At some point she fell into a half-sleep, completely exhausted, part of her senses still focused on her surroundings. Time passed, she didn’t know how much, but when she felt someone sitting by her bed, she was in a strange state that allowed her to think about it and still not startle up.
Yes, there was someone, she felt the person next to her and almost believed it could be Amon who had returned after all and was now watching her sleep. As she shifted restlessly, trying to open her eyes and see his face, the nocturnal visitor gently placed his hand on her arm. Lilli came to rest. Amon was with her and therefore she sank into a real sleep, relieved, in which nothing but dreams took their place.
The next morning, she felt strange when she got up. The sun shone through the windows into the room and dust particles danced in the air. Lilli stood in the room, staring at what she saw. Her mind tried to sort and grasp what was wrong here, but she couldn’t, while the light continued to play with the dust unperturbed, making the embedded stones sparkle in the silver of the chalice that stood on the floor in the middle of the room.
How long she stared at the vessel in which the poisoned wine had been, she did not know. Finally, barefoot, she walked closer, bent down, picked up the goblet and put it back in its place on the table.
“I have never had a meal in the king’s study.” Aunty Jahne leaned back. “These seat cushions are soft as clouds. Fabulous!” She bit into the apple tart she was holding. “Delicious! Good thing you persuaded Amon not to let these apples go to waste like all those years before.”
Lilli nodded, lost in thought. She was pleased about Auntie Jahne’s visit, which she had unexpectedly reimbursed her for that morning; it distracted her, and in general she had neglected the old lady lately, enamoured as she had been.
“He’ll be back, child.”
“I know.” Lilli took a sip of her herbal infusion of chamomile flowers and honey. Her eyes wandered briefly to the silver goblet. It was still standing exactly where she had put it.
“I am very relieved that you have returned, Lilli. I was afraid your temper was getting in the way too much.” Aunty Jahne looked at her and at that moment her eyes seemed fantastically clear, radiant, like those of a young woman.
“I remembered what you said. But I would probably have come back the same way. I knew somehow all along that I was stupid. Never again will I act so rashly.”
“Yes, you will.” Aunty Jahne grinned at her. “But there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Lilli shook her head slightly but had to smile. And she squinted again at the silver goblet.
“Is something wrong?” asked Jahne.
“No.”
“Oh, Lilli.” She looked at her again, with her eyes now so amazingly clear. “Who are you going to tell if not me?”
“Who do you think put the doctor up to poisoning Amon?” asked Lilli abruptly.
“Hmm.” Aunty Jahne put some honey in her cup and then peered into it, as if she could find the answer in the jar. “Maybe we need to think about who had the opportunity in the first place.”
“Basically, anyone who can enter this room. All the servants, maids and every one of us, plus the guards. Do you think he didn’t put the poison in the chalice himself at all, but someone from the servants worked with him? Then that person would still be near us. And as soon as Amon returns, in his too.”
“We really should be careful,” Jahne said. “Only if it were someone from the kitchen, we’d be at his mercy unless we cooked ourselves.” She giggled. “Poison is so perfidious. You can poison anything these days, even clothes can be soaked in poison.”
Those words made Lilli feel a little sick and she wished she had asked Amon to take her after all. She hadn’t even thought of the fact that you could even poison clothes and maybe doorknobs, bedding, and whatnot. This unknown enemy had to be found if they ever wanted to live quietly in Grauemfall again.
She would have Berard hand her this remedy, which he had also given Amon, so that she would have something with her in case of emergency. Better than nothing.
“And what about the spell, have you been able to find out anything about it?” Jahne asked.
“No. Amon and I scoured the library and retrieved books from the city but found nothing about it. It’s inexplicable. The thing about the other man, too.”
“What man?” Jahne straightened in his chair.
“I saw another man in the mirror. At least that’s how he appeared to me. I looked in the mirror with Amon and that’s when I saw him. It was Amon’s face, with more scars, but then again it wasn’t. He had different eyes, bluer and more piercing than his grey ones. And he seemed to be looking at me. He frightened me. I’ve never looked in the mirror with Amon since.”
“You saw Jheron! Good gracious, child! You saw Amon’s brother in the mirror!”
“What?” Lilli blinked. “Then surely Amon should have recognised him!” As she spoke, she realised she was talking nonsense. Amon saw himself in the mirror, of course, nothing else. Aunty Jahne seemed to have had that very thought at the same moment.
“For some reason Jheron only shows himself to you, dear. Perhaps when you look at Amon, you see part of his intact face and that is why it seems to you that he has fewer scars. Maybe Jheron isn’t completely gone at all but connected to Amon in some way.”
Lilli felt a little dizzy. The idea that the spirit of Amon’s lunatic brother was inside him gave her the creeps. What if this Jheron was capable of possessing Amon’s mind or influencing him in some way?
“Jahne ... I just had a thought that sounds a bit crazy really, but I have to say it anyway. And I can only talk to you about it. What if it’s true and Jheron is in Amon’s body or mind? Jheron tried to kill Amon, but Amon killed him. Isn’t it possible that’s what he’s still trying to do? That he wants revenge?”
“It could be possible. Go on.”
“I was just thinking, well ...” Lilli looked at the door, which was locked, yet she lowered her voice. “... it could be that the spirit of Jheron made Sewoldt do what he did. Amon may even have put that poison in his goblet himself, under Jheron’s influence. Think how the days went here before I was there. Amon did his sword fighting in the morning and afternoon he went to do government business at his desk. No one watched him permanently, he was alone with himself, his thoughts, for hours. And in the afternoon, it usually happened that he suddenly felt bad. Do you know if anyone regularly visited this room at that time to bring Amon something or the like? Did they bring him drinks or food every afternoon?”
“Not that I know of. It was always said that the king must not be disturbed.” Jahne put a finger to his lips. For a while they pondered in silence what could be true about this theory, and as they did so Lilli was already thinking with dread of the coming night when she would be alone in Amon’s bed with a vengeful ghost in her room. Had Jheron then influenced the man who had attacked her? Had he gone into his body to do that? She really had to look that up in the books, maybe there was something about it in one of those works on magic and supernatural phenomena.
“Don’t worry, little one. Jheron must have travelled with Amon. I can hardly imagine he stayed here.” Jahne laid a wrinkled hand on her arm.
“How do you always know what I’m thinking right now?” Lilli questioned. “Oh no, then Amon is in danger! Isn’t he? Maybe he’ll make him ride into a precipice!” She jumped up and went to the window, opened it wide and sucked in the fresh air, in which the misty dampness of the Grauemfall always seemed to hang.
“I don’t know about that, Lilli. But one thing is certain: your job is to look after yourself. You can’t possibly catch up with Amon now to warn him. Besides, we don’t know if what we think is true. Maybe there is a ghost, maybe there isn’t. Maybe you just thought Amon’s eyes were blue and it was something about the light. No one can say for sure. You shouldn’t get so attached to one version of the possible that you overlook other things.”
Jahne’s words calmed her a little and L
illi was cross thankful that she didn’t have to struggle with this problem here alone. Constance did not seem to her to be the appropriate person for meetings of this kind, as it was getting to her too much. She decided to keep Amon’s sister out of it wherever necessary. She could not come to her now with the story of Jheron’s mad spirit without risking Constance’s final breakdown. No, she had to go through this alone.
“Lilli, dear, please don’t worry too much. You have to look after yourself now for Amon, as I said, that’s the most important thing. Take care of yourself, do something nice.”
“I can’t,” Lilli said. “We can’t just wait it out. We have to do something.”
Lilli spent the afternoon in the library, looking for a clue, for reports about ghosts who couldn’t find peace, about evil spirits and how to get rid of them. In between, she took a little walk in the garden to clear her head and then went to Berard to get a bottle with the poison emergency drops. The guards followed her everywhere, even into the library. That was Amon’s order. That was fine with Lilli, because the library seemed to get more and more eerie as the light faded, and in the end, she decided to take a stack of books into Amon’s study. This was thoroughly searched by the guards, as they now did every time before they left Lilli alone in it. Amon had ordered that, too. Lilli put the books down on the table and dropped into an armchair. There was hardly anything useful in the books, so she couldn’t get any further. By now she wasn’t even sure if she was on the right track. Today, when she had roamed through the garden and picked up some of the apples, it had all seemed unreal to her. In fact, it was Auntie Jahne who had given her the idea that the reflection could be some kind of ghostly apparition. But Jahne could be just as wrong. The only thing that was certain was that nothing was certain. And if Lilli expected a ghost, she quickly became blind to a most vivid culprit ... she shivered and was startled when she saw that the window was open. With two steps she was there and closed it. Then she called in two guards who checked every corner of the room again, but there was no one there.
Of course, there wasn’t.
Lilli thanked the men and sent them out. Then she was alone again and very briefly she actually considered staying up through the night and then sleeping during the day. Maybe she could manage to read all night. The idea of lying alone in the dark behind the curtain was too much for her. Lilli took a blanket from the bed and fled back to the seating area where an oil light burned on the low table. Then she wrapped herself in the blanket and reached for a book from Amon’s shelf behind her. She was going to read harmless fairy tales and would not touch the ghost books again until tomorrow at the earliest.
Half asleep, she felt her leg tingle. Lilli turned, found another position in the armchair, and felt relief as the uncomfortable tingling subsided. Her blanket had slipped down a little and she was freezing on her shoulders and back, but somehow, she couldn’t manage to wake up and cover herself properly again. She only guessed that there was darkness around her from behind closed lids. Lilli drifted off into what could have been a dream. Hands reached for her blanket, pulled it higher, and warmth enveloped her. It was Amon who was taking care of her. Amon was back. Lilli felt him sitting next to her in an armchair, watching her. His hand was on her arm.
She felt as if she had been run over by a cart as she stretched in the armchair. The oil light had gone out, the sun was shining through the window. She had made it through the night, even though she harboured confusing memories. Again, she had dreamt that Amon was with her and it had seemed as real to her as only longing dreams can make you believe.
She would ask Sophia to prepare a bath for her so that she could relax in the hot water.
Lilli pushed the blanket aside and wanted to slide out of the armchair, but she pulled back with a gasp.
On the small table in front of her was the silver goblet, very close to her, as if someone had tried to serve her a drink. Lilli jolted up, but her leg had gone numb, and she fell down. Awareness flashed through her as if someone had given her a sharp blow. With a sob, she crawled forward a few metres, then struggled to her feet and rushed to the door. She unlocked it and stumbled down the corridor, her hair dishevelled, with befuddled guards in tow.
When Lilli stood in front of Aunty Jahne’s door, she felt as if she were running from a wolf to reach a tree she could climb. She banged on the closed door, her hand trembled, it must have hurt from the blows too, but Lilli felt nothing.
The door opened and Lilli rushed into the room, past Jahne.
“Lilli, what happened?” Jahne closed the door and immediately Lilli felt better, which was ridiculous given a ghost that was chasing her and could certainly walk-through walls.
“He’s trying to kill me!” Lilli exclaimed, slapping her hands in front of her face.
“Who?”
“Jheron!”
“Dear. You need to calm down. Sit down here.”
Auntie Jahne led her to the small group of seats beneath the window, where she handed Lilli hot herbal infusion in a mug and put a blanket – presumably home-knitted – around her shoulders. Lilli actually relaxed. It seemed to her as if Jheron could not penetrate these chambers, as if he and Auntie Jahne were equal opponents ... she did not know.
Auntie Jahne asked her to relate the events to her and Lilli told her everything. Even the dream that Amon sat next to her and protected her all night.
“If it’s true that Jheron and Amon are in one body, then maybe they can both come out and contact me somehow,” Lilli said. Aunty Jahne just looked at her, not interrupting, so she continued. “Jheron put his father’s silver goblet in front of me, which he tried to poison Amon with. Now he shows me that I am next!” Her hand shook so that she almost spilled her drink.
“We have to think about what to do now,” Jahne said so calmly that this tranquillity carried over to Lilli to some extent. She was grateful for that. “I see what you mean, but something is still wrong with all of this. We’re missing something, I’ve had that feeling all along.”
“What are we missing?” Lilli inquired.
“I just don’t know. But there is something. Why would Jheron play with you? Why doesn’t he just do it when he can do it while Amon is away?”
“Maybe because he enjoys it, his revenge. He doesn’t want to do it until his brother comes back, in front of him, so he’ll torture himself even more.” Lilli wiped her face. “Jahne, you and I should pack our things and travel to Aurenbrunn to see my father. We might be safe there.”
“No. No, Lilli. What if that’s what Jheron wants? For you to disappear so he can have a clear run at Amon again?”
“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know what exactly he wants. And why he doesn’t just do it!” Lilli ran her fingers through her hair. “Either he just wants to torment us or ...”
“... Or he can’t. Something is missing for him to do it. That’s why he’s just threatening us.”
Lilli nodded. There was something to that. “If he wants revenge, then maybe killing Amon isn’t enough for him. He makes him drink these small amounts of poison all the time, he influences the doctor to put the poison in the chalice. Amon suffers and suffers; the doctor tells him he must die. Jheron, who has lost his life through Amon, makes his brother go through agony. He does not end this by Amon’s death, that would be a redemption for Amon. But Jheron can harm him even more by killing the people Amon cares about.”
After this consideration, Aunty Jahne fell silent and that scared Lilli more than all the scenarios that could be devised to the vengeful spirit.
“What do you say? Shall we pack up and go?” Lilli asked.
“No. I don’t think so. Consider this. If Jheron can get out of Amon’s body all the way here, then he can go anywhere. Escape wouldn’t do any good then. I once heard that ghosts bind themselves to people or places. We don’t know if that’s true. We can’t be sure if Jheron even travelled with Amon. Maybe he’s been here all this time because he’s bound to Grauemfall, his birthplace.”
“But then escape would make sense.”
“Perhaps. But only temporarily. Don’t you want to live here with Amon then? Do you want him to have to leave his own home?”
They were silent for a while and Lilli felt something change inside her, her fear turning into something else: anger.
“Certainly not. I won’t let you do that. Maybe we should let Constance in on it now.” Lilli set her cup aside and brushed the blanket off her shoulders.
“Dear, you don’t know Constance. She won’t be any help to us, believe me. Especially since we have no proof and she’ll think we’re overexcited at best and crazy at worst. And remember, Constance is not only Amon’s sister, but she is also Jheron’s. I don’t think he wants to kill his innocent sister. His revenge is for his brother alone.”
“I guess you’re right about that. Then we won’t tell her yet. But I do know one thing, and I don’t need any proof for that. I will not abandon Amon to his mad brother. That ghost has to go. And I mean before Amon comes back.”
Sophia had prepared the bath for Lilli and the hot water cleared her head, relaxed her limbs.
Afterwards she went to the library, now with a new purpose. She read all day, had only a short lunch, and when Constance stopped by and asked her if she would like to go for a walk, she declined. When Constance asked if everything was all right, she smilingly assured her that she was coping and just wanted to distract herself a little from the dull thoughts.
The Scar-Faced King Page 19
