By an intricacy of marriages and alliances carefully made over the centuries, Wäldenstein retained her peaceful independence and Mirenburg had never known anything more than the threat of violence, had been allowed to grow, layer by layer, undisturbed so that every age of our civilisation was recorded in the cracks of her stones, the line of her mortar and the set of her timbers. In addition, under the liberal rule of her Princes many great men had sought her sanctuary, from Chrétien de Troyes to Mozart and Fragonard. Scarce an alley had not been inhabited at one time by a philosopher, a sculptor or a playwright of renown.
So magical was the city’s appearance, so luxuriant her culture, some writers would have it that Mirenburg remained free of strife not by the will of her Princes or the accidents of History, but because she represented an ideal which not even the most brutal or depraved of kings and generals could bring themselves to attack.
Whatever the reason, the city had a mythological ambiance. As always when I had ridden through her gates I was possessed of that particular emotion experienced nowhere else. I thought to myself: I am entering a Legend; it’s as if I ride into Camelot.
Yet here was a Camelot whose Court consisted of natural philosophers, astrologers, historians, theologians, dramaturgs and mathematicians, the majority of whom in some way received the city’s patronage. Alone in the world for this, she possessed no less than four clearly separate universities, the oldest of which was founded in AD 592 by the great Bishop Cornelius Herulianus who encouraged the study of all philosophies and was the first to invite laymen to work with churchmen in their investigation of the natural world.
So steeped was Mirenburg in learning and the arts that it was of some astonishment to the stranger, impressed with the city’s reputation, to encounter the noise, the crowded traffic, the hullabaloo of her markets and barge-wharves, for above all she was a trading city, rich in every way, and with embassies from the Far East, the New World, as well as from the Osmanli nations with whom she had dealt for some three hundred years. Her absence of religious zealotry had always enabled her to treat with dignity and respect the representatives of pagan lands. While Prague, Kiev or Pesht were busy with displays of egocentric pride and unseemly condescension (and a consequent loss of business) Mirenburg, without cunning motive, made friends.
I had not visited Mirenburg since I attended the Royal Gymnasium in my youth and I experienced considerable, if unanticipated, pleasure at finding the city exactly as I remembered. The progression of change and disillusion which displayed itself physically on the face of Paris made me familiar with the notion that all must inevitably move towards destruction and decay and the corruption of every form of nobility – but here was the denial of that. Here was affirmation and hope.
Yet, in a way, Mirenburg remained a dream and was the setting for another dream; my private compulsion, for I grew steadily confident the Duchess (or the imposter, I cared not a whit) would be there and readily found. There was scarcely a street I could not easily name from memory. Mirenburg was as familiar as my own body. Indeed I was filled with the notion that body, brain and architecture merged and were all part of the same thing. I experienced this humour nowhere else, not even in Bek. I was returning home, not to the placid security of my birthplace, but to the city where my brain first began to formulate its ideas.
In a gay mood I went directly to Schmidt’s coffee house, which lay at the junction of Falfnersallee and Hangengasse near the Jewish Quarter. The place was vast, occupying several floors of a great, square building which originally had been a Convent hospital. It was crowded as always, with tables and benches packed in every possible space. The ground floor was, according to tradition, frequented by men of business, those who dealt in the near-abstractions of finance; but it was also the centre of gossip. There I sought out familiar faces: German brokers, chiefly, and some French and Russians.
I made my enquiries swiftly but was disappointed. A Moravian assurer called Menkowicz accepted my offer of a glass of tea and paused in his babbling and paper-waving to excuse himself from his banker friends. He wore an old-fashioned periwig and dark coat of what we used to call ‘Quaker cut’. This, he insisted, gave him an air of authority and stability, even when he was taking the wildest risks. He had heard the Duke of Crete was due back in the city, might even be there now, but he had no news of a Duchess. He it was, however, who displayed a different aspect of the story for me. ‘The Cartagena y Mendoza-Chilperics, for all their chief residence was once here and for all their good works, have never been much liked in Mirenburg, von Bek. Mysterious scandals – witchcraft, sorcery, torture, rapine and so forth – led several of them to be banished by the Prince little more than a hundred years ago. They have purchased their way back into the present Prince’s favour, but many remain suspicious of them. Something odd about the Duke, though he’s good-looking enough. All I can tell you for certain, however, is that Letters of Credit have been issued in favour of the Duke (but not of a Duchess) and they have not been presented.’
‘Which suggests he’s yet to arrive?’
‘He could yet be in his castle. He has one, you know, in the Carpathians. Half a mile from the border. It’s about a day’s ride, so he could appear at any time.’
‘And he has a residence here?’
The babble around us almost drowned his reply. A frantic wave of Exchanges followed by relieved laughter. Wigs bobbed and another year’s cargoes were accounted for. He shook his head. ‘He owns a house in Rosenstrasse but as often as not prefers to be guest of some intimate amongst the local landowners, choosing to stay outside the city.’
I told Menkowicz he could find me at The Martyred Priest should he learn anything further. This was the inn St Odhran had mentioned and I had fond memories of it. I was a trifle downhearted at my broker friend’s lack of news. He advised me to look through the columns of the Mirenburg Social Journal where I might find some snippet concerning the Duke’s activities.
I made my way to Mladota Square, which was crowded with churches, lodging houses and taverns, all seeming to lean in towards the centre where an old, green fountain, representing some ancient Svitavian hero battling a sea-monster from horseback, splashed. There were two or three plane trees, some benches, the inevitable beggar, groups of street arabs and hawkers selling ribbons, gewgaws and knick-knacks. The Martyred Priest (named, I believe, for Huss) was one of the most prominent buildings, with a wide archway leading to an expansive stableyard around which, on the first storey, ran a continuous balcony. The whitewash was peeling, some of the stucco had fallen away, the plaster faces of (I presume) Huss and his followers were worn, unrecognisable, though the sign was fresh-painted (a cassocked friar holding face to Heaven, hands bound to a stake, faggots flickering at his sandalled feet). It hung on an iron bracket sticking from one of the massive, blackened beams. My horse was given to an ostler whom I also commissioned to guard my luggage while I went inside.
It was a familiar few feet to the inn’s main public room. Since it was noon by now they were selling luncheons downstairs and the smell of the roasting was delicious. The low-ceilinged smoky interior was packed with the liveries of students and apprentices (most of them of medieval pattern, so it seemed one stepped from century back to century). As I pressed through the crowd, sniffing the soups and baked fowl which made the place so popular, I cast an eye towards the long counter. This bar was illuminated, even at that hour, by several candelabra. Behind it a grim-faced man in a red leather apron, a huge periwig of the kind fashionable fifty or sixty years earlier, and with shirtsleeves rolled above the elbows, displaying the whorls and primitive designs of South Sea tattooists, dispensed grog and ale at two pfennigs the pint to sweating maids who brought up their trays to be filled, then returned with practised grace to their customers. The man looked up and his thin lips formed something of a smile when he saw me.
‘Captain von Bek!’ His face burst from shadowy lines into beaming sunshine. ‘My Captain!’
I had been almost c
ertain I should find him still behind his counter. ‘Sergeant Schuster! You told me you were buying land near Offenbau.’ He had been my servant, my companion in most of my American soldiering, and was himself the veteran of a hundred campaigns. I had lodged at the inn years before, when his father kept it. ‘You swore you would be a farmer and put city life behind you!’
He lifted up the flap of the bar and came to meet me. We embraced. ‘I’d heard you jailed in France, Captain.’
‘Almost,’ said I, ‘but they were outguessed by a matter of hours. I skulked from Paris like a cur with a stolen chop. Why aren’t you behind a plough? You said you’d had enough of your father’s trade!’
‘My father retired while I was still abroad. When I came home I found he’d bought himself a farm! And leased the inn, moreover, to a useless dullard of a gentleman taverner from Hungary who upset all the customers, drank all the cellars dry and lost his wife to a passing ape of a Lancer on his way home to Hess! What ignominy, eh, Captain? So my father begged me to take up the management of the inn, at least until trade and good will were restored. Gradually I came to like it. A couple of years back my father gave me the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel, so here I am.’
Sergeant Schuster insisted we have a stein of his best beer there and then. He called over his counter for assistance. A pretty girl of about fourteen, in local costume and with her blonde hair plaited atop her head, came into his vacated place. ‘This is Ulrica,’ he said. He was proud of her. ‘My eldest daughter. The other’s two years younger, but Marya’s a lazy kitten and falls asleep the moment she’s called. Ulrica, my girl, it’s my honour to present Captain Manfred von Bek, hereditary knight of Saxony, hero of Saratoga and Yorktown, Deputy of the French Republic. You’ve heard me mention him, eh? He has as many decorations as he has scars and may yet become a Marshal in somebody’s army. He’s one of the world’s last real soldiers.’
‘Your father’s that,’ said I, ‘as witness his Münchhausen exaggerations. Schuster, Fräulein Ulrica’s not interested in my military career, but I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, madam.’ I bowed to kiss her little hand and she blushed.
‘Honoured, Sir,’ said she, and curtseyed.
I complimented them both on her manners, then asked Schuster if he had rooms to spare.
‘I’ll build ’em if I haven’t, Captain.’ And he led me up the black wood of uneven stairs which had on their whitewashed walls a score of his own mementoes, symbols of his warlike career. Here was a captured Turkish banner, there Prussian epaulettes – a Dutch drum and the old French flag, a Yazoo warrior’s battleshirt, together with portraits of Washington and Lafayette, and an English captain’s spontoon. Here, too, were the spurs I myself saw him take from the half-Indian renegade Mingava, whose savages had ambushed us four or five miles from Georgetown. Schuster was all babbling reminiscence and pride in our prowess and I sank easily into the pool of his recollection, glad to speak of what was, for me, a simpler and a nobler time.
He told me word for word what General Steuben said to us when we captured Yorktown and how I had wept, so tired were we, when General Washington made a special detour through the ranks to congratulate us. ‘He knew our names, remember, Captain? And said the cause of Liberty went beyond any immediate concerns of Self-interest; that while he and his friends fought for the right to rule their own land, the likes of us were there solely because we believed in just republicanism and the Rights of Man. It was to us he felt most responsibility, to ensure the Six Colonies would be the foundation for a new kind of government which gave Free Speech to all and Law based upon every soul’s undeniable right to justice.’ And Schuster stood before the portrait of Lafayette and saluted. ‘There’s one who remained true to himself and the Revolution, Captain. A great man. Did you see much of him in Paris?’
‘For most of the time our paths did not cross. He had many duties.’
Another pause, before a silver-mounted scabbard with English markings at the hilt. I grinned, linking my arm in his. ‘And d’ye remember, Schuster, who that belonged to?’
‘I do indeed, Sir! To Captain Muldoon of His Majesty’s Muskets. The most honourable prize of all!’
We laughed heartily at this, for Schuster had won Muldoon’s scabbard at a game of playing-cards the day after Saratoga.
‘But are all those things we fought for truly lost?’ he asked me as we proceeded along the dark landing to a door at the very end of the passage. ‘These are my best rooms. It’s where my married sister and other relatives stay when they visit us.’ The door was opened onto fresh-waxed furniture smelling of bee-roses and linseed. ‘The bed must be prepared and so forth. My wife will see to it.’ He opened carved shutters which creaked as he folded them back and in came the silver light of a misty Mirenburg winter’s afternoon.
I looked down at the cluttered little square with its time-worn buildings. On the left side some traders were setting up market stalls with pretty, decorated awnings. By some old agreement with their fellows they were not allowed to begin before noon. Dogs and children ran through the cold on their usual intense, mysterious business. Old men, clad in long gowns and bearing gongs, struck their instruments from time to time, crying the hour. ‘Thursday afternoon and the wind’s freshening from the east!’ When not banging and calling, they were employed by the town to give information to whomever enquired, so they could be seen pointing this way and that into the spokes of the wheel which were alleys leading out of Mladota Square to all other parts of Mirenburg. The square was said to be at the exact centre of the city.
‘Now, Captain,’ said Schuster, cutting himself short, ‘what have you eaten today? Nothing? We’ll give you our special jugged hare and some rotkraut. A Gospel-custard to follow. Where’s your horse?’
‘Already in one of your stables.’
‘Your bags?’
‘With the horse.’
‘I’ll send a boy to see to all that. There’s another mews we hire in Korkziehiergasse which has slightly better accommodations. Would you like to use it?’
‘I’ll leave it to you, Sergeant. My one concern’s for my panniers and musket, as well as my other et ceteras.’
‘The boy will bring them to you. Will you eat downstairs with us?’
‘Gladly.’
‘You must tell me what brings you to Mirenburg.’ We descended again into cheerful tumult, for which he apologised. ‘This will subside in a few minutes, when the Cathedral sounds her one o’clock bell.’
And sure enough, as I sat myself at Schuster’s long kitchen table where several nearby fires heated an assortment of pots and cauldrons, where various meats turned on spits, all of which steamed with delicious scents bringing saliva to my mouth, the noise was suddenly drowned by the tolling of an enormous bell which shook the entire building. A single stroke, but it reverberated. When the echoes died there was a sudden upsurge of benches scraping, feet running, coins rattling, then, quite suddenly, the inn returned to a tranquillity better suited to its age. Next appeared an army of maids and pot-men, already preparing the Ordinary for that evening’s business.
At the table, Schuster joined me with a plate of cold chops for himself. As I ate my own delicious hare and dumplings I gave him part of my tale. His little unsmiling face was bent forward in interest as he listened to me. ‘And you say this Duchess (who might not really be a duchess at all) travels here to Mirenburg? You think she’s related to the Duke?’
‘That’s a guess, but I have only guesses. Their business here remains a mystery.’
‘Alchemy,’ said Schuster firmly. ‘Without question.’
I was surprised by his certainty. ‘Why so?’
‘The Duke’s mightily interested in the art. Besides, gold-makers from across the Globe congregate in Mirenburg this week. Half the inns are full of ’em. Ask any taverner. I won’t have that kind of trade. Not with young daughters in the place. Most are respectable enough, but some are not. The great part of them recently arrived from Prague, where they
originally gathered.’
‘And they’re not banned from Mirenburg?’
‘You mean the law against secret societies? They’ve circumnavigated that. They’re not in actuality a society, but a convention of individuals. There’s no law says they must open their debates to the public. However, it’s at short notice, this shift of locale, and nobody knows why they uprooted themselves so suddenly from Prague. Not an innkeeper in the city was forewarned of this until a few days past. They’ll get no prejudice here, at least.’ He smiled. ‘Save from the likes of me.’
‘I fail to see why you’ve taken so hard against the profession.’
‘Because half of it’s made up of charlatans, Captain. Fairground piss-gabblers who’ll use their tongues instead of their swords to steal whate’er they can. And use their pricks if all else fails ’em. I’ll not take the chance on ’em. No more than I would with tinkers.’ He was easy with me, peppering his language with canting words, for we were both familiar with the language of rogues.
‘But why,’ mused I, ‘would they not have come here to begin with? Nothing drove them from Prague.’
‘I know nothing of their lore, but it would seem the most obvious reason was astrological circumstance,’ said Schuster. ‘At first they might have judged their proper destination Prague, then discovered fresh auguries.’
‘It’s true there seems to be astrology figuring large in this, from my own intelligence,’ I agreed. ‘Both La Harpe and Karsovin had heard such. Some rare configuration in the heavens.’
‘Well, Sir,’ said Schuster, licking his fingers and setting aside his chop bones, ‘it’s no business of mine. I’ll leave them be if they’ll leave me be. I’m surprised, mind you, at your taking an interest in such stuff.’
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 11