The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar's Tale

by Reggie Oliver

  “What have you against this man?” he called.

  “Witchcraft!” “Sorcery!” “Devil Worship!” “Burn Him!” came a hundred voices.

  I remembered then that Verney was at this very moment in my lodgings sorting out the books we were to take with us on the journey. The Chancellor tried to restore order but without success.

  At the back of the hall was a small door which can only be reached from the dais. Towards this I edged, hoping to avoid notice, but just as I slipped through I heard my name called out. The door gave onto a narrow wooden staircase that descended to another door which opened into the street. I was down the stairs and outside in a moment. It was a cold, dry night and the moon was full. I was in a narrow alley and for a second I paused to get my bearings. Then, from one end of the alley, I heard the thump of leather on cobblestones. I flattened myself against the wall and saw a group of students run past with torches in their hands. They could have been making for my lodgings. But I thought I could find a quicker way than them, so I picked up the skirts of my gown and ran.

  I was a little stout even in those days so that the exertion set my heart thumping and made my face burn. I thought I knew the streets well, but twice I lost myself in the winding alleys. Twice I tripped over a loose cobble or a dead dog. It might have been worse with no moon at all.

  There was no-one in the street when I reached my lodgings, but I gave myself no time to congratulate myself on having outrun my persecutors. I went in and ran up to the first floor chamber.

  There, in the candlelight, was Verney, calmly putting books into a chest. He looked up. I can see him now. He was shorter than myself, dark, with a full face and round, glistening eyes. He was not like an Englishman, but then he told me he was not English, he was Welsh. But is not Wales in England? At that moment there was a sort of stillness about him which angered me unreasonably, for he did not know what had happened.

  “You must go now, quickly,” I said. “Hurry! There is no time to waste!”

  Verney remained still. “Why?” he said, staring with those great eyes. I was enraged. At any moment I expected to see the glare of torches through the window and hear hammering on the door below. I explained briefly what had happened in the Great Hall. He seemed unimpressed.

  “Plutarch’s Moralia,” he said. “Will you take all of it?”

  “I want you to leave now and meet me towards dawn at the cross-roads outside the city gates. I will bring the horses.”

  “They cannot touch me,” he said. “They dare not.” The way he said it was almost impressive, but I saw him wince with fear when we heard knocking on the door below. “I will go to see who it is,” he said. I had no time for this bravado.

  “Don’t be a fool! The window at the back gives onto a roof. Run! Hide! I’ll meet you at the cross-roads.”

  At this point I heard my housekeeper, protesting angrily, go to open the door. Verney looked at me with a puzzled expression, then he went to the window and climbed out. I walked slowly down stairs.

  In the small passageway leading to the front door were some half dozen students with lighted torches. My housekeeper, terrified of fire, was begging them to take the torches outside. I came to the foot of the stairs, trying to keep my composure and half stifled by the acrid smoke which was now filling the place.

  “What is it you want, gentlemen?” I said.

  The spokesman was one Goetz, a big young man with a red face like a haunch of beef. He had a certain gift for leadership and could drink his fellow students under the table, but he would never understand Euclid.

  “Where is Verney?”

  “I do not know,” I said truthfully.

  “But he was here?”

  “He has been here.”

  “How long ago?”

  “He was not here when I returned,” said I, indicating the passageway with a little gesture. By such equivocations I was able to preserve myself from the mortal sin of lying.

  “Why did you leave the Great Hall so suddenly?”

  “It was hot, the hour was late, and the odour of students massed there more than usually offensive.” I have since learnt not to make remarks like that.

  “You come with us,” said Goetz.

  “By what right?”

  “By this right,” said he, handling me roughly and bundling me out of the door. I was now the prisoner of a posse of students who tied my hands together and started to march me up towards the castle.

  The old Castle Prison at Wittenberg, sometimes called “The Tombs”, is not an impressive place on the outside, for houses crawl up to its walls on every side and it has been built on and added to so many times that it looks more like a walled city in itself than a castle. But inside is a different matter. Dungeons and cells have been dug deep into the rock and in those damp, subterranean depths, they say, lie men and women who have not seen the light of day for generations. As we went through the streets on our way to The Tombs my agitation increased. It seemed that the town was up in arms over something. There was much clatter and shouting punctuated by the occasional cry of pain. As we went higher up the hill towards the Castle I could see chains of torchlight sliding through the city streets like fiery snakes. In the main square a great bonfire had been lit. Were they burning someone? Had they caught Verney? I shuddered, but my fear turned to anger when Goetz’s huge hand thumped me in the back to drive me forward.

  The keeper of The Tombs was a man called Darnatz, short, bald and harassed. I knew him slightly and thought I could browbeat him. But he was in a great taking that night and was more inclined to listen to Goetz and his leg of mutton fists than to me. With an insolence that knew no bounds these students commanded the keeper to confine me in a cell until the morning when I would be put on trial.

  “All that you say to me may well be true,” Darnatz replied to my protests when Goetz and his friends were gone. “It may be very unjust. You may have no charges to answer at your trial. But don’t you think you’ll be safer here, eh? I’ll give you a nice cell on the Upper Level with a window. Fresh straw in the mattress. Formerly occupied by the Count of Strelitz before his regrettable accident. I’ll have a fire made up. It’s for your own protection, you see.” Here was a man anxious to keep in with all sides.

  “What is happening?” I asked.

  “It’s the preacher. Haven’t you heard of Brother Saul? He has caused a sensation in the district. Only the day before yesterday he came into the market place — no shoes on his feet — and began to preach. Did you not hear?”

  In those days I heard only what I wanted to hear. News was mere gossip to me and a distraction. I shook my head.

  “He said the Devil was abroad in the land. There were sorcerers and magicians. There was wickedness in high places, even in the University. He said he would smell them out. He said that all those who harboured sorcerers were tainted too.” I shuddered. “I have not seen him, but his eyes burn with sincerity and truth, they say.”

  “Perhaps he himself is of the Devil,” I said. Darnatz gave me a frightened look and glanced round the guardroom.

  “No! No. We must not talk like that. But he is surely a fanatic and has roused up the people to a great pitch of indignation. There will be burnings and worse before they are satisfied.”

  “They will not burn me. I am innocent.”

  “Quite so. Quite so,” he said looking at some papers and ringing a hand bell. Two guards came in and I was escorted, quite cordially, to a cell on the Upper Level. From the window I could see into the town. The disturbance had by no means abated. My cell was comfortable enough and there was a fire as promised. I did not like the idea of sleeping so I sat in a chair before the fire and gazed into the flames.

  The cell was barely furnished but for one tapestry hanging on the wall. Its colours had faded with the years but the scene it depicted was still clearly discernible in the firelight. It was a dell or clearing in a wood of dense trees which twined with one another. The trees were leafless and beyond the black lace of
their branches could be seen a pale winter sky. It seemed at first a conventional hunting scene. Hounds were streaming down the slope into the clearing while some already surrounded the kill. Four or five peasants in the corner were grinning widely at the proceedings. One of them turned to the rest with a lewd, roguish expression on his face, his mouth half open as if he were making a jest. At first I could not make out the quarry, so pale and delicate were the outlines in this part of the tapestry. It was much obscured by the hounds who, eyes red and bulging, were tearing it apart. But then I saw the head of the victim which was lying a little way from the scrimmage, having doubtless been hurled there by one of the dogs. The neck was torn and ragged, bursting and bubbling with gore. The face was that of a young woman, partly obscured by blood-dabbled golden hair. But one saw enough to know that terror and agony were strongly marked upon it. The artist had known the nature of fear. He might have seen this very incident, for, as I looked, the depiction seemed to become more and more real by the instant. But where were the huntsmen? There they were, two of them, up on a tree-lined ridge, sharply outlined against the winter sky, hooded and a little stooping. Their faces were obscured, but one held a horn to his lips and blew. The hand gripping the horn was thin and bony, knuckles and wrist bone standing out almost like spikes under the parchment skin.

  If only the figures could move, I thought, it would be bearable; but the artist had caught and frozen them at the moment of greatest agony and degradation. For it seemed to me that life had not quite gone from the head of the young woman and that the pink and delicate lips were parted in a final noiseless scream. My eyes could not turn from it. Even when I closed them I saw this immobile yet restless image printed in deeper, more fiery colours upon my inner eye. What did it mean? Who put it there? I thought I might stay awake all night in horrified speculation, but presently I was asleep. Even so, I had not escaped the tapestry. Now I was in it, standing with those brutal peasants who jeered and stank like the mockers of Christ. I stood watching while the guilt crawled into my soul. I could do nothing. The hounds slavered and chewed; the head sobbed and a thin, piercing call escaped the hunter’s horn. It was a summons to despair. At times in my dream I thought I could almost break the bonds of immobility, but my feet were weighted with lead, as they are in dreams.

  Then it seemed I was watching the scene from my chair by the fire once more. The hounds wriggled; the white limbs of the dismembered girl twitched. The whole scene rippled with life while remaining locked in the same agonising moment. Then there was a dark little shadow blocking my sight of the corpse and the hounds. I heard a slight cough. Suddenly my terror was no longer a dream and I jerked myself into a fully awakened state.

  What I saw awake was what I seemed to see in my dream, only more vividly. Or was I still dreaming? I shook off sleep and found that I had been. But still I saw what I had seen. It took me several moments before I knew I was awake. The cough came again, polite, almost deferential.

  Standing before me was a dwarf, perhaps no more than four foot in height. He was dressed neatly in brown broadcloth and brown leather boots. A great belt with a silver buckle circled his waist. He held a hat in his hand with a green feather in it. He smiled tentatively. The face was large and misshapen, but not hideous. It was fringed with a reddish aureole of hair from the top of his bald cranium to his chin. His presence was unexpected, but somehow reassuring, perhaps because the remains of sleep blunted my fear.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “My name is Razendoringer, learned doctor. You must come quickly. My master is waiting for you.”

  “Where? Who is your master?” Terror was with me again. What if his master were the Devil? Could Brother Saul be a true prophet after all?

  “We meet at the cross-roads outside the town, as arranged. The horses are saddled. My master has seen to it.”

  “In God’s name, who is your master?”

  “Matthew Verney. I am Razendoringer, his manservant.” And the little man bowed low, sweeping the green feather of his hat across the floor.

  “Verney never told me about you.”

  “No time for arguments, learned doctor. Follow me.”

  “How do we get out? How did you come in?”

  For answer Razendoringer the dwarf drew aside the arras and revealed a dark little opening in the wall. Some steps led downwards, on the topmost of which stood two small lanterns, lit. Amazed, I was anxious to ask further questions, but the dwarf’s little arm made a convulsive gesture towards the steps, as he handed me one of the lanterns. So I followed him.

  He was already ahead of me on the staircase that wound its way into darkness, holding his lantern up as a beacon, staring ahead I was about to question him again when he turned to me and put a stumpy finger to his lips.

  “Silence now, learned doctor. There is still danger.”

  I was to need all my energy for the descent. I never knew one could walk so steeply into the bowels of the earth. At first the walls were of dressed stone; presently I noticed that our way was cut through the living rock, dark red and dripping like a giant’s throat. Suddenly I felt the dwarf’s tough little fist dig into my side. I started and let out a half suppressed cry.

  “You be silent, learned doctor,” said Razendoringer. “At the next landing we must stop. Go down further than that and we go down for ever. The stairway is broken.” My lantern beamed down on a solemn, almost self-important stare. In other circumstances I might have laughed.

  Now the steps were less well cut than before and in several places were broken. The dwarf stopped on a landing and I looked carefully all around me. We were in a small open space, level and almost circular. The roof was a dome carved from the solid rock and smooth but not polished. On one side was a ragged hole or entrance which led down presumably into the unknown fate of which Razendoringer had warned me.

  The dwarf went to the wall opposite the hole and began to feel along it, holding his lamp close up to the wall. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was searching for a concealed entrance. “It’s somewhere here,” he said. “I know it is because this is the way I came.” I went to look.

  “There seems to be a crack here,” I said, pointing to a vertical fissure in the wall. I pushed against it, gently at first.

  “Careful!” said Razendoringer, “We may be—”

  But I had pushed too hard, so that a whole section of the wall swung suddenly outwards onto an open space filled with light and noise. For a moment or two we were blinded. The clamour of twenty voices ceased as one. We were in a recreation room for the prison guards who sat about at tables drinking and dicing. There was a moment of mutual and horrified astonishment.

  “Ah,” said Razendoringer, “the wrong exit.”

  “Silence,” I said to the dwarf, assuming command; then I addressed the guards. “Gentlemen, do not come near us. If you knew where we had been you would also know that to touch us is certain death.”

  “That’s right,” added Razendoringer unnecessarily.

  Since that time I have had many terrible adventures, but few can match for strangeness the silent walk that we took across the guard’s room, threading our way between staring men and tables flooded with wine or strewn with dice and cards. A few whispers only were heard. “From Hell.” “From the Devil himself!” “That’s the learned Doctor Bellorius. I knew he was in league with Satan.” I walked stiffly and slowly, like a priest with the sacrament, across the room and to an archway beyond which opened onto a passage. I knew that just as soon as we were out of sight of these fools the spell would break.

  I was right for directly we were through the arch a clamour broke out. I threw Razendoringer in front of me along the passageway and then up a flight of steps. At the top there was a doorway across which a guard was sprawled half asleep. I hurled him out of the way and seized the handle of the door.

  It was locked. “The key! The key! Get it from him,” I shouted. In the meantime the men whom we had terrorised were massing indignant
ly at the bottom of the stairs. Superstitious terror was still partly on them, but it was only a matter of moments before the spell broke absolutely. Razendoringer was now half way down the stairs, wresting the keys from the guard’s belt. (The man had been concussed by my violent throw.) Both I and the dwarf were yelling strange imprecations at the crowd below. Just as he got the keys free the guards began to advance on us up the stairs. Razendoringer handed the keys to me and then with a supreme effort — for he was a strong little fellow and, like Paracelsus’s gnome, made wholly of rock and iron — sent the guard’s body rolling down the steps towards our attackers.

  I unlocked the door and we slipped through with not a moment to spare. It was only by great good fortune — some might say a malign fate — that I had chosen the right key. I then bolted and locked the door on the other side. We were now in a long, barrel-vaulted gallery, off which ran numerous passages and into which many doors had been set. We were still, I guessed, many feet under the earth. The place was dimly lit by a few guttering torches, the most brilliant of which I took from its bracket on the wall to carry with us. We no longer had our lanterns as we had thrown them down those stairs to deter our attackers.

  “Where are we now?” I asked Razendoringer.

  “Don’t know,” said the dwarf. “Never been in this part of the Castle before.”

  We could hear many fists thundering on the locked door behind us. Razendoringer made as if to break into a run, but I restrained him.

  “We may see someone at any moment. They must think we are on official business.” And I made him put the bunch of keys in his belt. It was as well he did, for a few moments later a guard came into the passage from a side entrance. He was an officer and did not look a fool. I decided to anticipate his questions.