The Golden Horns

by John Burke

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1957, 2011 by John Burke

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  Within an hour of arriving at his hotel in Copenhagen, Martin Slade was called to the telephone.

  It was in a small cupboard without windows. A dim light burned in the roof, and the walls were padded.

  He took up the receiver, and said: “Martin Slade here.”

  “Good evening. This is Henning Holtesen.” The voice was precise; the telephone gave it a metallic astringency. “So nice to know you are in Denmark again.”

  Should he have known the name? It aroused no echo in his mind.

  He said formally: “It’s nice to be here again.”

  “You will remember that we met when you were here before. I felt I must welcome you back.”

  Martin still did not remember, but muttered some suitable response. He was almost waiting for the next remark. Knowing the hospitality of this country, he was ready for the invitation when it came.

  “May we invite you out here for a drink this evening?”

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Mark, “but I’m a bit fagged after the journey.”

  “Of course, of course. Then may I suggest tomorrow evening, for dinner? We shall have an early dinner and go on to the opening of the Ballet Festival. That is what you are here for, of course.”

  “Of course,” echoed Martin. “But—”

  “We will make sure that you arrive in good time.”

  Henning Holtesen sounded persistent, and yet was in no way unpleasantly effusive. Here was the characteristic Danish pride in hospitality, the desire to offer a welcome to the visitor even if he were but a slight acquaintance. Martin had met it before. Even as he hesitated, slightly dazed, the voice was saying:

  “May I send the car for you at six o’clock tomorrow evening?”

  “You mustn’t trouble—”

  “It is no trouble,” said the dry voice, with a quickening of pleasure.

  Martin pulled himself together, and said: “I must be frank, Mr. Holtesen. It’s very bad of me, but I can’t place you. I’m awfully sorry—”

  “Place me?” There was a pause, then: “Oh, I see. But of course. You cannot remember everyone you met here during the war, when you did so much for my country. Or”—was there a tinge of mockery now?—“after the war. I was an acquaintance of Eiler Nielsen. I believe you did some business together, and I met you at his place. You remember Eiler?”

  Yes, Martin remembered Eiler.

  He felt wary. Eiler Nielsen was part of a discarded past. Maybe this Henning Holtesen knew him casually; maybe he knew him too well.

  Martin did not want to be mixed up in anything. That sort of life was over and done with, and he never wanted to be mixed up in anything again.

  “I expect I shall remember you when I see you,” he said.

  “That means you are coming. Good! I shall be so pleased. My wife, too, is looking forward to seeing you again.”

  Not remembering the man himself. Martin certainly could not recall his wife. But it was more or less understood now that he would be going to dinner with them the following evening.

  “Until tomorrow, then,” Holtesen said finally.

  Martin put the receiver down.

  He could always back out. He had been caught unawares, with the squeal of the train still ringing in his ears.

  The journey was over now, and he was here. Tomorrow he could always telephone and plead some business engagement connected with the Festival. His editor, he would say, wanted a special feature article urgently, and this would necessitate his being elsewhere until the opening performance actually got started.

  * * * * * * *

  In point of fact he very nearly telephoned first thing in the morning. Standing on the corner of turbulent Raadhuspladsen, he found that something in the spring gaiety of the young men and women on their bicycles made him feel misanthropic.

  He stood there frowning—a tall Englishman in a stone-grey suit, his eyes slightly narrowed against the sun so that the deep lines in his face seemed to run down even more darkly than usual: an Englishman with a high forehead and dark brown hair, watching the fair-haired young men and women on their swarming, weaving bicycles...the flash of skirts and the turned heads…the tinkling of bells….

  The morning was dust and noise and heat.

  No, he thought. I won’t go to that dinner. I can’t be bothered.

  There was more to it than mere unsociability. There was something he could not explain, even to himself. He did not want to be drawn into anything in Copenhagen, He was here as a music critic for the Ballet and Music Festival, and that was going to be that.

  He thrust out his other memories. He wanted to meet no one he had known when he had worked in the Danish Resistance movement here, and certainly he wanted to meet no one with whom he had worked during those turbulent months afterwards.

  He was conscious of a strange flickering intimation of danger, such as he had felt before in this city. But now there were no Gestapo men after him. No Gestapo, and no police.

  The sensation was childish. He would not let himself give in to anything so absurd. He argued himself into deciding that he would accept Holtesen’s invitation.

  The car arrived at his hotel on the dot. Within ten minutes Martin was being set down outside a tall house overlooking a park.

  There were so many parks in Copenhagen. If he had been here before, his mind retained no picture of the place.

  His host came to meet him in the hall.

  He was an elderly man—not tall but with a slight stoop. He looked very thin and angular, and when they shook hands there was no strength in his fingers.

  Martin did not, even now, remember him, but he had seen many faces in Denmark like this: those blue eyes staring out of a lean face in which the bones seemed to lie so close to the surface, thrusting up against the taut skin. His lips looked very dry, and although there was no telephone between himself and Martin Slade now, his voice had the same metallic whisper.

  “I am glad to see you again, Mr. Slade.”

  Holtesen put a hand lightly on his arm. It was a fine, frail hand, like that of a much older and weaker man. They went towards a large door.

  As they entered the room a woman came towards them.

  “I think,” said Holtesen, “you have met my wife?” Martin stopped abruptly. Perhaps he ought to have been prepared for this. Perhaps, somehow, he should have guessed; but that twitch of unease, that premonition this morning, had not been as clear as all that.

  It was Birgitte.

  CHAPTER TWO

  There were five of them at dinner. Conversation flickered for a few moments and then began to burn steadily. They prodded cosy formalities towards the reassuring flame.

  “Such a privilege,” Birgitte was saying, “to have a celebrated music critic at our table.”

  Her eyes narrowed in a little grimace that he well remembered. Once it had been an intimate communication between them, a silly twitch of supposed affection. Now he found it distasteful.

  It was wrong that she should be capable of turning it on again so readily. The two of them had parted, and would never come together again. She had always talked a great deal about marrying some rich man and apparently she had succeeded.

  “After the adventurous life you once led,” said Henning Holtesen, “it must be a great change to write about music. After the excitement—”

  “Music is very exciting,” said Martin, “exciting enough for me, anyway.”

  He looked across the table at Eiler who smiled heartily back at him.

  Martin had never liked or trusted Eiler. Now he seemed larger and m
ore broad across the shoulders than ever. One could see him as the descendant of the old sea raiders, with his massive head and those great hands. The only resemblance between himself and his sister Birgitte was in their hair: but where his was streaked with sandy hue, hers was a rich auburn.

  And if it was surprising that Birgitte should be Eiler’s sister, it was even more surprising that the other member of the group should be his daughter.

  Inge Nielsen was, oddly, more like Henning Holtesen. She was fair and had severe, well-defined features—the living image of the cold clarity and determination of her Nordic race. She said little. She was quiet and reserved, rather like a grave, attentive child, but with the face and body of a beautiful young woman.

  From time to time Martin glanced at her. He could not account for the wry sadness in her eyes. It made him uneasy.

  There was something wrong in this house—something wrong with all these people. He was sorry he had come.

  Of course, Birgitte was behind the invitation. She must have seen his name in one of the papers where visiting journalists and musicians were mentioned, and suggested to her husband that the invitation should be issued. A typical Dane, Henning Haltesen would set great store by the hospitable formalities of his country, and would readily have fallen in with his wife’s wishes.

  It was so like her, thought Martin. He and she had parted, and it had been definitely the end…but now she was curious to see him again.

  It was nothing more than curiosity: and he didn’t want it to be. Anyway, they would not be alone together at any time.

  That was where he was wrong.

  As they were preparing to leave for the Royal Theatre, Eiler began to talk earnestly to Henning Holtesen, and the two of them moved away down a corridor towards the back of the house. Inge had gone upstairs, and Martin found himself with Birgitte.

  She said; “Will you do something for me?”

  Her voice was hushed and urgent.

  Taken by surprise, he turned to her. She was very close. The musky temptation of her perfume drifted about him, and he looked down on the creamy perfection of those shoulders on which his hands had rested so often—so long ago, it seemed.

  She laid her hand on his arm as her husband had done when Martin arrived; hut there was vitality in her slim fingers.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I can’t tell you now. We must have a talk tomorrow. Soon. I want you to take something out of the country for me.”

  He laughed mirthlessly. “Those days are over. I don’t go in for that sort of thing any more.”

  “Not on a large scale, perhaps, but—”

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “There’s nobody else I can ask.”

  The light glowed redly in her hair. Her lithe body was tense. He was aware of every taut, imploring line of it.

  “For old times’ sake?” she said. The words sounded queer; their sentimentality, touched by her faint accent, was so inappropriate.

  Martin said: “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t want any part in it.”

  “It will be worth your while.”

  “No.”

  “Martin…anything you ask. I made a mistake. I know it now. I should never have married Henning. When this…this job is done, I shall leave him. Would you like me to come to England? Would you, Martin? When you have done this for me, shall I come to you?”

  “I’m not going to do it,” said Martin coldly.

  “We must talk about it. You’ve got to listen. Martin, you must help me, and then….”

  Her voice faltered and died away. She looked past Martin and up the stairs.

  Martin turned.

  Inge was coming down. She was pale, remote, and exquisite—and still there was that disturbing, haunted look in her ice-blue eyes.

  “Are you all ready?” she asked distantly.

  She was young and enchanting, but not happy; and she should have been eager, happy and impulsive.

  Birgitte had moved away from Martin, her lips set in a petulant line.

  Curiosity plucked at his mind. What was it she wanted him to smuggle out of the country for her? She must have other friends, other contacts, who would risk taking small things out on a business or holiday trip. For her to appeal to him with such urgency meant that something big was involved.

  But it was better for him not to know.

  He did not want to know.

  “Shall we go?”

  Hollesen had returned. Eiler stood beside him, towering over him. Martin noticed the briefest flicker of a glance exchanged by Eiler and Birgitte. He saw the faint shake of Birgitte’s head.

  As they went down to the car Birgitte brushed against him.

  “You will see me tomorrow?” she whispered. “We must talk more.”

  “No,” said Mark bluntly.

  She had no further opportunities for argument.

  At the Royal Theatre they separated, Mark going to the Press seat reserved for him. During the interval he looked around, and saw the auburn glow of Birgitte’s head beside the fair purity of Inge’s.

  Although he could not see Inge’s expression, he knew what it must be like. Her face haunted him: when the curtain went up again, it came between him and the ballet dancers.

  At the end of the performance the party waited for him in the foyer.

  Lights sparkled and winked across Kongens Nytorv, and, on the top of the theatre four censers burned brightly up into the night. There was a hubbub of voices—a clash and confusion of languages. Ballet critics gesticulated with long, white hands, and slim, proud women caught the arms of broad-shouldered men and walked across to where candles glowed beneath a restaurant awning.

  Henning Holtesen said: “And now you must join us in—”

  “Please, no,” said Martin abruptly. “It is most kind of you, but I have promised to meet one or two colleagues to discuss the performance.”

  He saw Birgitte moving closer, trying to catch his attention.

  “I quite understand,” said Holtesen. He held out his hand.

  They shook hands, and Martin said; “Tak for aften.”

  “Velbekommen.”

  Birgitte’s hand closed tightly on his. Her eyes were aflame with a light as angry as the smoky flames above the theatre.

  Then Eiler, with his mouth set hard. And Inge….

  He looked into the depths of those incredible blue eves, and, for a moment thought he detected the trace of a wondering smile there. Then it was gone.

  He walked away without looking back, and did not speak to Birgitte again. Once, a week later, they nodded to one another at a reception, which Martin was attending, but that was all.

  She had, he noticed, fastened her claws on another man—a young impressionable Englishman.

  Mark knew the youngster slightly.

  He was Sean Clifford, a member of the Cockaigne Ensemble, a group of London musicians who were giving n series of recitals here during the Festival.

  They were specialists in old, unfamiliar music, which they played on the original instruments. Sometimes, the results were interesting; sometimes the noise was indescribable. But there was a rage for this sort of archaic reconstruction, and the ensemble was flourishing.

  It seemed unlikely that Birgitte was interested in the eccentric works of minor composers whose names had been almost forgotten. But young Clifford, with his shy, brown eyes and his boyishly greedy mouth, presumably had an appeal of his own to her.

  Martin was not sure whether to be glad or sorry for the young man. He knew the passion of which Birgitte was capable, and the exultation she could arouse in a man’s heart.

  But he knew also what her contempt and bitterness could be like.

  He hoped Sean Clifford would come out of it alive!

  At any rate, it was a relief. Whatever plans Birgitte might have had regarding himself, she had abandoned them now. Her time was occupied with this new, presentable young man.

  Martin did not imagine she w
ould try to enlist Clifford’s aid, in any smuggling venture: he was the wrong kind for that sort of thing. He was merely the plaything for an idle hour.

  Just as I used to be, he thought grimly: just as I would have been again if she’d had her way.

  The days passed swiftly.

  His world was filled with music. He listened to music, talked about music, and wrote about music—wrote articles, sent cables, and made notes for future use.

  There were receptions, meetings, cocktail parties, late suppers that went on for hours until there were the intimations of dawn beyond the copper spires of the city….

  And then, at last, the Festival was ended and he was on his way home.

  * * * * * * *

  The Cockaigne Ensemble was on the boat with Martin. Sean Clifford nodded to him as they cast off, and in the bar during the course of the evening he edged over and spoke.

  “Wonderful place, Copenhagen.” His face was strangely restless—almost apprehensive, thought Martin doubtfully.

  “Wonderful,” he dutifully agreed.

  “I’m surprised your editor didn’t send you by air. You rich critics….”

  Clifford was brashly aggressive. He seemed as though he could not stop talking.

  Or as though he wanted to appear at his ease, and had to stick close to someone—not one of his fellow musicians, but someone who would calm him down somehow.

  Martin said: “I don’t like travelling by air.”

  “I’m all in favour of it myself,” Clifford chattered on. “Bobbing up and down on the sea for hours, after that long train journey—and then another train journey at the other end... Liverpool Street of all depressing places…instead of taking a couple of hours for the whole trip.”

  Martin remembered the plane sinking lower over Jutland. He felt the rush of wind, the drop into silence, and the tug of the parachute opening. Danish soil rushed up to meet him…

  He said: “I like to forget about aeroplanes. I had enough of them during the war.”

  “For myself,”—there was no stopping Clifford—“I’d have been on the plane this morning if it weren’t for all the luggage we have to carry. All our instruments, you know.” He laughed unsteadily. “Lot of old scrap-iron.”