He sighed. ‘Dear lady, I do not think you have anything to say in the matter. Really, I have already been through this with Gabriel. Yesterday, as you know, I put into the Duke’s hand the names of two hundred and fifty Minervals – some hundred of them resident in Maulberg. Good. Their more senior adepts have been arrested or banished. The younger ones have all been given a very stern talking-to. But the rest include men and women of influence in most of the other courts in the Empire, including Vienna and Berlin. Do you understand, my dear?’
She looked at the floor. ‘You have given him a trump card.’
‘A whole pack of them, and Christoph knows very well how to play them. Now suppose a grateful Duke, absolute ruler and holder, suddenly, of a very, very interesting list of names … suppose that grateful Duke has made a present of some particular documents to the genius who helped him – do you really think you are in a position to countermand him? You gave him a madman and a story of horrors. I gave him a conspiracy. It’s quite fair, you know.’ He looked up at her and smiled his beautiful smile. ‘And you still get that pretty Caravaggio he promised you.’
‘Manzerotti, you know I don’t want the papers for myself! But you cannot be trusted. You cannot. I tremble to think what you will do with that knowledge.’
Manzerotti’s eyes glinted. ‘It would be rather fun, though it is a shame the receipt for whatever poisoned Swann’s gloves is nowhere to be found …’
‘For God’s sake!’
He looked at her for a long moment. She could feel her distress being weighed and measured. ‘Frenzel has used all the materials Beatrice stole, my dear,’ he said more softly. ‘Those particular potions have become the secret of their Shamans again. And as a rule they do protect their secrets.’
‘They told Kupfel. You have the receipt.’ The tears she was trying to hold back showed in her voice.
‘Those substances are not referred to by any name I understand. And of course, I shall make some enquiries about the gentleman from Marseilles, though I am not hopeful.’
‘But the rest of the book …’
Manzerotti lifted his hand. ‘There is really nothing you can do, my dear. You or Gabriel. You will simply have to believe me when I say my interest is almost purely academic. By the way, I thank you for saving Pegel. Irritating as he can be, and though his manners are appalling, I find I am rather fond of him. When next our paths cross, Mrs Westerman, even if our interests run counter to each other, I shall remember to be grateful.’
She closed her eyes. ‘I should have shot you when I had the chance.’
‘Perhaps you should have done. However, I do not intend to give you another opportunity for a little while yet.’
He crossed to her, took her hand in his and bent low over it. ‘Goodbye, my dear. I do not think we shall meet again alone while you are in Germany. And do give my best love to Brother Gabriel.’
He turned and left the room.
Harriet remained there in solitude for some time until Pegel hobbled into the room on Crowther’s cane. ‘Mrs W! You are waited for. Colonel Padfield is bundling up your party into the carriage to carry you to the hunt.’
She wiped her eyes. ‘The hunt, Mr Pegel?’
‘The court hunt! Have you seen a hunt in Germany? A court one, I mean.’ He rolled his eyes and sucked in his cheeks, which made her laugh in spite of herself. ‘Makes shooting fish in a pond look like the heights of sportsmanship, if you ask me, but that’s where the Duke and Duchess are, so that’s where you must be.’
‘Will you stay here a while?’
He tapped the cane on the floor. ‘Yes, for a while – you know, help out Florian and play nursemaid to the grim ex-Chancellor until they can hire a few more servants. Settle things here. Feed their old servant brandy till he can stop shaking.’
‘What then? Will you remain at Leuchtenstadt?’
‘They don’t have anything to teach me there. But you know, Florian has not even been out of Maulberg yet. He’s twenty – and has never left this place.’
‘So?’ she said, trying not to smile again.
‘I think a grand European tour.’ He waved his hand in the air. ‘I’ll introduce him to some good mathematicians – oh, and people who like farming and all that, if he wants to try and do some good round here.’
‘I hope you persuade him.’
‘Me too. Anyway, Mrs Westerman, you must be off. Come on, shoo! I shall chase you with Mr Crowther’s stick.’
She got up quickly as he limped towards her. ‘You are a most unusual young man, Jacob Pegel.’
‘I know.’ He became suddenly serious. ‘And a grateful one too. If you hadn’t … I’m glad I didn’t die last night.’
‘If you continue working for Manzerotti, your life might be in danger again before long.’
He shrugged. ‘I get bored. Manzerotti is never boring. Thank you for coming for me.’
As she moved past him towards the door, she put her hand over his on the top of Crowther’s cane. ‘I listened to the voices of my better angels. You will get that cane back to Crowther, won’t you, dear? It means a lot more to him than he likes to admit.’
VII.2
KRALL WAS HAPPY TO be on horseback. Count Frenzel had been formally arrested on Maulberg land, then sent off to Castle Grenzhow where Krall was sure Herr Hoffman would receive him with delight. Now he rode to make an official visit to the priest at Oberbach with Michaels, though there was a place he needed to stop first. Then he would have to spend months up to his armpits in paperwork. Crimes to be documented, crimes concealed. Statements and further statements to be written, witnessed and sealed. No matter the madman had written out his confession in his letter to his son, it would all need to be checked and ticked. He had already assembled more paper than even the Law Faculty at Leuchtenstadt would know what to do with, and in truth he had only begun to scrape the surface.
In the week since they had arrived Mrs Westerman and Crowther had turned the world upside down, and transformed it from a place he knew, where there were a few niggling questions, into a theatre of horrors. They had also forced him to realise that he loved his sovereign and would always put his battered old body between the Duke and harm.
‘Are they always like this?’ he said, and Michaels smiled.
‘Can’t say, Mr Krall. Mostly I know them from Hartswood, though they stirred things up to a right brew there in the year eighty. Glad they did, though. It’s not their way to make things comfortable for those around them. They’re like a dose of cod liver oil. You curse them at the time, but in general they makes things better in the end.’
‘How did you hear about where the girl might be buried?’ Krall asked, and noticed that Michaels chose that moment to stroke his horse’s mane.
‘Girl who seemed a little simple in Mittelbach.’ Krall was old enough to sense when he was only being told part of a story, but he let it lie. Another secret for the pile.
They were within a short ride of Oberbach when Krall pulled gently at his reins and guided his horse off the road.
‘Mr Krall?’
‘Got to pick up our fugitive, Mr Michaels.’
‘Wimpf? You reckon he’s here?’
‘Here or hereabouts. I know the family.’
Michaels looked at him from under his thick eyebrows. ‘You seem mighty relaxed for a man in pursuit, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘I know his mother. And that means I know there’s no need to rush.’
They turned a corner in the road and Michaels looked about him at the good-sized farmhouse, its chimney already smoking. A pig and a fair number of fat-looking hens bumbled about in front of it, the chickens trying to avoid the attentions of a small, rather grubby little boy of about eight years old. He turned and stared at them as they dismounted, Krall with his pipe clamped between his teeth.
A woman in early middle age appeared on the doorstep and shielded her eyes against the morning light. As soon as she recognised Krall she put her broom aside and, smoot
hing her apron, walked down the steps towards them.
‘Arno, get inside now,’ she said to the child. He obeyed at once and shut the door behind him. Michaels was impressed; even his own wife had to raise her voice to separate their youngest from his play. ‘Good morning, Benedict.’
‘Morning, Emma.’
‘There’s a little cave up on the slope where he used to play as a kid. Jan’s taken him up there for now. Thought it best to keep him away from the little ones.’
‘I’m sorry, Emma.’
She nodded. ‘I feel it, Benedict. I feel it as my fault. I should have raised him better, kept a closer eye on him these years that he’s been in service, or asked more questions about where the money was coming from. But Jan’s been poorly, and I just took it.’
‘He’s told you all then?’
She looked at the ground. ‘I think so. Couldn’t get it out fast enough once he’d started. My poor boy. He believes it all, still, somehow. He’s a clever lad, and his smartness needed something to fasten on. Lord, I wish I’d never done service with that family. When Count Frenzel returned to court and found my boy there, he called it fate and swelled his head. It was Christian spied on Swann’s little crew, gave the Count all the names. Did his bidding.’ Krall was silent, drawing on his pipe. The chickens scrapped and cooed at each other. ‘I was at the wedding, when poor Miss Antonia married the Count. She would never have wanted this.’ She put her hand to her eyes. ‘May she rest in peace. I shall pray for her.’
‘As shall I,’ Krall said, and waited.
‘What will happen to him, Benedict? He never killed anyone, you know. Helped, it’s true, but he swears he was never there for the killing, and I believe him. Swann would have been the first.’ She looked quite calm.
‘Grenzhow, probably, for a year or two, though I can’t make you any promises.’ Krall sighed. ‘He’ll be treated fairly there. And after? Well, I can find him work with my son-in-law if he’s got his thinking straightened out.’
‘I’ll see that he does.’ Michaels believed it absolutely. ‘Benedict, I have a request to make of you. Let him stay here a day. He’s scared and he’s twisted about with all this nonsense. Let him be with me and Jan for a day before it begins with lawyers and locks. Then let Jan bring him into Ulrichsberg in the morning. That would look better, wouldn’t it? Him coming in with his da?’ Krall hesitated. ‘Benedict, he’s only seventeen years old.’
The District Officer pulled hard on his pipe and exhaled a great cloud of smoke. ‘On your word, Emma. I’ll take that promise. But I have business that’ll keep me in Oberbach all day, then I’ll have a night in my own bed. Bring him to me in the morning. It’ll still stand to his credit.’ The woman looked up at Michaels. ‘Don’t worry about Mr Michaels, Emma.’
‘Thank you.’
Krall got back on his horse and they made their way slowly back to the road.
‘How did you know he’d go back home?’ Michaels said at last.
‘He’s seventeen and his mother loves him. Where else would he go? Now let’s get on and see Beatrice settled in Oberbach.’
‘The headstone is on my charge.’ Krall raised his eyebrows, and Michaels spoke into his beard. ‘I dug the poor kid up – I’m not going to see her stuck in another hole with no marker to it.’
Krall nodded and touched the horse’s flanks with his heels.
VII.3
THE COURT HUNT WAS not like any hunt Harriet had seen before. Some two miles outside Ulrichsberg was a great walled field. As they were led towards the Duke’s presence, she saw that the wall, which separated the field from the forest was open in several places along its length. On raised ground opposite, a mass of banked seating had been erected, like that which had surrounded the dais where the marriage contract had been signed. There was a great crowd of carriages, and in the stands were some hundred men and women gloriously dressed as if for a ball rather than a hunt. Any number of liveried servants moved among them with food and drink. How anonymous they are, Harriet thought. We never see who is there, who is listening. There were a number of men with guns over their arms in the front ranks of the stands, and looking down into the field below them, but that was the only sign that anyone in the crowd was prepared for sport.
Harriet looked up at Colonel Padfield somewhat quizzically. ‘Is there to be jousting?’ she asked.
‘Hunts in this part of the world are not as they are in England, Mrs Westerman,’ the Colonel said with a grunt. ‘The beaters drive the game in from the surrounding woods and they are funnelled into the field there. Then the gentlemen shoot and the ladies applaud.’
‘It must be a slaughter,’ Harriet said, somewhat appalled.
‘So it is. But it amuses the gentry. Come, the Duke is waiting for us.’
Harriet and Crowther were guided into the Duke’s box, where they found Ludwig Christoph and his new wife seated under an awning bearing the Arms of Maulberg. The Duchess looked very young, but quite content. She had the spaniel on her lap. When Harriet and Crowther were introduced she looked up briefly at them and nodded, then continued to pet the dog. The Duke got up slowly from his seat and walked towards them.
‘A pleasure to see you both. I have been hearing all about your adventures,’ he yawned. ‘And I thought I had a busy day yesterday.’ He glanced back at the girl behind them and smiled.
‘Congratulations on your marriage, Your Highness,’ Harriet said.
‘Thank you, dear. I have called you here to say goodbye and to assure you we have conveyed our gratitude for your service to King George. Oh, and that little picture I mentioned – it is wrapped and boxed and in your rooms. If you would tell Mr Graves to have a word with Herr Zeller before he leaves us, I am sure he will find the new terms of business on the bonds quite satisfactory.’
‘What will happen to Theo Kupfel, sire?’ Harriet said.
The Duke said indulgently, ‘Well, he has been very naughty, but he insists he thought the Minervals were acting with my full knowledge and consent. Remarkable how many of them are saying that! Makes you wonder if any of them have read their own literature. And he does make such lovely creams … I don’t think I can do without him.’
A gentleman appeared at the Duke’s elbow and bowed, a gun in his hand.
‘Ah, wonderful – are they on their way? Goodbye, Mrs Westerman, Mr Crowther.’ He turned to his wife. ‘My dear?’ She sighed and shifted the dog from her lap before standing and taking his arm as he made his way towards the barrier.
From the forest the sound of the beaters whooping and yelling grew louder. The men arranged around the edge of the field lifted their guns. There was a sudden movement in the woods and all at once a great number of animals were pouring into the arena. Wild boar, deer and smaller game, terrified and tumbling into each other, filling the space to capacity almost at once and clambering over each other in their panic. The Duchess raised her handkerchief and let it fall and the guns began to thunder.
They moved away swiftly. Harriet almost didn’t hear someone calling her name. She was already climbing into the carriage when she caught it and turned to see the young woman whose daughter had worn Clode’s mask running over the ground towards her.
‘Good afternoon, my dear,’ Harriet said in French. ‘How is your daughter?’
‘Very well,’ the girl said with a quick smile. ‘She was a little confused for a day or so, but now it all seems like a dream to her. I am so happy to have seen you! Madam, this is yours. You gave it as a comfort for my child, but I cannot let her keep it. It is too fine.’
Harriet looked down at the jewel in her hand – the paste-and-brilliants flower she had let Graves give the little girl – and felt a tiny sting of regret. She had been fond of it. ‘Does your daughter believe it was a gift from the Fairy King?’ The dancer nodded. ‘Then I will certainly not deprive her of it. Keep it. Please.’
‘Oh thank you, madam,’ the girl said, beaming. ‘She holds onto it so tight, I had to take it from her while she was sleep
ing!’
Harriet smiled. The girl’s delight was infectious. ‘Oh, she must have it back. I can bear the loss much better than she would, I think.’
‘I have been trying to make one a little like it, out of cloth and the seed pearls from one of my costumes.’
‘Is that not stealing from the Duke, dear?’
‘Bah!’ She waved her hand. ‘The costume has so many pearls on it. They cannot even be seen. I would happily steal from a dozen Dukes for my little girl. I thought to tell her it had changed in the night, because it is a fairy jewel, but my efforts have not been very fairylike.’ She giggled. ‘Even though I stayed up every night. Do you have children, madam?’
‘Two,’ Harriet said, thinking of them. ‘A boy of ten and a girl of four.’
‘It is terrible to love so much, is it not? There is nothing I would not do for my daughter.’ She took something from her pocket and handed it to Harriet. It was a fabric flower the size of Harriet’s palm and studded with seed pearls. Perhaps the work was not the finest, but it had been made with all the love and care its creator could manage, that much was obvious. ‘Since you have saved my little girl a great many tears, perhaps this may make your daughter smile.’
Harriet thanked her very warmly. The girl blushed, and murmuring that she would keep them no longer, retreated. In the carriage Harriet stared at the flower and thought of the dancer ruining her eyesight by candlelight to try and lessen her child’s loss.
‘Crowther?’
‘Yes, Mrs Westerman?’
‘Count Frenzel did not poison Swann’s gloves.’
He tilted his head to one side. ‘No, I suppose he did not. It was not one of Frenzel’s poisons, and the attack almost deprived him of his last victim. The poison chamber belonged to the Minervals. Then who on earth did try and kill him?’
Harriet looked at the flower. ‘I think I know.’
EPILOGUE
Circle of Shadows Page 37