by Jessica Mann
HRH: Where does it come from?
Shopkeeper: I am offering it for sale on behalf of one of my humble family, noble lady. He was left it by his much mourned father, who told his family that the likeness was of a great lady he was not at liberty to name.
When Vicky said she would buy it, the old man called for his son to carry the parcel to the main road where the coach waited. ‘My son is visiting me in Berlin at present. He is a philosopher, from the University of Bonn.’
The young man who came in answer to the call of ‘Philip’ was not wearing the skull cap, and elsewhere would have been indistinguishable from any intellectual German. It was only in this house that one remarked the curved nose and dark hair that revealed the Jew. Artemis recognised him at once. She had seen him before, when she and Clementine spied on their governess walking with her brother.
He evidently recognised the Princess Royal, though only his first glance and deep bow showed it. He followed the ladies, carrying the package, towards the small crowd that had collected around her carriage.
Artemis was overcome by emotion. He is the first person I have seen since I left England who has any connection with my dear home. I was able to speak with him briefly. He is Philip Ehrenstamm, the brother of our dear Mrs Lambert. I wonder whether I shall be able to see him again.
The coachman was trying to whip the people away from his gleaming coachwork and the outriders were pushing others back to clear a path for the ladies to approach. ‘It is the Englishwoman,’ the people were saying, with greedy stares at the Princess’s silks and furs. Vicky smiled and bowed. ‘English, English,’ small children called, and one or two of their mothers spat on the ground.
I asked Mr Ehrenstamm whether I might call on his father, but he had time to tell me (and, dear Clementine, you will not allow Mrs Lambert to read this section of my letter) that she is dead to her family, having married out of their faith. I believe that those of the Hebrew persuasion mourn their children for the space of a week, as though they have indeed perished, when they do not marry one of their own.
None of those watching cheered as the Royal carriage drew away. Jeanette Lambert’s brother bowed very low.
HRH: When Mamma drives out in London, the people run after her with flowers.
Wally: Is your RH not pleased with our Prussians, then?
HRH: What can you mean, Wally? They are my Prussians now. This is my country.
Marie (always the peacemaker): They will certainly take your RH to their hearts.
HRH: That was the first gentleman I have seen in Prussia who did not wear uniform.
Wally: A Jew!
HRH (coldly): A philosopher.
Marie: I never saw my father in anything but uniform, Ma’am. No Prussian nobleman would wear anything else.
HRH: We shall not mention this morning’s expedition, ladies.
But they knew they could not help being found out. Very soon the Countess Perponcher would know where the Royal coach had been and add this titbit to the catalogue of Vicky’s iniquities. The Royal ladies were all much offended by her dissatisfaction with their own enclosed world. In her role of invisible lady-in-waiting, Artemis heard several conversations in which it was made plain that the English Princess was expected to confine her curiosity to more suitable subjects, that is, other royalties, and their clothes and children. Male members of the family were required to think only of military matters.
The Prince of Prussia (Vicky’s father-in-law): I am interested in nothing, except being a soldier and the work of a soldier.
HRH: At home, princes – that is to say, my papa, is interested in everything that pertains to his country’s advancement and his people’s good.
The Princess of Prussia: I hear that the Prince Consort actually goes among the people.
HRH: Papa believes that he has much to learn from them.
The Princess of Prussia: We have nothing to learn from our inferiors.
At a ball, while Vicky danced and Artemis stood suffering the discomforts of early pregnancy, she listened to another conversation.
The Princess of Prussia: We have heard that she has actually been seen walking in the streets!
Princess Charles of Prussia (an aunt): I have heard that she has been criticising the conditions of the poor.
The Princess of Prussia: She speaks of such things as elections and parliament with her guests.
Princess Charles: I believe that she compares Berlin unfavourably with London, a city from whose dirt and disorder I was glad to escape alive.
The Princess of Prussia: I have even been told that she discussed the political future of Prussia with Professors from the University.
Both Princesses (in chorus): It must cease!
All these accusations were true. Vicky liked to see herself as both symbol, and spur, of a newly liberal Prussia. She boasted of the words with which a liberal newspaper had greeted her arrival: ‘Morality, conscience, even patriotism, have slept, but the sun is setting on the old régime, and in our new Princess we see the bright hope of the new one.’
‘My court shall be like Mamma’s, an example to the nation,’ Vicky vowed, and made no secret of her plan to be, with her Fritz, the joint inspiration of a newly enlightened, newly united Germany. After all, the King was senile, his direct heir, Fritz’s father, only three years younger, and soon Fritz and Vicky could be King and Queen of a reformed, reforming Prussia, the hope for a new Germany ruled by an English-style constitutional government.
It was this very event that such Prussians as Joachim’s brother Waldemar most dreaded. The only constitutional changes they wished to see were the abolition of all concessions granted under duress in 1848. Their hope was a return to old-style autocracy, and the united Germany to which they also looked forward would be an Empire, not a free confederation. The monarchy of a weak Prince Frederick William, over-influenced by his English wife through whose voice the Prince Consort would command, was to them an appalling prospect. Better by far that the old King should live on, totally conservative in everything – ‘What was good enough for my glorious ancestors is good enough for me.’ He would not even permit baths to be installed in the royal palaces.
Artemis tried once to warn Vicky of the effect of her careless talk. ‘There are those who do not admire liberalism or democracy as your Royal Highness does. Perhaps a little discretion . . .’
But Artemis could only marvel at the Princess’s lack of that quality. What would have been amusing in a debutante or a university student was dangerous in a future queen, and Artemis found herself quoting the advice she had received herself: ‘It is a duty that we owe the Prince, to express no opinions.’ But Vicky would express all her opinions.
I have found, dear Clementine, that it is the habit of courtiers to speak much of the kindness of royalty, to be gratified whenever a smile is awarded them, to be moved by any sign of interest in their own affairs. Royal persons do not seem to be judged by the same standards as others; were they to be so, I doubt that the Princess Royal would be admired in spite of her intelligence and quick wits. She lacks the judgement to see, among other things, that the views of a female of eighteen, no matter how well founded, can hardly influence those with more experience of the world and its affairs. Indeed, I do admire HRH’s liberalism and high ideals, which I believe are shared by my husband and by hers, and in which you and I were educated too, but we no longer live in an age when the wishes of royal personages are to influence others. I fear that HRH expects to be a ruler. One cannot wonder at it, that her future subjects are not willing to be ruled by her, except in name. As for me, I find her agreeable, for her manners are perfect, but always notice that she is certain of her own superiority to all other mortals. All her friendliness cannot disguise that.
While she was at court, Artemis was able to write freely, for her letters were sent with Vicky’s own by the private messenger. But two months before her baby was due Artemis left the Princess Royal, and she was almost relieved, even though it me
ant that she must return to the unwelcoming company of Joachim’s family.
Joachim insisted that his son must be born at Drachenschloss. Ulrike said that she could not understand why he cared. ‘Your son, after all, Artemis, can never inherit.’ But Joachim insisted that the archaic rules of inheritance would have been reformed by the time they became relevant to his son. Prince Fritz had agreed that they should be abolished.
Artemis’s child was a boy, but Joachim did not live to see him as his heir. The christening took place, as was customary, before the child was a week old. The baby was called Heinrich, followed by a string of family names, none of which was chosen by Artemis, who referred to him as ‘Baby’. Before Artemis was allowed to leave her couch (since certain death was promised to women who put their feet to the ground within three weeks of childbirth, unless the women were peasants, of course), Joachim’s horses were startled by the sudden blast of a train whistle, and ran into the locomotive at a level crossing. The door of the carriage had somehow become jammed, so that he was unable to jump clear. Artemis was told that he had been killed instantly, and his embalmed body was placed beside those of his forebears in the marble vault at Horn.
Chapter Nine
Tamara put Margot’s manuscript aside at that natural break. She undressed to go through her usual routine of exercises, musing about the incidence of carriage accidents and whether they had accounted for proportionately as many victims as motor cars. The coincidence of carriage accident and locomotive must have been less common, and not hard to organise. Tamara moved on to the nightly ritual of splashing her face with alternate shocks of hot and cold water. It was tempting to imagine Artemis von Horn, ghostly in white muslin, flapping her draperies at a pair of nervous horses; but unlikely – Artemis would have been as convinced as her attendants that such exertion would kill a newly delivered mother. Perhaps, though, her unorthodox history lessons had included tales of ladies appearing at court balls within hours of their confinements, or of others fleeing the vengeful mob with hours-old infants in their arms. Tamara knew that she might well have committed murder in Artemis’s circumstances; and there must have been many unnatural deaths that were supposed to be natural or accidental in an era when some domestic tyrant’s disappearance offered the only release from matrimony or poverty.
Tamara slept for eight hours, remembered no dreams when she woke, ate her usual breakfast at the usual time and made herself late for work all the same by squandering minutes in unprecedented dithering about what to wear for lunch with Kim Rice. Should her image be casual or sophisticated, expensive or academic? It was a long time since any man had induced such frivolous uncertainty in her. She painted on several layers of imperceptible cosmetics, wore underclothes that were remarkable for what they left uncovered, and pulled on what she thought of as her ‘one good dress’. She took it off again and pulled on jeans. Third time, the last, and perhaps the lucky, time, she put on an outfit bought in Italy that obliged its wearer to swagger.
Bicycling to work, Tamara listened to cassettes of spoken Greek and murmured her attempts at the difficult pronunciation. The odd wolf-whistle penetrated the earphones. She went to her office in Fortress House in which, as well as the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, were housed numerous government departments including Department E (Works) where Ian Barnes had been employed by a Mr Black. It had never sounded like a glamorous posting for a brilliant graduate, but the job’s rewards would have been tangible if Ian had lived to collect them, since those who reached retirement from Department E received large pensions, exalted honours and offers of agreeable sinecures.
After Ian’s death Mr Black had taken Tamara onto his strength. She realised then how well suited the civil service warren in which she spent her own blameless working life was to the management of a secret organisation. Its overheads could be concealed from curious audit, its visitors unremarked among the others who waved their duplicated passes at the doorkeepers, its boss disguised in bureaucratic anonymity.
It was months since Tamara had been summoned to Mr Black’s office. She devoted her time blamelessly and industriously to the Royal Commission. Her involvement with Department E had been an aberration, she told herself, the kind of uncharacteristic adventure likely to befall women who were disorientated by bereavement. It had all been, she decided, a mistake.
From disparate pieces of evidence, archaeologists construct worlds, detectives construct crimes, and spies construct their ingenious analyses of motives and methods. The desire to satisfy the niggles in the mind which many people ignore, is one of the qualities common to all the deductive professions. Today Tamara Hoyland, well fitted for both her jobs, found her thoughts wandering to the Horn Treasure. She forced herself to deal with the day’s incoming mail since she insisted on replying to letters on the day they came. ‘You’re rocking the boat,’ a friend in another department told her, but she said that she answered the same number of queries and wrote the same number of letters on any given day as he did, the only difference being that his all began: I apologise for the delay in replying to your letter.
By mid-morning Tamara was free to slip round the corner to Burlington House. In the beautiful library of the Society of Antiquaries, surrounded by the comfortable trappings of enlightened scholarship, she intended to track down the original publication of the drawings of the Horn Treasure from which all later accounts had been copied. The publication had been by the University of Paris, in 1862. The anonymous drawings appeared with a disclaimer by the French professor to whom they had been sent. He took no responsibility. It was a period of antiquarian enthusiasm: in England, ladies and gentlemen watched as their workmen howked beakers and bones out of barrows; in Egypt, travellers wrung their hands over collapsing monuments of the remote past. The treasure, allegedly of Charlemagne, had been much discussed and the sketch reproduced in more popular papers. The reigning Prince of Horn, Artemis’s brother-in-law, Waldemar, had issued denials and accusations, but he was able to take no revenge until he entered Paris as a member of the victorious Prussian army in 1871, when the luckless Professor to whom the anonymous informant had sent his sketches, already weakened by months of a starvation diet during the siege, found himself the target of personal as well as national reprisals.
Tamara was not the first person to ask for the publication that morning. Yesterday’s evening paper lay on the librarian’s desk, folded back to show the paragraph about the German exhibition circled in red ink.
‘I think Professor Crawford has got it at the moment,’ he murmured, pointing to a table by the window where Tamara’s friend and former tutor was making rapid notes. Thea Crawford specialised in prehistory, and looked amused at Tamara’s whispered question.
‘It’s for Sylvester,’ she whispered back. ‘He wanted me to find out what he needed.’ Thea’s husband, Sylvester Crawford, was a highbrow journalist.
‘It isn’t your period either, Tamara,’ Thea commented.
‘I know, but I . . .’ An irritated hushing came from the antiquary working at the next table.
‘Coffee?’ Thea mouthed. Tamara nodded, and Thea folded her notes into a green lizard skin briefcase. She said, ‘We’ll go across to the Ritz.’
‘Surely, the basement of the Royal Academy –’
‘You look ritzy today,’ Thea said approvingly, and turned her steps firmly towards the hotel when they came down the steps into the courtyard of Burlington House.
Thea herself spent a large proportion of her salary as a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Buriton on clothes and their accessories. She looked like a frivolous woman but was a serious one, and she was one of the few people who knew something of Tamara’s connection with Mr Black’s secret organisation. In fact, in her uninvolved way, she probably knew more about Tamara than anybody else alive. It was easy to make confidences to someone who was not sufficiently interested to break them.
The two women looked most unlike the usual image of scholarly females. They attracted intereste
d glances as they walked along Piccadilly, and were greeted with ceremony in the hotel, where Thea was addressed by her name.
‘You need to have a drink somewhere comfortable after spending hours in a library,’ she explained to Tamara. ‘And one might as well discuss our subject in comfort.’
Tamara explained her own interest in the Horn Treasure. ‘It’s pure coincidence that it is coming to London just now. I doubt whether anyone has looked up that old account of it for years.’
‘It should help your friend’s book sell; though I’d doubt whether this exhibition will draw the crowds as the Egyptian and Chinese ones did. Not spectacular enough.’
‘Thea, surely . . . Carolingian regalia?’
‘Look for yourself.’ Thea had made one of the elegant sketches that characterised her excavation reports. She was one of the few archaeologists who still published her own accomplished lettering rather than the ubiquitous ‘Letraset’. Her pencilled stipples and dashes showed a ring, chalice, broken sword and crown. The crown was a broad circlet said to be of silver, studded with irregularly shaped stones and surmounted by a crystal crucifix, containing, allegedly, a fragment of the True Cross.
‘It’s all portable,’ Thea explained. ‘The crown’s hinged into sections to fold up, and the chalice probably had its own travelling case. Easy for some mediaeval vagabond to liberate, don’t you think?’
‘Especially if he simply wore the sword and the ring.’
The ring was gold, and held an amethyst carved with a man’s profile. ‘A Roman stone re-set, I suppose,’ Tamara said.
‘I should say almost certainly. It’s very like that piece from St Maurice,’ Thea agreed.
The sword was the traditional shape, in chased metal with uncut lumps of malachite and garnet set into its pommel. The jewelled chalice was on a splayed base.
‘A Carolingian set of regalia would really be like that. Everything is compatible,’ Thea said.
‘It also tallies precisely with Artemis’s description of what she saw in the vault at Drachenschloss.’