The Adventure of Anna the Great

by Camille LaGuire

Chapter VI - The Villain’s Explanation

  I stowed Regis safely in a stall with a bucket of water which was, if not tepid, at least not cold from the pump. Hans, knowing the instructions by heart, had filled the bucket beforehand and left it to warm in the sun.

  I heard that the marquis was in the old moat and I ran to its edge to look. There were many people on the sunken green lawn, all well dressed ladies and gentlemen. They moved about constantly, talking, greeting one another, coming and going. I walked along the stone edge above them, trying to pick out the large shape of the Marquis von Furlenhaur. It was more difficult than I thought it would be. I suppose I had expected him to stand out, but everyone was standing out. They were all overdressed, particularly the gentlemen, many of whom were in fine dress uniforms of grey or green.

  I saw the marquis at last, in a corner with three ladies. He slouched politely in his chair as if to appear no bigger than they were. The four of them were watching the other people and one of the women was speaking to the marquis, who leaned far over so that she did not have to go to any effort to reach his ear.

  As I knelt to climb down several people came and stood below me. It occurred to me how all these formal looking people would stare if I bounded down in the midst of them and tore across the crowd. Their expressions would be a good deal like Aunt Elfie’s always was. I looked at the marquis, who was now leaning low in the other direction to another lady. Those ladies might be important. One of those ladies could even be the queen.

  The moat wall went nearly around to where the marquis was sitting. I crept along it until I was just looking down on his head. I cupped my hands around my mouth and leaned out.

  “Psst,” I said, very quietly.

  He did not hear me. I repeated the sound two or three times, but he was listening too closely to his companions. I began to wave and psst louder, and I wondered if I ought to risk creeping up to him quietly through the crowd. I might not attract attention if I was careful.

  Then a fourth woman approached, distracting him further from me. She was a very tall thin woman of about fifty, though she had a youthful and attractive face, which looked slightly familiar. She raised her pince-nez quickly and looked at me.

  “My dear Furlenhaur,” she said sharply, “there’s a small boy hissing at you from the top of the wall.”

  The marquis and his companions turned to look at me, then he bowed and excused himself.

  “Albert,” he said. He had been smiling lightly at the ladies, but now he looked serious. “What is it?”

  “I saw him!” I said.

  “Who? One of the kidnappers.”

  “The kidnapper. The leader. He’s here now.”

  “Where? Who is he?”

  “He brought his horse to the stable. They said he’s a nephew of Prince Hugo.”

  “Tybalt!”

  “That’s the name.”

  “I should have known.” His hand went to his chin and he looked down thoughtfully. “This could be trouble, Albert. We’ll be dealing with Hugo here, not just a kidnapper. Did Tybalt see you?”

  “Yes, sir. I took his horse.”

  “And he recognized you?”

  “I’m certain he did, but he didn’t seem to care.”

  “Over-confident as usual. Probably counts on his uncle for protection.” One corner of his mouth went up in a sly smile. “That could be an advantage. There is a limit to how far Hugo will go for the sake of family reputation. If we go to him with absolute certainty...no doubts.” He raised an eyebrow at me.

  “There’s no doubt,” I said. “It’s him. He recognized me too. Look, there he is.”

  The marquis turned. Tybalt was strolling across the lawn, whistling, behind an older man who looked as if the whistling hurt his ears. They approached the ladies which the marquis had just left.

  “All right, Albert,” said the marquis. “Well done. I’ll take care of it from here.”

  He straightened up and went to them. The group had drifted farther away, and I skittered along the wall to get as close as possible. The marquis was bowing to the older man and as I got closer I heard him say, “your Highness.”

  So that was Prince Hugo. He looked terribly old, much older than the three score and some years he was supposed to be. He had a magnificent white beard, neatly trimmed to flow out across his chest and come to a point at the end, like a lion’s mane. The face above it, however, made it a toothless lion. It was a sagging, unhealthy face, and his coloring was not right. In spite of the overall limpness, though, there was a tightness around the mouth and eyes that gave it energy.

  When the greetings were over, the prince turned away to speak with the tall woman, and the marquis drew Tybalt aside.

  “Oh, hello, Furlenhaur,” said Tybalt brightly. “How is the state of Her Majesty’s affairs, hm?”

  “Stenbau, what has happened to your hand?” said the marquis with reserve.

  Tybalt raised his bandaged right hand. “This one? I’m afraid it got bit by a very small rat,” he said, glancing up at me. Here the tall woman broke in loudly, without even looking away from her conversation with the prince.

  “If you spent less time in gutters, you wouldn’t be bothered by rats. Small or otherwise.”

  “But mother,” Tybalt protested, not looking up either. “Then I would see less of you.”

  “Better yet,” she replied.

  The marquis looked slightly disconcerted. He took a breath and set his jaw.

  “Stenbau,” he said directly. “I demand that you produce that woman at once. She had better not be harmed.”

  Tybalt looked blank. “Which woman is this?”

  “It’s no use pretending. We have witnesses to what you did last night.”

  “Oh, that woman. Last night.”

  “What’s this?” said Hugo, turning around. “What has he been doing? What have you been doing?”

  “Your nephew was involved in a violent abduction last night.”

  “Abduction? Abduction?”

  “It’s nothing, Uncle,” said Tybalt.

  “You do this on purpose,” said Hugo.

  “Of course he does it on purpose,” said the tall woman. “How else do you abduct people?”

  “You try to make difficulties for me,” continued Hugo.

  “And I succeed,” said Tybalt. “But really, uncle, it’s not so bad. There are more pressing threats to the family than this. Honestly.”

  They looked at one another, and Hugo frowned a little, as if he had just remembered something.

  “Scandalous,” he announced to the marquis. “Simply scandalous. We’ll have to do something about this.”

  The marquis then began talking to the both of them in low tones. I cold not quite hear what he was saying. I leaned out as far as I could, cupping my hands behind my ears.

  “Albert!”

  The harsh call from behind surprised me and I toppled forward. Something grabbed me by the collar, and hair, and yanked me back on my heels. It was Bloch.

  “You’re hired to do a full half day’s work,” he said. “You’ve only done three quarters of a half day’s work.”

  “I had a message to give to the marquis,” I said.

  “Oh? The first time I’ve ever seen a message given with ears.” He shoved me toward the stable. “Get going.”

  “Certainly, sir,” I said. “I was just going to.”

  I finished up my work by giving several of the horses a rubdown, as I should have, for Regis at least, in the first place. I worked over my time and I earned a pfennig, plus a few more in tips. I was beginning to think I might do pretty well for myself.

  Regis, I discovered, had no end to bad habits. He was most particularly a stall crowder. Time and time again he edged his big body over to crush me against the wall. I soon learned that this was a game, and that my part was to yell and wave my arms. He would then jump to the other side of the stall and roll his eyes.
More than this, however, he loved the curry comb. The horse lived for a vigorous rub to the underside of his neck or the center of his back. It made him my slave. Until I stopped and went on to something else, and then he would start his crowding trick again.

  “Your master won’t be coming back to you,” I said to him while brushing his face. I was sitting on the manger and he nibbled at my knees. I had to watch out or he would sneak in a bite. “At least I think he won’t. Unless Hugo can get him out of this, which I don’t think he can. So you’ll be left in your stall, poor horse, and I’ll be left without an adventure.”

  I sighed. It was hard to believe that it was already over. I supposed wickedness must meet its reward, but did it have to meet it so quickly? My whole adventure had lasted less than twenty-four hours. Then I felt guilty as I remembered the poor woman suffering through all this.

  I slipped out of the stall when I was finished and bumped into Hans. He had changed his livery for a well worn jacket and a patched pair of pants.

  “I’m going home now,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning. Uncle Wil’s already gone home. At night you work for Philip.”

  “Who’s Philip?”

  Hans nodded his head down the corridor to a short young man in his late thirties. Philip had a broad build, though he was lean. His hair was black and his quick moving eyes were yellow brown. He leaned against a stall post and looked at us with a sly grin.

  “By day I’m an ordinary groom,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “But at night I awaken like a vampire to become . . . a head stableman!”

  “A vampire stableman.”

  “That’s right,” said Hans. “Well, I’ve got to go. Goodbye.”

  Hans left and Philip regarded me with amused curiosity.

  “So you’re Albert,” he said. His mouth was crooked, as if in perpetual indecision about whether to break into a full grin or not. “Tell me, what have you done to Wilhelm Bloch?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “He’s taken a dislike to you.”

  “I know. But I haven’t done anything except be myself.” Sort of.

  “Ah, well, that’s the ultimate sin, ain’t it?” He swung around slowly, reaching out an arm to pull me along. “Come on, kid. I’ll show you to your grub.”

  Grub was not the word for the fine meal the cook had prepared for us. Philip had a rather large apartment, considering it was in a stable, above the north wing. It was there that we four live-in stableboys, along with Philip, ate our dinner. The cook had sent up soup, a potted chicken, hot potatoes, and bread, as well as some left over teacakes and cold salmon. The cook thought she was going to fatten me up, but I ate everything I could, and still wanted more. If anything I was going to lose weight.

  I was very tired, but when I went to bed I found that my mind was more excited than ever. I laid in my bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, and listening to the wonderful sounds of snorting and hoofstamps. Dozens of horses, dozens and dozens, and though a lot of them were ill mannered, all of them were wonderful. It was perfect, and I did not really care if my first adventure was over, this was an adventure in itself.

  The dew was heavy on the grass and there was a sparkly sheen across the park in the sunrise. Jupiter and I trotted steadily in a large figure eight. The grass was still slippery and I could not go out on the cross-country trails, but there was a well beaten area of dirt on which I gave Jupiter a good workout. I slowed him to a walk and let the reins go loose. It would soon be feeding time and people were getting up. I turned Jupiter toward the palace to make a tour of the grounds while we were still alone.

  I ran my hand along the back wall of the building. I had not realized how textural it was. The old part was rough hewn with deep wedges of rock, and the new part covered with finely, and deeply, carved moldings. Some of the windows had no draperies and I looked in, but it was too dark yet to see anything.

  As I came to the last window along the back side, and intently looked into that one too, I heard voices from around the corner.

  “Good God, Mother, no,” the voice rang out with a laugh. I sat up from the window so suddenly I startled Jupiter. It was Tybalt’s voice.

  I rode around to the edge to look. Tybalt was strolling along the wall with the tall woman I had seen the day before leaning on his arm. She had a cross look on her face.

  “I suppose she is ravishingly beautiful,” she said petulantly. “In a common sort of way.”

  “Who are you talking about, Mother?” said Tybalt.

  “That tramp you’re so enamoured of.”

  “You are the only tramp I love, Mother. Or were you referring to Claire?”

  I could see no sign of anyone else on the ground, no guard, no one watching. They were completely alone and Tybalt was apparently free to do what he wished.

  “No, no,” the old viscountess was saying. “I’m talking about that other dreadful woman.”

  “How do you know she is dreadful?”

  “Of course she is. You have no taste. How else would she be?”

  “You can see for yourself. I’ll bring her to you.”

  “You will not! I won’t see her.”

  “Suit yourself. Ah, look Mother, there’s Alfred. Hullo Alfred!” he called, waving at me.

  “Albert!” I called back. His mother was struggling with her eye glasses and at last she raised them to stare at me.

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s that creature that hisses at people from walls. I don’t like things that hiss. Send him away.”

  “Good bye, Alvin,” call Tybalt and he turned to hiss in her ear as they strolled on to a door and into the palace.

  I found myself half smiling and half frowning. What was he doing loose? It must have been Hugo’s doing, or some threat to the poor woman. I felt a slight foreboding, and also a twinge of excitement. If he was free then there must be more yet to happen.

  Jupiter shook his mane impatiently and pulled toward the stable. It was time for his breakfast. Reluctantly I let him go, and turned my attention back to work.

  It was a very busy morning, but once I got into the rhythm of if all, the work moved quickly. Hans and I worked together very well, so well that, even though Bloch seemed to spend most of his time supervising our part of the stable, he could find very little to gripe about. Eventually he left us alone.

  By late morning I was working in Sea Sprite’s stall. I liked Sea Sprite, even though he was a downright vicious stallion. Where Regis made a game of biting people, Sea Sprite made a profession of it. He disliked people, and was not about to put up with any nonsense from them. I liked his attitude, and I got along fine with him. I minded my own business, and let him mind his.

  He was a handsome horse, with a really fine vivid red coat, black legs with white socks, and a white snip on his nose. He was a perfect example of a Lifbauan Blood Bay, our unofficial national breed, excepting that the Bays were supposed to be remarkably good natured.

  I was brushing that fine coat, as we regarded each other suspiciously from the corners of our eyes. Philip came up and looked in on me.

  “Hello, Albert,” he said. Sea Sprite put back his ears and bit the door in warning that two people in his stall would be beyond enduring. “Hello, Sprite. How are the teeth? They want you up at the palace.”

  “Me? Or Sea Sprite?”

  “They don’t want him.”

  “Have I done something wrong?”

  “They sent an armed guard for you.” Philip shrugged and looked back into the corridor. There was a soldier behind him, one of those who had been there the night of the kidnapping.

  As we walked back to the palace I asked the soldier what had happened.

  “They’ve found the woman,” he said.

  He led me up the back stairs of the palace, not to the little room above the guard house, but to a large, more elegant hall. He stopped at a door and went in. Then he came out and sent me in.

>   The room had a high ceiling, very high, which was blue and had little swallows painted on it, as if it were the sky. My eyes followed the moldings down, past the rich draperies to the floor. It was not a big room in any dimension but up, and it was crowded with overstuffed furniture, and people. There was the marquis, and Colonel Bartleby, plus Prince Hugo, Tybalt, and another woman and man whom I did not know, and at the center of them all was a woman with her back to me. She was wearing a blue travelling dress, decorated with black lace. Tybalt nudged her sharply as soon as I came in, jerking his head in my direction. She turned quickly and smiled at me, nodding her head in greeting. I bowed.

  “Hello, madame,” I said.

  “Well, Albert?” said the marquis. “Is this the woman you saw at the inn?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, but I had to look at her again. She looked quite the same as she had that night, but the stress was gone from her face and she looked younger. She did not look as romantic or exciting without the worry, and that was what I most remembered about her. She looked rather bland in the light of day.

  “Are you sure?” asked Bartleby, who must have caught my hesitation.

  “Of course he’s sure,” cut in Tybalt. “The woman herself told you so. Even I admit I kidnapped her. What is the fuss?”

  “I’m quite sure,” I said, looking again at the woman and nodding. I could see no difference except attitude. Tybalt grinned so quickly that I looked again to be sure. The marquis frowned.

  “So you see, Furlenhaur,” said Hugo. “It is all a simple misunderstanding.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t understand,” said the marquis.

  Bartleby turned to the woman. “This man assaulted you in public, and you make no complaint against him?” The woman shook her head as if tired of answering questions. “Why not?”

  The woman looked surprised, and confused, and she looked at Tybalt, who broke in impatiently, stepping between her and the colonel.

  “Really, Bartleby,” he said. “Can’t you see? This was neither an assault nor an abduction. It was merely a lover’s quarrel. You know how it is. I was jealous, and...a little drunk. I thought she’d left me for another man. I chased her all the way up from Halzig, and waited where I thought they were meeting. Foolish, I admit, for now she really has left me. Darling....” He turned around and shook his head sadly at her. She was not paying attention. I saw him reach over and give her a quick pinch on the arm. I do not think anyone else saw it. She glanced up at him, startled, then dramatically turned up her nose and looked away with an elaborate sigh. The gesture looked as if it had been plucked directly from the stage, and Tybalt looked cross at her. “You see, she’s not even speaking to me.”

  She was acting. I realized that could be what was wrong, why I was not sure of her. I wondered if they had threatened her to force her cooperation. I think the marquis suspected the same thing, because he stepped between Tybalt and the woman.

  “Is this true?” he said gently. The woman nodded. I could not see any sign of fear in her, just a sort of tired indifference. She almost looked bored. The marquis looked closely into her eyes and studied her face. She pulled back with slight embarrassment.

  “Honestly, sir, it’s exactly as he said. You don’t need to examine me so closely.”

  Tybalt had reached around to poke her and give her a warning look, but it was too late. I had heard. The woman’s voice was thin, high pitched and weak. It was not at all the voice I had heard that night, nor the morning before it. It was not the same woman. The hair and the dress were the same, and the face had a remarkable resemblance, though I now saw that this woman was much younger. The voice, however, was completely different. That other woman’s voice I would never forget. It was strong and rich and beautiful. This woman’s voice was irritating in its contrast to it.

  “What he did to me was very nasty, but I’ll forgive him,” she chattered on, “if only to be rid of him. After all, His Highness is making it up to me, and I can use the money. . . .”

  Tybalt was no longer listening to her. He was staring at me. His smile was gone and his look was thoughtful, and threatening. He must have seen my surprise.

  “Well, I guess that’s that,” said the marquis, his back to me.

  “That had better be that,” said Bartleby.

  “I’ll see to it,” said Prince Hugo. “There’ll be no more of this sort of thing.”

  “Well, I suppose there is no longer any reason for you to stay,” the marquis said to the woman. “Thank you, madame. You may go.”

  “Sir...,” I started to say. Tybalt was across the room in a blink. He gripped my shoulder so tightly it hurt.

  “We must thank you too, Albert,” said Tybalt, giving my shoulder a painful squeeze and pushing me toward the door, “for going to the trouble to come and identify this lady.”

  “Albert is a very helpful boy,” said the woman. “I want to thank you again for helping me with my bags, and trying to rescue me, of course. So gallant of you.”

  “Well, you must get back to work now,” said Tybalt. “Wouldn’t want to upset Wilhelm Bloch.”

  The two of them nearly had me out the door. Then Bartleby stepped up. “I’m going that way myself,” he said. “I’ll go with him.”

  The colonel took hold of my arm. For a moment he and Tybalt looked at one another and I thought they might try to pull me in two. Then Tybalt smiled pleasantly and let go.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Once we were out in the hall the colonel glanced around to see that we were alone. He bent down eagerly.

  “Well?” he said.

  “What, sir?”

  “What made you change your mind? Tybalt and I both saw it. Your face changed in an instant. Now tell me, what did you see?”

  “It was what I heard,” I said. “That wasn’t the woman. That wasn’t her voice.”

  “You swore it was her.”

  “It looks like her, and they dressed her up the same. But it wasn’t her. The voice was not at all the same.”

  “The voice, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought so,” he said, slapping his leg. “I thought so. Well, let’s go to my office and wait for Johan.”