by Tim Symonds
Our host spoke nostalgically. ‘As you see, even here in the backwater of Europe the motor-car enters our very stables. The fuel-tank replaces the corn-bin. In the last month alone I have laid off four coachmen, two grooms and seven stable-boys. In twenty years the Bulgar cavalry will be obsolete.’ He shrugged. ‘The pennants flying from their lances, steaming horses tossing their heads - the sabres glinting in the sun. Soon we shall see those splendid men crouching over the wheels of omnibuses, driving round and round grating gears.’
Unusually, the Prince had selected the least gaudy of his collection for our journey, a Lifu fourteen-seater wagonette. Steam-pressure was building up in the boiler positioned between driver and passenger. Butterfly nets and a set of killing jars jutted from the rear of the vehicle. A gardener was passing branches of an apple tree in blossom up to a servant on the roof-rack. Next came a large open trunk of provisions. The Prince’s love of intricate dishes and succulent, highly-seasoned food was evident. We were to discover in the trunk, among other delights, salmis, mousselines, potted pork of Tours, and bombes gaufrées à la pistache, thrown together with a case of Calvados 1804.
‘I am your chauffeur, my dearest guests,’ the Prince announced grandly, pulling on the driving gauntlets. ‘Our destination is the famous Red Church near the town of Perushtitsa.’ His voice dropped. ‘In fact, dear guests, I shall disclose our true destination once we are out of the city.’
At this he handed each of us a chic Panama hat for the journey.
With the Prince energetically at the controls we set off. The conveyance reflected in the window-glass of barbers, drapers and hosiers. Further on we slipped silently past larger establishments manufacturing cloth, coarse linen and canvass, propelled by the almost-silent steamer against the tide of peasants trudging in the opposite direction, some walking alongside wooden carts piled up with farm-produce for the market, drawn by long-horned oxen or black buffalo with bright greenish-blue eyes. A troop of cavalry resting in the shade of the old city walls jumped up with a rat-tat-tat of spurs to salute our driver, bayonets fixed, each man decked in a blue and silver uniform. Once through the walls our host turned half-back in his seat. ‘Gentlemen, we go north east, our destination the monastery complex of Ivanovo, in the valley of the Roussenski Lom River.’
A few minutes more and we were in deep countryside of a disturbing and formidable kind, a strong contrast to the green and fertile landscape of Sussex where Holmes planned to locate his bee-farm.
To our right, high up on a dramatic cliff, surrounded by the silent loneliness of soaring mountains, stood the solid walls of a monastery which history recounts withstood the crashing waves of Turkish soldiery. An hour or so passed. Beneath us the paving gave way to furrowed dark earth. The hiss of the engine grew shriller. We passed isolated houses built of wood, two stories high, the lower part serving for a barn. Stands of pine replaced the wild pear, cherry, and crab-apple near sites of human habitation. A feeling of isolation grew more and more oppressive, alleviated now and then by horses spattered with glittering ornaments, blue beads, bells and amulets.
‘You may shudder at the dismal wilderness around us,’ the Prince called back, catching my thoughts, ‘but it tells you Bulgarians are just like me. We would prefer to make our homes in barren mountains as free men, feeding on wild fruit and stale bread, rather than in fertile valleys crawling through life under the conqueror’s yoke. Over there’ - he pointed to a formidable mountain - ‘is the tomb of Vasil Lechkov, a Bulgar borislav, a great warrior. Lechkov went into battle with a cross in one hand, sword in the other. He hewed off fifteen heads before he fell against the Ottomans. According to the story, his men played nine-pins with them.’
Ferdinand added as an afterthought, ‘though I understand Frenchmen’s skulls make the best bowls - more rounded.’
Some miles later he spoke up again.
‘Those mountains may provoke fear but they also provoke avarice. They are packed to the brim with topazes, amethysts, crystals, jasper.’
Another pause, then, ‘You may have noted the absence of my wife. She died last year, twenty-four hours after giving birth to our fourth child.’
‘The Princess must still have been very young,’ I called forward sympathetically. ‘Not so very young. Twenty-nine. I buried her in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St Louis in Plovdiv.’
In his direct manner Holmes asked, ‘Will you also be buried there when your time comes?’
‘I plan to be buried in the Forty Martyrs Church in Turnovo, in a tomb as grand as that of my ancestor Louis XIV. Unfortunately the Coburgs don’t have a Pope in their past or I’d book a plot on Vatican Hill.’
He went on, ‘Like John of Rila, I shall take steps to embalm myself before death, consuming great quantities of Tansy and potions. People will make pilgrimages to my tomb, believing my incorruptible corpse will possess miraculous powers.’
With a rueful smile he added, ‘First, however, before my death comes the matter of marriage. Sir Penderel and others will have told you the great vixen hunt is on. My darling mother, the Princess Clementina of Orléans, never forgets she is the daughter of Louis-Philippe, King of the French. You must meet her on her return with my children from Coburg. With quite indecent haste she is preparing everything for my next marriage. She has even designed a fleur-de-lis tiara for my bride, no doubt crowned with minarets and turrets and belfries. As to my diadem, she has consecrated it at Lourdes. It will rival that of the Russian Tsar in gems and beaten gold.’
He looked back over his shoulder. ‘All that’s wanting is that bride.’
‘Why should someone so rich and powerful as you find it difficult to remarry?’ I enquired. ‘Surely it’s simply a matter of time, a respectable period of mourning after your wife’s death?’
The Prince chuckled grimly. ‘Simply a matter of time, you say, Dr. Watson? I wish it were so. You may comprehend the lack of enthusiasm a woman of standing might have for such a marriage. Think of the fate of the Empress Elisabeth two years ago, stabbed to death in Geneva by an anarchist with a four-inch needle file.’
Night was coming on rapidly. It was almost dark before we saw a sprawling complex ahead. A big half-moon hung out of the heavens. The Lifu came to a stop at the Convent of Kazalak on the slopes of the Balkan mountains where we were to spend the night. Nuns brought us cups of coffee with small plates of rose-leaf jam and glasses of water. The younger nuns vacated their cells for us.
The Prince went on a long walk. He returned looking relaxed, carrying several specimens of rare flowers snatched in the gathering dusk for his botanical gardens in Sofia. The Mother Superior, an elderly brown-faced peasant woman, invited us to lay offerings before a miracle-working ikon of the Three Persons of the Trinity before leading the way across a cobbled courtyard to our beds. The Prince ordered us to meet for breakfast at six, ready to set off on the final leg of our journey.
I slept fitfully in my cell. Strange fancies and surmises and distorted countenances crowded into my mind. We were approaching territory as remote, bare and sinister as anything I had fought in during my long years in Afghanistan, when the blood ran fast. Memories of desperate encounters amid rifle-blazing crags flooded back.
Chapter IX
THE STONE WEDDING
WHEN morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage beauty met our eye. On the eastern horizon, the caps of the great mountains lit up one after the other. We were soon on our way. The weather smiled and promised a fine journey. The Prince replaced cap and white plume with fresh headwear - a blue toque bordered with white astrakhan fur. We left the cloister in the bright early-morning light, passing old grey churches and convents. Valleys divided and sub-divided into many gorges, impossible to distinguish one from the other. Low-built whitewashed cottages sat in lonely rolling plains guarded by fierce, shaggy dogs.
Three hours went by. The silence inside the vehicle became op
pressive. Holmes’s characteristic disinclination to engage in small talk put the burden on me. I leaned forward experimentally.
‘I understand we are in a region known for the frequency of earthquakes?’
I had struck a good subject.
‘Certainly we are,’ the Prince exclaimed. ‘And I tell you, Dr. Watson, I adore earthquakes!’
‘Well, sir, you are the first person I’ve met who adores earthquakes,’ I replied. ‘It must be an acquired taste.’
‘I assure you, I adore them. The Earth gapes open, belching out scorching hot breath. Whole valleys like the one we are now in disappear. Once when I was over there’ - he pointed towards the Eastern Rhodopes - ‘we had an earthquake every day for a week. You hear them coming. First a faraway whistling sound, then the thud of great boulders crumbling and sliding down with incredible speed, pushed by a gigantic hand. All living things, even the trees, trembled - except me.’
Another hour or so passed, mainly in silence. The sun grew warm and high in a brilliant blue sky. After the frugal breakfast on offer at the convent my thoughts turned to the extensive larder accompanying us on the roof.
‘There!’ the Prince exclaimed suddenly, pointing ahead. He brought the vehicle to a halt. ‘Kamenna Svatba - the Stone Wedding. That is where we shall take lunch.’
The Prince re-engaged the clutch and we moved slowly forward, yawing on the badly-rutted track like the storm-driven cross-Channel ferry.
‘Forty million years ago all this was at the bottom of a warm, shallow sea,’ our host continued. ‘Our famous volcanic activity created these rocks. Legend has it a young couple asked to be married here. According to folk-custom no one was permitted to see the bride’s face. A strong wind came up and blew the veil aside and everyone saw her face. She was so beautiful even the groom’s father desired her. As a punishment all the humans present were turned into those white stones.’
As he uttered ‘white stones’ the quiet was shattered by an immense explosion scarcely thirty paces ahead. Boulders and vegetation rose high into the sky. Shattered pieces of rock crashed down on the wagonette’s roof. Angry voices yelled out from behind the rocky outcrop. The shouts were accompanied by a volley of reddish-yellow revolver flashes.
Shouting for Holmes to accompany me I fell out of the Lifu and crawled behind the sturdy vehicle, tugging at my revolver. Even before the debris ceased falling our host pulled out a silver-inlaid palm pistol. Displaying a reckless lack of concern for his own safety, he launched himself at the source of the shots, firing repeatedly.
The firing stopped. Two men jumped out from their hiding-place and sped away at a crouch, covering the boulder-ridden ground with remarkable speed. With a gesture of the deepest contempt, Ferdinand directed a torrent of words at them.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ I called out from behind the Lifu, standing up cautiously, ‘that was as brave a - ’
He cut me short with an airy wave.
‘One gets used to these things.’ He waved his empty pistol. ‘Un des risques du métier.’
He pointed at the lunch-boxes. ‘Now the cowards have fled, we can get down to more serious business.’
‘What was it they shouted at us?’ I asked.
He replied, tersely, ‘Tirani zai tooka ste luidi grabot ne Ferdinand!’
I gave him a quizzical look.
‘Macedonian. It means, “Tyrant! Know that here will be the grave of Ferdinand!”.’
I asked, ‘And your reply?’
‘I shouted, “Assassin scum, lackeys of the spineless Tsar of Russia, run for your lives”.’
‘What made them flee from such a vantage point?’ I asked. ‘They could have picked us off one by one.’
‘I also shouted, “I have here Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. If you do not flee at once, with unerring aim Dr. Watson will let fly with his Adams .450 Mark III, the very pistol he used to such good effect in The Hound of the Baskervilles”.’
Ferdinand stretched out his hand. ‘By the way, do you recognise this?’ he asked, showing the small pistol.
‘A Philadelphia Baby Derringer,’ I replied. ‘Rather old-fashioned but still deadly close-to.’
‘Not just any Derringer,’ came the reply. ‘The very one which John Wilkes Booth used in his assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14th, 1865.’
He clasped the pistol by the barrel and handed it to me. ‘I shall be forever honoured if you might accept this as a small token of my high regard, as a souvenir of the danger we encountered here to-day.’
I looked round for my comrade-in-arms. Through all the commotion he had remained resolutely in his seat.
***
When he had chewed the last of the ortolans, the Prince sat back against the bride-and-groom pillar. It became clear he was in expansive mood.
‘Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, I emphasise, a very great deal relies on your success in retrieving the Codex. Either the Balkans will set fire to the four corners of Europe or there will be tranquillity among our peoples,’ he opined. ‘If the latter - ’ He paused and threw us a most encouraging look, repeating, ‘If the latter, I shall turn the Marquess of Salisbury’s sword stick into a pruning-hook as commanded in Isaiah 2-4. There will be a great Peace banquet for the players - oeufs à la turque, fillet de sole à la greque, faisan bulgare au blanc, pâtisserie Serbe, crême cardinal Monténégre, and - ’ he gave a smile, ‘finally a serving of Holmes-and-Watson Sponge with crème anglaise de paix. For that day I shall invite you to return to Sofia. Until then,’ he added, with a further, more uneasy smile, ‘pray for me.’
Chapter X
THE MYSTERIOUS RETURN OF THE CODEX
WE were now on the last leg of the journey to the setting of the crime. Through each tiny habitation, children ran alongside the steamer throwing capacious handfuls of sweet-smelling pink rose petals. If we stopped within the confines of a village - even for an instant - out popped the Mayor pressing small glass flagons of attar on us and rose-leaf jam to eat.
Once we left the Valley of Roses, the attar was replaced with bouquets of rare local flowers. In one village, our host was offered a cockerel which had grown a pair of horns. Eager for such curiosities, the Prince paid handsomely and had it loaded on the vehicle’s roof.
The track now ran through the increasingly narrow valley cut by a river my Baedeker showed as the Rilska, made turbulent by numberless springs rising in the surrounding beech and pine. In the distance we made out a troop of wood-cutters beginning their business of cutting down the trees. The trees would be sorted into logs for the salt-mines or cut up for fuel, or to be converted into charcoal for the smelting and forging of iron. At the Reichenbach Falls, had Holmes died amongst those grim rocks rather than the fiendish criminal ex-Professor Moriarty alone, the world would have called upon the wood-cutters of Meiringen to bring him back for burial, let down by ropes to a great depth from the lofty overhanging and perpendicular rocks.
Ahead of us lay a landscape sodden with recent rain. Recklessly, the Prince ran the great vehicle onward, the front tyres throwing up ever-higher walls of muddy water, the steering wheel twisting wildly in his hands. Abruptly we slewed to one side and came to a dead stop. The Prince’s efforts to drive us out of the mud by excessive use of the accelerator completed our misfortune. We were bogged down beyond the capacity of the Lifu to pull itself out. I stood by the wagonette’s side looking anxiously ahead. The broken cliffs and beetling crags were worrisomely reminiscent of the time I was lost for a week with a half-section of infantry.
With the sun at its zenith I would normally have made use of the fine Panama presented by our host - certainly such fine headgear would complement my tropical suit - but I discovered on discreet enquiry that Panamas were among our client’s favourite hats. I had placed mine under the seat, not wishing to mislead any sharp-shooter. We were well with
in shot of a Henri Martini.
The Prince gave up any attempt to drive out from the mire. He launched himself from the driver’s seat and went over to a man in peasant garb quietly observing our misfortune from a short distance. Given orders and a gold coin by the Prince he hastened off. After some twenty minutes of awkward silence, a fiacre splashed towards us, drawn by long-tailed chestnuts two-abreast. The Prince gesticulated impatiently from the chestnuts to the depth of mud and water. Further orders were given. We engaged in another fifteen minutes of intermittent conversation before two white oxen hove into view; their forelocks dyed a bright orange to ward off evil. With a few heaves of their huge shoulders, the Lifu steamer was hauled on to drier land. We took our seats. The journey recommenced.
The limestone cliffs jutting up from tangled forest began to tower over us, every cranny and shoulder clearly visible through the telescope. If assassins lurked up there, we would be ground-bait. I was stirred as if I had been transported back half a lifetime to my Afghan days. As in other rocky deserts, there was no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing but silence. Holmes too stared ahead, shading his eyes.
The vehicle could approach our destination no further. Our host stepped from the Lifu. He pulled down the three apple-tree branches from the roof-rack and handed one to each of us, holding on to the third. With this he waved us forward.
