THE MAN WHO STABBED
LUTHER VAN GROOT

Sandy Mitchell

 

 

If Sam Warble had anything which might be described as a philosophy of life, it could best be summed up as “Don’t go looking for trouble.” Not that he had any need to; trouble had a habit of looking for him, which, on the whole, he was prepared to tolerate. Other people’s trouble tended to be lucrative, and his own even more so. Like most halflings he had a strong affinity for life’s little comforts, and prising him away from them was an expensive undertaking for anyone wishing to engage his somewhat specialised services.

This evening, however, trouble seemed conspicuous by its absence. Sam was settled comfortably in his favourite seat in Esmeralda’s Apron, a halfling-owned tavern on the fringes of Marienburg’s elven quarter, quietly contemplating the remains of a light seven-course supper, the most pressing matter on his mind the one of whether to order a Bretonnian brandy or Kislevan aquavit to wash it down with. The food in the Apron was widely renowned, so it wasn’t that uncommon to see human customers squeezing themselves uncomfortably onto the halfling-sized benches, but he was mildly surprised when one of them approached his table and sat down opposite, staring at him morosely between a pair of knees clad in crimson hose.

“Alfons. It’s been a while.” He nodded a cordial greeting, and gestured to the serving maid who’d been hovering nearby, flirting with a party of customers from the Kleinmoot. He might as well order the brandy, as it looked like someone else would be paying. “Or am I supposed to call you Mineer de Wit now you’re an alderman?” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “You’re a long way from the Winkelmarkt, so I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.”

“I thought I might find you here,” the man confirmed, ordering a second brandy for himself. He waited until it had arrived, and sipped appreciatively at it before continuing. “I have a problem. One better discussed away from home.”

“I see.” Sam nodded thoughtfully, savouring his own drink. It was smooth and fragrant, and knowing the proprietor of the Apron, undoubtedly smuggled into the city to evade the excise duty. “So who’s blackmailing you?”

“What makes you say that?” de Wit asked, a little too casually, and Sam nodded, his guess confirmed.

“You’re a politician. With a lot of goodwill in your home ward, after that business with Luther van Groot, and that means influence.”

“Which in Marienburg meant the chance to make money; here in the mercantile capital of the Old World, wealth and power were almost synonymous. A little fish tells me you’re in line for a seat in the Burgerhof too.”

“People say these things,” de Wit said, his air of modesty about as convincing as a streetwalker’s protestations of virginity. Sam nodded again. The Stadsraad, Marienburg’s parliament, was little more than a puppet show put on by the cabal of merchant houses which really took all the policy decisions, but a seat in the lower house would open up all kinds of valuable contacts to a man as ambitious as de Wit.

“So I’m guessing someone wants their own slice of the pie, and thinks you’re just the man to get it for them. With the right inducement, of course.”

“That’s just it,” de Wit said. “They haven’t made any demands yet.” He pushed a folded scrap of paper across the tabletop. “Just veiled threats.” Sam unfolded it.

We know the truth about you and van Groot, he read. You’ll hear from us again soon.

“Short and to the point.” He shrugged, and finished his drink. “Luckily for you, so am I. Thirty guilders a day, plus expenses.” He half expected de Wit to argue, but the alderman merely nodded.

“Don’t take all week. I don’t have a bottomless purse, you know.” He counted out thirty gold coins, and tucked the now empty bag back into his belt. “The first day’s fee up front, as usual?”

“That’ll do fine,” Sam said, slipping the money into his own purse and calling for another round of brandies. He glanced at the slip of paper again, folded it, and handed it back. “What do you think it means?”

“It seems to imply that I was involved in van Groot’s criminal activities,” de Wit said at once. “Which is ridiculous, of course. I was the only man in the entire ward with the guts to stand up to him.”

“He’s not exactly been missed,” Sam conceded. The death of their leader had broken the back of van Groot’s gang, and although his lieutenants had carved up most of his illegal enterprises between them, their activities since his demise had been on a far smaller scale. De Wit had been quick to capitalise on the gratitude of his fellow tradesmen to run for office, and both his political and financial affairs had begun to prosper as a result. Sam waited until de Wit had climbed laboriously to his feet, banging his head against one of the rafters in the process, before asking his final question. “By the way, and just between the two of us, were you doing any business with van Groot before he died?” The alderman flushed.

“If you really believe that, I’ll have my thirty guilders back right now,” he said. Sam shrugged.

“For thirty guilders I’ll believe anything you ask me to,” he replied cheerfully.

 

With his purse now considerably heavier, and several of the finest restaurants in Marienburg within easy walking distance, Sam saw little need to hurry home. Not that he had one in the conventional sense; he rented half a dozen rooms in different districts, moving between them as the mood took him, or his current job dictated. One happened to be in the heart of Alfons’ home ward, so he decided to sleep there that night, hailing a water coach and crossing the Reikmouth the easy way rather than taking the circuitous route across the single mighty bridge which linked the two halves of the maritime city. The boatman dropped him in the heart of the Winkelmarkt, navigating skilfully through the maze of narrow canals which threaded the island chain, leaving him on one of the innumerable landing stages which could be found within a few hundred yards of almost anywhere in the city if you knew where to look.

Waiting a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, Sam climbed the rickety wooden stairs to the alleyway above, hardly needing to see his way at all. His lodgings were only a couple of streets away, and he’d used this landing stage so often he could have found his way home from there blindfolded; or at least blind drunk, which he had done on several occasions. Tonight, though, he was still sober, despite the amount of drink he’d taken on board, ballasted as it had been by enough fine food to have sunk a small carrack.

The alleyway seemed deserted at first, no surprise at this time of night, and he quickened his pace towards the flare of torchlight marking the wider street which crossed it. As he did so one of the patches of shadow ahead of him seemed to move, detaching itself from the darkness of a doorway. Sam glanced behind, seeing another flicker of motion cutting off any possible line of retreat down the alleyway. Fine, he’d just have to keep going forwards then. Breaking into a run, he drew a dagger from his belt.

If the man waiting for him was surprised by this, he gave no sign of the fact, simply walking forward in an unhurried fashion and bracing himself to meet the halfling’s attack. If anything he seemed amused at the idea of his prey being able to mount any effective resistance. Well, the cemeteries were full of humans who’d underestimated a halfling opponent, Sam knew, having put a fair number of them there himself over the years.

As he closed with his assailant, a faint thread of unease began to prickle behind his scalp. The man stood as though he was holding a weapon, but his hands were empty, and something didn’t seem quite right about them.

Almost at the last minute Sam realised what was wrong. Though the would-be assassin’s hands were bare, his arms showing pale where they emerged from his enveloping cape, their outlines were blurred, a haze of darkness hovering about them, swallowing the light that oozed into the alleyway from the street beyond. A clear sign of sorcery.

Forewarned in the nick of time, Sam ducked under the reaching hand, and rolled, trying to ignore the hardness of the cobbles and the thin coating of filth which adhered to his jerkin. A jolt of pain seared through his shoulder as the groping fingers brushed against it, failing to close in time, and then he crashed into the shins of the black-robed assassin. With a yell of surprise the man fell, and Sam slashed at his throat with the dagger in his hand. A spray of blood, almost as black as the shadows in the distant torchlight, fountained, drenching the halfling in warm, sticky fluid.

Almost retching with revulsion Sam clambered to his feet, already searching for the other man he’d seen, but the wizard’s confederate had obviously had second thoughts despite the drawn sword gripped tightly in his hand. With one look at the furious, blood-drenched halfling, he turned and fled.

Sam hesitated, considered going after him, and dismissed the idea. Whoever he was, the fellow had a good start, and he’d never be able to catch up with him now. Instead he began to search the body, hoping to find some indication of who wanted him dead so badly.

“You! Shortarse! Stop right there!” A clattering of boots rang on the filth-slick cobblestones, and the narrow alley was abruptly full of lamplight. Sam stood slowly, and smiled without humour.

“Sergeant Rijgen. Who says there’s never a watchman around when you need one?”

“Oh, it’s you.” Rijgen took in the blood matting Sam’s hair and jerkin, and the crimson-stained dagger in his hand. “Self defence again, was it?”

“That’s right.” Sam nodded. “Two of them jumped me. The other one ran off towards van der Decken’s boatyard.”

“Can you describe him?” Rijgen asked. After a moment of silence he shrugged. “Thought not. Anything on the body?”

Sam shook his head.

“What did you expect? A strange tattoo, or a mysterious medallion? You’ve seen too many melodramas.”

“What I expect is a bit of co-operation,” Rijgen said, then sighed. “You do realise I should take you in, don’t you? But what would be the point? You’re not going to tell me what this is all about anyway, and Captain Marcus would never let me hear the last of it.” He sighed again. “Bugger off, while I clean up the mess. It’s what I’m paid for, after all.”

 

“It sounds like sorcery, all right.” Kris nodded thoughtfully, and took a long pull at his ale tankard. After cleaning up as best he could, Sam had sought out the young magician in the taproom of the Dancing Pirate, a local tavern where they habitually met. He’d made use of Kris’ talents before, and trusted his judgement where magic was concerned. “The bad kind too, pure Chaos.” He looked at Sam appraisingly over the rim of his tankard. “Lucky you’re a halfling. A man would have been crippled by that spell, at the very least. It wouldn’t have taken them long to finish you off after that.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully. It wasn’t the first time he’d had cause to be grateful for his kind’s innate immunity to magic, and he doubted that it would be the last.

“Do you know anyone who might be dabbling in that sort of thing?” Kris shook his head.

“I wouldn’t want to,” he said, although he didn’t take offence at the question. Unlike the Colleges of Magic in the Empire, the great university in Marienburg taught elements of all the magical traditions in a fairly piecemeal fashion, although it shared their abhorrence of Chaos; however, the line between legitimate and forbidden thaumaturgy was rather more blurred here, and it wasn’t always easy to tell when someone had crossed it. “I’ll ask around, see if anyone’s been taking an unhealthy interest in the forbidden stuff lately.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Sam emptied his own tankard. “You know how to find me if you hear anything.”

 

Whoever it was behind the assassination attempt, Sam thought, they’d be unlikely to try again so soon; nevertheless he kept his eyes open as he made his way home, and didn’t really relax until his door was closed and firmly barred behind him. After that he slept perfectly soundly until the following day, when the familiar sounds of the laundry below opening for business accompanied the hearty breakfast his landlady brought up the stairs for him. She sighed as she picked up his discarded clothing.

“You should have put these in to soak, Master Warble. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you, cold water’s the best thing for blood.” She tutted under her breath, and turned his shirt over, assessing the damage with a professional eye. “I’ll do the best I can with it, but I’m not promising anything.”

“I have complete confidence in you, Frau Gutenburg.” Sam bit into a fresh herring sausage with undisguised relish. “Your powers as a laundress are exceeded only by your talents in the kitchen.”

“Get away with you.” Mollified as always by his appreciation of her cooking, the middle-aged woman hesitated in the doorway. “There isn’t going to be any trouble around here now, is there? Things have been going really well since that nice Mineer de Wit got rid of van Groot. We wouldn’t want that sort of element getting a foothold in the Winkelmarkt again, would we?”

“We certainly wouldn’t,” Sam agreed, and went off to look for the nearest example of that sort of element he could find. The task was hardly difficult. Van Groot had operated out of a small fish smokery, which his chief lieutenant, Jan Alten, had inherited along with a low-grade smuggling ring and a brisk traffic in stolen goods. A bordello catering mostly to the local merchants had passed to the late crime lord’s other trusted confederate, Karin van Meeren, and so far neither had shown much overt interest in moving in on the other’s business; which hadn’t stopped them from circling one another like sharks, alert for the first sign of weakness. Van Groot’s other main money-making enterprise, a far from subtle but nonetheless effective protection racket, had been allowed to quietly wither away by both his heirs, at least for the time being; neither seemed willing to risk the wrath of the local tradesmen, who might just follow de Wit’s example and refuse to cave in, with lethal consequences for the would-be extortionists.

“Sam. Come in.” Alten looked up from behind a battered wooden desk in the sparsely-furnished office he clearly liked to think gave the impression that he was running a legitimate business. “What can I do for you?”

“You can talk to me.” Sam stepped over the groaning thug who had tried to bar the door. “Your snotling here didn’t believe I had an appointment.”

“Mineer Warble always has an appointment,” Alten told the chastened guard, who climbed slowly to his feet and closed the door with a venomous look at the halfling as he did so. The racketeer sat back in his chair, his relaxed posture at odds with the unease in his eyes that he couldn’t quite conceal. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Someone tried to kill me last night,” Sam said. He shrugged. “Petty-minded of me I know, but I tend to resent that kind of thing.”

“That was nothing to do with me,” Alten said hastily. It was precisely what Sam would have expected him to say, but he let it go for now. “Can you think of anyone who might want you dead?” Sam shrugged again.

“How long have you got?” he asked rhetorically. It was true that there were plenty of people with power and influence who might sleep a little easier knowing he was at the bottom of the Doodkanal, but there were just as many who valued his services, and most of them were the same individuals. “But the chances are it has something to do with the job I’m on.”

“I see.” Alten nodded. He hadn’t risen to his current position of eminence in the League of Gentlemen Entrepreneurs by being stupid. “And this job involves…”

“Your old boss,” Sam told him. “Luther van Groot.”

“Luther’s dead,” Alten said flatly, with a trace of unease. “That scrawny little baker stabbed him. Everyone knows that.” He shook his head. “Never would have thought he had the guts. Just goes to show, you should never underestimate people.”

“Sound advice,” Sam said dryly. It had been a couple of hours since breakfast, and the smell of smoked fish was making him feel hungry again. “And speaking of de Wit, do you know if he had any sort of dealings with van Groot before he killed him?”

“Only the usual,” Alten said. “Luther sent a couple of the boys round to talk about fire insurance, avoidable accidents, that kind of thing. When they came back empty-handed he went himself.” A reminiscent smile ghosted across his face. “One thing you can say for Luther, he never minded getting his hands dirty.”

“Not if there was money in it,” Sam agreed. “Know many magicians, did he?”

“Magicians?” Alten looked blank for a moment. “I don’t think so. But then he never talked much about his personal life.”

“I didn’t know he had one,” Sam said.

“You’d have to ask Karin about that. He used to borrow girls from the knocking shop now and again.” He glanced at Sam, with a surprisingly prudish expression. “Nothing sordid, mind you. Just escorts for those dinners he used to go to.”

“Dinners?” Sam said, trying to ignore the growling of his stomach. Alten nodded.

“Luther was going up in the world. He’d been asked to join this dining dub.” An expression of puzzlement crossed his face for a moment.

“Ranald knows why, they didn’t seem like his sort of people at all. Guild masters, aldermen, people from the university; maybe one of them owed him money, and put him up for membership to pay off the debt. But they all seemed to like him.”

“When did they meet?” Sam asked. Alten shrugged.

“Couldn’t tell you. It seemed to change from month to month. They never had a fixed date for it that I could see.”

“Did the venue change too?” Sam asked. Alten shook his head.

“They met at some house in Zweibrugstraat. That’s all I know.”

“Thank you.” Sam nodded, and dropped a shilling on the counter. “I’ll take a couple of your mackerel on my way out.”

 

As he’d expected, Karin van Meeren was no more happy to see him than her business rival had been, but greeted him anyway with the practiced smile of a professional hostess.

“Sam, my dear. This is an unexpected pleasure.” She gestured to the nearest of the blank-eyed young women lounging around the over-decorated parlour with an air of apprehensive boredom. “Liserle, get some refreshment for our guest.” Then she turned back to Sam. “I assume you want to talk in private?”

“I assume you do,” Sam said, following her through a door into a more comfortably appointed room. After a moment Liserle appeared with a decanter of indifferent wine and a plate of pastries which looked a couple of days old at least. At a look from Karin she put them down hastily on an occasional table and fled, closing the door behind her.

“Luther van Groot,” Sam said, as the wooden panel clicked into its frame. “I hear he used to dine out in the Zweibrugstraat from time to time.”

“Then you’ll have heard he used to take one of the girls with him,” Karin said, draping herself across an overstuffed chaise, which brought her overstuffed bodice down to the halfling’s eye level.

Sam blinked, and tried to concentrate. “The same one every time?”

Karin shook her head. “No, just whoever happened to be around. I could have done without it, to be honest.”

“Why’s that?” Sam asked.

Karin shrugged. “I’ve got a business to run. All right, it was his at the time, but I was the one taking care of everything. The customers expert things to be nice around here. It doesn’t help if the girls are getting upset.”

“Upset?” Sam took a small bite from the nearest pastry, and replaced it hastily on the plate. “I’d have thought they’d enjoy an evening out.”

“So would I,” said Karin. “But they came back spooked. They thought some of the guests were a bit strange. I mean, you get all sorts in a place like this, don’t get me wrong, but this was something else. And then one of them never came back at all. Luther said she’d hit it off with some rich merchant from the Oudgeldwijk and gone off with him, but she never sent for her stuff.”

“When was this?” Sam asked. Karin shrugged again.

“A couple of days before he died.”

“I see.” Sam considered trying the wine for a moment, then decided against it. “Do you know where this dining club met?”

Karin nodded. “I can give you the address if you like.”

“I’d appreciate it. And a list of the dates too, if that’s no trouble.”

“I can remember a few,” Karin said, dipping a quill into an inkstand carved to resemble a pair of feminine buttocks. She scribbled for a moment, and handed Sam a slip of paper. “Those nights, I think. And that’s the address.”

Sam scanned it briefly. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s all I needed to know.”

 

“You were right,” Kris said, glancing up from the slip of paper. “These were all nights when Morrslieb was in the ascendant.” He tapped the last date speculatively. “And it was full the night the girl disappeared.” His chubby face seemed unusually pale, even in the shaft of sunlight striking through the shutters of the Dancing Pirate. “You think she was sacrificed by a Chaos cult?” Sam nodded grimly.

“It’s possible,” he said. “The man who attacked me last night was using dark magic, you said so yourself. And where there’s one witch there’s often a whole coven of them.” Kris nodded too. “Got any leads on who he might be?”

“I might.” The portly young mage said. “There’s a research student at the university who’s got a reputation for unorthodox theories. Nothing to get the Temple Court excited, he’s too discreet for that, but rumour has it he’s been looking into things better left alone.” He looked narrowly at Sam. “And no one’s seen him since last night.”

“Haven’t they?” Sam drained his ale tankard thoughtfully, and pushed aside the plate which had once held a fish stew. “Is that unusual?”

“Not really. He often disappears for a day or two, especially if he’s been to some dining club he belongs to.” Kris looked narrowly at the halfling. “What? What have I just said?”

 

“What exactly are we doing here?” de Wit asked, huddling a little more deeply inside the doorway where he and Sam had taken refuge from the thin blanket of drizzle enveloping the Zweibrugstraat. Sam shrugged.

“Waiting for the show to begin.” Dusk was falling, and so far he’d counted twelve people entering the house Karin had named. De Wit made a small sound of exasperation as a trickle of water slithered from the brim of his hat down the neck of his shirt.

“If you’ve got nothing new to tell me, I’m going home.”

“The note was sent by Karin van Meeren,” Sam said. “I got another sample of her handwriting earlier today, and the match was perfect.”

“Van Meeren?” De Wit shook his head slowly. “How does she fit into all this?”

“Because she was waiting for van Groot outside your shop the night he died,” Sam said. “She wanted answers about one of her girls who’d disappeared, and she knew he was going there to threaten you in person. He had to. If one man stood up to him, everybody would, and his whole protection racket would crumble.” He glanced up at the white-faced alderman. “The only thing I don’t understand is why you’d take a risk like that. No offence, Alfons, but you never struck me as the heroic type before.”

“I wasn’t,” De Wit nodded sombrely. “I was terrified. But I just didn’t have the money. Business had been so bad the past few months I was on the verge of going bankrupt.”

“So let me guess. You saw him coming, and slipped out the back.”

De Wit nodded. “That’s exactly what happened. But I wasn’t quick enough.” De Wit paled a little in the flickering torchlight, the memory of his old terror still uncomfortably fresh. “He came after me, and cornered me in the blind alley behind the slaughterhouse. I thought I was done for, then he suddenly dropped. Someone else had stabbed him from behind.”

“But you didn’t see who,” Sam said flatly.

De Wit shook his head. “No, just a flicker of movement in the shadows.”

The halfling nodded, and de Wit went on. “I went over to make sure he was dead, and the next thing I know I’m surrounded by people, all cheering and calling me a hero.” He looked beseechingly at Sam. “I couldn’t just turn my back on that. It’s the sort of opportunity that only comes along once in a lifetime.”

“Unfortunately van Meeren knows the truth,” Sam said. “She must have seen you checking the body, and realised that someone else killed him.”

De Wit nodded, and made a valiant attempt to match Sam’s businesslike tone. “Any idea of what she wants?”

Sam nodded. “She’s been eyeing Jan Alten’s little empire for some time, my guess is she’ll want you to keep official attention looking the other way when she decides to make her move. Once you get your seat in the Burgerhof, though, she’ll start to get more ambitious, you can bet on that.”

“I see.” De Wit took a deep breath. “And if I don’t agree to her demands, she’ll denounce me as a fraud. It’ll all be over.”

“Maybe not,” Sam said. “Who are people going to believe, a hero like you or a lowlife like her?”

A flicker of hope appeared in de Wit’s eyes as he considered this. “Especially after your reputation gets another boost. By this time tomorrow you’ll be feted throughout the city, not just the Winkelmarkt.”

“How do you mean?” de Wit asked, clearly out of his depth again. Sam gestured in the direction of a party of grim-faced men approaching them, all armed. Most wore the floppy black hats which marked them out as members of the city watch, and the exceptions were clad in the blue tunics of templar marines.

“Luther van Groot was a member of a Chaos cult, which meets in that house over there under the guise of an innocent dining club. When they heard I was investigating van Groot’s affairs for you they tried to kill me, which wasn’t the brightest thing they could have done, all they did was bring themselves to my attention.” He shrugged, and indicated the men leading the group as they approached. “May I introduce Brother Josephus from the Temple Court? Sergeant Rijgen I’m sure you already know.”

“Alderman de Wit,” Rijgen said. “It seems we owe you our thanks again.”

“Indeed.” Josephus echoed the gesture. “Master Warble told us it was you who pointed him in the direction of these heretic scum.” He drew his sword, while a couple of the burlier Black Caps kicked open the door of the house. With a final nod of acknowledgement he led the templars inside, most of the watchmen perfectly happy to let them go first.

“Why did you give me the credit?” de Wit asked, his face bewildered, as hoarse shouts and the sound of clashing blades began to echo through the street.

Sam shrugged. “Because you’re an honest man, at least by the standards of this place, and you just might do some good with the influence you’ve gained. If Karin’s still stupid enough to try blackmailing you now, all you have to do is point out that she’s a known associate of a Chaos cultist, and you have the ear of the witch hunters.”

“That ought to keep her mouth shut.” A bemused smile spread across the alderman’s face. “There’s only one thing I still don’t understand. Who did kill Luther van Groot?”

Sam shrugged, remembering the expression of shock and surprise on the racketeer’s face as he’d died. The man had been stupid as well as brutal, the city authorities would turn a blind eye to a certain amount of smuggling, so long as the appropriate bribes were paid, but attempting to deal directly with agents of the Empire intent on breaking Marienburg’s stranglehold on foreign trade had been tantamount to suicide. Given de Wit’s known defiance of van Groot’s protection racket, all Sam had needed to do to collect a generous bounty on the traitor’s head was find a dark alley near the baker’s shop and wait. Joining the gathering crowd of onlookers had been easy, and getting them to applaud the accidental hero had been the perfect cover for a neat and profitable assassination.

“Some things are best left a mystery,” he suggested, his attention suddenly shifting to the house across the road. A number of cowed and battered cultists were being escorted from the building, and he’d just recognised the second man who’d tried to kill him the night before. “If you’ll excuse me, that fellow still has his purse, and the son of a goblin owes me a new shirt.”