"At some point, it'll come down to you against Eckhardt. When he finds out about you, he'll try to destroy you, and the longer you leave it, the more powerful he'll become. Whatever life you've built for yourself elsewhere will count for nothing, because he'll come and take it away from you. You can't pretend he's not there, Nikoleta."
"I don't want to believe that I've been left behind, by the gods, as a weapon against Eckhardt."
"Then it's up to me. I can't let the boy face him alone. Or Sophia Morgenstern and her band of Jews." He slid off the rock and made a show of checking his sword and his crossbow. "If I can get Allegretti at the same time, I'll be even happier."
"You're determined to do this, aren't you?"
"This isn't someone else's job. It used to be your job to protect Carinthia from its enemies but everything's changed. So now it's up to me."
"Why you?" she demanded.
"Who else then?" he countered.
She had answers, but none of them satisfying. "So, in the absence of other heroes, Master Buber steps forward."
"You haven't been listening to me. I'm no one's hero." He looked away, out over the valley again. "I'm a workman."
They lapsed into an angry silence, staring at each other. Buber was big: tall, strong, comfortable with his scars and his missing digits. His was a body that had been lived in, and every one of his years showed in the lines on his face. She wasn't any of those things. She was a tattooed Greek runaway slave who'd got where she was by being as cruel to those under her as those above her had been cruel to her.
Without her magic, she was worse off than when she started. Her magic: wasn't that the problem? She'd always looked on it as something she'd earned, paid a price for, rather than as something she was only borrowing.
"I don't want to face Eckhardt," she said.
"Then don't. No one can make you."
"That's not true." She dropped her gaze.
"What? Me? What can I do to you?"
"Be kind to me, expecting nothing in return. Ask my opinion rather than force me. Make love to me rather than rape me." The ends of her fingers burnt, and she needed release. Ink shifted and the carpet of pine needles around her started to smoke in little puffs: individual pieces of foliage glowed cherry red and consumed themselves in fire. "I don't want to face Eckhardt, because it means staying here for longer. I just want to go far away from where I sold myself, body, spirit and soul to the Order. I could have done anything with my life. But I wanted revenge on each and every person who ever hit me, spat at me, whipped me or fucked me, so I came here and learnt how it felt to be feared."
"You were just a child," said Buber.
"And now I know better. I'm not a child, and I'm not even that child any more." The undergrowth threatened to spontaneously combust, so she stopped. "I'm not used to being good, Peter."
"And I'm not used to leaving a wolf in the sheep-pen." He seemed unperturbed by the smoke drifting past. "Ragnarok is supposed to destroy all nine worlds, and maybe it still will. Doesn't mean I can't go down fighting."
"I don't want you to die. I want you to live." She sounded needy. She didn't mean to, but after years of suppressing any emotion, she couldn't express herself normally.
"I don't want to die, either." Buber kicked his way across the smouldering ground towards her. "I have responsibilities. I'm still a prince's man. When it's done, I'll walk away, whatever riches Felix offers me."
"What if he offers you everything and anything?"
"What can he offer me that I haven't already got? Gold? Titles? Fancy clothes? Land?" He spread his arms out wide. "I have all this."
She bowed her head. Fate had caught her in its wide net. Even this stupid, sudden passion she'd found for this rough beast only served to entangle her more firmly and drag her more quickly to her own, very personal doom.
"If Felix wants me to, I'll fight Eckhardt." She thought about it for a moment, and changed her mind, but only slightly. "No. You're right. Eckhardt needs to be killed, no matter what. Even if Felix tells me not to, I'm going to do it anyway. Why should the word of a prince trump the will of the gods? The magic ends with me."
45.
"It's damn quiet," said Prauss, looking around nervously. "Where is everyone?"
Thaler, trudging along, looked up to see the town wall, and where the alpine road pierced it. The gates were open and idle. No traffic, no guards, no tolls. He stopped, and after a few more weary steps, so did the rest of them.
There was a house on the right with a high brick wall and tall ironwork, just the sort of house a rich merchant would build for his new wife: all classic Roman architecture and perfumed gardens. The house was still, and the whiff of wood smoke was absent.
"What time is it?"
Ullmann looked up at the sky. "Must be nearly midday, Mr Thaler. Something fearsome strange must have happened."
"The boy's right," said Emser. "I don't like the look of this at all." The guildsman took in their situation, and started moving towards the edge of the road.
Thaler thought that wise, and belatedly ushered everyone to the cover of a line of blackthorns planted on the verge.
"What do you suppose happened, Mr Thaler?" Ullmann managed a stage whisper.
"The unavoidable conclusion is that Eckhardt's made his move." Thaler leant out and studied the top of the town's wall carefully. "He is, however, just one man, and one man, no matter how powerful, can be in only one place at a time."
The White Tower was across the river, the White Fortress up and to his left. There were thin ribbons of white-grey smoke rising from the buildings inside the whitewashed battlements, something he'd seen a thousand times before.
"The castle?" asked Schussig. He worried at the grimy bandage that was wrapped around his head and half obscured his vision. His bright blue eye peeked out from the shadow.
"Seems, by any reasonable measure, our best bet. If that's fallen, then we've worse problems than being cold and tired." What Thaler really wanted was a hot bath, a hot meal, and a warm bed. What he was going to have to put up with was some more ridiculous sneaking around. He felt affronted. "Curse him to the deepest part of Hel."
"The way's clear," said Prauss. "One at a time or together?"
"We've nothing to lose by going together. Any trouble we might run into is better handled by five stout Carinthians." Thaler stepped away from the hedge, and started an awkward, crouching shamble towards the next piece of cover.
The others followed, all equally visible to anyone who cared to be looking, but they made it to the gate unmolested.
Pressing their backs against the solid stone of the wall, they rested for a moment.
"What's the plan?" asked Prauss.
Bemused, and slightly annoyed that everyone kept deferring to him, Thaler huffed. "The Wagon Gate is the closest, but we have to go through town to get to it. We can circle the castle to the south, and try and gain entrance through the sally at the base of the Arrow Tower. That way we'd be mostly hidden. What d'you say?"
"Sounds reasonable." Prauss patted Thaler's back in a way that indicated the librarian should take the lead.
Thaler rolled his eyes, and deliberately broke cover in the most nonchalant way he could managed. It was more of a stroll through the gate than a mad dash, and he even put his hands on his hips and stared about him when he was under the shadow of the arch.
The others were more careful, keeping to the wall, and trying, in an exaggerated manner, to avoid letting their feet clatter against the cobbles.
Then there was a shout, and Thaler found himself looking at a group of twenty armed men coming up from the quayside. At first glance, they looked irregular, each of them wearing and carrying something different from the next. At the second, he realised that, despite their appearance, they were more organised than some rioting mob.
"Gentlemen?" he said to his colleagues. "Run."
With the wall to their left, and the fortress crag on their right, there was only one way to go. The guildsmen and library staff were unencumbered, but exhausted: their pursuers seemed fresher but rattled in their unfamiliar kit.
Thaler, inevitably, ended up at the back, with Ullmann sprinting for his life like a deer in front. Schussig though, after an initial burst of speed, was slowing down. As they ran, Thaler couldn't shake the thought that some of those chasing him were familiar, but incongruously so.
He risked a look behind him. In among the men with spears and swords, some struggling with shields and holding their helmets on, was one face he definitely recognised. A man who had every reason to be extremely angry with Thaler in particular, but not one who would necessarily kill him.
They were never going to make it to the Arrow Tower. The road wound uphill, and steeply. Schussig was starting to stagger, his legs bending and bowing as they gave out. Only Ullmann looked capable of escape. Thaler caught Schussig just as he buckled completely, which brought them both to a grinding halt.
Prauss looked back, hesitating.
The armed men were close enough now for Thaler's suspicions to be confirmed.
"Call those curfew breakers back," shouted the group's leader. "In the name of the prince."
Thaler let Schussig down gently, crouching behind him to support him, and stared up at the wild-eyed and bearded warriors bearing down on them with iron spear-points. "Rabbi Cohen. What in Midgard are you doing?"
"Thaler." Cohen had a spear and he jabbed it uncomfortably close to Schussig's blind-sided face. "I should run you through for what you've done."
"We said we'd repair it," said Prauss, dragging his feet. Ullmann hovered in the distance, uncertain whether to stay or go, but Emser was waving at him to come back.
"So if I was to chop down the irminsul, but promised to put another one up, that'd be fine?" The rabbi shook his spear with genuine fury, and the rest of his men Jews all started to surround them.
"That's ... different." Prauss finished lamely.
"You Germans. What did we ever do to you?" Cohen pulled his spear back a fraction and pointed at Schussig. "Can he walk?"
"If we're allowed to help him," said Thaler. When no one said he couldn't, he put his hands under Schussig's armpits. "I appreciate we haven't always seen eye to eye," and he winced at the rabbi's barking laugh, "but since when were Jews allowed in the militia, enforcing a curfew we've never had, in the name of the prince, on the Sabbath day?"
"Since," said Cohen, reversing his spear and poking Thaler in the ribs, "we saved your precious library."
"The library?" Thaler almost dropped Schussig, and if Prauss hadn't caught him, the guildsman would have ended up in the road again.
"Enough talk from you, Mr Thaler." The rabbi pulled at his beard and pointed his finger. "You're breaking the curfew."
"The curfew we didn't know existed," muttered Emser, scowling.
"Ignorance is no defence," said Cohen. "Bring them."
Thaler was relieved from his Schussig-holding duties by Ullmann. "Where are we going, Mr Thaler? They seem awful cross."
"Cross they are, Mr Ullmann, but I'm more concerned with what's happened to the library." Thaler stared around at the motley collection of arms and armour. "And to the militia, and the mayor, and normal, decent order. Rabbi Cohen seems in no mood to explain. We appear to be at his mercy."
"He did say, 'in the name of the prince', though," said Schussig, lucid for a moment. "He'll see us right."
"I hope so, Mr Schussig."
They were marched, quicker than was strictly necessary, through the streets. There were signs of damage, mostly broken windows and broken doors, but nothing too serious.
Until they passed the top corner of the main square, where the bodies were laid out in rows and rows, and the crows flapped and feasted.
Their guard seemed used to the sight, but Thaler faltered in his hurried march and clutched at Ullmann, who followed Thaler's horrified gaze with his own. Their open mouths formed circles of shocked surprise.
"Gods!" said Prauss. "What happened here?" Schussig pushed his bandage out of the way, the better to see, and Emser started to walk mechanically towards the square.
Cohen growled at them to keep moving, and they were pushed away protesting and down the next alley.
"My family. I have to check on them." Prauss reached out for the rabbi's shoulder, and was fetched a crack across his knuckles.
"The prince first," said one of the men. "No exceptions."
"But my wife ..." started Prauss. He still had his knife their guards were inexperienced enough to have left him with it and Thaler had to intervene when he saw the guildsman reach for it.
"Hold, Master Prauss, hold. Something terrible has happened, but getting yourself killed won't reveal the truth any faster. The good pagan qualities of courage and fortitude will have to sustain us until we see the prince; he knows we're not rebels."
He hadn't marked Prauss out as a hothead: perhaps the stonemason had simply had enough of strangeness.
They were driven down the side of the pantheon, with Thaler trying to inspect the stonework for fire damage, and into Library Square. The ground outside was stained black with blood, a torrent of which had apparently cascaded from the entrance down the steps of the portico.
One of the doors was off its hinges, and a line of tired-looking librarians were on their knees, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing at the stone with hard-bristled brushes.
"Gods," breathed Thaler. Splashes of blood had reached head height on the pillars, and some of the men toiling away were bandaged. "Gentlemen. What terrors have you faced here?"
One of them looked up, then sat up on his heels. "It's Mr Thaler."
He was an apprentice Thaler couldn't be expected to remember his name but the boy greeted him like a son, until he was forced away by a Jewish spear.
"He's our prisoner," said Cohen.
"He's our librarian," objected the apprentice. "You let go of him at once." The situation, with tired, angry men on both sides, momentarily threatened to get out of hand.
Thaler stepped between them, an outstretched palm directed at each man. "I believe we're all on the same side here, gentlemen, and it's painfully clear that we should not succumb to fissiparous urges, no matter the provocation. Librarians, you continue with your duties, and I'll address you all in good time. Rabbi Cohen, our safety is your responsibility: you're charged with bringing curfew breakers before the prince, so that's what you must do, without delay."
When he thought that tempers had cooled sufficiently, Thaler slowly dropped his arms back to his side. The apprentice lowered his brush and stood aside, gathering with his fellows in a sullen, mutinous crew.
Rather than have Cohen force him onwards, Thaler took the initiative and marched into the library on his own cognisance. This was his home, so why should he do anything else?
The prince was sitting at the long table, placed in its traditional position at the front of the circular space. On his left was Sophia Morgenstern, leaning her head towards him and listening intently. She had parchment and ink and pens in front of her. To either side were more librarians, patiently writing away by lantern-light.
Although the table had been restored to its rightful place, much had changed: the banisters had gone, and, apart from the shelves, there was no other furniture on the ground floor. All the reading desks and chairs had vanished. Thaler looked down at the freshly cleaned floor and decided that answers might have to wait.
His approach was noted, and the prince broke off his conversation and rose to greet him.
"Mr Thaler!"