Circle of Shadows caw-4

by Imogen Robertson

  In the week since they had arrived Mrs Westerman and Crowther had turned the world upside down, and transformed it from a place he knew, where there were a few niggling questions, into a theatre of horrors. They had also forced him to realise that he loved his sovereign and would always put his battered old body between the Duke and harm.

  ‘Are they always like this?’ he said, and Michaels smiled.

  ‘Can’t say, Mr Krall. Mostly I know them from Hartswood, though they stirred things up to a right brew there in the year eighty. Glad they did, though. It’s not their way to make things comfortable for those around them. They’re like a dose of cod liver oil. You curse them at the time, but in general they makes things better in the end.’

  ‘How did you hear about where the girl might be buried?’ Krall asked, and noticed that Michaels chose that moment to stroke his horse’s mane.

  ‘Girl who seemed a little simple in Mittelbach.’ Krall was old enough to sense when he was only being told part of a story, but he let it lie. Another secret for the pile.

  They were within a short ride of Oberbach when Krall pulled gently at his reins and guided his horse off the road.

  ‘Mr Krall?’

  ‘Got to pick up our fugitive, Mr Michaels.’

  ‘Wimpf? You reckon he’s here?’

  ‘Here or hereabouts. I know the family.’

  Michaels looked at him from under his thick eyebrows. ‘You seem mighty relaxed for a man in pursuit, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘I know his mother. And that means I know there’s no need to rush.’

  They turned a corner in the road and Michaels looked about him at the good-sized farmhouse, its chimney already smoking. A pig and a fair number of fat-looking hens bumbled about in front of it, the chickens trying to avoid the attentions of a small, rather grubby little boy of about eight years old. He turned and stared at them as they dismounted, Krall with his pipe clamped between his teeth.

  A woman in early middle age appeared on the doorstep and shielded her eyes against the morning light. As soon as she recognised Krall she put her broom aside and, smoothing her apron, walked down the steps towards them.

  ‘Arno, get inside now,’ she said to the child. He obeyed at once and shut the door behind him. Michaels was impressed; even his own wife had to raise her voice to separate their youngest from his play. ‘Good morning, Benedict.’

  ‘Morning, Emma.’

  ‘There’s a little cave up on the slope where he used to play as a kid. Jan’s taken him up there for now. Thought it best to keep him away from the little ones.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Emma.’

  She nodded. ‘I feel it, Benedict. I feel it as my fault. I should have raised him better, kept a closer eye on him these years that he’s been in service, or asked more questions about where the money was coming from. But Jan’s been poorly, and I just took it.’

  ‘He’s told you all then?’

  She looked at the ground. ‘I think so. Couldn’t get it out fast enough once he’d started. My poor boy. He believes it all, still, somehow. He’s a clever lad, and his smartness needed something to fasten on. Lord, I wish I’d never done service with that family. When Count Frenzel returned to court and found my boy there, he called it fate and swelled his head. It was Christian spied on Swann’s little crew, gave the Count all the names. Did his bidding.’ Krall was silent, drawing on his pipe. The chickens scrapped and cooed at each other. ‘I was at the wedding, when poor Miss Antonia married the Count. She would never have wanted this.’ She put her hand to her eyes. ‘May she rest in peace. I shall pray for her.’

  ‘As shall I,’ Krall said, and waited.

  ‘What will happen to him, Benedict? He never killed anyone, you know. Helped, it’s true, but he swears he was never there for the killing, and I believe him. Swann would have been the first.’ She looked quite calm.

  ‘Grenzhow, probably, for a year or two, though I can’t make you any promises.’ Krall sighed. ‘He’ll be treated fairly there. And after? Well, I can find him work with my son-in-law if he’s got his thinking straightened out.’

  ‘I’ll see that he does.’ Michaels believed it absolutely. ‘Benedict, I have a request to make of you. Let him stay here a day. He’s scared and he’s twisted about with all this nonsense. Let him be with me and Jan for a day before it begins with lawyers and locks. Then let Jan bring him into Ulrichsberg in the morning. That would look better, wouldn’t it? Him coming in with his da?’ Krall hesitated. ‘Benedict, he’s only seventeen years old.’

  The District Officer pulled hard on his pipe and exhaled a great cloud of smoke. ‘On your word, Emma. I’ll take that promise. But I have business that’ll keep me in Oberbach all day, then I’ll have a night in my own bed. Bring him to me in the morning. It’ll still stand to his credit.’ The woman looked up at Michaels. ‘Don’t worry about Mr Michaels, Emma.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Krall got back on his horse and they made their way slowly back to the road.

  ‘How did you know he’d go back home?’ Michaels said at last.

  ‘He’s seventeen and his mother loves him. Where else would he go? Now let’s get on and see Beatrice settled in Oberbach.’

  ‘The headstone is on my charge.’ Krall raised his eyebrows, and Michaels spoke into his beard. ‘I dug the poor kid up — I’m not going to see her stuck in another hole with no marker to it.’

  Krall nodded and touched the horse’s flanks with his heels.

  VII.3

  The court hunt was not like any hunt Harriet had seen before. Some two miles outside Ulrichsberg was a great walled field. As they were led towards the Duke’s presence, she saw that the wall, which separated the field from the forest was open in several places along its length. On raised ground opposite, a mass of banked seating had been erected, like that which had surrounded the dais where the marriage contract had been signed. There was a great crowd of carriages, and in the stands were some hundred men and women gloriously dressed as if for a ball rather than a hunt. Any number of liveried servants moved among them with food and drink. How anonymous they are, Harriet thought. We never see who is there, who is listening. There were a number of men with guns over their arms in the front ranks of the stands, and looking down into the field below them, but that was the only sign that anyone in the crowd was prepared for sport.

  Harriet looked up at Colonel Padfield somewhat quizzically. ‘Is there to be jousting?’ she asked.

  ‘Hunts in this part of the world are not as they are in England, Mrs Westerman,’ the Colonel said with a grunt. ‘The beaters drive the game in from the surrounding woods and they are funnelled into the field there. Then the gentlemen shoot and the ladies applaud.’

  ‘It must be a slaughter,’ Harriet said, somewhat appalled.

  ‘So it is. But it amuses the gentry. Come, the Duke is waiting for us.’

  Harriet and Crowther were guided into the Duke’s box, where they found Ludwig Christoph and his new wife seated under an awning bearing the Arms of Maulberg. The Duchess looked very young, but quite content. She had the spaniel on her lap. When Harriet and Crowther were introduced she looked up briefly at them and nodded, then continued to pet the dog. The Duke got up slowly from his seat and walked towards them.

  ‘A pleasure to see you both. I have been hearing all about your adventures,’ he yawned. ‘And I thought I had a busy day yesterday.’ He glanced back at the girl behind them and smiled.

  ‘Congratulations on your marriage, Your Highness,’ Harriet said.

  ‘Thank you, dear. I have called you here to say goodbye and to assure you we have conveyed our gratitude for your service to King George. Oh, and that little picture I mentioned — it is wrapped and boxed and in your rooms. If you would tell Mr Graves to have a word with Herr Zeller before he leaves us, I am sure he will find the new terms of business on the bonds quite satisfactory.’

  ‘What will happen to Theo Kupfel, sire?’ Harriet said.

  Th
e Duke said indulgently, ‘Well, he has been very naughty, but he insists he thought the Minervals were acting with my full knowledge and consent. Remarkable how many of them are saying that! Makes you wonder if any of them have read their own literature. And he does make such lovely creams … I don’t think I can do without him.’

  A gentleman appeared at the Duke’s elbow and bowed, a gun in his hand.

  ‘Ah, wonderful — are they on their way? Goodbye, Mrs Westerman, Mr Crowther.’ He turned to his wife. ‘My dear?’ She sighed and shifted the dog from her lap before standing and taking his arm as he made his way towards the barrier.

  From the forest the sound of the beaters whooping and yelling grew louder. The men arranged around the edge of the field lifted their guns. There was a sudden movement in the woods and all at once a great number of animals were pouring into the arena. Wild boar, deer and smaller game, terrified and tumbling into each other, filling the space to capacity almost at once and clambering over each other in their panic. The Duchess raised her handkerchief and let it fall and the guns began to thunder.

  They moved away swiftly. Harriet almost didn’t hear someone calling her name. She was already climbing into the carriage when she caught it and turned to see the young woman whose daughter had worn Clode’s mask running over the ground towards her.

  ‘Good afternoon, my dear,’ Harriet said in French. ‘How is your daughter?’

  ‘Very well,’ the girl said with a quick smile. ‘She was a little confused for a day or so, but now it all seems like a dream to her. I am so happy to have seen you! Madam, this is yours. You gave it as a comfort for my child, but I cannot let her keep it. It is too fine.’

  Harriet looked down at the jewel in her hand — the paste-and-brilliants flower she had let Graves give the little girl — and felt a tiny sting of regret. She had been fond of it. ‘Does your daughter believe it was a gift from the Fairy King?’ The dancer nodded. ‘Then I will certainly not deprive her of it. Keep it. Please.’

  ‘Oh thank you, madam,’ the girl said, beaming. ‘She holds onto it so tight, I had to take it from her while she was sleeping!’

  Harriet smiled. The girl’s delight was infectious. ‘Oh, she must have it back. I can bear the loss much better than she would, I think.’

  ‘I have been trying to make one a little like it, out of cloth and the seed pearls from one of my costumes.’

  ‘Is that not stealing from the Duke, dear?’

  ‘Bah!’ She waved her hand. ‘The costume has so many pearls on it. They cannot even be seen. I would happily steal from a dozen Dukes for my little girl. I thought to tell her it had changed in the night, because it is a fairy jewel, but my efforts have not been very fairylike.’ She giggled. ‘Even though I stayed up every night. Do you have children, madam?’

  ‘Two,’ Harriet said, thinking of them. ‘A boy of ten and a girl of four.’

  ‘It is terrible to love so much, is it not? There is nothing I would not do for my daughter.’ She took something from her pocket and handed it to Harriet. It was a fabric flower the size of Harriet’s palm and studded with seed pearls. Perhaps the work was not the finest, but it had been made with all the love and care its creator could manage, that much was obvious. ‘Since you have saved my little girl a great many tears, perhaps this may make your daughter smile.’

  Harriet thanked her very warmly. The girl blushed, and murmuring that she would keep them no longer, retreated. In the carriage Harriet stared at the flower and thought of the dancer ruining her eyesight by candlelight to try and lessen her child’s loss.

  ‘Crowther?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Westerman?’

  ‘Count Frenzel did not poison Swann’s gloves.’

  He tilted his head to one side. ‘No, I suppose he did not. It was not one of Frenzel’s poisons, and the attack almost deprived him of his last victim. The poison chamber belonged to the Minervals. Then who on earth did try and kill him?’

  Harriet looked at the flower. ‘I think I know.’

  EPILOGUE

  10 December 1784, Caveley, Hartswood

  Harriet put down her pen and smiled, discovering that she was truly happy for the first time since James had died. Caveley was full of children. Stephen and Anne both seemed fascinated with their new cousin and Rachel was very happy to bring her baby to her sister’s home and walk her up and down the Long Salon, or coo to the infant on the lawn when the cooling weather allowed. She had called her Katherine Isobel. Clode was so happy he seemed to give off a glow, and if Rachel looked tired, she also looked very content. Her figure had filled out, and the softness in her face was that of a mother, rather than a girl.

  Mr Quince reported the children had studied assiduously the curriculum Crowther had set them before climbing into the coach in March. Susan’s French was much improved and the groom at Thornleigh Hall, who had thought her a rather timid rider, now boasted of her courage. Lord Sussex and Stephen had taken to wrestling and to the study of firearms and their use with all the enthusiasm one might expect from a pair of ten-year-old boys. Eustache and Anne were the best geography students, perhaps because Mr Quince had discovered they both liked drawing their own maps and colouring them in with the most vivid hues their paint boxes could provide.

  The family of Thornleigh Hall seemed to spend more time at Caveley than ever, but even such a profusion of company did not keep Crowther away. He would appear in the early afternoon and dine with them, then as evening became night would return to his own house and spend a few hours at his work. His housekeeper often complained of the price of candles.

  The news of Frenzel’s execution had reached them in September in a letter from Manzerotti. He also sent news — one could almost see his half-smile as he wrote — that the shaman Kupfel had met in Marseilles had left no trace behind him. He had an engagement in Paris and expected Pegel to join him there when he had done touring the continent with Florian. In their absence Frenzel’s lands were under the stewardship of Chancellor Swann, and the condition of the inhabitants appeared to be improving as a result. The Minervals were scattered, banished or denying all knowledge of the higher aims of the society. Herr Dunktal found sanctuary in Gotha and began to publish a series of booklets in his own defence and at the expense of his new patron. Later the same month, Michaels received a parcel with Mrs Padfield’s ivory puzzle ball wrapped in straw and wool. There was no note.

  The preparations for the Christmas celebrations were well under way. There was to be a party for the whole village at Thornleigh Hall. Crowther’s nephew Felix, his wife and child had been invited to Caveley and were expected every day, so Harriet had spent half of November in correspondence with various tradesmen in Pulborough and London to order the gifts she wished for her family and friends, and fill the house with enough provisions to feed them. She was sitting at her desk in the Long Salon, aware that her son and Lord Sussex were in the garden with her footman, William, cutting down holly branches to decorate the dining room and hall. Anne was skipping about their heels. She could see them through the French windows when she glanced up — a dumb show of excitement and seasonal cheer. Crowther was sitting on the settee some feet away reading the paper. A little distracted then, she opened her next letter rather carelessly. When she saw who it was from, she pushed the hair back from her face and read carefully.

  ‘Crowther?’ He looked up, and when she held out the letter, he crossed the room to take it from her and remained, standing at her side, while he read. Harriet turned again to the window. The children had laden William down with holly and were now chasing each other back and forth over the snow. She could hear their laughter. Stephen picked up his little sister in his arms and spun her about.

  12 November 1784

  Theo Kupfel to Mrs Harriet Westerman

  Karlstrasse, Ulrichsberg

  Dear Mrs Westerman,

  I take up my pen to tell you of the recent death of my poor troubled father, Adam Kupfel.

  Though his delusions remained to the end
, I am glad to tell you that relations between ourselves improved greatly over the last months of his life, and he had even begun to teach me something more of the practical skills his strange obsession had taught him. Never the less, his continued search for the legendary stone of the Philosophers only increased in intensity after you departed Ulrichsberg. Indeed, though I cannot see how, he claimed to have been inspired by his acquaintance with yourself and Mr Crowther.

  An explosion at the workshop occurred on the evening of 1 November, and he was gravely hurt. There was time though for me to sit by his bedside and offer what comfort I could before he passed. It was then I first learned you had visited him in company with Mr Crowther the morning after the Duke’s wedding, and that you had realised it was my father who had poisoned Chancellor von Swann’s gloves. He thought the Minerval Glucke had bribed me into stealing his poison book, and typically of my father, went straight to Glucke rather than me. Glucke denied, quite rightly, any knowledge of the book or the poisons used to harm Mr Clode or paralyse Frenzel’s other victims, but in confusion of his denials revealed that I had been providing Chancellor Swann with certain malicious preparations, inspired by some of my father’s work. Glucke had told him, as he had told me, that Swann was acting always on the Duke’s behalf. I believed it. My father did not. He was in a bitter rage and decided to take his revenge on Swann at once.

  I am sure he regretted it immediately, and was grateful for the opportunity you gave him to right the wrong he had done. He told me that as he had chosen to heal that harm, you did not inform the authorities in Maulberg of his crime, but instead, Mrs Westerman, you urged him to learn to know better the son for whom he had taken such drastic actions. I thank you both from the bottom of my heart. I am a better man for having known my father, even for this short time.