His thoughts turned to Maria. The way she had looked at him tonight had raised his hopes and warmed his loins. She was beautiful, mysterious, fragile and yet, in the blink of an eye, he had seen the predator that lurked beneath that delicate surface. It hadn’t scared him but it had changed his perception of her. Would he have to carry on the bloodline with Maria?
The thought pleased him and yet that pleasure was tinged with the fear that perhaps he must marry her, live with her. As an object of desire, she was perfect, but as a prospective wife she was far too volatile. Was he being too British about this? Did they even marry in Transylvania? Certainly the Count hadn’t mentioned a wife.
The knock on the door was so soft that at first it didn’t register. He turned round just as Maria snuck into the room. No words were spoken and all his doubts and worries fell from him as his ardour rose. He went to her.
* * *
He woke early. Maria had gone. She hadn’t answered any of his questions and he hadn’t pressed. He had enjoyed both the sex and the afterglow, and she had shown a softer, more feminine side that was as reassuring as it was pleasing.
He got up and went to the bathroom. The water was cold, and it woke him and his stomach up. After getting dressed, he went to open the door but it was locked. He tried again but it was no use. It stayed locked and he was trapped.
What the hell was going on? He went back and sat on his bed to think this through. Why had they locked his door, to what end?
To keep him in, obviously.
He went over to his bag and checked that his weapons were still there. To his immense relief, they were so, sitting back down on the bed, he pondered his next move.
The door clicked sharply and swung open with a loud creak. The man who had let them in the night before stood silent and staring in the doorway, holding a tray. Smith stood up as he walked in. He appeared older in the daylight and his pale, sickly complexion was covered in red blotches of dry, raw skin. His eyes were ringed dark and the hair that had looked carefully swept back in his photo was lank and greasy. It fell back off his forehead and dangled onto his stained and scuffed shirt collar. He looked in his faded and worn uniform the personification of the degradation and decay of the rooms below.
"Do you speak English?” Smith asked. The man nodded and went to the night-stand to put the tray down. He turned to go but Smith stood in his way.
"Why was the door locked last night? Am I a prisoner?”
The man, who by now Smith had realised was a butler of sorts, just shook his head and pointed to the tray.
"Am I free to leave the room or are you going to lock it again?” he asked.
For the first time the butler spoke. He had a deep, rich voice that seemed at odds with his appearance. "You are free to leave your room if you wish, but the master asks that you stay inside the grounds and wait until tonight for more answers.”
With that he turned and left, leaving the door open behind him. Smith went over to the tray and uncovered the food. Bread, fried eggs, a sausage of some sort and bacon. It looked good so he ate it before leaving the room, determined to explore.
Chapter 10
Daylight made everything seem a lot cleaner and more normal. Perhaps he had just imagined the filth the night before. He couldn’t really say. Although there was a layer of dust over everything it didn’t look as bad as he remembered it. He walked slowly down the hall, looking at the portraits and the statues that decorated the building. He tried to identify a likeness to himself in the pictures but it was to no avail.
Deciding to try the rooms, he opened the door next to the library and discovered a large sitting room. It was dusty and stale. Empty candleholders stood in frozen pools of wax and the musty aroma of damp furniture besieged his senses. As he entered he was immediately struck by a large picture that hung above the fireplace. It looked like him, or his brother. Walking closer, he realised that it wasn’t him as the man in the picture had dark hair. He should have known but something held his attention to the likeness. It was the eyes. The eyes glared at him in anger, the rage and violence palpable and all too real for Smiths liking.
"That was your father, James.” It was Maria. "A great and fierce ruler who looked always to the future but never forgot the past.”
He turned and wanted to go to her but, somehow, it all seemed different. Whatever chemistry they’d had the night before was spent and inert. She seemed unaware of his unease and walked up to the portrait. She caressed the canvass and turned to Smith.
"You are his son. You are also the son of Utu. Do you understand what that means?” she challenged.
"Of course I don’t, I didn’t know I had a bloody family until yesterday. I don’t even know the family name or if I was given a name before I was sent away.”
He walked over to one of the windows and took in the scene stained into it. It was a knight, turning his back to hide his face from the sun. On his chest the Cross of Lorraine, the cross of the Eastern Orthodox Church which vaguely reassured him. It was good to know that his ancestors had Christian connections, especially after all he’d heard about his own family recently. At the knight’s feet lay slaughtered men. Smith presumed they were his enemies. Their bodies were decapitated, with the heads stuck on poles on the horizon behind him. The colour red was predominant and Smith vaguely wondered what gruesome story lay behind the display.
"Is that one of my forefathers?” he asked.
"Yes. His name was Szaran. His is the second name in the Cronica Insangerata and he, together with his lover, started the bloodline. He was a mighty warrior king who defied the Gods, so the story goes, and started a war for love. I’m sure the Master, your brother, will tell you all about your family tonight”. She smiled at him for the first time that morning and his heart skipped a beat.
"Why don’t you tell me?" he flirted.
"I cannot, it’s not my place, I’m sorry I spoke in such a manner to you,” she backtracked quickly. "All will be revealed tonight, I promise.”
Smith looked through the pane of glass and saw a path running off to the west of the building.
"Where does that go? " he turned to Maria and pointed out of the window.
She didn’t need to look to where he was pointing and answered him straightaway. "It leads to a … ” She paused as if contemplating how to answer him. "It leads to a village.”
"What village? I didn’t notice any village when we came last night.”
"We travelled the main road that leads up to the house and comes from the south. You wouldn’t have been able to see it," she answered. "The castle is very big. Would you like me to show you around?”
"What’s in the village?” he asked.
"People, soldiers, children and women. It’s just a village, come … " she held out her hand, gracing him with another smile, "let me show you around. There’s such a lot to see. ".
"What sort of soldiers? Romanian soldiers?”
"The Count's soldiers. Your soldiers. This all belongs to your family. You and your brother. Come with me and I’ll show you the grounds.”
She seemed playful and charmingly girlish, and Smith wondered at the differing personalities he’d witnessed in Maria. She was a leader, a servant, a siren and now she played the girl. He wanted to abandon himself to her charms but the inconsistencies within her character disturbed him.
She led him out to the hall and up the staircase, the whole time chatting and throwing in little titbits of information about one member of the family or another. The castle seemed to be a large hollow square made up of four long wings. Each wing was three storeys high and had numerous stained glass windows that gave it a distinctly church-like appearance. In the middle was a large court and Maria proudly told him that that was where they used to carry out executions.
"Anybody who broke the law was taken to the Square to be dealt with by the Master." She looked at him and continued by way of explanation, "The Count. They flogged, burned, hanged and strangled, all down there.”
&n
bsp; "Burnt, burnt alive on the stake?”
She nodded and Smith didn’t know what to say. His sense of affinity to the family he had just acquired was now replaced by unease and a distant notion of fear. He looked to Maria as if to seek reassurance. "When was the last person burnt down there?”
"1914” she answered readily.
"But that was thirty years ago. That couldn’t have been my brother," he started and then trailed off.
Maria spoke his realisation. "No, it was your father.”
Smith had known the answer before Maria spoke and yet still he was speechless. His father, a man he had never met and yet a man who had left his mark on his soul. The whole circumstance of his return had taken a darker turn, Smith needed answers and he wanted them now.
"Where’s the Count?” He couldn’t bring himself to say 'my brother'. "I’ve got to know what is going on.”
"The Master is away. You will see him later.” Maria stalled, "Please, James, calm down. You will learn everything later, I promise.”
Smith was almost beside himself but slowly managed to control his unease. He needed to get out,
"Take me to the village, Maria. I need to see other people and breathe clean air.”
Maria looked at him as if weighing things up and nodded her assent.
A fresh wind whipped through the hall as they opened the main door to go out. Smith squinted against its frozen assault and pulled his collar up tight.
A voice from behind stopped them. "The Master said he should stay within the grounds.” They both turned. It was the butler.
"We’re going to the village. If the Count wants to see me, he can come and get me," Smith replied and marched out into the snow.
Maria followed him, pleading, "Come back, James. I didn’t know you had to stay here.”
"What is this?" he retorted. "Am I a prisoner? I’ll go where I damn well please. You can come with me or you can stay here. It’s your decision."
He turned again and walked to the path that led to the village.
Chapter 11
She followed him in silence. The path led down a hill and through the woods. There were no forks or turn offs and, after a short three minute march, Smith found himself on the edge of a ring of thatched cottages. No dogs barked and no soul challenged him.
The village was deserted.
"Where is everyone?" he asked.
"It’s daytime. They must be working,” Maria replied.
"Working where? I didn't see any fields or anything when I dropped in. The children and mothers too?” he asked.
Maria just shrugged, uninterested. "I suppose so, yes,” she said, ignoring the first question.
Against all instinct, he walked into the middle of the ring and looked around. All the doors and shutters were closed. No bird made a sound and the silence was suffocating and thick. He looked to Maria to gauge her reaction. There was none. She simply watched him in the frank, detached way a child studies ants burning under a magnifying glass.
He turned around slowly. From the middle of the square he studied each and every building. White plastered walls, thatched roof and heavy wooden doors and shutters. Ten identical picture-book cottages smack in the middle of nowhere. The uniformity and spacing of the settlement gave the impression that all the houses had been built at the same time.
In the middle of the ring stood a large tree. Smith was no botanist but he knew it was an oak. It was wide at the base and its branches reached up to caress the clouds. The leafless boughs enhanced the impression of its great age and majesty. It seemed out of proportion to the surrounding woodland and Smith gazed in awe at it.
"The oldest and tallest tree in the forest,” Maria answered his unspoken question.
"It’s an oak tree, isn’t it?" Smith queried. "What’s an oak tree doing in the middle of a forest of conifers? Is that normal?”
"I don’t know, I didn’t plant it," Maria replied, bored. She had stayed at the edge of the ring.
"You’re probably going to tell me that the tree is where they hang the revolutionaries, aren’t you?” Smith half joked.
"No," she answered, deadpan, "but there is a quaint old story about it being planted by some knight or other to ward off evil spirits.”
"Or evil lords, like my father?”
Ignoring the question, she walked off, "Come, let’s go back, there’s nothing here for you.”
He watched her walk away from him. She was right. What was his problem? He was acting like a nervous school girl, skittish and petulant. This wasn’t him, this wasn’t the Jim Smith he knew. The Jim Smith he knew was sensible, self-contained, stoic and, above all, brave. What had gotten into him?
He walked to the tree and placed a hand on its knotted and twisted bark. Nothing, he felt nothing. He hadn’t really expected anything but was still bizarrely disappointed. He turned to go and a gust of wind stirred through the trees. Through the tops of the branches he caught a glimpse of a long slated roof.
"What’s that?" he called to Maria’s retreating back, "Over there, through the trees.”
Maria stopped and turned to face him, "James, I promise you all will be revealed when we get back.”
He waited for her to say more. At first she resisted and then, "It’s the barracks. The Master’s soldiers are stationed there. Can we go back now, please. I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
Smith relented and followed her silently up the slope to the castle.
From behind a tree, silent eyes had watched their every move. Michael, with the practised stealth of a panther, had tracked them from the castle. He stayed a while until they were gone and followed them back
* * *
Smith was shown the rest of the castle and sat down to a light meal. After the food he disappeared to his room to rest a while before the Count showed up.
Maria saw him to the door and went down to the crypt. Only Maria, Marik the manservant and the Count were the holders of the key to the underground part of the building. She opened the heavy wooden door and descended into the blackness.
Only here, in the Count’s damp kingdom, did she feel at ease. The dark was her friend and ally, and Maria knew every nook and cranny of these ancient catacombs. The manor above had changed over the years through fire, age and the hand of man, but these dark, arcane passages had stayed true to the original design.
She walked briskly to the centre. It was a large crypt with no ornate decoration and no elaborate stonework. In the middle lay a large, plain, stone sarcophagus.
He was waiting. She could sense his displeasure and she felt automatically afraid.
"Against my wishes, you let him go out!" he roared. She fell to her knees and trembled, her fear instantaneous.
"I couldn’t stop him, Master," she breathed. "He wanted to go out. What was I to do? He is your brother and … " She trailed off.
He didn’t answer her and slowly she looked up to him.
"Yes, you are right," he sighed. "What did he want to see, the buildings or the barracks?”
"I told him it’s a village, Master.”
"And what did he say when he saw they were all resting, anything at all?”
"I told him they were all out working in the fields." She stood up and walked to him. He held out his hand.
"Good, my sweet. Good. I will decide what to tell him later. For him to know too much too soon would be most unwise. I will, though, have to tell him about the Germans. When do they arrive?”
"Tomorrow, Master, they arrive tomorrow. Tonight they arrive by train in Cluj. They will stay there the night and march here to us tomorrow.”
"Klausenburg, Maria. Klausenburg is the German name for Cluj. We want to seem friendly and pro-German, so do please make the effort and use the German names. What they have for us could bring about a new era for our kind. We just have to pander to their pathetic ideals to reap the rewards of their naivety.”
He smiled down at her. "Our time will soon come and we will build our empire on the folly of their ill-fa
ted endeavours. You will regain all your power, I will have my heir and they will do all the running. Mankind … " he laughed to himself, "like panicked cattle in a slaughterhouse, rushing headlong to their own demise." He closed his eyes in satisfaction.
Maria waited before asking, "When do you want to see him, Master?”
"I will send for him when I am ready. Marik will let you know.”
With that Maria knew that the audience was over. She turned away from him and left the way she had come. Her face cracked into a grimace of hatred, giving vent to the anger that broiled her insides every time she had to speak with him.
"Your time will come, worm,” she silently swore to herself. "I need you now, but soon I will be strong again and then you will pay for your arrogance.”
Chapter 12
Cluj Train Station
The train came in on time, much to Rasch’s pleasure.
"You can see that good German efficiency has rubbed off on our Romanian allies," he gushed with pride and smiled. "Soon the whole of Europe will benefit from our diligence and culture.”
Rohleder looked to Muschinski and, smirking, answered Rasch. "Jawohl, Herr Doctor, the Romanians can count their lucky stars that they picked the right side to fight for.”
"That’s the spirit, Rottenführer." Rasch positively beamed.
They formed up outside the station and moved off.
"Where to, Herr Standartenführer?" Henning asked.
"Either the first hotel we see or straight to the Castle. What do you think?”
"Straight to the first hotel, I would say,” butted in Rasch.
Von Struck gave Henning a knowing look. "Tell the men to prepare themselves for a night march. By my reckoning, it’s only about twenty miles away and the snow isn’t falling, so we should make good time.”
"Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!" Henning clicked his heels and turned to the men. "Come on then, boys, sort yourselves out. We’re off on a stroll through the Carpathian winter wonderland.”
The Division of the Damned Page 5
