Castle of the Wolf

by Sandra Schwab

  For a moment, Johann, the valet, remained frozen on the spot, then he gasped and hurried down toward his fallen master.

  Only then did Cissy realize she had pressed her hands against her mouth to keep back a scream. Oh God, was he dead? “Help!” she shouted. “We need help!” She ran toward the stairs and up to where Johann, his face drained of all color, was bending over his master. Von Wolfenbach lay there, pale and still, his mouth slack, blood oozing from a gash at his temple and running into his hair.

  Her blood pounded in her ears. Cissy fell to her knees next to the two men. “What is it? Is he dead?” With the breath wheezing in and out of her lungs she barely managed to form the words.

  Johann’s mouth formed a tight line as he fumbled with his master’s necktie. He finally managed to loosen the knot and pull back the starched white collar of the shirt so he could check the pulse in the hollow of the neck. His head sank forward; his shoulders dropped.

  “What?” Cissy felt how her own throat tightened painfully. “Is he…”

  “He’s alive.” Johann straightened. Relief made his eyes shimmer wetly. “Thank heavens, he is alive.” He sank back on his haunches and, for the first time, really seemed to register Cissy’s presence. For a moment he closed his eyes, then wiped his arm across his forehead, which shone with sweat. “His leg—it just broke away from under him.”

  “His leg?” Cissy looked down at the still body.

  “His…other leg.”

  The sounds of hurried footsteps made Cissy turn toward the bottom of the stairs. Servants came running, a maid shrieked.

  “Quick!” Johann’s strong voice easily carried over the sudden din in the hallway. “Somebody fetch the doctor from Kirchwalden!” He bowed his head. “It will take hours to get the doctor here,” he murmured tiredly to Cissy.

  She swallowed hard.

  The wound at von Wolfenbach’s temple still leaked blood, a steady red trickle, which had already formed a small puddle on the wooden stairs. Cissy reached out and pressed her sleeve against the wound. With her free hand, she gently stroked his forehead. A ferocious wolf no more. The thought stabbed at her heart.

  “Do you think we can move him?” she asked quietly. “We cannot let him lie here for hours.”

  “You’re right.” Johann nodded. “We should get him into a bed…” He gazed at his master. “And search for more injuries.—Hey there!” he shouted. “Come somebody and help me carry him upstairs!”

  More injuries? Cissy shuddered. Perhaps broken bones. She could only imagine how bad it would be for Fenris von Wolfenbach to be even more restricted in his movements. She knew that fate could be cruel, but it seemed terribly wrong that he should endure even more than he had. A missing leg.

  How curious that his wooden leg had snapped like a twig.

  Cissy bent forward.

  The butler came up behind her. “You should move now, gnädiges Fräulein.”

  “Yes.” She stood to make room for him and watched how Johann and Rambach lifted von Wolfenbach up. His legs dangled from their arms; the wooden stump looked grotesque.

  Her gaze was drawn to the broken wood.

  There was something…

  Frowning, she leaned nearer.

  …something not quite right…

  Now she could see the broken wood clearly, only it wasn’t broken at all. It was…

  Cissy gasped. She straightened so quickly that for a moment she felt dizzy.

  Johann caught her gaze, and suddenly she knew that he had seen it, too: the wood had snapped cleanly. A sliver of ice touched her heart. This had been no accident.

  Cissy clutched the banister. Dear God, who would do such a thing? To saw at a wooden leg to make a proud man fall, to humiliate him…to kill him?

  She looked after the servants carrying von Wolfenbach upstairs.

  A wave of anger washed over her. To attempt to kill a man in her castle! Her castle! She would be damned before she saw that happen. Determinedly she stomped up the stairs after the men. She would not depart from von Wolfenbach’s side until the doctor arrived.

  On the threshold to his room, Mrs. Chisholm caught up with her. Breathing heavily the older woman put a hand to her heaving bosom. “The stable boy has gone to fetch the physician. And von Wolfenbach’s parents.” She threw a sympathetic glance to the man who was being laid out on the bed. “The poor lad.” She sighed. “I hope that teaches him to refrain from walking around on a mere stick in the future.” Before Cissy could reply, she’d marched past and into the room, gesticulating to the servants. “Gently, gently, gentlemen.”

  Cissy followed and stepped up to the enormous four-poster bed. Von Wolfenbach’s face had taken on a grayish tinge, except for the dark blood at this temple. “We need towels to stop the bleeding,” she said.

  Johann tugged at the cloth that still encircled Fenris’s neck. “Here.” He turned. “Take his tie for the moment.”

  Cissy lifted the corner of a pillow and sat down on the bed to press the pristine white cloth against the wound.

  “It doesn’t look as if he’s broken any limbs,” Mrs. Chisholm commented, surveying the scene from the foot of the bed.

  “No.” Johann frisked his hands over his master’s body. “But he might have broken some ribs.” He exchanged a look with the widow. “There might be internal injuries.”

  Cissy bit her lip.

  Mrs. Chisholm frowned. “No stab in the lungs, though. No, not that. But you should loosen his clothes, dearie.” She turned to Cissy. “These modern waistcoats and jackets are quite horribly tight. I don’t know how a man can breathe in them at the best of times.—Rambach, be a dear and fetch us some towels and warm water.” She clicked her tongue. “And kirsch,” she added as an afterthought. “Johann?”

  “Kirsch?" Cissy lifted her eyes. Incredulity made her voice higher than usual.

  “To swab at this nasty bump.” Mrs. Chisholm went around the bed. “Shoo, Johann, whatever are you waiting for?” With obvious reluctance, von Wolfenbach’s valet left the room.

  “Now, dearie”—switching to English, Mrs. Chisholm rolled up her sleeves—“let us take a look at this.” She nudged Cissy and, when Cissy stood up, took her place beside von Wolfenbach’s head. “You go on and open his clothes.”

  “Me?” Cissy flushed hotly at the thought of undressing a man.

  “Of course you!” Mrs. Chisholm gave her a surprised look. “Do you see anybody else in this room at the moment? Don’t be so squeamish, dearie. Have you never seen any of those Greek sculptures? It’s exactly the same thing, I assure you.” Frowning, she bent lower to examine Fenris’s wound more closely. “A nasty gash,” she murmured and clicked her tongue some more. She prodded the surrounding flesh. “But no broken skull. Got a thick head, this one. Dearie, do start, will you?”

  Gingerly, Cissy lifted a knee onto the bed and bent over the prone figure. She tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach as she pulled back the sides of his coat. Where Johann had removed the cravat and loosened the neck of the shirt, some curly black hair peeped out over the top button—as if inviting her to stroke it with the tip of her finger. She gulped and focused her attention on the buttons of his waistcoat. In contrast to the men she had met in England, he never wore bright colors, seeming to prefer shades of brown or drab gray. Like a wolf.

  The last button came undone and she pushed back the sides of the waistcoat, too. Now his shirt…

  Cissy licked her lips.

  As she opened the top button, her fingers brushed against the springy dark hair at his throat. Her fingers tingled with this new sensation, and she had to swallow hard before she could go on.

  Her face flaming, she worked on the rest of the buttons. Bit by bit she revealed pale, smooth skin, the heavy muscles of his chest, which were sprinkled with dark hair, and the hard ridges of his belly. Yes, she had seen Greek sculptures in the British Museum in London, beautiful bodies in white marble, but this…this was different. Quite, quite different. Von Wolfenbach�
��s skin was warm to her touch and satiny soft. The contrast between that smooth skin and the hardness of the muscles underneath fascinated her. Just visible over the waistband of his trousers was the top half of his navel, surrounded by a whirl of black hair. It looked…delicious.

  “So I was right.” Mrs. Chisholm’s voice cut into her thoughts. “A nice laddie, this one. Well made.”

  Cissy felt as if she were about to go up in flames of shame because of her wanton thoughts.

  Her friend just chuckled. “No need to be bashful, dearie. I’d look my fill, if I were you. ‘Tis not often that a woman gets to see such a lovely specimen of a man. No blood, is there?” Unceremoniously, she drew her hands down his sides. “No broken ribs either, it seems. Just some ugly bruises.” She touched a dark discoloration at his waist.

  “How do you know about broken ribs?” Cissy asked.

  “I’ve raised six boys. Let me tell you, boys tend to fall off and down a lot of things. All the time, practically. And if they don’t fall off things, they get into fights. So it’s always a scraped knee here, a scratched elbow there, a bump here, a loosened tooth there.—Ah, Johann, there you are.” She switched back to German.

  The valet brought her towels and a bottle of kirsch. She poured a liberal dose of alcohol onto one of the towels and swabbed the wound with it. Von Wolfenbach groaned and tried to lift his hand.

  “Ah, here he is.” Mrs. Chisholm sounded like a satisfied cat after it had licked up the cream. “That woke you, laddie, didn’t it?”

  He blinked up at her. “What…?”

  Mrs. Chisholm patted his hand. “You took a nasty fall and bumped your head on the stairs. You’ll probably feel a bit sick in the next few days just like Dickie, my eldest, when he fell off the great oak on the village green.” She beamed at him.

  He stared at her, his gaze still clouded. Then his eyes narrowed. “I take it I didn’t fall off an oak tree, though.”

  “On the staircase?” Mrs. Chisholm snorted. “Not very likely, is it?” She patted his hand some more. “My dear boy, you really shouldn’t walk about on a mere stick, you know. The thing broke and you fell.”

  “My…” Dark color surged up from his neck. Grimacing with pain, he slowly lifted his head a little to look down his body.

  Cissy saw the expression in his eyes before he closed them, and in this moment her heart broke for him. Fenris, this ferocious wolf, was fettered by something worse than dwarves’ chains.

  Quietly she stepped back from the bed. So far he had not seemed to notice her, and she wanted to spare him the realization that she had witnessed his humiliation. Or that she had seen him half-naked. She had touched his skin, had felt the warmth of his body, the crispness of the hair that covered his chest—how could she look him in the eye again?

  Vividly she remembered the strength he had emanated as he had stood before her in the darkened hallway. The wolf might be fettered, but his power was most definitely still there.

  ~*~

  The doctor came in the Wolfenbach carriage together with the Graf and Gräfin. It did not take him long to ease their fears: he found no serious injuries. He suspected one or two ribs to be cracked but not broken, and a tight bandage around the torso was all that was needed. By then, Fenris von Wolfenbach insisted on leaving bed anyway, and hidden by the people milling around, Cissy slipped out of the room unnoticed. He was, after all, in safe hands now.

  Yet her exit was not entirely unnoticed.

  “Gnädiges Fräulein?” Von Wolfenbach’s valet came hurrying after her.

  “Yes?” Surprised, she turned.

  Johann lowered his voice. “You’ve seen it too, haven’t you? The way the wood broke?” At her nod, he cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking—perhaps it wouldn’t be good to talk about it. If the culprit hasn’t left any traces in my master’s bedroom, then there’s not much we can do. Yet should one start to ask questions…”

  Cissy nodded thoughtfully. “They would know that we know.”

  “I will…” He lifted his arm, let it fall again. “I’ll make sure my master is safe. I’ll be prepared from now on.”

  “Yes. I quite understand.” Cissy watched as he bowed and went back to von Wolfenbach’s bedroom.

  Slowly, she walked on to the great staircase, where on one of the steps above the landing the lower part of the wooden leg still lay. She bent down and picked it up. For a moment she could only stare at it, stunned once more by the viciousness of the deed. She rubbed her thumb over the clean section where the person had cut into the wood. Thoughtfully, she gnawed on her lower lip. Who would do such a thing? And what was the purpose of it? It did not seem to make sense; if somebody wished to kill Fenris von Wolfenbach, there were other, more surefire ways to accomplish it. Or had it just been about the humiliation? If so, they had most certainly succeeded.

  Cissy closed her eyes as she remembered the expression in von Wolfenbach’s eyes when he had realized what had happened. Whoever had done this had attacked von Wolfenbach’s greatest weakness and had thereby cut him to the quick.

  Her heart clenched painfully.

  At that moment, she heard steps on the stairs above. Blinking rapidly, she slipped the piece of wood into her pocket and quickly wiped her eyes before turning around.

  “Ah, there you are, dearie,” Mrs. Chisholm said. “What do you think about telling Rambach to bring some fresh cocoa and coffee to the dining room? After that big fright we could all do well with a good, hearty breakfast, don’t you think?” She reached the step on which Cissy stood and put her arm around her shoulders. “And our laddie is already up and around again, too. Quite a robust young man, I have to say, when not even a bump on the head will stop him.” She paused. “Well, I daresay he will feel quite sick this afternoon, just like my Dickie did. But, of course, he won’t heed the doctor’s advice to stay in bed. Stubborn as a mule, that lad. Ah well, boys will be boys, I guess—don’t you think so, too, dearie? And the older they are, the more pigheaded they become.” She heaved a sigh. “It’s a shame.”

  Chapter 12

  Despite their son’s protests, the Graf and the Gräfin decided to stay for a few days at the castle to make sure he didn’t suffer any after-effects from his fall. The company made Cissy edgy. The attack on von Wolfenbach deeply bothered her. Should she suspect the servants? But when their master had undertaken the most imbecilic attempts to get rid of Mrs. Chisholm and herself, they had all proved to be loyal to him—even to the point of risking pneumonia. So how could she suspect them? But who else was there? And was Johann really right that it was safer not to talk about it to anybody else?

  At this point, her thoughts always started to run in circles. To escape brooding, if only for a little while, she would withdraw into the castle library and—like so many times before—seek the solace of fictional worlds and people.

  The library was surely one of the prettiest rooms in the castle, Cissy thought. It had been refurbished seventy or eighty years before, probably by the father of the current Graf, and featured white walls, a white ceiling with stucco adornments and a golden-framed center image of Apollo surrounded by the muses. Depictions of allegories of the old four continents hung resplendent in the four corners of the room. Strangely enough, each continent was a woman wrapped in some diaphanous material or other. The white walls contrasted nicely with the dark wood of the bookshelves.

  Cissy was sitting in one of the deep window alcoves and reading the first volume of a Hoffmann novel she had found on the shelves. The strange story, an autobiography of Murr, a tomcat with literary aspirations, interspersed with the biography of the music master Kreisler, enthralled her. It was a novel unlike any other she had read before, a riddle, like so much in the castle appeared to be. Most puzzling of all, though, she found the man who had obviously bought the book. She tried to envision Fenris von Wolfenbach reading such a fantastic tale—and failed. How to combine the snarling, angry man with this? But then she remembered how he had lost himself in the story of the
grandfather clock.

  Bemused, she read on, and smiled as Murr ripped the books he attempted to study.

  “What a beautiful image you make, my dear.”

  Starting, she looked up and saw Leopold von Wolfenbach leaning against the nearest shelf. He presented a slightly rumpled appearance, with his necktie loosened and his golden hair ruffled. As she watched, the familiar charming smile dimpled his cheek. Leaning forward, he asked in a conspiratorial whisper, “Have you missed me?” He gave her a slow wink, as if he already knew the answer to his question.

  So sure of himself. Frowning, Cissy marked the page she was reading and shut the book. “No,” she finally said, turning her attention back to him. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Ouch.” He straightened and wrinkled his nose. “I would have thought, for a young woman like you, shut up in a dreary old castle such as this…” He shrugged.

  “Yes?”

  “I would have thought you would welcome distractions.” Again, he magicked a smile onto his face. “Like my company, for example?”

  “I am quite happy with my life at Wolfenbach. Thank you.” And because she remembered the night she had most definitely not enjoyed his company, she stood up and tried to slip past him.

  He followed.

  “Where have you been these past few days?” she asked to distract him.

  Satisfaction flickered over his face. “So you have missed me. I was in Freiburg.” A few long strides carried him around to her front. He leaned his elbow against the shelf before her, thus blocking her way. “Wouldn’t you like to live in Freiburg? Just imagine—balls and parties and—”

  “I’ve been to the balls in London.”

  Unperturbed, he continued smiling at her, his green eyes twinkling merrily. His nerve was really quite beyond the pale. “So, wouldn’t you like to visit some balls again? Fashionable people, fashionable clothes, champagne, the best food…” He raised his brow in a manner which eerily reminded Cissy of his brother. “Wouldn’t you like to buy new dresses? The latest fashions from Paris?” His voice dropped to a seductive burr. “Just think of it, Celia, how your beauty would be enhanced by such clothes, how you would shine like a diamond among all the fashionable ladies.”