Borrower of the Night vbm-1 Read online

  I refuse to apologize for that outburst; Rothenburg is that kind of place. The spirit has survived even the cheap gimcrackery of tourism. Over the rooftops I could also see the spires of the church where, on a summer day in 1505, Tilman Riemenschneider had supervised the installation of his altar of the Holy Blood.

  The bus joined an ugly jumble of other monsters in a parking lot just inside the walls, and disgorged its passengers. I extracted my suitcases from its belly and started walking. The hostess was summoning taxis for other disembarking passengers, but she didn’t offer me one. I wasn’t surprised. I look as if I could carry a steamer trunk. I didn’t want a taxi anyhow. You can walk clear across Rothenburg in half an hour.

  It took me longer, because I kept stopping to admire the sights. The town was just as charming as I remembered. Perhaps the souvenir shops had multiplied – certainly the tourists had – but that was only to be expected. The essential beauty hadn’t changed.

  The old houses of Rothenburg are tall, six or seven storeys in height. The style is like that of the black-and-white Tudor houses of England, with wooden timbering forming complex patterns across the stuccoed facades. The stucco is painted in pastel colours – cream, pale blue, buff. The high roofs taper steeply to the ridge pole; set in the faded rust-red tiles are odd little windows, like half-closed eyes peeping slyly. Some of the houses have oriels with leaded windows and roofs like kobold’s caps.

  Against the sober antiquity of the houses, flowers blaze like rainbow-coloured fires. Everybody in Rothenburg must have a green thumb. Red geraniums spill out of window boxes; white and purple-blue petunias cascade over ledges; emerald-green ivy and vines climb the crumbling walls. From over the shop doors wrought-iron signs, delicate as starched lace, indicate the wares to be found within. Most of the signs are gilded; in the sunlight they shine like webs spun by fabulous spiders.

  I went through the marketplace, with its Renaissance Rathaus and fifteenth-century fountain, and took Herrngasse across town towards the castle – my home away from home for the next couple of weeks.

  I still couldn’t get over that piece of luck – that Schloss Drachenstein had been converted into a hotel. It wasn’t unusual. Many stately homes and ruined castles have been turned into guest houses by noble families whose bank statements are shorter than their family trees. But that Schloss Drachenstein should be one of the number – that I had a reservation, confirmed by a letter bearing the Drachenstein crest – it was almost too good to be true. I am not superstitious – not much – but I couldn’t help regarding that as an omen.

  The Schloss hadn’t even been open to visitors when I was in Rothenburg the first time. I had viewed the tangled weeds of the park through the closed and padlocked gates, which were worth a visit in themselves, being gems of the wrought-iron work for which the region is famous. There were other things to see, so I hadn’t lingered, but now I could find my way around without having to ask directions.

  The roughly oval plateau on which the town is built juts out, at several points, in long rock spurs. At the westernmost point of one such spur, the first Count of Drachenstein, Meninguad by name, had constructed a massive keep that looked down on the valley, and had protected its eastern side with walls and moats. Over the centuries the castle had grown, and peasants seeking protection from marauders had built their huts under its walls, in the spot that would one day become a prosperous merchant town.

  The moat had been filled in long before; but I was surprised, when I reached the park, to discover that the gates I remembered were gone. The weeds had been cropped, and as soon as I passed through the stone gateposts I could see the Schloss ahead.

  From the guidebook I knew the general plan of Schloss Drachenstein. It was built in the form of an open square enclosing an inner court. An eighteenth-century count, inspired by a visit to Versailles, had torn down one side of the old castle and constructed his version of a château on the foundations. It was not a good idea. The facade, which now faced me, was leprous with decay, and the very roofline seemed to sag. Behind this monstrosity I had a tantalizing glimpse of older walls built of rough brown stone.

  The door was a graceless modern replacement, with a bright brass knob. The hinges squeaked, though, when I pushed on it; somewhat cheered by this Gothic note, I went in and found myself in a hall that ran straight through the château from front to back, with doors opening on both sides and a staircase at the far end. There was a desk under the arch of the stairs. Someone was sitting at the desk; I couldn’t see clearly after the transition from sunlight to the shadowy interior. As I tramped down the hall I felt self-conscious, as I always do when I have to make an entrance like that. And when I got a good look at the girl behind the desk, I felt even more bovine than I usually do.

  Honest to God, she was the image of my adolescent heroines. She had a heart-shaped face, ivory pale, and framed by clouds of dark hair so fine the ends floated out in the still air. Her eyes were big and wide-set, framed by long, curling lashes. Her mouth was a pink-coral masterpiece; her nose was narrow and aristocratic. She was sitting down, but I knew she wasn’t tall. She wouldn’t be tall. She probably had a figure as petite and fine-boned as her face.

  I thought things I prefer not to admit, much less write down. I said, ‘Guten Tag. I have reserved a room.’

  ‘Guten Tag, gnädige Frau. Ihr Name, bitte?’

  Her voice was a false note in the picture of perfect grace. It was flat and hoarse, and quite expressionless. Her lovely face was blank, too. The big dark eyes regarded me without favour.

  I gave her my name, and she nodded stiffly.

  ‘We have your letter. I am sorry to say we cannot offer the luxury to which you Americans are accustomed. The Schloss is being renovated and the rooms in the château are all occupied. You requested a chamber in the older portion of the Schloss, but – ’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ I said heartily.

  My big friendly grin won no response. If anything, the girl’s expression became slightly more hostile.

  ‘Aber, I forget. Americans like the old, the ruinous, the decayed, do they not? Come, then, and I will show you the room.’

  She insisted on carrying both my suitcases. As I had expected, she was a tiny little thing, and her refusal to let me touch my heavy bags made me feel like a boor as well as a big lumbering clod. I suspect that was what she had in mind. She didn’t seem to like me much. But short of wrestling her for the suitcases, I couldn’t do anything but follow meekly.

  We went out of the back entrance into the central court. The walls forming the other three sides of the court were a marvellous mixture of architectural styles – not surprising in a place that had had nine centuries in which to develop. The wing to my left was of the timber-and-stucco type, like many of the houses in town, but bigger and more elaborate. Scaffolding shielded its face, and there were pieces of lumber and miscellaneous tools scattered around – the renovations of which the girl had spoken, I gathered.

  The right wing was a four-storey sixteenth-century construction, with richly carved window frames and an ornate Renaissance roofline But the wall straight ahead was old – old enough to have been standing long before Count Burckhardt’s time. Its great doorway had a massive stone lintel with a crumbling bas-relief in the shape of a shield bearing the Drachenstein device – a dragon crouched on a rock.

  The courtyard was beautifully tended, and as pretty as a postcard. The grass was a rich, velvety green, and shrubs and flower beds were scattered about. A thick hedge hid the part of the court to my right. From behind its shelter came a murmur of voices. Other guests, I thought – and I wondered whether I knew any of them.

  Her shoulders bent under the weight of my bags, the girl led me through the door into the Great Hall of the Schloss. It was two storeys high, roofed with enormous dark beams. Along one wall was a row of armour, with swords and spears and other deadly weapons hanging on the panelled wall above. A huge stone fireplace filled one corner of the room, which was unfurnished
except for a carved chest, big enough to hold a body or three . . . I wondered why that particular idea had flipped into my mind. Suggestion, no doubt, from the arsenal on the wall.

  We went up a flight of stairs to a gallery that ran around three sides of the hall. From this a door opened onto a corridor. On the stairs I tried to take one of the suitcases, and was promptly squelched; but I took no pleasure in the drag of the girl’s shoulders as she trudged ahead of me along the corridor into an intersecting passage. It was a relief when we finally reached the room she had selected for me.

  The room was lit by a pair of tall windows that opened onto the west side of the castle grounds, a wilderness of tangled bushes and weeds. Also visible were the mouldering ruins of a structure older than the Schloss itself. It was, I decided, the original keep of the first castle ever built on the plateau; it had to be a thousand years old. I guess Americans are bemused by sheer age; the words dug into my mind and reverberated, awesomely. One thousand years . . . It looked its age. The top floor, or floors, were missing; the ruined walls were as jagged as rotten teeth. Beyond the keep, the ground dropped abruptly, in a series of steep steps, to a wooded and verdant valley half veiled by the mists of afternoon heat.

  The view was the only good part of the room. Hilton would have turned faint. The brown stone walls were bare except for a few old paintings, which were so blackened by time that it was hard to see what they were meant to represent. The bed was modern; the pink spread and canopy were new, and their bright cheapness clashed badly with the dignified antiquity of the walls. An ugly green overstuffed chair and a cheap bedside table were also new. They were dwarfed by the dimensions of the room, which contained no other furniture except a flat kitchen-type table, a massive wardrobe which served as a closet, and a bureau with a load of chinaware. I viewed this last item morosely. I used to spend summers on a farm. I also noted, with a pessimistic eye, that the lamp on the bedside table was an oil lamp.

  I turned to meet the eye of my guide. She had seen my negative reaction, and it pleased her; but she was rubbing her sore shoulders, and my sense of pity for small things – which includes so many things – overcame my annoyance.

  ‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Delightful, Fräulein – er – may I ask your name?’

  There was an odd little pause.

  ‘Ich heisse Drachenstein,’ she said finally. ‘Dinner is at seven, Fräulein.’

  And out she went. She didn’t slam the door, but I think she would have done so if her arms hadn’t ached. The door was about eight inches thick and correspondingly heavy.

  ‘Drachenstein,’ I muttered, reaching for my suitcases at last. ‘Aha!’

  She couldn’t be the present countess. From what I had learned, that lady was the widow of the former count, who had passed on some years earlier at the biblical age of three score and ten. Daughter? Niece? Poor relation? The last sounded most plausible; she was concierge and porter, and heaven knows what else.

  I shrugged and walked over to the bed to start unpacking. Then my eye was caught by one of the dusty paintings which hung opposite the foot of the bed. For some reason the face – and only the face – had been spared the ravages of time. It stood out from the blurred canvas with luminous intensity. And as the features came into focus, I got the first shock of what was to be a week of shocks.

  The face staring back at me, with an unnerving semblance of life, was the face of the girl who had just left. Under the picture, a label read: ‘Konstanze, Gräfin von und zu Drachenstein. 1505?–1525.’

  Chapter Three

  IT WOULD HAVE been fun to think I had been shown to my room by the family ghost, but after consideration I abandoned the idea. For some reason, the only logical alternative disturbed me almost as much as the ghost theory. Family resemblances like that do crop up, though I had never seen one quite so startlingly close. But it is distasteful to me to think that a random rearrangement of genes can duplicate me, or anyone else, at the whim of whatever power controls such things.

  I unpacked, and then kicked off my shoes and lay down on the bed. It was surprisingly comfortable. I didn’t mean to doze off, but excitement and travel had tired me out. When I woke up, the sun was declining picturesquely behind the plateau and my stomach was making grumpy noises. It was almost seven. I didn’t meet a soul as I retraced my steps, through the Great Hall and across the courtyard. Apparently the rest of the guests had already gone to dinner. I was looking forward to that meal, and not only because of my hunger pangs. I had every expectation of seeing at least one familiar face.

  The dining room had been one of the drawing rooms of the château wing. Its painted ceiling and plastered walls were extravagantly baroque, and not very good baroque. The westering sun, streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows, freshed the gilt of the smirking naked cupids and cast a rosy glow over the shapes of pulchritudinous pink goddesses. At a table by the window, looking neither cherubic nor pulchritudinous was the person I had expected to see.

  I approached, not with trepidation – because who was he, to resent my presence? – but with curiosity. I wasn’t sure how he was going to receive me.

  He looked up when I stopped by his chair, and a broad grin split his face. Then I felt trepidation. I didn’t like the gleam in his eye. He looked smug. I wondered what he knew that I didn’t.

  ‘Greetings,’ I said. ‘I hope you have been saving a seat at your table.’

  ‘Grüss Gott,’ said Tony. ‘Let us use the local greeting, please, in order to show our cosmopolitan characters. Sure, I saved you a place. I knew you’d be along. What kept you?’

  With a wave of his hand he indicated the chair next to his. I took it, without comment; if he wanted to continue the childish pattern of noncourtesy he had established back home, that was fine with me. I put my elbows on the table and studied him. No doubt about it: jaunty was the word for Tony.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

  ‘Couple of days.’

  ‘You must have made good use of your time. What have you – ’

  ‘Quiet,’ said Tony, scowling. ‘Not now.’

  He was trying to look like James Bond again. It’s that loose lock of hair on his brow. I didn’t laugh out loud because it was expedient to keep on good terms with him, for a time. I turned my head away and glanced around the room.

  If the tables in the dining room were any guide, the hotel part of the Schloss wasn’t large, but it was doing a good business. There were a couple of dozen places laid, four to a table. Most of them were occupied.

  ‘Fill me in on our fellow guests,’ I said.

  ‘Two American high school teachers,’ Tony began, indicating a couple at the next table. ‘A German family from Hamburg – two kids. The honeymoon couple are French; the old miserable married couple are Italian. There are some U.S. Army types from Munich, and a miscellaneous bevy of Danes.’

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ I said, smiling at him. He looked pleased, the naïve thing.

  ‘The little fat guy who looks like Santa Claus without the beard is a professor,’ he went on complacently. ‘What he professes I don’t know; he keeps trying to corner me, but I’ve avoided him so far. The middle-aged female with the face like a horse is English. She’s a crony of the old countess’s.’

  ‘Old countess? Is there a younger one?’

  ‘You must have met her. If she wasn’t carrying your suitcases, she was scrubbing your floor. She does all the work around here.’

  ‘Her?’ I gasped ungrammatically.

  ‘Sure. Irma. The last frail twig on the Drachenstein family tree.’

  ‘Irma!’ It was some name for a girl who looked like a Persian houri. I was about to express this sentiment – and get some additional insight into Tony’s attitude towards her – when a man walked up to the table. He was a stocky young man with brown hair and blue eyes, a deeply tanned face, and an expression as animated as a block of wood. He distributed two brusque nods and a curt ‘Abend’ around the table, and sat down.
/>   Now as I have indicated, I find the usual leering male look quite repulsive. I am accustomed, however, to having my presence noted. Tony, who knows me only too well, glanced from me to the newcomer and said, with a nasty grin.

  ‘This is Herr Doktor Blankenhagen, from Frankfurt. Doc, meet Fräulein Doktor Bliss.’

  The young man half rose, clutching his napkin, and made a stiff bow.

  ‘Doctor of medicine,’ he said, in heavily accented English.

  ‘Doctor of philosophy,’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘How do you do?’

  ‘Very pleased,’ said Herr Doktor Blankenhagen, without conviction. He opened a newspaper and retreated behind it.

  ‘Hmmph,’ I said; and then, before Tony’s grin could get any more obnoxious, I went on, ‘One more place at the table. Who’s that for?’

  Tony’s grin faded into the limbo of lost smiles. I knew then. I had been half expecting it, but I still didn’t like it.

  ‘Hi, there,’ said George Nolan, making his appearance with theatrical skill, at just the right moment. ‘Glad you got here, Vicky.’

  ‘Hi yourself,’ I said. ‘Congratulations on your detective skill. Or did you just follow Tony?’

  George laughed, and leaned over to give Tony a friendly smack on the shoulder. Tony swayed.

  ‘Right the second time.’

  ‘No problem following him?’ I asked sweetly. ‘Not for a man who has tracked the deadly tiger to its lair, and hunted the Abominable Snowman in his mysterious haunts.’

  ‘He went to the Jones Travel Agency,’ said George, still grinning. ‘As soon as my gratuity to one of the help produced the name of Rothenburg, I put two and two together.’