Litany of Winter

The first bell woke Severin before the ache did.

He lay still for a moment, annoyed by both. His left knee had stiffened during the night, and when he rolled onto his side the healing wound beneath his shirt pulled hard enough to make him stop. The little finger of his right hand curled after the others when he tested it against the blanket.

Someone knocked once and opened the door.

Hans peeked in. ”Still alive?”

”Disappointed?”

Hans smiled. ”Get dressed. The healer wants to see you again.”

Severin sat up and waited until the cold outside the blankets felt less sharp.

The healer from the night before removed the dressing from his abdomen and pressed carefully around the wound. Then she had him bend and straighten his left leg. He swore when she pushed the knee farther than he wanted.

”Looks better. You managed to rest it overnight,” she said.

”Yeah. I’m good at that.”

She ignored him and took his right hand. The little finger lagged again when he opened and closed his fist. She had him do it twice, then wrapped his abdomen with a clean dressing. He was still barred from training and heavy lifting and was to keep off unnecessary stairs. If the knee swelled or the hand worsened, he was to come back.

Severin pulled his shirt down. ”How much do I owe you?”

She was already washing her hands. ”For what?”

”The treatment?”

She looked at Hans. ”I like this one.”

Outside the healing wing, Hans checked the clock above the junction and adjusted the strap of his leather case.

”I’ve got some work to do,” Hans said. ”If you’re hungry, stop by the dining room. Two corridors back, left at the big iron column. You can wander around a bit too. Just stay away from any door that’s locked or guarded.”

”You sure about this?” Severin asked. ”Aren’t I a risk?”

Hans laughed. ”There are enough people down here to conquer a small country. You’ll be practically invisible.”

Severin gave him a look as Hans walked off.

Finding the dining room was easy because half the corridor seemed to be heading there.

Breakfast came through a wide serving hatch at one end. Nobody inspected papers or asked his name. A woman behind the counter put sausage and boiled potatoes on a plate. She added pickled cabbage beside two thick slices of dark bread and moved on to the next person.

He found a place at the end of a long table.

Gray robes shared the benches with black coats. Clerks and other unmarked workers came and went between them. One black-coated man had his head propped on his fist while he chewed, and a clerk across from him was sewing a button back onto his own cuff. Nobody looked especially holy.

He finished one slice of bread and slipped the other into his coat pocket.

”Hey, new guy. You know you can ask for more, right?”

The speaker sat opposite him, dressed in gray. He looked a few years older than Severin and had the broad hands of somebody who had spent more time around tools than paper. His nails were clean, but old black staining remained in the creases beside them.

Severin patted the pocket. ”I like to have insurance.”

The man laughed and held out his right hand. ”You’re a weird one. Erich Bauer.”

”Severin Hale.”

Erich’s grip was hard enough to hurt. ”Hans’s catch?”

Severin stared at him. ”What?”

”That’s what someone called you.”

”Who?”

Erich pointed with his fork toward another table. ”No idea, friend. I was hoping you knew.”

Severin laughed despite himself.

Two seats farther down, an unmarked clerk slapped three cards onto the table and accused a black-coated woman of cheating. She had a plain leather cover over her left eye and barely looked up from her plate.

”You lost,” she said.

”You fucking cheated.”

She laughed. ”You said that last time. Why don’t you find better excuses?”

Erich gathered his empty plate. ”You play cards?”

Severin looked at the clerk. ”Don’t have any money.”

The clerk brightened. ”Don’t worry, new guy.” He slid three copper coins across the table. ”Pay me back if you win.”

The game was familiar to Severin until the first jack took a trick it had no business taking. He stopped with his hand halfway toward the cards.

”What the hell was that?”

The clerk grinned. ”We’re playing Kaiserblatt. Is this your first time in Kronvaal?”

”Yes. But this is all wrong.”

Erich explained the local rule while the clerk dealt the next hand. Severin called it rubbish, lost the hand, paid one copper and made them deal again.

By the third game he had stopped reaching for the wrong cards. By the fifth, he had won enough to slide the clerk’s three copper back, and the clerk was accusing him of learning too quickly.

The black-coated woman took another copper from the clerk and pushed back from the table. ”He’s not learning fast. You’re just bad at this.”

She left with her plate, and Severin watched her go. The black coat still caught his attention before anything else.

Erich dealt again.

”How long have you been here?” Severin asked.

”Nearly three weeks.”

”Why are you in gray while most of them wear black?”

Erich looked down at his robe. ”Still an Initiate. We wear these while we’re training.”

Severin played a card. ”What did you do before?”

”Machine fitter.”

Now Severin understood the hands.

”At a works near Markdorf,” Erich added. ”Mostly presses. Pumps when they needed another pair of hands.”

”Why’d you leave?”

Erich snorted. ”The damned press started running after we disconnected the drive shaft.”

Severin looked up. The clerk kept sorting his cards, apparently uninterested in hearing the story again.

Erich tapped the edge of one card against the table. ”Cold night shift. We’d shut off the steam and uncoupled the main shaft. The fucking press cycled anyway.”

”How is that possible?”

”I’d also like to know.”

One of the workers had crawled beneath it to find the fault. Erich said the man came back out with two crushed fingers and did not seem to feel them. He kept returning to the same lever and repeating the same few words. When two men dragged him away, he fought hard enough to break one man’s nose.

”Then these people showed up,” Erich said.

”The Order.”

Erich nodded. ”Didn’t know the name then.”

”What was wrong with the man?”

Erich shrugged. ”They never told me.”

”And you joined anyway?”

”Yeah. Why not? I spent nine years fixing machines for men who didn’t give two shits about me as long as production kept moving.” He looked at the gray sleeve. ”These people offered different work.”

”Aren’t you scared? They told me not everyone survives.”

Erich looked back at his cards. ”Work is work, my friend.”

The clerk laughed. ”See? Told you he’s not right in the head.”

Erich pointed a card at him. ”At least I had the balls not to become a clerk.”

A bell rang three times from the corridor. Erich gathered his remaining coins at once.

”What’s happening?”

”Fun’s over. Training.”

He stood, winced as he straightened, and slid the chair back under the table.

”If you want another game tomorrow, you’ll find me here. I want my coins back.”

Erich left at a quick walk with two other people in gray.

Severin stayed long enough to finish another hand, then set out for his room.

He was certain of the route until he reached a staircase he did not remember.

The healer had specifically told him to avoid those, so Severin turned back and chose a level passage instead. That only made the mistake worse.

Leather dressing and hot metal hung in the next corridor. An open workroom held racks of coats waiting for repair. Boots stood beneath them in pairs, several with chalk numbers on the soles. At a bench, a gray-haired man replaced the buckle on a belt while another worker argued over whether a torn glove could be salvaged. Nothing seemed to get thrown out just because it looked ugly.

Severin kept walking.

The corridor narrowed beside another open room. A clerk sat alone at a table with a wooden box in front of him. A pocket watch and pipe lay beside two folded letters tied with string. A comb rested near the open ledger. The clerk counted a small stack of coins, checked the figure written on the page, then counted the money again.

Severin slowed as he passed. ”Someone leaving?”

The clerk looked up. ”No.”

He put the coins into a cloth purse.

”Whose are they?”

”Diego. He was a Pilgrim who died four days ago.”

The clerk said it without lowering his voice.

Severin looked at the box again. ”Family?”

”Wife.”

The letters went in last. The clerk closed the lid without nailing it shut.

On a shelf behind him sat another box with a folded shirt on top. A book and a shaving razor rested beside it.

”What about that one?”

”Missing.”

”So probably dead.”

”We don’t know that yet. Been gone since last week.” The clerk returned to his ledger.

Severin remembered Danny Wells’s sister standing at the freight yard asking about eight copper that should have belonged to her brother. Danny had already been missing long enough for other men to take his shifts.

He left the clerk to his work.

He found his room eventually, though not by the route Hans had shown him.

The bread was still in his coat pocket. Severin put it on the washstand and sat on the chair instead of the bed. His knee had begun to throb again.

Hans returned sometime later carrying the leather case, his hair coming loose from the tie at the back of his head. He shut the door with his heel and looked at the bread.

”Why did you bring bread to your room?”

”Insurance.”

Hans looked at him. ”Insurance against what?”

Severin smiled. ”You wouldn’t get it.”

Hans set the case beside the cupboard. ”Whatever. Did you explore a bit?”

”You could say that.”

Hans took off his coat and hung it over the chair. ”So. What did you think?”

”Food’s decent, but you lot don’t know how to play cards properly.”

”First day and you’re already gambling. Must’ve felt like home.”

Severin looked toward the closed door. ”Yeah... I also saw a clerk packing a dead bloke’s things.”

Hans nodded once. ”That happens here.”

”There was another set waiting,” Severin said. ”Man’s gone missing.”

”I heard.”

”You think he’s dead?”

Hans paused. ”I think there’s a reason his things are still waiting.”

Severin rubbed his thumb against the side of his little finger. ”You lot keep everything.”

”Not by choice.”

Hans sat on the edge of the bed and stretched one leg out.

”I’ve got something more interesting tomorrow,” he said. ”You can come if you’re bored.”

Severin looked at him. ”Thought I wasn’t allowed to work or train.”

”You’re not. You’ll be watching.”

”Better than another day underground. What’s the job?”

Hans loosened the strap of the leather case. ”Imperial police found a dead man in the capital this morning. Something about the death didn’t look right, so we’re going to check.”