The Amber Knight (23 page)

‘All the better.’

‘Work films.’

‘I’ll expect a full report tomorrow.’

‘Go to hell.’

‘You’d halve my baby-sitter problems by bunking in one room,’ Josef teased.

‘Forget it. How’s your wife?’ Adam enquired maliciously.

Josef dropped his bantering tone. ‘The ballistic reports are in. The item you disposed of, was not, I repeat not, working alone and I’m not talking about what came in through the balcony. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. In the meantime be careful.’

‘As a virgin in a police station.’ Adam replaced the telephone and slid back into the scalding water. It was useless. The more he tried to concentrate on the identity of the man he had seen in Helga’s bed, the more elusive his features became. He tried closing his eyes and relaxing, but the only image that floated into his mind was one of Magdalena as she’d been that afternoon; dishevelled, grubby and angry, as she’d flung insults at him in response to his complaints about rough concrete, hunger and discomfort. For Magdalena, the search for the knight had taken precedence over her own safety.

He couldn’t understand the intensity of her obsession. He wanted the Amber Knight, but not in the same way that she and Edmund Dunst did. For him, the Amber Knight would add to the prestige of the Museum collection and the name of the Salen Institute; for them it was a crusade akin to the search for the Holy Grail.

Opening his eyes he reached for the soap. The more time he spent with Magdalena, the less he knew her. A psychologist would probably attribute her overdeveloped work ethic to the breakdown of her marriage, but he didn’t think it was that simple. There was something else, something deeper. The result of growing up in a country in turmoil as it shook off the Communist yoke? Or having to cope with the side effects of her husband’s criminal career?

He tried to imagine the young girl she’d been, the one who’d rushed into an early marriage to escape a dismal home life. So much of Magdalena was a mystery. Her reluctance to enjoy the good things in life. The principles that wouldn’t allow her to break the vows of a marriage that had died almost before it had begun. The need to be faithful to a husband who was anything but.

Pulling the plug on the bath, he wrapped himself in towels and padded into the bedroom. He and Magdalena had adjoining, interconnecting, en suite bedrooms on the second floor of a wing of a hotel that overlooked a lake. Their guards had laid claim to the sitting room that separated the bedrooms from the corridor, transforming its baroque-style elegance into a masculine, cigarette smoke-filled atmosphere more suited to a barracks.

He opened his bag and rummaged through his clothes, before settling on a well-worn pair of jeans. Tucking the Glock into the waistband, he pulled on an old sweatshirt and picked up the wine list. He was ordering a bottle of German white when Magdalena knocked on the communicating door. She hadn’t been happy with the idea of sharing a suite with him, but after his conversation with Josef he was glad of the arrangement. Even the raucous conversation in the sitting room sounded more reassuring than irritating.

He replaced the receiver, walked over to the window and closed the blinds, shutting out two of the guards who were sitting on the balcony. ‘I feel like an exhibit in a zoo,’ he complained to her.

‘I can’t wait to get back to normal.’

‘I can’t remember normal.’

‘For me it’s the museum and the boys.’

‘You spend a lot of time with them?’ he asked.

‘Not as much as I’d like to. You know how it is with boys their age. They’re always off with friends. But I check their homework every night.’

‘Big sister, as opposed to big brother.’

‘It’s easy to mock when you’ve never had to struggle for an education or a job,’ she rebuked him.

‘I think everyone should work at their own pace,’ Adam said shortly, weariness making him oversensitive.

‘In an ideal world where everyone was given the same opportunities at birth, I’d agree with you.’

A knock at the door that led into the sitting room interrupted their brewing argument. One hand on the Glock, Adam asked who it was before opening the door. An armed police officer escorted in two waiters and a trolley.

‘We watched over the chef while he prepared your food, Mr Salen.’

‘Did you sample it, too?’ Adam asked.

‘Sir?’ The policeman gazed at him blankly.

‘Shall we lay the table, sir?’ the waiter asked.

‘Just leave the trolley, please. Once you’ve opened the wine you can go, we’ll help ourselves.’

‘As you wish, sir.’

‘We’ll be outside all night should you need us, Mr Salen.’

‘Two of you?’

‘Changeover at midnight. There are two on the balcony as well.’

‘I saw, thank you.’

Adam checked the DVD player and television while Magdalena laid the table.

‘Can’t we even eat in peace?’ he asked, as she picked up the parcel of films.

She glanced at her watch.

‘Just half an hour without work. Is that really too much to ask?’ he persisted.

‘As long as it is only half an hour.’

Adam turned the key in the outside door and slid the bolt across the connecting door to Magdalena’s room. ‘A precautionary measure,’ he answered, in reply to her quizzical look.

‘Neither of those locks will stand up to a battering,’ she warned.

‘Any intruder will have to disable the guards before they get to us. Even if they’re well armed and determined, they’d make some noise. Enough time for me to reach for my gun and hide you under the bed.’ He tried to sound flippant, but after the trauma of the previous night Magdalena wasn’t fooled by his nonchalance.

‘I haven’t thanked you for saving my life.’

‘You’ve nothing to thank me for.’ His hand went to the Glock. He eased it into a comfortable position as he sat on one of the chairs the waiter had pulled to the table.

‘We would have all been killed if it hadn’t been for you.’

‘I doubt it. Josef would have got there.’

‘But not in time.’ She sat beside him. He noticed her hand trembling as she reached for the wine glass he had filled.

‘The boys are safe. Betsy will make sure they enjoy their summer, and there are four police officers outside the door, and me inside.’

‘Damn Brunon!’

‘You angry with him, or worried about him?’ He piled rounds of puff pastry stuffed with caviar and smoked venison pate on to his plate.

‘Both.’

‘You obviously still care for him?’

‘Concerned would be a better word. Brunon’s stupid, thoughtless and he can be cruel, but he’s still my husband. I can’t get the sight of that man last night out of my mind. The blood, the hole in his head. One minute he was alive, the next dead…’

‘You’d rather it had been us?’ he questioned.

‘No. Of course not…’

‘Do we have to discuss this over dinner? After all that fresh air and exercise in the woods you should be ravenous.’

‘Sorry.’ She took a pastry. ‘There are six films…’

‘I don’t want to talk about the Wolfschanze either.’ He lifted a red rose from a vase on the trolley and handed it to her. ‘We might not be lovers but we are two intelligent beings. There has to be something other than work and murder that we can talk about. My brain is suffering from overload. I look down at the pastries and all I see is grey concrete. I look at the salad and see pine forests…’

‘Have you compiled a list of suitable subjects?’ she interrupted.

‘If we were in England we could talk about the weather.’

‘The weather is uncertain in Poland too. We never know if our springs are going to be hot or cold, they vary enormously. In 1945 –’ her voice trailed as she realised he was staring at her. ‘Sorry, I can’t seem to get away from the Amber Knight. How about you choose the topic? I’m happy to talk about anything as long as it doesn’t involve politics, religion or sex.’

‘You’ve just excluded conversation.’

‘Nonsense, there’s art, literature, music, sport…’

‘They all hinge on one of your forbidden themes. Why don’t you tell me about Helmut von Mau?’

‘Now who’s bringing up work?’

‘As you can’t stop thinking about him, I thought I’d steer the conversation on to something I know nothing about, medieval Baltic States.’

‘You didn’t study them in school?’

‘My parents never agreed about anything, including my education. My schooldays were split between an English public school and an American military academy. The former gave me a deeper and more thorough understanding of the Industrial Revolution in England than I appreciated then, or now. The second forced me to follow an exhaustive course of Roman and Napoleonic military theory, most of which I’ve mercifully forgotten.’ He pushed his hors d’oeuvres plate aside and lifted the cover on the main dish. By coincidence they’d ordered the same, duck stuffed with apples, potato dumplings and a mix of vegetables. ‘I’ve heard the legend of the Amber Knight from you and Edmund, and researched it in my Child’s Guide to Polish History.’

She smiled. ‘You read children’s history books?’

‘Always. My attention span is short and my intellect lacking. Where else could I find simple unvarnished facts?’ He began to recite, ‘When Hermann von Balk embarked on the Teutonic Christian Crusade to convert the Pagan Prussians in 1231, his lieutenant, Helmut von Mau, won the love of the pagan Princess Woburg, who converted to Christianity and changed her name to Maria. It was a great, platonic love as Helmut, a warrior monk, had taken a vow of chastity. Maria became his faithful camp follower. Helmut was mortally wounded during a battle with Pagan Prussians at Elblag. Before he died, Helmut made his fellow knights swear that they would strap his body to his horse and send it into the pagan stronghold. They did as he asked and every pagan who looked upon Helmut’s face was struck dead. When Hermann took possession of the fort, he fired it, the amber in the burning treasury melted and Hermann ordered his knights to pour it into Helmut’s stone coffin, embalming his lieutenant’s body and turning him into the Amber Knight.’

‘Well done.’ She picked up her knife and fork and cut into her duck.

‘There’s more. Maria founded a convent and chapel on the site of the battle and devoted the remainder of her life to God and Helmut’s relics. The chapel became a place of pilgrimage until the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights adopted the Protestant Faith in 1525. Dissolving the order, he pulled down the chapel, dispersed the nuns, and moved the Amber Knight to Konigsberg Castle where it remained on display until 1944. The Nazis admired Helmut von Mau and the chivalry and heroism he represented, which was why Hitler ordered the removal of the Knight to safety during the last months of the war. End of story, but it still doesn’t explain the fanaticism I see in every Polish eye as soon as the name von Mau is mentioned.’

She sprinkled salt on her dumplings. ‘You know the legend. Do you want to hear the real story?’

‘There’s a truth as well as a legend?’

‘A documented truth. Helmut’s brother Konrad wrote a biography of the Amber Knight. It was kept in the library at Berg Grun, the von Maus’ family castle, until the end of the war when it was moved to the Berlin Document Centre. I’ve read it.’

‘You’re about to shatter my illusions by telling me that the Amber Knight wasn’t brave or chivalrous?’ Adam guessed.

‘Brave maybe, foolhardy more like. At sixteen Helmut von Mau could out-drink and out-fight any knight in Germany and no woman was safe from him. When Konrad, who was two years older than Helmut, discovered that his wife was carrying Helmut’s child, he went to his father who gave Helmut a choice – join the Teutonic Knights or be disinherited. Helmut joined the Knights. He took the vows of Obedience, Poverty and Chastity but avoided the customary castration by bribing the Grand Hospitaler. Throwing himself wholeheartedly into pillaging and fighting in Prussia he was soon promoted. Women came easily to him, except for Woburg. After Helmut killed her bridegroom she fought like a fury. He raped her and afterwards she tried to smother him. But she must have succumbed to his charms eventually, because she did change her name to Maria and she did, as your children’s book so quaintly put it, become his “camp follower”. Despite Konrad’s desire to discredit his brother for seducing his wife, Konrad was forced to accept the Teutonic Knights’ version of Helmut’s death and their assertion that all the pagans who looked at his face died. But his claim that Helmut had not been castrated was borne out by a 1930s X-ray and documented evidence that Konrad’s wife bore Helmut twin sons and Maria bore him twin daughters. The family of von Mau in Germany today are direct descendants of the Amber Knight.’

‘So much for chastity,’ Adam commented. ‘But I’m still no nearer to understanding why the recovery of his body is more important than say, the Amber Room, or any one of half a dozen other missing artefacts.’

‘Your mother is English, you’ve lived in England?’

‘Two to three months a year at most. My father didn’t want me hanging around him, but he was bloody-minded enough to want to keep me from my mother.’

‘Can you imagine the excitement in England if the perfectly preserved body of King Arthur was found? That’s what von Mau is to us. There are many similarities between the Arthurian and von Mau legends. One story has it is that our von Mau, like your Arthur, is not dead, merely sleeping, and when Poland is in peril he will break free from his amber shroud, wake and rally his knights and ride out to vanquish our enemies.’

‘A pretty myth and totally at odds with the unprincipled seducer Konrad painted.’

‘People prefer myths to reality and the myth of the Amber Knight gives the Polish people something to hold on to at times of national crisis. God only knows Poland has had more than its share of those.’

‘I suppose I can see more likelihood of von Mau breaking free from his amber shroud than Arthur emerging from some unknown grave,’ Adam conceded.

‘Some say that when Helmut von Mau wakes he’ll take the reins of government and restore Poland to prosperity.’

‘You’ve never needed him more.’

‘We are a nation of dreamers who had nothing to dream about for fifty years in the last century. I can’t honestly say that the Communist regime was entirely bad. Some people suffered more than others, particularly the intellectuals who valued free speech, and yes, there were chronic food shortages, but outside of the prisons no one lacked an education or a roof to sleep under during those years. Not even me and my mother after my father was arrested during the Solidarity protests. But as a people we were crushed in spirit, so crushed we lost our dreams and with them our hope for the future. Freedom has to mean more than just the liberty to shout what you like about politicians in the street. It has to mean freedom to dream, too.’