by David Wood
He threw the window open and breathed the cold air in deeply, then began his morning ritual of stretches and exercises. Afterward he cleaned himself and headed down to the tavern to break his fast. Even Miklos seemed chipper with the sun blazing brightly through the wide open door to the large room.
“Just one man to work on restoring a castle? Seems like quite a job, sir,” Miklos said, while serving up a plate of sliced meats and chunky cheeses, dark mustards and steaming bread.
“I had discussed bringing on more men in my correspondence with the Count, once the project has begun,” Wagner told him.
“More men?”
“And women.” Wagner smiled.
“Women?” Miklos was stunned.
“Yes, my wife will join me in a few weeks, once I am settled.”
Miklos’s face had turned sour again and the man stalked off to the kitchen. Wagner figured the man was just perpetually ill-tempered, and the seeming joviality moments earlier was a fluke. He ate his food in silence, then returned to his room to pack his leather bags. When he came downstairs, he settled his bill with the waitress from the night before, who was manning the front counter. There was no sign of Miklos. She was pretty, as she pushed a handful of dark curls behind her ear, but no match for his wife. Still, he could see what would have attracted the local men to her. She had large brown eyes and long lashes. More importantly, her skin was clear and fine. This morning she wore a variation of the previous evening’s dress, although the neckline was higher and she wore a scarf around her throat, tied in a small bow. Wagner assumed that as the night went on, she would remove the scarf, and the buttons holding the dress closed at the upper chest would slowly start to come undone. As the patrons got drunker, and spent more money, her attire would get more risqué. He had seen the same thing with Munich waitresses and bargirls. She certainly looked tired this morning, and squinted in the bright daylight flooding in through the tavern’s few windows.
“Your coach is waiting for you, sir.”
Wagner glanced at the waitress, then turned to the front of the tavern. He hadn’t heard any coach approaching. He stepped into the open doorway and beheld a singular vehicle, unlike any coach he had seen.
It was deep black, and very tall and narrow. Wide enough, surely, for only one man—and not a very heavy man at that. The trim of the carriage was well-appointed with thick velvet drapes of a dark maroon in the windows. The horses at the lead were twin black stallions with luxuriant long bluish-black tails and shining silver head plates like armor. But their arrangement in the traces was bizarre—one of the two stallions was in front of the other.
The driver’s seat was empty.
Wagner goggled at the strange carriage and wondered if it wouldn’t simply tip over on a wide turn, never mind a sharp twist in a road.
“How very unique,” he said.
Wagner looked around for the driver, but could see him nowhere.
Instead, he turned back toward the inn and found Miklos wearing an apron and holding his bags out for him. “Safe journey, sir.”
“Thank you,” Wagner took his cases and loaded them into the narrow carriage, then climbed into the seat and closed the door. He had had enough of the local hospitality. But Miklos lingered for just a moment outside the open window of the dark carriage.
“Herr Wagner,” he said, drawing Wagner’s eyes toward him. “I wouldn’t bring your lady here. It’s a very rough country.”
Wagner was about to reply, but the carriage jolted into motion, throwing him back in his seat as the horses pulling the coach sped into a quick gallop. He slid forward on his seat, and then craned his neck out the open window to take in the driver.
The man seated in the driver’s position was wearing a black cloak, and his head was hooded. Wagner could make out no features, other than that the man was very skinny, like the carriage, and must have stood close to six and a half feet tall when standing. He was hunched over into a dark crescent as he worked the reins, urging the horses faster. The noise from the stallions’ hooves and the wheels of the carriage were such that Wagner made no attempt to converse with the driver—the man simply wouldn’t hear him. Instead, he put his faith in the fact that any driver of the Count’s would be extremely familiar with the road to the castle, no matter how dangerous it might be. Surely the coach driver’s excellence could be counted upon.
Wagner sat back in the plush cushioned chair and watched the scenery roll by, as the verdant countryside blurred past. The rocking motion, combined with the exquisite fresh air, soon made him sleepy, and he found himself dozing lightly. When he woke from a jolt under the wheel of the carriage, he looked out the window and immediately realized why the carriage needed to be as narrow as it was: The road itself was narrow and gray as it wound through the tight mountain spaces, a precipitous drop just inches from the edge of the wheel. The height was dizzying, even for a mountaineer such as himself. Wagner was startled by the change in the landscape during his brief snooze, from green rolling alpine pastures to gray crumbling rock and jagged peaks. Even the weather had changed, from sunlit day to overcast leaded skies.
How long did I sleep?
And then he saw it.
Across a chasm of valley shrouded in mist and shadow, the structure loomed out of the morning, its natural base clouded by mists. The castle hunched upon the cliffs, its lone path twisting like a snake up the mountain. The rock around the structure was carved away by wind, and rain, and time, as if the castle itself was the last holdout against the ravages of a foul-tempered Mother Nature.
“Mein Gott. How did they even build that up there?”
It was exposed, like Neuschwanstein castle, back in Bavaria, yet even that glorious castle had more level ground around it. As far as Wagner could tell, the winding, narrow, stone bridge of land that led to the building was the only land still unaffected by the powers of nature. It was as if all the land had simply fallen away from the environs of the castle, leaving only the rectilinear edges and turreted roofline as evidence that a mighty mountain once stood around the structure.
To the untrained eye, the building appeared completely sound, but Andreas Wagner had worked with stone for most of his life, since apprenticing with his father. He could immediately spot areas that looked weak and others that looked as if they might have been subject to fire damage. Still, from this distance, he wouldn’t be able to fully appraise the state of the building.
The carriage moved into a thick grove of evergreen trees, and his view of the massive castle was obstructed. The branches swiped at the carriage as it raced past at dizzying speed.
The road veered away from the view further, and the next few minutes were through dense alpine forest. Yet the driver showed no sign of slowing any time soon. The blur of nearby trees began to weary Wagner’s eyes, so he shifted his view to the inside of the carriage, with its expensive upholstery.
When his next sight of the castle came, it was because the coach had burst from the forest onto the very edge of the narrow natural bridge to the Count’s home. The building now loomed so large that he could not take in all of it through the tiny carriage window. Despite the disturbing plummet to either side of the vehicle, the driver still showed no signs of slowing the coach. They raced and clattered through a portcullis and into the main courtyard of the castle, with its bleak stone walls soaring up all around them. The driver finally halted the horses. It came so suddenly that Wagner thought they might crash into the wall of the main building. The complete lack of motion was disorienting after such heady speed. He could hear the stallions breathing hard and snorting at the head of the vehicle.
He stepped out of the coach onto the smooth stone flagstones of the courtyard. Once again, the driver had vacated his seat and had apparently moved quickly and silently out of sight. Wagner glanced at the courtyard from the gate. He looked up at the soaring height of the castle wall before him. Huge statues of ravens and old men with flowing beards and swords were scattered around the space. The ravens were massive—nearly
six foot—and they were made of a stone of such a dark gray that it appeared black. Each statue of a man held a sword. Most likely ancient Transylvanian war heroes, or perhaps prior owners of the castle, Wagner thought. Either way, he found them intimidating in the courtyard, and he thought their arrangement very haphazard, as if the courtyard were at one time a sculptor’s studio, and the pieces were wherever he felt like working that day.
Wagner turned his attention back to the castle. The door was a large slab of old heavy wood, with a thick iron band and supports, long since rusted. But what caught Wagner’s eye immediately were the large rocks, some as large as a man’s head, scattered around the courtyard as if dropped there. In fact, he knew they had been. He glanced up the immense front wall of the building to the towers and turrets and quickly located a few areas from where the chunks might have come. He would have his work cut out for him.
He moved to knock on the heavy door with his knuckles, when he found no bell or other way of announcing his presence. But before he could touch his flesh to the iron-banded door, it began to move. The door swung open, but no one stood on the other side to greet him.
Chapter 5
The door had swung inward silently, with no creak or groan. At least the hinges are being oiled, Wagner thought.
Although the upper reaches of the exterior of the castle were not well cared for, he saw that the more accessible areas indoors were well tended. Inside the door, the large hall had fine woodwork, and the walls were draped with old tapestries. The room was huge, and in similar castles Wagner had seen, the upper reaches were clogged with spider webs. But the inside of this room was immaculately clean—even the corners of the ceilings, far above his head.
A huge curving staircase dominated the room with a thick banister covered in hundreds of years of polish and wax. Doorways led off to other parts of the castle from this central entry foyer. A red Persian carpet covered the floor. At the edges of the enormous room, the black and white checked marble floor was visible. Windows high above on the front wall let in a stream of diffuse light, and Wagner noted that the sun, while it was shining through the clouds outside, did not directly pierce the windows. They must be shaded to reduce glare, he thought.
It the center of the room was a round wooden table with a vase of fresh flowers, and a thick envelope addressed “My Dear Herr Wagner” in a fine and curling script. Wagner stepped into the room and looked around. He was alone.
He moved to the table and opened the letter.
My Dear Herr Wagner,
I must humbly thank you for making the long and sometimes treacherous journey to my home from your distant Bavaria. As I am sure you must already have seen, the castle can benefit from the touch of a skilled craftsman such as yourself. It was sadly neglected for many years, and has, I am afraid, fallen into some disrepair.
It is with some regret that I must inform you I have been called away on business. I often travel long distances, and I am frequently away during the days. Do not let this concern you. I will make your acquaintance soon, and we will become close friends. My servant will prepare meals for you, and should you require any supplies, you will leave him a list at the breakfast table. He will be certain to secure the necessary items for you from the shops in the village.
You have the run of the castle for your inspections, and you may begin your work wherever you should see fit. Should you come across any portions of the buildings that are locked, this will be because they are very old and disused. I shall endeavor to locate the keys to these sections for you when I return. A room has been prepared for you, and I have included a small map of sorts indicating areas of the castle I know to require your stone-working services.
We shall meet soon. Until then, welcome.
D
Wagner looked up from the letter at the mention of a servant, but as far as he could determine, he was still alone in the cavernous room. He briefly inspected the parchment map, and then returned the letter and the map to the envelope from which they had come.
He thought it strange that the Count was not available to meet him, and that the servant was nowhere to be seen, either. He wondered whether the vanishing coach driver was the servant in question. He determined to settle into his room and then have a look around the castle, but it occurred to him that he had no idea where his room might be. The small hand-drawn map the Count had included indicated only areas of disrepair—most of which were near the upper reaches of the structure. There was no mention of where he would find his room, the kitchen, or the servant’s quarters, for that matter.
“Right then,” he said aloud. “I suppose the exploration will come first.”
He strode across the lush carpet, examining the broad slabs of gray stone that made up the walls of the foyer. The foyer was in good shape, and he didn’t think he would need to do any work in the large room; he knew from experience that the weaker sections would be the disused parts of the building. He crossed to a hallway that led toward the rear of the castle. Off the hall were doors to a small sitting room, a cramped space with a lovely antique writing desk, and a few rooms that were completely empty of furniture or decoration—they were little more than stone cells with bare walls, and they were oddly incongruent with the rest of the lushly decorated place. Wagner wondered whether the spaces were simply yet to be decorated, or if they had some other purpose. For storage, perhaps?
The things he found most interesting were small nicks and cuts in the stone in various places along the walls and extending up high to the ceilings. The marks did not look natural, yet he could not fathom what purpose the original designers might have had for such marks and gouges in the stone.
At the end of the long limestone corridor with a seemingly new running carpet, he followed his nose to a large kitchen, with a wooden table, set for one. The room was awash with the glorious scents of warm, inviting food. There were two candles lit in the candelabrum on the table, as well as fine silver, a linen napkin, and what appeared to be Chinese porcelain, although Wagner was no expert. A large jug of water was dripping condensation onto the white lace tablecloth. A huge platter heaped with meat and cheese was the centerpiece, but he also found warm bread, mashed potatoes, and leafy green vegetables. There was probably enough food set out for five men or more, and most of it was still quite warm. Again, he glanced around, looking for the servant that might have prepared the meal. He must have been here just moments ago.
He was alone in the room, though, and not a pot or pan swung from the hanging rack as if it had been recently disturbed. Besides the food on the table, there was no indication that anyone had been in the room recently. Chopping surfaces were clean, and dishes were dry in the draining racks near the sink. Knives gleamed and were neatly arrayed on a preparation table. Yet another mystery for another time, he thought. He suddenly felt famished, and so, feeling quite guilty to be dining alone and at the effort of some unseen helper, he sat and ate.
Once again, as at the tavern, the food was fantastic. He was disappointed to be leaving so much of it behind. He did not know how many unseen servants the Count might have wandering around the sprawling castle, but it was very clear from the table’s arrangement that this feast had been meant solely for him.
He stood from the table after eating and was about to retrace his steps back toward the front foyer, when he spotted a door ajar at the far corner of the kitchen. He strode across the room to the door. It was unlocked and revealed a descending spiral stone staircase. Thinking it might lead to the servant’s quarters, and wishing to express his thanks for the fine meal, he began his descent.
Chapter 6
The curving stairway was dark, but Wagner had snatched a candlestick from the kitchen before descending. The dull orange glow bounced and danced as he made his way deeper into the foundations of the castle. The stonework was good and solid, the limestone steps wide and smooth from years of foot traffic. The walls showed no signs of moisture, which was always a good thing. However, he found more of the strange n
ick marks in the walls a few feet up from the steps and going up to the stairwell’s curved ceiling.
As he descended, he found room after room off the spiral steps, most of which were empty. Those that were not held items like crates and furniture covered in old dusty sheets. At first, Wagner was concerned with finding the servants, but the engineering part of his mind soon lost that thread, and he became completely engulfed in the mystery of what might lie at the bottom of the twisting stair, and why this stairwell and these rooms had been carved out of the rock. He was now far below the ground floor of the castle, and most likely far below any other basement levels of the structure as well. He pictured the castle like a giant pinwheel, with the staircase and its occasional small cramped rooms as the long stick.
How deep does this go?
When the stairs finally leveled out into an arched room, Wagner guessed the distance down from the kitchen to be some four hundred feet—an exceptionally long way to burrow into solid rock, only so you could place a room. He stepped into the arched room and instantly recognized it for what it was. A wine cellar. But the notion that someone would want a cellar this far below a castle boggled his mind. Surely there was something more.
The room, with its soaring arched ceiling, was filled with hundreds of wooden wine racks, each filled with dusty bottles. The arrangement of the racks was like a maze, but Wagner easily navigated through them. Since childhood, he had always had an innate ability to keep track of his location in busy markets or twisting alleyways. As he had grown older, he found the ability extended to not getting lost in the forests, where his friends would be clueless as to their direction. He moved around the room, the dank air suggesting that this far down into the mountain, water had done its work and found the tiny cracks and crevices it always does. At the edges of the room, he found the walls were oddly shaped nooks, coves, and crannies that allowed wooden racks to be placed at all angles to hold the cellar’s voluminous collection of dusty wine bottles. Wagner did not know wines, but he had seen a few large collections of which the owners were proud. This one would have made all those men seem like amateurs.