Quint began to pat the pockets of his grubby corduroy jacket. ‘As if we ain’t got enough in the way of troubles,’ he muttered in disgust, ‘I’m short of baccy.’
‘Never mind that now,’ Adam said. ‘We have more pressing concerns than your tobacco, or lack of it.’
His servant, looking unconvinced that more pressing concerns than his desire for a smoke could exist, levered himself onto the jetty as Adam tugged briefly at the rope to ensure that the rowing boat was safely moored. The two men set off on a narrow path that led inland.
Thanks to the well-informed Etherege, Adam knew that the island was no more than three quarters of a mile long and a third of a mile wide. The emperor’s Lustschloss was at its south-western corner, looking towards Potsdam. They had rowed across at what was very nearly the narrowest point between the mainland and Pfaueninsel, and could not be far from the Schloss. It had to be somewhere to their left.
Adam beckoned to Quint and turned in that direction. Almost as soon as he did, he noticed the house through the trees: it was little more than a hundred yards away. The building was designed more to be seen from the water than approached inland, but Adam could make out the white stonework shining in the light from the half-moon. The Schloss was a scaled-down version of the kind of fairytale castle he remembered from illustrations in the books of his childhood. Elaborate crenellations decorated the top of a square keep. Two circular towers rose from the corners facing the river.
Adam and his servant stopped beneath the wall of the Schloss.
‘’Ow we aimin’ to get in?’ Quint asked in a low voice, squinting up at the tower on the left. ‘Some dollymop goin’ to let down ’er ’air?’
Adam laughed quietly. ‘I would not have put you down as a reader of the Brothers Grimm, Quint.’
‘I don’t know anything about any Brothers Grimm. I seen a picture outside a place in the Mile End Road, ain’t I?’ the older man said belligerently, as if his master might be prepared to argue he had not. ‘Christmas before last. Tower just like this ’un and a cove in red tights swarmin’ up this judy’s ’air like a monkey up a stick.’
‘I doubt there is any young woman in the castle tonight, Quint. And the story of Rapunzel reminds me rather too much of our admittance to the Greek monastery last year.’ Adam shuddered briefly as he remembered the way the monks of Meteora had hauled him, like a fish in a net, up the cliff on which they lived, whilst an unknown marksman had peppered the rockface around him with bullets. ‘Anyway, unlike Rapunzel’s tower, this one has a means of entrance.’ He pointed to the white stone wall.
Half-hidden behind a thickly proliferating bush was a wooden door. The young man approached it and tried the handle. To his surprise, it turned and the door opened. He looked at Quint and raised an eyebrow.
‘Mebbe they’re expecting us,’ the manservant muttered.
‘I hardly think so,’ Adam said in an undertone. ‘Ravelstein may even believe we have returned to London. Etherege tells me he has tried to circulate that story.’ He pushed the door further open and peered cautiously into the building. The door opened into a dark passage, and he could see very little. He withdrew his head and turned to his servant. ‘You will remain here, Quint, while I see where this door leads,’ Adam whispered. ‘Keep a weather eye open for Ravelstein’s men. If any of them approach, you must let me know.’
‘’Ow in ’ell am I s’posed to do that?’ Quint hissed back.
‘Don’t make difficulties, man. Yell loudly. If I hear an eldritch shriek pierce the night, I shall know it is you.’
Not waiting to hear any further complaints Quint might have, Adam entered the building. The darkness seemed complete at first but, as his eyes grew adjusted to what dim light there was, he began to make out his surroundings. A staircase spiralled upwards to his left, leading, he presumed, to the top of the tower. He could see no reason to climb it. He was no knight errant in search of an imprisoned damosel. To his right, a short corridor led further into the building. Cautiously, he began to make his way down it. On one wall hung a large painting of slaughtered game birds, piled high and dripping with blood, which the artist had realized with painstaking attention to detail; against the other stood a full suit of polished armour, like a frozen medieval warrior standing guard. Both walls were further decorated with the spoils of the chase. Adam noticed a boar’s head that jutted out into the corridor as if the beast had charged through the wall and somehow become lodged there. Its dead eyes stared glassily at him as he passed.
Adam had walked no more than a few yards when he froze: from behind him came the click of boots on stone. Somebody was descending the staircase from the tower. He quickly wondered if he had time to retrace his steps and leave by the door he had entered, but decided he had not. His only option was to shrink back into the shadows and hope that he would avoid detection. But it did not seem very likely that whoever was approaching would miss him, and his discovery there, a trespasser in the emperor’s Lustschloss, would be dangerous for him. He doubted he would be able to persuade Ravelstein that he was an innocent visitor.
Adam watched the light from a lamp grow stronger as the man carrying it came down the stairs. He could now hear the voices of two men in conversation. One, he was certain, was Ravelstein. The other he could not identify. They were speaking in German, in low tones, and Adam, whose knowledge of the language was not much better than elementary, could not understand most of what they were saying. Something about ‘Der Engländer’ – Harry Vernon, he assumed. And what did the word ‘lügner’ mean? It was repeated several times. ‘Liar’, was it?
Adam stretched out his hands behind him, expecting to touch only the wall of the passage but, to his surprise and relief, he felt a doorknob. The two Germans had now reached the bottom of the spiral staircase. They could not help but see him at any moment. He turned the doorknob and the door opened noiselessly. He had no time to enter the room fully but he was able to draw further back into its shadows as the Germans passed.
Intent on their conversation, Ravelstein and his companion clearly had no suspicion that anyone else was nearby. Still speaking in swift words, they moved along the corridor and through another door at its end.
Adam could feel sweat dripping uncomfortably down his neck and forehead. He waited until he was breathing easily once again, then turned and peered into the room behind him. It was little more than an oversized cupboard, filled with the equipment used to keep the armour polished and the animal heads free of moth for the emperor’s infrequent visits.
Nerving himself once more, Adam left the small room, softly closing the door behind him, and walked gingerly along the corridor to the door through which Ravelstein and the other man had just passed. He put his ear to the wood and listened. There were definitely people in the room beyond. He could hear their conversation.
Suddenly, the floorboard beneath his foot made the slightest of creaks. Adam froze in position. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but there was no change in the sounds coming from the inner room: he could still hear the low hum of voices. They had not heard him. He listened for a minute. There were at least two, probably three, different speakers, he decided. Adam cursed his ignorance of the language. Words were difficult to distinguish and those few that he could make out he could not translate. From the tone of the different voices, he guessed that there was a fairly heated debate going on. One man – he assumed it was Ravelstein – appeared to be laying down the law. Another was speaking occasionally.
Suddenly there came the sounds of what could only be a scuffle from within the room. There was shouting, and the noise of something crashing to the floor. A chair? A table? Adam could not be sure. More shouting followed. ‘Tragt ihn zum Turm!’ The voice was undoubtedly Ravelstein’s, raised in anger and coming closer to the door. Now Adam understood what was being said: they were going back to the tower. He had just
enough time to retreat down the corridor and enter the tiny room he had found earlier.
Adam pulled the door almost closed and placed his eye to the thin crack that was left. After a moment, a small procession moved past his narrow viewpoint. At its head was Ravelstein. His chin was held high and he was scratching his beard. After him came two burly men in black. They were frogmarching another man between them. Adam recognized him immediately.
It was Harry Vernon. He had slumped in the hands of his captors and looked exceedingly miserable. There were marks on his cheeks and upper lip which suggested that he had been struck. The men passed quickly out of sight, and Adam risked opening the door a little further so that he could continue to observe them. They had reached the spiral staircase and now began to climb it, Ravelstein still in the lead. Vernon was being pushed after him by the other two men. The young man briefly wondered what he should do. If he followed them, there was the danger that he would be trapped on the upper floors of the Schloss. If he did not, he might miss something of great significance. He decided to follow them.
Adam emerged cautiously from his hiding place and began to mount the spiral stairs himself. As he reached the top of them, he was faced by a heavy wooden door. The Germans, with their prisoner, had clearly used it – there was nowhere else they could have gone. To the left of the door was a small mullioned window of dark glass. Adam pressed his face to the glass and could just make out what was happening in the room beyond.
A wooden chair had been placed in the centre of the room, and Harry Vernon was tied to it. His head had fallen forward and his chin was resting on his chest. At first, Adam thought he was unconscious but, as he watched, the other Englishman raised his head wearily. He was listening to Ravelstein, who was standing by his side. The German count was speaking rapidly and angrily. Vernon was now shaking his head from side to side, as if trying to clear it. Ravelstein gestured to one of his confederates and said something in a low voice. Vernon looked up in fear and surprise.
One of the men in black had raised a gun and was pointing it at him. There was a swift exchange in German between the count and his captive. The Englishman continued to shake his head. Ravelstein turned to his confederate. ‘Bringe ihn um,’ he said.
There were two shots and Adam almost cried out in shock. He moved back from the window. He had seen enough. It was time to leave. He was about to turn around and retreat down the stairs when, to his horror, Adam felt something prod the small of his back.
Another of Ravelstein’s men had climbed the stairs unheard and was now behind him. ‘Herein,’ the man said, ‘schnell.’
Adam had no option but to obey. With what he could only assume was a gun pressed to his spine, he was obliged to open the heavy door and enter the room at the top of the tower.
The men in the room, all but one, looked in his direction. The one who had shot Harry Vernon raised his gun, but Ravelstein, who seemed unperturbed by Adam’s appearance, gestured to him and he lowered it again. Vernon’s body, still bound to the chair, was now lying on the floor. Either the impact of the bullets had propelled it there or it had been pushed. Blood was pumping from Vernon’s chest.
‘Er war draussen,’ the man behind Adam said to Ravelstein.
‘Ah, the young English gentleman from Frau Kestelmann’s.’ The count smiled amiably, as if the two of them had just been reintroduced at another social gathering. ‘I thought that perhaps you were not quite the innocent traveller that you claimed to be. And, despite what George Etherege wished me to believe, I was certain that you had not left Berlin.’
Adam could still feel the gun pressed to his back. Ravelstein nodded to one of his associates, who stepped forward and punched Adam in the solar plexus. The young man doubled up and fell to the floor, writhing and gasping.
‘What is that excellent English proverb I have heard?’ Ravelstein continued to speak as if they were exchanging pleasantries at a dinner party. ‘Ah, yes. “Curiosity killed the cat.” We have a similar saying in our own language. “Neugierige Katzen verbrennen sich die Tatzen.” Curious cats burn their paws.’ He bent down to look into Adam’s face, which was still contorted with pain from his henchman’s blow. ‘You have been far too curious a cat, Mr Carver.’ Ravelstein motioned to his men, who hauled Adam from the floor. ‘And now we must decide how to punish your curiosity. Shall we just burn your paws? Or shall we be obliged to kill you?’
He spoke as if this were a genuine philosophical problem which he was debating with himself.
‘Poor Mr Vernon here, he has had an accident.’ Ravelstein was inspecting his fingernails as if trying to decide whether or not they required trimming. ‘It is so dangerous to handle a gun when you are not used to weaponry. Are you used to weaponry, Mr Carver? You do not look like an expert with the pistol.’ The count gestured to the man who had escorted Adam into the room. ‘Otto here, he is an expert with the pistol.’
‘Soll ich ihn abmurksen?’ Otto enquired. His eyes had been darting between Ravelstein and Adam, but it was clear that he had not understood what his master had been saying.
‘Nein, nein. Noch nicht.’
‘Etherege knows I have come here.’ Adam, still gasping for air, had pulled himself to his haunches. Now he stood up, warily eyeing Otto and his gun. ‘You will not be able to avoid a scandal if you kill me.’
Ravelstein laughed. He sounded genuinely amused. ‘Ach, Mr Carver,’ he said, ‘you would be surprised by the scandals I have already avoided. Another would be no matter.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Left to his own devices outside the castle, Quint soon grew bored. He looked up at the tower. He could see lights at several of its windows. One of the lights was moving and clearly came from a lantern which someone in the building was carrying. Quint watched as it threw the shadows of two men onto the wall of a room within. He strained his eyes to make out more, but could not, and the shadows passed out of sight.
He walked away from the tower and approached the water of the Havel which had, at this point on its journey towards its conjunction with the Elbe many miles away, opened out into what was, in effect, a lake. The half-moon shone an uncertain light onto the water’s surface and Quint could see the dark shapes of trees lining the distant banks. He was no great admirer of nature and soon tired of the view. He wondered if he could risk a smoke. Turning back towards the white towers of the Lustschloss, he fumbled in his pocket for the little tobacco he had left and the clay pipe he always carried.
Returning to his sentry duty near the door through which his master had passed, he leaned against the cool stone of the castle. He had begun to push the baccy into the bowl of the pipe and was anticipating its rich savour when an arm shot out of the darkness and seized his throat.
‘Was machen Sie hier?’ a harsh voice hissed.
Pinned to the wall by a large and powerful hand, Quint was unable to make more than choking noises.
‘Sie sollen nicht auf der Insel sein.’
A face pressed close to Quint’s and the Englishman could smell beer and wurst. He wriggled in his captor’s grasp.
‘Wo kommen Sie her?’
The German, realizing perhaps that it was futile to ask questions when his prisoner was physically incapable of answering, released his grip very slightly. Quint spluttered and coughed and then took the opportunity to drive his right knee hard into the man’s crotch. With a howl of distress the man doubled up and Quint used his fist to strike him ferociously on the back of the neck. The German slumped to the grass, out cold.
A rifle, which he had been carrying on a strap over his shoulder, fell with him, and Quint picked it up. He felt his throat where the man had seized him. It was tender and he coughed again, still struggling slightly for breath. He took the strap off the rifle and used it to bind together his victim’s hands, then he tore a strip from the man’s shirt and tied it around his mo
uth as a makeshift gag. With his foot, he rolled the unconscious man onto his back and then into the bushes.
The German looked as if he might be out for some time, but, Quint reasoned, there were almost certainly more of his comrades in the vicinity. It was time for departure. He could not, however, go without his master.
‘I reckon it’s time we cut and run, guv,’ he muttered to himself as he opened the door through which Adam had passed some twenty minutes earlier and entered the Lustschloss.
* * * * *
In the room at the top of the tower, Adam was being interrogated by Ravelstein. The count was not a kindly questioner. Whenever he was dissatisfied with an answer, he nodded to his associates and one of them punched the young man. Battered by half a dozen blows, Adam was struggling to stay on his feet and think about what he could do.
‘The plans, Mr Carver,’ Ravelstein said now, repeating words he had already used several times. ‘Where are the plans?’
‘What plans? I do not know what you mean.’
‘I think you do.’ Ravelstein gestured again to the man called Otto, who struck Adam across the face with a blow that was half-punch and half-slap. ‘Why would you come here if you were not in league with Vernon? You have seen what happened to him. Answer my question.’
Before Adam could make any attempt to do so, the door was flung open and a man burst into the room. It was Quint, the rifle he had taken from the guard at the foot of the tower levelled to shoot. Otto swung round to face him and Quint fired the weapon. The German screamed, dropped his gun and fell to the floor. He clutched convulsively at his thigh, which was now spurting blood. Quint was yelling like a madman in English. The other two Germans held their hands in the air.
Adam, bruised though he was by his beating, was swift to seize his chance. He moved to his servant’s side and the two of them backed out of the room, Quint still waving the gun. Once through the door, Adam slammed it shut and they raced for the staircase. Behind them, they could hear Otto’s cries of pain and Ravelstein shouting out instructions. The Englishmen took the stairs two and three at a time as they clattered down them at speed.
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