the knights. 'I'm fine. Whatever it was, it missed.'

  He looked over to the fountain, but Kajetan was gone, a drifting cloud of powder smoke the only indication that he had been there at all.

  No, not the only one. Lying in the snow where it had fallen was the object Kajetan had thrown, and Kaspar saw it was not, as he had first thought, a knife.

  It was a hairbrush. Silver and inlaid with pearls, Kaspar felt a surge of fear and hope flood his veins. Old and expensive, the brush's bristles were wound with auburn hair.

  Sofia's hair.


  IV

  HE WAS GONE for now, but for how long? Sofia had bought herself some time; only a little perhaps, but time nonetheless. The fresh water and the embers of hope that she might yet live through this ordeal gave her new strength and determination, and she was not about to let either go to waste.

  Her bindings were still as tight, but when he had rushed from the attic clutching the hairbrush, he had neglected to retrieve his knife, and it lay bloodied on the floor beside her. How she could pick it up she didn't know, but, inch by inch, she was able to slide the chair she was tied to towards it. At last she was in a position where her left hand was less than eight inches above the knife, but it might as well have been eight leagues for all that she could reach it.

  Sofia gritted her teeth and strained uselessly against her bonds, moaning in pain as the ropes cut into her flesh. Blood ran down her fingers and she wept with frustration, knowing he would be back soon. As much as she hated the man who had done this to her, she also felt pity for him. He had not always been a monster, he had been made into one by the abuse of others. Physical abuse and emotional manipulation disguised as love had turned whoever he had once been into the deranged lunatic that was the Butcherman.

  The thought that she had been taken by such a notorious killer terrified her, but Sofia Valencik was a woman of strength, and her determination not to end her days in this stinking death attic would not allow her to give up.

  And then she knew how she might reach the knife. The chair was too heavy to tip over in her weakened state, but there was one way she could reach it...

  She bit down hard on the rag in her mouth and began working the pitch-covered stump of her thumb up and down the rope. Shooting bolts of agony stabbed up her arm as the blackened scabbing came loose and the rope rubbed against the raw, ragged flesh of the stump. Blood streamed from the wound and tears rolled down her cheeks as her chest heaved with wracking sobs of agony.

  Soon her entire hand was slippery with blood and she knew she was ready.