Mirella frowned at the dour note in her escort’s voice. Tugging at his arm, she tried to divert his thoughts in another direction. ‘You said you would show me the dwarfs today,’ she reminded him. ‘I am eager to see their temple. Do you think they would allow us inside?’
The question gave Mandred pause. ‘Don’t they have dwarfs in Altdorf?’ he asked.
‘Oh, certainly,’ Mirella said, ‘but not like here. Altdorf doesn’t have an entire city of them under its streets.’
Mandred smiled at the statement. ‘Karak Grazhyakh isn’t exactly a city,’ he corrected her. ‘It’s more of an outpost, one of their strongholds.’ He became pensive for a moment. ‘To be honest, I’m not really sure how many of them are down there. Thane Hardin isn’t one of my father’s subjects, more like a friendly neighbour.’ He paused, picturing the dwarf’s perpetually grim visage. ‘Well, a neighbour anyway. The dwarfs pretty much keep to themselves and so long as they abide by my father’s laws when their business brings them into Middenheim proper, we are content to leave them alone.’
‘They do have some presence in the city, though?’ Mirella asked.
‘Oh, certainly,’ Mandred replied. ‘A few craftsmen who have set up shop here, though apparently they are either apprentices at their trade or dwarfs who couldn’t match the standards of their guilds. Either way, no dwarf would have anything to do with the goods they turn out, though they’re very impressive if you ask anyone else. Then there is the Dwarf Engineer’s Guild. They have a big stone building down in the Wynd with a big walled-off yard attached to it. They do a lot of testing with some foul-smelling black dirt that explodes when exposed to fire. Probably too scary to play with down below, so they moved operations upstairs.’
‘And the temple?’ Mirella persisted.
‘That’s down in the Wynd too, if anything even bigger and more imposing than the Guildhall.’ Mandred turned and stared in the direction of the building, though it was hidden behind the sprawl of the Southgate district which lay between the Westgate and the Wynd. ‘The dwarfs call the Ulricsberg “Grungni’s Tower”, and even before the first stones were set down to build the Middenpalaz, they were at work building a temple to their god. I’ve never been inside it. I don’t think any man ever has. The dwarfs are more tight-lipped about their religion than they are about anything else. But I can say that the exterior is absolutely magnificent. The entire face is marble, the stones set so close together that you’d think it was carved from a single block. Two immense statues stand guard before the entrance, one holding a chisel and the other an axe. I’ve seen dwarfs bow to them, so I think they must be connected to Grungni somehow. A giant door of ironwood banded in gold opens into the temple, and there’s always a smell of oil and coal wafting out every time it is opened.’
‘But you’ve never been inside?’ Mirella’s voice was soft, her mind caught up in the picture Mandred’s words conjured.
The prince shook his head. ‘No human has,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know if anyone has ever had the temerity to ask. I do know now isn’t the time to start. The dwarfs have been even more touchy of late. They’ve become almost reclusive. Withdrawn. Something’s bothering them, though I’m sure a human will be the last to know what it is,’ he reflected.
For a moment, Mandred’s troubled mood infected Mirella, her eyes taking on a pained expression. The prince found himself caught in those eyes, sensed the empathy between himself and this aristocrat from the south. He shifted uneasily as he thought of Sofia and the row they had had.
‘Come along,’ Mandred said, deliberately misinterpreting Mirella’s attitude for one of disappointment. ‘Perhaps I can’t show you the temple of Grungni, but I can show you the temple of Ulric.’ Before she could say anything, he was marching her towards the north.
‘We’re going to Ulricsmund,’ Mandred called back to their tiny entourage. Beck and Brother Richter had kept their distance during the stroll past the Sudgarten, trying to remain discreetly unobtrusive yet near enough to be at hand if they were needed. At the prince’s call, Beck went dashing up to join the two nobles. Richter hesitated, a tinge of worry pulling at the corners of his mouth. It was almost with reluctance that he followed after them.
A reluctance born of much more than simple religious differences.
Carroburg
Hexentag, 1115
The guests of Emperor Boris gathered around the immense ring of black drakwood. Legend held that the round table dated from the time of King Otwin and had been gifted to the Thuringian chief by the druids of Rhya. The chiefs of the tribe had held council around the great table, planning their wars against enemies human and inhuman. After the coming of Sigmar and the absorption of the Thuringians into his Empire, Otwin’s table had been removed to the ancient fortalice overlooking the River Reik. Many towers and forts had been built and razed since that time, but the relic had endured, a valuable prize for whichever noble was given dominion over the Drakwald.
Sometimes the round table had been drawn out from storage for some state feast or in observance of some celebration, but by and large it had been left to the seclusion of its own vault deep within the castle. Wondrously carved, magnificently fashioned, there was nevertheless a blemish about the round table, a nameless sensation that provoked uneasiness in those who remained in its presence for too long. It was the residue of eldritch magic, the taint of druidic sacrifice and ceremony that had soaked into the drakwood.
For Boris’s purposes, Otwin’s table was perfect. The Emperor couldn’t have asked for a better prop to adorn the festivities he had planned for Hexennacht. Hoary with age, steeped in legend and saturated with mysterious magics, the table would set the proper atmosphere. He was so pleased, in fact, that after von Metzgernstein told him about the table, he agreed to release the seneschal’s son from the dungeons. The gesture, however, proved a bit empty. The boy, it seemed, had taken ill and expired the month before.
Thinking of this, Boris glanced along the table until he found the dejected-looking seneschal. The fellow was being quite irrational over the loss of the stripling. Von Metzgernstein was still young, he could certainly sire another one. Perhaps the Emperor would offer to have his marriage annulled. A saucy new wife might help the man put things in better perspective.
Smirking, the Emperor patted the hand of the young woman seated next to him. As always, Princess Erna trembled at his touch. He could imagine her skin crawling under his fingers, feeling a thrill of power that he could command such fear in the headstrong wench. His arrogance wouldn’t consider the possibility that the reaction was one of disgust rather than fear.
‘We think this should prove very entertaining,’ Boris told her, wagging a finger at the uneasy dignitaries assembled around Otwin’s table. The matriarch of one of the Empire’s major temples, seven electors, dozens of landholders who between them controlled a third of all the agriculture in the Empire, even a few generals and the grand masters of several knightly orders were in attendance. Some of them had even brought along their wives; many more had the good sense to bring along their mistresses. Boris chuckled as he considered the power these men claimed to possess. For all their pretensions, when he’d invited them to seek safety behind the walls of Schloss Hohenbach, they’d come running.
Which of the wives should he seek to conquer next, Boris wondered? The months of isolation were becoming a bit tedious, even the performers he’d engaged were struggling to justify their continued presence with new entertainments. For all her charms, there were times when he tired of Erna’s defiant streak. Toying with an ambitious baroness or a wanton countess made for a nice break in routine and never failed to bring a frown of disapproval from the papess Katrina Ochs.