“No, no!” I said weakly. I tried to sit up. The second man, who was tall and lean, pulled me out of the bunk and I landed on my face on the floor. I lay there, unable to move so much as an eyelash. My body felt dead, leaden. All I knew at that moment was that Seth was dead. And I loved Seth. These men had killed the man I loved.
They hauled me to my feet and wrapped me in a cloak. I couldn’t walk unsupported, and they half-carried, half-dragged me out of the room.
We passed through a maze of dark corridors. Our only light was the lantern one of the men carried. When we emerged in a back alley, the sudden shock of breathing pure air after inhaling the fumes of the opium smokers nearly made me pass out. I knew I ought to try and get away, but I could no more have put my desires into action at that moment than I could have sprouted wings on my heels. A thick fog had settled over the city. Out in the bay I heard the muffled mooing of horns.
We passed down shadowy alleys and darkened streets. I looked over my shoulder once and saw that the sky over the Golden Gypsy was bright.
“Fire,” I sighed. “Big fire.”
“That’s right, Baroness,” the man on my right said. It was Franz. “Most of San Francisco has burned to the ground tonight. Come on, lift your feet.”
They hustled me up the gangplank of a waiting ship. Another man took the lantern and led us to a cabin below decks. Fritz and Franz tossed me onto a bunk. One of them felt around under my gown to make sure that I had nothing concealed. Then they left me. A bar slid across the outside of the door. The ship creaked and swayed at anchor.
Vague phantasmagoric images floated around in the darkness in front of my eyes. I saw Seth, lying on the muddy street in front of the Golden Gypsy with a charred hole in his head. I closed my eyes tightly but that vision wouldn’t go away. Finally I either fainted or slept, for when I woke again we were on the high seas, bound for God knows where.
The journey could have been worse. They kept me drugged so I wasn’t as seasick as I would have been otherwise. The most incredible dreams and the most terrifying nightmares kept me company as I lay moaning in that wretched cabin for long days and endless nights. I seemed to have no will, no desire for anything after a while except that glass of laudanum they brought me every morning. I waited for it impatiently and swallowed it eagerly, greedily. I didn’t know who my captors were or where they were taking me or at whose command. And worse, I didn’t care. I wanted my drug. And if I didn’t get it on time I became a crying, desperate maniac.
The ship docked, I don’t know where. I was shunted into carriages and trains and wagons. Finally the last carriage took me through dark forests and across bridges that spanned treacherously deep ravines. Finally we arrived at a grey stone building that was grim and forbidding. Journey’s end.
Fritz and Franz led me docilely up winding stairs, through damp, moldy passages, and into a enormous drafty room. The walls were hung with small tapestries and the heads of dead animals. Six-foot logs burned in a mammoth fireplace. They pushed me into a wing chair near the fire and left me. I dozed off immediately.
Cold hands slapped my cheeks. I opened my eyes and tried to focus them. I saw shiny black boots, white breeches on long legs, a scarlet coat belted with black with a revolver attached to the belt over the right hip, a chest hung with medals and ribbons. And then I saw the face. Vaguely familiar. Black handlebar mustache. Small cruel eyes under menacing brows. A thin, prominent nose. “Welcome back to Bavaria, Baroness,” he said.
“Baron von Zander,” I whispered.
“Yes. I trust you had a pleasant enough journey. I ordered my men to make you as comfortable as possible, within reason. Were you—comfortable, Baroness?” Every time he said “Baroness” he placed an unpleasant stress on the word.
“Answer me!” he bellowed. He slapped my face again. My head snapped back. Strangely the slap hardly hurt. “Did you have a comfortable journey?”
I nodded a little. “Yes, quite—” My thoughts drifted away, into a vision of Gypsy camps and horses and flower-strewn fields.
“Good,” he said, satisfied that I had answered his question at last. “You will be my guest for a while, Baroness. Would you like to know where you are? You are in Hohenschwangau Castle, in the Alps far south of Munich, very near the Austrian border. I use the place from time to time as a hunting lodge. No one ever comes here these days. Just me. And—my guests. I hope you will find the air invigorating.
“Why?” I sighed. I had some dim idea that I ought to be concerned about his reasons for bringing me to the castle, but as soon as that “Why?” was out of my mouth, I ceased to care. My thoughts drifted elsewhere.
But the Baron laughed. You want to know why I’ve had you brought here, eh? Well, I’ll let you tell me, Baroness.” Again that mocking stress on the title.
“I’m thirsty,” I said. “May I go to bed now?”
He leaned over my chair and stuck his face right up close to mine. “You will listen to me!” he shouted. “And you will answer my question! Where are the pictures?”
I closed my eyes. I wanted to sleep.
He shook me. My head bobbed loosely on my neck.
“Where are the pictures! The ones you stole from my rooms at the Residence! The ones you are using to discredit me! You remember them. The photographs!”
I had a spark of recollection. “Naked man in women’s clothes,” I said slowly. “Hats. And masks. And—a dog.”
“Yes, yes,” he said eagerly. “Those are the ones. Come on, tell me. What have you done with them? Who did you give them to? Who is working with you to destroy me? Tell me! Tell me or I’ll break your head right off your neck! Tell me!”
He started to slap me and beat me around the head. I squealed like a little piglet and covered my head with my arms.
“I didn’t take them!” I shouted. “I swear, it! I didn’t take anything! Stop! Stop! Let me go!”
“You must have taken them,” he roared. “You were the only person who could have taken them. I saw you in that room myself! What did you do with them?”
“I can’t remember,” I mumbled. I dropped my head and slumped down in my chair. I felt so tired. I wanted my laudanum, my poison. I said so.
“No,” he said. “No more laudanum until you remember what you have done with the pictures. You’ll pay for this, Baroness. You have cost me dearly. Someone is working with you—someone is sending those pictures to Maximillian! And I know who is responsible! You, Baroness! You and your confederate. Is it Ludwig? Did you give them to Ludwig?”
“No, no one!” I said groggily. “Nobody. Didn’t take any pictures. Never stole anything in my life.”
“You are the root of everything evil in this country,” he said harshly. “You are filth, vermin! Gypsy scum! You shall be rooted out and destroyed, all of you! Liars and beggars and cheats, all of you!” He hit me a few more times to emphasize his words. One of his blows knocked me out of my chair. My head hit one of the gigantic andirons in the fireplace and I knew no more.
They didn’t bring me my laudanum that night. By the next morning I was screaming, hurling myself at the barred door of my room, tearing my bedding to bits.
The Baron came to the little window in the door and watched me. He must have decided that this kind of torture wasn’t going to get him the answers he wanted, and so he ordered his men to bring me my dose of liquid opium. I drank it down and waited for the easiness to steal over my limbs and settle over my brain. Rest and peace. Rest and peace. That was what I craved. Sweet, sweet peace.
He stood over me. “Where are they? Answer me!"
“I don’t know. Leave me alone. Go away.”
“What did you do with them? Who did you give them to?
“No one. I can’t remember. Go away.”
“You’re sending them to the King yourself, aren’t you? You’re working alone! Aren’t you?”
“I don’t remember, I tell you. Stop pestering me. Go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell
me, Baroness. Think hard. I’ll take away your opium again. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“No, no!” I gasped. “Don’t, please don’t do that! I’m trying to remember, but I can’t! I—I took them out of the drawer, I remember that much. And then—I heard you coming—and I hid under the desk.”
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.” He smiled evilly. “You hid, then you heard me and Klaus. What did you do then? You came out from under the desk—you had the pouch with the pictures in it—what did you do with it?”
“I—I went to the window,” I said slowly. “I looked out. Far down. Can’t get out that way. I lean out—and I drop them. Rosebushes under the window. I drop them—into the rosebushes.”
“Well, what then?” he asked, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. “What did you do after you left my rooms? Come on, think? Did you go down and get them?”
I frowned. “It was late. I was tired after—a concert. I sang. I was tired. And I went to bed.”
He didn’t get any more information out of me that day. After awhile I couldn’t even remember my own name. He went away the next day, back to Munich. The guards at the castle relaxed a little. Franz and Fritz took turns watching over me.
I had no appetite for food. Only for opium. I lost weight quickly and I had no interest in my appearance at all. I hardly ever combed my hair. I wore loose-fitting night-gowns most of the time and slippers that were too large. I hardly spoke to a soul. I didn’t care about anything. Only laudanum and the dreams it brought. One day I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. Cheekbones jutting out, eyes like charred, dead fire pits, with all the light gone out. Hair a tangled mass of straw.
The Baron returned. He badgered me with questions about the pictures. Apparently the situation in Munich was worsening. Everyone had seen at least one of those disgusting pictures, and von Zander’s influence over Maximillian had dwindled drastically. He took away my opium for three days, and I went berserk. If I couldn’t have opium, I wanted death.
He gave me my laudanum again and went away without learning anything new. Perhaps I knew, even in my deranged state, that to tell him the whole truth would be to condemn myself to death.
I tried to count the guards around the castle once. I got to thirty and gave up. They came and went, marching in little squads in the morning and again in the evening. For all I knew there might have been only ten soldiers who liked to march a lot. But I doubted it. I could see them from the small barred window of my room, high up in the castle. They looked like little rats scurrying around the courtyard below.
One day I saw a strange and unusual sight. A brightly-painted wagon came through the open gates and into the courtyard. A tall, white-haired man jumped down from the driver’s seat and shouted out something. He wore baggy blue trousers and a red shirt and a blue scarf around the neck. A woman came out from behind the wagon. She was smaller and dark-haired, and she wore a red scarf on her head and a wonderful green skirt and yellow blouse. There was something very familiar about their appearance.
One of my keepers, the short one, Fritz, unbarred my door and came into my cell. “Come on, time for your walk,” he growled. “Don’t know why I bother with you.”
“No, I want to stay and look," I said, holding onto the bars at the window. “Look at the funny people down there. Who are they?”
Fritz joined me at the window and grunted, “Oh, Gypsies. They come around from time to time, to peddle their junk and to take our old horses off our hands. Come to think of it, my horse could use a couple of new shoes. I wonder if they brought a forge? Some do, you know. Good thing the Baron’s not here. He hates them like poison.” He dragged me away from the window and threw a shawl around my shoulders. The leaves were beginning to turn and the nights were very cold: even the days were chilly. The months were slipping away. I was hardly aware of their passing. Winter would soon be upon us. Then spring. Would I live to see the spring? I didn't care. It didn’t matter to me one way or the other.
We went down long flights of stone steps and passed through the great hall and out into the pale sunshine in the courtyard. Fritz pushed me down on a low stone wall and told me to stay put, then he went to talk to the Gypsies.
I watched them listlessly, my interest in them gone. There were four men and one woman, all colorfully dressed. One or the other of them always seemed to be looking at me. One of the men, the darkest and swarthiest of the bunch, took a few steps towards me. The others restrained him. I noticed that he had a purple scar on his left cheek.
Then the Gypsy men unloaded an anvil and carted it over to a place near the stables. They built a roaring fire, a nice bright fire, and soon the clang of iron hitting iron rang through the courtyard. And they all shouted and laughed and talked at once, joshing the guards and Fritz, talking loudly about the merits of this horse or the other.
While they were busy at the forge the woman came over to me. One of the guards tried to stop her.
She laughingly pushed him out of the way. “I mean her no harm. I just want to tell her fortune, that’s all. And I’ll tell yours, too, if you’re a good boy. I know you have lots of girlfriends, eh? You are a real devil with the girls!” She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow and he shifted his feet and laughed shamefacedly. She kept up a steady stream of talk as she sidled over to me. After a while he let her pass without an argument.
She put her fingers under my chin and said loudly.
What a pretty girl! Ah, I have seldom seen a prettier!” She shouted over her shoulder to the guard, “What’s the matter with her? Is she stupid or sick? What?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think she’s mad.”
“Ah, mad creatures are blessed,” the Gypsy woman cried. “She is very close to God, this one. Come, child, don’t be frightened of old mother Elise. She won’t hurt you. Gypsies are good to poor creatures like you. Don’t be afraid.”
I stared at her. She wasn’t young any more but she had a pert, lively face and the brightest brown eyes I had ever seen. She sat on the wall next to me and took my hand.
“How warm it is here,” she said gaily. “You are very smart to sit here. Now, let me see your hand. Maybe you, too, have a boyfriend in your future. Who knows?”
She cast a knowing look at the guard and cackled. He grinned and walked away. She tightened her grip on my hand and said in a low whisper, “Rhawnie, listen to me. Rhawnie, do you know me? It’s me, Elise, Elise McClelland, darling. Don’t be frightened. Oh, Rhawnie, what have they done to you?”
The guard strolled back over again. The Gypsy cackled and said silly things about my husband and all the children I was going to have, and about how I had travelled far over big oceans, all the way from a big country named America. On and on she went, keeping an eye on the guard the whole time. I felt myself growing restless.
“I want to go back now,” I said. “I want Fritz.”
“Oh, Rhawnie, please try and listen to me,” she hissed when the guard’s back was turned. “Please, try. We want to get you out, but it won’t be easy. How many guards are there here? How many? Think, Rhawnie. The men in the blue uniforms. How many are there?”
“Ten,” I said slowly. “Ten. And they march all day and all night, around and around.”
She gave an exasperated sigh and said loudly, “Ah, I see you have other talents, too! You are a fine singer! You sing beautifully, to shame the nightingale!”
I frowned. Singer? Nightingale? What was this crazy woman babbling about? The guard drifted away again.
She gripped both my hands in hers and said in a low intense voice, “Rhawnie, I beg you, pay attention to me! Listen! It’s Elise, Seth and Steven’s mother! Remember Seth? Remember, Rhawnie?”
“Seth is dead,” I said dully, echoing some old distant memory.
“No, no, he’s not! He’s right over there, looking at you now. See him, Rhawnie? What have they done? They’ve given you something? A drug? What is it they give you?"
I sighed and wished she
would go away and stop bothering me. But she had such a sweet face. And now she was irritated with me, like the Baron.
“Laudanum is nice, very nice," I said. “I have the most wonderful dreams."
She made a little moaning sound and closed her eyes briefly. Then she took the red scarf from her head and gave it to me. “Rhawnie, we’ve got to get you away from here. Can you understand what I’m saying? Where do you sleep? Where’s your room?”
I shrugged. “Up there."
“Where? Which window? Point it out to me?"
I looked up. The glint of sunlight on glass hurt my eyes. ‘I don’t know. All the same. Can I go in now?"
She pressed the scarf into my hands. “Take this scarf back to your room, Rhawnie. Tie it to your window, so that we can see where you are. Will you do that for me, Rhawnie? Please? Do it for Steven and for Seth. Tie the scarf to the window as soon as you go back."
The guard came back. The Gypsy laughed and stood up.
"The poor thing took my scarf. I let her keep it. Such a pretty color, eh?"
“I’ll get it back for you," the man said, taking a step towards me.
“No, no!" the woman said, holding onto his arm. “I want her to have it please. It will bring her good luck." She winked at me and nodded up at the windows. “And now you, my friend. Let me have a look at your hand. Ah, what a fine, strong hand this is! The best I have seen in a long time! Come over here, where the light is better.”
I stood up and walked slowly towards the forge. I wanted to get closer to the warmth and brightness of the fire. The swarthy Gypsy man with the scar ran up to me and said loudly, “No, no, don’t get too close to the fire, lady.” Then he lowered his voice and hissed, “Rhawnie, don’t you know me? What have they done? What’s the matter with you? It’s me, Seth!”
I shook my head. “Dead. Seth is dead.”
He started to say something else but Fritz came up and took me back to the castle and up to my room. I felt very tired and I lay down on my bed. As I opened my hand to ease myself down the red scarf fell to the floor. Yes, it was pretty, as the lady had said. I picked it up and held it to my cheek. It smelled like wildflowers and grass. Soft. Pretty.
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