“Thanks.” He took the soup from her hands and put a spoonful in his mouth. It was revolting but at least it was warm. It still couldn’t beat the hot water Danielle was pouring onto his feet and into the bucket.
“Found anything?” she asked.
“Yes, but it doesn’t make sense.” He stared at the letters and symbols circled and X’d in Vilvoorde’s book. He tried reading the code backwards, shuffling the letters around but it was worthless effort. He was missing something.
Those X’s. Why would those letters be crossed?
“Let me see.” Danielle sat next to him and looked at the yellow page of the book. “Well, it certainly doesn’t look like much.”
“The mirror code made sense.” A sinking feeling of defeat began to pervade him. What if he had all wrong? But he had the right poem, Lucy was finally found. Those X’s…
Melbourne looked up at the window. Streaks of rain began running down the wall. He threw the book on the desk and lay down on the bed. He felt tired both physically and of codes. And he had had a loaded gun pointed at his head. He honestly believed he had lost five years of his life in those five minutes.
“Maybe you just got it wrong,” Danielle said. “Maybe you should — ”
“Those X’s!” He sat back up suddenly. “Those X’s aren’t letters.”
He got out of bed, still clinging to the sheets wrapped around him, and sprang towards the desk and the book. Water splashed on the floor from the bucket.
Danielle sighed. “Let me guess who will be cleaning up this mess.”
Melbourne wasn’t listening. He moved the lamp closer to him and began counting. If he included spaces as well, the letter K of the first poem would amount to one-hundred and thirty-four characters. He began recounting each circled and crossed letter but adding the spaces between each word. The letter I was one-hundred and sixty-three, the letter C one-hundred and eighty. He was finished in mere minutes and moved onto the missing Lucy poem. The final configuration seemed much different:
C H T D L B R M T
He smiled. The X’s were spaces. He was right.
His smile disappeared almost as it had appeared. It still made no sense.
Danielle walked over to him and looked down at the book. “You got! You got it right!”
“I did?”
“Sure.” She pointed to his translation. “Château de Libremont.”
Melbourne shot up an eyebrow. “Château de what?”
“Château de Libremont. It’s a castle situated in the town of Libremont, not that far from Brussels.”
He looked back at the book. He had found it. He had really found it.
Danielle hugged him and rubbed her hands on the sheets. “Come here my spy, you need to get a little warmed up. And rested. You’re going on a journey tomorrow.”
Melbourne smiled. “Château de Libremont.”
XXIX
- 3 days
The village of Libremont was perched on a high hill just to the west of Brussels as Danielle had told him. Melbourne needed to take a cab to reach it. The morning was foggy, with a chill wind that seemed even more bitter as the car entered the woods south of Brussels. The cab was stopped twice by German soldiers asking for Melbourne’s Passierschein – the alert was still high for the murder, especially at the borders of the city. Together with a few invented stories, and Boulger’s suggestion of corrupting the men with cigarettes, he made it to Libremont with little to no trouble.
The village seemed frozen in the 18th century. Not a single machine belonging to the industrial age could be seen anywhere near it. There was only one main road, a cobblestoned path that snaked its way up the hill with small, picturesque looking houses lining its sides. It was quiet, despite the hour, and the silence was broken once and a while by the songs of birds or the neighing of horses hitched to gateposts.
The cab stopped, Melbourne payed the driver handsomely, and continued his journey on foot. He noticed that the village consisted predominantly of farms and small houses, with little else. There was not even a post office anywhere in the vicinity. A perfect place for a spy.
The single road was steep, and Melbourne was short of breath before he was halfway up. He stopped a rough looking man with a heavy beard on a donkey and asked him for directions to the castle. The man simply pointed up the road with his hand. Melbourne took a minute to recover his breath and followed the man’s directions.
He continued on until the houses and farms ended and the road opened up to a grassy plain. No signs of a castle. He walked on, his legs sore from the climb and the abuse of the last couple of days, but his mind was alert.
The cobblestones ended and the road turned into a dirt road, dotted with patches of grass. Melbourne reached a clearing near the top of the hill and stopped to look back. It was clear just how tiny the village truly was. He counted the farms and houses and ended up with a total of twenty. How the hell had his brother found a place like that? He turned around and looked straight ahead. A little beyond the hill were some woods, and through the fog he could see a tower extending upwards beyond the trees.
He kept on going until he found a high red brick wall running along the road. He followed it, the road curving sharply to the right, following the path of the wall.
Perched under an arch of stone, an iron gate, a good four metres high, seemed as if it had been uncared for years. Melbourne walked up to the entrance. He almost didn’t see the large letters outlined in iron above the gate behind dead ivy and cobwebs. LIBREMONT.
He had made it.
Melbourne shoved open the gate far enough to squeeze through. There was no one in sight. The only sound he could hear was the croaking of a crow on a nearby branch.
The court inside the gate was almost circular, covered in grass, except for a wide gravel road that led past a dormant fountain to the castle just fifty metres away. On his right were a series of stables, all empty. There was silence in the air, not one thing moved. He could only hear the croaking of the crow. The eerie surroundings gave him goose bumps.
He moved slowly, pausing to look at the water in the fountain’s basin. It was green. The place would have seemed completely abandoned, if it weren’t for the distinct smell of freshly cut grass.
The Château de Libremont stood before him in all its decadent glory. The bottom floor looked as it if had come from a medieval fortress, while the rest of the three floors seemed no more than a few centuries old. A large, central tower dominated the front façade of the castle, with two smaller ones on either side of the building. A wooden door stood dead centre.
Melbourne stood in front of it, deadly still, with one fist raised in the air as if waiting for a sign to knock. A hundred questions and doubts swirled in his mind. With one deep breath, he brought down his fist on the hard wood.
The door swung open at his knock.
He peeked in. It led to a smaller inner courtyard, surrounded by the four walls of the castle, each with four to five tall windows overlooking it. The right side of the castle looked distinctly medieval, with grey stones and jagged edges, while the right side was from the seventeenth century. He noticed that the castle had been tinkered and modified over the ages, resulting in a pastiche of architectural overlays from different epochs. He headed towards the only available door, a wide and tall entrance made of fine mahogany. He hesitated once more before taking in his hand a hefty door knocker and proceeded to slam it hard against the metallic, fawn like face that looked straight at him. The sound of clanging metal echoed through the courtyard. He waited. Nothing happened. Melbourne tried again, knocking the heavy metal ring a few more times.
Silence.
The sound had disturbed a small flock of crows on the roof that flew off, croaking in protest. He began thinking the castle was abandoned after all.
That is, until he heard the faint sound of footsteps coming from inside.
The door slowly creaked open. He hoped to see the mysterious brown-haired girl in front of him but instead before h
im stood a man in his late forties, with slicked-back greying hair, dressed as if he was ready for a fashionable party in Paris.
“Good afternoon, Sir. May I help you?” His voice was slightly shrill.
“I…” Melbourne felt his heart pound. “I am looking for someone who might live here. A girl, with brown hair.”
“You must be mistaken, sir. No girls of that kind live here.”
“Then I’m sorry to ask but, who does live here?”
“This is the home of Madame Priscille de Libremont, Countess of the village of Libremont and its surrounding. And she does not enjoy unsolicited guests. May I kindly ask you to leave.” He began to shut the door behind him.
“Hold on!” Melbourne jammed a foot against the door. “May I speak to Madame de Libremont? It’s important.”
“Sir, perhaps you did not hear, so I will repeat. She does not like unsolicited guests. I don’t know who you are but seeing the look on your face, I would guess you mean trouble and we do not want trouble here. We have seen enough of that. Now, please leave.”
Melbourne took out the letter from his pocket. “I received this letter from someone. Could this be Madame de Libremont’s handwriting?”
“Sir, I will not ask you again!” The man tried to push the door closed.
“Listen, I need to know. All I am asking — ”
“Don’t ask you fool! If you do not leave immediately I will have to — ”
“What is going on, Michel? Who is at the door?”
The voice came from inside the castle, just behind where the butler stood. It belonged to a woman.
“There is a hard-headed young man asking for a brown-haired girl and waving a letter he says is from you, madam. I am telling him to leave but he does not seem to understand.”
“Let him in,” the woman said.
Michel let out a sigh and opened the door wide, gesturing his guest to enter.
Melbourne stepped in and found himself in a large entrance hall. The walls were covered in medieval tapestries depicting hunting scenes and everyday life that would not have been out of place in the British Museum. But the real marvel was the floor, completely covered with the finest white marble he had ever seen. A large, wide stone staircase, covered with a long red carpet lay in front of him. The woman whose voice he’d heard stood on the third step from the ground.
She was old, with grey hair and wrinkled skin, but Melbourne could see that she must have been beautiful in her heyday. Despite her age, she was tall and lean, and stood gracefully erect, giving her a sense of nobility that one might expect from her title. Her long hair was tied in an intricate knot behind her head, and the long, velvet dress she wore draped beautifully to the floor.
“Young man,” she said in a strong voice. “Why are you here?”
How much should he tell her? He’d gotten lucky telling his story to one stranger. But he couldn’t press his luck. “I’m looking for a girl, a brown-haired girl.”
“There are no brown-haired girls living in this palace. There hasn’t been one in twenty years.”
“I have a letter stating that I might be able to find… something important here.”
Countess de Libremont extended her hand.
He warily walked to the stone staircase and handed her the letter.
Her expression made it clear that he had, in fact, come to the right place.
“How… how did you get your hands on this letter?” she asked.
“It was sent to me,” he said.
She looked up at him and fixed her steely blue eyes on his face.
“Sent to you?” she asked. “Addressed to you?”
“Why, yes.” Melbourne felt as surprised as she was.
“Could it be? Melbourne?” His eyes widened. How could she know his name?
“Melbourne Summers?” she asked once more. Her voice trembled.
He nodded in astonishment.
She quickly stepped down from the staircase and gave him a tight hug. “Oh, Melbourne, I can’t believe it’s you!”
“Do… do I know you?” he asked.
She detached herself from him and looked at him with a large smile. “No, of course not. But come, come with me. We have so much to tell each other!”
XXX
Melbourne followed the Countess up the wide, majestic marble stairs onto the first floor. He heard chatter coming from a nearby room, as if hundreds of strange voices were all speaking in high pitched tones at the same time.
A sudden shadow passed close to his head, and he ducked. It was a bird, a small brown finch. It circled the room near the ceiling before settling on a nearby table. It looked at Melbourne, tilting its head sideways and chirping gaily.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” the Countess said. “He is always happy when a guest arrives.”
Melbourne was already starting to feel like he had entered a fairyland. And then she opened the door and ushered Melbourne inside. The room was once a large study and he instantly discovered the source of the chatter he had heard. It belonged to dozens upon dozens of birds – everything from canaries, finches, and magpies, even a pair of blue herons. Many he had never seen before. Some flew about freely, perching on chairs, tables, library shelves, and any other object that was in the room. Others were to be found in spacious cages, either hanging from hooks in the wall or resting on the floor.
The study itself was fairly well kept despite the avian confusion that surrounded it. Shelves lined with antique books filled the walls, and the overflow books were piled up on tables and other pieces of furniture found around the room. He recognised the largest of these tables as an eighteenth-century desk placed in front of tall window overlooking the lonely fountain outside.
“Please, take a seat,” she said. “Michel was just making some tea. I’ll go and bring some up for us.”
Melbourne stepped carefully across the carpet, avoiding fresh souvenirs of the largest birds and sat on a low, regal sofa in the centre of the room. A small table lay in front of him with stacks of books. He looked at their spines – historical treaties, works on botany, on art and architecture, French novels, and books on poetry. A chirping sound distracted him and he saw a little red canary staring at him from the armrest next to him.
The Countess walked back into the room and clapped her hands. “Oh, my dear. You look so much like your brother.”
Michel walked in with a tray of tea and laid it on the table where there was space.
“I knew you would be able to crack the code.” She poured some tea in a cup and handed it to him. “Actually, I was certain of it! But I certainly wasn’t expecting for you to actually be here.”
“I’m sorry but I… I don’t seem to understand. Who are you? And what is this place?”
Michel was dismissed. She poured herself a cup and took a seat next to Melbourne. “I am guessing that you are missing few details from the whole story.”
“Actually, I should say more pieces are missing than present. How did you know my brother?”
“Perhaps it’s best if I start from the beginning.” She sipped her tea, ignoring a finch perched on her shoulder. “Almost two months ago, a young man came to me here in the village asking for my help. He refused to tell me his name or from where he came, so I was not prone to trust him. He told me that he that he had met Albert, a young man living in the village, through a friend of his in the Resistance. I thought this stranger was a German, but he swore on his life that he was not and that he was here to help us all. Albert later confirmed that this was all true, but even so I told the stranger that if I were to help him then he would have to reveal his true identity to me. He told me his name was Henry Arthur and that he was a British spy.”
She took another, larger sip from her cup. The tea had cooled down a bit.
“I was quite shocked to hear that,” she said. “He spoke of something called the Iron Shadow. He had been following its trail, which started in England and had brought him all the way here to Libremont. Now, don’t ask me what
it was because he himself had little idea. But he believed that a fundamental clue to revealing its true identity was to be found within this very village.”
How could something so important have anything to do with this remote cluster of houses.
“I can see your surprise,” she said, “and quite frankly, I was surprised too that my little Libremont could hold such a secret. You see Melbourne, while I was shocked to find a spy at my doorstep I myself am not completely innocent when it comes to espionage. I run a train watching ring within this village. Your brother was quite interested in the ring, in what they were watching. He would come here often, in the afternoons, and visit me. That is how I got to know him so well, and such a lovely gentleman! He would keep me company as we would talk for hours. All of a sudden, my loneliness seemed to have disappeared. Your tea is getting cold.”
He looked down at the forgotten cup on his lap and took a sip. “So it was you who sent me the letter? You were my fake aunt?”
She laughed. “Yes. When I read the news of…” She sighed and shook her head. “When I heard the news that they had found him, that he had died… oh dear… I couldn’t just sit here. After all the conversations, the laughter, and confessions, I could not let it be. He died for something, Melbourne, and it could not be allowed to die with him. That is when I decided to send you the letter, and the poem.”
“He talked about me?”
“Oh, yes, yes he did. He talked very highly of you, of his little brother. When I heard the news, I decided you were the only I could trust to continue the search for this Iron Shadow.”
She smiled a sad smile and drank another sip of tea.
“How… how did you know I was going to crack the code? I certainly didn’t.”
“Oh, if there were anyone who would know Henry Arthur the best, well, then that would be you. I was expecting that you would crack it, and then someone would be sent to me, one of your spies. I surely did not expect to find you at my doorstep.”
“Neither did I,” he said.
“You are a brave man, just like your brother was. I’m sure he would be proud of you right now.”
The Iron Shadow Page 16
