Marienburg does not sleep; it rots. At night, the fog rising from the canals is so thick you can chew it, and it carries with it the whispers of deals made in the shadows and the splash of bodies slipping into the dark water.
Hendrik Van Voort, former spice merchant and current tour guide for the desperate, had found the perfect accommodation for "Sir Gilles." It was not in the Gold Quarter of the merchants, too heavily guarded, nor in the Suiddock, too chaotic. It was in the Kruierskwartier (Porters' Quarter), a zone of abandoned warehouses and tenements that were slowly sinking into the mud of the delta.
The house Hendrik had chosen leaned ten degrees to the left. The wooden foundations were giving way to the damp. "It is perfect, I assure you," said Hendrik, opening the creaking door with a rusty iron key. "No one has lived here for years because they say it is haunted by the ghost of a drowned usurer. Which means no nosy neighbors and nonexistent rent. It belongs to the Fish Syndicate, and now that I have paid my debt thanks to your gold, they will leave us in peace."
Geneviève entered. The air smelled of mold and brine. The floor was so tilted that if she had placed a marble on it, it would have rolled quickly toward the southwest corner.
"Is there a stable for Duraz?" asked her gravel voice from inside the helm.
"The old warehouse on the ground floor. Reinforced stone floor. It will hold the big beast."
That night, after Hendrik had gone to find supplies ("Real food, Gilles, not travel rations. You deserve it"), Geneviève performed the ritual that defined her existence. She barred the door with an oak beam. She closed the heavy shutters. Only then did she begin to unfasten herself.
The right gauntlet. Then the left. The pauldrons with the stitched-up dwarf cloak. The gorget protecting her neck. Every piece of metal fell to the wooden floor with a heavy thud. Finally, the helm.
When she took it off, the damp air of Marienburg seemed as sweet as honey. Geneviève ran a hand through her blonde hair, short and flattened by sweat. She looked at herself in a fragment of broken mirror hanging on the tilted wall.
The face looking back at her was not that of the girl who had left Bordeleaux. There were fine lines around her grey eyes, signs of constant vigilance. A white scar crossed her left eyebrow (a souvenir from an Orc in the Grey Mountains). The jaw was more defined, hardened by clenching teeth in pain or to maintain silence. It was a beautiful face, but it was a soldier's face.
She took off the padded gambeson. Underneath, she wore a simple linen tunic. The bandages binding her breasts were tight, necessary to maintain the masculine silhouette of the armor. She loosened them just a little to breathe.
She took the sword. Thrunbor's blade. She sat on the tilted floor, legs crossed, the sword on her knees. It was not meditation in the mystical sense. It was a conversation. She ran the whetstone along the edge, a rhythmic and hypnotic sound: shhh-krr, shhh-krr.
She felt the sword. Not as an object, but as a phantom limb. She felt where the metal was tighter due to the clash with the Minotaur. She felt the blade's thirst. Her spirit and her steel were becoming the same thing. In that dark and damp room, while outside the city of thieves whispered, Geneviève did not feel alone. The sword was her most faithful companion.
Hendrik returned two hours later with a basket full of black bread, cheese that smelled of feet (but delicious), smoked herring, and a flask of red Reikland wine. When he saw Geneviève without her helm, he froze for a second. It was always a shock to see the "little apple thief" emerge from the death machine.
"I brought dinner," he said, placing the basket on the tilted table, "and I brought news. Marienburg is expensive, Gilles. The Skaven gold won't last forever."
Geneviève was eating a herring with bare hands, ravenously. She nodded for him to continue.
Hendrik sat down, pouring himself some wine. "I spoke with some... contacts at the docks. The City Directorate has a problem. They will never admit it publicly, because it would damage trade, but something is coming out of the minor canals of the Fog-Walks (the lowest and foggiest quarters)."
"Rats?" asked Geneviève, with her true voice, which sounded strange to her own ears after days of acting.
"Worse," said Hendrik, lowering his voice. "They say they are bloated things. Things that taste of dead sea and sickness. They attacked two patrols of the Black Watch and dragged an entire barge crew into the water. The Directorate pays well for whoever solves the problem quietly. No questions, just heads."
Geneviève finished the herring. She wiped her hands on her tunic. "Bloated things," she murmured. It reminded her of the stories the old women of Bordeleaux told about the servants of Nurgle, the Plague Lord, or about creatures of the deep seas that sometimes rise to feed.
"It's dirty work, Gilles," said Hendrik, looking at her with concern. "It's not stuff for shining knights. It's stuff for sewer jacks."
Geneviève stood up. She took the helm from the table. The cold metal under her fingers was a promise. "My crest has nails, Hendrik. Not flowers. Nails are for keeping things closed that shouldn't open."
She lowered the helm onto her head. The click of the visor erased Geneviève. Only Sir Gilles remained, the Kensai Paladin with the gravel voice.
"Tomorrow night," she croaked from inside the steel. "We go fishing."