The Left-Handed God by I. J. Parker Page A

letter, but it has been five months. We would have heard if it had been delivered.”
    The other man emptied the glass and set it down with a shaking hand. “Your informant was certain that such a letter was written, but we don’t know what happened to it? How can you be so calm? As long as it exists, our lives aren’t worth a copper pfennig . And surely we have to abandon our plan.”
    “What plan? There never was a plan.”
    The visitor raised his glass, saw it was empty and set it back down. “You said a hunt was quite as useful as a battle for fatal accidents. I thought‌—‌”
    “What?” His host’s face had purpled. He rose from his chair. “I never said anything of the sort. Beware of that careless tongue of yours. That sort of thing will get you into trouble.”
    His guest blustered, “I would never mention the matter outside this room. You mistake me. I am completely devoted to the cause.”
    The other man glared. “Understand this: there is no cause! There never was a cause, just idle talk of foolish men in their cups.”
    The visitor looked astonished. He rose slowly. “Well, if that’s the way it is…‌and if you are certain all is safe…” He saw the other man’s face. His voice trailed off, and he turned to go.
    *
    After several weeks of fever and pain, Franz became aware that his right leg was no longer straight but made an awkward curve near the place where his knee had been. But both his legs continued to heal‌—‌at least the wounds did. The shattered knee cap and the badly aligned bones would never get better. Yet the doctor thought his treatment entirely successful and told Franz that he was writing an article of his own, based on the case. He had saved the limb after it had been nearly destroyed by an exploding canister filled with rusted nails and assorted bits of metal, and the patient had not died from the experiment.
    Franz did not thank him for his effort.
    By then, he knew that he was in Mannheim, the residential capital of His Serene Highness, Karl Theodor, Margrave of Bergen op Zoom, Duke and Count Palatine of Pfalz-Sulzbach, Duke and Count Palatine of Pfalz-Neuburg, and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire.
    The fact that Franz did not speak bothered the doctor enough to bring in his colleagues again. They stood over him, tormenting him for days by poking around in his mouth, squeezing his neck, and assigning him all sorts of speech exercises. In the end, the verdict was that the blow to his head must have deranged something in his brain. One of the learned men seemed to think that his intelligence had been destroyed, or at least severely damaged, and that he was an imbecile who should be given a pension. This, Franz knew not to be true, though he made no effort to disabuse him.
    He reached his twenty-first birthday a cripple who could no longer speak normally.
    His wounds did not affect his ability to write, and one of his military visitors, the same one who had brought him his decoration and a letter of congratulation signed by General Luszinky himself, suggested that Franz should write to his family. This, Franz declined by shaking his head. Lieutenant Killian offered to write for him, and again Franz shook his head.
    But his mother and sister heard of his fate anyway. Letters arrived, which Lieutenant Killian gave to Franz. Franz opened and read these when he was alone and immediately tore them into little pieces. He did this not because they made him angry‌—‌they were quite loving epistles, especially his sister’s‌—‌but because they shamed him. He was not the Franz they remembered, believed in, and expected to return to them. He was an altogether different man, one he did not yet know completely but whom he already despised.
    His odd behavior lent credence to the opinion of the physician who had thought him an imbecile. Franz glowered at everyone, miserable in the knowledge that an imbecile was at least blessed with ignorance about his condition. He was