by John Burke
“I’m a bit dubious about the whole arrangement,” said Alan. “Now, let’s be sure of our facts. We contracted with you, I fancy, to take us to Josefsbad. You agree?”
“You can walk,” said the driver thickly. “It is two kilometres.”
“Walk?” Charles exploded. “You must be mad.”
“You are the ones who are mad.”
“Come on, man—it’ll soon be dark.”
The driver looked up at the lowering sky and nodded. His stubbornness was a goad: Charles clenched his right fist and was tempted to spring up and drag the oaf down; but the driver raised his whip as though ready to fight off any assault.
Alan said: “It was understood between us—”
“I was wrong to come,” said the driver. “I did not understand.”
“You understood well enough.”
“Please. You get out here. You all get out. I go no farther.”
“Why, you . . .”
Charles lifted his arm. The whip flicked a few inches from his right ear. Alan came hastily round the horses’ heads and stood by him. Then, suddenly, his attention was distracted and he stared beyond Charles.
“Up there—look!”
The driver automatically turned his head. Then he shuddered and at once looked resolutely in the opposite direction. Charles followed the line of Alan’s pointing figure.
“The castle.”
In the twilight the outlines of the towering edifice were sharp-edged against a dusting of snow on the mountain peaks. The surrounding crags were blurred by the evening haze, but the turrets and battlements of the castle were hard and decisive.
Charles tugged at the driver’s booted foot. “What is that place?”
“What place?”
“The castle up there. You must have passed it often enough. You know these parts. What is its name?”
“I see no castle.”
As he was steadfastly looking away, this was hardly surprising. Charles reached up and tried to get a good hold, to shake him and drag him down. Viciously the man lashed out at him. The whip sang in the air. Charles cursed and pulled hard, and the two of them were reeling across the dusty track.
Charles scrambled to his feet as Alan ran forward. They were together, ready for the driver . . . but as he pushed himself up he had a wicked knife in his right hand. The blade caught the last feeble glimmer of the setting sun.
Alan stopped dead. Charles edged forward. The knife twitched at him like a sharp, savage tongue.
“All right,” said the driver. “There has been too much talk. Enough. Get your women out.”
Alan and Charles stood quite still.
“Out,” said the man.
There was a throb in his voice that told Charles there was no point in arguing. It was not a matter of right or wrong, not a matter of reasoning or honest dealing or anything so civilized. They were in a deserted spot in an alien land, the driver was mad with fear and anger, and there was nothing to be done.
Alan put his thoughts into words. He waved to Diana and Helen, peering apprehensively from the coach.
“Better do as he says. Come on.”
The two women got down from the coach. It creaked gently as their weight came off the step, and one of the horses pawed the ground as though anxious to be on its way.
Charles was shaking with a rage to match the driver’s. He took a step forward. The knife sparked. Diana grabbed his arm.
“Leave it, Charles,” said Alan with a note of academic disapproval which belonged in the lecture-room rather than at this lonely crossroads. “He’s a highway robber. He just wants our luggage.”
The driver stayed where he was for a moment, then turned and swung himself up on to the coach. His knife flashed again, and cut through the rope which held the cases and boxes securely in place. A square box teetered on the edge of the roof and then crashed to the ground. The others slid gently off, two to one side, three to another.
Diana and Helen dodged backwards. Charles braced himself and blocked the progress of one case as it bounced across the road.
The driver stayed where he was. He settled into his seat and gathered up the reins.
“I will come back. Two hours after dawn tomorrow I wait here. If any of you are here, I will drive you away. Not to Josefsbad. I take you back—if you are here.”
Before they could shout at him or offer any kind of arrangement, he cracked his whip and yelled at the horses. They reared and snorted, and the wheels of the coach spun madly and then locked as they came round in a tight turn.
They watched it racket back into the darkness of the evening forest.
Charles said ruefully: “Well, he wasn’t a robber. I suppose one must be thankful for small mercies.”
“Why did he rush off if he’s prepared to come back and take us away tomorrow?” asked Diana, who was capable of showing a more directly logical mind than Helen at times. “If he doesn’t mind being here after dawn, and doesn’t mind dealing with us then—”
“He’s frightened of the dark,” said Charles.
Diana made a face at him and then looked up at the shapes that hemmed them in—shapes of crags and trees, of ridges and, bleakly in focus, of man-made towers stabbing up into the sky.
“You don’t mean that?” she said in a small voice which told him that, in spite of her brash vivacity, she was unhappy in this desolate spot.
“Of course I don’t,” said Charles hastily.
“He should be reported to the authorities,” said Helen. “Perhaps we could get his licence taken away.”
“We’re not in Wimbledon now, Helen. I doubt if there are any authorities to report him to. Even if there were, it wouldn’t be of much help to us, would it?”
Alan was a few feet away, absorbed in contemplation of something beyond them. The others had glanced at the castle; Alan was engrossed.
He said: “Why wouldn’t he let himself look at the place?”
They all turned.
For some reason Charles had taken it for granted that the building was a ruin. Its façade might be impressive from below, and its original outlines might still be precariously preserved, but it was only a shell. Now he saw that lights gleamed from three windows. They were like distant, feeble stars; but undoubtedly they were lights.
He said: “Shandor was right, in any event. The castle is here. Unless all four of us are having hallucinations. Five, including the coachman.”
“But why does everyone else deny the existence of the place?” asked Alan. “Even the map doesn’t show it. And no one can say it’s new. They must have known of it.”
“He told us to keep away from it,” said Diana.
Helen was at her elbow. “I agree with him.”
This was unlike Helen. It was against her principles to be faint and feminine. Incensed as she must be at the driver’s deplorable behavior, Charles would have expected her to march with her usual gawky stride up the slope to the castle and demand that couriers be sent to the nearest town, back to the inn, even to the Emperor Franz Josef himself.
Silently he consulted Alan. His brother, always shy and undemonstrative when it was a matter of committing himself to some decision, shrugged. He might be the older one but he preferred to leave policy in the hands of the younger.
Charles waved at the woodcutter’s hut. “We could light a fire and stay here.”
“I’d prefer that,” said Helen.
The two men took up the heavier cases and left their womenfolk to bring the lighter ones. They walked to the hut and tried the door. It rested, sagging, on a heavy old iron latch. When Charles put his shoulder to it, it squawked inwards.
The hut was bare but seemed reasonably dry. In one corner there was a neat stack of wood—logs trimly chopped, surrounded by a pile of brittle twigs.
Charles put down the two cases he had been carrying and stooped to look in.
“Hardly the Ritz, but I suppose it will have to do.”
Helen sniffed. But she, after all, had be
en the first to jib at the idea of moving away from the crossroads. It would do her good to spend some time close to nature, thought Charles. The concept cheered him enormously. Somehow he felt, perhaps maliciously, that even if it ruined her holiday it would nevertheless do her a world of good.
“We can build a fire outside,” Diana was saying. “And in the morning . . .”
Her voice trailed away. Charles backed out of the doorway and stood up. They all listened, hearing at the same time the faint, distant sound.
There was the jingle of harness. The rumble of wheels and the steady rhythm of horses’ hoofs pounded through the trees.
“He must have changed his mind,” said Alan.
“I should think so, too,” Helen snapped.
They stood by the hut watching the crossroads. But the coach did not come from the direction in which their driver had fled. Unexpectedly it emerged from behind a clump of bushes on the hill, coming at reckless speed towards the junction of those narrow, neglected roads.
Diana’s hand touched Charles’s arm. He felt her fingertips close on his sleeve and dig in.
The black coach, drawn by two magnificent black horses, had no driver.
Helen whispered a query that found no words.
Alan said: “Can we stop it?”
“We can certainly try.” Charles strode out into the middle of the road and raised his arms.
The horses pounded towards him, their splendid heads raised and their manes tossing in the evening air. From the dark shadows their black bodies seemed to glow with a stygian brightness of their own.
“Charles . . . !”
Still they came on, and Charles braced his feet on the roadway, ready to spring aside and to make a grab at the harness as the coach and pair went by. But there was no need. As they approached the crossroads the horses slowed to a trot and finally, six feet away from Charles, came to a halt. They stopped, snorting and rubbing their heads together.
Charles stepped forward. He patted one head and then another. The animals were perfectly placid. He seized the loose reins and still they did not rear away.
Alan came to join him. “A bit strange, don’t you think?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Charles grinned. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially when there are two of them and they happen to be pulling a coach.”
Helen and Diana stood nervously at the roadside.
“It’s weird,” said Helen. “It’s . . . unnatural.”
Charles agreed that the circumstances were somewhat unusual, but on a trip such as this he would in fact have been disappointed if there hadn’t been something novel and provocative to cope with.
“All aboard?” he said.
Helen and Diana consulted each other silently. They were apprehensive, but the coach looked safe and the horses were well cared for. If it could take them to an inn, they would be prepared to forgive the odd way in which it had appeared.
Charles determined to force the issue. “We’ll get the luggage loaded. Helen, hold the horses a moment.” This was too sudden. Helen stepped back. Charles glanced at Diana and was proud that she should go so fearlessly and immediately to the horses’ heads.
By the time the luggage had been loaded the sky was quite black, without even a dusting of stars. They would have to go slowly.
Charles settled himself on the driver’s seat and gathered up the reins. Alan made sure the women were comfortable and then looked up at his brother.
“Josefsbad?”
“Josefsbad,” said Charles confidently.
It would not be far. In a very short time from now they would be eating and drinking and beginning to laugh about their uncanny experience. It would be a marvellous tale on which to dine out when they got home.
Charles slapped the reins. For an instant he wondered if the horses would respond to the commands of a stranger. Then they strained forward and began to move.
They were facing the road to Josefsbad. But instead of advancing along it, the coach began to swing round in a tight turn.
Charles woke up to what was happening. He pulled on the reins.
“Whoa . . . whoa back, there!”
The dark, almost invisible road to the castle was under the wheels of the coach. They began to roll forward, the horses taking the strain of the slope which began a few yards from the crossroads. The only light was the baleful wink of the castle windows high above.
Charles heaved back on the reins. The horses paid no attention. Their strong heads remained fixed and remorseless, aimed at the sinister building from which they had come.
It was no good fighting with them. Charles swore, then slackened his grip. The pace did not alter. Swiftly but steadily the horses tackled the incline. Nothing to do but accept the situation philosophically. Perhaps, if all went well, the lord of the castle would prove to be a charming nobleman of the old school who would insist on offering them a warming drink and then providing a coachman to get them to their destination. This would be a small token of his gratitude to them for returning his runaway horses.
The horses seemed, it had to be admitted, perfectly capable of returning themselves. In the darkness Charles could see little and would not have known how to guide them. They made their own sure-footed way round looming crags and under avenues of oppressive trees.
Cold air stung his face. The castle was above the snow line, and as they got closer the shapes of the mountains grew more distinct. A snowy slope was pale in the night. A peak some miles away seemed close at first glance, a light, flat stain on the stygian heavens.
The coach took a sharp turn. The battlements of the castle reared domineeringly from the trees. The view was obscured by a rocky bluff for a moment, and then they were racing towards a massive outer wall. The planking of a bridge thrummed below the hoofs and wheels, and Charles caught a glimpse of the frozen, icy surface of a moat; then they plunged through a wide gateway in the wall and on into a courtyard. The horses slowed at last and drew the coach in a wide, graceful circle round the yard until it halted before an ornately carved main door.
Silence fell. Charles looked up at the crusting of snow on a spiky turret, and then down at Alan, who was scrambling out indignantly.
“What happened—what possessed you to drive us up here?”
“Nothing possessed me. It was the horses who were possessed, if that’s the word you want.” Charles swung his legs over and dropped to the ground. “Let’s hope their master is as hospitable as they’ve been.”
Alan stared dubiously round the deserted courtyard. “I don’t understand. What do you think . . . ?”
“I think they’re not horses at all. They’re St Bernards in disguise, rescuing stranded travellers.”
Alan’s gaze was fixed on the huge door. Charles could guess what he was thinking. They had made enough noise arriving. It was strange that nobody had come out—if not to welcome them, then to chase them away.
Charles said breezily: “Let’s pay our respects.” He turned to the coach door. “Come on, ladies.”
Helen was the first to get down. She stood straight and stiff, raking the cobbled yard with an accusing glare.
“I don’t like it.”
“It can’t be as bad as spending a night in that woodshed.”
“It’s . . . eerie.”
“Let’s find out just how eerie.”
Charles went towards the door. One of the horses let out a hot, snuffling breath that steamed briefly on the air. There was the faintest jingle of harness. Then silence again—a brooding, waiting silence.
Charles raised his hand to beat on the door. But as he touched it, it moved gently inwards an inch or so. Light was a thick line down the edge.
He looked back at Alan, a few paces behind him. Alan’s left cheek was stained faintly by the light.
“Well?”
Alan hesitated, then nodded.
“I suppose we might . . .”
Charles pushed the door. It swung slowly open before them.
> 3
The hall which lay beyond was a huge, high room with a gallery at the far end. A sweeping flight of stairs broke the vastness of the place with its magnificent curve from floor to gallery.
Charles stepped over the threshold.
Walls and floor were of heavy stone. To one side of the hall was a scattering of rugs, their rich patterns echoed in tapestries which mellowed the severe walls. In the centre of one wall was a huge fireplace in which spluttering logs belched bright, welcoming flames.
“Hello . . . anyone there?”
Charles’s voice echoed off into the far reaches of the hall. He waited, but there was no answer.
Yet the fire had been newly replenished with wood. And, now that he looked, he saw that to one side of it there was a large oak table with places laid for four people.
Places laid . . . but no people. Nobody in here but himself.
“Hello . . . !”
Again his voice rang vainly into the corners.
He looked back. Helen and Diana had advanced timidly to the door and, with Alan to one side, were peering in.
“Let’s not go in,” said Helen.
There was no point in upsetting her further by snapping that they really had no alternative. Charles had no intention of huddling for shelter in a corner of the courtyard, or of trying to bed down in the coach. They were here, and they would stay here until they got some satisfaction from the owner of the place.
He walked boldly into the centre of the hall. After a brief pause the others followed.
They were all some distance from the door when the silence was broken by an unmistakable sound. There was the abrupt rasp of a hoof on the cobbles, the creak of a wheel, and they heard the coach begin to move.
Alan let out an exclamation and turned back towards the door. Charles sprang past the women and hurried through the gap, out again into the chill of the night.
The coach, which held all their luggage, was disappearing at a spanking pace through a dark archway at the far end of the building.