The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [7]
“Take her and get out,” von Stein ordered. “We’ll be in Milan, playing nanny until the Emperor arrives to throw his hired landsknechte against we fine Swiss confederates, our French employers, and whatever thick-headed Milanese are still about. You meet us there and give me the letter, I give you the crowns, and then you go home to that nice little house on Gerechtigkeitsgasse or whatever fashionably unpronounceable street you’ve set up on, yes yes?”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?” said Manuel, knowing full well that one always has a choice.
“No. You’re the only one I can trust to deliver her, Manuel, and you can tell your confessor it was my fault. And even if she isn’t a real witch and you aren’t doing God’s work, what’s another mortal soul on your tally? I wager you’ve lost track of how many you’ve killed, yes?”
“No,” said Manuel, finished with lying to von Stein for the night. Not only did he know the exact figure but he knew all their faces, most sketched from memory but a few on the field, and if he returned to his workshop in Bern he would have another seven saints to add to his pile of planks. He wondered if he could bring himself to sketch the witch—to date there was a dearth of female martyrs in his collection.
“Go on, then,” said von Stein, waving toward the witch. “Better you set out tonight and camp some leagues away, lest the rest of the boys get a whiff of her. Hard on them since Paula and the rest of her whores skipped off back to Burgundy. The Inquisitor’s name is Ashton Kahlert, and he’s got men waiting to receive her at the church in Perpignan, off the Barcelona road.”
“Kahlert isn’t a Spanish name,” said Manuel, but he was looking at the witch.
“They’re all Spaniards to me,” said von Stein.
“I’m going to lift you up now,” Manuel loudly informed the lumpy, bagged woman. “We’re going to march for a while.”
“She’s got a leash round her neck,” said von Stein helpfully, and with a sigh Manuel untied the tether and fixed it to the chain around her waist instead.
Von Stein rolled his eyes, put the money satchel back into a small chest under his table, and retrieved a sealed letter. He waited until Manuel had taken the letter and awkwardly led the witch to the tent flap before setting his pistol, a glorified hand cannon, on the table next to the sputtering candle. Just as the flap fell behind Manuel, his kidskin boots visible under the edge, the captain called out a final warning.
“And if you find yourself imagining it’s your wife or little niece under that witch-sack, and if you then find yourself imagining that maybe I won’t be quite so cross if tragedy strikes and the delivery does not transpire for any number of reasonable excuses, then, dear Manny, then I want you to remember, and you will not need to imagine because we both know that it is true, then I want you to remember that I know just where your wife and niece sleep this night, and every other.” Von Stein smiled and raised his pistol toward the tent flap as it was ripped aside, the touchhole at the base of the weapon hovering beside the candle. Manuel took three steps before he noticed the gun, and then the long blade of his sword slowly slunk back into its scabbard as the artist backed out of the tent. Von Stein smiled in the empty, bright pavilion, while outside in the damp night Manuel futilely tried to stop picturing his wife or his niece under the sackcloth and iron as he led the witch into the darkness.
The Coming of His Acolytes
Something other than the wind howled in the darkness of the Sierra Nevadas, the Andalusian currents blowing rain straight into the mouth of the grotto as if the world had turned on its side and the African captives were in a pit instead of a cave. Despite the cold and wet the beautiful harem girl Omorose slept, and could scarce have awoken had she been of a mind to. Days spent in idle abandon had ill prepared her for forced marches over the cruelest terrain