The Prisoner of Silverwood Castle

by Marie Treanor

  I tightened my fingers around the scissors, and clamped my free arm across my breast as if that could calm me, or protect me. Then I moved towards the next, narrow flight of stairs that had led me to the prisoner’s cell.

  Something rustled above me, and my heart tried to dive into my mouth. Some instinct of self-preservation propelled me backwards into the shadows of the staircase, just as footsteps clumped down them. I peered through the darkness, sure he would hear the thundering of my heart.

  A large man with long arms swept past me, his boots scraping the stone floor. Although I couldn’t see his face, he had straight, lank dark hair. Not my prisoner.

  I stood paralysed as he stomped across the room and down the main stairs. I only had seconds to decide what to do. Flee, and possibly get caught by the big, greasy man with the long arms? Or run upstairs to face whatever was up there, and possibly get caught by the beast? Or by said big, greasy man coming back and trapping me.

  I lurched forward and ran up the stairs before I could change my mind.

  I more than half expected the cell door to be shut and the room empty. I was wrong.

  The door stood open. Although I could barely breathe, I couldn’t wait any longer. I whisked myself inside, and found my prisoner.

  He was real. Very real.

  He lay half on his side, on the same truckle bed I remembered from my “dream”, chains running through the manacles on his wrists to the bolt in the stone wall. He was facing me, eyes closed in sleep. My throat seemed to close up.

  Whatever his crimes, surely a human being should not be kept like this, chained like an animal. How dangerous could he be?

  It didn’t matter. A quick, wild look around the room and the door told me there were no keys here with which I could free him. Just as well, perhaps, since I’d no idea what was going on here. Only…

  Pity for the young man wasting away here tugged at my heart. And not just because he was handsome, not just because I dreamed of him visiting me.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and knelt on the stone floor beside his bed. He breathed evenly and deeply, clearly asleep. I felt the soft brush of his breath against my wrist, almost like the sensation of his lips in last night’s dream. I thought he was dreaming now, and didn’t envy him, for a deep frown marred his brow. His eyes moved frantically beneath his long, almond-shaped lids; the blond lashes fanned out against his pale cheek with its high, well-defined bones. His lips, slightly parted in sleep, were full and…sensual, somehow. I wanted to touch them. Kiss them with the comfort the dream of him had given me. Except that the ache forming between my thighs was hardly comfortable.

  It seemed he was too handsome, even for my hard, unimpressionable heart. With an effort at a wry smile to pull myself together, I turned my attention to his poor wrists and drew the ointment jar from my pocket.

  There were old scars beneath the new cuts, abrasions, and bruises. Where the skin wasn’t raw, it felt like leather beneath my soothing fingertips. I wanted to weep as I worked, gently smoothing the ointment into his hurts, feeling carefully inside the ring of each manacle. This close, I could see there were other bruises and scars beneath his shirt, but nothing open that Bessie’s ointment would heal. I only wished I could take away all his hurts.

  I was half-afraid, and half-wishful of waking him. But he slept on through his dreams. When I finally put my jar back in my pocket, the frown had vanished from his brow. I sat back on my heels and smiled, because it felt like a reward.

  And then a cough below slammed me back to reality. Although part of me wanted to soundly berate the long-armed man for his treatment of the prisoner, some instinct warned me I needed to keep this secret. I’d no idea how my knowledge of the prisoner’s concealed presence here would affect him.

  So I rose to my feet, listening intently. I didn’t know when the man would come back. He might even lock me in here. I crept to the door. Suddenly, some massive unease swept over me, an instinctive certainty of threat. The beast! With a gasp, I jerked around to face it.

  Something seemed to flit past my line of vision, a shapeless blur with less form than the apparitions I’d seen or imagined last night. I spun around on my heel again, but there was nothing there, solid or otherwise, just the prisoner sleeping peacefully on his dingy bed.

  I had no time to waste. With a last glance back at my prisoner, I flitted down stairs as silently as I could. Another cough and a bump of something falling on the floor told me the long-armed man was somewhere beyond the open door I’d hoped to explore next.

  But discretion was clearly the better part of valour once more. No beast today, but it was still time to leave. I hurried on down the stairs to the hall, and not a moment too soon. As I crossed the hall, I heard him clumping back upstairs.

  I paused to listen, my heart in my mouth. I didn’t want to hear signs of him abusing the prisoner. But there wasn’t much I could do to interfere. If the duke knew about this…

  Shoving my fallen hair out of my face, I forced my feet onward along the corridor. It would soon be time to prepare for dinner and the music recital. In the light of what I’d just seen, the frivolity seemed somehow shameful.

  Chapter Five

  The following morning, leaving Augusta to rest and be pampered before the ball, I again made my way to the duke’s library, and was relieved to find it empty. I’d looked in the evening before, after the musical recital—which had been most enjoyable—but had found it full of men drinking brandy. They’d all leapt politely to their feet when I’d entered, and yet still managed to look so disapproving of, event affronted by, my presence, that I’d cravenly said, “Good evening,” and closed the door again.

  Now I had the room, duly aired and cleaned by the duke’s efficient servants, all to myself again. Although I’d brought Jane Eyre to read, I spent the first few minutes looking around the vast array of books.

  I discovered the notebooks quite by accident. Reaching up above my head to pull out what looked like a centuries-old book bound in velum, I knocked over a larger tome on the bottom shelf with my foot. When I bent to replace it—it was the second volume of an encyclopaedia of the classics called Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft—I noticed a small pile of books just peeking out behind volume one. Intrigued, I drew the pile towards me.

  There were about five small, fat notebooks. I opened the first one and stared at the name dancing in front of my eyes. Written in an elegant, flowing hand and surrounded by odd drawings of faces, hands, and animals was Kasimir von Silberwald. Underneath it was the date 1841.

  Had I discovered the young prince’s diaries? My heart beating faster, I sank down on the floor and flicked through the closely written pages. It wasn’t a diary as such, but a record of his thoughts, mainly on politics and the improvement of his country’s fortunes and independence, but also on various personalities, on religion, philosophy, history, and diverse technical subjects include the engineering of bridges and railways.

  The young prince wrote with great intelligence and humour, and a touch of youthful naivety that I found rather charming. The diaries were full of his hopes for the future, what he would try to implement when he was old enough to count with his father, or when he was duke himself. The closely written words were peppered with drawings, some of faces, some technical diagrams or maps.

  One ketch, in the margin, was of a beautiful young woman with full lips and laughing eyes. Under it, he had written Schönheit. Beauty. Kasimir at fifteen had clearly not been immune to female charms. In fact, a poem written further on showed his appreciation rather more graphically, and vividly enough to make me blush. I even surprised a spark of jealousy in myself, which was ridiculous, not to say inappropriate, for any number of reasons.

  The notebooks had all been written between 1838 and 1841, and it was beguiling to see the bright, mercurial thoughts of the adolescent boy maturing. I became lost in his writings
, feeling not just as if I was getting to know the late prince, but almost conversing with him. I wished I’d known him when he was fifteen. It seemed a greater than ever tragedy that his family, his country, had been deprived of such a man.

  What I didn’t come across were insane ravings, such as might have gone with the portrait of the child above the fireplace. There were references to things said by people I either suspected or knew to be long dead, as in decades or even centuries dead, and some of his philosophical ramblings included references I couldn’t quite understand to worlds existing within our own, to the free flight of souls and the importance of learning from them.

  Because of their frankness, it took me some time to register that there was very little of the personal in these writings. He wrote down his thoughts, ideas, aspirations, ambitions, but not his feelings. I wondered if they were an escape from his feelings… Whatever, they made fascinating reading.

  The gong for luncheon dragged me back to reality, for I was to accompany Augusta. Reluctantly, I closed the book in my lap. For a moment, I considered taking all the notebooks away with me to read more carefully in private—I’d only skimmed through most of them—but in the end, I decided they were here in the library, semi-hidden, for a reason. Whatever his reason had been. I replaced them all in a neat pile behind the encyclopaedias and resolved to return to them when I could.

  * * * * *

  The duke had apparently chosen to host a masked ball as a tribute to his frivolous young wife. Although Augusta, who considered such revels childish, managed not to be scathing, I suspected she only bit her tongue because the disguise was merely a domino cloak and mask, one I was sure she’d make it easy for everyone to penetrate. Augusta had never cared for dressing up, even as a child. She always preferred being herself, or occasionally, a princess, which she’d now managed to achieve in real life.

  The duke gave his bride a magnificent, deep purple, silk domino, lined in a slightly paler shade. She wore it over a lilac gown and finished the ensemble with a white mask embroidered in lilac. I was right. She looked splendid and could have been no one but the duchess. She was happy.

  I too was found a domino and mask to wear—a loan from one of the duchess’s ladies. I didn’t ask which one. It might have shone once, before the moths got at the velvet, but it was now simply dull brown, even if you ignored the bald patches.

  I own I felt rather deflated and disappointed. I suppose it was my romantic imagination, but I rather liked masked balls. In fact, during my miserable London season, the masked ball was the only event I’d enjoyed, even though my sister Margaret had denounced it loftily as a mere invitation to licentiousness. Nobody had taken any license with me, but it had been fun to pretend to be mysterious and intriguing while no one spotted I was merely the smallest and ugliest of the Earl of Alnwick’s sisters. I’d hidden in the water closet during unmasking and then slunk happily into Margaret’s carriage to wait for her.

  I didn’t think I could pull off elegant and intriguing, or even mysterious, in that cloak. I tried it on over my favourite amber gown, and thought dismally that at least the lining looked good with my gown. Somewhat ruefully, I touched the lining and discovered it was silk. On impulse, I swung the cloak off, turned it around and wore it inside out. I pulled up the wide hood, rolling back the front of it to reveal one of the few areas of velvet not feasted on by moths. Likewise, what now looked like the velvet trim of my silk cloak looked rather good. Moreover, the bright amber of the lining seemed to brighten rather than dull my skin. I fastened it with my diamond brooch to add sparkle and tried on the mask. It too looked better back to front, though I had to adjust the string to fasten it that way, and it hid such ornament as was left on it. My other trouble was my spectacles. To wear them over the mask would give the game away. Under it, they pressed into my face and could still be seen bulging under the fabric—again giving the game away.

  Reluctantly, I left them off, dropping them into the hidden pocket of my gown. For once, it wouldn’t really matter if I couldn’t recognise anyone.

  As a further disguise, I wore the pearl earrings, which hung down only just visible under the wide hood if I left it up, and the matching necklace. I hadn’t taken them out of their case since Augusta’s wedding, so no one here would recognise them. They were my inheritance from my mother and, apart from the diamond brooch Caroline had given me for my first and last London season, my only decent jewellery. Augusta would know them, of course, but that was fine. I thought we should recognise each other.

  I smiled at myself in the glass and curtseyed deeply, thinking myself into my masquerade role with admittedly rather childish enjoyment. I was a Renaissance beauty intent on revenge, ready to summon my prey with my dark siren’s call.

  Laughter bubbled up inside me. Tonight, I would live my novel and have tremendous fun doing so. I might even stay for the unmasking, depending on how the evening went, and how much I annoyed Augusta. I had no objection to irritating her, but I didn’t actually want her to feel undermined.

  Drawing my thrilling persona around me with my cloak, I swept from my room and eventually joined the throng descending the public stairs to the ballroom.

  Even with my blurring short sight to contend with, the ballroom was magnificent, glittering with a thousand candles in chandeliers hanging from the painted ceiling. There were flowers everywhere, with special displays of red roses as a symbol, presumably of the duke and duchess’s love. In a sea of colourful cloaks and masks, the ducal couple stood out in the middle of the room, not so much by their splendour as by their regal identity. Despite their cloaks and glittering masks, they made no effort to disguise who they were, even opening the ball with the first dance of the evening, a sedate waltz, which no one joined in for the first minute precisely.

  “My lady, will you honour me with this dance?” a gentleman’s voice murmured in my ear. It was an unfamiliar voice and spoke in German, and it belonged to a man in a scarlet cloak and mask.

  I had already decided to disguise the foreignness of my accent by speaking in French for the evening, which appeared to delight my partner as we joined the dancers. He turned out to be witty and urbane, although I thought he was quite a lot older than I. I thoroughly enjoyed his company and agreed happily to another dance later on.

  The waltz had barely finished before another stranger claimed me for the second dance. He was a younger man, and much more impudent, doing his best to guess my identity by asking often rather risqué questions. My answers were mostly evasive or plain lies, but he didn’t appear to be discouraged. Instead he took me to find some wine and gathered some of his friends to help him guess.

  My French struggled with the following good-natured bombardment, so I was almost relieved when a voice I recognized, said, “Grant me this dance, mademoiselle, and I’ll discover your secret.”

  I inclined my head as regally as I knew how and placed my hand on the arm of Bernhard von Gerritzen.

  “I lied,” he murmured in my ear as we took our place on the dance floor. “I know your secret already.”

  “You might know one,” I allowed. “But then again, you might not.”

  “Mystery becomes you. As does your costume. You are dazzling tonight.”

  “So is your flattery, monsieur.”

  He smiled, taking me in his arms for the Viennese waltz, wildest and most fun of all dances—with the right partner. My best partner had always been our dancing master, but I had to admit, Gerritzen was almost as good. He didn’t let me stand on his toes, nor did he stand on mine, but kept us spinning around the room until I was dizzy. We were both laughing as the orchestra brought the dance to an end.

  “Black domino approaching purposefully from the right,” Gerritzen said. “Do you want to dance with him or hide?”

  “Neither. I wish to sit!”

  He placed my hand on his arm and led me through the open French doors on to the terrace, where
several people were already strolling, some obviously taking advantage of their disguises to flirt. I wondered if that was Gerritzen’s purpose. As a vengeful Renaissance beauty, I had no objection to flirting, although since he possibly did know my identity as he claimed, I doubted it would be more than a game.

  I sat on the bench he chivalrously dusted off for me with the tail of his cloak, and gathered my breath while gazing up at the full moon.

  “Tell me,” I said, “have you ever heard stories of men turning into wolves at full moon?”

  “When I was a child, maybe,” he said, his voice amused as he stood in front of me. “Why, where did you hear such tales?”

  “I can’t remember,” I confessed. “I don’t think I believe them anyway.”

  “You don’t think you do?” he repeated dubiously, moving as if to sit beside me. However, before he could, someone else slid onto the bench. A deep blue domino cloak enveloped his person. The eyes behind his mask seemed to glitter in a way I disliked.

  Drunk, I thought ruefully.

  “Bon soir,” the newcomer said. “I believe this is my dance.”

  “Whatever,” Gerritzen said in annoyance, “gave you that idea?”

  “The desire of my heart,” the newcomer said, placing one palm over his chest. His voice sounded familiar, though I couldn’t yet place him.

  “The lady desires to sit,” Gerritzen pointed out.

  “Then you, sir, are still de trop.” The man in the blue cloak smiled, and abruptly I placed him. Prince Heribert, the duke’s brother and heir.

  Gerritzen returned the smile with equal unpleasantness. “Are you sure?” he said dangerously.

  I realized I was no longer having fun.

  Gerritzen flexed his fingers in a warning kind of a way, and Heribert laughed. “Really? My dear sir, I am quite sure. Otherwise, I might have to pull rank, and you really wouldn’t like that.”

  Finally, von Gerritzen understood who his rival was, and the impossibility of his position. It was no part of his life plan to make an enemy of the duke’s brother. On the other hand, I rather thought it went against his code of honour to leave me with such an obvious drunk.