St Odhran returned to The Martyred Priest with snow on his hat and more than a little concern in his eyes. He found me in the kitchen, where I listened to Ulrica reciting her dissertation which she was due to present on her return to the Gymnasium the following week. He was impatient to speak to me but did not interrupt. She concluded (sentimental, youthful stuff echoing the rhetoric of our young Utopians who would leave soon for Venice) and I applauded.
Ulrica darted a look at the Chevalier, who bent a knee in empty recognition (for he had not heard a word), and she rolled up her pages. ‘You’ll move the whole school to high-minded aspiration,’ I told her. But she desired criticism, so I mentioned a clumsy phrase here, a muddy notion there, and all the while St Odhran tensed his fingers and did everything but pace or cough. At last she was satisfied and I turned in some impatience to chide my partner for his unusually poor display of etiquette when he said, low and horrified: ‘The Landgräfin is murdered!’
I led him from the kitchen to the public room, which had only a few rural travellers in it, here to buy ploughs and weaving machines (they had been drunk since last night so were unaware of their own boots, let alone we two). ‘You’ve just come from there?’
‘Questioned by a Beadle for two hours; held by militia, then questioned by a major. First she was stabbed, then her room was fired but servants extinguished the flames before they took firm hold. She was naked and had been tortured. Money stolen and, the servants say, some books, but many of her papers were burned or charred beyond recognition. The servants vouched for me, finally, and I had no reason for wanting her dead. I was released, but both of us are required for a further interview and shall be called as witnesses at the inquest. Von Bresnvorts is whom they suspect. He claims to have been at a country estate while the crime was committed. Their description of the corpse was unsparing of my feelings. Two or three symbols had been cut in the flesh, suggesting black magic.’
‘Why torture her?’ I had been fond of that good-hearted widow. ‘Von Bresnvorts inherits anyway. Had she changed her will or dictated an appendix? Why kill her in a Satanist rite which would make him suspect? His dabbling’s famous!’
‘They believe they derive power from such rituals. And doubtless, stupid as he is, he expected the house to burn down. The likes of him believe that the violence of the sacrificial death is directly in proportion to the strength gained. These are mad people, von Bek. Their reasoning is rarely penetrable.’
‘I pray the monster’s hanged.’
‘He could escape. The major and advocate investigating the crime must prove him directly responsible or capture accomplices who’ll give evidence against him. His devil-loving friends, clearly, were tools or aides. The Prince has ordered the whole city alerted for his cousin’s murderers. There’s a fair chance they’ll be caught.’
‘They could escape into the catacombs.’
‘Major Wochstmuth has every detail of them I could recall. He seeks Klosterheim, too.’
‘So thwarted of our blood, he takes his aunt’s! Klosterheim will not be over-pleased by his minion’s folly. Von Bresnvorts was drooling to slaughter someone. Perhaps he planned to accuse us of the murder and so solve all his problems at once? Or are there more depths to the matter, do you think?’
St Odhran answered with slow sobriety. ‘I’d say there were extra complexities, aye. But I have no trust in my judgement at present, for I’m still horrified by the bloody nature of the crime. ’Tis hard to credit the evidence of such perverse evil. And can it all be for the sake of a few hundred Talers donated to us, when his aunt possessed millions?’
‘Maybe he does not wish our ship to sail? Or visit the Mittelmarch (which he believes in, if we don’t)? What if he did not truly see us as a pair of charlatans but thinks we actually possess supernatural secrets, maybe even the key to immortality? Did he feel threatened by the prospect of his aunt’s eternal life? We’re reckoning, I think, without his credulity!’
St Odhran accepted this theory, but lifted his hand to stop me speaking further. ‘I’ll be frank, von Bek. I’ve discussed such things for half the day and no amount of debate pushes away the image of her corpse or improves my spirits. She’s dead. We cannot resurrect her. The sooner we’re gone from Mirenburg the better. Too many lunatics focus their dreams through us. Had I known this city contained so many morbid seekers after arcane lore, I would not have suggested this swindle at all.’
I became aware, suddenly, that St Odhran was profoundly terrified. At least we now had fear in common, I thought. ‘I would suggest,’ said I, ‘that we try by conventional means to free ourselves from our contracts, return most of the monies at least and then be on our way.’
‘I’d arrived at the same conclusion.’ I could read from his eyes that he had never been closer to despair. ‘But we have contracts and, as far as the Law’s concerned, von Bresnvorts is a primary shareholder. I’ve read those papers every way and we’re committed (mainly because of that damned lawyer) to all kinds of penalties. We’ve promised passages. Will Klosterheim be pleased when we announce the venture cancelled? Our lives are at stake, my friend. In brief, we’re back to putting our trust in high winds, frayed ropes and the gullibility of our backers, both anonymous and all-too famous.’
St Odhran was badly affected by our Landgräfin’s fate. He drank more brandy than he would normally allow himself. He displayed more emotion that he had ever shown, even when it had seemed we were to be filleted at the Devil’s pleasure. Yet I understood that he could not easily voice sentiment in the matter, for it would be a sort of hypocrisy since he had planned to steal from the murdered woman. St Odhran was the kind of man who tested his wits upon the world, like a gambler at the card-table, and was moved as much by love of his game as by the prospect of profit. He lifted his bumper in a toast, he said, to the memory of a worthy player, the Landgräfin.
I would gladly have joined him in this excursion into maudlin escape, but some instinct kept me wary, so I sat with him and suffered his mourning as a friend must. Then, as the taproom filled with its evening trade, I helped him and his bottle to his rooms where he loosened his neck-cloth and the buttons of his breeches, eased off his stockings and pumps, and continued his ritual litany. He revealed all his fears and courage that night, his love for the human race, his wounds, his amours, the origins of his stylish foppery, of his taste for disguise; a duellist’s conscious guard rather than the entrapping armour of the mounted knight. Words were used to hold back and contain the attacks of the world, for he had a hatred and a horror of violence which I could comprehend without fully understanding. ‘And mysteries,’ he told me, ‘I’m afraid of all these shadowy people who give us money and materials. Why, von Bek? We’re in too deep, man!’
Then he fell sweetly to sleep, a seraphic child. I kissed his unwrinkled brow and drew a blanket around his body, but did not at once leave the room. I was possessed of an enervating melancholy and had no desire to return to my own bed and my unsettling dreams. Most of my life had been spent in my own company. I had rarely maintained a regular mistress, let alone a wife, and had never envied those who did. Presently I had a dim sense of being incomplete, of being only part of a divided soul. I had a yearning for what I could only describe as Unity. What had I lost that was mine? Were we all, in some way, like poor Klosterheim?
‘Satan,’ murmured St Odhran in his untroubled sleep. I watched the lines of terror gradually return. His lips moved rapidly. Beneath their lids his eyes were agitated. ‘Dead.’
I leaned forward, as if he was an oracle whose words would unlock all my own mysteries at once. He took short, panting breaths. He struggled in the blankets and his right arm came free. ‘Brandy,’ he said, then sank again into peace.
I sat in a ladder-backed chair reading through his neatly drawn maps. Some showed continents which did not exist; unfamiliar groups of islands, a familiar map of France with additional territories named and marked, or Germany magnified to three times her proper area, yet having on her bord
ers the same countries. Here for instance were Grünewald, Halbenstein and Alfersheim, all bordering Saxony. St Odhran claimed he had all the maps (some of which were ancient, kept together on oiled rag or varnished onto wood) from one collection. A drunken monk had sold them to him at a Bavarian fair, begging a gold mark for them and saying they were beyond price. Certainly they were the work of different hands, or else done by a master forger. I rolled those not damaged into his leather tube. The case was worn and frayed and the brass fittings were pitted, dull. The others I placed carefully one upon the other.
St Odhran began to snore loudly. My vigil had run its time. I extinguished the lamps and both candles and trudged up the passage to my bed. The room around me seemed to sway, I was so fatigued. The candlelight added shadows in the corners of my eyes and I could almost smell the presence of a woman. She was not there, but it would take more than a careless dismissal of my fancies to free me. I desire no other. I still burn for her. It is with Libussa of Crete I must be reunited!
I checked myself from further folly and instead offered up a prayer to a God I did not believe in for the survival of my own non-existent soul and that of the poor murdered woman. Major Wochstmuth had my blessing in his search for evidence to convict von Bresnvorts. If jailed the Satanist would have his effects frozen by the State. He would find it hard to command his horrid flock without money to pay them.
I looked out again into the Mladota Square, which gleamed black with rain. Two men hated me enough to want my life, another hated me but disdained to kill me. A woman remained hidden from me, yet had saved my life. Were these people in any way connected with one another? My only allies in this city were a veteran sergeant and a foreign trickster. I decided I must do as St Odhran suggested and leave, wind or no wind, balloon or horse. I felt in greater danger than any I had known in Paris. I felt that my body’s very essence was threatened.
Fearing sleep I found myself writing letters: one to my mother (waxing sentimental and nostalgic), another to Robespierre (begging him be moderate), to Talleyrand asking to encourage policies, not mere stage-trappings masking the procedures of the old régime; to Tom Paine, in jail, advising him to accept any humiliation if it meant his release and passage to America. You were my mentor, dear Tom, as was Cloots. For all the madness of his anarchy and world rebellion (a most marvellous fancy but a hopeless practicality) I yet retain great affection for him. But you must recall your own Common Sense and, seeing the world as she is, and how she may be improved, do nothing else which might result in your own prolonged imprisonment, or even death, for this age needs a cool eye upon it, now more than ever, and there are precious few of those currently to hand.
Another letter was written to Libussa Urganda Cressida Cartagena y Mendoza-Chilperic, Duchess of Crete, in which I proclaimed my love and offered a complaint. She had shown me too much of paradise to deny me at least the hope of earning a key. ‘I yearn to fling myself into Infinity,’ says Goethe, ‘and float above the awful Abyss.’ O, madam, I would be at your mercy, trusting you with the care of my entire being. I would be your servant. And so forth. The letters were sanded, folded, addressed, sealed with my von Bek crest, the Sign of the Cup. Was that cup actually the Grail? Or was it, as I suspected, the cup which gave rise to legends of our connection with the Grail?
The last letter I would leave with Sergeant Schuster, not knowing my lady’s whereabouts. I became eager for the dawn, when I intended to sleep. I feared the dark and my dreams. I wrote a further letter to Montsorbier, whom I presumed returned to Paris, informing him of my respect and offering him satisfaction should we ever meet again. It was at this stage that I realised I was writing as if certain of my imminent death. However, I wrote a note to Schuster, enclosing a few Talers, thanking him for his kindness, hospitality, the good will of his family and asking him not to think ill of me should my departure be sudden. Another note was addressed to my young Utopians, telling them that their hearts were purer than the world they beat in. They must remember South America could not be tamed by Reason; Reason could only tame the Beast within us. Even a letter to St Odhran was written, containing what was not far short of my own memorial: I aspired to Roguery but was thwarted by circumstance.
When we think ourselves close to death, how desperately do we aim a little of our substance towards the living, as if they are spars and boats from a wreck, to carry something of us on towards the shore. Another letter, to Mirenburg’s Prince, describing in detail the circumstances of our capture by the Baron and begging him to abolish (in Law and Deed) the folly of Satanism and occultism which is nought but infantile, witless, ignorant, dangerous, inhumane, cruel and deleterious to the well-being of his great city. I wrote to my brother, Rickhardt, telling him something of my enslavement to lies and romantic lust, but assuring him I could yet judge right from wrong, though my choice be dubious, for I have become as uncertain of my past Virtue as I am of my present Vice.
It was dawn at last. The rain was all gone but a thin white line upon the horizon crept like distant cavalry, in a flurry of wispy gases, up the sky and over our rooftops, bringing snow. I put my final letter upon the pile then took to my bed and a dreamless sleep from whence I awoke, a newborn optimist, with St Odhran’s slurred voice in my ears crying: ‘See them for a moment! Your young Utopians. Your seekers of the Grail.’
They left for Venice, I remembered, that morning. I sat up. ‘Enter, dear friends.’ I was glad to see their stern, embarrassed faces, scrubbed and ready for a further stage in their explorations. I hoped, in private, they would find a diversion before they reached Peru. I handed them their letter from the heap.
‘Our ship puts us down at New York or maybe Baltimore,’ Krasny said. ‘From there we make our way south, either by ship or land.’
‘Go by land,’ was my advice, ‘so that you may see for yourselves what the Millennium has offered others before you.’
He was puzzled. ‘Sir, I do not follow you.’
‘See Washington’s rebellious nation,’ I said. ‘The first in modern times to build her constitution upon a genuine faith in the power and the virtue of Law. A gentleman’s country. You will like it. And it will not disappoint you as badly as France.’ I sensed I was speaking inappropriately. ‘Whatever you decide, young masters, I wish you good luck.’
‘Well, Sir,’ said Krasny, ‘we are honoured to have met you.’
‘Honoured, also, my friends. I wish you a satisfactory journey through the New World.’
St Odhran interrupted with mock gravity. ‘Your money would be better spent on an aeronautical voyage, but folly’s the privilege of youth as it’s the punishment of age.’
Then they were gone; four sons it seemed to me. Four princes from an Arabian tale, riding across our world in search of the non-existent cure for all human woe. I made St Odhran sit down on my bed. ‘We must leave tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘Or ’tis my guess we’ll be dead.’
‘The hydrogen’s delivered to the Little Field. Its donor expects a passage, as does Klosterheim, but if we follow our plan and describe the ascent as a mere preliminary experiment, to test the gas’s power, we should be able to give them the slip easily enough. However, my friend, I’ll warn you now that if there is indeed a plot to kill us, you must understand that inflammable air burns quicker and faster than anything known to man’s science. Should we catch fire on board, we’d be charred before we touched ground again. But ain’t ye bein’ a mite too fretful, von Bek? Are you still not sleeping well?’
‘Could be I’ve gone mad, St Odhran. But if you will not take me from Mirenburg, I’ll go by any other route. Our enemies converge, on that we’re both agreed, eh? But if we escape ’em now, we’ll surprise ’em. They’d not anticipate such an immediate departure, I’m sure. Announce the demonstration, as you proposed. Say it’s to be in two days. But we’ll leave in one.’
St Odhran shrugged. ‘I share your wish to be gone from here. Very well, I’ll do as you say.’ At my request he took another pile of papers from me. It
was a kind of confession and must, I said, be given into safe-keeping. He would send it, he assured me, to Mr Magagold, an English lawyer who for some years had represented his interests.
When my friend had gone I took all the other letters I had written, crammed them into my stove and burned them. I began to prepare. Our journey must not look premeditated. I used changes of clothes as packing for my few other possessions. Most of St Odhran’s goods were already gone ahead to the Little Field. He had repacked the gold, he said, into ballast sacks, distinguished by their green colour. Our sword and pistols were hidden in sea-chart cases and leather tubes. The gas was with our ship outside the walls; seven large jeroboams which, said St Odhran, had to be handled with extraordinary care. Special hoses accompanied them. Through these the element must be introduced to the envelope by means of an already existing valve. St Odhran was grinning as he told me this. ‘We shall never know, I suppose, from whom most of our gold came, or who sent us the gas, but I wish him good luck for the rest of his life!’
For once I had no inclination to question my conscience. I was too eager to escape. Admitted it was a coward’s panic. I was in a mood to say anything or do anything to be gone from that just and kindly Mirenburg. For Mirenburg’s foundations, it seemed to me then, harboured maggots which depended for their existence upon a steady progress of corruption.
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 20