‘Wholly commission her, do you mean, Sir?’ St Odhran spoke in some surprise. ‘The existing ship?’
‘The existing ship, Sir.
‘Sir, we plan to build a better, more sophisticated vessel.’
‘I shall inform my Client, Sir. Thank you.’
‘Then –’ St Odhran frowned – ‘which ship do we discuss?’
‘Either, Sir. I believe that to be immaterial in this particular case.’
‘A great deal of money is required to equip her,’ said St Odhran.
‘I am able to inform you that money shall be forthcoming. As much as is appropriate.’
I could tell that the lawyer was anxious not to make large promises to us, but it was also clear that his Client was not troubled by any shortage of gold. Both of us could scarcely contain our greed! Our scheme was progressing more swiftly and smoother than we had dared to hope!
‘Are we to know nothing else of your Client, Sir?’ asked St Odhran carefully. ‘As I am sure you are aware, we are ourselves men of principle and –’
‘Nothing underhand, Sir, is proposed.’ The lawyer pursed his pale lips.
‘Of course not, Sir.’
‘My Client proposes to underwrite your entire expenses and to place only one condition upon your Society.’
‘Sir?’
‘That my Client have first choice of the ship’s destination and purpose – for the maiden voyage only. Thereafter, it is your own affair where you sail her.’
St Odhran, who had no intention whatsoever of completing the proposed ship, pretended to consider this carefully. Then he said: ‘And we are not to know of this destination and purpose?’
‘Not until you are ready to depart.’
‘A single voyage? Then the ship is wholly ours?’
‘Wholly.’
‘It’s an attractive offer, Sir. With an element of mystery and risk which whets my appetite, I must say. Yet, according to the vessel’s destination, there will be things we shall have to know. The climate must be prepared for and so on.’
‘My Client understands as much. Now, gentlemen, do you wish to accept the commission or shall we simply shake hands and go our separate ways?’
‘I’m tempted to accept, Sir, but here’s a problem for you – we are in the process of talks with investors interested in shares of the larger ship. Indeed, a Prospectus is in preparation. Would it not be wiser for your Client to wait until the Prospectus is ready? To read it, to make suggestions even? There is a problem of shareholders already committed and so on. Money has already been spent in certain quarters…’
‘We can reach financial agreement, I am sure, easily enough. All my Client wishes is that the first voyage be determined by them. Shall I tell my Client that you are planning this new ship and that you’ll send me a Prospectus as soon as you have one?’
‘If you would, Sir.’
‘And where are you lodging, Sir?’
Lawyer Hoehenheim-Plessner made a note of our address. ‘I shall send a message as soon as possible.’
‘Perfection, Sir!’ said St Odhran. ‘Much obliged.’
‘I hope we shall meet again, Sir,’ said I.
Hoehenheim-Plessner paused as he made to rise from his desk. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. ‘Excuse me, Sir, but the name von Bek’s more than familiar to me. The Beks I know are from across the border in Saxony. I had the honour to represent the Graf Rickhard von Bek in a business matter some years ago.’
‘My grandfather, Sir.’
Hoehenheim-Plessner was suddenly ten times more affable, which was to say that a fraction of him relaxed. He was as close as could be to Enthusiasm. Now my hand was shaken, almost warmly, amid the Doctor-Lawyer’s murmuring courtesies. I was highly impressed, once again, by St Odhran’s judgement. The family name was worth cash, after all.
‘I told my Client that I thought you a Saxon von Bek. I foresee few difficulties, my dear Sir!’
The lawyer’s offices vacated, we walked up the Vlescstrasse in the cold air of imminent snow as cloud formed from the east. St Odhran was cheerful. All necessary business had been accomplished in the matter of Smithery and Joinery and he was optimistic about attracting wealth from all quarters. ‘Hoehenheim-Plessner, a most cautious old gaffer, is won over, that’s obvious. If we can impress a man like him, the rest of our task will be all oil and Billy Griffin!’ (He had a tendency to use the obscure catch-phrases of Glasgow and Newgate when ebullient.)
But I was suffering qualms. My family name was a trust. One day I would be head of our clan. Bek and honesty have been synonyms for generations. I was involved, I feared, in too many lies already. Yet why should a name alone have meaning? Better to betray it, I insisted to myself, and show the world how innocent and foolish it could be. I had learned, after all, to trust neither religion nor politics and to put my faith in the realities of metal, wood and steam, in practical engineering, whose rules could neither be changed nor made the subject of morality, so why should I show reverence for mere antiquity?
These fears were to a degree put to rest by St Odhran’s insistence that he take me to a large chophouse near the Mladota Bridge from where we could watch the hurly-burly of the city. The bridge was crowded with horses, oxen, tumbrils, carriages, cabs, diligences, donkey carts and all manner of men and women from every walk of life. ‘Dem’ near as crowded outside as in,’ said I. We were jostled by waiters as they danced between the tables with smoking trays of Kalbshaxe and Eisbein and a variety of cutlets, half-cabbages, bowls of potato soup, hunks of black bread. St Odhran was familiar with the place and soon had service for us. We toasted our future in strong Mirenburg Stout and after downing one full stein I remarked upon my uncertainties regarding use of my family’s name.
St Odhran was dismissive, dabbing delicately at his mouth with his sleeve and leaning over the table towards me. ‘Wealth’s always a fair substitute for Virtue, von Bek. I mentioned your name to an acquaintance this very morning, a clever old fellow called Protz, who’s dabbled in supernatural studies but earns his livelihood by producing lineage charts for the nouveaux riches. He says your family’s reputed not merely to have sought the Holy Grail, but to be its hereditary guardians!’
‘What, the Beks are Fisher Kings?’ I laughed heartily and spontaneously. ‘We’ve no connection with that myth at all! Half my ancestors were this side of being Atheists and the other half were practical Lutherans. We’ve a tradition of intellectual rather than religious enquiry. Why, there’s more evidence of us being devil-worshippers than grail-keepers!’
‘Well, it’s generally thought here that your ancestors came from or were intimately acquainted with certain mysterious lands bordering on our own, yet invisible to most of us. The Middle Marches some call ’em. Protz says that there are fifty accounts in his reading alone which suggest the von Beks were more than a little familiar with supernatural beings!’
I was uncomfortable with this. ‘The old romances attached any name to their tales, as you must know, St Odhran. Doubtless by chance a “von Bek” appeared in one of those. And from that beginning – well, the Romancier did the rest, eh? If you were to believe all the old, degenerate German legends, there’s a Grail in every castle, a Charlemagne or an Arthur under every mound! There’s not a noble house without at least one werewolf offspring or a younger son who’s made a pact with the Devil, an uncle practising the profane arts of alchemy, a vampirical grandfather, a mad monk, a ruined abbey in the grounds where witches meet, an incarcerated lunatic (or heiress – or both), an infanticide or two (and a patricide), and, of course, a family ghost. I grew up with such stuff – though my own father always dismissed it.
‘St Odhran, I’d be happy enough to see the end of all such superstitious gibble-gabble in Germany. It’s the bane of reformers, even if it’s presently fashionable amongst young Romantics who celebrate the Teutonic past, thanks I suppose to the reborn popularity of Fortunatus, the Nibelungensage, the extravagances of Goethe, Schiller and all the other Sturmers and D
rangers who’ve followed ’em, now seeking out Occult experiences! Not only do I lack interest in such things, my dear Sir, I possess a positive instinct for Reason, a distaste for myth, legend and the German reverence for antiquity. I am old-fashioned enough to be a supporter of Nicolai, in literary matters. This fascination for mouldering tapestries and rotting tombs is one of the chief reasons for my leaving Saxony in the first place – and Saxony’s far more Enlightened than many other provinces!’
St Odhran was disappointed by my scepticism. ‘You sound like a Canting Methodist,’ he said, and sniffed. ‘There’s no harm in a little Fancy, surely, to give colour to dull lives. Your family legends are famous enough in Mirenburg to be of considerable use to us. My maps shall now be partly taken from your ancestral collection. To certain people – and this city’s full of those young aristocrats you so despise, ever ready to join some new coven or discover a receipt for the Elixir of Life – they’ll be of greatest importance. And a touch or two of Romance in our scheme will mean the sale of many more shares.’
I sat back as my meat arrived. I was silent. A great cloud of melancholy engulfed me suddenly and I stared out at the bridge wondering how I could have strayed so far from the course I set for myself when I put Castle Bek behind me and rode east. My radicalism in those days had not been sophisticated. It had been little more than a faith in Reason, a belief in somewhat abstract notions of Justice and an honest understanding that by appeal and some small demonstration, everyone could be made to realise how self-interest was synonymous with a rational altruism. My experience of Catherine’s Court, where many men of intellect gathered to debate these very issues, had served more to baffle than to illuminate and my two years with the Tatars had given me little opportunity for philosophical enquiry. It had been in America I’d begun to develop my sense of the complexities which go to organise the modern State and in France I had attempted to balance those complexities in a practical experiment. At least, I thought glumly, my actions and words were then united. Now I was discovering I could be an accomplished liar when I chose. The understanding gave me no sense of pride.
‘Moping again, von Bek?’ said St Odhran. ‘Is it that woman you told me about? The Cretan? She’ll come chasing you when you’re the toast of Mirenburg – as you shall be soon, at this rate.’ In his own way I believe he honestly tried to ease my pain. He ordered more stout and encouraged me to eat as he babbled of his plans, the eminent people he hoped to attract to our scheme, the possible identity of our would-be backer.
He asked for the draft Prospectus I had made and pored over it while he uncharacteristically consumed an entire beef pudding, nodding and exclaiming. ‘You’re a literary genius, von Bek. This is excellent stuff. It has just the right ring to it. Have you written for publication before?’
I denied it, though in truth I was already the author of a handful of broadsheets, a couple of treatises against Slavery in America (which I’d hoped to abolish, but while Washington offered a patron’s argument for the institution I supposed it would be some years before the Rights of Man were judged to extend to those whose freedom was not of economical benefit to the nabobs and landowners who only a few years before had cried ‘Freedom for All’; it now emerged they’d wanted freedom only to improve their profits and not pay English taxes). I had also written a volume of Radical poetry, a verse Romance (long since vanished in its only edition and called Chickenawpoo; or, The Pastoral Utopians; it had been suppressed in America) and, of course, continued to keep my journal (since partially published as a Memoir). I would never again be so foolish as to draw my sword or wield my pen in what proved to be a rich man’s cause. As the friendly stout softened moral argument, I informed St Odhran that I was tired of being deceived by others. For a change, I would be the deceiver. Thus I quelled my conscience, and maintained my progress as a capitalist.
Soon, by this drawing forth of anger and attaching it to past resentments, I was able to grin suddenly at St Odhran, give wild acquiescence to all his proposals and, with horrid savagery, set upon my cooling chop.
Chapter Six
Bargains are struck and work, of sorts, is begun. My Young Radicals Again. A Further Mysterious Endowment. A Challenge Accepted. Callers in the Night. Discomforts of a Charnel-house wagon.
MY BEAUTIFUL DUCHESS had still failed to arrive in Mirenburg and while the Duke of Crete was said to be abroad from time to time, dealing with the visiting alchemists, even going so far as to let several guest at his house, I had been unable to gain any further knowledge either of her movements or of his. Meanwhile the Lawyer Hoehenheim-Plessner had received our elaborate Prospectus, passed it to his anonymous Client, and requested a further interview. News of our mysterious backer (rumoured to be none other than the Prince himself) inspired many Mirenburger worthies to press us into accepting their gold and soon we had a box full of the stuff hidden in the gondola of St Odhran’s balloon, in case (he said) we needed to depart suddenly from the city. St Odhran became so euphoric he said he was almost tempted to try to build the flying frigate he had described. It was I who was forced to remind him that we had designed a Swindle, not a genuine expedition, and that even if we built the ship we could certainly never find the fabulous lands we claimed to be familiar with! Our shareholders were either greedy or foolishly romantic. One woman of middle-years, the Landgräfin Theresa-Wilhelmina Krasnaya-Badehoff-Mirozhnitski, cousin by marriage to the Prince, hoped that by investing in our ship we might sail it into the Mittelmarch and find her missing husband. We accepted her fortune, though we knew what she did not, that her husband, though given to dabbling in sensational melodramas involving the Black Arts, had actually died in the arms of one of Mrs Sliney’s whores. To avoid scandal, the Landgräfin’s nephew, it was said, had seen to the body’s disposal in the Rätt. Since he was due to inherit his aunt’s wealth he was also said to be furiously resentful of her bestowing money on a quest for her missing husband, yet ironically was no longer in a position to reveal that his uncle was dead! In the main, however, our investors were of the usual greedy merchant sort.
Back in the lawyer’s office, gloomy now that no sun shone into it (for the sky was full of seasonal snow), we were quizzed with a list of questions prepared by Hoehenheim-Plessner’s Client. Since we had no great need of further backing we cheerfully answered, knowing that we could only double the fortune we should take with us from Mirenburg when our balloon sailed. About halfway through this interrogation (which was perfectly friendly) the pale advocate held up an old book in a tattered binding. ‘Van Brod confirms all you say and I have discovered other evidence in support of your claims which, frankly gentlemen, I thought a little fanciful myself, though of course I am not the principal here.’
‘What’s the book, Sir?’ asked St Odhran. It was passed over the desk to us. I read the title-page: A Treatise Upon The Discovery & Occupation Of Occult Worlds. My guess was that the lawyer had been loaned it by his Client.
‘In there, gentlemen, is Van Brod’s description of the world he called the Middle Place, which lies, he thought, between our own and Heaven. I also have a sheet from an old journal acquired by one of our agents, which gives instructions for entering those worlds; while here’s another description, from the fourteenth-century monk Augustus of Nierstein, where he has interviewed a warlock and a witch who visited what the monk names “The World Between”.’
I was amused by all this. It was as if he assembled evidence for a trial and, satisfied that there was a case to prove, was now prepared to believe every lie we invented! He even seemed excited. I knew a pang of guilt.
‘A few leaves,’ he continued, ‘from the records of Henry Alaminus of Danzig, a famous alchemist of the fifteenth century, again upon the identical subject; a fragment from a letter written by an unknown husband to his wife, describing an expedition into what he termed the “Geistwelt”.’
I listened patiently with a mixture of boredom and discomfort. Having never encountered such stuff before, the old man did not know how
easily such evidence could always be accumulated. It was a question of the specific selection one made from the vast whole of the world’s information. But now he paused and his enthusiasm for our scheme came clearer.
‘And here’s something, Captain von Bek, of interest to yourself. Perhaps you’ve heard of it before? It is a letter written by Brother Wilhelm of the Monastery at Renschel to a fellow monk at Olmitz. It is dated June 1680. Do I make familiar reference?’
I shook my head, whereupon he handed over the following modern copy of a parchment which he said was still in the hands of his Client (and the chief reason, I was led to believe, for the said Client’s interest in our enterprise). I reproduce the thing here, as I acquired it later:
I am presently embarked upon the strangest of tasks, which is the copying of a Confession made by our Patron Lord, the Graf von Bek, whose good works are well known. I cannot, of course, describe the Confession itself, but he has already caused considerable astonishment and consternation amongst our Fraternity and speaks of exploring lands which lie somewhere beyond our Earthly perceptions, being neither Heaven nor Hell, but in somewise of this world and which he calls The Mittelmarch. Brother Olivier takes the Confession direct and it is only my task to Transcribe it. Yet my pen shakes in my hand sometimes as I record his story and I must pause frequently to bless myself. Sometimes I pray the Graf raves in a fever or lies to us, or is mad. But he seems as sane as always and in full command of himself, though weak from his illness. He describes lands wherein the most fantastic beasts and races dwell, more strange than anything found in the old Romances and which seem in no wise unusual to him. However, it is the import of his tale which chiefly distresses us. Pray for us all, dear Brother, and I beg you pray additionally for me that I may not go mad from this Task.
This was the second unwelcome reference to my family’s legend in recent days and when the lawyer looked significantly at me I was forced to pretend an intelligence I did not feel, for by now, of course, I was committed to the rôle St Odhran had imposed on me.
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 15