by Nina Clare
‘But it’s not like ordinary air. Can you feel it?’
He looked around thoughtfully, then turned back to his book and sketched again, this time his pencil flew over the white pressed paper, and yet he was hardly looking down at his work, he was looking out at the ruins before them. In a few minutes he was done, and he held out the sketchbook for her to see.
‘Yes!’ she said, taking hold of the book. He had drawn a castle, in medieval style, complete with fluttering pennants and a knight in armour tramping over a drawbridge. A robed figure stood in the castle courtyard with staff upraised and swirls of stars about him.
‘Gundelfinger,’ she said. ‘The great magician.’
In Herr Haller’s picture there was a moat, fed by a waterfall that coursed down the rocks behind the castle. In the moat sailed three pairs of swans with golden crowns about their necks.
‘This is how it was,’ she said. The depiction Herr Haller had created resonated with what she felt around her.
‘Do you think the magic of Gundelfinger lingers?’ Herr Haller said with a smile; he held out his hand for his book.
‘Why not?’ Her hand sought out her swan pendant. Touching it made her feel less strange, so she kept hold of it. ‘It’s rather charming and romantic to think of the past still lingering in the present.”
‘I wouldn’t use the words charming and romantic where Gundelfinger is concerned,’ Herr Haller said. ‘Fearsome and powerful perhaps. He had a dragon at his command and was the only mortal who once passed in and out of Faerie without losing his wits. He was said to have stolen the royal cup from the Swan Knight, he thought that to drink from it every day would give him immortality, but stealing from the Faerie prince only brought trouble to the land, and led to his downfall. If only he had given the cup back, but in his wrath, he hid it instead.’
He put his drawing materials away and swung his bag over his shoulder. ‘I’d better get some sketches done for Herr Weimann,’ he said, and bounded away, seeming energised by the strange air. Elisabeth sat upon a rock, still needing a little more rest after the hard climb.
‘At last I’ve found you alone,’ a warm voice said behind her. She did not turn her head, but her breath caught in her chest for a moment.
‘I have not had a chance to speak to you all day.’
‘You said good morning,’ she replied, keeping her voice cool.
‘Why so unfriendly?’ He had the cheek to look hurt as he sat down beside her.
‘I think you took advantage of me last night,’ she said primly. ‘A gentleman would not have taken the liberty you did.’
‘I am sorry if you think it was a liberty, Elsa. I thought it was something that simply happened between us. Something magical.’ He smiled.
‘I drank too much champagne. That is what happened. I lost my head. I have no interest in becoming another of your paramours.’
‘My paramours? He almost laughed, but stopped himself.
‘I have been warned of your reputation.’
He pressed against her arm by leaning closer. ‘You couldn’t possibly be just anyone’s paramour, Elsa. You’re too special for that.’
She looked up at him, examining his eyes for a moment, searching for evidence that he spoke the truth. It was always a dangerous thing to allow herself to look into those eyes. He took hold of her hand and she did not pull away. This pleased him and he smiled, bending his head towards her as though to kiss her.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said, jumping up from her rocky seat. ‘I’ve a clear head now, so there’s no excuse.’
He laughed, standing up and holding out an arm, as a gentleman to a lady. ‘Let me show you the castle ruins before the workmen arrive to receive their orders from the king. I promise I will make no attempt to cloud your clear head. For now.’
Chapter 24
New Power
The sound of dynamite blasts resounded like muffled thunder through the valley. It did not take long before a wide road had been cleared to the new castle. Even Herr Weimann had no excuse now not to accompany the king by carriage.
Herr Haller was given a desk in the study, where he spent long hours working on plans, directed by Herr Weimann’s orders.
One restless, sultry night Elisabeth crept through the sleeping castle, down to the kitchens to refill her water jug. She’d heard the clock in the hall strike midnight, yet the light in the study was still shining beneath the door. She wondered if the servants had left a lamp on and opened the door to check. Someone was hunched over the desk, a dark head bowed upon their arms.
‘Herr Haller,’ she whispered. ‘Is that you?’ There was a soft sound of deep breathing in reply. She crept in and stood looking down at the sleeping Herr Haller, debating whether or not to wake him. He looked crumpled up and uncomfortable with his neck twisted to one side. Beneath him lay a thick pile of papers covered in drawings and notes. She bent to look a little closer. He was drawing designs for furniture and friezes, murals and lighting for the new castle. His notebook, the one he carried everywhere, lay precariously at the corner of the desk, ready to fall at the smallest nudge. She picked it up to make it more secure, as she did so a loose sheet fluttered down. She was startled to see what was on it, and lifted her lamp to better look.
It was the drawing of a young woman. She stood beside a lake, watching a white swan. Her hair was loose, falling down her back, and lifted slightly by a breeze. The profile of her face showed a look of care as though something troubled her. She looked vulnerable, lonely, and Elisabeth suddenly felt very exposed.
The deep breathing ceased and a sleepy voice said, ‘What are you doing?’
She jumped away, dropping the drawing on the desk as though it burnt her fingers.
‘I saw a light on. I was just checking—’ she did not finish her sentence; she was too embarrassed at being seen in her dressing gown, with her hair mussed up. ‘I was going to wake you,’ she murmured, moving away. ‘You looked uncomfortable.’ She darted across the room. ‘You should get to bed, Herr Haller.’
She was out of the study, and halfway up the stairs before she remembered she had forgotten the water she came for. She turned around and headed back.
It seemed the whole castle was awake that night, for on reaching the kitchen she found the cook with his voluminous apron tied over his night shirt, cutting furiously at a slab of goat’s cheese, then ripping apart a loaf of bread.
They eyed each other across the kitchen table.
‘Hungry?’ she enquired, as he slapped pickled salad onto the bread.
‘At this time of night?’ he growled back. ‘His Majesty requires a basket made up. Midnight picnics indeed!’
She took her water and retreated. It was quicker to reach the guest wing via the servants’ stairs. Coming down the stairs towards her was another figure.
‘Elsa!’
‘Paul,’ she mumbled. Being half dressed and unkempt was bad enough in front of a sleepy Herr Haller, but in front of the prince!
‘Why are you up at this hour?’ he asked. He seemed flustered. He was tucking in his shirt as though he had dressed in a hurry.
‘Why are you?’ she retorted.
‘The king has sent word. I am to prepare his horse.’
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No. He simply wishes to ride out. He is fond of moonlight.’ There was no corresponding smile. Paul seemed as put out as the cook.
‘Well, good night,’ she said, hurrying past him up the stairs. ‘Enjoy the moonlight. And sandwiches.’
It was only when she reached her guest room and sat on the bed that it struck her as odd that Paul should have been hurrying down the servants’ staircase, when his own apartment was adjacent to the king’s, on the other side of the castle.
‘Can you shed light on how the new castle was built so quickly, Fräulein Opel? Unimaginably quickly, according to the reports.’
‘If I did, you would not believe me.’
‘You are being obtuse again.’
> ‘It was a magical castle. It was built, in part, by magic.’
‘I think you mean that great and new technological advances were made that enabled the construction to be completed so quickly. It is of great interest to many people to learn such secrets.’
‘I know nothing of great and new technological advances. I only know that I saw the stones being carried up the hill and by the next morning they were in place.’
‘There must have been some new kind of machinery?’
‘There were horses and carts. Scaffolding. Hammers and chisels.’
‘You seem determined to wear thin our patience, Fräulein. It would serve you better to be candid.’
‘I speak of what I have seen. I can do no more.’
‘Why do you only hire peasants?’
Herr Weimann was dressed all in green, looking like a hillock of spring grass with green-dyed feathers in his cap as he surveyed the site of the new build.
‘You should send for the best workmen that the kingdom can offer. Men trained at the academies in stone dressing and carving. What can these rustics know of such things? Have they ever seen great works of art? Have they studied under the masters? How then can they produce them?’
‘No one may take stone from these mountains and build from it save those who love it,’ answered the king. He stood towering over Herr Weimann, his pale skin the colour of the dressed stones, his eyes the colour of the lake that glittered below. He looked as a true king of the mountains while Herr Weimann was as an artificial tree beside him.
There was a remarkable atmosphere at the site. Elisabeth was both fascinated and fearful of it. It was exciting, as though full of boundless possibilities, but it was also weighty, as though it must be treated with respect.
Paul seemed uneasy, his usual smiling presence dimmed, but Herr Haller bounded about, sketchbook in hand, invigorated by the power that thrummed through the place. She knew Herr Haller still stayed up working late, for she often heard the creak of his step as he passed her room to his own at the other end of the guest wing. He still looked wearied and spent, but once he reached the site of the new castle he was renewed, refilled with energy, she saw it in his face, as though he emptied himself out like a vessel each night to be replenished to the brim the next day.
The energy that hummed through the site poured through the workmen from the mountains; they sang in deep harmonies as they laboured as with one mind. Their songs sounded nonsensical to Elisabeth, sung in an old, mountain tongue that was unfamiliar to her. But as their music swirled about her, words formed in her mind, as they did when she listened to animals, and she found herself humming along.
Awake, awake, the time has come
The king must return to his land
Build a bridge, build a bridge
Let him cross over
The king will return to his crown
The words were from the songs of the old legends—The Swan Knight who came into the world from Faerie and once sang within the enchanted walls of the great wizard’s castle. Down on the lake below he was said to have sailed away back to Faerie, but the wizard of the castle had stolen something from him. Something precious, that the Faerie prince would return for one day.
The horn, the horn, it calls him home,
The king must return to his land
Build a door, build a door
Let him now enter
The king will return to his throne
Birdsong trilled in harmony with the folksong; if she listened hard, remaining very still and very quiet she could hear it as a chorus, weaving between the workmen’s song: mountain sleeping, mountain waking, mountain stirring, he is coming, waking, waking, waking…
‘Your Majesty, I really must insist on calling for the best stonemasons and woodcarvers of the city. These little mountain men are all very good for heaving up bricks and planks, but for true art, for the beautiful carvings the Muse has designed, we must have men who have studied, who are highly trained, who are famed for their skill. There cannot be any such man among these dwarvish rustics.’
‘I know of just such a man,’ said the king. ‘I have heard of him from the villagers. He is the nephew of the village midwife who birthed me, and is said to be unrivalled in artistic carving. I will send for him.’
Elisabeth felt that strange things were unfolding around them in those days. Sometimes it felt overpowering, and she wished she could have an ordinary life, but other times she felt herself yielding to the new, yet ancient, power that gained strength every day in the mountain, and the villages about it. Each brick, each block of stone that was laid strengthened the power that flowed through the site, spilling down the mountain paths below, seeping into the ground beneath, flowing into the lake. There was the feeling of awakening, of something rising up, something coming.
Herr Weimann only dressed in red now for he said the Muse was scarlet with shame and anger at the crude and crass hands carrying out the vision she had bestowed. His powers had dried up, he declared. He must return to his house in München. The silence of Swanstein was deafening. He could not hear the voice of the Muse, and the coarse food and rustic beer was dulling his artist’s soul. If the king would not send for a replenishment of champagne from the city, then Herr Weimann must leave until the wine cellar was restocked.
And he was all out of Persian Otto.
Back to the city went Herr Weimann to renew his inspiration. In the meantime, his apprentice would oversee the work on his behalf. Black bread and beer were good enough for him.
Chapter 25
Warnings of War
‘Another telegram, sir.’
Paul added the missive to the pile of unopened letters on the desk.
‘Shall I read you the contents, sir? It’s marked urgent.’
‘Nothing in this wretched world of men is urgent,’ said the king, not looking up from the drawings he was examining on Herr Haller’s desk. ‘Their schemes and grasping for power go round and round, and all that is urgent today is forgotten the next. I shall not get caught up in their petty machinations and dramas. Only beauty lasts forever,’ he murmured, touching the designs of his new castle interiors. ‘It is the only truth.’
The prince looked troubled. He picked the telegram back up, turning it around in his fingers as though trying to decide what to do.
‘Read it if you must,’ the king conceded. ‘But not aloud. I won’t have my morning clouded over with government business. It can wait till later.’
The troubled look on the prince’s face only deepened as he scanned the telegram.
‘I shall ride into the villages to see how the weaving and embroidery work is advancing,’ said the king. ‘Has the order of gold thread arrived?’
‘Not yet, sir,’ replied Paul distractedly.
‘Why not? Write to them. Tell them to hurry it along. I shall be in my new suite by winter. The fabrics must be ready by then. What about the slate tiles?’
‘They are not yet arrived, sir.’
The king frowned with annoyance.
‘I can stay and write to the suppliers this morning, sir,’ the prince offered, ‘while you are at the site.’
‘Do so. The Little Prince shall wait upon me.’
The “Little Prince” was the king’s name for Herr Haller, who had grown in the king’s estimation since Herr Weimann had left, for it was Herr Haller who sketched out the king’s ideas as they came to his imagination, and they came in abundance.
The king swept out of the room with Herr Haller following, folders full of drawings in his arms.
Elisabeth still felt the same fluttering sensation whenever she chanced to be alone with Paul, a mixture of danger and pleasure. But there seemed no need to worry about his attentions that morning, for they were far from her.
He paced up and down between the window and the desk, pausing to look outside as though he could find the answer to what troubled him riding up the drive.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked. He did not reply.
He was too engrossed in thought. She asked again, a little louder.
He turned his fair head, his eyes focussing not quite upon her, but in her direction.
‘Have you ever had to abandon someone you had always intended to be loyal to?’ he asked in a grave tone. There was a pause. She did not know what to answer. But he didn’t seem to expect one. ‘Of course you haven’t,’ he murmured. ‘How could one so young know of such things as abandonment and the torments of a divided heart?’
‘I think no one escapes suffering,’ she said. ‘No matter their age.’ She wondered who his heart was divided between. An image of him hurrying from the servants’ wing in the middle of the night came to her mind. Was his heart divided between her and someone else? Was his heart hers at all?
‘But what if you are the person causing the suffering? Or appearing to. What if you are about to cause suffering to the few that you may deter it from the many?’ he said, still not quite focussing on her.
‘If you care to explain the situation, then I might be able to answer.’
He gave a little shake of his head. His usual smile replaced his serious look, though the smile did not quite reach his eyes.
‘I would not sully your innocent heart, my sweet Elsa.’
She frowned.
‘Forgive me. I think of you as my sweet Elsa, and sometimes the words spill out.’
‘Well kindly restrain them from spilling, sir.’
He laughed, looking like himself again.
‘How I love that little spark of yours. It’s almost worth vexing you on purpose to see it.’
She was about to leave the room, feeling confused by his changeable behaviour, but he drew near, and suddenly she was enveloped by the scent of bergamot and lemon.
‘Dearest Elsa,’ he murmured. ‘Is not affection the only balm to us in this sordid world? I am sorely in need of it at this time.’