104: Theatre of Anatomy

The next day, over breakfast, we discussed what to do about the Purple Hand. Schutzmann had told us to concentrate on them, and not worry too much about Wallenstein and his friends, even though they looked very nefarious, too. We wondered what leads we had left to follow. With Jarmund in custody, Kalzbad dead, and Wasmeier long gone, it seemed like the only bigwig we knew about who was still at large was Vizier Bahr.

We decided that he could have been in his room below Wyndhund Haulage when we found it, and then escaped through the secret door. If that were true, then Boy would have followed his trail all the way to the staging post. And so if we wanted to go after him we should start at the staging post. Guido had also heard of the hitch hunter Abu Taub who was supposedly on Bahr’s trail, and so we thought about trying to find him.

And Blume said she was interested in talking to Jarmund again to see what he meant when he talked about her being a twin. I think he meant she just looked a lot like Kastelle Lieberung (perhaps everyone thinks she is Kastelle, but Jarmund knew her well enough to tell the difference) but I think Blume might think she has a secret twin sister, or something.

Of the Purple Hand members we knew, we decided that Bahr had taken over from Wasmeier as the head of the Ordo Terriblis, which is involved with strategy and planning. Jarmund had been the head of the Ordo Novitiae which is involved in recruitment. Lieberung had been head of the Ordo Impedimentae which is involved with procurement and supplies, but we think that was only for the Nuln branch and the cult had similar officers in other locations. For a cult that likes to sow chaos they certainly had a very ordered management structure.

Fred went to the Dwarf Engineers’ Guild to get some maps of their under city. Even though we had already visited some areas below the dwarf sections, and I was pretty confident I could navigate my way through the dwarf sections we had already been in, we thought they would come in useful to find our way around down there. But the dwarfs said we needed to get some official authority, so Fred said he would ask Schutzmann about that.

Vinny got a visit from an urchin, sent by Alfric, who told him that he had to meet ‘Josef’ at the Heaven’s Lament at three. And that Gouda wanted to see him right away. So he made his way down to the Big Cheese safehouse in Altquartier that we already knew about. And Hannes was there with some hoods. Hannes was the minion of Gouda who had threatened us at the Blazing Hearth a few days before. I’m not sure if Vinny was upset that he wasn’t important enough to meet Gouda in person, or relieved that he didn’t have to. Vinny called Hannes, Babybel, because he wasn’t the big cheese, but only in his head. He didn’t have the nerve to do it out loud.

Hannes told Vinny off for going into Wyndhund Haulage after we had been warned of the Big Cheese’s protection. And then insisted that Vinny and the rest of us were never there in the first place. But then Hannes admitted that it wasn’t under their protection any more because of the supernatural stuff. So I think that was Gouda’s way of telling us that we can do what we want there, now. It makes me think that as naughty as the Low Kings are, they don’t like to mess with the nefarious and things like that.

On the way back, Vinny got accosted by a couple of the Man’s men. One was Emerick, who Vinny already knew. Emerick said that Vinny was behind on his quota and he owed the Man his share of Vinny’s criminal earnings, as they had heard he had been making a lot of money. Vinny tried to deny this, but he was still wearing his gold lame snotball warm up suit. So then Vinny tried to claim he was going to pay it but had been busy. Emerick told him not to worry about it, and said they could waive it if Vinny arranged for some of the Man’s minions to be employed as gardeners at Vinny’s new fancy house. Vinny said they should show up for the interviews but he couldn’t promise anything. But I think Emerick took that as a commitment that they would get the job.

And when Vinny got back to the house he was sweating and nearly crying. I think it’s hard for a young criminal to operate in Middenheim without being bullied by the older criminals.

And it wasn’t long before there was a knock at the door and Wallenstein’s old servants had turned up to interview for the jobs at Hausnung that Blume had promised. I think Blume was very pleased that they had arrived as she seems to think stealing someone’s servants is the pinnacle of one-upmanship. And two of the Man’s men turned up, too.

The three servants from Wallenstein were very timid and wouldn’t look Blume in the eye and she really liked that. But the other two didn’t seem to care about subordination and social hierarchies and so that put Blume off. But in the end she had to admit that she really needed a gardener as the grass was growing up all around Der Kutsche and it was making the whole neighbourhood look untidy.

I wasn’t sure exactly what the Man’s men were there for. Did they just want a job, or did they want to rob Hausnung, or did they want to use their position at Hausnung to spy on other potential thieving opportunities in the neighbourhood? But, strangely, at least one of the men seemed to like gardening, and actually got on with the work, so it seemed to me he could have made a perfectly decent living as a gardener without joining a criminal enterprise and coercing his way into pretending to be a gardener and doing gardening anyway.

To be honest, although Blume got the house and nanny as a reward from Middenheim, I’m not sure they said anything about paying for extra servants. So I think Blume will have to pay these out of her own pocket. Or, more likely, out of our pockets. But at least all the money is safely in the bank, what with all the Man’s men hanging around.

Vinny wondered what to do about it, but in the end he went to see Blume and told her about the gardeners. Vinny assured her that they were only there to keep an eye on the rest of the neighbourhood and they wouldn’t steal from her. And Blume told him to make sure that they didn’t and she would hold him personally responsible for the security of the house. Which sounds a bit like when Farmer Joseph put Big Jim in charge of birdseed distribution. But Vinny did go and tell the gardeners that he was the man of the house and they had better not cross him, which made him braver than I thought he was.

Then it was time to go to the Collegium Historica to the Theatre of Anatomy to see the Rattus Homunculus. Before we went, Guido put his priestly robes on and called us all together to tell us how we should be expected to behave in such esteemed academic company, and he especially picked on me, and he told me not to say anything at all while we were there. Well, he said don’t say anything silly, but I thought it would be better to say nothing at all because a lot of what I say is quite intelligent, but Guido thinks it is silly, anyway.

When we got there there was a bit of a mob protesting the event, and there were a number of watchmen keeping them back. And lots of people seemed to be enthusiastic rat men believers, while others were vehemently opposed to the idea. It all seemed a bit silly to us as we knew that rat men were real. And I expected that the deniers would be easily convinced by an autopsy.

We sat around the room in a semi-circle of raised tiers and it was a lot like going to any theatre or pit fight. Then Professor Hasche introduced herself and gave the event a grand build up. And then two tables were wheeled in by her two assistants, and they had the bodies covered by white blankets. And as they did, some old bloke sat next to Vinny stood up and shouted that the whole thing was a charade and that Hasche was a shameless charlatan.

Guido asked him politely to sit down, but he wouldn’t and a watchman had to come and guide him away. Hasche called him Doctor Lindwurm, and Blume recognised the name as the author of the treatise on cats being the cause of the Scabrous Pox that she had seen in Schutzmann’s office, that had lead to the great cat panic. So she decided to follow him.

But, on her way out, as she passed one of the wheeled tables, Blume caught a glimpse under the blanket and saw that the rat man body was really just a big rat head (but much too small for the body) on the body of a beastman, or something. And definitely not a real rat man.

Blume could see that this would not convince anyone so she grabbed the arm of one of the assistants as they were about to lift the blanket and told him he would embarrass himself if he did. Hasche demanded to know what Blume was up to and she told her that the rat man had plainly been swapped for a rat-beastman. Hasche had a look under the blanket and saw that that was true. She was obviously very surprised and asked Blume what she should do.

Blume saved the day by announcing that she was the poet Violette and would recite a haiku. She didn’t really save the day, mum but she did recite a bad poem that didn’t rhyme. It was so bad a watchman tried to escort her out, but Fred was quick enough to jump in and tell him he would deal with it.

Then Guido told Vinny to call Hasche a charlatan and a fraud, so he did. And Guido then shouted at Vinny to sit down, so he did. Then he told him to stand up and pretend to fight him, and so Vinny finally got it that this was Guido’s plan to cause a distraction, and punched Guido. It wasn’t much of a punch but Guido did a very good job of rolling with it and he fell backwards like he had just been clobbered by an ogre and rolled down the tiers of seating. So then a watchman had to escort Vinny out. And in the end there was such a commotion that nearly everyone got escorted out by the watch.

And while all this was happening, mum, I didn’t do anything at all because I didn’t want to do or say anything silly. I think I was probably the only one who didn’t.

Hasche looked a bit shocked and confused about the turn of events, with her rat men not being what she thought and the near riot. I told her not to worry, though, because we had our own rat man body and I said she could have it if she wanted. We gave it to Schutzmann to deal with so hopefully he still has it.

Guido told her that we were with KITUM and that she should let us investigate how the bodies got switched. We had a look at the bodies and it looked like these were old beastman bodies that had been stuffed with sawdust with the head of real rats stitched onto them. And Guido said the stitching looked really good, like it was done by a surgeon or someone like that.

The heads had been soaked in formaldehyde, whatever that is, to help preserve them, but they were still quite fresh, and much newer than the bodies. Hasche said that these weren’t the bodies that she had prepared as those had been preserved in rum.

We had a look in the room next to the theatre and we saw a trapdoor leading to a fast flowing underground river. They have those in Middenheim, mum, although I don’t really understand how they work, what with the Fauschlag being so high and everything. And it was pretty clear that no one could have got into the room that way, but it would have been easy for the real rat man bodies to be thrown out that way, and impossible to trace.

And there were four barrels in the room, two of which were full of rum, and two had sawdust at the bottom. So it was pretty clear that two of them had had the original rat men in and the other two brought the fake rat-beastmen in. I let Boy loose to see if he could track anything, but I think he just got confused by all the different smells in the room.

Fred told the watch to surround the building and secure the perimeter, but I think they were doing that anyway, what with al the protesters still outside. And Hasche told us what had happened from her point of view. She said that the bodies were ready to go, and she had checked them, and then she had come out to introduce the autopsy, and a few seconds later her assistants had wheeled out the fake bodies, so there was barely any time for the switch to be made.

So we asked to speak to her assistants. One of them, Karl, spoke to Guido, and said that they had been about to wheel the tables out when they saw a bright flash, and heard a sort of whooshing noise, and smelled brimstone, and that was it. So Karl concluded that a wizard did it. He said it only lasted about a second, but that wouldn’t have been long enough to replace the bodies, so Guido suggested that the spell, whatever it was, might have affected time as well. Karl also said that the other assistant, Gaius, wasn’t very verbal and he should bear that in mind when questioning him.

So, then Guido spoke to Gaius and asked him about the loud bang, which was a trap, because Karl had said there was no loud bang, but Gaius shook his head which corresponded with what Karl had said. And Guido couldn’t get much else out of Gaius so, after checking he could contact them again at the halls of residence, let them both go.

Looking at the bodies, and the rat heads and the medical grade suturing, Hasche concluded that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to humiliate her. Guido had a look at one of the rat skulls and thought he could see something inside it, and so Hasche got some forceps out and managed to pull a piece of a crossbow bolt from the brain. And looking at the bolt, they saw it had a fletcher’s mark on it.

So Vinny and Guido headed off to see Maurice about the bolt, and Fred, Blume, and I went to the museum, as Hasche had said that they had some beastman bodies on display.

When they got there, Maurice immediately told Vinny he had heard he had some new gardeners. Guido asked what that was about, and Vinny said, ‘nothing.’ But Guido twigged that the gardeners must be something to do with The Man’s organisation for Maurice to already know about it.

They asked about the fletcher’s mark and Maurice pointed them in the direction of Elmo Flensburger an armourer who worked nearby. Then before he left Vinny told Maurice off for opening his mouth about the gardeners in front of Guido. And then he apologised for telling him off.

At Elmo’s they found out that the crossbow bolt was one of his, and they asked him about who he might have sold it to recently. They asked about wrong’uns and ratty characters. And Elmo said that he had sold some to a rat catcher called Piet Schaedling who hangs out at the Baiting Pit in Altquartier. Apparently he was a bit down on his luck because he was refusing to kill cats to control the Scabrous Pox.

Meanwhile we were at the Museum and Blume introduced herself to the curator and got us in to see the beastman exhibit. It was a scene of a beastman ambush in a forest, and it looked quite realistic, probably, as I’ve not really seen real beastmen before, but if I had I think they would have looked a lot like that.

And the curator said that it looked like a couple of the stuffed beastmen from the display had gone missing. So we looked at where they had been and spotted some human-looking booted footsteps in the vicinity. She said they had definitely been there about a week ago when she had had them cleaned.

So that’s that, mum. A lot of strange things have happened around the theatre of anatomy and the autopsy of the rat men and I think it will take a lot of thinking and investigating to work out precisely what has happened. Certainly it looks like nefarious forces are in the background trying to ensure that the rat men remain a secret.

I’ll let you know in my next letter, mum, what we do next and what we find out. If anything.