The Florian Signet

by John Burke

  For Dominic’s benefit, I said: ‘He’s warning us it may not be easy tomorrow.’

  ‘So we mustn’t drink ourselves into a stupor at the wedding breakfast?’

  ‘You have seen our ceremonial so far,’ said the priest. ‘Would the two of you wish to take further part in it?’

  I did not at first follow his meaning. ‘We are allowed to attend the actual wedding, are we not?’

  ‘I am asking if you wish a blessing on yourselves and on your union.’

  ‘You’re not offering to marry us?’ It burst out of me in English. Hurriedly I resumed in German. ‘It is not possible to marry at such short notice. Not legally, that is.’

  ‘My rites may not be officially approved by your authorities in England, but they are valid in the eyes of God. If the marriage is real to you in your hearts, it will be real to Him.’

  ‘Just a minute, now,’ said Dominic. ‘What’s this about marriage?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You must tell him,’ said Father Stefan. ‘I think he will wish to hear. In fact,’ he added with a dry little chuckle, ‘I think it important you accept this blessing, for I doubt that he will wait until you are home in England!’

  So I told Dominic.

  He put his head back so that the tall plume bent and shook in the morning air, and laughed for joy. ‘Oh, yes, my dearest. And another formal marriage when we get back to our own country, for the sake of the dry little men who must balance their books? Yes, I think I can endure two ceremonies.’ He put his arm about my shoulders and I thought he would lift me off my feet. ‘You said we should wait until we were home, and safe, and could see each other in the ordinary everyday light.’ He looked around at the bright faces and bright costumes of a group hesitating by the church door, at sunlight on the clinging snow, and at my skirt and blouse and sleeves and my face. ‘I think I prefer it here, among these good people.’

  We turned to Father Stefan and there was no further need of words between us.

  So, guided through the ceremony by the delighted Viera and her stolid, ruddy-cheeked young man at the same time as their own marriage was sanctified, Dominic and I were wed in that little church above Svetlik.

  Afterwards we all crowded once more into the bride’s home, which she would so soon be leaving.

  She still wore her wedding veil, falling in a fine mesh from its floral crown. She sat away from her new husband, beside her mother; and the chief bridesmaid took my hand and led me to a stool on the mother’s left. Viera lifted her veil a moment to smile across at me. Close to her foot was a crock of wine, from which she poured only for her mother.

  Then the bridegrooms were put to the test, to prove themselves worthy of their brides. A loaf of dark bread was set before Viera’s husband, and he was given a wooden knife with which to cut it. Symbolically he pushed it aside and took out his own sharp knife to slice through the bread.

  Everyone turned to Dominic. He, too, was offered the wooden knife; and rejected it. From his hip he took a clasp knife which I had seen so many times before, so far from here. He had had it since he was a boy, whittling sticks beside the river and, later, snipping open a sack of corn or a roll of plans at the boat-yard.

  The blade drove straight and smooth into the bread.

  The girls chattered; looked at Dominic; looked covertly and enviously at me.

  A length of knotted wood was brought and laid on the stones of the hearth. Viera’s husband was given an axe, and chopped it in two after two mighty strikes. Dominic took one of the halves, steadied it with his foot, bent over to seek the grain and the knots, and cleft it with one stroke.

  The girls shrieked with delight.

  Now it was the turn of Viera and myself. A piece of crockery was smashed on the floor. She swept it up meticulously to prove that she would be a capable housewife. I imitated her, and in the background Dominic made an approving noise which was taken up by the other men and turned into an impromptu song.

  The feast began.

  There was fowl and there were baked meats and roasted meats, and a pungent cheese, and a raw, biting plum spirit and great crocks of wine. There was no room for anyone to sit down, other than Viera and her mother, who stayed in the middle of the jubilant crowd: I remained with them for only a few minutes before Dominic drew me up close to him, keeping his arm firmly about my waist. We sang songs whose meaning we could not grasp, and raised our glasses in innumerable toasts.

  On impulse I said loudly: ‘To Count Florian.’

  The cheerful hubbub died down. There was a chink of glasses, and then the intonation of what must have been some ancient patriotic slogan. Someone began to sing – a dirge, after all the uproarious wedding songs. Then the tempo quickened again, and soon the place rocked with the vigour of it.

  Dominic said: ‘I think your mind is more on Florian’s release than on our wedding.’

  ‘That’s not so! But I’d sooner he were here than in that terrible place.’

  ‘We’ll bring him out. Never fear.’

  The singing was hushed once more. We all gathered round the bride and her mother. An empty crock had been set before them, and a large cake with a wide hole through it was balanced on top.

  The chief bridesmaid began to hector the guests. In a sing-song tone she chanted old proverbs, following them up with a gesture towards the cake. Men and women began to throw presents through the hole in the centre. We heard gifts of money thump and clink to the bottom of the crock. Each item was sent on its way with a proverb or a snatch of song.

  Father Stefan came between Dominic and me.

  ‘They will want to offer you some token, also.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘They must not. They are doing enough already. Tell them . . . tell them they have given us more than we need – that we shall carry their love with us.’

  The cake, a bit battered where gifts had hit it on the way through, was removed to a trestle in the corner. The crock was lifted by the bridesmaid and a male helper, and tipped into the bride’s lap.

  The bridesmaid spoke to her. Then she turned towards Dominic and myself.

  Father Stefan said something quietly, and there was a soft murmur about the room, quickly stilled. The bridesmaid repeated what she had said to Viera; and Father Stefan turned to us.

  ‘They wish that you may have a son or daughter within the year.’

  Now the bride’s lavish head-dress was removed and set to one side. Her mother stood behind her and fitted over her head a plain bonnet, such as the older married women in the room wore.

  The day wore on, until at last the husband and wife were borne away on a litter by their friends, to the bridegroom’s house at the other end of the street.

  Father Stefan put one hand on my shoulder, the other on Dominic’s.

  ‘You will spend your wedding night here, in the house from which the girl has gone.’

  ‘We could not.’

  Like all my other protests, it was overruled. ‘It will make the place less empty for the mother. And she will be happy for your happiness under her roof tonight.’

  Alone with Dominic, I felt a moment of shyness and even of mistrust – a sweet yet sour uncertainty. It had all come upon us so swiftly, so recklessly.

  He said: ‘I do not come to you as I’d have wished to come.’

  ‘I made no stipulations,’ I said. ‘It’s not a contract for barges or fodder, with qualifying clauses or . . . or . . .’

  ‘Would you think it strange if I said I welcomed the news of Caroline’s earlier marriage?’

  ‘Everything seems strange. Will it ever be ordinary again?’

  ‘What I said to Florian was true, though not perhaps true in the way he would have wished it. Caroline was never a wife to me. Not as I had thought of a wife – as I now see my wife.’ He ran a finger along my chin, coaxing it upwards, and laughed without reserve for the first time in oh, so long. ‘Will you permit me to think of her as a mistress, a youthful folly? You wouldn’t think much the less of me i
f I’d been known in Wisbech as a young rake, sowing wild oats with a few flighty girls before settling down. A folly – by heavens, that’s all it was. Though not a pleasurable folly, such as some men have.’

  ‘It’s ended,’ I said.

  ‘Will it ever be ended? You’re sure you will not find, when you sit thinking to yourself –’

  ‘You must stop me thinking to myself. Give me things to occupy me, to keep me too busy for such nonsense. Give me . . .’

  He reverently took from me the rich costume of my wedding, and we put it to one side; and in the cold little room set aside for us he took my breath away, and gave himself to me, and gave me what I had imagined in my vague fancies and now found to be richer and truer than anything I could have dreamed. Once he paused, and as our breath mingled and I whimpered things to him which I had not known I knew, he said, ‘I’m too greedy,’ and to prove my own greed I drew him closer again, and cried out.

  And if the whole village lay awake and laughed at the sound, I did not care: I laughed with them.

  *

  In the morning, again arrayed in our finery, we set off in procession to the castle. The snow was packed hard underfoot, but still the sun shone, and we made no secret of our progress but sang as we went, until there was only one last, steep slope between us and the gate of Kirchschlag.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In spite of all our objections, a number of the girls of the village insisted on coming with us in their gayest costume, to add conviction to the procession; and their young men would then not be left behind.

  Radek said bluntly: ‘We are Count Florian’s folk here. If we are made to suffer for it, it will not be the first time. Some die, some hide, some come out into the open after long concealment, and still they may die. It is the story of our nation.’

  Remembering that the funeral rites for Michael could only just have been concluded, our singers lowered their voices and hummed only a plaintive little tune in that odd, shifting pattern of minor and major to which I was becoming accustomed.

  We reached the gateway. A man in a long greatcoat and heavy boots, his face dour between the ear-muffs of a serge cap, stepped forward, making no attempt to conceal the rifle he was carrying.

  Radek began a jovial, rambling explanation of our presence, and two of the younger men edged closer. It was so boisterous that the guard found himself backing away into the corner behind the gatepost.

  Father Stefan appeared from the direction of the castle church, walking gravely between Jan and Countess Lomnica.

  The three stopped. Jan’s gaze challenged the throng spilling in through his gates.

  Two of the girls danced in front of me, waving wreaths of artificial flowers to cover my face.

  Father Stefan raised a reproving hand. Jan made a move to stride forward, snapping something at the guard and obviously preparing to have us driven from his premises. But the Countess Lomnica, raising her black veil, looked at us – and between the bouquets stared straight into my eyes. I saw her catch the priest’s arm for support; then she said something urgently to Jan, waved him back, moved towards us with a sad smile.

  He stood his ground.

  She placed herself in front of us.

  ‘From sadness to the joy of new love,’ she said: ‘from death to rebirth . . .’

  She could manage no more, but stood aside and waved us on, into the courtyard.

  Still I thought Jan would refuse admission. But when one of the more resplendent young men strode towards him and went down on one knee with a wealth of exaggerated gesture, telling him the purpose of our visit, we saw that Father Stefan had been right: he was flattered. As a sop to Countess Lomnica’s feelings he might have dismissed the revellers; but he was in no funereal mood himself – bustling with nervous energy, and in a mood to be treated as the traditional lord of Kirchschlag before turning his savage attentions to Count Florian.

  Snapping his fingers, he brought the young man to his feet, and led the way into that sumptuous entrance hall of the castle.

  With head demurely lowered, I walked once more into Kirchschlag.

  Dominic, beside me, tried to keep close to the tallest young man in the group, averting his face so that Jan would not see it too directly.

  If the tradition had been maintained unbroken, and Jan had played his part regularly, I fancied that he would have taken advantage of the great staircase. It would have suited his vanity to stand at the top and toss largesse over the marble balustrade, before coming down in stately fashion to inspect the young bride.

  We were all assembled now. Countess Lomnica ordered one of the servants to close the door behind us. Jan positioned himself on the third step of the staircase.

  He said: ‘I welcome you to Kirchschlag. And which of you’ – he took a graceful step down again – ‘is the bride?’

  Two of the young men moved to the fringe of the group. One placed himself near the door through which the one-armed messenger had come on my first day here; the other, a few feet away from Countess Lomnica and the servant who stood deferentially beside her.

  ‘You must not be shy,’ Jan laughed. ‘Whichever of you it may be, step forward and let me see you.’

  I walked towards him with my head down. Then I looked up, full into his face.

  His self-satisfied condescension shattered, like a film of sparkling ice splintering into the darkness of a lake as branches smashed through it.

  ‘What impertinence is this?’

  At the same moment there was a shout from a corner of the hall. A burly man coming in from a side room pointed at Radek. Without hesitation the smith flung himself at the newcomer, skidding along the floor until the two of them met and thudded back against the wall.

  The man by Countess Lomnica was suddenly down on his knees, a young man twisting his arm behind his back.

  ‘You scum!’ shouted Jan. ‘And you . . . you . . .!’ He came raging at me, his hands reaching for my throat. ‘You dare . . .!’

  Dominic was between us. I felt the shudder of his body as he jabbed forward at Jan. And when he stood aside, Jan was staggering back, to be brought down by the lowest step of the staircase into his ankle. Before Dominic could pounce on him he had groped his way up three or four steps, lurched to his feet, and begun to race to the top, shouting orders to unseen servants.

  Two came out of the door under the stairs, straight into the fists of the waiting young men.

  Dominic was on his way up the stairs two at a time, clearing the last four in one bound. He caught Jan by the arm and swung him against the wall.

  Radek had left his opponent unconscious. He and I went up to join Dominic. Jan writhed, struck out, and spat a curse.

  Dominic said: ‘Where’s Florian?’

  ‘You fools. Do you think you will get away from here – from this country?’

  ‘Florian. Where is he?’

  ‘And the rest of you.’ Jan tried to drag himself to the balustrade. ‘I shall remember you, each of you, every face. And you will regret the day you dared –’

  Dominic flung him back against the wall and drove the breath from his body.

  ‘Where’s Florian?’ he insisted.

  Gasping, Jan shook his head.

  ‘You’ll tell us.’

  ‘I tell you nothing. And by the time your rabble have searched the castle it will be too late. My men will deal with Florian: he will never again be let loose on this land.’

  I leaned over the balustrade and spoke slowly, in agony because of the slowness but knowing every word must be understood. ‘Go to the church. Make sure nobody gets into the passage behind the castle pew. And two of you, down to the cellar – through that gallery – to guard the passage there.’

  Propped back against the wall, Jan got his breath back and smiled past Dominic at me with what could have been an affectionate, reminiscent smile but for its steely corners.

  ‘So that’s how you escaped.’

  ‘You’re no longer in any position to play the inquisitor
,’ I said.

  ‘Leonora, I remarked before what an excellent ally you would be. But conquest seems to be the only way to deal with you.’

  He tried to tug free. Dominic held him fast.

  I said: ‘There’s probably a key at his belt, or in one of his pockets. Find it, and I’ll show you where Florian is.’

  Dominic nodded to Radek. The blacksmith took his place and clamped great hands on Jan’s arms until Dominic had found the key.

  Jan was marched between the two men to the door of that bleak, barred room which I recalled too well.

  The key grated in the lock.

  When the door opened, Florian was rising from his chair as if to hurl himself at anyone who entered. Then he stared at us incredulously.

  Dominic and Radek forced Jan in. I closed the door behind us.

  ‘This will do you no good.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  Jan was thrust on to a chair. Florian stood wonderingly above his old adversary.

  Jan said: ‘You will never escape, any of you. Even if you succeeded in destroying me here, this very minute, there will be others to take my place. You will be hunted down. There will never be a safe burrow for any one of you.’

  Dominic relaxed his hold and moved away to stand by the table. Jan made an attempt to get up, but Radek had no intention of letting go.

  ‘You continue to work wonders, Miss Talbot,’ said Florian.

  Dominic folded his arms and faced Jan. Very quietly and steadily, like a prosecuting counsel methodically covering every tiniest detail of a criminal indictment, he told him everything we knew – Countess Lomnica, Florian, Dominic, and myself. And what the English police had learned, and what remained to be known.

  He finished, and Jan looked pleased with himself rather than dismayed by the accusations.

  Then Dominic said: ‘Why did you kill Caroline?’

  ‘A nonsensical idea. I know where it came from, of course. Leonora put it in your mouth. I had no idea she still cared enough to save you from the gallows.’

  Florian took a step towards Jan. Radek held Jan steady, seeming to welcome the prospect of his captive being pinned down and beaten.