by Andre Norton
A hand tightened about my own arm. The Colonel drew me from the foot of that throne bed, urged me around the side, bringing me as close to my grandfather as the width of the bed would allow. I was facing still that living eye, for with the same slow force as had brought up his hand, so did he shift his head on the pillows so he might watch my advance.
His lips moved, arching apart a fraction on the living side of his face. His struggle to speak was manifest. But there came no sound. If that was a signal, the Colonel moved. He loosed his hold on me, laid on the bed a tablet of paper and placed carefully between the fingers of the up-raised hand a pen.
The hand jerked into position, and the pen moved, leaving behind a broken scrawl which ran crookedly. Once the hand had come to a rest the Colonel whipped away the tablet, tore free the upper page, and set the pad in place again. The page he held out to me, while that fiercely demanding eye blinked, releasing me from its imprisoning stare.
I could make out the words I discovered, distorted as the writing was. It was in English—perhaps he believed I could not understand any other language.
“Lydia—” I was not aware that I was reading the scrawl aloud. “Always—Lydia—no one else—oath I gave held me here—but always Lydia—”
I thought of the paper I had found about the necklace I now wore—of that name repeated on it with such force as to near penetrate the surface on which it had been written. I did not think that this was a lie. To my surprise I felt a smarting in my eyes, the rise of emotion.
Perhaps a cynic might say that what Elector Joachim now felt was different from his emotions during his days of rule, that he had accepted his “duty” then philosophically and without fighting custom. A cynic could believe this, yes. But I, watching the effort which had written those words, meeting the stare of that one eye, had to believe.
He was writing again with the same painful effort. The Colonel took up the second sheet and passed it to me.
“What of son—my true son?”
I answered his question. “My father was killed, fighting for his country.”
The eye closed, once more the lips strove to work, to shape some word. Never did the stubborn determination leave that ruined face. He looked up at me again and I felt as if I were being weighed, measured. Then he wrote:
“Well done. You—Lydia—like Lydia—” The pen fell from his fingers and the Colonel quickly bent to set it back again. But he did not add to what he had written, not yet—instead he held that measuring look upon me, studying my face with such intensity that I felt as if my very mind was open to his reading, that he knew my every thought, good or bad, kind or petty. It was such an examination as I had never undergone before, nor would I have believed until that moment that a single eye could convey such meaning.
Perhaps because he was near to the end of existence there was given him at that moment some power of unspoken communication no one of us who was not bound by his fate could understand. Never afterward could I say how long I stood there, held by his survey of me. But I believed that I also learned something of which I was ever after sure. For all the circumstances, for all the anger I had felt for him, my grandfather had truly been worthy of the woman he had seemed to desert and repudiate. I would never know the barriers intrigue and duty had raised between them, but they were well matched in courage, in strength and—in love. Not perhaps what that word means to most—no, this was an emotion which had been deeper, stronger, little of the body perhaps, but much of the mind and spirit.
For the third time he wrote and the message was passed to me, it was longer this time and he had to pause several times. There were beads of moisture on his forehead, the sense of concentration which radiated from him impressed me as much as had his gaze. He was forcing his body to obey his will in a passion of need.
“My blood—Lydia's. I had to know. Safe—make you safe—will make sure—safe—wait for plan—he will help—do not trust—”
The pen fell, he had sunk back in his cushions, that speaking eye closed. As the Colonel removed paper and pen I dared to move, leaning over the edge of the bed, I reached out and took that now lax hand into both of mine, wishing that clasp to make him understand that I knew the truth of what he had tried to tell me.
His flesh was cold, but the fingers did not remain flaccid, instead they tightened in mine with determination. Moved by an emotion I did not try to understand, I raised his hand to my lips and kissed it.
His eye opened, his lips writhed in a last attempt to speak. I read the frustration, the horror of his own helplessness.
“Grandfather,” I said softly. “I know—”
How I wished at that moment we had a day, a week, or perhaps even an hour— This was not the Elector lying here, it was Joachim von Harrach who had once found another life, perhaps far more peaceful and happy, in another land and another time.
“See,” I pointed to the necklace I wore. “She gave it to me—wanted me to know— In the end—now—she understands—everything.”
It was not my imagination, I felt his grip tighten even more in mine. Once more his gaze was demanding. He needed something and I thought I knew what it was.
“She told me to come,” I said slowly and distinctly. “She wanted this—for us to meet.”
His head moved a fraction in what could only be a nod. Then he turned a little away from me to look at the man by my side. The gaze he directed on the Colonel was a speaking one, even as had been that between us earlier, though what message he would convey by it I could not guess.
There was a sudden sound from the door. My grandfather's hand turned in mine, sought freedom. I laid it down on his breast. The Colonel's grip fell on my shoulder and he drew me back from the bed.
“Come!” His voice was a whisper. He drew me on toward a tall screen at the other side of the room. I was pushed behind this with little ceremony just as the outer door opened with some force.
A gray-haired man, wearing a coat which was not the usual servant's livery but which bore a crest on the shoulder, and a loop of gold cord bearing a medallion resting on his chest, slipped inside and glanced about the room. It seemed to me that he sent an extra searching glance in the direction of the screen and I was certain that he gave the slightest of nods before he turned back toward the door.
He crossed quickly then to the side of my grandfather's bed and took up the Elector's hand, setting his fingers to the pulse at the wrist with a professional ease, while the Elector turned his head back to face the door itself. There had been a perfunctory scratching there and now it opened with some force.
A lackey stood nimbly aside when there swept into the room, irritation expressed in her moon-round face, in the flurry of her veil and the swing of her ground-length gray skirt, a woman who carried herself with all the arrogance of one who has had to defer to very few during a long and well-provisioned life. She looked about now, not even giving a glance to the sick man, and demanded in a strident voice:
“Where is Krantz, where is Sister Katherine? And where is Luc? They were not to leave His Highness for any reason!”
I felt the pressure of the Colonel's hand which he had not lifted from my shoulder even after we had gained this place of temporary concealment. However, I did not need that warning, for such I was sure he was attempting to convey. My heart was beating fast, but not with any fear, just excitement. That this was my half-aunt, the Abbess Adelaide, I had already guessed.
“Your Reverence.” The man at the bed placed the Elector's hand on the furred coverlet. He bowed with deference, but his jaw had a stubborn cast. “His Highness is not to be so disturbed for any reason. He himself issued orders that he wished to be alone—”
“He issued orders? How? Since the good God has seen fit to strike silent his tongue. And one can read anything in the scrawls which someone can urge him into writing! I demand—”
Her voice arose steadily, it was an unpleasant rasping voice and I conjectured that in the past she had often gotten her own way by a jud
icious use of it. Perhaps it was an inheritance from her mother, that much disliked Electress of uncertain temper and overwhelming arrogance.
For the first time there was a sound from the bed. Though he had struggled to speak to me, he had not uttered this croak which he now brought by some effort from his throat. The Abbess was silenced, she stared in amazement, then something which might have been a shadow of fear crossed her face. He mouthed that sound again, his hand was up—his finger pointed to the door behind her.
There issued a silent battle of wills, for the Elector did not try to speak again. However, it was manifest that he was in full control of his mind, if not his body, and that he was giving an order now—one which he determined she would obey. Perhaps she wished in turn to prove that she was at least able to stand up to him, for she did not move to withdraw. Then the man spoke sharply:
“Your Reverence, it is not well to excite His Highness. Your presence here is obviously not beneficial to him.”
Her mouth opened as if she would shout him into oblivion, then slowly closed again. The look with which she favored him was truly venomous. Without another word, nor a glance toward the man in the bed, she turned her back on the two of them and stumped heavily out of the room. In a flash that man was across the chamber in her wake and had closed the door firmly, standing with his back against it as if he half expected the Elector's daughter to think better of her retreat and strive to enter again.
The Colonel was also on the move, bringing me with him out of hiding. For the last time I heard that guttural sound from the bed. The Elector's hand was again pointing, not toward the door through which the Abbess bad gone, but to the left.
Colonel Fenwick nodded, stopped long enough to catch up the bundle of my cloak—which luckily the Abbess had not chanced to notice. I waited for a moment, longing for a little more time—maybe to touch again that cold hand. There was a need still in me to speak some reassuring word, to let him know—what—? I was not sure, but I felt that there was something which I might do to ease him if I could only be given a chance. But the Elector's eye was closed, his hand was again being held by his attendant, who did not even glance in our direction, while the Colonel had me again by the arm.
We passed behind another screen which matched its fellow across the room and my companion opened a door behind that. So we came into another room, near as large as the bedchamber but far less well lit. In fact there were only two small candles there.
Both sat on a table, and pulled up to that was a chair in which rested an elderly man. His hair was a mere circlet of white about the dome of a large head, but as he looked at us I saw a vast white mustache bristling outward from his upper lip. As the man back in the Elector's room he wore a badged coat.
Now he arose, getting up with some difficulty and having to pull on the edge of the table to gain his feet. He did not look at the Colonel but rather studied me from under brows nearly as jutting and bristly as his mustache. Without a word he caught up the candles, one in each age-spotted hand, and limped closer. For a long moment he studied my face, and then gave so low a bow I feared his creaking joints might never allow him to straighten up again. Once he must have stood quite tall, but he was much bent now.
“Highborn.” It was plain he attempted to keep his voice to the faintest of whispers, but that task was near beyond his ability. “Welcome, welcome, Highness—” For the second time he bowed.
“Franzel,” the Colonel demanded his attention with a sharp tone, “we must be away—now!”
The old man started as if he had hardly been aware of my companion until he spoke.
“Away—” he repeated bemusedly as one in a dream.
The Colonel took him by the shoulder and gave him a shake, so that one candle he held dropped a gout of wax on the carpet.
“Wake up, man! Yes, away—by his orders—”
“The door, then, yea, certainly the door!” The old man looked like one throwing off a dream. One of the candles he replaced on the table. With the other in hand he moved, more quickly than I would have believed possible a moment earlier, to the wall beyond. With his free hand he ran fingers along a ridge of carving, a thick twist of vine and leaf. What trick he worked I could not see, for his back was now between me and the wall.
Within a second a panel slipped open and Franzel stood aside, offering his candle to the Colonel, who squeezed his tall frame through the door never meant for one of his inches. The old man beckoned and I followed. As I passed him Franzel once more bowed very low, as if I were a queen entering a throne room. I hesitated, the man I did not know, nor his relationship to my grandfather. It was only obvious that his good will was mine. So I murmured words of thanks before I answered an impatient hiss from beyond and entered what lay beyond.
Behind us the panel slipped shut once more. The way it protected was a very narrow one, smelling of dust, and dank, stagnant air. We had gone only a few paces along before the Colonel whispered back over his shoulder.
“Take my hand. Here is a stair and we must proceed with caution.” The light of his candle did show stone steps, very narrow, descending into a well of deep dark. Going slowly down step by step, his hand clasping mine, gave me confidence.
The feeling that the walls about us were closing together, that we were about to be crushed, buried, in this secret place, made me giddy, but I could not throw it off. I felt that each step left me as unsteady as if I trod the heaving deck of a storm-tossed ship. It was only that firm grip about my cold fingers that anchored me to reality, helped me to keep my growing panic under control. I had always feared dark and closed-in spaces since I was a small child, and my courage at this moment was sadly lacking. The stale air did not seem to give me a full breath, and that added to my surge of panic.
“We come to another passage here.” My guide did not turn his head, though I so longed that he would. I needed more reassurance than he had given me now. It was as if I were not a person, merely part of a duty he was oath-bound to carry out. Only he had spoken the truth, the stairs were behind us, we edged through a second passage as crampingly narrow as the one above, but running straight.
My cloaked shoulders brushed the dank walls on either side, stirring up that rank odor and the dust which near choked me. Ahead the Colonel had to sidle in some places sideways in order to negotiate this path at all.
We came to an abrupt stop, facing what looked in the faint candlelight to be a blank wall. The Colonel passed our light back to me.
“Hold this,” he ordered, “give me all the light you can over my shoulder.”
Wax had dropped in hot dribbles down the sides of the carved stick. I steadied the flame as best I could and watched his hands go out, his fingers skim over the surface of the wall. There was no vine carving here to conceal a catch, nothing even to hint that a doorway might exist. A moment later my companion uttered a grunt of satisfaction. His two thumbs pressed heavily against a stone set at the height of his own firm chin, he was grinding his flesh against the stone with concentration.
This time there came a sound, a rasping. I gasped and there was a second exasperated grunt from the Colonel. But the blocks sank back a fraction and there appeared along the seemingly firm stone the outline of a door, one which we both must stoop to use. The Colonel now set his shoulder against the outlined panel and exerted more strength. Reluctantly it gave, and we felt cool, fresh night air. Instantly my companion grasped the candle and blew out the flame. With his hand again on mine I was drawn into the open where I could see moonlight broken by the limbs of trees in what could only be a garden.
For a moment the Colonel remained where he was, standing in the shadow of a bush, and pulling me in beside him. I could hear his breathing fast and deep. I had an odd flash of thought that he was testing the air about as might a hound of the chase—striving to sense so the way we must now follow. We lingered for a very long moment and, in spite of my heavy cloak which I had now drawn very tightly about me, I was shivering, more with uneasiness than the c
hill of the night.
The moon showed us nothing moving. It made plain, however, the stark bulk of one of the ancient towers against the night sky—carrying a threat which came from the past into the present.
No! I was allowing the events of this night to influence my imagination far too much. I was Amelia Harrach—myself! Now that I had left that awesome old man enthroned in his bed I could forget that a meaningless title had been pressed upon me. I could perhaps even forget there was any tie of blood between us. Only I could not. It was as if he had laid some spell on me, so that I knew I would never forget a fraction of our meeting. In some strange way I could never be exactly the same person I had been before his one fiercely bright eye had searched—reached—measured me. I am come here only by my grandmother's wish—feeling nothing within me which was kin to the ruler of Hesse-Dohna. Now, though I had seen him physically helpless, I was tied to his undoubtable spirit and courage.
No and no! I would not be his Countess! I would never be a part of this life!
The Colonel broke through my confused thinking. “We are in the east garden.” He kept his voice very low. “So we must now bear to the north toward the lake—there is a postern gate there.” Once more he took my hand and we went so, like wandering children, along the path he wove, skulking from one patch of shadow to the next.
Once or twice I glanced back at the bulk of the palace. Faint glimmers of light showed in some windows, but otherwise there was no sign of life. Around us night insects chirped, there was rustling in the beds and borders. Once I saw a bird swoop in a silent, deadly dive, and heard a thin, squeaking scream cut off in mid-note as the feathered hunter made his kill.
We passed by a series of stone-bordered basins feeding runnels of water from one to another. So to a door— hidden by an arch supporting a luxuriant spread of vine. A latch clicked sharply in the night—then we stepped through onto a pavement wide enough for a carriage but also walled upon the far side. Along this, lighted lanterns hung at regular intervals.