Borrower of the Night vbm-1 Page 10

  I snatched up the metal box, which was where I had left it, and retreated precipitately. I didn’t draw a deep breath until I was back in my own room with the door locked. (I was aware of the illogic of this, but I locked the door anyhow.) Then I sat down at the table with my prize.

  The papers in the box appeared to be undisturbed. The one on top, bearing a blob of red sealing wax, was the one I had left there. It was a deed of sale, referring to fields in the valley once owned by an eighteenth-century count.

  The papers were a miscellaneous lot, ranging in age from the nineteenth century back to the fifteenth, including household lists, the mouldy diary of an early countess, and the like. I went through them methodically; one never knows what unexpected source may provide a clue. But it was not until I got near the bottom of the box that I hit pay dirt.

  It was part of a letter, in a beautiful Latin hand, and something about the delicacy of the strokes suggested a woman’s writing. I knew, with a queer sense of fatality, who had written it.

  Rats or mice had gnawed the parchment. There was a big hole right through the centre of the sheet. The damage had occurred before the letters were put in the metal box, of course. I wondered absently where they had been, until they were gathered together by a historically minded Drachenstein. The ink was faded; the language was difficult. But I understood enough.

  ‘I have returned from the chapel,’ the scrap began, ‘where I gave thanks to Christ and his Blessed Mother and to Saint George, patron of our house, who preserved you from harm in the battle. My dear lord, I implore you to care for your health, which is so precious to me. I gave a receipt for a remedy for the stomach . . .’

  The receipt was forever lost; the ink faded out at this point. I suspected that modern pharmacy hadn’t lost much, but it was strangely touching to see evidence of the countess’s housewifely concern. After a fold in the parchment the writing regained legibility.

  ‘I pray also that God will soften the obduracy of that wretch who tries to keep from you what is yours, thus sinning doubly, since he hinders your carrying out your sainted father’s will, and prevents Holy Church from claiming its own . . .’

  I couldn’t stand it any longer. I turned the sheet over and at the bottom found the name I knew would be there:

  ‘Your wife, Konstanze von Drachenstein.’

  The letter contained nothing more except domestic details, and questions about – Tony had not exaggerated – Burckhardt’s bowels. I scrabbled through the remaining documents in the box. At the very bottom I found two more fragments.

  It was obvious why these scraps had not been given to the author of The Peasants’ Revolt. Not only were they void of details about the rebellion, but they were in bad condition. The first one I had found was the best preserved. The other two were only scraps, each bearing a few disconnected sentences.

  ‘. . . send this by the hand of our loyal steward Nicolas,’ said one of the two. ‘I beg your return. The Bishop came agam today, to ask when the shrine will come to him. God knows I do not oppose him, for this was the desire of your blessed father. But I feel he regards me with coldness . . .’

  I’ll bet he did, I thought. A sixteenth-century chauvinist cleric, and a woman who was both foreigner and scholar. The impeccable Latin was evidence of the countess’s intelligence. No doubt she had been educated by a family priest, as a few rare women were in those days. I thought I knew who had owned the volume of Trithemius in the Schrank.

  I picked up the last scrap of parchment. It was written in a hasty scrawl that was very unlike the neatness of the earlier letters. I deduced that it was, in date, the last of the three.

  ‘. . . anxious. No news has come since you wrote you were sending it here, in the care of Nicolas the steward. It is too long, he should have arrived a week since. In God’s name, my husband, come home. The Bishop . . .’

  The rest was gone, presumably into the interior of an ancient rat. I sat there staring at the dusty little bit of paper that had knocked my theories into a cocked hat.

  Our second possibility had been the right one. The shrine had never reached Rothenburg. The caravan must have been ambushed after all – the steward killed, the shrine stolen. I felt tired enough to die. I tossed the papers haphazardly into the box and staggered to my bed.

  I woke next morning to golden sunlight, the singing of birds, and a balmy breeze from the open window. I felt terrible. After a second I remembered why.

  I was late to breakfast, but Tony was still there. After one look at me, he shoved a cup of coffee in my direction and remarked, ‘You look like hell. What’s the matter, did our little expedition last night scare you that much?’

  ‘It didn’t scare me at all. But it was odd, not to find her there.’

  ‘It kept me awake for a while,’ Tony admitted. ‘Konstanze may not be haunting Irma, but she’s beginning to haunt me. If it weren’t for the shrine, I’d be tempted . . .’

  ‘To pack up and leave? Go ahead. The shrine isn’t here.’

  I told him about the letters.

  ‘The roll of maps is gone too,’ I concluded glumly. ‘I don’t suppose you took them? Okay, okay, I was just asking. I’m upset.’

  ‘Things are getting confused, aren’t they? Sorry you came? Willing to admit this is too much for your poor little female brain?’

  I sneered at him over the coffee cup, and he grinned.

  ‘Then start using those brains you keep bragging about. You haven’t been thinking, you’ve been reacting intuitively and emotionally. The letters are only negative evidence. Our reasoning still stands. Why haven’t the jewels turned up, unless the shrine is hidden somewhere?’

  ‘Oh, I had no intention of giving up. I haven’t even begun to search yet. I just wanted to give you an excuse to cop out.’

  ‘I’m staying, whether the shrine is here or not.’

  I stared at him in surprise. His voice was grave and his face sober.

  ‘That girl needs help,’ he went on. ‘I don’t know why the old lady hates her so, but she’s slowly driving her crazy. I can’t walk out on a situation like that.’

  ‘Sucker,’ I said. ‘Softhearted chump. Easy mark.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Tony agreed. ‘I talked to Blankenhagen at breakfast. He thinks Irma needs to get away from this place. She ought to be amused and distracted. So I told him you’d take her shopping this morning. Isn’t that the universal panacea for disturbed females?’

  ‘You have your nerve promising my services. I have other things to do this morning. I’m going to – ’

  ‘Take Irma shopping. Don’t put it that way; tell her you need her to show you the best stores. You’re a paying guest; the old lady can’t object if you ask for Irma’s services.’

  ‘Huh,’ I said.

  ‘I knew you would. Sucker, chump . . . We’re meeting Blankenhagen at the Architect’s House for lunch. One o’clock.’

  ‘And you, my knight in shining armour? Are you coming along to carry our parcels?’

  ‘Not me. I have other things to do this morning. I’m going back to the archives. I’ll meet you at one.’

  But Tony didn’t appear at the Architect’s House at one, or at two, or at two thirty, when our party rose to leave.

  The excursion had done Irma good, and it hadn’t hurt me either. This nonsense about shopping being good therapy doesn’t apply to me, actually, but . . . I bought a loden cloak. I love cloaks, they are one of the few items of dress that look better on tall people than on cute little short people. My cloak wasn’t grey or dark green, like most of the loden material; it was creamy white, trimmed with bands of red and green, and fastened at the throat with big silver buttons. It was divine.

  I also bought a carved wooden reproduction of a Gothic saint, and didn’t even wonder how I was going to get it in my suitcase. It was three feet high. I also bought . . . Well, we could have used Tony as a carrier. But I wistfully declined peasant blouses trimmed with lace, and rose-printed dirndl dresses with white aprons, and st
uff like that. I love it, but on me it looks the way a pinafore would look on Tony.

  One particularly charming dress, which had a laced black velvet bodice embroidered with tiny white rosebuds and green leaves, made my mouth water. I showed it to Irma.

  ‘Why don’t you try it on? It would look gorgeous on you.’

  Irma and I had gotten quite matey by then – two girls together, and all that. It was nice to see the kid smile for a change. At my question the smile disappeared, and she shook her head.

  ‘No, no, this is for tourists. The money is far too much.’

  Tactfully I dropped the subject and we made our way towards the restaurant. The rest of Irma’s wardrobe was as hideous as her nightgowns; that day she was wearing another high-necked dark print that hung like a burlap bag from her shoulders. I had never seen her in one of the pretty peasant dresses of the region, which are common street wear in southern Germany, and which would have suited her petite beauty.

  As Irma sparkled and giggled at Blankenhagen, I continued to wonder why she was so broke. The hotel was making money. The prices were outrageous, as I had cause to know. The countess had spoken of selling books; Irma said furniture and objets d’art, even the iron gates, had gone under the dealer’s hammer. Were taxes and running expenses so high that two women, living frugally, could barely eke out a living? Judging from the objects I had seen – most of them in Elfrida’s quarters – the stuff that had been sold was of prime quality, worth a considerable amount.

  As the time wore on and no Tony came loping into the courtyard dining room, with its vine-hung balconies, worry replaced my curiosity about the Drachenstein finances. I kept telling myself it was absurd to worry; what could happen to him in broad daylight, in the law-abiding streets of Rothenburg? But it wasn’t like him to forget an appointment. I was increasingly silent and distracted, and Blankenhagen started casting me significant glances, raising and lowering his eyebrows and making other signals. He didn’t care whether Tony was missing or not, he just wanted to entertain Irma.

  Finally, as we were leaving, I saw Tony in the doorway. My whole body sagged with relief. I hadn’t realized how uptight I was. So, naturally, I was furious with him.

  ‘Where the – ’ I began, as we went towards him. And then I shut up, because I had gotten a good look at his face.

  ‘Sorry for being late,’ Tony mumbled. ‘I got . . . I got interested’ – he choked oddly – ‘in something. I forgot the time. No, thanks, I’ll grab a sandwich someplace. I’m not hungry.’

  ‘The scholarly habit,’ said Irma, smiling at him. ‘It must be very difficult for a wife.’

  She was pretty obtuse, that girl. There was Tony, looking like a sick dog, and she thought he was just an absentminded professor. But when she blushed and batted those long lashes at him, he revived enough to blush back. Irma was certainly responding nicely to treatment, I thought. Maybe a girl that resilient didn’t need quite as much TLC as she had been getting lately.

  We got back to the Schloss without incident, except for Tony running into trees and buildings and knocking down an occasional pedestrian. Irma decided he was faint with hunger, and after she had deposited him tenderly in a chair in the garden, she bustled off to get him sandwiches and beer.

  When she had gone, Blankenhagen turned on Tony.

  ‘Now what is bothering you? You behave like a creature from a horror film. Is it so hard for you to be normal, for that child’s sake?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Tony stared dismally at us. ‘I’m stunned. I just found out what happened to the Countess Konstanze.’

  ‘Well?’ the doctor said, less angrily.

  ‘She was burned to death as a witch. Down there in the main square of Rothenburg, on the afternoon of October twenty-third, fifteen twenty-five.’

  ‘Herr Gott.’ Blankenhagen dropped into a chair.

  I decided I might as well sit down, since everyone else was. I shared the general feeling of shock. The damned woman had become too real; it was like hearing of the ghastly death of an old acquaintance.

  ‘The trial records are in the town archives.’ Tony produced the notebook without which no aspiring scholar goes anywhere. ‘The evidence was conclusive – if you believe in witchcraft.’

  ‘But . . . witchcraft!’ Blankenhagen shouted. ‘This was the beginning of the Renaissance . . .’

  ‘The persecutions were at their height just then. Five years after the countess was killed they burned thirty-five witches in a single day, in Cologne. The mania gripped every country in Europe. By the time America was settled, the worst was over, but we had our Salem trials, and that was a century after Konstanze.’

  Blankenhagen muttered something in a language that was neither German nor English. Tony gave him a surprised look, and translated.

  ‘“It is setting a high value upon our opinions to roast men alive on account of them.” Nobody ever said a truer word. But Montaigne came along too late for Konstanze, and the Essays were only the opening wedge of rationalism. If you think people are ever rational.’

  ‘So that is why she is not in the crypt with her husband.’

  ‘You bet your sweet life that’s why. She was accused of murdering him.’

  ‘You said witchcraft . . .’

  ‘Same thing.’ Tony turned pages. ‘She cursed him to death. The count fell ill the day after he got back from Würzburg. At first they thought he had the plague or something. Here’s part of the testimony of the old woman who had nursed the count in infancy, and who tended him during his illness.

  ‘“On the Friday my lord was stronger and we dared hope for his life. My lady shed tears of joy. She had watched by his bed day and night, allowing no one else to take her place . . .”’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ I asked.

  ‘Wait. It gets worse. She goes on: “On the Friday at night I sat with my lord again. I was afflicted with a strange heaviness of the eyes.”’

  ‘So she was tired,’ I said. ‘An old woman, sitting up night after night . . .’

  ‘Sure, sure. But the judge said it was undoubtedly the countess’s black magic at work. Then, says the nurse, “When I woke I saw my lord standing by the bed. His face was strangely coloured and his eyes turned in his head. He was dressed in hose and shirt only, with the embroidered belt my lady had made for him. When in my affright I spoke to him, he laughed a fearful laugh and looked not to know me. I ran to fetch my lady and she came from her room all heavy with sleep, her black hair about her face. When he saw her, my lord went mad. He felt at his belt as if for his dagger, but it was lacking, and when he so found, he threw himself at her throat and would have strangled her. I could not move him, but my cries brought the two men-at-arms who slept in the next chamber, and together we dragged my lord from his lady’s throat and put him into his bed, where he fell into a swoon. The next day he was in great pain and took no nourishment save a cup of broth. In the evening the painful torments of the first days suddenly returned. He lay in agony, his body torn by spasms, until at midnight his soul left him.”’

  ‘How ignorant they were!’ exclaimed Blankenhagen.

  ‘What do you suppose was wrong with him?’ I asked.

  Blankenhagen shrugged.

  ‘It might be any number of natural illnesses.’

  ‘That wasn’t all,’ said Tony, turning to another page of his notebook. ‘The countess’s maid, or tiring woman, tied the noose around her neck. She was even more verbose than the other witness, so I’ll synopsize. It seems that the week before the count returned she had to obey a call of nature in the middle of the night, and went to the privy – oh, yes, Doctor, they had them – near her mistress’s room. She was still in the darkness of the hall when she saw the countess’s door open and Konstanze standing there with a candle in her hand. Then – I’ll have to give you her own words, or you’ll lose the atmosphere – “There appeared from nothingness a Tall Man clothed all in black, with only darkness where his face should be. He went to my lady and caught her in his arms, a
nd the folds of his black cloak wrapped her round like two great wings. He was seven feet tall, my Lord Bishop, and I heard the click of his hooves upon the floor of the hall

  Tony closed his notebook.

  ‘At that point the wench fell down in a fit, frothing at the mouth.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Blankenhagen shook his head disgustedly. ‘The superstitions of the time encouraged hysteria.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ I said, suddenly sick. ‘Remember what Irma said at the séance? Das Feuer . . .’

  Blankenhagen surged to his feet with an angry exclamation.

  ‘Enough of this morbidity! If that poor girl hears a word of this frightful story – ’

  ‘She already knows it,’ I said. ‘At least I would prefer to think that, rather than admit the alternative.’

  I was right, of course, but it wasn’t the most tactful thing I could have said. Blankenhagen cursed splendidly in German, using a few expressions I had never encountered before, and went storming off through the shrubbery.

  ‘I don’t blame him,’ I groaned. ‘I’m beginning to lose my nerve too. You know something, Tony? This isn’t fun anymore.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I’m just trying to sound like a heroine,’ I said meekly. ‘I know I’m the wrong size, but I figured I could try to sound sort of imbecilic and clinging and scared . . .’

  ‘Ho ho,’ said Tony, baring his teeth. ‘Who says you’re the heroine?’

  ‘All right, I’ll let Irma be the heroine. But there are times when I think she qualifies for another role.’

  It was Tony’s turn to swear. He wasn’t as inventive as Blankenhagen, but he was louder, and finally he stalked off, leaving me alone with my thoughts – which were not good company.

  I was beginning to look forward to mealtime at the Schloss. A girl my size needs her nourishment, but that wasn’t the only reason. In the dining room I met friends and enemies and assorted suspects; I could study Irma to see how far she was from a nervous breakdown. Mealtime was when the Gräfin sent forth her invitations. Oh, yes, mealtime was fun time, all right.