Then he straightened his back and thought matter-of-factly.
He saw that the path went along the moat and out at the other side. He must have arrived at the back of the castle.
But that light ...?
Hesitantly, he moved closer. He crept up to the moat, which stank of decay, and walked along its edge.
Another landscape opened up at the front of the castle. A small lake, hardly bigger than a pond. Behind was a new forest, which seemed to consist only of oak trees where the road winded. He was unable to see any further.
The castle in the forest ...
It was something out of a fairy tale. It put Tancred in an adventurous mood. Everything was so unreal, so unbelievable. As if the moonlight had created this sight – of the castle ruins in the dead forest.
But the drawbridge over the moat was certainly real, hanging together with decayed planks. Tancred was young and brave but even so he glanced with disgust at the water, which was green with algae.
He crossed the drawbridge carefully.
Maybe this was where Jessica and Molly hid? That was certainly a possibility.
The light from the window faced the forest. Surely nobody expected anyone to come from that direction... but Tancred had. And he had seen the secretive glow.
He crossed the bridge in one piece and touched the door. It was heavy, but with the pressure of his hand it glided open with a moaning sound that echoed in the hall which he had entered.
He couldn’t see much but the moonlight shone through the door onto a worn stone floor. Above him, he caught a glimpse of old, threadbare war flags and coats-of-arms on the walls. The shields were far too rusty for him to be able to see which families they belonged to.
He could faintly see the foot of a staircase at the other end of the hall. Tancred’s steps echoed as he walked across the stone floor.
He tiptoed up the winding staircase and stood on the first floor. The moonlight shone through a series of gun slits in the one wall. He walked towards them in the hope of seeing more of the landscape. But the wall overlooked the forest. And the forest seemed endless.
He was quick to figure out where the light had come from. He entered a dark corridor in the inner part of the castle – and quite right: A faint light could be seen underneath a door.
What was he to do now? Throw himself against the door and yell?
No, not Tancred. He knocked gently on the door.
A drowsy voice immediately answered:
“Come in!”
The voice belonged either to a man with a high-pitched voice or a woman with a deep voice.
He opened the door. He was annoyed when his heart beat quickly. He did not tend to be nervous. No, not at all! Yet the bewitched, somewhat unpleasant atmosphere had affected him.
Tancred was not in the least bit surprised at the sight that met him inside. The room was lavishly furnished in an old-fashioned way – with carpets on the floors and white sheepskin over all the chairs and benches. The fire crackled in the fireplace.
The middle of the room was dominated by a huge, low bed, also covered with sheepskin. And a woman rose from it.
She was formidable. Tancred could not find any other word.
She was dressed in a magnificent, deep-blue cape, which reached right down to the floor. Her sparkling, auburn hair flowed freely over her shoulders and right down her back. Her hungry eyes were wide-set; her cheekbones were very high and broad; and her red, painted lips seemed to be able to swallow young children for breakfast. She was strikingly beautiful – and as intimidating as a snake.
She gazed at Tancred’s entrance, smiling with amusement.
Finally, he recovered his voice.
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” he stammered because he did not know how she should be addressed, so he guessed a high status to be on the safe side. “I saw the light and was curious ... My name’s Margrave Tancred Paladin. I ...”
He lost the thread. Her mouth turned into a beastly smile, baring broad, pointed teeth.
“Tancred Paladin,” she smiled, and her voice was deep and sensuous. “A true knight. Not Tancred of Brindisi, the crusader? He was so tragic and saintly. How old are you, young man?”
“Twenty-one,” answered Tancred, transfixed.
“Twenty-one,” she said with a broader smile. “Welcome, Tancred! I was beginning to feel a bit lonely.”
She beckoned him to her and placed her hand lightly on his shoulder, so that he was forced to sit on the broad bed. She sank down next to him in a fragrant cloud. For one short moment, her cape glided over one knee, revealing an ivory-white, extremely well-shaped naked leg.
“Tancred, my new, handsome friend ... Will you keep me company over a glass of wine? Drinking on one’s own is so boring.”
“Y-y-yes, please,” he stammered because he did not dare to say no to this intimidating being. He did not want to see her angry.
She rose gracefully and walked over to a sideboard behind him. Tancred had seen it as he entered and he seemed to remember that he had seen two wine glasses and a decanter on a silver tray. He heard how she poured wine into the glasses, and then she returned.
Once again, she sank down next to him, looking him deep in the eyes as she drank. Her eyes were fantastic – like cold precious stones. Tancred was almost dizzy from looking into them.
He drank in great gulps without moving his eyes away from her. The wine was sweet and full-bodied with a stimulating, spicy flavour.
To begin with, he had felt pretty stupid but now his inhibitions were beginning to disappear.
Even so, he was unable to say a word when she, remarkably intimately, pressed against his side. The air was thick with sensuality and ...? Tancred searched for the right word. Pleasure? What a horrible word!
As quick as lightning, he wondered how old she was. She was timeless, eternal in a way. But if he were to venture a guess, she was about thirty-five. A mature, buxom woman.
“So you walked through the forest, Tancred? Along the silver path?”
He merely nodded. The woman sat so that he caught a glimpse into the opening of the cape, and what he discerned sent shudders down his spine. She wore nothing under her cape.
Her big eyes twinkled teasingly at his horror. She took his hand, leading it to her thigh. She radiated eroticism.
Never in his life had Tancred been so confused.
His parents had taught him everything about how a well-mannered, well-educated man should behave, but this situation was bound to be something they had no idea about!
Never hurt others. This was his mother’s first commandment ...
Good God, help me, he thought.
“I ... I had better say ... that I’m quite an inexperienced young man,” he stammered. “And I want to ... keep ...”
She smiled with delight.
Everything was swimming before his eyes and his ears were buzzing.
“What’s your name?” he mumbled in an attempt at regaining his composure.
“Salina,” she whispered.
Everything was turning dizzily in his mind. In a fog he saw that she got up and let the cape fall to the floor. He opened his eyes wide but was unable to see her clearly. She was just a diffuse, ivory-white creature somewhere in the distance. He saw a golden-red triangle – two suggestive eyes ... so close, so close ...Then the fog became thicker and the buzzing in his ears deafening.
Little Tancred disappeared from reality and into a regular nightmare. Or was it a dream? He was unable to decide which because it seemed that his thoughts had melted together.
Grotesque, alarming faces appeared, came close to him and then receded in order to leave the place to new ones in an even, rhythmic flow. Two penetrating eyes above an upper lip that was one foot long, a crumbled harpy, a laughing devil’s face, a horse’s head, which spoke to him with shocking, hum
an eyes, full of hatred and triumph ... The visions kept flowing to him all the time, one after the other.
The woman was there. She encircled him and probably tried to make love to him. But he did not want that because she was as cold as ice – so cold that he felt it right to the core. She gave him a hungry, grotesque smile and he sank, sank and sank, floating down, through an enormous gap in the earth, still further down into a world of ice and darkness ...
The apparitions changed character. They continued to be frightening but somehow more open, no longer so close by.
There was air around him. Cool air, which was bluish-white. He saw a heavily loaded boat glide out from a deserted beach. ‘The death boat,’ he thought. ‘The one that will take me to the land of death. Help me, help me, help me. I don’t want to die, at least not yet!’
The skipper’s face was deathly pale with harsh black eyes. Tancred was on his way down to the beach, carried by a three-legged ghost-horse, which was bony and swayed as it moved. The boat was not yet ready to receive him. It was on its way from land, probably with a different cargo. Now it stopped out on the water near a tall, steep cliff. The skipper got up in the boat and managed to ease a corpse overboard. Heavy stones were tied to the body.
“I thought one was supposed to cross,” said Tancred loudly. The skipper’s penetrating eyes immediately turned towards Tancred.
“Why have you brought him with you? He has no business here!” said the rower while the boat was still rocking after the dead body had been thrown overboard.
The ghost horse left the beach and continued the journey, rocking from side to side. It was cold, and bony fingers swept across Tancred’s face.
‘You won’t reach me,’ thought Tancred. ‘I was on my way to the realm of death. It was a close call! But a descendant of the Ice People is extremely strong. I’m returning to the living once more.’
Tancred was probably the only one of his descendants who had not taken all the peculiarities of the Ice People seriously. But he certainly did now – and he was ever so grateful that he had their blood in his veins.
A terrible, yellow-white face stared down at him. He moaned.
Then the vast darkness enveloped him again.
He woke up with difficulty to a cold and bitter existence.
Somebody was shouting “Tancred!” to him.
His head was as heavy as lead. He was freezing cold. It rustled whenever he moved.
“Tancred! What’s wrong with you? Wake up!”
He opened his eyes.
There were tall trees around him. A raw morning fog blurred them.
A young man bent over him.
“I know you,” mumbled Tancred.
“Yes, of course you do! I’m Dieter. Why are you lying here?”
Tancred pushed himself up on his elbows. He moaned a bit because of the pain this one movement caused.
A horse was waiting right next to them and Dieter was dressed in riding gear.
“Where on earth ...? Where am I?”
“Your aunt’s estate is far away at the fringe of the forest to the right. To be really precise, you’re lying in the grass by the path that I rode on. It follows the forest here. Have you lost your bearings?”
“I suppose you could say that. Only how did I get here?”
Had he maybe walked in a circle?
That was certainly possible. But then ... In the vicinity ...
He sat up. He was still confused in his thumping head.
Dieter said matter-of-factly, “You probably wandered about and then at some point last night you collapsed from exhaustion. You’re freezing cold.”
“No,” said Tancred. “Yes, I’m cold but I can’t have been here. It wasn’t this forest. I was in a castle.
“Which castle?”
“A ruined castle. In the middle of the forest. Not here at all! In the moonlight!”
“A ruined castle?” said Dieter, baffled.
”What are you talking about? There’s no such thing around here.”
“Yes, there is, damn it!”
“You’ve had a nightmare.”
“Yes, I had some terrible nightmares, but that was only afterwards. To begin with, I walked and walked in the forest. Then I lost my bearings and wandered about. And then came to a moonlit path. And then it was all of a sudden a frightening castle. In the middle of a bewitched forest. By a small lake.”
“Are you telling the truth?” asked Dieter. He sounded very serious.
“Yes,” Tancred assured him emphatically. “And everything was death and decay. But there was light so I walked inside. And there sat the woman ...”
“A woman?” Dieter’s voice trembled slightly. He had a shifty, worried glance.
“A fantastic woman. She ...”
Tancred was silent. His whole body ached. What was it that had actually happened?
“I was served wine, and then I must have lost consciousness,” he said quietly.
Dieter was silent for a while.
“Are you often in the habit of ... fainting like this?”
“Me? No, certainly not!”
“Tancred ...” said Dieter, breathing deeply. “There’s no ruined castle here.”
“Yes, there is!”
“But there was one.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There’s a legend .... About Old Askinge.”
Tancred felt weak. “Old Askinge?”
“Yes, they built a castle about a hundred years ago. That’s where the Holzensterns now reside, after the Cross Family had owned it for many years. But the old castle ... a medieval castle ...”
“Yes?”
“Weather and wind corroded it and it was demolished. It disappeared several hundred years ago. It’s only referred to in legend.”
Tancred began to feel rather unwell ... for various reasons.
“What more does tradition say?”
Dieter had problems getting the words out. “That castle was bewitched just as you said about the forest. A witch used to live there, which was why the castle was deserted. A real, proper witch in the worst sense of the word resided there. She was beautiful as sin, and men were drawn to her. She made love with them ... and then abandoned them.”
Tancred pressed his lips together. His stomach was beginning to ache. Then he said slowly:
“What was her name? The witch, I mean?”
Dieter wrinkled his brow. “I’ve heard it. It was something along the lines of ... It sounded like Messalina. And she was said to be very sensuous and cruel like the Roman empress.”
Tancred nodded. “Salina. Yes, that was her name.”
There was silence in the forest.
“Dieter, take me home on the horse! I’m feeling somewhat under the weather.”
Without a word, they got on the horse and rode back to Ursula Horn’s estate.
When they arrived, Tancred got down from the horse and thanked Dieter.
“I hope I don’t meet Aunt Ursula because I won’t know what to say.”
“It was a dream, Tancred. It must have been,” Dieter said almost pleadingly.
Tancred bit his lip. “Yes, I suppose so.”But he was absolutely convinced of the opposite.
He tiptoed inside and managed to walk unseen into his room. There he tore off his wet clothes, washed himself in plenty of water and tumbled into bed. He dared not think and was afraid of becoming perplexed if he tried.
At some point during the morning, he heard a sharp voice from the courtyard say, “Say hello to my nephew, who is fast asleep, and take good care of him.”
Then he heard the creaking of wheels that disappeared.
‘Now I don’t have to go to Askinge and make superficial conversation with the Holzensterns’, he thought.
‘Or maybe I should? M
aybe I would then get to know more about Salina, the witch?’
He shuddered at the thought. No, he had better forget her. But ...
All of a sudden, he was wide awake.
Good heavens. Where had his thoughts been drifting to?
What was it Dieter had said? About the new Askinge, which the Holzensterns now owned after the Cross Family had lived there for many years.
Jessica Cross ...That was where Jessica had escaped from! The Holzensterns had offered their home to her after her parents had died of smallpox.
And Molly had fled with Jessica.
His little Molly.
His tiredness had vanished completely. He went down to the dining room and ate a solid meal from the leftovers from the party the evening before.
Then he rode out again. In the stable, he asked for directions to Askinge and was told that it was also situated at the fringes of the forest but so far away that it could not be seen from Aunt Ursula’s estate.
Something else was troubling him as he rode on this grey, cold day in March.
Dieter had said something more at the party.
“They’re trying to pair me with Stella. Only I’ve got other interests. If only they knew ...”
What if he was in love with Jessica? Or ...
Heaven forbid! Tancred’s own Molly?
Molly, whom he had almost forgotten for a while after that frightening adventure with Salina.
Now it felt warm and good to think about Molly. He had to find her and ask what it was all about and why they fled time after time.
Surely she was not interested in Dieter, a nonentity? If you really had to make comparisons, then Tancred had more to offer.
He did not notice that he had turned shamelessly subjective, which is often the case when you are hit by jealousy.
Tancred Paladin honestly believed that he was superior to such primitive impulses.
Chapter 3
Finding Askinge was easy. The estate was new – not as big as Aunt Ursula’s, but certainly impressive.
Tancred was cordially greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Holzenstern and their daughter Stella, who still looked like a wax doll in her yellow-white dress.
‘I must be very careful not to exaggerate my visits here’, he thought, concerned. ‘The mother seems intent on marrying away her daughter.’
Nemesis Page 3