The Prisoner of Silverwood Castle

by Marie Treanor

  “I have no idea,” Barbara replied, dropping my robe around my shoulders. “But the ghosts might know.”

  I jumped up. “What shall we say if we run into anyone?”

  “We won’t,” Barbara said. “The advantage of ghosts is, they come to you. Or at least to me.”

  She took two cushions off the chairs and placed them on the floor. “You might find this a bit startling. I’m a medium, which means the spirits speak through me as well as to me. Although they use my voice, they change it to some strange hybrid, with their speech habits and inflections.”

  I was sure my eyes were standing out like organ stops. “Then I can ask it questions through you?”

  She nodded. For the first time since I’d known her, she looked uncomfortable, shifting on her cushion, tugging at the buttons on her robe. “I’m more used to doing this on my own. I should warn you not to be frightened for me, whatever you see. When I open myself, anything can get in, and there are a lot of nasty, soulless, barely sentient things out there waiting to pounce. But however grotesque or unpleasant I might seem, don’t be scared. I can’t be hurt by them and neither can you.”

  “Are they here now?” I asked, looking around me with a little thrill of alarm.

  “There are a few,” she said. “And some curious spirits, old ones…” She took a deep breath. “Very well… Speak to me.”

  In London, once, I had stolen away to see a medium practicing her art. I had hoped for a thrilling meeting with another, mysterious world, with a glimpse of the souls of the dead. What I’d got was some bad acting and a lot of drivel. Since then, I’d been invited to attend a séance with Lady Fairford’s pet medium, but I hadn’t cared enough to attend. Yet now I sat opposite Barbara Darke, eagerly watching her every move, praying she would meet the spirit of Kasimir and terrified that she would because that would mean he was dead.

  I wasn’t quite sure why I was going along with all this. It was, perhaps, a sign of my desperation to know the truth. At least Barbara didn’t appear to go in for dramatics or drivel, and for some reason, this helped to convince me of her honesty. As if the world of the dead, of spirits and ghosts, was as familiar to her as breathing. She sat quite still and relaxed on her cushion, and waited.

  “Come closer,” she said once, not to me. “You can speak to me, through me. Tell me about the spirits who haunt this place.”

  After a few expectant moments, her eyes focused on me. “They’re old spirits, old and shy. They drift through this world but have no desire to be of it. They don’t want to talk to me. Most of them have moved on already. I sense pockets of pain seeking release, but such beings can’t communicate… Oh, the devil…”

  She closed her eyes, and her mouth contorted in sudden, clear agony. Her whole body began to shake.

  “Barbara!” I pushed myself up on my knees, reaching for her. But her hand flew up, warding me off before she used it to hug herself around the middle. She gasped, jerked once, and seemed to relax in massive relief.

  “It formed before Kasimir,” she said shakily. “Centuries before, but it’s added more since. Some of it could be his.”

  “You mean there are beings formed from pure, physical pain?”

  “Sort of. The way you feel physical pain, and emotional pain. You get happy pockets too. And others made of powerful love. And lust, which is less fun than you might think.”

  I let out a gurgle of slightly shocked laughter. No one spoke to unmarried ladies about lust. All the same, I didn’t care much for the idea of being invaded by a bodiless lustful being who was not Kasimir.

  My breath caught. I remembered the ghostly Kasimir who’d walked through the wall and the other ghostly images, the strange, physical pleasure I’d felt from kisses and caresses that had never quite touched me. Was that all my love affair with Kasimir had been? With my imagination supplying the rest?

  I became aware of Barbara’s distracted gaze on me. “You’ve encountered such a thing?”

  I swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “There’s a lot of spiritual presence here,” she said. “But none of it seems very young. Maybe your Kasimir was much older and nothing to do with the duke’s nephew, but I can’t reach anyone like that, can’t sense him…” She straightened suddenly. “Hello, what are you?”

  On her words, a wave of emotion swept over me, a very transient chill that thrilled as much as it frightened. Barbara lifted her hands in an open gesture. “I’m willing. Come in, speak to me. If you wish, you can talk to Guin through me…”

  Suddenly, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. “Is it him?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’s a spirit. I’ve never encountered… Please, we need your help. Guin is troubled and needs the truth… Speak through me.”

  I peered where she was staring, but I could see nothing. Still, the hairs on my arms, my neck stood up in awareness or alarm, I couldn’t tell which.

  “He’s curious,” Barbara told me. “But he’s circling. He won’t come in. He’s interested in you, though.”

  “Will he…speak to me? Can he?”

  “I don’t know. But you shouldn’t let a spirit in if you don’t know how to get it out again.”

  “How do I stop it coming in?”

  “Close your mind.”

  “I can’t. I want to speak to it.” As I spoke, I felt something, like a warm caress inside me from my mind to my toes. I gasped, and the feeling vanished. “Has it gone?”

  “I think so…”

  “Was it inside me?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. It seemed to just touch you, as it touched me, without entering.” Abruptly, she scrambled to her feet, brushing down her robe as though getting rid of all the spirits. “That was strange. I’ve never encountered anything like that before.”

  “Like what?” I demanded.

  She frowned, shaking her head. “It wasn’t solid, not alive, and yet… I don’t think it was dead.” Her gaze refocused on me. “Did it feel…familiar to you?”

  I nodded. “Sort of. But I think I wanted it to be. You called it him. At first.”

  “It felt like a him…before I realized I’d no idea what he was. What it was.” She took a deep breath. “I need my books, and my mother, probably not in that order. In their absence, I need to think. Lady Guin, you should be in bed and asleep.”

  “I would have been, but some strange woman insisted on conducting a séance in my bedroom in the middle of the night.”

  Barbara pulled me to my feet. “You shouldn’t let strange women into your bedroom.”

  “I seem to be taking advantage of you,” I noticed for the first time. “You’ve been nursing me.”

  “Well, you clearly didn’t care for the baroness.”

  I shuddered. “Do you?”

  Barbara gave me a little push towards the bed. “No.”

  * * * * *

  Although I was really none the wiser as to what had actually happened to me in the two weeks or so I’d been in Silberwald, I felt much better when I woke up the following morning. With Barbara’s help, I was finding out the truth, and she didn’t appear to be bound by either accepted customs or beliefs. I found that both comforting and refreshing.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said as we breakfasted together. “There must be another way into the tower where Kasimir was imprisoned. Where I think he was imprisoned. I always entered from the south side, where the new wall is, but there must surely be a way from the north side into the old part of the castle. Otherwise how would his gaolers have got in and out without passing my bedroom? And I never saw so much as a maid beyond my part of the passage.”

  “It’s possible. These old places are riddled with passages…” She glanced up at me over her coffee. “You’re not thinking he’s imprisoned somewhere else in the castle, are you?”

  “I
t crossed my mind,” I confessed. “I banished the idea when I began to believe I’d dreamed the whole thing, but now…I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “Well neither of us will be comfortable now until we do know, so let’s go exploring.”

  “We should go out after breakfast,” I said eagerly. “I’d love some fresh air and a brisk walk in the sunshine.”

  “Very well.”

  A brief knock heralded the arrival of Augusta, with Hilde trailing after her. Presumably they didn’t wish to risk irritating me with the presence of the baroness.

  “Well, you’re looking much more like yourself,” Augusta greeted me.

  “Thank you, I feel much better.”

  “Good. Then perhaps you’re up to joining us for luncheon today. And Mrs. Darke, of course, is most welcome. The duke and the prince will both be there. We thought it would be nice for you to have some company.”

  I wondered who “we” were. I didn’t believe Augusta had ever considered anyone’s else’s comfort in her life. Since our last conversation, I had more faith in the duke’s good nature. On the other hand…

  “They’re checking on my progress,” I said to Barbara as soon as Augusta had left. “Seeing how soon I’ll be well enough to be sent home.”

  “If that’s true,” Barbara said thoughtfully, “then it might be as well to go along with it for now. Wilt a little, by all means, but agree that home might be best.”

  “That way they have fewer suspicions of us,” I said with relish.

  “Also…” Barbara hesitated, then shrugged. “I’ve told you so much already, what does it matter? Spending a little time with your family lets me read their reaction to particular situations and conversations.”

  “How?” I asked, frowning.

  “It’s a gift—or a curse—related to my talents as a medium. I can sense emotion, how people feel.”

  I frowned with distinct discomfort. “Really?”

  “I try not to, with friends, since it’s rude, but if the emotion is strong enough, there’s nothing I can do to avoid it.”

  “Is that why you believe me?” I asked curiously.

  “It’s why I believe something has happened that’s greatly upset you. I know what you believe.”

  I opened my mouth to ask about the others, about Augusta and the duke and the baroness, but she forestalled me.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Everyone’s emotions surrounding you seem to be in a tangle, which isn’t surprising if they were truly afraid you would die. I know they were pleased to see me, to accept my help in nursing you. I’ll observe them at lunch. Come, fetch your bonnet and let’s go out before it rains.”

  It was odd to find the gardens quiet and empty, rather than full of noble men and women with too much time and ambition. But I knew them well, surely much better than if I’d merely wandered out there once or twice in a high fever. I showed Barbara where we’d watched the fireworks, where Prince Heribert had grabbed me and been seen off by Kasimir. I showed her the ballroom terrace where we’d talked, and pointed out the steps down into the shadowy undergrowth although I didn’t explain why I remembered them particularly.

  Then I stopped. “It sounds like a made-up story,” I observed in a small voice. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought so. “Doesn’t it? A romance where the hero conveniently escapes his cruel prison just in time to save his ladylove from insult by the wicked prince, and then dances with her in the moonlight. Where did I even think up such drivel? Did I read it in a book?”

  “In several, I should think,” Barbara said humorously.

  I eyed her with disfavour. “You are not making me feel better.”

  “Is that part of my duties?” she asked with mock surprise. “If it’s any consolation, most people’s romances and marriage proposal stories don’t sound any better.”

  “Does yours?” I asked curiously.

  “No,” she said flatly, from which I understood she would not discuss it.

  “How did you meet Caroline?” I asked instead.

  “Through mutual friends. I spent some time in the spring with young Lady Haggard—perhaps you know her?”

  “I know of her. Our paths never crossed. Our London seasons were in different years. She’s a little younger than I, isn’t she?”

  “A year, maybe. She was my pupil for a time, and she invited me to Haggard Hall. I met Caroline there, at a ball, to be precise.”

  “Is that where you met Patrick Haggard too?” I asked innocently.

  “No,” she said. “I met him first at a séance. What is behind this wall?”

  “The overgrown garden and the tower,” I said. “Just as I told you.” I glanced up, scanning the castle’s stone face. My heart seemed to jolt. I pointed upward at the tiny window. “Look. That’s my bedroom window. My old bedroom. I think.”

  Barbara followed my finger, then in silence glanced back down to the wall.

  “Is there no way through?”

  “Not unless you climb. Kasimir did, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see any way in from the other side either, but let’s look together.”

  We turned and walked back through the formal gardens and the courtyard, through the smaller arch into the orchard and beyond until we reached a gate into the kitchen garden full of vegetables and herbs. Someone was working there, weeding. Beyond him was the other wall and high hedge.

  “I don’t think there’s a door there,” Barbara said. “We should, as you say, try from inside the castle, but perhaps after lunch. If you’re still weak, you should rest.”

  “In the library,” I said. “I found his notebooks there… And we should go to the village, to the inn. They might remember Dr. Alcuin.”

  “They might,” Barbara murmured as we made our way towards the main castle entrance. “Or they might be in the same boat as the castle servants and afraid to speak out.”

  I turned my head to stare at her. While I’d been moping and mourning, it sounded as if she had been busy on my behalf. “That’s another odd thing,” I said. “I don’t recognise any of the castle servants. None of the maids or the footmen, and I haven’t seen the housekeeper either. Why should I know Hilde and the baroness, yet not know the maid who told me the castle was haunted and made up by bed the night I came back with Dr. Alcuin?”

  “They’re mostly new servants,” Barbara said. “Mixed with existing staff from other of the duke’s establishments. I asked them,” she added before I could query her knowledge.

  “Why would they do that?” I wondered excitedly, “unless they were afraid of the old castle servants giving something away to—” I broke off, slapping the heel of my hand to my forehead. “Button!” I exclaimed.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Button! Why didn’t I think of her before? My brain is addled! She’s Augusta’s dresser, but she’s known us both since childhood. She wouldn’t lie to me, even for Augusta.”

  “Then we should try to speak to her while we’re in the duchess’s apartments,” Barbara said.

  “Wasn’t she helping to nurse me when you arrived?” I asked eagerly.

  “Not that I know of. You appeared to be entirely in Baroness von Gratz’s care.”

  An unpleasant shiver passed over me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “They’re not there,” I said in frustration, sitting back on my heels. “His notebooks were just here, in a little row behind these encyclopaedia volumes, and they’ve gone.” I scowled at the Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. “If they were ever real.”

  “Don’t waste your time,” Barbara advised. She stood in front of the library fireplace, gazing up at the three portraits I remembered clearly. “What an unpleasant-looking child.”

  “Kasimir,” I said ruefully. “He looks more like an animal than a small boy.”

  “He ce
rtainly has an unnaturally fearsome snarl,” she agreed. “The artist was shocking. In more ways than one.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, scrambling to my feet as she reached behind her and dragged a chair over from under the nearest desk.

  Barbara tutted. “Did you never study the art of painting, Lady Guin?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Drawing and watercolours. I was terribly bad at it.”

  “I’ve had to teach it,” Barbara observed, climbing onto the chair in front of the picture, “so I’ve made some studies of my own. Quite clearly, someone’s doctored this portrait. For propaganda purposes, no doubt. There’s no other reason to leave such a hideous picture of a family member in such a public place.”

  Grasping it, she heaved it upward, and I ran to help her with the heavy gold frame.

  “Well, we can’t just take it down because it’s bad art,” I expostulated, while Barbara clambered down from the chair and with my help, turned the painting so that it faced into the chair back.

  Brutally, she tugged at the frame’s wooden back, which shifted along with a flying tack that had held it on. Barbara reached inside and while I watched her operation from wide and no doubt stupid eyes, she fumbled and drew out a canvas. Not of two people, but of one.

  Kneeling, she spread it on the floor.

  My heart seemed to jump into my mouth.

  It was my Kasimir, without any doubt. His thick blond hair was neatly brushed and his bright, almost angelically handsome face shone with vitality. Those distant yet intense, glittering blue eyes gazed straight outward, open, hopeful, intelligent.

  “Not a snarl in sight,” Barbara observed. “Is that…?”

  “Kasimir. Oh yes, that’s him. The prisoner. He’s older now, though.”

  Barbara nodded. “He must be, what, around sixteen here?”

  “Just before his insane rages landed him in the asylum.”

  “Well, what court painter is going to portray his subject like that unless he’s told to?” Barbara said reasonably. “This is bound to be as flattering as the childish one is insulting. Neither is necessarily the truth.” She glanced at me. “Remember, your perception of him, real or dreamed, isn’t necessarily truth either. It wasn’t just Leopold who had him put away. His father did it, and for that to happen, I suspect there was some reason.”