The Enterprise of Death Read online

  “You’re alright then, Manuel!” Werner laughed. “I like goin last myself, anyhow. Give Master Artiste first go, Bernie.”

  “You said—” Bernardo began but Manuel cut him off.

  “I’ve got some butter in my bag that’s a little sour. Fetch it for me and I’ll give you next.” Manuel’s grimace must have looked enough like desire for Bernardo not to question him further, and he trotted to the artist’s pack. Werner was saying something loud to the Kristobels and Manuel roughly grabbed the witch’s shoulders, wondering if he addressed the back of her head or her face as he chanced a whisper.

  “When I said, you are run,” Manuel said in perfectly lousy Spanish. He almost gagged on his words, his voice sounding impossibly loud. “Fuck, I hoping your comprehend.”

  “I understand, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern.” The witch’s voice ghosted through her hood in far smoother Spanish than his, and Manuel froze. Her use of his name unsettled him greatly, and for just a moment he wondered if she really was a witch. Then he asked himself if it would change his actions if she were, and he had to admit it would not. She had not given any previous indication she understood him at all, and certainly none that she could speak—

  “Take the chains off,” the witch whispered. “But first the mask. I’ll be blind until my eyes adjust, so stall them once it’s off. Don’t be rash.”

  “Did she fuckin say somefinn?!” said Bernardo.

  “She’s begging me to not let you fuck her,” Manuel replied, unlacing the slit in her hood and widening it enough to get his hand inside. He felt her hot cheek as he clumsily fumbled with the blindfold, the stink of neglect and waste wafting out of the hole in her covering making his own eyes water. He got the blindfold up, and as he removed his hand he saw her brown eyes blink and begin bubbling over even in the shadowed interior of her hood. She was a Moor, he saw, and he laughed nervously at his folly—he had thought her face and bare feet were simply stained and dirty.

  “Are you takin that off’er?” Werner asked, and Manuel heard his boots squeaking in the wet leaves as he approached.

  “If I didn’t care what my hole looked like I’d have stuck a sack over one of you bastards soon’s Paula and her stargazers jumped boat,” said Manuel, spinning the Moor around to get at the clasps on the chain at her back.

  “She’s a witch,” said Kristof, panic in his voice. “If you let’er go she’ll do something!”

  “Aye,” said Werner from beside Manuel, and it did not relax the artist to see the man had traded his dagger for a sword. “She’ll do somethin, alright, four somethins. Five, if you stop bein a cunt, Kristobel!”

  Manuel removed the pin locking the waist chain in place and the heavy iron fell on his boots, the edges of the sack bulging and popping as she flexed her arms. Werner gave Manuel a smile, the sort of smile fishermen exchange when one of them has landed something big, Bernardo beside him with the olive-tinted butter pooling in his sweaty little hand. Manuel almost threw up, far more nervous than he ever felt before a battle. Werner’s sword was right there—

  “I hope you’re a fighter, bitch!” Werner barked beside Manuel’s ear. Manuel’s fingers were shaking as he slid out the pin from the neck chain. The iron had been tight as a dog collar against her throat, and as he tossed it aside he heard her take a deep breath but he could not warn her, he could not say anything, Werner was too close—

  “I’ll give you space to work, Manuel.” Werner nodded knowingly, walking around the witch so that he stood above them on the hill, Bernardo still holding the butter out to Manuel to his left, and the Kristobels somewhere behind them. Manuel held his breath and, bunching the sackcloth in his fists, pulled the heavy, damp bag up and over her head, finally releasing the woman.

  She was a girl, a naked girl, and there was nowhere for her to go. They were surrounded, and now she was standing nude and shivering in the pale dawn on the hill, and Manuel realized what he had done. They would both die on the hill, and she would be raped, and if he had not intervened he could have kept her alive, he could have kept her from seeing what they were doing to her, he could have—

  — One always has a choice, Manuel knew, and he had made his. Werner’s sword was still out but he had backed away enough that Manuel stood an honest chance of drawing his own in time, assuming nobody stabbed him in the back.

  “Well aren’t you gonna kiss’er?” Bernardo’s fetid breath drifted over the artist’s shaking shoulder, and Manuel tried to pull himself together.

  “You actually kiss them, you fucking ponce?” Manuel grinned at Bernardo and snatched the lump of melting, rancid butter out of the mercenary’s extended palm. He took it with his left hand, his off hand, which Werner might have noticed if he were not laughing at Bernardo’s expense, and Werner laughed harder as Manuel shoved the butter in Bernardo’s mouth and shoved him backwards. Then Werner stopped laughing as he saw how hard Manuel had pushed, Bernardo falling backwards with his arms flailing, and Manuel saw the Kristobels were even closer than he had thought, and for some reason the assholes had their weapons drawn as well. For fuck’s sake.

  Werner was hoisting his sword back and bounding forward even as Manuel’s right hand closed on the hilt of his own weapon, and before Bernardo had crashed onto the moist earth behind them everything went to shit. The witch ran exactly the wrong way, bumping into Manuel as she spun away from Werner and went behind the artist, directly toward the Kristobels and Bernardo. Manuel’s sword was still only half drawn as Werner brought his weapon around, but the prospective rapist had swung it sidearmed and so Manuel was able to intercept the blow with the nonsheathed half of the blade, his wrist twisting painfully and his belt loops popping off as his scabbard was torn loose from the impact.

  Manuel’s right fist was shaking and could not hold on to the heavy sword, his wrist sprained from the awkward parry. The sheath fell off the end of Manuel’s hand-and-a-half as he clumsily traded the weapon into his butter-slickened left hand, and then Werner was bringing his sword down again. Manuel hopped back out of the way, slipping down the hillside, but Werner did not hesitate, pressing the advantage. Manuel knew he had a moment or two before Bernardo was up and swinging behind him, to say nothing of the Kristobels, and he had to put Werner down at once or all was lost. More precisely, he thought fuck fuck fuck, but surely the veteran was aware of the rest.

  Both of their swords were long and heavy, and once committed to a maneuver difficult to alter in their deadly course. Manuel waited for Werner to swing again, and when the blow fell he again jumped out of range, only this time he swung his own sword sideways as he dodged, his swing perfectly timed to cut into Werner’s overextended sword arm. Unfortunately, the rancid butter coating Manuel’s palm collaborated with his momentum to send the sword leaping out of his hand, flying past Werner and embedding in the dirt.

  “Fuck!” Manuel screamed as his botched attack sent him stumbling into Werner, but rather than trying to get his sword up in time Werner threw his elbow into Manuel’s ribs. Manuel fell past Werner but one of his kicking feet caught the mercenary behind the knee and Werner lurched forward down the hill. Manuel’s sword was right there, and he planted one hand on the ground beside it and snatched the weapon with the other, propelling himself to his feet. That was the idea, at least, but his sprained wrist buckled as he tried to push himself up and he fell back down, his buttery left hand slipping off the hilt of his weapon.

  Werner was charging back up the hill toward him and, still on his knees, Manuel could gain his feet or his sword but not both. He chose the sword, and as Werner’s steel blade arced down at him Manuel twisted around. Seeing the flashing metal above him, the artist pitched himself forward to avoid it, belly-flopping onto the cold ground only to feel something stop his sword.

  It was Werner, the tip of Manuel’s sword flush with the man’s spine. The hand-and-a-half had bounced off the top of Werner’s codpiece and passed through his linen and silk shirts and into his stomach. The momentum of Werner’s own missed
swing carried him over to the side, skin and cloth tearing as he was disemboweled on Manuel’s sword. Werner was still screaming as he fell, his uncoiling intestine tangling on Manuel’s handguard and arresting the man’s fall for a long and terrible pause until his gut tore and he hit the earth. Werner screamed and screamed as Manuel rolled onto his back, knowing Bernardo or one of the Kristobels was right behind him, knowing he was about to die but laughing in spite of it because at the very goddamn least he had field-dressed Werner like a deer.

  There was no one there. Scrambling up and peeling Werner’s innards off the guard of his sword, Manuel saw two bodies at the base of the hill, and then a scream came from deeper in the wood just as Werner’s finally trailed off. Trotting cautiously down, he saw that the Kristobels lay side by side, their shirtfronts soaked with blood as though they were conjoined brothers fallen victim to an unsuccessful separation, clean swords still held in lily-white hands. Hearing the high scream again, he set off after Bernardo and the witch, delaying further investigation of the corpses.

  Beyond the base of the hill was the undergrowth Manuel had longed for on the hillside, and when the scream did not come again he slowed to a walk, every juniper patch and hornbeam thicket carefully examined. Then he found a blood splatter on the ground, and, following the trail toward another hillock rearing up among the budding hazels, he heard a moan. Pushing through a clump of junipers, he found them at the mouth of a small cave in the side of the hill.

  The witch wore Bernardo’s clothes, and the naked man lay at her feet making small wet noises and holding both hands to his bloody mouth. As if she had been waiting for his audience, the witch nodded at Manuel and squatted over Bernardo, slitting his throat with a dagger. With his dagger, Manuel realized, and even though he could see the weapon his hand went to the empty sheath at his waist. She must have taken it when she bumped into him on the hill, and she must have used it on the Kristobels and now, obviously, on Bernardo.

  In the better light she looked older than he had originally thought, but not by much. She was short but surprisingly well-built, her close-cropped hair the dull, grayish brown of the bistre Manuel used for his ink, her skin darker than the dead leaves at her feet. And in the time it had taken him to kill one man on equal footing she had killed three, and all with his dagger.

  “You’re a witch,” said Manuel, a bitter metallic taste in his mouth. He realized he had bitten his tongue when he had fallen during the fight, and he spit red. “Is that it?”

  “Yes,” the witch said in Alemannic German to match his, and he saw her mouth was smeared with blood.

  “And you used your witchcraft on them?” Manuel smiled to hear such words leave his mouth.

  “No, I used your knife on them,” said the witch.

  “I saw that.” Manuel nodded, pushing the rest of the way through the prickly bars of the juniper and looking down at the witch and Bernardo’s leaking body. “That’s your witchcraft, isn’t it? Being so good with a blade? The way so-called learned men attribute—”

  Then Manuel stopped. Bernardo was getting up, planting his bloody hands in the thick crimson pool his neck had created, and he jerked up to his feet, the flow at his neck quickening from the exertion. He stood swaying beside the witch, who smiled faintly at Manuel. The artist was also a soldier and knew a dead man when he saw one, and Bernardo was most assuredly dead, the wound in his neck as wide as Manuel’s thumb and deep enough that as the risen corpse turned its head Manuel saw the hint of bone that must be his spine. Manuel was going to be sick, he was—

  Manuel started awake in a shadowy cave long after the rain started, thunder murmuring its displeasure to be left outside. His wrist hurt and he had no idea where he was, confusion and pain adding a sinister edge to the gloom. Between the artist and the mouth of the cave was a small campfire, and Manuel lay very still, trying to straighten out what had actually happened from what his exhausted mind had made him dream before collapsing. Yet the whole morning seemed implausible, and he was cold and damp and sore and could smell the char of cooking pork, and so he got up and went to the fire where the witch sat in front of a joint of roasting meat and a simmering stewpot.

  “I wonder at you, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern,” said the witch, and when she did not offer him her waterskin he rooted through the piled bags at his feet until he found one. He dug deeper until he found another skin full of wine and an apple, and then he sat down.

  “Do you?” He sounded scared to himself, and realized that he was. He did not know where his sword was, nor his dagger. Fuck.

  “I do. I wonder if those men hadn’t meant to rape me if you would have set me free. I wonder. When you found me, when your master was ordering you to deliver me, you said the Spanish men would burn me, yes?”

  “At best.” Manuel took a slug of wine.

  “So that is alright. You were not happy about it but you would have done it, but when they decided to rape me you told me to be ready to run. That was foolish. We both would have been caught, and I still would be raped, and you would probably be killed. Are you foolish enough to think you could have fought them all when one of them almost finished you?”

  “No, I didn’t …” Manuel took another pull. “I didn’t think they would be so close. I thought you might be able to get away, or that the Kristobels would come around if I put Werner down quick. Still foolish, as you say.”

  “If they hadn’t tried what they did, would you have tried to let me go, or would you have given me to this Inquisition?” The witch was watching him closely, and something he could not place nagged at him.

  “I don’t know,” Manuel said, reserving his lies for those who paid him. “I’d thought about it, of course, thought of little else. I’d like to think so, but we’ll never know, will we?”

  “No.” The witch sighed, and then Manuel realized what was bothering him. The first thing he had remembered upon waking was Bernardo’s corpse getting to its feet, but he had dismissed that at once as fancy. But the other shapes in the light of the meager, smoky fire were not boulders nor the walls of the low-roofed cave nor bits of fancy. They were four men, four men whom he could now smell over the cooking meat and the woodsmoke and the loamy scent of the cave. They smelled like old blood and early rot, like sweat and piss and shit, like all the notes subtle and strong that combine to create the perfume of battlefields and slaughterhouses; the unmistakable smell of death. And they were watching him with unblinking eyes, Werner, Bernardo, and the Kristobels, they were watching him from where they sat blocking the only exit to the cave.

  The thunder came again, and Manuel slowly backed away from the fire, into the dark recess of the cave. He kept his eyes on the dead men she had brought back to life but soon his sore hands assured him the back of the cavern ended in cold, wet stone and earth, a dead end. She was a fucking witch, not some poor midwife or Jew or madwoman, but a real fucking witch. And he had loosed her.

  VII

  The Last Apprentice

  Awa fell, and then the bandit chief crashed into her back, bones encircling her limp body. Both of her shoulders were dislocated as their plummet was arrested by the interlocking spines of the necromancer’s pack of skeletons that tethered the chief to the near side of the chasm. They swung into the cliff face, breaking Awa’s previously uninjured right ankle, and then they were slowly reeled back up, Awa drooling red from her internal wounds. The loose skeletal arms jammed into cracks in the rock and hauling up the line of their spines quickly rejoined the rest of their bones when Awa and the bandit chief were finally hoisted back to safety.

  The snow felt warm on Awa’s cheeks as the bandit chief carried her. He was talking to her with Halim’s voice but her rattled mind could not pick out individual words until she saw the necromancer and Omorose waiting in front of the hut, and then her fear cut through the pain coursing through her, pain as rich and widespread as the blood in her veins.

  “Now that I saw coming,” the necromancer said with a smile at Omorose. “The runner ru
ns, just as the fighter fights. How are you feeling, little Awa?”

  Awa tried to tell Omorose to do everything she could to live, to tell her mistress how much she loved her, but only more stringy blood leaked between her teeth.

  “She destroyed three,” the bandit chief said as he laid Awa down in the snow at the necromancer’s feet. “Got to the far ravine, cut off my hand, then made a jump for the other side when she couldn’t run anymore.”

  “A runner and a fighter, eh?” The necromancer looked at Omorose. “I think the fight’s left her, don’t you?”

  Omorose looked down at Awa and her twisted mouth began twitching at the corner as she remembered the way her former slave had held her on the worst nights when Omorose could not pretend anymore, the countless times Awa had labored to make Omorose’s shortcomings appear to be her fault instead. The younger girl looked up at her, a strange and frightening smile creasing Awa’s bloody mouth as their eyes met, and Omorose knelt to put her out of her misery. The slave must have seen the knife in her mistress’s hand then, Awa’s eyes widening, and she managed a gurgling cry.

  “No!” Awa tried to warn her but then his hand touched the back of Omorose’s neck, the necromancer’s glittering eyes locked with Awa’s. Omorose fell dead in the snow, and Awa began to sob, trying to crawl to her friend despite the agony it brought.

  “None of that, now,” said the necromancer, and with a murmur Omorose sat back up. “Bring Awa in and lay her by the fire, then bring me Halim. She’ll need his shoulders and ankles by the look of it, and probably more beside. You’ll be at the mortar and pestle all night; much as I hate to waste good bones she’ll be useless without them. We’ll do a soup with the powder, I think.”

  The snow settled on Awa’s cheeks, on the salty brooks both clear and red that trickled down them, and then Omorose’s corpse picked her up and carried her in. When she tried to refuse the food in the coming days the necromancer merely had to threaten Omorose’s mortal remains and Awa would do as she was told. Eventually she was able to speak without crying.