It seemed there was a conscious effort among the thirty or forty ladies and gentlemen present to ignore them, though Harriet felt any number of eyes drift over them and away. They were prepared for this reception; until they were presented to the Duke himself they did not quite exist in the room, so it was only right their presence should be unacknowledged. In some ways it was preferable to the occasions when Harriet had entered some gathering and found the conversation come to a halt. The air was heavy with florid scents. A way seemed to clear in front of them. The gentlemen and ladies drifted aside, a lazy embroidered and powdered parting of the waves, or like fantastically patterned theatre drapes opening to reveal the stage at the far end of the room.
It was an impressive setting. A pair of pink marble columns reached from a raised dais to a small pallisaded balcony. Under it, a plumed canopy, with red and gold drapery, flowed down to frame a slight, elegant gentleman in his late thirties sitting cross-legged in a gilt armchair. There was a woman seated on a stool beside him. Her hair was dressed very high and crowned with ostrich feathers, and her sleeves so flounced they almost obscured the diamonds at her wrist. She was a handsome woman, her slender figure much like Harriet’s own, and though she was certainly not in the first flush of youth, her features were so finely sculpted one could still call her beautiful. Harriet felt the woman’s assessing gaze on her, and lowered her eyes.
The Duke continued to pet his dog as they walked towards him. The Officer of Introduction indicated they should wait some paces from him and himself scuttled up on his sticks like a spider to the Duke’s side and whispered in his ear. The Duke glanced up and smiled. Harriet at once swept as deep a curtsey as she could manage and held the pose. Crowther and Graves slid into similarly respectful bows. Eventually she heard the command to rise.
The Duke stood and approached, swaying a little from side to side as if hearing some invisible music and with the spaniel in his arms. His heels clicked on the floor. ‘Mrs Westerman, a delight to meet you.’
Harriet kept her eyes lowered. The Duke’s shoes were patterned with seed pearls on scarlet velvet. ‘An honour, Your Highness.’
He laughed. The sound was musical but not entirely pleasant. ‘I see dear Carlton has been instructing you well. You may look at me now, dear, and talk to me just like a real person, as the formalities are dealt with.’
She did. His Serene Highness Ludwig Christoph, Duke of Maulberg, was a rather mild-looking man with large hazel eyes and thin lips. His skin was very white with powder. Harriet had expected him to resemble an English squire for some reason, but Ludwig Christoph would have looked like a delicate bloom next to a hunting, drinking and dining Englishman, yet there was great confidence in his bearing. His fingers, clasped round the panting flanks of his spaniel, working into its soft fur, were long and thin. She could imagine them exerting great pressure when they wished.
‘So you wish to release my prisoner, you and your Mr Crowther?’ He turned to Crowther. ‘Is it true what they tell me, that you are in fact a Baron, yet refuse to make use of the title and go about with a common name?’
‘It is, sire.’
‘Well, we can see straight away that you are no German!’ The ladies and gentlemen around the room laughed.
‘We are convinced of Mr Clode’s innocence, sire,’ Harriet said softly, ‘and hope to convince you too.’
The Duke put his head on one side. ‘Do you now, Mrs Westerman? I suppose you would not have come so far or so fast with any other intention. Some opinions, such as those of my friend Countess Dieth, are against you.’ He nodded slightly in the direction of the woman on the dais, then continued, ‘Mr Clode’s loss of memory seems a little convenient, does it not?’
‘Convenient to the true murderer also,’ Harriet replied.
The Duke looked amused. ‘Your reputation as an interesting sort of person is justified, I see. You are welcome to Maulberg, madam.’ The eyes hardened. ‘But remember, Lady Martesen was our friend. Whoever killed her will suffer for it, whosoever that might be.’ He raised his voice slightly. ‘We wish it to be known that Mrs Westerman and her party are to be given every assistance. Their requests are our requests. Their questions, our questions.’
There was a whispering shush as the company bowed or curtseyed and their silks slid over the tessellated hardwood floors. The Duke leaned towards Harriet. ‘There, I think that went rather well.’
Another meal cleared away, another pair of wine bottles empty on the floor. Pegel was silent and stared into the fire for a long while before he spoke.
‘Secret societies, Florian? The Freemasons are one thing — good works and fellowship — but you seem to be talking about something else.’
Florian was bent over his glass. ‘Suppose, Jacob, just suppose there was a group of men and women — enlightened, ready to lead the rest, with faithful followers across Europe. Things could change. We could build a new world. A fairer world.’
Pegel shook his head slowly. ‘Such things cannot be. A rational society, built on learning not mysticism such as you describe …’
‘They can! Ready to free the people! Ready in time to sweep away privileges of birth, the tyranny of property, the black night of religious superstition …’
Pegel lifted his hands. ‘Florian! Enough! It cannot exist. It would be a handful of powerless dreamers. No one in any position of power would join such an organisation.’
‘There are intelligent men in positions of power. Idealists! The correctness of these arguments cannot be disputed. They can see the truth.’ The twisting light from the fire fell on the injured side of his face. He still looked perfect in the imperfect light, warmed by his own enthusiasms. ‘The leaders will guide, lead, educate. They will create a better world for us all. What better cause can a man serve?’
Jacob was almost shouting. ‘I know there could be no better cause! No greater glory in devoting oneself to such ends. But no such society could ever exist. Never. It is impossible.’
Florian leaned towards him, his face glowing like a mystic’s. ‘Oh Jacob. It already does.’
Pegel gasped and opened his eyes wide. Internally he sighed, thinking, Of course it does, you little fool. You are the Minervals, and I am come here to blow you all to kingdom come.
Manzerotti made his appearance as they went in to supper, and was immediately surrounded by a number of admirers. As Harriet was guided to her place she heard his laugh and felt a lurch of anger. For a moment she wished she had shot him; she glanced in his direction and found he was looking straight at her. She felt her cheeks redden as if she had spoken her wish out loud. Harriet found herself seated a good distance from Manzerotti, between Colonel Padfield and a gentleman of the court named Frenzel. Krall was nowhere to be seen. Frenzel greeted her in an affable manner and easy French, but saying he was certain she would enjoy conversing in her own tongue, left her to Colonel Padfield. Having thanked the latter for his kindness to her sister, Harriet would have been content to talk about the floods that were at last retreating across the Holy Roman Empire, rather than continue to think on recent horrors, but Colonel Padfield seemed distracted. He was constantly glancing towards a handsome young woman on the opposite side of the table who seemed to be chatting happily to a young man in uniform at her side.
‘Who is that lady, Colonel?’ Harriet said at last.
He started and blushed a little. ‘My wife, Mrs Westerman.’
‘I should be glad to know her. Rachel tells me she has been very kind to her.’
‘She is kind,’ said the Colonel with sudden emphasis. ‘And I should have been lost without her here. Madam, do you think we should judge people because of where they come from, because they might have kept some secrets from us?’
Harriet thought of some of the people whom she had met in the last years who had concealed their origins, lied to keep a place in the world. She weighed her words very carefully. ‘I think we should be very slow to judge others, Colonel. I once knew a lady who was brought up very
harshly, and if her history were generally known it would have caused great scandal. I thought her an excellent woman and was proud to know her.’ She noticed Mrs Padfield glance towards them as she spoke, then quickly back to her companion. ‘I was shocked when this lady told me her history. But also touched that she trusted me with her confidence.’
The Colonel let out a long sigh. ‘I am glad you have come to Maulberg, Mrs Westerman.’ He lifted his head and his glass towards his wife and Harriet saw the look returned. The lady’s thin shoulders seemed to relax a fraction before she returned her attention to her neighbour.
‘Madam Westerman, I have been wondering what conversation to offer you.’ Harriet realised the gentleman on her other side was speaking to her. ‘Usually one asks visitors to the court of their impressions of Maulberg …’ He had exactly the right sort of amused but sorry smile on his face as he spoke. ‘But I dare not ask that of you.’ She smiled at him in turn. He was perhaps some ten years older than herself, nearer fifty than forty, his colouring pale and his eyes framed with a network of thin lines.
‘Do you dine at court often, Count?’ she asked.
‘Oh, an excellent notion, I shall talk about myself. Yes, since I took a position with the Duke, before last year hardly at all. I have an estate which I hold unmittelbar an hour’s ride away. I return there often.’ He saw her confusion. ‘Unmittelbar. My estate lies entirely within Maulberg, but I am not subject to the Duke. In my more limited territory I have the same power as he does.’
‘I confess I find the complexities of the country confusing.’
‘As Mr Voltaire said, the Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, Roman, nor an Empire. We are a family, but like most families more often at war with each other than with outsiders. But we find you equally difficult to understand. Your people seem to think they are all Kings, the judges Lords and the King himself your servant.’
‘Our people value their freedom.’
‘They abuse it. A glance at your newspapers tell us that.’ He tutted a little. ‘No, matters are a great deal better organised on the continent. Of course, we have our little philosophers who like to rail against the established order, but they will not triumph. Here and in France the people know their place. It is better so.’
Harriet began to find his smile less pleasing than she had at first thought, then noticed that a young gentleman on the opposite side of the table had been listening intently. It was the Major who had ridden with them from the border. He wore a similar uniform to that of Colonel Padfield and rapped his fingers on the table as he spoke.
‘Indeed? And when we have crushed the will out of the people, and squeezed out every Thaler from their pockets, who will pay for your toys then, Frenzel?’
He shrugged and waved his fork. ‘They do breed, Major Auwerk.’
Harriet believed the Major was about to say something else, but she noticed him glance along the table towards a much older man; thin and bent, she thought he looked a little like Crowther might have become, had she not dragged him into the sunlight. He was looking very steadily at Major Auwerk, and though his expression seemed neutral, the younger man only bit his lip and summoned his glass from the footman behind him.
Harriet turned to the plate in front of her. It was silver-gilt, with the arms of Maulberg emblazoned on it. She saw the shadow of her face reflected there among the fragments of rich food and wondered again how she could possibly come to an understanding of those people. She felt, heavily, that Rachel’s trust in her was misplaced.
Pegel had not been able to get any more details of the secret society. Instead, Florian instructed him on the glories of Rousseau till Pegel felt like throwing himself into the fire. It was deep in the night when Florian finally let himself lie down on the couch, but if the drink hadn’t exhausted him, his own rhetoric had. He was snoring lightly even before Pegel had thrown a blanket over him. Pegel himself had no intention of sleeping. It only took a moment to go through Frenzel’s satchel and he now sat cross-legged on the floor and considered. Three volumes lay on the boards in front of him, and in front of each was a sheet of paper with a crease to show it had been folded once and placed into the book. On each was a nonsense stream of letters, grouped into little islands of five. There was also a small medallion with an owl embossed on one side. With its claws it held open a book with PMCV stamped across the pages.
With a sigh Pegel got to his feet. The bag, with its less interesting content returned to it, and the medallion slid once more into its lining, he placed by Frenzel’s head. The books and codes he took to the desk by the window and lit a candle. Having sniffed and shaken each sheet, and held it up to the light, he set about making his copies, carefully noting the titles of each book and the page where the note was hidden. The copies made, the books and their contents were returned to the satchel.
Frenzel still snored, and Jacob smiled at him, then reached down and smoothed one lock of blond hair away from his face. A very promising beginning, and now dawn had become day.
PART III
III.1
3 May 1784, Ulrichsberg
Harriet woke early. It seemed to take her a strangely long time to remember where she was and why. Then the impressions of the previous day rushed over her and she lay back down in her bed with a groan.
Her maid arrived to help her dress.
‘You are being looked after, Dido?’ Harriet asked as the little maid smoothed her petticoats down.
‘Yes, bless you, ma’am,’ she said. ‘We have a little trouble understanding each other, but they are helpful enough and everything is to hand. Couple of them have enough English to chat.’ She paused to pull Harriet’s laces tight at her back. ‘Everyone speaks nicely of Mrs Clode. Seems they’ve taken quite a liking to her below stairs, as far as I can tell.’
Harriet felt Dido’s quick fingers at the ties. ‘Have you ever left England before, Dido?’
‘Never, ma’am. Though I am glad to have had the chance now! William is so full of stories of the time he served with your husband. Now I shall have some stories of my own.’ She pursed her lips and went to gather Harriet’s riding dress in her arms. The heavy green fabric dwarfed her. ‘Now, I understand this will do nicely during the day.’ Harriet allowed herself to be pinned and smoothed into the folds. It was more comfortable than court dress, at any rate. ‘They are a superstitious lot though.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Yes, full of all sorts of ghost stories. If I believed half of it, I swear I wouldn’t sleep at night. Not enough work to do, I believe. Can you imagine Mrs Heathcote’s face if she found me and Cook trying to talk to spirits and paying our wages to folks who claimed powers in that way? Lord, they’d hear the shrieks in Thornleigh Hall.’ Harriet grinned. ‘There, ma’am. If you will just tidy your hair a little while I fetch your coffee, you will do us credit.’
Florian groaned and Pegel saw his arms stretching from his perch by the window.
‘What is the time?’
Pegel glanced out at the clock in the market square. ‘Something after ten. Are you hungry? Shall we eat?’
Florian pulled himself into a sitting position and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘No, no. I have … I have business I must attend to. How is your jaw?’
‘Stiff, but it still works. What of your ribs?’
Florian got to his feet and pressed his hand gingerly to his side. ‘Sore, but I am whole, I think. Will you attend lectures today?’
Pegel shook his head. ‘No, my head is too swollen with your talk to deal with the Professor. I will work here.’
Florian buttoned his waistcoat, wincing, then picked up his coat. ‘Will you be here this afternoon? I still have questions about your formula, if I may call on you?’ There was a slight, awkward formality in his tone.
‘Just as you wish. I shall probably be here. Throw a rock at the window, if you want to save yourself the climb. If I’m here, I shall hear it and call down to you.’
‘Very well.’ Florian picked up his sat
chel and fitted it over his shoulder. ‘Jacob …?’
‘Hmm?’ Pegel said, already apparently engrossed by the papers on his desk.
‘Thank you.’
Pegel raised his hand in a lazy farewell, and Florian left the room. Jacob heard his steps disappearing down the stairs, then went to the side of his window and looked out. Charles emerged into the square, hesitated and then headed north.
‘Home rather than the lecture hall, hey?’ Pegel said to himself, then grabbed up his coat and tripped off in pursuit.
It was not that Pegel went in disguise, but rather he had the talent to assume a shape in the air that seemed to take up no room in it. He waited in the shadows opposite Florian’s lodgings, a straw in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, and no one paid any mind to him. He might have been one of the paintings on the Town Hall watching the people move about him and no one ever looking up and across. Florian’s rooms were in a far nicer corner of Leuchtenstadt than Pegel’s. But then Florian was nobility, and though he might not seem to like the system of nobility, he took the money, it seemed, and spent it. It was almost half an hour before the door opened again and a young woman stepped out into the road. She wore the neat linen and slightly harried expression of a maid asked to abandon her duties when she had not time enough as it was to complete them. She looked up and down the street. Still with his straw and his slouch, Pegel emerged from the shadows and joined the stream of people passing, just glancing up as he got close to her.
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