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Authors: Andre Norton

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Though this was summer and the day had been warm, with the descent of the sun behind one of the heights guarding the Kesterhof I was shivering. Seeing little below in that fast-fading light that was of any advantage to me, I went within, passing once again through the study. Though the room was now filled with gathering shadows, those angry eyes of the portrait
were still alive and watching. I wondered whom it represented. The Gräf was stiff, somewhat grim of countenance, aloof—but he had very little in him of the power which seemed to radiate from this man of an earlier day—that aura of power which, by some magic, the artist had caught with paint and canvas.

I stood before it for a long moment, intrigued by the feeling that there was some resemblance in the painted face to someone. Not the Gräf—then who? The mouth—that stretch of plump lips almost too small to be in proportion to the rest of the face. The mouth— Under my eyes the lips seemed to purse the least bit and it flashed into my mind where I had seen that mouth. The Baron von Werthern! Except that the fleshy folds of his face had none of the strength pictured here.

What had the Gräfin claimed for him? She had, I was sure I remembered, spoken of him as a kinsman. Only I had thought that relationship to be on her side, not that of the Gräf’s line, though in the nobility of a country as small as this one, the marriage possibilities must be greatly limited, and there would have been doubtless many unions closer knit within the ranks than would exist elsewhere. It could well be that even the Gräf and the Gräfin were akin by more than the marriage tie.

I did not like what I read into that portrait. There was plainly arrogance there, the arrogance born in one who had never had his will questioned. With that arrogance were signs of its natural companion cruelty. Defiantly now I turned my back firmly upon those watching eyes and marched out of the room. Though curiosity tugged still at me. I wished even more that Frau Werfel was the very opposite of the character she had shown me, as open and talkative as Letty would have been about “the family.”

My dinner was served in still another room of the upper floor, one into which I was ushered by a footman, who then took his place behind my chair as I ate in formal loneliness, presenting one covered dish after another as a second servitor or two brought them into
the room. That procession of dishes seemed without end, and, though I was hungry when I entered, I had learned to take no more than a token serving from any one dish and still was unable to do even that before we reached the final course of cheese and fruit.

There were three candelabra, all bearing lighted tapers, along the table, the flames reflected from crystal and high gloss finish of the china. Between them stood figurines in the form of fantastical beasts, each standing on its hind legs, its forepaws or hoofs supporting a shield quartered, and sometimes even further divided, to display greater number of armorial bearings. That they were meant to bring notice of the prestige of the family was plain. I found such a show illuminating in a way. It was as if those who demanded it were uncertain of their own importance and must thus make very sure that that was displayed on every possible occasion. Somehow—the fanciful idea came to me as I toyed with a cluster of cherries which had been my selection from the gilt basket of fruit—somehow my gentleman of the portrait would never have seen the necessity to so underline his status in rank. The family he had once dominated might be perilously close to moving downward in the world in this generation.

What did I know of the Gräfin—? That she was also the result of a morganatic union with the ruling house—but she had never mentioned the exact status of the female who had so introduced the very purple blood of royality into her line. There were, I began to understand now that I was removed from the Gräfin’s ever-present chatter, several facts which she had never touched upon. The Baron—by all the evidence I had seen and heard she certainly held him higher—and perhaps closer—than the Gräfin. Yet this morning she had suddenly been full of her husband’s new station, his importance in the matter of awaiting upon the new Elector with perhaps the very welcome news that he had at last succeeded to rule in a state from which he had been exiled.

In the old days messengers bringing ill news sometimes
paid for it with their heads—their lives. Was the reverse also true now—were the first to wait upon a newly ascended ruler apt to get rich picking in honors and offices? I could accept that.

What followed then concerning the favorites of the dead ruler? “The king is dead, long live the king!” The old cry of the monarchists came to mind. There would be new faces at court, sudden ascents to glory, sudden descents into oblivion. The Colonel—

I was staring at the nearest of those armorial beasts, a griffin I thought. Its fanged mouth was displayed open, as if to attack, its brightly enameled tongue curled and pointed. The creature became only a haze of color, my mind saw another face. It came to me again that in all the time I had known him, I had never seen Colonel Fenwick smile, show simple pleasure in something, be anything but a man either on guard or a soldier doing his sworn duty.

What was he like when neither duty nor wariness held him? Could he laugh, jest, lose that stiffness of back, that set line of jaw? He could not be as old as the Gräf, yet it would seem that he cultivated the airs of one who was gray and seamed with age. Was it the exile of his family, or his training in the Elector’s service which had made him the man he now was?

I tried to imagine the Colonel relaxed, showing some warmth of heart and spirit, then shook my head at the impossibility of such a thing. Not even my imagination, were I to give it the fullest freedom, could change so much the face in my memory. Yet now that I had summoned that face into my thoughts I could not dismiss it—nor dismiss uneasy speculation concerning his future.

He had been the Elector’s man, close to him. By the side of that bed his very manner had held a gentleness which I would not have believed he was capable of showing—had I not seen it. So, being who and what he was, he must have enemies in plenty. The Gräfin’s spitefulness might be the lightest and least of the troubles he could now be facing. I dropped a cherry back
on my small gold-edged plate. How many enemies did he have who would come now into the open?

I arose and the footman drew back, took a hurried stride to open the door for me. Why should the Colonel’s trouble matter to me? Except, of course, that he was in a measure responsible for my presence here.

He had shown me no real kindness, no softness of manner, nothing which would make him a matter of anxiety—save again how it might affect my own plight. Yet— I was so a-sea in a wave-tossed rise of emotions I could not understand that I fairly fled back to the small sitting room where I found candles alight, the draperies pulled, and all done to suggest comfort and repose.

Except that there was no comfort in my thoughts, or repose for my nerves. I sat on one of the chairs and relived, in spite of myself, every moment of the night before. The secrecy of my visit to the Elector’s deathbed—the perils that secrecy hinted at were now very plain. Though my grandfather had cowed his daughter, had still been able to enforce his will, dumb and dying as he was, did not mean that his wish would carry past the moment that the breath left his body.

I could no longer sit still. Instead I found myself up and pacing the room as a caged animal might pace, looking for freedom where there was no chance of it. Now I must pay for my folly—my blind plunge into a situation so unlike anything I knew that I was a blind woman lost in a maze.

Me—I— I must shut out everything else, bring my full mind to my own plight. The Colonel was a man, a man trained in court intrigues, or at least so used to them that he must have foreseen what would happen at the death of his master and made his own preparations before that event. He might well be over the first frontier already— A hireling who sold his sword—descendant of a Tory line—a man who was intelligent enough to look ahead— I summoned those thoughts to me. I was the one important to myself, and I was—

NO! I was not helpless! I had a good mind, and my
grandmother had trained me to think logically. What if my grandfather had made some future provisions for me legally? I need only say I would have none of those bequests, wanted nothing from Hesse-Dohna but to leave.

The difficulty now was that those tales of the courts with which Madam Manzell had favored those who learned German from her, and me the most of all, crowded into my mind in spite of everything I did to erase them. The utter and complete power of these petty princes and kings— What was a matter of astonishment at a distance became a source for fear if one was entrapped within it, as I was discovering now. Even the innocent might fear disaster—along with the guilty—as the Electress Ludovika had discovered. I wondered fleetingly if, in her fall, she had dragged down lesser members of the court, of whom no history now remained. That could be very possible.

But Kesterhof was not Wallenstein. I had yet to face any active threat against me. It was this sense of being alone which wore upon me. Where was the Colonel now?

My thoughts had made a circle, I was back once more concerned with that which I could in no way influence or perhaps even know. Unless Truda’s frail contact might hold—

I found myself by the wall, tugging at the bellrope, before I had even thought coherently of what I might accomplish by questioning the maid. She had been evasive with me all day. If I forced her too far, she could retreat into complete silence and defeat me entirely. Still I could not set aside any chance—no matter how small.

It seemed to take a very long time before I heard the welcome scratching at the door. At my call Truda came in. Though my first glance showed me no change from her usual cast down eyes, mute waiting for orders, I was—

I was what? What was happening to me that I read into the slightest of things some momentous message?

This was new, and it frightened me. For I believed it to be loss of self-control, something I had dreaded above all else all my life—since my grandmother’s image had impressed upon me the necessity for always keeping one’s emotions under stout rein.

“Truda.” I must take the plunge, or else I could not rest. “Truda, how much can I trust you?” I asked that boldly and would be, I thought dryly, well repaid for my efforts if she gave lip service only.

For the first time her eyes met mine. It was a faint echo, very faint, of that same searching I had faced from the dying man in the palace, though what quality did or could the Elector share with this young girl of a far different rank and background?

“Why do you ask me that?” For the first time she used no honorific title as she addressed me. Oddly enough I found that encouraging,

“Because we are alone here, Truda, you and I.”

To my great relief she nodded. “That is so. These people, they are of the household as their kin were before them. Only to the Gräf are they answerable. They do not speak before me of anything but orders and what must be done.”

I did not believe that she was lying. As she answered me she had glanced once over her shoulder, moved out farther into the room away from the door, even though that was firmly closed.

“What do they say of me—or have any spoken?”

Again she faced me squarely. “To me—nothing. But I heard—”

“Heard what?” I demanded as she paused. Perhaps the habit of years was very hard for her to break and we had but the most tenuous of bonds between us.

“That you are to stay—until another comes—with an important message. They have sent off also a man to Holstanhof—the village on the other side of the mountain. This was done after Frau Werfel read a letter the coachman gave her. They do not, I think, know that I heard of this, or that I saw the letter passed. But, gracious lady”—again she returned to the formal
speech—“I would be careful, very careful for what may come. The Gräfin is more than she seems and she has, I think, plans—many plans—”

Chapter 9

“And you, Truda, you are of the Gräfin’s household
—”?????

There was a change in her which I could not put name to, but it was there. Once more she glanced from me to the door and back again, so meaningfully that I thought I could guess what soundless message she s????? attempted to convey. As had the Colonel in the Axelburg house it would appear she hinted at some possible eavesdropper.

“It is as the gracious lady has said, I am of the????? Gräfin’s household,” she replied submissively, but he????? gaze once more upon me denied that allegiance. I could????? not accept that she was such an actress as to be playing some double game with me. After all, the Colonel had????? trusted her as his linkage in our secret visit to the????? palace.

“She has said that your father keeps an inn.” ????? switched to another subject, seeking to approah my????? own need for knowledge in a more roundabout direction.

“That is true, gracious lady. He keeps the inn a????? Himmerfels, as did my grandfather, and his father also
But our family are many and it is necessary that we earn for our dowries—”

“Your dowry? Are you then betrothed, Truda?”

She was again the embodiment of the perfect serving maid, eyes downcast, hands clasped at her middle above her embroidered apron.

“I am bespoken, yes, gracious lady. It is Kristopher Clingerman whose father is the miller. But Kristopher now does his years of service in the guard. So I will work also, that I may have a good setting out. It is so with many of the girls in Himmerfels. I am more fortunate, since my mother was able to speak for me to Madam Hummel who comes each year on her way to take the waters at Splitzen. She knew me from a child and got me the good place with the Gräfin. Yes, it all worked very fortunately for me.”

Though her poise was still one of meek submission, Truda was indeed breaking out of the shell imposed upon her by class and training. However, one thing in her speech was of interest to me now—the inn. I had only the haziest idea of Hesse-Dohna, had never seen a map of the country. An inn so long established as Truda had reported this one to be must of necessity stand on some well-traveled road. The spas were often visited sites and, though I also had never heard of that of Splitzen, it in addition would be a goal for travelers.

Spa and inn to me argued roads, well traveled, in good use. In turn such roads meant coaches, perhaps for public transport. Who could give me better information concerning a possible way out of this land than Truda?

“Tell me about the inn, Truda. Is it far from Axelburg? Are there many travelers?” I tried to sort out in my mind the questions which would lead me to the knowledge I wanted most.

“Himmerfels is two leagues from the border with Hanover, it is on the great road, gracious lady. Since the wars are now over, there are many travelers, some who would go even on as far as Vienna in Austria.
They come often—like the English milords—with their coaches, some families altogether. I have seen the inn so full that it has been needful for my father to find places in the cottages for the servants of these milords. Himmerfels lies to the north and west of Axelburg, it is the town where meet two roads—one for those going on to Vienna in the east, and the other for those who would visit Bavaria in the south. It is a day’s journey and then again half another from Axelburg, even when one has fresh horses ready at the posts.”

“For the travelers who have not the money or servants as these milords you mention, Truda—are there public coaches they may take?”

She forgot her usual training enough to nod. “Twice a week that is so, gracious lady. But though such stop at the inn, few of them stay with us. Ours is an inn for the well born, you understand.” Her chin was raised proudly. “Our cook came from Vienna. My mother has trained her servants very well. Many good things have been said about us by those who have stayed—one traveler tells another so we have messages sent ahead to hold rooms and prepare for those of the highborn!”

“So those who travel by the public coach are not welcome—”

Truda shrugged. “All are welcome if they conduct themselves properly. But they would not themselves be happy, nor would their purses be deep enough to pay for such lodgings. They are country people, or small tradesmen, students with pockets near always to let people of no fortune nor consequence, you understand.”

“I see.” Only what I was assured of was that such a coach did exist. If I could—perhaps with Truda’s aid—reach this very superior inn at Himmerfels, then even if I could not obtain a seat on such a coach, I could with my golden hoard hire other transportation. Which was heartening to know.

“There are many also who go to Splitzen for the waters,” Truda was continuing. “People who do not want the more fashionable life such as is at Baden????? They also my father can make very comfortable, and?????
each year or so they stay with us. Madam Hummel has been coming so since I was a very small girl. She is a very fine lady, and very kind also. Her husband was killed in the wars and she is all alone as to family, so she travels much. To Vienna, to Rome, even to England she has been. I have often thought that it would be good to travel, to see new places one could then hold in memory.”

“I would like to visit your inn, Truda—” I began cautiously.

For the first time I saw the girl actually smile. “Gracious lady, my father would be honored, we would be honored! But”—her smile faded—“it is far from here and—”

“And,” I finished when she hesitated, “we may face trouble soon. Tell me, Truda, this Kristopher who is of the guard—is he the one who brought me to the Colonel?”

Her answer came as a whisper so low I could barely hear it, and her sudden agitation was plain.

“That is so, gracious lady. It was because of the Colonel that he entered the guard, you understand. The men for that are picked for their height, their fine bearing, their loyalty. It is an honor to so serve!” Again pride filled her tone.

“And you have a right to be proud of him,” I returned. Privately I wondered if the Colonel were in trouble who else his fall from favor might encompass.

“They do not like the Colonel.” Truda moved much closer to me and her whisper was even lower. “They would have done him harm if they could—”

I hazarded a guess as to whom she meant by “they.” “The Gräf—the Gräfin—”

“They—and others. The men talked of it, Kristopher heard such tales. They said he was a foreigner, that the old Elector gave him too much power, favored him over those who had better claims. Kristopher always said that such talk was wrong—the Colonel is a man of duty, very loyal always to His Highness. Perhaps His Highness trusted him the more because he was not
one of those others who were always reaching for more and more, greedy for all they could lay their hands upon. Now—now, gracious lady, there will be changes, maybe bad changes.”

Her words followed all my own thoughts. What was happening in Axelburg now? I had made my choice, withdrawn from what I saw as a situation threatening me—now I almost felt a little ashamed. But I owed nothing to him—I did not! He was a virtual stranger, if he had not come into my life, I would be safe and comfortable half a continent and a sea away from this room and this tangle of intrigue and my own present impotence.

“We can do nothing yet.” I was more voicing my own thoughts aloud than answering Truda. “Not until we know more.”

“That is so, gracious lady.” She nodded. “There is here nothing to be done—now.”

If she might have said anything more, she did not have a chance, for there came scratching at the door and Truda turned swiftly to open it. Frau Werfel stood there, a lamp in one hand as if she had had so to light her way through the halls. Now I was aware that daylight had indeed gone and the dusk was deepening into night. Truda slipped quickly back into the shadows, leaving me to face the housekeeper.

“A message, gracious lady,” she said, still no expression cracking the sour cast of her long narrow face. “The Gräfin will be coming. She will arrive in the morning.”

I thanked her and she withdrew, though I saw her shoot a glance at Truda among the shadows. Perhaps she wanted to sweep the girl with her but had no good excuse for that, since I manifestly had not dismissed my maid. When she had gone Truda came once more into the light of the lamp on the table. There was a difference about her, she no longer kept her eyes cast down, nor her hands folded submissively. Instead she now raised one finger to lay across her lips, and nodded toward the door.

It was easy enough to decipher that—she did not trust Frau Werfel. However, I had already decided that I could not depend upon any now under this roof—except Truda.

Though the hour was early, I undressed and allowed Truda to put my hair in its nighttime braids. There were some books in a small case and while I did not find the Gräfin’s reading matter to my taste (she, it would seem, had liking for the preposterously morbid romantic novels of a generation earlier—or perhaps the books were used only for ornamental purposes), I sat in my chamber robe and attempted to interest myself in the affairs of heroines who were eternally being abducted, imprisoned in haunted castles, menaced by ghosts of walled-up nuns, or vindictive monks, pursued through endless forests amid the crackle of threatening lightning and the roar of storms.

Unfortunately, silly though my selected tale was, in this time and place it came too close to my own situation. I could well envision, with my memory of that frowning fortress prison still fresh, that such things
had
once happened—to a lesser degree. Until, at last, I closed the book and slipped it back into place. Truda had pulled the drapery across the windows before she had left, now I went to the nearest one and held the heavy silken folds aside to look out.

There were lanterns set about the walls below, far enough apart so that each made but a small pool of light which encoached only little on the general dark. As I watched, seeking to see some stir of servant, some indication that I was not totally alone (for the house was so silent I could believe it was deserted), there was a clatter of hooves and the grate of carriage wheels on the pavement.

The Gräfin? But what would bring her here so quickly after my own arrival? I was startled at the number of possibilities which came to my mind. Still the equipage which drew into the lantern light and stopped just within range of vision was certainly not
a coach with any luxury, rather a small gig, or so we could have termed it at home.

A single man stepped down, while the driver stayed in his seat. I watched the stranger, whose face was hidden from my view by a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat, make his way out of sight, rounding the corner of the house toward the front door. Then the gig proceeded on stableward. So whoever had come was plainly to stay the night.

He was no visitor for me, I decided, as moments passed and no one came to my room. Finally, believing all my speculations a waste of time, I climbed into bed, but I left the lamp on the table by the door burning as I blew out the others. Never had I found it necessary to sleep with a light in my room, but this chamber, for all its modern furniture and soft luxury, did not make me feel welcome and I lay down with an uneasy mind.

It would seem that that was not a prelude to a sleepless night, however, for I did drift into sleep. If I dreamed, the dreams did not remain to haunt me when I awoke to find the sun bright on the flowered carpet, a morning so clear that all morbid fancies in the world could not trouble the most disturbed mind. Truda had drawn open the curtains, brought the tray with my morning chocolate, and set that by the window, was carefully proportioning hot and cold water from two cans into the waiting bath. I sat up and stretched, just to look about banished some of my worries.

Truda, however, had reverted to her earlier self and did not speak except in monosyllables when I attempted to talk. So that I finally had to accept that our short time of mutual misgivings was a temporary meeting only. I arose, bathed, dressed, drank my chocolate like an obedient child who was following the routine established in a nursery. Her taciturn mood took the glow from my own sense of well-being, brought back all the uneasiness of the day before. I was restless and, when I had finished the breakfast brought to my door by some unseen servant, laid out for me by Truda, I determined not to be kept indoors, but to see something
of the country about the Kesterhof—though I hardly expected that the lodge would have a garden for morning strolling.

I took up my plain straw bonnet, and a light shawl, for the woodlands I could see from my window gave the impression of chill. Truda had disappeared with my tray. As I came out into the hall there was no servant about. Again that impression which had been with me the night before returned, that I was alone in a place deserted by all. It added to my feeling of uneasiness that there was such a silence. Not a single sound save the ticking of a wall clock, which sounded unnaturally loud, was to be heard.

No Frau Werfel appeared at the door of the stairs today as I descended. The sunlight had not won in here, perhaps the struggle through the few high-placed, slit-like windows defeated it. Only those rows and rows of trophies, like monuments to the dead, loomed out of the shadows as I passed, my pace quickening as my dislike for the hall grew, to the front door.

That was a massive barrier, reinforced by great widths of iron, as if to defeat besiegers. The lock itself was so large that I imagined only a key perhaps the full length of my own hand might turn in it. However, at my tugging, it yielded, though grudgingly, and I stepped out into the morning as one might come out of some imprisoning cave.

The stable yard was to my left, and a drive of crushed stone curved from before the door in that direction. I turned my back on that and looked to the right. There had been indeed an attempt made to tame the forest-land into a more civilized vista. Underbrush had been cleared, though a number of well-grown trees so shaded the ground that there was no hope of inducing grass to grow as a well-tended lawn. Against one of these trees had been set a rustic bench and seated there was a man, a book in his hands, his eyes so intent upon the pages that he clearly was not interested in anything else.

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