The Pierced Heart: A Novel

by Shepherd, Lynn

  With all that we will discover of this man—and all he will be to this story—we will pause, here, a moment and allow Charles’s first impressions to have full sway. So what is it he now sees, as the high clouds shred across the moon, and the wind echoes wildly about the high walls? A tall man, taller than Charles in fact, if he were not slightly stooped. A long dark coat of some heavy matte material that reflects no light. An antique lamp swinging from one hand, the wick cut low and the flame guttering. A high forehead and thin silver hair wisped about the ears. Yet these are but details. What draws and holds the gaze, is his face. The extraordinary pale eyes, heavy-lidded and ashen-lashed. The head too small—surely—for a man of such a height, and the bones of the skull painfully visible under skin stretched so white Charles wonders for a moment if the Baron is an albino. And when he holds out his hand the fingers Charles takes briefly in his own are as wan as a corpse an hour old.

  Charles bows. “Freiherr Von Reisenberg.”

  “I am pleased to welcome you to my home, Herr Maddox,” the Baron replies, his voice still low, as if he suffers from the night air. “I know you come here on a visit of business, but I hope, nonetheless, that you will lack nothing while you are with us, and that when you come to leave, you will take with you all that you come here to seek.”

  It is no doubt the result of learning the language in academic fashion and rarely speaking it, but the formality of the Baron’s speech has a curiously distancing effect, and as Charles follows him into the lofty stone-paved hall it is as if those few paces across the threshold have borne him centuries back. Here, as outside, no lights are burning, and in the weak glow of the silver lamp Charles wonders again, with a jerk of unease, if his eyes are once more deceiving him, for as the swing of the lantern throws shadows like blackened branches spiking across the walls it seems for all the world as if the great room has been built inside the forest that presses close upon the promontory on every side. And he is sure—sure this time—that he can see the glitter of animal eyes, and the shape of figures in the darkness, hunched and hooded—

  He checks his pace a moment, but the Baron does not turn or slow, and as he rounds a corner ahead and the dark pours back, Charles makes haste to catch him up. They follow a narrow passage to a flight of steps, then ascend a long spiral stair of worn and pitted stone, and Charles finds himself at last, breathless with the climb and more than a little unnerved, in a small, windowless octagonal room ringed by bookshelves and lit only by the fire in the grate. A door opposite stands open onto a bedroom where a great carved four-poster has been warmed and turned, and a bottle of Tokay wine and a plate of cold cuts and cheese is awaiting him.

  “I beg you to excuse me,” says the Baron, turning to face him. The flames cast a golden glow about his features, but the effect is oddly artificial—like a black-and-white film wrongly re-coloured.

  “I have myself already dined,” he continues, “and will not, therefore, join you. I am cognisant, likewise, that you have had a long journey, and would no doubt prefer to sup in privacy, and retire at a time of your own choosing. I anticipate much pleasure in making your acquaintance, but will reserve that gratification for the morrow, when you will be rested. Should there be any comfort I have omitted to provide, do not scruple to ring for one of the servants. They have been instructed to assist you in all you require. And now, if I may, I will bid you good night.”

  And with that he bows once more, and retires. The air in the room swirls, then settles, leaving a faint scent of something acidic, chemical. Charles turns up the lamp, and starts to wander about the room as he discards his layers of clothes. The shelves are stacked with scientific books and journals, most of them in German, but a surprising number in English, as well as French. There are books of geology and botany, chemistry and metallurgy, physics and cosmology, as well as a large section—most of these in German—on human anatomy and physiology. Charles pulls out a volume or two in English and goes to place them by the bed. Then he sits down at the small table and starts upon his food.

  The following morning he wakes late. It is the first time in weeks that he has not dreamed of her—the woman whose face he cannot recall without shame, and the sick falter of a terrible self-reproach. The woman who served in his uncle’s kitchen and shared—however briefly—Charles’s bed. The woman who would have borne his child, only Charles did not know that until it was far too late, and both mother and unborn baby were dying before his eyes. He cannot summon Molly now on any day but that last, as her body slipped into oblivion and her eyes swam with tears of incomprehension and despair while her blood ran cold on the freezing stone floor. And as for that other face—his child’s—it hovers at the fringes of his unconscious, ever present, but never fully seen, never quite close enough for his dreaming hand to reach.

  But last night, he did not dream, and now he lies staring at the ceiling in blank terror, utterly unaware of where he is. Then his eye lights on the coat hooked over the back of the chair, and when he reaches out a hand he finds the old copy of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London he fell asleep over the night before, having tried—and failed—to decipher the tiny annotations pencilled thick about an article titled “On the Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces,” by one William B. Carpenter, MD, FRS. He sits up and realises that the fire that should have died by now is bright and well stoked, and the table that bore an empty bottle and the remains of his supper now carries a tray of breakfast and a pot of coffee. Someone has been into the room while he was sleeping, and Charles looks quickly about him—a reflex he immediately recognises to be ridiculous, since there is clearly no-one there now. He disentangles himself from his bedding, slightly pink about the cheeks at what the maid might have seen, and makes his way to the washstand, where he douses his head and neck in water and looks about for a mirror. Which, rather oddly, he cannot find, either there, or anywhere else in the room. He shaves as best he can without one, since it’s not an article he ever carries with him, then dresses and pours himself a cup of hot thick black coffee before going over to open the shutters, scratching absent-mindedly all the while at a little raw patch on his neck. The room, he finds, has a view of the river and the wooded bank beyond, and from his elevated eyrie he can see the cormorants on the water wheeling and squawking in the gusting wind, and three storeys down the creeper-covered wall, the paved courtyard before the castle door, where a lad in a red cap is carrying what looks like a plate of offal down towards the gate. There’s a small vessel buffeting the river current, but the boat and the boy are the only signs of human habitation visible for miles. Charles turns away and sits down to his breakfast, a little concerned at how much of the day has already gone. Half an hour later he emerges from his room and makes his way downstairs. At the foot of the spiral steps he finds an archway opening onto a gallery that rings three sides of the hall. One part of last night’s strangeness, at least, is now explained: The branching shadows Charles saw in the gloom were cast by nothing more uncanny than the antlers and ancient weaponry fixed around the pale walls, and the eyes in the darkness no more than glass reflections from the stuffed heads of huge long-dead dogs, their teeth bared in a permanent vicious snarl. And as for the figures he glimpsed lurking in the shadows, he sees now, with a quick snort at his own idiocy, that they were only suits of armour, assembled for battle about empty air.

  And empty air is all the rest of the hall contains, at least at this moment. There is no sign of servants, and certainly no sign of the master of the house. The day outside is bright with sun and loud with a western wind, but inside the castle is both dimmed and silent—a curious muffled silence which seems to suck even the echo from the stone. Charles hesitates a moment, wondering whether to go down, when he hears a door open farther along the gallery—a small low door which must be directly below the tower and dome above. The Baron emerges from it, then carefully locks it behind him with a large iron key, before proceeding slowly and thoughtfully towards where Charles is standing. So thoughtful
is he, in fact, that Charles almost has to step into his path to attract his attention.

  “Ah!” says the Baron, starting back. He is wearing, Charles notices, exactly the same clothes as he wore the night before.

  “I apologise, Freiherr—I did not intend to alarm you.”

  “No, no,” says the Baron, composing his features quickly. “You have merely anticipated me. I was about to send a servant to enquire whether you would care to begin the business of your sojourn at Castle Reisenberg.”

  He starts to walk on, gesturing Charles to accompany him, and Charles sees him glance back towards the locked door, and finger the key he has placed in the pocket of his long dark coat.

  “I infer,” the Baron continues, his voice still low and slightly rasping, “that the Curators of Sir Thomas Bodley’s Library require two quite distinct categories of reassurance from your visit here?”

  Charles averts his eyes. “I am not sure I understand your meaning.”

  “My dear young man—if I may presume to call you so—if I were a functionary entrusted with a role such as theirs, presented with an offer such as the one I have made, there would be two matters I should wish to ascertain. Firstly, that the benefactor in question was indeed the man he claimed to be; and secondly, that there would be no danger, now or at any future time, of any—”

  He pauses a moment, clearly searching for the apposite word.

  “—embarrassment, shall we say, arising in consequence of accepting such a gift.”

  Charles reddens, despite himself, and he hears the Baron laugh softly. “There is no need for embarrassment on your part, Mr Maddox. You are merely carrying out the task you have been assigned, and the Curators, in their turn, merely fulfilling the duty they owe. I take no offence; indeed as I have already stated, I should undertake exactly the same enquiries, were I in their place.”

  “I confess I have wondered,” begins Charles, as they descend the stairs, “why you chose the Ashmole Bequest as the recipient of your generosity. I was lucky enough to be allowed to view it when I met the Curators in Oxford, and while the illuminated Bestiary is unquestionably charming and no doubt priceless, some of the other items—”

  The Baron smiles at Charles, revealing, for the first time, a line of sharp discoloured teeth and pale receding gums. “You are referring, I deduce, to the astrological and alchemical treatises that make up a great part of the collection?”

  “Those of Simon Forman in particular. I read only a few pages, but the man was quite obviously a charlatan—all that nonsense about conjuring astral powers and summoning spirits. And claiming he could treat illness by casting horoscopes and letting blood according to the phases of the moon? It’s ludicrous, not to mention fraudulent. Small wonder they threw him in gaol.”

  “And yet he saw more than a thousand patients a year,” says the Baron softly.

  Charles lets out a snort of derision. “If some of them were healed, it had nothing whatsoever to do with wearing Forman’s amulets or reciting his so-called magical incantations. He cured by coincidence, or—at best—placebo.”

  He stops, aware—and amazed—that his companion does not seem to be agreeing with him. “You do not concur?”

  The Baron raises an eyebrow. “I would observe merely that such learning was not condemned as preposterous at the time. I am sure I do not need to remind you that Sir Isaac Newton conducted alchemical experiments of his own. Or that Sir Elias Ashmole was himself an alchemist, as well as a founder of your Royal Society.”

  “But that was nearly two hundred years ago! There have been so many advancements in scientific knowledge since then—there is no excuse for such absurd superstition—”

  “Advancements there have indeed been,” interrupts the Baron. “And yet we are no nearer finding the answers to which the alchemists aspired than Ashmole or Forman were, for all the efforts of the scientific establishment. Alchemy, Mr Maddox, was concerned not merely with the transmutation of base metals, but the transfiguration of the human soul, that it might commune with that secret energy which both illuminates and animates the kosmos. The energy of the ancients which is now lost to our sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century, the energy that lights the aurora borealis, and throbs in the deep places of the earth, and which our forefathers marked with sacred sites of standing stones.”

  Charles stares at him, open-mouthed, before remembering his manners and his mission here, and inclining his head. “I bow to your far greater knowledge, Freiherr.”

  By the time they come to a halt before a large wooden door, Charles has already revised all the many unsettling impressions of the last twenty-four hours and come to the conclusion that all can be explained by his host’s increasingly obvious eccentricity. The Baron is evidently one of those idle aristocrats whose wealth allows the indulgence of even the most outlandish of whims. But if some of that wealth can go towards preserving the Ashmole Bequest, then it is not—clearly—for Charles to stand in the way.

  So there is a rather superior smile on his lips as the Baron opens the door and gestures him to enter—a smile that slips slowly from his face as he takes two, then three steps forward, and stands gazing about him. It is the most beautiful library Charles has ever seen. A wood-and-gilded coffered ceiling, shelves that reach from frieze to floor, and all along the wall before him a line of tall windows shielded by heavy muslin drapes, giving over the river rampart onto the water below. And at the far left, a man with a thick dark beard and deferential dress is laying papers carefully onto a desk.

  “In anticipation of your requirements,” says the Baron, “I have taken the liberty of requesting the custodian of my own—very much more modest—collection to furnish you with certain documents that may be of assistance in your task.”

  The two of them proceed at a stately pace past book-stands bearing volumes held open by velvet ribbons, armillary globes mounted on circular frames, and glass cases containing what look to Charles to be original mediaeval manuscripts.

  “This is astonishing, sir,” he says, as overwhelmed as a child let loose in a toy-shop. “I congratulate you.”

  The Baron inclines his head. “A library such as this is not the work of one man, or even of one generation. Some of the books you see here have been in the possession of my family for more than five hundred years. Many others have been acquired more recently, either by my father, or by myself. My father spent his life as Court Librarian in the service of the King of Wurttemberg. I still recall being permitted, for the first time, to enter the royal apartments and view my father at work—cataloguing, classifying, restoring. I had a natural curiosity, as a child, and my father took care to nurture it, and to instil at the same time a proper regard for correctness of method, and orderliness of thought. His own passion—as the books you see about you amply attest—was for history, and for literature. He was an avid collector of such works, and endeavoured to imbue my young mind with something of his own enthusiasm. I fear I was a sad disappointment to him, however, for my own interests inclined quite another way.”

  Charles smiles. “I fear that I, too, disappointed my father by failing to follow in the course he preferred for me.”

  “Indeed?” says the Baron, stopping and looking Charles full in the face for the first time. “And what would he have chosen?”

  “Medicine,” replies Charles, flushing a little, though whether at the memory of that disastrous experiment, or at the opinions he was just asserting, it would be hard to say. “My father is—was—a distinguished physician, and at his insistence I, too, followed a medical training for some months. But I had no aptitude for the work, and an insufficient empathy—or so I was told—for the sufferings of my fellow men. The surgeon who supervised my studies observed once that I approached illness as if it were an intellectual puzzle—fascinated by determining the nature and cause of the complaint, yet all but indifferent to the consequent task of effecting a useful cure.”

  He stops, the smile dying on his lips, and fearing he has said too
much, for there is an odd expression, now, in his host’s eyes.

  “Did he, indeed,” says the Baron eventually. “I see. We must talk of this again. But I am afraid I have to leave you, for the moment, to the care of the excellent Herr Bremmer, as I have business of my own to attend to. When you have seen all you require, he will escort you to the dining parlour, where you will find luncheon awaiting you. Good morning, Mr Maddox.”

  And with that he is gone.

  Charles turns to the librarian, who bows low, then leads Charles towards a baize table, where he has unrolled a large scroll and secured it carefully with small leaden weights. He is wearing white cotton gloves, and asks, in perfect English, that Herr Maddox please refrain from touching the parchment. It is, he explains, a representation of the Baron’s family tree, originally crafted more than a century before, and added to, with great care, with each succeeding heir and alliance. And it is indeed a beautiful thing—the paper thick and finely textured, the calligraphy exquisite, and the finely detailed coats of arms as bright as they must have been the day they were first inked. Herr Bremmer is now looking at Charles expectantly, and he realises suddenly that he is being shown this item not as an artefact, but as evidence. He takes his notebook quickly from his pocket and asks his companion if he can assist him in deciphering the German inscriptions. Half an hour later he has six pages of notes covering every conceivable aspect of the Baron’s antecedence, as well as the extent of his estates, the history of his schloss, and the identity of his successor, should the present Baron Von Reisenberg die—as seems likely—without a son of his own.

  As a vetting, it is surely as positive as the Bodleian Curators could possibly expect, and by the end of it Charles is beginning to wonder how he is to fill his time for the rest of his allotted stay. When a silence descends, Charles ventures a half-idle question as to the nature of the “business” that has called the Baron away, but Herr Bremmer affects not to understand him, his eyes fixed on the task of re-rolling the scroll. Charles watches him, aware of a first flicker of premonition—a detective instinct that tells him all may not be what it seems. It’s possible—he acknowledges at once—that the man is nothing more than uncomfortable with the prospect of discussing his employer’s affairs with a stranger, but the slight flush on his thin cheeks argues for something else, something more. In the meantime Herr Bremmer has placed the scroll carefully in a long paper tube and gone to ring the bell, and by the time the servant appears he is smiling and bowing and putting himself at Charles’s disposal if he should require more assistance. It is as if the question had never been asked.