by David Wood
“To the rooms beyond the debris pile?” Wagner pressed. “I believe the worst of the structural damage would be up there, and I—”
“Of course,” the Count interrupted him. “Petran will ensure the keys are left for you at the breakfast table. I do not wish to impede your efforts in any way. You find your task manageable, then?”
“Yes. What I have seen so far confirms my initial assessment, that there will be a few areas that require intense reconstruction, and some things will be slowed by the onset of winter, but I do not anticipate the project to take longer than we had discussed in our correspondence.” Wagner felt in his element at last, speaking about the repairs he would effect to the stone. They spoke for another twenty minutes on the subject, when the Count once again cut him off.
“I apologize again, but I must take my rest. I have an early start in the morning, for yet another trip. Perhaps we might dine again, on a different day. I would like to speak with you of your favorite authors, and of the latest books in Germany. It has been some time since I have traveled there.”
“Of course.” Wagner stood. “I shall look forward to it.”
The Count stood as well and left the room swiftly, as if he were late for an appointment. Wagner looked after the man. He is an odd sort, he thought. One moment sounding older than his years, and at other times seemingly young and vigorous.
Wagner returned to his chair and sat down to finish his wine. He liked the taste of it. He didn’t know much about wines, but the flavor rolled around and under his tongue. He was feeling warm and tired as he sat back in his chair, now looking at the empty chair across from him. The Count’s bowl remained on the table untouched. The crystal goblet with the wine was gone. Had the Count taken it with him? Wagner couldn’t recall. Suddenly the long day and the warm soup in his belly combined to throw a comfortable blanket of sleepiness over him. He fought for just an instant to stay awake, but then embraced the sensation and fell to dozing in his chair.
Chapter 10
Wagner woke deep in the night thinking he had heard a scream, but was unable to recall his dreams. In a moment, his head cleared, and with no further sound in the room save his own breathing, he realized he was only half awake. Any sounds he had heard were from his own sleep-addled mind. The candle in the parlor had burned down to a molten lump of wax, the flame in the last throes of its life. Wagner blew out the candle promptly made his way to his room, extinguishing other lit candles in their sconces as he went, and fell into his bed.
The following day he found a thick ring of brass keys on the breakfast table. He continued his work around the castle, and eventually found a few dust-choked rooms close to the top of the castle, where the entire roof had caved in. He understood instantly why those sections had been closed off. A few days later he was hauling yet another load down the makeshift plank ramp he had fashioned to get from the second story down the main stairs to the echoing foyer, when it occurred to him that since he had been given the keys to the locked doors of the structure, he hadn’t yet made the descent down to the wine cellar again, to inspect its locked room. He recalled both the dank smell of the cellar and the thought that he’d had about potential water damage.
I really should give it a further look.
Although he had still not met Petran, the table was always set for him three times a day, and as he left lists of things he needed, he would always find those items in the kitchen at mealtimes. Instead of taking his wheelbarrow load out to the courtyard to dump, he left it standing in the foyer, setting the rear metal legs down carefully, so as not to scuff the checked marble floor.
He walked to the kitchen, keeping an eye out for Petran, but as usual, the room was vacant. He crossed the room for the cellar door and curiously found it locked. He took out the large ring of keys that had been left for him, and he tried a few keys in the door until he felt one satisfyingly seat itself in the lock. He twisted, and with a loud clunking, the lock tumbled, and the door opened.
Many areas of the castle were perpetually dark, because of its poor number of windows. Those that were present were often shaded by architectural design, almost as if this part of Hungary had once been afflicted with blistering desert-like sunshine, instead of the cold, drizzly, and foggy days Wagner had experienced since his arrival. Due to the gloom, he had taken to always traveling the building’s maze of corridors and abundance of rooms armed with his small leather backpack, which contained his flashlight as well as several candles and matches. He took out one of the small sticks now and lit it for his descent of the spiral stairs.
Along the descent, he popped his head into each of the rooms again, noting that nothing about them had changed. He found it interesting that the last time the door had been ajar, and this time it was locked, yet no one seemed to be using anything in any of the rooms. Wagner wondered if perhaps Petran had been getting into the wines while the Count had been away, and now that the man had returned, Petran was wisely keeping the stairs to the cellar locked.
None of my business.
When Wagner reached the twisty cellar, he went directly to the door on the far wall. He set his candle down on the floor, in a small dish he carried in his pack. Then he moved to the lock and began to try his clunky keys. The ring held twenty-eight of the long brass keys, each for different parts of the castle. The Count had told him the skeleton master key for all of the locks had been missing for generations.
Wagner made a methodical search, having placed a small bit of red string around the barrel of one of the keys, so he wouldn’t lose track of those keys he had tried. The tactic had worked well for him when trying the other locked doors in the building. He had yet to not find the correct key.
When he tried the last key against this lock to no avail, he frowned. Had he miscounted? He tried each key a second time, beginning with the key with the string, and carefully moving one key at a time around the ring.
None of the keys worked on this door.
He took a step back and looked again at the frustrating door—its hinges were on the other side—and frowned again. He could smell a deep odor of rot and decay, and the smell was stronger nearer the door. He would have to get in there to determine the extent of the damage. Any structural problems this low into the mountain probably would not affect the stability of the rest of the castle, but Wagner was not one to leave such things to chance.
“What are you doing?” a voice hissed at him in English from the shadows.
Wagner was startled and dropped the ring of keys, as he spun around.
The sound the brass keys made, clattering and skittering across the stone floor, made the man cringe, as if it caused him acute pain. He stood before Wagner, but well above him. The man must have been seven feet tall. He was painfully thin and gangly, although his form was somewhat masked by his well-tailored dark suit. His hair was long over his brow, and greasy, as if it had not been washed in weeks. In the flickering light of the candle, the man’s eyes looked black.
“Oh, you gave me quite a start,” Wagner said.
“What are you doing?” the man repeated. He seemed to be barely containing his anger.
“My name is Andreas Wagner. The Count has hired me to do renovations on the castle.”
The man sneered.
“I know who you are,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Wagner raised an eyebrow at the man, then bent to collect the keys from the floor. When he stood again, he stared directly into the tall man’s eyes. “I was looking for the key to this room. Are you Petran?”
The man’s expression changed in the dim light. Wagner could almost see him deciding to check his hostility. “I am Petran. The key to that room has been lost for many years. You do not need to go in there.”
“Oh, but I must. There’s a smell of rot. There could be damage to the foundation—”
“You do not need to go in there,” Petran said again, firmly. “It is only an old root cellar, and was never used, even when we had the key.”
“I see,” Wagner said, collecting his candle. But he felt there was more to it. Besides being snide, Petran was protecting something. Perhaps he had been lifting bottles from the Count’s wine collection after all, and storing them in the root cellar. Although Wagner was impressed with Petran’s efficiency, he did not like the man’s manner. I will just have to ask the Count about this room, he thought.
“Yes, well, thank you for obtaining my supplies and fixing my meals for me, Petran.”
“I do what the Master requires.”
Again, the hostility was palpable under the surface. Wagner wondered at the odd choice of words. Petran’s English was better than his—and with an educated enunciation. The man sounded as if he had attended university in England somewhere. Yet the word ‘master’ implied he was more a slave than a household servant or butler.
“Your English is quite good,” Wagner observed.
Petran merely stared back at him.
“Right, well, thank you again.” Wagner headed back for the spiral steps. When he had made it halfway up the long twisting staircase, he realized that Petran had not had a candle of his own. I have left the fellow in the dark. Petran was a surly one, no doubt, but Wagner was not keen on leaving the man blind in the cellar. Grudgingly, he turned and headed down the steps once more. He thought about how odd it was that he had not heard Petran come down the stairs. But he must have seen my light. Only two more rooms led off the stairs before he reached the cellar at the bottom, and those doors were open. He glanced inside each with his candle, looking for the tall servant, but both rooms were empty. As he reached the bottom step, he called out.
“Petran, my apologies, I did not mean to leave you in the dark.”
But the wine cellar appeared empty.
Perplexed, Wagner spent a minute looking around the cellar for Petran, but not finding him, headed back to the stairs.
There must be another passage or room somewhere. Or maybe he is in the locked room with his secreted bottles. The last thought made Wagner smile. He made the long trudge up the steps to the kitchen, thinking about the strange servant.
Back in the foyer, he retrieved his wheelbarrow and rolled it out the front door to the courtyard. Earlier in the week he had tidied up the broad space, collecting salvageable bits of rubble and stone, and dumping the rest off the edge of the cliff, at the broken wall. The drop was vertiginous, and it presented quite a hazard, but he figured Petran and the Count had been living with the presence of that drop for some time, and it was nowhere near the front door to the castle. He had chosen to leave the opening in the wall to allow him to dispose of unwanted debris throughout the restoration. It would be one of the last things he fixed.
As he turned out the front door, the wheel on the cart making its routine squeak that had become so familiar to him that he had not bothered to oil it, he looked around the courtyard at the statues. He always looked at the statues. They were huge and dominated the courtyard, drawing the eyes up from the gray slabs of stone, made smooth with countless footfalls. The statues perplexed him, while at the same time filled him with dread. The two statues of ravens were overly large, as if some prehistoric bird had once inhabited the hills of Transylvania. The five statues of the old men with the flowing beards were stranger. They each wore different costumes or armor, indicating the men came from different periods of conflict throughout history. Each was armed with a spear or chipped sword. Wagner assumed they were the Count’s ancestors. Each statue’s eyes were the same though. Almost as if they were statues of the same man.
The Count himself only vaguely resembled these men. He had no beard, and his hair was shorter than the flowing locks on each statue’s head. But when Wagner thought of the Count’s eyes…yes, he could tell the Count was related to these ancient men. He thought the Count was an odd man, much older in his manner than his youthful appearance suggested. The man was introverted and dour at times, whereas at others he smiled wryly, seeing humor in things that Wagner did not. Still, the man was amiable enough, and he was paying Wagner very well. I must keep my thoughts on the job.
He pushed the wheelbarrow along the front wall of the building to the courtyard’s edge, where the broken gray wall left a gap in the defenses to open blue sky, like a missing tooth in an otherwise flawless smile. At the edge, he paused and peered down the crag to the small hills far below. Low-lying clouds shrouded parts of the valley, but other patches of it were brilliant green and brown in the late morning sun. In two places, the beams of light were visible as slanted lines of light tearing down from the clouds and stabbing into the forests far below.
Beautiful, he thought. Anneli will love it here. Well, maybe not the castle or that arrogant Petran, but the surrounding countryside…
As he thought of his wife, he walked around the wheelbarrow to its handles and then rolled it forward toward the exposed edge of the courtyard. As he did, a chunk of rock the size of a human head fell off the pile of rubble and rolled back behind him, along the courtyard floor. He stopped the cart at the edge of the precipice and then turned and bent to reach for the fallen stone.
The action saved his life.
A huge piece of stone crashed down on the front edge of the wheelbarrow, popping the wooden handles up and banging Wagner on the chin, throwing him sprawling backward into the courtyard, before the cart, and all the stone it contained, flipped through the shattered wall and into the void. From his place on the stone floor of the courtyard, Wagner looked up to the top of the castle. At the top of the wall above him was one of the castle’s many turrets. But he saw nothing to suggest how, or why, any stone might have fallen and nearly knocked him off the cliff.
I was just up there two days ago, and the stone was solid!
He strained his eyes to see movement, but detected nothing. The stone must have just dislodged from somewhere I could not see from this vantage point, and fallen. Bad luck. After his strange meeting with Petran, though, Wagner was inclined to suspect foul play. Large slabs of rock did not usually just fall. And he knew of very few incidents where they did so and nearly crushed or killed people. For some reason, when masonry failed, it always seemed to be in harsh storms or in the middle of the night—when most folks were sensibly indoors.
Wagner stood to his feet and walked across the courtyard to get a better view of the top of the castle’s tower. He still saw nothing to suggest Petran’s hand. He walked cautiously back to the gap in the courtyard wall, glancing upward frequently to check for danger, and peered over the edge. He could not even see the wheelbarrow at the bottom of the drop. He would have been killed, had he not reached for that loose stone.
He turned now and walked over to the stone that had nearly ended his life. He picked it up and took it with him as he headed for the tower to look for answers. Moments later, he emerged onto the roof of the tower, its low crenellated walls surrounding him. He stepped over to the edge that looked down to the roof of the castle and the courtyard in front of it. He could not see any place on the top of the tower from where the stone might have fallen. Nothing was loose around the retaining wall, and he even leaned over the sides of the walls in all four directions, and examined the walls below the tower. Then he looked at the huge chunk of stone in his hand.
Wherever you came from, it was not from up here. You’re not even the same kind of stone.
Chapter 11
A week after the incident with the wheelbarrow, Wagner was walking on the road, having taken advantage of the beautiful day to stroll the few miles into the nearest village. As he walked, his mind drifted back to the incident. He had found nothing out of the ordinary in the tower, and his thoughts that Petran must have been behind the mysterious falling stones quickly faded. He hadn’t seen Petran or the Count in many days, but he had left another list of supplies—including a request for a new wheelbarrow—and they had shown up the following day on or beside the breakfast table, with the new wheelbarrow waiting in the courtyard. He missed the old wheelbarrow’s squeak, but the new one was
sturdier. He also made sure to look up whenever he stepped out into the courtyard, but no other unusual items rained down from the heavens.
The previous day, he’d left a message on the kitchen table explaining his intention—weather permitting—to walk into the village today to examine the tools available at the small shop. He requested the coach be sent to bring him back to the castle at dusk. A terse note was waiting for him at breakfast reading only:
It will be done.
—P
So, with the usual hearty breakfast in his stomach, he had set off down the lone road toward the village. He figured it would take him a few hours to get there. The weather was lovely and the sun was just warm enough to make him comfortable. He smiled as he walked, and he welcomed the distance.
Out in the daylight, away from the gloomy castle, his thoughts turned to his wife and his original hopes that Hungary would provide a new start for them both. Maybe not in the castle or the xenophobic village, but in some small town along the river perhaps. Maybe in Dorna-Watra, the resort town. Many of the buildings and grounds there would need frequent upkeep to continually attract more tourists. And towns with money hired skilled craftsmen.
It felt good to be out walking again. He had spent many happy days in the hills and mountains of Europe. He hadn’t realized how cooped up he felt in the castle until his boots were clopping along the rocky trail. The forest was dark with coniferous trees, some blue and some nearly black. Still, the shining sun lit the trail, and he whistled as he walked, feeling the oppressive weight of the castle lift from his shoulders with each step.
Soon enough, he was surprised when the road came out of the woods and into the empty fields. He was startled by their appearance and checked his watch to see whether he had been walking long. The village was small, and he assumed most of the folks farmed in the surrounding fields, although again, he noted that the fields further away from the town were untended. Only those tightly clustered around the village had been worked. He saw one or two men tending their small plots, or just walking in them, but these figures were too distant yet for Wagner to talk with them. When he remembered the hostile reception at the inn, he realized he really did not want to talk with these men anyway. He wanted to examine the tools in the little town with the winding alleys. For all his love of books, Wagner was very much a man of his hands. He loved to work with tools, and he loved to examine them, assess them, and when he had the money to do so, buy them.