by Sarah Rayne
Tobias paused again, and then said, ‘The mansion was directly under the control of Himmler. And under Himmler worked one of the most ruthless, cruellest of all the Nazis . . .’
He stopped, and Michael said, softly, ‘Mengele.’
‘Yes.’
Michael said, abruptly, ‘This mansion . . . what is it called?’
Tobias hesitated. And then he said, in a voice so low that Michael nearly missed it:
‘CrnPrag.’
CrnPrag. The threshold of darkness. Michael had sufficient knowledge of the language to make a rough translation. And within CrnPrag’s walls had been created this oddly secret organisation that gave sanctuary to the exiled and the homeless and the wounded. To the very ones whose disappearance could not be questioned . . .
CrnPrag, allegedly the lair of Nazis. Could Tranz have been created to serve Mengele’s grisly experiments? The experiments on twins, the infecting of healthy people with cancer, syphilis . . .
The people in the countryside surrounding the mansion will tell you that at times strange lights burn there, and that creatures not quite human are occasionally glimpsed. Was a grisly chapter in history being recreated?
It could not be possible. Gossip was always suspect, and people inevitably embroidered a tale. It was important to remember that.
But something was happening. Something dark and evil, and something that had its roots in the past. I can feel it! cried Michael silently. A secret, apparently charitable organisation bringing refugees from such far-apart places as Czechoslovakia and Poland and Bosnia and taking them to a house in the mountains. Young girls. Baby farms?
It was the stuff of every modem horror story. It was entirely incredible. Such things could surely not happen today?
But what about the grisly feast Michael himself had witnessed? What about the strange, shrivelled beings propped up around the long table in the ruined castle? And how near had that ruined castle been to CrnPrag?
Creatures not quite human dwelling near to a place where Mengele had practised the grisliest, the most feared of all the Nazis’ atrocities: genetic engineering.
The creation of Adolf Hitler’s Super Race.
Chapter Thirteen
Hilary lay on a stone floor, her mind tumbling with panic and disbelief. None of this is happening. Eternal beauty, immortal life . . . Have those corpse-creatures really lived longer than the normal span? The eternal beauty had faded a bit, but in the candlelight there had been an unmistakable awakening, a flicker of something that Hilary could not entirely explain. A rejuvenating.
She was lying on a layer of straw in a small cell and there was a sour stench of ingrained dirt and stale blood. They had brought her down here after they had finished with the girl in the terrible cage; the smear-featured Janos had lifted her and there had been a brief space when she had smelt the stench of him: unwashed flesh and greasy hair and stale sweat. She thought she had not entirely fainted, but her head was still pounding from the blow earlier, and her senses were spinning. She was angry at fainting, because she had wanted to see all she could and discover whether there was any chink in these people’s armour.
She had floated in and out of consciousness as Janos carried her; there was a dim memory of stone stairs winding to a smaller, colder part of the castle. Two of the impassive servants had gone ahead of them. She thought they had not passed through the stone crypts again, but she was not absolutely sure about this.
She considered her surroundings. There was a feeling of black, bitter agony down here, and sick despair, but it was important not to notice this. At her back was a hard cold stone wall with a jutting shelf, and straw spread on it. In front of her were thick iron bars, embedded into the floor and the rock ceiling. A dungeon. A prison cell, a small room roughly eight feet square, hewn out of the thick, solid rock of the castle’s bowels, so that three of its walls were hard cold rock, but the fourth was of iron bars. A small gate was fashioned out of the bars and fitted with an immense padlock. Hilary crawled forward and curled her hands about the bars. Locked. Of course it would be locked. Beyond the cell was a passageway, and directly outside were burning torches thrust into iron wall-brackets. The flickering light cast eerie shadows on the walls, but Hilary was inexpressibly grateful to whoever had lit the torches.
A small jug of water had been left on the rock shelf, along with a bowl containing a wedge of bread and cubes of meat and cheese. In the other corner stood a metal bucket. Hilary glanced at it and grimaced. But the water in the jug was cold and fresh, and she sipped it gratefully. The sick feeling began to recede a little, and she moistened a small piece of the bread in the water and pressed it to her temples. Better. And I am still alive and more or less undamaged. What now? The thought: I wish Michael was here, slid unbidden into her mind.
For an unmeasurable space of time she fought despair. Despair was the worst sin of all: worse even than murder. Despair was a giving up of hope, a distrust of God. There would be a way of escape; she would believe that there would.
Janos brought food to her again, at what she thought might be midday. There was a bowl of a thick, rather coarse substance, neither quite porridge nor quite soup, but something between the two. There was a pitcher of milk. Hilary ate and drank because it was important to take sustenance if she was to escape. The food was not very nice, but it was more or less edible.
She thought she was quite alone down here. There was no sense of other prisoners nearby, which would have been a comfort. She might have managed to communicate and perhaps some kind of plan could have been made. Did the corpse-creatures keep their other prisoners down here? A larder until they needed blood? It was a grisly thought.
She would have to escape before night fell again. She would have to get out before they crammed her into the cage and slammed the door.
Was there any way in which she could overpower Janos, or whoever next brought a meal or a drink, or came down to check on her? If there had been anywhere in the cell to hide, she might have hidden and then leapt out. Was there a weapon she could use? The water jug? Strangling with her rosary beads? Don’t be absurd, said Hilary to Hilary. If it’s Janos, he’d fell you with one hand. And the rosary beads would snap, never mind the desecration . . . But at least I’m hanging on to a sense of humour, she thought wryly.
And then, as she sat curled in the straw, occasionally touching a prayer for comfort, she remembered that the girl inside the cage had been alive: they had stapled her lips to prevent her from screaming, but they had kept her alive and aware. They had needed to keep her alive and aware for the blood to flow.
The glimmering of an idea began to form.
As the day wore on, the tugging unease generated by Tobias’s sinister little story became mingled with a different unease in Michael’s mind. Hilary. Why had Hilary not telephoned as arranged to report their safe arrival at Varanno?
Lunch came and went: a huge salad with smoked chicken livers, dressed with pumpkin-seed oil. There was fresh, crusty bread, and strong, fragrant coffee. Michael ate and drank without tasting. At intervals he touched the small Braille watch on his wrist. Three o’clock. Four.
It was absurd to want this assurance that Hilary had arrived at Varanno safely. It was entirely ridiculous not to be able to get her out of his mind. He was acting like an adolescent. He could have no part in Hilary’s life – in Sister Hilary’s life – nor she in his. He would miss her – that wry irony – but only in the way he sometimes missed other good friends. She had become a good friend. And Michael would feel more comfortable if he could know that she had reached Catherine Bathory’s house safely, and been made welcome. It was nothing more than that.
Something absurdly simple might have delayed them. A mechanical problem might have developed miles from anywhere which could have resulted in a long, frustrating walk to a garage or a phone. A tyre might have punctured. It might be something as ridiculously simple as the phone at Varanno being out of order. But it might not. Supposing there had been a crash, or t
he car had been hijacked by a covetous hitch-hiker? Supposing one of them had been taken suddenly ill?
Five-fifteen. Michael drank a cup of tea and lay on his bed trying to listen to Mozart’s 21st Piano Concerto on the Walkman. Impossible. The first movement was a prowling, creeping, following-through-a-dark-forest pattern. To Michael’s mind it was the classic fear-theme, plundered and plagiarised for the opening to a dozen horror films. Would Mozart have spun in his pauper’s grave at the idea? No, of course he would not; he had been a man of the people; he had adored vulgarity and he would have loved Hammer and Spielberg and Vincent Price.
His music was conjuring up a dark, brooding mansion, peopled by lurching monsters, a botched Super Race, all of it ruled by the faceless beings of Tranz. Was this an inevitable consequence of blindness? Because you could not see, you began to imagine that fantastical creatures, demons and ogres and leering ghouls were stalking you? He flung himself off the bed.
Tranz. The name was becoming more and more sinister.
Supposing Hilary had never reached Varanno? Would they have driven past this place, CrnPrag? The eastern road, wasn’t it? Michael would have given his soul for the use of his sight for half an hour to study a map.
He thought it must have been the eastern road they had taken. Straight past CrnPrag, where strange beings were sometimes seen by men delivering milk and provisions.
He swore aloud, switched off Mozart and felt his way out of the room and down the stairs to the reception desk.
It was difficult but not as difficult as he had thought to get the number of Varanno.
Beyond caring now, Michael simply said tersely, ‘I am blind, and unable to dial a number for myself. Please will you connect me? It is of the greatest importance.’
‘Certainly, Herr. And the number you call from?’
Hell and the devil, I can’t see! He said, ‘The Red Angel. Twelve or fifteen kilometres east of Debreczen.’
The minutes ticked away as the number was found and the connection made. Michael heard the ringing tone at the other end; a hollow echoing sound. He imagined a large, dark house with strange people – Damn Tobias and his surreal Salvador Dali word-pictures!
The phone was lifted and a courteous voice in soft Hungarian said, ‘Varanno.’
Michael launched into his smoothest German.
Franz-Josef replaced the receiver and said, thoughtfully, ‘It appears that Sister Hilary has a boyfriend who is worried about her.’ He paused and Bianca said:
‘Has she indeed? What did you tell him?’
‘That she left early this morning, taking the hire car.’
‘But that wasn’t the arrangement. Hilary was to remain here and return to Vienna with Cat at the end of the week.’
‘Michael Devlin may not have known the exact arrangements,’ said Franz-Josef. He frowned. ‘It would be awkward if he turned up here,’ he said. ‘We don’t even know where Hilary is.’
‘It’s my view she went with Cat,’ said Bianca.
‘To CrnPrag?’
‘It’s a reasonable supposition. And can you think where else Cat would have gone?’
‘She’s gone to Pietro,’ said Franz-Josef, half to himself.
‘Of course she has. Did you head this Devlin off? Because,’ said Bianca, in her most practical voice, ‘we don’t really want people out here asking awkward questions.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Franz-Josef. ‘He sounded remarkably perceptive.’
Bianca curled herself into a more comfortable position on the sofa and refilled their wine-glasses. ‘And Cat?’ she said, and for the first time, there was a note of urgency in her voice. ‘Franz-Josef, what about Cat? What about Pietro? You didn’t believe that ridiculous story last night?’
‘Pietro mad? Of course not. Pietro’s no more mad than I am. It’s a sleazy little plot to get Varanno. I don’t trust either of them from here to that door. I never did.’
‘Was that why you primed Ficzko to follow Cat if she went?’ said Bianca.
‘So you found out about that, did you? Of course I did.’
‘Machiavellian as always,’ murmured Bianca. ‘I thought you didn’t trust Ficzko.’
‘I don’t. But he can be made use of.’ To himself, Franz-Josef thought: and I believe I would make use of a grubbier tool than Ficzko where Cat and Pietro are concerned. He said, suavely, ‘Ficzko will at least keep a watch on her.’
‘He might cheat you.’
‘He won’t dare,’ said Franz-Josef. ‘He knows what will happen if he does.’ He stopped and Bianca glanced at him. But she reached for the wine again and the sudden, mischievous smile lifted her lips. ‘Stefan might run CrnPrag and care for the gerons in Csejthe, but I wouldn’t give much for his chances if he ever really tried to challenge you.’
‘Oh, Stefan could never head the Family,’ said Franz-Josef.
‘And neither could his brat,’ said Bianca.
There was a sudden silence, and then Franz-Josef said, ‘So you know about Ladislas’s little intrigues, do you?’ He regarded his lady, thoughtfully. ‘A bedroom secret, is it? Yes, I thought so. Oh Bianca, you are incorrigible. Would you prefer me to preserve a discreet ignorance, or shall I play the heavy husband?’
‘And beat me? That might be fun.’ Bianca grinned again. ‘But you have your own adventures,’ she said. ‘You always have had.’
‘So I have.’
‘And Ladislas is a child.’
‘Twenty years your junior.’
Bianca laughed and reached for his hand. ‘After you, all the young men are children. You know it and I know it.’
You, who could charm an abbess into bed. . .
‘But it’s fun to amuse myself for a night or two,’ she said, and a soft, remembering smile curved her lips.
‘And it keeps it within the Family,’ said Franz-Josef with gentle irony.
‘Within the proscribed distance,’ said Bianca defensively. ‘Cousins.’
‘Very close cousins, my love. Most cultures would look askance at it. We permit it only because we must inter-marry to preserve the secret. We dare do nothing else.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘You are a rapacious bitch,’ he said. ‘And I do not trust you an inch.’
The words were silky and the tone was unemotional, but Bianca looked up. After a moment, she said, very gently, ‘You can trust me. There has never really been anyone other than you. As you know perfectly well. These young men . . .’ One of her shrugs. ‘Affairs of the body only.’ She looked at him. ‘I was dazzled by you the first time I saw you,’ said Bianca, in a low voice. ‘I have never ceased to be dazzled by you, for all that it was an arranged match. We were cousins.’
‘The Rules had already been set for us.’
‘Oh yes.’ She leaned forward. ‘But I was eager for the match,’ she said. ‘To me you were the brightest of all the brilliant ones in the Family.’
The shining one. Franz-Josef knew they had said the same of Pietro. They would have said it of Cat as well, because Cat could have shone, as Pietro had shone. She could have lit up a room just as Pietro had. What would Ladislas and Stefan do to Pietro in CrnPrag? Could he be rescued?
Bianca said, thoughtfully, ‘Dare we call in the police to get Pietro out of CrnPrag?’ and Franz-Josef felt a little prickle of disquiet, because Bianca, of them all, had always been able to follow his thoughts.
But he said, ‘Risk police inside CrnPrag?’
‘I suppose we can’t.’
‘We do what we have to do as humanely as possible,’ said Franz-Josef. ‘The hopeless, the homeless: Stefan promised he would use CrnPrag only for those.’
‘When were the Bathorys ever humane?’ said Bianca at once, and there was the note of self-mockery in her voice which Franz-Josef knew so well.
But he only said, lightly, ‘Oh never, of course.’
‘Then – you’ll go alone to CrnPrag?’ Bianca leaned forward, her eyes suddenly anxious and pleading.
‘Yes. We can’t chance bringing in th
e police. CrnPrag houses too many things that mustn’t see the light of day.’
Franz-Josef knew that if Pietro was to be got out of CrnPrag, and if Ladislas – greedy, insolent child – was to be outwitted, he must show no weakness. He must rule as he had always ruled: not lightly and casually in the way of the modem world, with its royal princes of the people, and its princesses and duchesses who shopped in department stores and allowed the gutter press to make free with their privacy.
In the old way. The harsh, unbending way, when transgressors could be flung into windowless dungeons, and when rebels and mutineers could be impaled on spikes in courtyards . . . Elizabeth’s torture chambers were still unimpaired, even after so many years. The fire that had swept Csejthe Castle in the middle of the last century – the fire started by the superstitious villagers – had ravaged the castle’s upper floors, but the Blood Countess’s instruments of agony had been untouched. The clamps and pincers had survived, and the braziers. The oval cage with the spiked door that she had coaxed or threatened out of the village blacksmith was still intact.
No one would claim Csejthe now, and no one would approach it. It was too thickly armoured in its legends and it was too strongly soaked in the bloodied memories of the Lady and her reign of terror. But it had been restored from within: the ruined façade was preserved, but the creatures that the Family called gerons lived comfortably and safely inside. Csejthe kept its secrets as it had once kept Elizabeth’s. Immortality . . . Only sometimes the legacy reverses, Elizabeth. That was what you never lived to discover, my dear. Sometimes the blood takes back what it once gave . . . The reversal, the rough magic wound up . . . And I am so tired! cried his mind in silent agony.
