Iron Butterflies (16 page)

The commandant? I wondered. Though I certainly could see little resemblance between this bulky and stolid man and Lisolette's thin face, large eyes, and general air of one who could well assume a wraithlike state when necessary.

Again I could catch a murmur of voices, perhaps the officer exhorting his followers. But the sense of the
words did not reach me. Then they turned and marched off with the stiff-legged precision of mechanical toys behind their stamping leader, and the room was left vacant.

My lookout hole was well above the level of the floor and on this side of the wall there were none of those projecting handles. Certainly there was no way out here, not that one would dare to try it at such point. The hall itself had certainly been more than a guardroom in the past, for the arches between the pillars supporting the vaulted roof were carved, surmounted with shields bearing arms now shadow-concealed.

The racks of weapons were at present installed on a dais, and though the stone was bare, there was only the most clumsy and solid of furniture remaining (such as might be found in an inn where peasants gathered). I believed that perhaps at one time a semblance of court might have been held here.

I came to the flight of stairs and descended those one at a time as does a child who is uncertain of her footing. They appeared even steeper than they had the night before, and I longed for some kind of a rail I could grasp to steady myself.

Now I was in that lower passage and I held the candle out before me, watching the wall avidly for that projection which would mark the other cell where Lisolette had stopped to play her ghostly game. It was there, and my hand fell upon it. If I only knew who lay beyond!

Lisolette's account of her father's frequent visiting to make sure his prisoner was secure kept me now from bearing my weight upon the hidden spring. Suppose my guess was wrong and it was not Fenwick who lay beyond that wall, but rather some stranger who might even be ready to use me as a bargaining point with his captors—turning me over to them in return for favors for himself? Wallenstein soon bred within one mistrust of all one's fellows. I had been surprisingly lucky in that I had somehow caught that girl's twisted fancy.
Could I hope that any such good fortune would continue?

I should have waited until night. Only then Lisolette would have returned. In what was close to true agony of indecision I pressed as close to the wall by that lever as I could get, near grinding my ear againat the stone in an effort to hear what might be beyond, I had heard Lisolette's wailing from my own cell, she in turn had heard my hammering with the tankard.

Now I fairly held my breath to listen. Perhaps there were some cracks between those seemingly so solidly set stones which would allow sound to pass, even if there were no spyholes. For now I could hear a regular beat—a noise my hopes suggested was caused by the ring of boot heels against stone, the measure of someone pacing back and forth.

No voices—nothing but that marching sound like a sentry at his post. A sentry—? Had this prisoner one
within
his cell, had the commandant's uneasiness led him to
that
precaution?

What must I do? If I could only be sure—!

I turned the heavy metal candlestick around and around in my two sweating hands. The dress I had huddled about my shoulders as a shawl slipped to the pavement. I could not continue here so indecisive.

Sheer anger at my own lack of courage led me to a move which might well be fatal. I raised the candlestick and struck against the stone of the wall inches away from the lever. Twice I struck, forcing myself to action.

The pacing sound had instantly stopped. I waited, breathing very slowly, listening—

There came nothing but silence. My imagination sped to show me the worst which might be beyond the wall, a sentry facing the stone, alert to the sound, looking for its source, ready to raise a call for help in tracing out—

Then I near cried out. For almost at the same point where my ear touched the rough, damp stone there came a click of sound and then another. I was heard and, unless the sentry I had imagined was unusually
resourceful and cunning, that answer must have come from the prisoner. I wished wildly that there was some sort of code known to us both, a pattern of rapping which might make me sure I had nothing to find beyond but another prisoner. However, that was denied me.

I could only experiment. This time I tapped three times, with the space of two slow breaths between each blow. My answer came in the same pattern. It must be the truth—that it was the prisoner. And he
was
alone or he could not have risked answer.

There was only the final action left. I put the candlestick on the floor and bore down with both hands and all my strength on the lever. For a long moment I feared that whatever lock held was so time-set into place I had not the strength to move it. Then, grudgingly, with a grating which near frightened me into quick retreat, there opened a line between the stones I faced.

I bore down harder, dragging at the lever, and the crack grew wider. Finally it became an opening the width of my palm. Midway along, it showed part of a face, eyes peering into the passage.

Eyes—and there was no mistaking for me even that small fragment of a face. I knew that slightly lifted eyebrow, the old seam of scar causing it. It was the Colonel. I saw his gaze in turn widen as he looked up to see me in turn.

I stopped to snatch up the candle, hold it high.

“Are you alone?” My foremost fear made me demand that.

“For a time, yes. They have been checking on me as if they fear I might melt into the stones. But how—and why—?”

“No questions. Listen, I shall do what I can to get this open, but I may not have the strength—it has been shut for a long time, I think—”

“Do what you can.” His voice held the old note of command. “There may be also some way I can aid.” His fingers appeared, gripping the stone. “How does this go?”

“Upward—” I had returned the candle to the floor and was once again bearing down on the lever.

“Upward it is!” His fingers closed on the upper edge of that narrow opening and I knew that he was straining as best he could against the same stubborn stone. Inch by inch it gave, though sometimes I thought it would never move another fraction of the way. Then the same amount of space was open that had shown in my own cell. I had gotten through there, but could he? Eyeing that, I greatly doubted it, and leaned limply back against the wall facing the despair of having gained only so little.

“It will not go farther, I think,” I told him. “Can you come through?”

“We shall see.” There was no despair in his answer, just a note considering, as if he were weighing one chance against another. I heard movement on the other side, but he was now out of my sight, for I did not have the energy at that moment to move away from my wall support, save to gather up the candle so that it might be out of his way should he make the effort to scrape passage to me.

It was not his body which was thrown in to me, rather a bundle of clothing, weighted by boots. I understood that, just as I had had to strip off much of my clothing to try that door, he was doing likewise. I reached out and caught that bundle, dragging it to one side.

His head, arms, bared shoulders, came into view,! those shoulders scored and in some places showing welling blood in deep scratches. He fought, and, I, regaining my wits, put down the candle and the bundle of clothing and went to give what aid I could.

My pulling may have helped, but his battle against the stone was a cruel one, leaving his near naked body scratched and abraded, blood oozing in many places. It was only due to his courage and determination that he made it, to half lie at last against the wall, his breath coming in deep gasps. All which covered him
was the remains—the scanty remains of torn drawers, but this was no time to think of any proprieties.

I was already back at the lever, fighting its stiffness until the slit closed, with a little more speed than it had opened. Near as exhausted as he looked, I crouched on the floor also, the candle between us. He was breathing more normally now and I saw him shiver. Quietly I opened the bundle he had thrown and hunted his shirt.

I drew him slightly away from the wall and wrapped the shirt about his shoulders, noting that the patches of blood now welling on his skin were not the only hurts recorded on his body. There was a puckered scar along his ribs and another seam on his upper shoulder.

My hands on him appeared to arouse him at once, and I saw he was looking straight at me. Then, for the first time during our acquaintance, I saw Colonel Fen-wick smile—not only smile—but he laughed softly! For a moment I wondered if he were as mind-turned as Lisolette. Then he raised one of his bruised and bleeding hands to push away from my face a strand of hair which kept looping itself down over my eyes.

“We are a pretty pair,” he said softly. “Where do we go now, my lady? It seems that you have learned something here which is to the advantage of any prisoner. But why and how?—”

My only thought now was that we must get away. If one of those periodic visits should be made to his cell soon—then indeed the whole of castle would be aroused— even if my own escape had been kept a secret.

“We must go—up—” I pointed in the direction of the passage.

He pulled himself away from the wall and dragged his bundle of clothing toward him.

“Give me time to get on my boots,” he said. His lips were still quirked in that smile, which began to irritate me. I was honestly afraid, and I saw nothing in the least amusing concerning our present predicament.

I waited for him to draw on breeches and then boots,
but he left his shirt loose about his shoulders, and carried his coat over his arm.

“I'm a little too sore for this. Now—if we go up— then we must.”

He turned back to give one more keen glance at the wall and I guessed that he was trying to make certain that the aperture was entirely closed. I scuttled ahead, wanting nothing more now than to gain that chamber where I could bar the door, be sure of a breathing space before I was goaded again into some perilous action. Such good fortune could not continue, of that I was dismally sure. I could hardly believe, as I edged up the steps, and heard the sounds of his passage behind me, that all had gone well even this far.

This time I did not pause at the peephole on the guardroom, but kept on, the candle ahead of me like a banner, until the welcome sight of the wood paneling told me we were near our refuge. I found the latch and stepped through, he pushing his way with greater difficulty behind me.

The panel snapped shut and we stood together in the very dim light as I hastened to blow out the candle.

“Now.” His voice no longer held that amused note, but it rang with all the old note of command which had ever aroused antagonism within me. “How did you come here, my lady? What has happened?”

Chapter 16

I
hurried to the basket and that flask of water which
had been so refreshing to me earlier. Surely there was
enough left to tend his wounds, for I feared that if they went uncared for, they might be the worse for the dust and ancient filth of this forsaken room.

“Sir.” I gestured him forward, pointing to the stool by the window where I had spent those earlier hours. “Let me see to those cuts and scrapes.”

He shrugged and I saw that even so slight a movement of his abraded shoulders brought a wince in answer. As he dropped his jacket to the floor I went about the end of the bed and pulled on the shapeless dress. Then I jerked at the covers across the massive width. The upper ones tore in my hands, ancient satin and velvet yielding quickly to the strain of my efforts. Underneath those was linen, frail and thin, to be sure, but still clean of dust and the only thing hereabouts to serve my purposes.

With strips and wads of this in my hands I went back to where my patient waited. He had seated himself on the stool, but was now leaning forward, peering through my own watchhole between the drapes. There was something so tense in his pose that I feared Wal-lenstein must have at last come to life, that we were indeed to be the hunted.

Yet when I came close enough, the flask with the remaining water in one hand, my bundle of old linen in the other, to look past him—I could see nothing but the same emptiness I had watched for so long.

“Your shirt—” I swept the garment from his shoulders and dropped it beside his jacket. At the manor I had learned nursing of a sort—the care of minor hurts, fevers. My grandmother had kept her own herb garden and had made a study of such things, since the aid of a physician might often be several days away. No false delicacy had kept her from seeing that I also learned what was to be done for our people should some emergency or accident occur.

Still now, as I moistened my pad of linen with care, keeping in mind that none of the precious water must be wasted, I found it oddly disturbing to set about the business of doctoring. It was a kind of shyness I bad
never experienced before as I made myself matter-of-factly swab at those bloody smears along his upper arms, across his chest and his shoulders. Because I felt that discomfort at such employment, I launched into speech with a quick desire to turn his mind, if not mine, away from my embarrassment.

“Sir, why were you sent here?”

“That ia easy enough to answer.” He sat quite still under my ministrations. I longed for some healing salve, for more water—there were gouges in his skin which seemed to me dangerously deep as I washed them, very close to open wounds. “I was—am—loyal to a past which a great many now wish forgotten. I know too much to make them comfortable. But the greater question—why are you here, my lady? Wearing such a dress.” He reached out to flick with a finger that voluminous and musty skirt. “What happened to you?”

I glanced at that infamous ring on my finger. Above the band the flesh looked swollen, so hard I had worked to try and rid myself of it. Answering, I strove to make my voice as level as I could, to keep my hands steady as I tried to ease his hurts and give an account of myself.

The beginning was easy enough, my journey from Axelburg to the Kesterhof. Then I chose my words with more care, trying not to allow my horror and disgust at what had happened to me break through to color my account of the drugging, of Konrad's visit to my bedroom, and his demand that I sign the papers he presented.

I was not prepared for the Budden clutch upon my wrist, for being jerked around so that I faced my patient in the small light from the window. His eyes—I had seen them cold, measuring, marking his aloofness from anything but his duty. Once—down in the passage—I had seen them soften for the first time, perhaps with exuberance brought about by his release from the cell. Now I saw them filled with near devilish fires. So grim was his countenance at that moment I would have shrunk away had it been possible, but he held me fast.

“This is the truth?”

My old antagonism stirred. “Why should I lie? Look you!” I brought up my other hand, held it out into the full light so he could see the ring. “Would I wear that— not that I wish to—but it sticks so tightly I cannot rid myself of it—either actually or figuratively? How I came here afterward—” I shook my head. “They drugged me again, I believe—” Hurriedly I told him of my final awakening in the cell below. “I think they still hope to get something from me—or I would not be alive.”

That first fire had faded a little from his gaze. He loosed my wrist.

“Your pardon. You have indeed been badly used.” His eyes were hooded now, I thought that even his apology was a little absent, as if he were thinking deeply. “Only, I cannot see— No.” Now he shook his head with some decision. “I would not have believed that Von Werthern had the influence to have you sent here—even secretly. Von Zreibruken has always been a disappointed man, yes. He felt that taking a wife (one whom he deemed of mixed blood) from a close connection with the Harrach line should have given him a higher place in the Elector's council. Only, that he would concern himself with this—no. I do not think you have more than guesses—

“However, if you were imprisoned—then how did you get free? How could you have learned of their ways within the walls?”

“That is all by the courtesy of the Electress Ludo-vika. Please—lift your arm a little—there is a bad scratch here—” For the moment I was not inclined to play at guessing games as to why I was here, it was more important that I discover some method of getting elsewhere as soon as possible. While I could not deny that, irritating as the Colonel could be even in his present seemingly helpless state, he inspired one with confidence.

“Ludovika?” he repeated.

So, as I finished such attention as I could give his
hurts, I told him the story of Lisolette and her obsession with the dead Electress, of how she had freed and also shown me the secrets which lay within the walls.

“I would say this is beyond belief,” he commented when I had finished, “yet the fact we are both here proves it true. This is an ill-omened place, and superstition is strong in this part of the country. Your young ‘ghost’ could well have become so fascinated by the story that she began as a game to play such a part, and now has thought herself into believing it. The legends about Ludovika are not pleasant ones. It is very true that the commoners—and the court (even the Elector of that time, himself, if accounts are to be credited— and I have seen those set down with the exactitude of legal documents)—believed her to have access to unnatural powers. Certainly her closest adviser was executed as a follower and servant of the devil.” He picked up his shirt and slipped it on, drawing it carefully about him.

“I wish I had salve.” I was sure those careful movements told more of pain that he would ever admit. “Perhaps when Lisolette comes again I can persuade her—”

“I do not think from what you have said she may take kindly to giving me any aid.” He arose to his feet and was once more peering out of the window. “When she comes it would be better for me to stay out of sight. Have you any idea how far those wall passages extend? In the other direction, I mean? Such ways often have an exit to the outside—used in times of siege or storming of a fortress. I wonder how that girl chanced on them at all—”

“When she opened the way into my cell I did not look in the other direction, I just followed her. But my cell was on the outer wall—and there seemed to be nothing below but a deep cliff.” I described all I had been able to see through the slit window.

“However, there could be some turn, some linkage.” He was frowning a little. “The commandant here is in two minds over what game to play. It can be true that
these sisters would conceal your escape—if they are as Lisolette reports them. But there will be no such covering my vanishing. It could be that the entrance in the wall cannot be detected from that side. Certainly I had no idea of it. It may also be true that the commandant has no idea concerning the games his daughter plays. That does not mean, however, that a strict search would not uncover something, or that the girl, weak minded as she appears to be, cannot be startled or frightened into revealing what she has been doing. Even to bar that door”—he nodded to the one leading to the outer hall—“would arouse suspicion if a room-to-room search was made.”

His words so followed my earlier speculations that I believed there was a necessity of once more retracing the way through the walls to discover whether, somewhere beyond my own cell, might lie just such a hidden exit as he suggested. Only when I spoke that thought aloud, he shook his head.

“Not now—not yet. It would be better if you play Lisolette's game a little longer, learn more. What lies in here? This seemed to be built against the wall very tightly.” He had gone to the wardrobe and was running his hands along its side toward the wall. “Such sometimes have secrets also.”

“She keeps her ghost dress—and another in there.” I opened the door and let him see the hanging garments.

He touched the wide, stiff skirt of the one she had worn with the fingertip veil. “This is old right enough. It could well have been one of Ludovika's. What's this?” He stooped and picked up the book-box, holding it closer into the candle flame.

I pointed to the design deep graven on the cover and told of its fellow which had been carved on the shelf table in the cell.

“Hex,” he said. “You can see such on doors, even on the walls of barns. The countrymen believe some designs mean protection. Others are symbols to draw power when used according to secret doctrines. This is
very old also—” He had been striving to open it, but the lock resisted even as it had for me.

Now, box in one hand, he took the candle from me with the other and prowled around the room, looking at the two tables, one of which had a second candlestick on it. Instead of a cup ready to hold a candle, this possessed a sharp-pointed spike on which the wax could be impaled. He caught that up, having set down the box with the light, and began to lever the edge of that point beneath the edge of the box lid.

I could see that he worked delicately and with caution, as if he had no wish to mar the ancient wood. Whether he could have solved the problem so, we had no chance to learn, for we were startled into frozen silence by a sound at the door.

For once I thought quickly and took from him the box, heading for the wardrobe, with my heart pounding. I had it back and the door closed and then I turned—to see an empty room. Where my companion had taken refuge I did not know. Only there lay his jacket, and that I sprang to collect, having just time enough to throw it, with the mass of torn and wet, now bloodstained linen, under the edge of the window draperies, trusting to the luck which had not failed me so far that those would conceal it all.

Lisolette came in, appearing almost as ghostlike in her cambric dress, her pale hair floating loosely about her shoulders, as she had worn it in her disguise. To my surprise she was giggling as might any schoolgirl who had managed some mischief in a way- successful to herself and confounding to those she had some reason to dislike.

Clasped in her arms was a bundle of some size. This she dropped on the floor as if she had found its contents both heavy and cumbersome. She smiled slyly up at me.

“They are so angry—and I think that my father is also frightened. Yes, I do believe he is frightened!” She had dropped down on the dusty floor beside her package
and now she again looked up at me, plainly highly amused.

“Something has gone wrong—with his prisoner— I could not hear much—the lieutenant was there and so I could not listen at the door. It is good—now they will not be thinking about us! We have so much to do. It is the right time of the moon, you know—perhaps you could not see that when you were down there. But the phases of the moon are of the greatest jmportance— the power rises with it, and weakens with it. We are lucky in that this is the right time and we do not have to wait. But of course
she
knew that and it is why she sent me to you. Only I did not understand then how important it all was.

“Now—” The girl stood up and stood back a step or two looking me up and down critically as if such an inspection was of the utmost importance. “Yes, I am sure it will fit—it must. And I have brought undergarments. You could not wear those clumsy things you have—not under what she has for you.”

She stooped again and twitched her bundle open. There was another basket—this without a handle— also a number of folded garments, which certainly looked far finer than the coarse chemise and petticoata my wardress had supplied.

“Wait—” Lisolette sped back to the door and reached outside to drag in a can of water and a basin.

“I had to made two trips,” she said, as one pointing out the fulfillment of a distasteful duty. “Now you can wash and be ready. I cannot stay—but I shall be back. There is more food there— And—”

She went to the wardrobe to open the door. Her hand stroked the skirt of the red dress.

“This is for you. It was
hers.
You are to wear it.”

With that she was gone, leaving me still more mystified at the meaning of the game she played, and in which she now proposed to include me. The bed curtains moved and Colonel Fenwick emerged from hiding.

“Do you see?” I demanded of him. He was looking,
not at me, but to the door through which Lisolette had vanished.

“Tell me,” he ordered, “everything you can remember that she has said concerning this
she,
whom I take to be Ludovika—”

Though I could not see what such imaginings would mean, his authority was such that I did struggle to recall all the disjointed and superstitious nonsense, or so it seemed to me, Lisolette had said at one time or another. He listened gravely, as if every word I called to mind was a portion of a puzzle which it was very necessary to fit together.

“It seems that she believes Ludovika escaped—”

‘If she did, it was through death. But Lisolette apparently believes that she is still alive—in some manner.”