38

The Night of the Wolf

Everyone who was anyone had been invited and all accepted, eager for the spectacle of the Frost Fair, if not the Prince’s patronage. It was the Happening of the Year. The local ­grandees passed over the bridge into the confines of the castle walls for Prince Rupert’s Weihnachtsgeschenk without qualm. He’d organised a gathering of something similar every year: a ball or feast to inculcate the loyalty of neighbours and peers, and this year was to be the greatest yet. When Rupert heard that Maulwerf and his Fair of Wonders was in the vicinity he knew it was just what he needed to make this year’s celebrations stand out from the rest. Schleswig-Holstein was being ripped down the middle and Rupert had one foot either side of the divide. He’d dithered for weeks over which flag to fly: blue for Prussia, red for Denmark, or the red, white and blue of independence. In the end his flagsmen came up with a design all of their own that included everything relevant: lion rampant, white nettle, field one half blue, the other red, Rupert’s family motto ­emblazoned in gold above: Aut Bibat, Aut Abeat: Let Him Drink with Us or Leave. He approved this new design, felt it served the sentiment of the moment, and it was time to let these people know who they were dealing with. He was a Prince, by God, and one who was heir apparent to not one, nor two, but three royal thrones.

Rupert stood on his balcony, leaning over the balustrade, watching as his guests arrived throughout the afternoon. He wouldn’t greet them yet. He wanted them to settle, ease in, have a few jiggers of rum from the jugs placed in each of their rooms. He knew how impressive the approach to his castle was; how it shone like a sail above the trees as you rode in towards the east; how the frozen lake stretched away from the track and on down to the sea; how his castle stood suddenly revealed as you came out of the forest, shining white as if it had been carved from the moon, great arms of ghost-thistle and teasel-heads standing straight against the stone, thick stalks of fennel, lovage and monkshood sculpted by the ice encasing them, keeping them upright, lacing the edges of the moat pools, reed-blades piercing the mounds of snow at their feet. And now, this early evening, with the Frost Fair camped out upon the ice and the surrounding fields, the place was the tapissery of winter: sparkles of light from torches and bonfires, the outlines of huts and stalls, the braziers with their curls of scented smoke hinting at haunches of beef and mutton being cloved, spitted and dripped over with honeyed bastes.

It couldn’t look better, thought Rupert, as he went inside to dress for dinner. This was his night, of that he was absolutely certain. He knew nothing of the other men out there who hadn’t been invited, that there are always other men out there somewhere, no matter if you’re a prince with ambition or a boy with a head that is sucking in the world around him. You never know who’s going to come out of the forest and break into your life even when you thought you’d locked all the doors and drawn the bolts and pulled the shutters across the windows; even when you’d sat down to warm by your fire, imagining yourself the centre of the universe, for even then – maybe especially then – the universe is never thinking of you, and doesn’t even know you exist.

Over the bridge they came, the participants in Prince Rupert’s Christmas Gift Box, over the moat whose ice was broken three times daily so the swans could swim and the carp could rise or hide from the carriages as they clattered across the new-tarred, snow-swept planks. The tower rose above them five storeys high, criss-crossed by hidden servant-running corridors and stairways, cold and damp, shafted through by light or shadow from the recessed windows, their sills bevelled by five-hundred-year-old grooves carved out for the buckets of brimstone and burning oil that now held only oats and barley for the horses stabled far below in their byres. The guests alighted from their carriages, straightening complex dresses, unfurling coats, greeted by the prince’s men-of-state one by one, name by name, sorted by title, rank and wealth. As darkness fell, and the Great Hall filled, musicians struck up their tunes, yule-logs spitting in their fire-places, the guests beginning to wander the circum­ference of the enormous table to find their names gilded onto marzipan swans to mark their places, sitting themselves down. In the centre was a sugar-spun castle on a hill of crystallised grapes, and there was Rupert, opulent in a throne-like chair, looking lean in comparison with Frau Fettleheim who sat beside him on a custom-built couch, a visible symbol of the enormity of his gift and the spectacle that his invited guests were about to witness.

It was the finest night of Frau Fettleheim’s life, and she was chattering away like a lark to the princes and barons on either side of her, to bishops and merchants and their jewel-bedrenched wives. The rest of the Fair’s folk waited in the under-crofts and kitchens, getting ready for their set-pieces, practising lines, checking they looked their best. Outside, across the courtyard, beyond the bridge-straddled moat, out in the deep dark forest the wild boar hid and stamped their feet, polished their swords, primed their muskets, waiting patiently – just like everyone else that night – until their turn was called.

Rupert clapped his hands and called a start, making sure everyone’s glasses were filled and everyone comfortable, and then in came the jugglers and dancers to enliven the mood as the guests began their five-hour, fifteen-course repast. Next came the man who spoke his twenty-six-or-seven languages, having apparently learned another one on his way here, reciting poems with lines alternately in Danish, Friesian, German, Polish, English, Swedish and – who would know it? – Mandarin. The woman with the long tresses had been separated from her cart and was walked in like a bride, brown hair twined with ribbons carried by twenty servants, ten on each side, everyone stroking and admiring her shining mane. Next came Lita and her Bowman – no Huffelump as she couldn’t take the stairs – but Lorenzini played and Lita danced and sang and pirouetted and stood on Lorenzini’s shoulders, her tiny arms held high and thin as crane-flies. Then came the soothsayer – in normal ­circumstances this role would have fallen to Kwert, but the trials of prison and escape had worn him badly, and the farther north they’d travelled, and the colder it had become, the more he’d folded into illness like a piece of paper too often used, just as Brother Langer had predicted. Drafted into his place was one Herr Himbeere, to whom Philbert was now assistant. Himbeere’s oiled head shone like a buttered apple, its pike-tattoo seeming to move and ripple across his scalp as he turned in the lamplight: flexing its jaws, flicking its long tail. The calculated air of mystery and ancient rite was highlighted by the hall itself: the thick ­tapestries hanging upon the gently rounded walls living out their own secret stories, the multiple fireplaces banked on every side by stacks of wood, resin popping and oozing from the heat of roaring flames, great garlands of holly and ivy hanging from roof-hooks and, all around, the skirling of the wind as it tore about the tower.

Himbeere’s talent lay in reading fortunes from livers, Rupert having previously selected the Christmas Lamb of God – which a few minutes earlier had been slaughtered in the courtyard below. Philbert came in with its still warm liver, gall bladder dangling, both seeming to pulse in the flickering light; he hoved the offering above his enormous head, Himbeere taking it from Philbert on its silver platter, studying it, slicing it and telling its signs, delivering the glorious predictions his famous patron wished to hear – all strength to the Atheling Rupert being the gist – and then their turn was done and down they went through the draught-ridden stairways, passing the next act who were on their way up.

‘Make sure you throw that liver away, Philbert,’ said Herr Himbeere the moment they got back down to the warmth of the kitchens. ‘That gall bladder was twice the size it should’ve been and the liver’s got flukes – not that it would have done to point it out in such illustrious company.’

The kitchen was jumping like a hornet’s nest, every maid and cook shouting out to do this or that: grab plates, hoik trays from ovens, de-pot pies, rub mash through sieves, rib meat into slices, hack ice to rime glasses, check the junket, grate the cheese, chop the vegetables. The place was pandemonium and Himbeere only just managed to squeeze himself into a seat by the fire so he could get at one of the kettles to soothe the soreness of his feet.

‘What did you really see?’ Philbert asked as he tossed the liver down the rubbish chute, where it would land in the midden heap below for pigs to rootle at in the morning if the foxes and wolves left anything behind. He no longer believed anything these soothsayers had to say, especially not a man who contested he could divine the future in the liver of a lamb, but he was curious.

‘That really is the question, isn’t it?’ said Himbeere, the pike-tattoo on his head moving slowly as he scratched the side of his nose. ‘In a better man than the weakling Rupert,’ he said, using the pejorative that was common in these parts for said Atheling, ‘it might have meant the coming of battle. I detected a distinct hiatus in the Palace Gates, which is usually an indicator of courage. But our Rupert has smaller balls than bladderwort drying on a rack, and less spine than a dandelion. In his case I suspect it means a time of testing, and for him that probably means disaster, since it takes very little to bring a weak man to his knees.’ Himbeere wriggled his toes in the pail Philbert had filled for him, watching the water slop lazily up the sides and over his bunions and corns. ‘But then again,’ he added vaguely, ‘perhaps it just means a bad case of indigestion. Who knows?’

He was tired out and wanted drink, meat and dreams in that order. He dragged his feet from the pail, dried them on the drugget-rug before Philbert helped him on with his boots. At this point the strong-boy, Oort, burst into the kitchen having just finished lifting barons above his head and juggling ladies and beer-barrels, muscles still gleaming with the minor ­exertions his act had caused.

‘Coming to watch the rest?’ he asked Philbert, grabbing ­several ox-and-oyster pies from a passing tray. A rolling-pin came down towards his hand but he laughed and flicked it away with his fingers, sending it clattering to the floor. He was not called a strong-boy for nothing, and Philbert was eager as he was to escape the din and steamy clamour of the kitchen.

‘Let’s go,’ Philbert said, Oort quickly pulling him through a side-door towards a thin rise of stone steps. They spiralled up their own little tower and levelled out by a half-planked gangway leading onto the old minstrels’ gallery that clung like ivy to the walls of the Great Hall. It was a bit rickety, but they got a grand bird’s eye view of the proceedings down below where Rupert’s Gift Box was busily being unwrapped, each layer outdoing the one that had gone before. The musicians scraped their way through tune after tune as the rest of the turns came on: a man who threaded wires through his skin and hammered nails up his nose, a woman who played the harp with her feet, a set of sextuplets dancing a merry dance, a man girt only in a loin cloth whose skin was a kaleidoscope of multi-coloured tattoos, a parade of monkeys who chittered and jangled in their chains but who apparently gave wise witchdoctor-tips to whomsoever asked; and then came Madame La Chucha Lanuga, the bearded lady from Peru, looking magnificent in green silk, her dress dotted with mirrors, just like the hat she had given to Philbert a while before in tribute to his stand against the annoying Magendie. Her beard was combed and plaited with beads, and she swayed voluptuously as she sang and the musicians lulled and the room hushed as she keened of faraway places and the guests eased buckles and belts and wished they hadn’t worn their corsets quite so tight. She sat serenely once she finished her song as her husband Alarico, the White Jester, took over, the blackness of his garb making his albino skin seem like candle- wax in the dim light. Philbert and Oort had heard all his humorous tales before, so back they went along the gallery, stepping gingerly across the rotting planks.

‘Let’s try and get up to the roof,’ Philbert suggested and Oort agreed, Philbert being his new best friend, Philbert – a little absently – returning the favour. They pushed aside the heavy mildewed curtain that separated the gallery from the landing and saw the stairwell continuing up, passageways tunnelling off into the gloom hiding doors and rooms and other runways that riddled the tower like maggots running through rotten meat. They nodded their common agreement and up they went, the way at first lit by a few firebrands set into iron bracelets, feeble flames dimming every colour that might have been to mouse-back grey. They shivered as they passed the last lit corner, feet stumbling on the stairs, pushing each other on, laughing, a little scared and then excited, racing like fleas for the top, bursting out through the trapdoor like jack-in-the-boxes into the clean air and wind of the night. Breathing hard they ran along the gangways between the parapets, throwing snowballs out in wide arcs from the castellated walls, watching them disappear into the darkness as they fell.

‘Look, there’s the camp!’ Oort called and pointed, and they could just about make out their tents, could see Oort’s donkey loosely tethered, his head in his beet-bag apparently asleep, and Kroonk next door with her offspring snug inside their wattled shed, Lita and Lorenzini’s cart nearby, glinting brightly in the gleam of a fire.

‘But look at the lake,’ Philbert called out to Oort as he moved around the tower, leaning his elbows into the snow for a better view. They gazed down at the scatter of booths that were ­huddled on the ice beneath the thick horse-hair blankets and moth-eaten tapestries that served for their roofs. They were lit here and there by fires in bowls jammed on poles whose thin wooden legs were lodged into the ice, people wandering from one place to another, taking slow, steady paces as they headed for their beds, knowing that the spectacle at the castle was the last unwrapping of Rupert’s Christmas Box, all trading to cease at midnight, and the following morning all to clear the place and be off far and away.

Philbert turned his head towards the clatter of horses’ hooves coming down the lane from the tree-line, iced-over puddles cracking and splintering beneath their weight. Together he and Oort ran around the parapet and leaned dangerously over the edge to watch the latecomers arriving from the track and straight into knee-deep snow, the wind having blown it into drifts now the stable-boys had ceased their labours to sweep it away, believing all the guests to be already inside and everyone staying for the entire night of revelry that would last well towards dawn. These latest arrivals had no choice but to dismount, lead their horses back to the trees where they tied them up before making their way with difficulty back along the snow-bound trail, wrapping their cloaks tight against the wind, finally reaching the moat and over the planks into the courtyard.

By now both Philbert and Oort were shivering with the cold so they headed for the little booth they could see stranded on the wide flat field of the roof, startled when the flagsmen popped their heads out like turtles, having been detailed to stay here the whole night through to make sure the flag was still flying good and true come morning, no matter what the weather flung at it.

‘What the . . . ? Who the . . . ?’ they said at first, but seeing the two laughing boys they ushered them in, not often having company.

‘Escapees from the fairground, I’m guessing,’ said the ­skinnier one, introducing himself as Albert and his companion as Artus, his cousin. They poured the two lads some warm beer into pots and forked up hot sausages from the small brazier that stood at the centre of the small room.

‘Unusual for us to get visitors,’ commented Artus, offering the boys his pipe, Oort accepting politely, his face turning grey as the hot briar-smoke struck his lungs, handing it back quick as he could, the two men laughing at his attempted bravado. But they were kind enough, showed the two boys card tricks and how to make the red lady disappear, how to grease a corner so she would slip through the pack unnoticed until she needed picking out again. They could just about make out the noises that were drifting up from the Great Hall down below and Albert asked the lads how the show was going, and who they had on display.

‘I can do this!’ offered Oort, lifting up the table with one hand, swivelling it on his fingers.

‘Aagh!’ yelled Artus, ‘mind the beer,’ just managing to catch the jug before it fell.

‘So we’re not missing much then,’ commented Albert, taking the beer jug from his cousin, refilling all their mugs. Both men looked up as the wind grew suddenly fiercer, forcing the flag into standing and the pole to hum, making the icicles cut and shift from the mast and shimmy to the ground with the sound of a lonely black-backed diver calling from the lake. The noise from down below had crescendoed and all wondered what new gift the Christmas Box had brought, Philbert being the first to figure out that the greatest of the acts had already gone and that something else must be afoot, and that something was very wrong. And then they all heard the steady thumping of heavy boots on the bare stone steps leading up to the roof and Albert looked at Artus, and Artus looked at Albert, and then both looked at their guests.

‘Get under the flags, boys,’ Albert whispered. ‘There’s a whole heap of them back there behind the table. Burrow yourselves in and don’t come out until we say.’

Philbert was in mind to stay and stand whatever was coming, fists already clenched, but Artus pushed him roughly back and strong-boy Oort grabbed Philbert’s arm and held him down, pulling a load of old and rotting flags and banners over their heads. Oort didn’t see the trembling of Philbert’s hands, which had already beaten another person to death with just a rock, nor his anger, but Oort was the stronger of the two by far and held his friend pinioned beneath his body as if to shield him, holding up one corner of the flagging heap so they could see Artus and Albert carefully pick up caps and capes and tread steadily out of the booth, leaving the door open, trouser-legs held from the snow by bands of string. Philbert and Oort couldn’t see much but could hear distinctly the clanking of iron-tipped boots on stone and the trapdoor being lifted, angry shouts as heavy bodies heaved themselves up and out onto the snow-covered roof.

‘There it is, lads! Well don’t just gaup at it. Get the bloody thing down!’

They next heard Albert and Artus edging their way across the roof, the crunch of their clogs as they hit fresh snow.

‘What’s this?’ said Albert, and then came the soft sound of whip against wet-hide and Albert’s startled cry and a man’s voice, deep and loud from a rain-barrel chest.

‘So here’s who put it up. Don’t you know that flag’s an insult? Get it down! Get it down now!’

The man who’d emerged with the others from the trapdoor pushed Albert forward, making him stumble in the snow, his own men leaving off struggling with the ropes they didn’t know how to work. Artus hurried forward between them, pushing at the men messing with his precious flag.

‘Don’t pull on the guy-leader, you’ll just tangle it . . . ooomph!’

One of the men hit him square across the face with a leather-gloved fist, a wet crump as Artus’s nose-bone broke, his blood spraying in an impressive arc across the snow.

‘Let them be,’ growled the barrel-chested man, ‘but get that bastard flag down, here and now.’

Albert started grappling at the ropes, unwinding the leader from the double-armed hook and Artus, despite his broken nose, getting up from his knees to help, their cold fingers stiff and slipping on Artus’s blood which kept pouring from his nose. But it was a task they’d done a thousand times and soon the enormous flag was down, though still the wind tugged at it and tried to wrap it around the pole. Several of the interlopers grabbed at the cloth, held it fast, one of them spitting on the field of Prussian blue. The barrel-man took a tinderbox from beneath his cloak, struck it to the flag, though it was too damp to burn.

‘You!’ he pushed Albert, ‘go and get your lamp and whatever fuel you’ve got and bring it here.’

Albert didn’t need asking twice and went running as best he could through the tracks he and his cousin had already made, back to the booth. Once inside, he spoke quietly to Philbert and Oort, whose heads were poking out of the heap.

‘Be quiet, lads. Don’t make a sound, you hear me? Not a sound. And don’t come out, whatever, you hear me. Don’t come out.’

They could see his hands shaking as he lifted the lamp and dragged out a small barrel of oil, started back outside. Philbert moved in defiance but Oort held him fast and Philbert soon subsided, understanding this was a battle they could not win, no matter how strong Oort might be and how many men Philbert had already murdered. As Albert moved to leave the booth one of the interlopers came in to take the barrel of oil from him. His nose twitched, and he looked curiously at the table that had been set a little skew by Oort’s strongman show.

‘Sausages,’ he murmured, ‘I smell sausages,’ but before he’d a chance to investigate his leader shouted out for him.

‘I’ll give you devil-damned sausages if you don’t get a move on! We’ve work to do, you slug-head. And no work, no pay!’

Enough for the slug-head and he retreated back out into the snow with the barrel of oil and took off the lid, poured the contents over the flag, soaking its lion and thistles, staining the green and the white, slicking the snow with dark rainbows beneath. His leader took the lamp and smashed the glass, held it directly to the canvas which took with a whoomph and a firm hold of flame.

‘You,’ Albert was pulled forward, ‘get that back up,’ and Albert heaved on the painter and hauled the burning flag high into the night sky, Rupert’s lion disappearing in a golden mane of flame. The wind carried the embers over the castle walls, pinpricked the sky with light, but the snow had begun to fall again, hiding it from anyone even if they’d been looking, which they were not. Damp black cinders drifted onto the shoulders of the mercenaries who brushed angrily at them, making the marks worse. Their leader looked up once more and grimaced as the burning flag was let go by the wind and collapsed against the mast with a dull flicker.

‘Get rid of them,’ he said as he trudged back to the trapdoor and let himself down. ‘And be quick about it. Time we were gone.’

Artus and Albert stood in the snow, blood beginning to cake on Artus’ chin and cheeks.

‘Please,’ said Albert, his fingers clutching at the bottom hem of his coat.

‘Don’t,’ said Artus, shaking his head, and no one knew whether he was begging for his life or trying to convince his cousin to be brave. It made no difference to the men who marched towards them. It made no difference to Albert and Artus as those men took out their daggers and slit the flagsmen’s windpipes one by one. It made no difference to the half-arsed burning of the flag above them, or the wind that whipped the last flames briefly into being before smothering them completely between fold and mast. It made no difference to Philbert and Oort, hidden beneath the pile of mouldering flags, who caught the scent of copper and iron that comes when hot fresh blood is leaving heart and home for the last time, spilling out onto the cold indifference of the snow.

Oort and Philbert listened as the men left, cursing and wiping their knives upon their trousers before slipping back down through the trapdoor from whence they came. As soon as he felt it safe Philbert sprang out of the booth to find that the last flicker of life had abandoned the flagsmen, who lay like slaughtered pigs. Philbert took it all in in a moment. He knew it would be futile to check for signs of life but was fighting furious, and as much as he was anxious about what he might find down below he swung himself straight down the trapdoor and went as fast as he could at the steps, cold hands reaching out to the dark walls, Oort lumbering on at his back, a soft whining coming from the strong-boy’s throat as he tried not to cry. Philbert got down the stone stairs fast as he was able in the darkness and pushed past the mildewed curtain to gain the rickety planks of the minstrel gallery from where he gazed down onto the great hall, utterly unprepared for what was there. His hands went to his mouth in useless supplication, for surely to God this could not be happening.

The Gift Box and its guests were well and truly unwrapped and undone, some skewered to their seats by lances, the shafts still wavering gently like dying pendulums; others had fallen forward into plates of food that still steamed softly, their necks neatly tied with wire garrottes tightened hard into their flesh. Yet more lay with their heads laid back upon the neck-rests of their chairs, sliced open like so many raw and fat-spotted salamis. Worst of all was Frau Fettleheim, whose great gut had been hacked from side to side, intestines sliding away from her open stomach, the grey-green glisten of them coiling and spilling over her outspread knees, blue eyes half-veiled by a final blink. Away to the wall, where the last few acts of the Fair had been taking their ease by the fire, was Alarico, the White Jester, spread-eagled on the ember-singed hearth-rug, arms flung wide, white skin bloomed with pink for the first time in his life as capillaries burst all over his body, his feet faintly moving as he tried to crawl over to La Chucha Lanuga who was sitting a few yards away upon her stool, head bowed low, the jewels in her dark hair winking in the firelight, the beads of her beard catching at the hasp of the knife that was buried deep within her chest. A horrid rasping came from the White Jester’s open mouth as he strained for one last sight of his wife, his wonderful Peruvian rose. The only other movement in the room came from the Atheling Rupert who was cradled in his throne, a sword plunged right through his belly into the grain of wood behind, Adam’s apple bobbing weakly beneath his pale skin, eyes upturned, gazing at the two white faces that had appeared between the gallery railings and bizarrely Rupert tried to shake his head, thinking they shouldn’t be there, the floor’s unsafe. I always meant to get it fixed . . .

It was the last thought in his head as his heart gave up the fight and ceased its beat, as did Alarico’s and, in the few moments it took Philbert and Oort to get from the gallery down the stairs and into the hall, both men, though warm, were gone. The stench of spilled blood and burst guts was so appalling and overpowering it was all Philbert could do not to vomit, and he needed to go. There was nothing he could do for any of these people, that much was plain. He grasped at Oort’s sleeve to get him on the move but the lad had stopped like a broken clock, too horror stricken by what he was seeing to turn away, barely taking in what was in front of him: a hall full of slaughtered men and women slumped around an enormous table scattered with the remnants of their half-eaten feast; people who’d been taken so completely by surprise they’d not even had the time to rise from their seats in protest or move their forks from their mouths, let alone fight off the disaster that had overtaken them.

Philbert had bigger worries on his mind as he started to run towards the service stairs that led to the kitchen shouting for Oort to follow, which he eventually did. The kitchen was deserted of people, if not of the food that had been left scattered randomly across every surface, but the moment Philbert flung open the door onto the cobblestones of the courtyard he went straight into another mess of bleeding bodies, though the vast proportion out here seemed at least alive enough to groan and swear, their women rushing around filling buckets from the pumps to wash out their wounds and bandage them up with whatever they could find.

Disaster was everywhere, no one understanding exactly what had happened, and certainly not why. Some things are simply too enormous to think about, and this was one of them. The uninjured concentrated on keeping the injured alive and breathing. They didn’t speak. They didn’t communicate the one with the other, they just got on with the task at hand. Philbert could hear from distant cries and shouts that the mercenaries had moved on from the castle to the Frost Fair, no one fit to lift a finger to help. This was the night of the wolf and the wolf had moved on, nothing they could do about it.

Not so Philbert, who took in the scene in the courtyard at a glance, and urged the folk there into action.

‘Get the drawbridge up!’ he shouted, ‘and get the portcullis down if you can,’ and it was a strange thing in that dark and bloody night, with the snow falling all around them, that the men and women held within the confines of the castle looked at the small boy in his large hat who was shouting out orders and did as they were commanded, indeed wondered why on earth they hadn’t thought to do it already themselves. There was a flurry of folk, mostly women, who went at it with gusto, following the boy and his large friend who were running and skidding for the drawbridge and then were over and across its back.

‘Get it done now!’ the boy shouted once he’d crossed, and the women went at the ropes, uncertain how to operate the pulleys but thanking the Lord that someone had had the sense to think of it, and soon enough up went the drawbridge and down went the portcullis, and away ran that boy from them into the white apparelled night.