The Anatomist's Dream (36 page)

‘Give us our duchies and principalities!' shouts Harlekin, as he marches his players about the stage;

Hoorah
! shouts the crowd;

‘Let us own our own land!' interposes somebody from the crowd –

Hoorah
!

‘And our rights!' shouts another –

Hurrah
!
Hurrah
!

‘Give us our liberty!' yells someone else, all agreeing with the sentiment –

Hurrah
,
hooray
,
hurrah
,
hooplah
!

And then it
'
s too late for Tangelrichter, the acting King of Prussia, and he
'
s dragged bodily from the stage and across the ice, kicked and cudgelled for what he represents, for what he tried to show them, saved only by Hannah and her dancing troupe flinging out their frills and
unterblumen
and the musicians laying in with drumsticks and bows in defence of their colleague.

‘Play up!' Hannah yells to the members of the orchestra who still have instruments not lost in the scrum. ‘Play up quick and lead out!'

The big bass drums boom and the bagpipes drone, and the fiddlers play – those who have broken their bows beating time out on their instruments' bridges – and all across the ice they go, Hannah at the fore, her dancers behind, clutching hands to waist, legs going in and out like metronome rods, encouraging the crowd until at last, like a snake caught by the head, the men and women of Schleswig-Holstein slither and slide themselves into a laughing line across the frozen lake, shouting and singing, slipping and sliding, yelling out drunken songs of patriotism and revenge, all thoughts of Tangelrichter, King of Prussia, forgotten. They don't know what they've done in this petty charade, nor what will be done because of it; they have no awareness of the hard men camped silently amongst the trees not two miles distant, nor that their spies and scouts are dispersed amongst the crowds, heads already filled with what their mouths will say later.

‘
Mein Gott!
' groans Tangelrichter, ex-King of Prussia, as his friends prise him and his bruises off the ice and bear him away. ‘Are things so bad here that they have to take it out on me? Look at my helmet! And
Mein Gott
, my wig! Someone rescue my wig!'

His cries disappear into the night as his wig is stamped apart without mercy at its carefully crafted seams, never to be mended.

And so the scene is set: here is the Frost Fair and the castle and the baying crowds and the men lying wait in the trees. And here is Philbert, become his own Harlekin, one of the few people in attendance who will exit stage left and still remember the script as it plays itself out. He will wonder later about all that led him to this time and place, and all the what ifs the real Harlekin previously mentioned; for if Philbert hadn't had a taupe then maybe his mother and father would have stayed long together and he would have remained in Staßburg, working in the salt mines like his father; and if that had been the case he would never have met Lita and never left Staßburg to join the Fair; he would never have met Hermann and Hermann would never have been cured and then uncured, his only way to peace being his jumping off the bridge; and if that hadn't happened the Fair would never have left early for Finzeln, and if they hadn't been at Finzeln when they were then Philbert's head would never have been subjected to Corti's carillon and he would never have met Doctor Ullendorf, and would never have gone to Lengerrborn; and if he hadn't been there when he had then ­neither more would Von Ebner, Federkiel and Schnurrhenker, and what happened to them – and what happened to the Schupos afterwards – would never have been, and the revolution Philbert had unwittingly unleashed in Lengerrborn would never have rippled out beyond its borders as it had; nor would he have met Petitorri or Goffaggino, and Petitorri would never have had cause to shout out so loud about the boy with the big head who had murdered yet another man in cold blood and for no reason other than escape; and without Petitorri's witness – for he was exactly the vengeful man Philbert had assumed him to be – the soldiers might have turned back at Bremen, flyers and rewards forgotten, trail gone cold.

The puppets of revolution are many and varied but every puppet needs its strings, and Philbert had unknowingly pulled them hard and kept others tugging at them long after he and Kwert had left the scene. Possibly Maulwerf's Fair of Marvels might have wound up at Schleswig-Holstein anyway; possibly Rupert's political ambitions and hard-done-by peasants would have provoked a small uprising here upon the ice without anyone else's help; but without Philbert there would have been no bounty-hunters and mercenaries hunting the length and breadth of Europe for the boy with a monstrous bauble for a head, seeking out both him and his murderous associates, those responsible for the gaol-break at Lengerrborn and the murder of multiples of policemen, not to mention the brutal slaying of a visiting Italian nobleman's trusted groom. Every story travels as it grows and grows as it travels and Philbert's story got to Schleswig-Holstein before he ever did, as did the band of men who were carrying it. They were no revolutionaries, only men thrown away by other wars, men who liked money and having a good time who had no care for Princes who lived in castles any more than was Rupert the kind of man to look around the next corner to see what his actions might precipitate, whose Christmas Gift Box, as he called the Frost Fair, was to be his rallying cry and its own reward, though not as he'd planned. If asked, Philbert could have told Rupert that things were never what you wanted once you found them, but Rupert would never have asked and certainly wouldn't have listened to the answer if he had.

So here it was: Christmas Eve, the year of 1847 spilling into 1848, and now come the puppets, ready to walk upon the stage.

38

The Night of the Wolf

Everyone who was anyone had been invited and all accepted, eager for the spectacle of the Frost Fair, if not the Prince's patronage. It was the Happening of the Year. The local ­grandees passed over the bridge into the confines of the castle walls for Prince Rupert's
Weihnachtsgeschenk
without qualm. He'd organised a gathering of something similar every year: a ball or feast to inculcate the loyalty of neighbours and peers, and this year was to be the greatest yet. When Rupert heard that Maulwerf and his Fair of Wonders was in the vicinity he knew it was just what he needed to make this year's celebrations stand out from the rest. Schleswig-Holstein was being ripped down the middle and Rupert had one foot either side of the divide. He'd dithered for weeks over which flag to fly: blue for Prussia, red for Denmark, or the red, white and blue of independence. In the end his flagsmen came up with a design all of their own that included everything relevant: lion rampant, white nettle, field one half blue, the other red, Rupert's family motto ­emblazoned in gold above:
Aut
Bibat
,
Aut Abeat
:
Let Him Drink with Us or
Leave
. He approved this new design, felt it served the sentiment of the moment, and it was time to let these people know who they were dealing with. He was a Prince, by God, and one who was heir apparent to not one, nor two, but three royal thrones.

Rupert stood on his balcony, leaning over the balustrade, watching as his guests arrived throughout the afternoon. He wouldn't greet them yet. He wanted them to settle, ease in, have a few jiggers of rum from the jugs placed in each of their rooms. He knew how impressive the approach to his castle was; how it shone like a sail above the trees as you rode in towards the east; how the frozen lake stretched away from the track and on down to the sea; how his castle stood suddenly revealed as you came out of the forest, shining white as if it had been carved from the moon, great arms of ghost-thistle and teasel-heads standing straight against the stone, thick stalks of fennel, lovage and monkshood sculpted by the ice encasing them, keeping them upright, lacing the edges of the moat pools, reed-blades piercing the mounds of snow at their feet. And now, this early evening, with the Frost Fair camped out upon the ice and the surrounding fields, the place was the tapissery of winter: sparkles of light from torches and bonfires, the outlines of huts and stalls, the braziers with their curls of scented smoke hinting at haunches of beef and mutton being cloved, spitted and dripped over with honeyed bastes.

It couldn't look better
, thought Rupert, as he went inside to dress for dinner. This was his night, of that he was absolutely certain. He knew nothing of the other men out there who hadn't been invited, that there are always other men out there somewhere, no matter if you're a prince with ambition or a boy with a head that is sucking in the world around him. You never know who's going to come out of the forest and break into your life even when you thought you'd locked all the doors and drawn the bolts and pulled the shutters across the windows; even when you'd sat down to warm by your fire, imagining yourself the centre of the universe, for even then – maybe especially then – the universe is never thinking of you, and doesn't even know you exist.

Over the bridge they came, the participants in Prince Rupert's Christmas Gift Box, over the moat whose ice was broken three times daily so the swans could swim and the carp could rise or hide from the carriages as they clattered across the new-tarred, snow-swept planks. The tower rose above them five storeys high, criss-crossed by hidden servant-running corridors and stairways, cold and damp, shafted through by light or shadow from the recessed windows, their sills bevelled by five-hundred-year-old grooves carved out for the buckets of brimstone and burning oil that now held only oats and barley for the horses stabled far below in their byres. The guests alighted from their carriages, straightening complex dresses, unfurling coats, greeted by the prince's men-of-state one by one, name by name, sorted by title, rank and wealth. As darkness fell, and the Great Hall filled, musicians struck up their tunes, yule-logs spitting in their fire-places, the guests beginning to wander the circum­ference of the enormous table to find their names gilded onto marzipan swans to mark their places, sitting themselves down. In the centre was a sugar-spun castle on a hill of crystallised grapes, and there was Rupert, opulent in a throne-like chair, looking lean in comparison with Frau Fettleheim who sat beside him on a custom-built couch, a visible symbol of the enormity of his gift and the spectacle that his invited guests were about to witness.

It was the finest night of Frau Fettleheim's life, and she was chattering away like a lark to the princes and barons on either side of her, to bishops and merchants and their jewel-bedrenched wives. The rest of the Fair's folk waited in the under-crofts and kitchens, getting ready for their set-pieces, practising lines, checking they looked their best. Outside, across the courtyard, beyond the bridge-straddled moat, out in the deep dark forest the wild boar hid and stamped their feet, polished their swords, primed their muskets, waiting patiently – just like everyone else that night – until their turn was called.

Rupert clapped his hands and called a start, making sure everyone's glasses were filled and everyone comfortable, and then in came the jugglers and dancers to enliven the mood as the guests began their five-hour, fifteen-course repast. Next came the man who spoke his twenty-six-or-seven languages, having apparently learned another one on his way here, reciting poems with lines alternately in Danish, Friesian, German, Polish, English, Swedish and – who would know it? – Mandarin. The woman with the long tresses had been separated from her cart and was walked in like a bride, brown hair twined with ribbons carried by twenty servants, ten on each side, everyone stroking and admiring her shining mane. Next came Lita and her Bowman – no Huffelump as she couldn't take the stairs – but Lorenzini played and Lita danced and sang and pirouetted and stood on Lorenzini's shoulders, her tiny arms held high and thin as crane-flies. Then came the soothsayer – in normal ­circumstances this role would have fallen to Kwert, but the trials of prison and escape had worn him badly, and the farther north they'd travelled, and the colder it had become, the more he'd folded into illness like a piece of paper too often used, just as Brother Langer had predicted. Drafted into his place was one Herr Himbeere, to whom Philbert was now assistant. Himbeere's oiled head shone like a buttered apple, its pike-tattoo seeming to move and ripple across his scalp as he turned in the lamplight: flexing its jaws, flicking its long tail. The calculated air of mystery and ancient rite was highlighted by the hall itself: the thick ­tapestries hanging upon the gently rounded walls living out their own secret stories, the multiple fireplaces banked on every side by stacks of wood, resin popping and oozing from the heat of roaring flames, great garlands of holly and ivy hanging from roof-hooks and, all around, the skirling of the wind as it tore about the tower.

Himbeere's talent lay in reading fortunes from livers, Rupert having previously selected the Christmas Lamb of God – which a few minutes earlier had been slaughtered in the courtyard below. Philbert came in with its still warm liver, gall bladder dangling, both seeming to pulse in the flickering light; he hoved the offering above his enormous head, Himbeere taking it from Philbert on its silver platter, studying it, slicing it and telling its signs, delivering the glorious predictions his famous patron wished to hear – all strength to the Atheling Rupert being the gist – and then their turn was done and down they went through the draught-ridden stairways, passing the next act who were on their way up.

‘Make sure you throw that liver away, Philbert,' said Herr Himbeere the moment they got back down to the warmth of the kitchens. ‘That gall bladder was twice the size it should've been and the liver's got flukes – not that it would have done to point it out in such illustrious company.'

The kitchen was jumping like a hornet's nest, every maid and cook shouting out to do this or that: grab plates, hoik trays from ovens, de-pot pies, rub mash through sieves, rib meat into slices, hack ice to rime glasses, check the junket, grate the cheese, chop the vegetables. The place was pandemonium and Himbeere only just managed to squeeze himself into a seat by the fire so he could get at one of the kettles to soothe the soreness of his feet.

‘What did you really see?' Philbert asked as he tossed the liver down the rubbish chute, where it would land in the midden heap below for pigs to rootle at in the morning if the foxes and wolves left anything behind. He no longer believed anything these soothsayers had to say, especially not a man who contested he could divine the future in the liver of a lamb, but he was curious.

‘That really is the question, isn't it?' said Himbeere, the pike-tattoo on his head moving slowly as he scratched the side of his nose. ‘In a better man than the weakling Rupert,' he said, using the pejorative that was common in these parts for said Atheling, ‘it might have meant the coming of battle. I detected a distinct hiatus in the Palace Gates, which is usually an indicator of courage. But our Rupert has smaller balls than bladderwort drying on a rack, and less spine than a dandelion. In his case I suspect it means a time of testing, and for him that probably means disaster, since it takes very little to bring a weak man to his knees.' Himbeere wriggled his toes in the pail Philbert had filled for him, watching the water slop lazily up the sides and over his bunions and corns. ‘But then again,' he added vaguely, ‘perhaps it just means a bad case of indigestion. Who knows?'

He was tired out and wanted drink, meat and dreams in that order. He dragged his feet from the pail, dried them on the drugget-rug before Philbert helped him on with his boots. At this point the strong-boy, Oort, burst into the kitchen having just finished lifting barons above his head and juggling ladies and beer-barrels, muscles still gleaming with the minor ­exertions his act had caused.

‘Coming to watch the rest?' he asked Philbert, grabbing ­several ox-and-oyster pies from a passing tray. A rolling-pin came down towards his hand but he laughed and flicked it away with his fingers, sending it clattering to the floor. He was not called a strong-boy for nothing, and Philbert was eager as he was to escape the din and steamy clamour of the kitchen.

‘Let's go,' Philbert said, Oort quickly pulling him through a side-door towards a thin rise of stone steps. They spiralled up their own little tower and levelled out by a half-planked gangway leading onto the old minstrels' gallery that clung like ivy to the walls of the Great Hall. It was a bit rickety, but they got a grand bird's eye view of the proceedings down below where Rupert's Gift Box was busily being unwrapped, each layer outdoing the one that had gone before. The musicians scraped their way through tune after tune as the rest of the turns came on: a man who threaded wires through his skin and hammered nails up his nose, a woman who played the harp with her feet, a set of sextuplets dancing a merry dance, a man girt only in a loin cloth whose skin was a kaleidoscope of multi-coloured tattoos, a parade of monkeys who chittered and jangled in their chains but who apparently gave wise witchdoctor-tips to whomsoever asked; and then came Madame La Chucha Lanuga, the bearded lady from Peru, looking magnificent in green silk, her dress dotted with mirrors, just like the hat she had given to Philbert a while before in tribute to his stand against the annoying Magendie. Her beard was combed and plaited with beads, and she swayed voluptuously as she sang and the musicians lulled and the room hushed as she keened of faraway places and the guests eased buckles and belts and wished they hadn't worn their corsets quite so tight. She sat serenely once she finished her song as her husband Alarico, the White Jester, took over, the blackness of his garb making his albino skin seem like candle- wax in the dim light. Philbert and Oort had heard all his humorous tales before, so back they went along the gallery, stepping gingerly across the rotting planks.