Nachtstürm Castle (5 page)

Henry affirmed this.

“Hereinkommen, denn.”

With such a demand, apparent more from her raised eyebrow and disapproving lips than from her language, she continued to speak in such a manner – which was to say, not
English
– and from which they gleaned only this: her name was Helga.

She led them into the castle, instructing – at least, they supposed it was instruction – the servants to take the trunks and other travelling cases upstairs, while she brought them to another wing entirely. Catherine clung close to Henry – who was gallantly attempting to appear attentive to their morbid guide – staring with great joy at the ancient tapestries and sconces. The corridors were properly shrouded, affording the occasional broken mirror or tattered hanging. Through innumerable dark passages, past two courtyards and one garden, up five sets of stairs – several of which wound tightly – Fräulein Helga led them, directing them in the ways of Nachtstürm as they went.
 
No Tudor Cotswold home, half-sunken and twisting, could compare to the labyrinthine passages of Nachtstürm.

A few words they picked out, “Herr Wilhelm” being foremost among them. Only once did she repeat that gentleman’s strange cry of “Fortuna,” the Romantic word stumbling stiffly off her tongue, and that when Catherine tarried a moment to glance down a hall that seemed more still and cold than the others and which reminded her – silly enough, she supposed – of Mrs. Tilney’s room in Northanger Abbey. “Donna…Fortuna,” the lady had said, sucking in her breath, then snapping, “Kommen Sie!”

At last they came to what they supposed were to be their own rooms, for Fräulein Helga’s disapproving gaze and direct gesture could mean no less. The presence of their trunks and belongings also seemed to affirm their surmise. A moment’s glance was enough to comprehend the room’s general tenor. It was large and high ceilinged, with many cheerful red hangings, which – Catherine suspected – might look ominous once the multitude of hearty candles were extinguished. The furniture was made of an elegant cherry wood, comfortably upholstered in a similarly warm hue, and admirably situated for Henry’s unfortunate habit of leaving coats and stockings everywhere.

“Yes – the room would do very well,” Henry declared amiably to Fräulein Helga.

“I dare say it does well, love,” Catherine said, removing her pelisse. “I would expect no less from you!”

Henry gave her a puzzled glance, and then turned to Fräulein Helga, asking her in broken German when they might expect Old Edric or Mr Wiltford. She replied, “Bald,” and closed the doors with great ceremony.

There was very little to be done except to stare out at the flashing rain, rifle through their belongings, explore the suite – which was more extensive than their initial glance had led them to believe – and wonder aloud at the strangeness of Nachtstürm’s inhabitants. And if a few connubial kisses were exchanged, who was there to tell?

After some three–quarters of an hour, by which time Catherine and Henry had conveniently forgotten the outside world altogether, a sharp crack sounded at the door. Henry rose swiftly to open it, motioning Catherine to stay within. He need not have feared though, for the man at the door was none other than Colin who came “to tell thee that we’ve been put just down an round the corner, iffn tha’d need us.” Henry thanked his man and closed the door with great relief, leaning against the wood and smiling foolishly at Catherine. He had not time to bar the door as well, though, before another rap came, this one knobbly and rat–a–tat–tat. “Alt Edric,” was the answer to Henry’s, “Wer ist?”

Once more the doors opened to reveal not Fräulein Helga’s melancholy countenance, nor Colin’s rugged, good–humoured one, but a rather the hunched and bitter form of Old Edric himself, standing in all his ghostly splendour in the dark shadows of the corridor. He must once have been a tall man, but age had bent his shoulders as time had bent his soul. Still, he was large and strong for a man of sixty, and his clear, blue eye was as sharp as his tongue. His hair reflected the castle – sleek and grey, with hints of white about the temples. There was about him a sort of agelessness, like lichen or duff is ageless. And his voice was the voice of sifting dust that settles in the orifices and suffocates the listener.

“You will want to speak in your native tongue?” he asked, biting the edges of each word.

“Only if it would not over–inconvenience you,” Henry declared. “I know a smattering of Deutsche, just enough to torture your sensibilities and miscommunicate all I desire to say. Yes, English would be much preferred.”

“As you wish, Herr Tilney. In this place, this no–place of the Alps, one must know many languages – if one is to remain for any duration.” And here he gave Catherine the most troubled, hateful glance, which was immediately replaced with a conciliatory fawning which both heroes found more troublesome than this gentleman’s strange behaviour. He desired to know how long they were staying, he apologised for the seasonable weather – which he assured them would quickly turn to snow – and generally made such an awkward fuss over their comfort that they were most discomforted.

He walked around the room, pointing out the bell–pull and other such modern conveniences, and so doing walked very close to Catherine. Of the three they met, he alone did not say, “Fortuna,” but he did regard her closely with those blue, almost colourless hawk eyes. “Frau Tilney,” he said, an unusual smile overcoming his face. “You will like Nachtstürm most of all, I think.” She readily admitted to liking it very much already, which admission made Henry laugh fondly. “Ah,” Old Edric said quickly, “there is much history between you. And much you wish to discuss. I leave you – the hour grows late. Breakfast is at your convenience. Nachtstürm is...you may think of Nachtstürm as your home.”

And with that he might have closed the doors with even greater ceremony than Fräulein Helga, but for Catherine’s query when they might see Mr Wiltford.
 
“I’m afraid we left him on the road – or he left us, in great agitation!
 
If you think that it will snow tonight and he has not yet returned – !”

Old Edric’s lip curled, as though the idea of William lost in a snowstorm or buried beneath an avalanche pleased him mightily.
 
Shrugging, he only said, “Herr Wilhelm knows these mountains well.
 
You met him on the road, you say?”

“We did,” Henry affirmed.
 
“And most strangely, too!”

“Ja,” Edric sighed, pulling at the few evening grizzles on his cheek.
 
Almost, he looked kindly as he confided, “Herr Wilhelm is…troubled.
 
He is haunted by the ghosts of those he knew, as all of his line are.
 
He lost his father, oh most tragically, only six months ago.”

“What happened?” Catherine asked eagerly.

Edric, who by this point had reentered the room and wandered almost immediately to the fireplace where he now stood silhouetted like the Lord of Embers, answered her, “Most tragic.
 
It is not a tale for the faint of heart.
 
I would not trouble you, your first night here at Nachtstürm.
 
You must tell your wife, Herr Tilney, that not all stories should be heard.”

“I
may
tell her that,” Henry conceded, “but I doubt she will heed me.
 
She loves every sort of horror and we have come expressly for that purpose.”

“Very well,” Edric replied with not so much a bow as a shift in weight.
 
Catherine drew close to Henry on the ottoman and the ageing servant began:

“The late baron, my master, the cousin of – ” and here he sniffed, “Lord Branning….”

“And Brandenburg,” Catherine supplied.

Edric stopped in the act of stirring the fire, raised a brow and muttered, “So.
 
Was a man of many troubles.
 
Plagued, or so he said, by the ghost of all his ancestors.
 
Many times I saw him sitting here, just where you are now – for this was his room, before….”
 
He waved his hand and continued.
 
“Often I would hear him converse with the air: now speaking with his father, long-since deceased; now calling for his wife – a woman of his invention, for he never married; and most often arguing with his brother who went down as a youth to Nachtväl…and
never returned
.”

“Nachtväl?” Catherine asked.

“The town we passed through, love,” Henry supplied.

“Ja, so,” Edric said, hands clasped behind his back and gimlet eyes fixed steadily on the waning flames as though surveying the village even now.
 
“There is a sort of sickness in the Väl.
 
There gypsies from the southern towns run free and it is said that they will steal the very soul of man.
 
I have heard of children who have lost their shadows to the gypsies’ nimble hands.
 
Of wives who have lost their tears like diamonds from their eyes.
 
And of men who have lost their hearts and so have lost their minds.
 
You have seen a gypsy take a coin from you?
 
Imagine if she took a kiss.
 
A coin you may regain; it was never yours.
 
But to lose yourself for the sake of their bright scarves – well.
 
It is better not to go to Nachtväl.”

“But the old Baron’s brother did?
 
William’s uncle.”

Edric sneered and said, “His uncle by blood, perhaps, but not by birth.
 
Wilhelm is no Wiltford.”

“But you said Will’s father, the Baron…” Catherine essayed.

“That
boy
is no son of Brandenburg!” Edric cried, turning to her.
 
“You will remember this, please!”

Henry admitted that they could hardly forget, and somewhat satisfied, Edric returned to his story.
 
“My master spoke with the ghost of his brother most of all, and when he did the Baron would grow most abusive, beating his chest and wringing his hands and calling me every sort of name – calling me the devil himself.

“Once, he even tried to kill me.
 
Here,” touching the place above his heart.
 
“He burnt through me with his fire.
 
But it is no matter.
 
He was not well.
 
I nursed him as best I could, when the fits were not upon him, until the day that…that
child
arrived, one year ago.
 
You said you met Herr Wilhelm on the road, did you not, Herr Tilney?
 
Did you not wonder, then, at his behaviour?
 
I should think he looked most strangely at your wife.

“He arrived, as I say, one year ago.
 
Very wild.
 
On a night much like this.
 
And he claimed to be the Baron’s son.
 
But as I said, my master never married.
 
Oh, he had taken women to his bed, and some may have borne his children – who can say?
 
And the woman who had driven my master mad – another of those southern folk, a gypsy, as you can guess – had indeed been delivered of a boy.
 
But they did not live long.
 
I would not tell you of their fate, this late and with a view overlooking where – well, where she threw herself and the boy over the cliff’s edge, there beyond the graveyard.
 
He was only seven.
 
A bastard child, and a troublesome, as these half-blood children often are, but my master felt the loss most deeply.
 
No, Frau Tilney, it is better not to look, unless you should run mad too and throw yourself from this window.”

Catherine regained her seat, although she dearly longed to glance out and see if perhaps some ghost floated above the distant chasm.
 
“Why did she do such a thing?” she asked.

Edric sniffed.
 
“Who can say?
 
Perhaps she was ambitious.
 
Perhaps she argued with the Baron when he would not marry her and so broke his heart instead.
 
I cannot say.
 
She left us one more mystery: for while her body was found, the child’s was not.”

“Then William may be the Baron’s natural son after all!” Henry said.

“It may be so.
 
The Baron certainly thought it so, when this ‘Wilhelm’ arrived, drenched and shivering, lips blue from the cold and said he was the Baron’s son, alive and well and able to be touched….
 
Well, you can imagine how my maddened master took him in his arms.
 
But I?
 
I was not fooled – no.
 
Where was the ancestral locket that his harlot mother bore and which had not been found with her body?
 
Why did this so-called heir of Brandenburg speak Italian better than his native tongue?
 
Why, in fact, did he speak
your
tongue as well as Church Latin?
 
No, I do not trust this boy.