The Scar-Faced King

by Isabell Schmitt-Egner

  Then she was alone again and continued reading.

  Before evening came, Lilli went out into the garden to look for some angelica, which she found. She dug up a plant with the roots, rinsed it with water, and was now prepared for the night.

  She did not tell Auntie Jahne what she was going to do, because it was her sole responsibility. She didn’t want to be to blame if anyone got hurt.

  Lilli ordered a hot herbal infusion and some bread and cheese to her room. To go with it, a few of the apples from the special tree of the kings. She pulled the curtain that divided the room all the way back to the wall. Then she opened the mirrored doors and moved an armchair so that she could see the mirror clearly. As she did so, her heart was beating extraordinarily.

  For Amon, she thought as she settled into the armchair.

  During the day, her plan had seemed feasible, but now, here alone in the room, her courage was failing her a little.

  For Amon, for us.

  Lilli took a book and began to read. As she did so, she calmed down a little. The silver goblet stood in front of her on the table, the angelica resting beside it. Occasionally she took a sip from the cup, but when the herbal brew had long since cooled and silence descended over Grauemfall, Lilli felt the tiredness reaching for her. Once her eyes fell closed and when she tore them open, she thought she saw a shadow in the mirror, but then she realised that it was she herself who was moving in the armchair.

  Wasn’t it?

  Lilli stood up and reached for the bundle of herbs on the table. She didn’t know if she could use it to defend herself against Jheron, but a normal weapon was certainly ineffective against him.

  “All right,” Lilli said. “If you’re here, then show yourself to me, Jheron.” She stood there, watching the room, the mirror, all the while her heart was beating so loudly and her head was heating up, while at the same time her fingers felt painfully cold. Nothing happened. Lilli took a breath, she had forgotten to breathe because of fear, and if she were honest, she only wanted to do one thing: Run away and bang on Auntie Jahne’s door like a madwoman so that she would let Lilli in.

  She thought of Amon and closed her eyes for a breath, then opened them again.

  In the mirror behind her stood a figure, barely an arm’s length away. Lilli fell forward onto her knees, tossed herself about; stretching out her angelica, she crawled backwards, but there was nothing, the room lay empty before her. Whimpering, she got to her feet. It was too much, she had to get out of here. Where had she got the crazy idea to mess with a ghost? Jheron would kill her. She had to get to the door, unlock it ... she had to get to the guards in the corridor!

  Lilli thought she was losing her mind with fear as she turned her gaze to the mirror. Yes, maybe that would make her lose her mind, but she had to know where Jheron was now.

  The silhouette of a man stood in the shadows beside the door. Lilli’s gaze flew away from the mirror to the door, there was nothing, yet there he was. In a panic she rushed back to the reading corner, the herbs stretched out in front of her like a sword.

  “What do you want from me?” she cried. He blocked her door and she dared not run through him.

  The oil light flickered and grew smaller. No! If he shrouded this room in darkness, that would be the end of her, Lilli thought she knew for sure.

  “Stop it!” she shouted in a commanding tone. “Stop acting like a damn coward!”

  The oil light cast flickering shadows on the wall, but it did not extinguish.

  Lilli heard her own wheezing breath. The unsteady light distorted Jheron’s figure, but Lilli still recognised the striking resemblance to Amon. Except that Jheron bore no scars on his face. He just stood there, in the shadows, looking at her. She noticed that he looked a little younger than Amon did today. No wonder, he had died at sixteen.

  Lilli held the angelica out to him and tried not to go mad.

  Amon, for you, for you ...

  “Why don’t you leave us alone?” she said into the room. She didn’t expect an answer, didn’t know if ghosts could talk. But she assumed he understood her. “Amon wasn’t trying to kill you; he was just fighting back! Leave him alone! Leave US alone already!”

  Lilli watched the form, the piercing blue eyes in the darkness. Jheron shook his head slowly.

  “What are you talking about? Do you want to go on until everyone is dead? What do you want?”

  Again, Amon’s dead brother indicated a shake of his head. Then he seemed to move, towards Lilli. She gasped in fear, backed away, banged against the shelf. Books fell to the floor. She saw Jheron dissolve, a black-grey shadow first dissipating and then amassing without warning. For a brief moment the cloud-like entity took on the rough shape of a man, then it rushed towards Lilli and she felt as if she had been thrown into ice water as Jheron’s spirit drove into her body.

  12

  “Your Highness! Is everything all right with you? Highness!” The guard banged on the door from the outside.

  Lilli opened it for him.

  “Forgive me, Highness, but I heard you scream.”

  “It is nothing,” Lilli replied. “Some books fell off my shelf.”

  “Well ... are you sure you don’t need any help? You know His Majesty said ...”

  “I know. I don’t need any help. Good night.” Lilli closed the door and then turned around. The painting materials were in the corner, carefully sorted in a box. She walked over and with slow but routine movements began to lay out the utensils on the table. She did not need any light. The oil lamp could go out if so desired, Lilli found her way around even in complete darkness.

  She moved a chair into a suitable position, settled down on it and reached for the paintbrush.

  “Lilli!” A hand was on her and shook her gently. Lilli just grumbled and didn’t move, she was exhausted and just lying nice and warm and comfortable, not knowing where she was lying, but at that moment she didn’t care.

  “Lilli, is everything alright with you? It’s past noon!”

  Those disturbing hands again, grabbing her and shaking her.

  She opened her eyes and turned onto her back, sighing. Above her hovered the wrinkled face of Auntie Jahne.

  “Yes, it’s all right. I was just tired.” Lilli rolled to the edge of the bed reluctantly. She had lain so comfortably here, so safe and warm. She didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to face the day with all its stressful events.

  “You’re still in your day clothes, dear!” Auntie Jahne called out. “What’s going on here? The guards were worried but didn’t dare enter your room just like that. That’s when they came for me. Didn’t you want to lock up? The door was open.”

  “I don’t remember,” Lilli said, brushing back her tangled hair. She tried to remember how last night had gone, but no images came up in her mind ... Lilli gasped and grabbed Jahne by the sleeve, making the old woman wince.

  “Jheron! He was here! I saw him!”

  “What, Lilli, are you sure? Or were you dreaming about him?” Jahne looked at her worriedly as Lilli peeled herself frantically from the sheets.

  “I’m quite sure. He’s shown himself to me, I know exactly what he looks like.” She ran to the mirror and glanced in with a pounding heart, but all she saw was a young woman, almost still a girl, with a disintegrated hairdo, big, frightened eyes, black hair hanging down to her hips, in a rumpled dress. She looked like a ghostly apparition herself. Lilli turned to Jahne and pointed to the mirror.

  “I think he uses mirrors to show himself or to contact us.” And then she told everything she remembered. That she had acquired the knowledge and got the angelica, that she had waited here for him, that he had appeared to her and she believed he would not leave them all alone until he got what he wanted.

  Jahne had listened with a pale face and it occurred to Lilli that it might be too much for Jahne to bear. She probably had to be a little more careful with the aged lady.

  “You’d better sit down, Auntie,” Lilli said. “You can calm down, not
hing happened to me. If he could just do something to me like that, don’t you think he would have?”

  “I don’t know,” Jahne said, dropping into an armchair. “After all, he did nothing but torture Amon for years, but to that we had said that it was his revenge to torture him for years. But you, with you he can meet his brother. You are more vulnerable than Amon. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Goodness, child, I’m disturbed. I can’t believe you’ve met the dead Jheron.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” Lilli murmured. Her eyes wandered to the easel that stood neatly against the wall, but ...

  “What is it?” Lilli asked, and now she could better understand Jahne’s sense of bewilderment. The paints, the brushes, everything was tidied up beneath the window, but yesterday the things had still been in the wooden box. Lilli rummaged in her memory, but there was nothing, and when she carefully took the picture out of the holder and turned it over, she almost dropped it in shock.

  “What is it?” asked Jahne.

  “The picture! I don’t remember painting it!”

  “What did you paint?”

  Lilli turned the picture towards her. “The silver goblet of Amon’s father.”

  They sat next to each other and stared at the picture. Lilli several times affirmed that she could not remember the painting itself and yet they held the image of the silver chalice in their hands.

  Lilli considered that for the first time in her life she had been sleepwalking and had painted with sleeping senses what was on her mind. This was also supported by the fact that she had painted herself. She had painted one of the red stones embedded in the stem of the chalice a little bit next to it, just like that, into nothingness, so that it looked as if it were floating in the air.

  Auntie Jahne decided that you couldn’t think on an empty stomach and ordered them something to eat in their room.

  Soon they were sitting there with a bowl of hot porridge on their laps, speculating their heads off about the painting. The wildest theories were flying around. Aunty Jahne could not be dissuaded that this incident was a message from Jheron.

  “This chalice means something,” she said for the twelfth time, twisting and turning the noble drinking vessel in her hands.

  “But what?” Lilli compared the painting to the chalice again and nothing caught her eye, except for the mistake with the stone. “The chalice has belonged to the family for generations. Only the king drinks from it. Jheron may be trying to tell us that the chalice, and therefore the throne, is his alone.”

  “It’s possible, though Amon is the rightful heir to the throne, as I said. It must not have been easy for Jheron to be born a few minutes later and that little detail cost him the throne.”

  “I think so too,” Lilli said, running her finger over the gemstones. “Does anyone know who made the chalice?”

  “Yes. It was an artist who made the chalice commissioned by Amon’s great-great-grandmother for the king at the time,” Auntie Jahne told her.

  “Hmm.” Lilli took the chalice and looked inside at the top. Inside, everything seemed smoothly polished and shiny. Constance had polished the silver to a high shine. She turned it over, there was a signature in the base that was barely decipherable. Again, she looked at it and then she gasped.

  “Look. This place where the stone is missing. How does that look to you?” She held the picture out to Jahne.

  “Like a black hole? I don’t have the best eyes anymore, dear.”

  “Yes, exactly. Like a hole. When I paint a picture, every unpainted part is bright like the canvas. Not black. I thought I just painted the stone in the air in confusion, but then the unpainted canvas would be in that spot, not a black hole.”

  “You’re right!” Excited, Jahne snatched the goblet, turned it, and tried to find the stone that was missing from the painting. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Let me see.” Lilli looked closely at the precious stones. And on one she actually found the difference between it and the others. The frame of the stones had turned black towards the inner edge, as was known from silver. No polishing cloth could reach these ridges, but on one stone the frame also shone in the cracks. Lilli put her fingers on it and carefully turned and pressed. At first nothing happened, then she felt that the gemstone could be moved easily. There had to be a mechanism hidden there. She thought of a jewellery box she had once received as a gift and could not get it open. At first, she thought the lock was stuck, but later she found out that she had just turned it the wrong way.

  These things are usually made for foolish people. If it doesn’t work, you started it the wrong way.

  That’s what her father had said, and he was right about that. It was probably easy, and if nothing moved, then you were doing something wrong.

  Lilli tried to be patient, turning, and pushing in every direction. And then the stone just slid aside, revealing an opening.

  “I’ve got it!” Lilli cried. “The shaft is hollow! See?” She held out the goblet to Auntie Jahne.

  “This is incredible.” Jahne took the cup from her and held it with the opening right over her now empty porridge bowl, she tipped the cup, and a reddish liquid ran out of the opening.

  “What is that?” Lilli asked.

  “By all rules of logic, I’d guess poison here,” Jahne said, emptying the shaft of the cup completely. “Whoever poisoned Amon probably put the poison here in the shaft and that’s why ...” She peered into the top of the goblet. “Here, have a look with your young eyes. Do you see anything there? A little hole, a tiny opening?”

  Lilli looked inside and saw nothing at first, but then she noticed it. A small hole, as if from a pinprick at the bottom of the goblet. She pointed it out to Auntie Jahne.

  “There we have the secret,” Jahne said. “The poison was occasionally poured into the stem, and then when Amon tipped the cup while drinking, the poison got into his wine drop by drop.”

  Lilli fell silent in shock. And immediately the thoughts circled within her. Who could have known about this opening and used it to poison the king?

  “If Jheron had influenced someone to do this because he knew about it, why ...” Lilli grabbed Jahne’s arm so suddenly that she flinched. “Jheron! He influenced me to paint that picture. I know there was something! And that’s how he was going to put us on the right track!”

  “But why would he tell us if it was?” asked Jahne.

  “Because he may not be the perpetrator. But he may have been watching the perpetrator.”

  “That sounds pretty crazy, Lilli. But well, we’re in a crazy situation too. Are you saying you think Jheron is on our side?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but it looks like it.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Jahne asked.

  “Wait for the evening.”

  Lilli spent most of the day in front of the easel. After freshening up and changing in her own room, she settled in for a day of painting. For some reason she had a feeling that the spirit would not show itself until evening, but she took no chances and stayed near the easel in case Jheron wanted to contact her. But nothing happened until the afternoon, when Jahne appeared with pastries and warm milk. Until then, Lilli had spent hours thinking, which she now submitted to Jahne during this afternoon break. Among other things, she pondered the motive of the perpetrator. If it wasn’t Jheron, then his revenge was also ruled out as a motive. Of course, in the back of her mind she left open the thought that the ghost was just setting a trap for her or trying to throw her off the scent – but still ...

  “Who stands to gain if the king dies?” Lilli asked. “That is the question.”

  “Nobody, actually,” Jahne said. “But we’ve already stated that this stranger may have wanted to get rid of you too. Someone tried to scare you away. Officially, you’re considered Amon’s fiancée. If you marry him, you will also inherit the throne upon his death.”

  Lilli nodded, she knew, and that did nothing to make her feel safer. If only Amon were back already! How long would it
take him to come back?

  “I’ll talk to Constance about it today after all,” Lilli said. “She needs to know.”

  “No,” Jahne said, and Lilli raised her head in surprise. “She mustn’t know.”

  “Because?”

  “Because she’s one of the suspects, seen that way. She will inherit the throne when Amon dies.”

  “Constance? She doesn’t exactly give the impression of being interested in ruling,” Lilli commented. “But she has to be on the list for form’s sake. Who else is suspicious?”

  For a moment they sat and mulled it over.

  “There’s that unknown man who attacked you.”

  “Yes,” Lilli said. “Thus, an unknown man who has an equally unknown relationship to the royal house. It may have been Sewoldt and if not ... Perhaps a forgotten relative? If that were the case, then Constance would have to be informed. Then she would also be endangered as heir to the throne.”

  They continued to talk and speculate until evening fell. Auntie Jahne grew tired and withdrew. Lilli, on the other hand, prepared herself for a long night.

  She woke up because something cold had brushed against her. She must have fallen asleep after all! Lilli blinked. She was still sitting in the armchair, the blanket on her lap. Daylight fell into the room and Auntie Jahne sat opposite her. On her knees she held a stretched canvas. It took Lilli a moment, then she had grasped the situation.

  “I was painting,” Lilli said, her voice sounding rough. Again, she couldn’t remember anything. “Show me.”

  Auntie Jahne turned the picture around slowly, with an expression in her eyes that Lilli had never seen on the old lady before. Lilli gasped for breath.

  “What do we do now?” Auntie Jahne asked. “Amon won’t believe us.”

  “Hardly.” Lilli stared at the picture. She had only rendered the study in broad strokes but had painted one person all the more accurately. She had even captured Constance’s facial features. Amon’s sister held a small vessel in her right hand and the silver goblet in her left. She looked satisfied as she filled the poison into the small opening.