Nachtstürm Castle (10 page)

Whether Catherine was guided by Providence or by foolishness, it was yet difficult to say, for she felt all the calm of a Christian thrown to the lions, yet with none of his natural fear – the natural result of a mixed intent. But ameliorated or not, she paid these higher thoughts no mind, and busied herself by straightening what she could, even taking out her little sewing kit and setting to work on repairing the bedding.
 

After some time, however, having made very little progress due to trembling hands and quivering heart (so our bodies are sometimes wiser than our minds), Catherine put down her needle and took up her book.
 
The damage to its pages bothered her more than the ruination of the upholstery.
 
She had straightened the creases as best she could, but to no avail.
 
The various bookmarks must be removed.
 
Her reunion with these various artifacts – the first buttercup Henry had given her, a washing bill, a slip of her own poetry (very ill), a letter from Eleanor welcoming Catherine to the family – calmed Catherine very much.
 
Having just put aside this last item, folding it carefully and kissing the seal, Catherine turned to the next sheaf of papers rammed rather strangely into the beginning of the novel (which had never interested Catherine as well as the more romantic latter half).

These Catherine removed and spread wide, expecting perhaps one of Henry’s sermons or a sheaf of drawings from her younger siblings.
 
But what she saw, much to her surprise, delight and encouragement, was terribly sensible English beginning with those wonderful words:

In the Name of God, Amen.

And continuing onward in a manner very much like a last will and testament.

Such was her excitement, that she well nigh tore out of the door, the document tightly in her hand, sure that Henry was just about the corner waiting for this very discovery.
 
Such was her joy that although she had traversed these corridors a week now, it was not long before she took a wrong turn and found herself in a part of the castle which she had not visited since that first dreadful night. The air was noticeably cooler – older – here, and without thinking, she whispered, “Donna Fortuna,” and walked down the unlit hall, her eyes wide, her hand trailing along the cold stone. The whole world was very still – she barely dared breathe – she felt a chill upon her neck and a creeping up her spine. A thin blue light issued from the end of the long corridor, and almost she seemed to hear voices of another age, laughing, weeping, whispering all at once – male and female, a child’s cry, a resounding slap and a rustle of skirts, the spindly sound of a harpsichord played by an ill and indifferent hand, a lady keening as she sewed her own golden hair into a prophetic tapestry, the solemn chanting of a monk. The light widened, and now scents escaped – rose and lilac, and the must of dead flowers, spices from the Indies and sensual musk, incense and tallow, and the cold, cold taste of death and decay.

What should she see, as she walked ever closer, what should she witness behind such a door?
 
A casket?
 
A boudoir?
 
A fairy at her spindle?
 
The image of herself?
 
She shuddered with anticipation.
 
And had no more than shuddered, a second’s pause, when two arms snatched her from behind, wrapping around her waist and jaw, turning her head painfully to the side, loosing the papers from her hand.
 
And then a face – only half realised in that eerie light – and no more than realised than upon her, kissing her mouth as though to draw breath, as though to tear her very soul from her and combine it with his own. How could she return such an embrace? He pulled her closer, his fingers in her hair, his body pressed by hers as though to make her return it, and she – now accustomed to wifely duties – nearly did, except that she had seen that here was no Henry, but in very fact, young Will.
 

Unsuccessful in his first approach, he broke the embrace – and whispered in a series of small kisses upon her brow and into her hair, “Lucia! Lucia!” Again he pressed her lips, but could not draw forth from her a like affection. One last time he tried, tracing gently the line of her throat – and she at last returned the embrace when he would touch her lips – and shivered, when he broke, with the mortification of sudden longing. “Lucia,” he said again, and then, “venite.”

Into the very wall he seemed to pull her, his arm always about her waist so she could not run free – even if shock, shame and curiosity were not enough to keep her by his side. The sounds of the spectral past receded as they wandered through those inky forgotten halls, downward into sepulchral chill where the air perpetually dewed the worn stones and slicked them so that young Will’s arm was not merely a vice but a support.
 
And again through a wall, although this time she caught a glimmer of a catch as the weak rain–dripped moonlight happened through the high window’s bars and onto his pale hand. The door slipped open, well oiled, and then a curve upwards, a familiar passage although she could not have said how – an every minute expectation that her own image should round the corner dressed in naught but a nightdress – and through another wall into a room altogether too familiar. For yes,
there
the table, and
there
the chair she had stood on, and
there
the dreadful portrait of herself, letters in her hand – and where fruit had been, wine.

They entered, and he shut the door behind, gazing hungrily at his supposed
Lucia
, as she turned to stare at the portrait.
 
He said something – she did not understand him – and he, believing her motives vastly different from mere incomprehension, grasped her hand and laid a kiss upon the palm.
 
She blushed, and tried to pull away – her mind searching frantically for some means of excusing young Will’s behaviour as part of Henry’s plan, and failing woefully – but he held on more tightly, speaking rapidly, urgently, occasionally pressing her fingers, and then going so far as to hold her hand to his heart.

At this she looked up at him with alarm, and would have spoken – but that he silenced her with another kiss, and running to the other wall, listened to it as though it were made of glass and not stone. Catherine, for her part, heard nothing beyond the pounding in her ears, but she could not help recognising the word that spat from young Will’s mouth, nor the cynical mask that accompanied it: Edric was beyond that wall. With no more time to spare, young Will came to her, fumbling at his pocket, muttering whether to himself or to her she did not know, taking her hand and with another kiss, depositing in it something warm and golden.

It was a locket. Glancing up to him, she perceived that he desired she would open it, and was unsurprised to find within her own image on one side – in the other a golden lock. Again he spoke, “Lucia,” and “cugini,” “promessi sposi” and “inglese” – as well as “Brandenburg” and “Nachtstürm” – once, much to her amusement, “romanzo
Udolpho
,” and to her interest, “testamento,” and then, much to her confusion, “Frau Tilney” although he was not addressing her – and many times, “amore.” He pressed her hands together over the locket, his eyes welling with tears, and embraced her with more feeling than form.
 
Thus, with a parting glance, he slipped once more through the wall, and left her.

Well!

What could our heroine think beyond that: well!

Well!
 
She thought as she stood staring at the doorless, windowless room around her – well!
 
Well!
 
She thought turning to look again at her painted double and then glancing at her image within the locket – well!
 
Well!
 
She thought, guiltily, touching her lips with shaking fingers – well.

Having been, now, three times through the door in the wall, it was only a matter of a mere, terrified hour until Catherine found the latch to open the strange portal and she began the long climb back to her own apartment. The locket grew warmer yet as she held it – almost, she fancied, its intricate engravings burnt their patterns on her hand.
 
Having relied almost exclusively on her fancy in order to preserve her sanity that evening, Catherine fastened the locket about her throat where it seemed to burn a little less.

At last by climbing to the top but one, she found their apartment – although she was at first disposed to turn back into the dank passage in search for her rooms again, for the suite before her stood as cheery and neat as though neither she nor Henry had ever stepped foot in it – much less some burglar of a violent tendency. A little fire burned on the hearth, the bed was well made, the chairs removed, the trunks repacked, the desk replaced – upon the table, even, there was a small dinner waiting.
 

This scene of pleasant domesticity, if anything, frightened our heroine more than the previous scene of utter ruin. Worse – Henry had not returned. Even worse, Catherine realized that she had dropped the last will and testament in the unknown corridor.
 
Having braved so many curious events that day, Catherine didn’t hesitate to run through the door and into the corridor, searching for the twist or turn she might have taken wrong.
 
Several times, she thought she found the place – but no familiar sheaf of papers did she find.
 
Nor did she feel she could continue when she was found by Helga some time later, who frowned and indicated by gesture that the Hour Was Late and Frau Tilney Should Be Abed.
 

Catherine allowed herself to be herded back to her rooms, still bereft of Henry.
 
And so being a sensible girl, despite her imagination, she took up a poker, ate her dinner, and went – if not to sleep, then to bed – the weapon in her hand. In time, the door opened again, silhouetting a large man, sodden and imposing. Catherine gripped the weapon and closed her eyes, until she heard the welcome voice of her beloved husband.
 
She called to him, ready for him to teaze her about the poker, and surprised when – without removing his wet things – he took her face in his hands, his eyes wide and frightened, and searched her face as though afraid she were not real. Then satisfied that indeed here was his beloved, he bent towards her, to brush his lips against her own.
 
His sweet breath, tinged with tobacco, swept over her and she drew back, touching the locket about her throat. She shook her head, and gave him her hand to kiss – then lay down; her eyes squeezed shut as though to forget the night’s events.

Although Henry had spent the better part of the week in the library, he had not found anything which might afford a clue to the various hints the several people connected to Nachtstürm had let drop regarding the heritage of the doomed Barons of Brandenburg. Oh, he had found a volume on “The Sundry Uses of Arsenic” next to “The Book of Courtly Love,” which juxtaposition afforded him some half–hour of diversion and speculation. Divers rare volumes he also came upon – alas, most in foreign tongues until those of a more modern binding. This, too, bore some modicum of significance he could not quite grasp. No family Bible did he discover, wherein the names of all the Barons and their late wives might be recorded – or, even better, certain names inexplicably crossed out. That such a volume might once have existed he did not doubt – for the empty pedestal with its broken chain alone convinced him, if the small illuminated volumes of the Gospels, the Psalms and the Hours had not also been in attendance.

With Colin’s begrudging assistance (begrudged because it took time away from his Betty, with whom he’d grown quite close, and whose own nocturnal visits to the gardens were as ardent if less tortured than Will and his lady’s), he had managed to translate most of the largest document from among the letters: the one with the Baron’s and Cecelia Durande’s signatures.
 
That this proved, indeed, to be a record of their marriage – although one without any witnesses besides a local priest – piqued Henry’s curiosity, especially in regards to Edric’s reliability.
 
Regrettably, no birth certificates were on hand to legitimize William nor were there records of any deaths either officially or in the journals of the barons.

Since the library could afford no further knowledge of this mountaintop mystery, and although Henry was loathe to quit the place of so much learning and no few enjoyable hours, he had at last returned to the portrait gallery to examine the curious tombstones.
 
And
there
, amongst those misplaced markers, he had at last heard the lowing of the Minotaur in that historical labyrinth: one gravestone was missing.

Could it be? Henry wondered, pacing the length of the room and counting the barons and the stones. Was it possible? Could –
was
– but no, perhaps he had been…. Thorough examination proved Henry correct. One of the barons had not been remembered among his ancestors – and that young William Wiltford’s father.