Castle Shade

by Laurie R. King

  The conclusion of this long, drawn-out, and meticulously timed sentence was a close-up view of a slab of rock, on which stood the high, featureless walls and towers without flags that I had seen earlier. Bending far down, its top extended out of sight.

  I looked at my husband. “Do you plan on indulging your flair for the dramatic throughout our time here?”

  “I expect so,” he said complacently.

  A lesser motorcar would have coughed to a halt and drifted backwards down the hill, but the Rolls flexed its muscles to deliver us through the narrow gap between the castle’s trim, flat outer wall and a hacked-off outcrop of native stone. Beyond the gap lay an open area just large enough for a motorcar, with care, to turn around.

  Waiting for us was a tall, black-eyed man in his forties with a melancholy face, a silver streak through his slick black hair, and a moustache so trim and pointed, it resembled a punctuation mark. This had to be the major-domo, the grand version of a butler. He, like the driver, wore native dress—the same loose trousers and blouse I had seen in every field and village, although this man’s pantaloons had never worked in a field, and his cream-coloured shirt was heavy with embroidery. This appeared to be the uniform of the place, since others in similar, less heavily decorated clothing appeared from out of nowhere, tugging at their forelocks before queuing up behind the car to seize our bags. The…butler?—gestured, causing one of his underlings to leap forward and seize Holmes’ door. At the same moment, the driver reached for mine, that we might emerge simultaneously.

  Once we were standing on the ground and every spine was as rigid as could be, the butler gave a formal dip of the head and welcomed us to the castle—which, according to his attitude, was his castle, even though his words explained that the Queen sent her greetings, that she regretted that she had been delayed in Sinaia, but that she would come as soon as possible on the morrow.

  This had to be the god-like Mr Florescu. He continued speaking, though mostly to Holmes, which was both typical of men and understandable, since they already knew each other. That left me free to crane my head at the sheer walls rising up from the out-crop of living rock.

  Castle Bran was, I had to agree, a stage built for the dramatic. All the theatrical story-book elements were there: remote, wooded, and secretive. And yet, it was no Neuschwanstein, no picturesque home for pampered aristocrats and their art collections. This was a defensible slab built for hard use by armed men. Its towers had been designed, not for show, but for unbroken views of the two lines of approach. The small, narrow windows in its lower levels were not some coy façade, but a means of protecting the castle’s defenders as they took deadly aim—both for their arrows and, if I judged that higher protrusion correctly, for the dropping of heavy objects or boiling-hot liquid on enemies below.

  Whoever built this castle did not intend to be driven off.

  Behind it lay a valley, linked by a narrow depression in the hills with the plateau we had driven through. A cluster of houses and small fields followed the curve of a busy stream, with a road leading up to the forested ridges—an unassuming track that Holmes’ maps, pored over on the train, had told me led to Bran Pass and through the southern leg of the Carpathians to the Danube, then to the Balkans and the Adriatic beyond. I would have studied the view in more detail, except the butler had taken up an expectant position at the foot of a long, steep stairway. At the top of it waited a set of sturdy wooden doors, studded with iron bolts and fitted into a stone arch.

  The stairs were narrow, to make it difficult for invaders to fight their way up. The windows puncturing the walls grew larger with each level, with those at the top storeys conveniently placed for the dropping of stones or boiling liquids. Even the castle’s shield wall facing the drive—a blunt, massively thick prow intended to repel siege machines—had windows at the heights, with shallow balconies that were built as machicolations. A stone eased from there to bowl its way along the sloping wall would hit those at the bottom like skittles pins.

  “Russell?”

  Holmes’ voice called me from reverie. I gave the gathered menfolk an apologetic smile and followed him around the motor and up the stairs.

  I wondered, as we started up the steep climb, if this could possibly be the only entrance. Wouldn’t that mean princes and potentates rubbing shoulders with cooks, housemaids, and delivery boys?

  Or perhaps this was the trade entrance, and Holmes and I were not quite as honoured as he had thought.

  I gave a mental shrug. So long as we were not housed in the quarters used to imprison Vlad, and I was not expected to carry my own bags, I could live with being considered a hireling. I followed Holmes and the Transylvanian butler through the iron-studded doorway and into the Medieval castle of Bran.

  Chapter Eight

  The room at the top of the stairway did appear equipped for servants, with an old fireplace to keep the guards from freezing. However, the equipment on view was more geared to greetings than to defence: there was an assortment of umbrellas to keep incoming guests from the rain, but the only firearm in sight was an old shotgun. We followed Florescu—all three of us ducking to pass through the decorative archway—out of the room and down a few steps to an open-air space beside a small courtyard.

  Immediately to hand were three doors on as many levels. One of them, marked with a huge terracotta pot holding a market-stand’s worth of cut flowers, stood open to reveal a flight of stairs with a carpeted runner. Carpet and flowers together signalled that we were not entering the servant’s wing, but the living quarters of the royal family.

  Which told me that royal feet did indeed trudge up and down those stairs like the rest of us. The housemaids here would have legs of iron—but then, considering the relationship between its narrow foot-print and its considerable height, stairs would be a major part of life for everyone in Castle Bran. In Britain, castles were often broad-based refuges where livestock and peasants would be gathered in during times of threat. Not so Bran. Unless there was a cellar beneath us, with stables and a ceremonial entrance, Bran would not shelter anything less nimble than a goat.

  It also occurred to me, catching sight of the courtyard as we started up the second or perhaps third storey, that this could not be Castle Dracula. The only way Jonathan Harker would have been driven inside was if his carriage had been hoisted bodily over the walls. And once there, it could have become a permanent fixture, since the courtyard was barely large enough for a horse to turn, its floor a madly irregular collage of stone steps, plastered walls, decorative garden beds, and raw outcrops of the native rock underneath.

  The walls encircling the courtyard were similarly varied, as if to create a sampler of architectural styles—or perhaps a miniature Italian hill-town, with a diminutive town square formed by three-, four-, and five-storey buildings. Stone walls, plaster archways, red-tiled roofs and turrets, the whole joined at the top by zig-zags of half-timbered galleries from which spilled scarlet geraniums. All over were signs of recent renovations—the galleries looked reassuringly firm on their ramparts—but the glimpses I had of the whole uneven and idiosyncratic establishment were curiously appealing, considering that the place was built as a military outpost. One hoped that its current owner did not tidy the patchwork into bland uniformity.

  We climbed up and up the corkscrew stairway, passing through rooms and arched passages. In every possible corner was another pot or bowl or ancient stone urn bursting with a mix of summer blossoms. Finally, on the fourth, or perhaps fifth, storey, the stairs came to an end, and the butler ushered us with some ceremony through another low doorway and into a different era.

  Crisp, clean, newly renovated, this suite of rooms might have been set down here from another place. The bones of the Medieval castle were there, but the jumble of stone arches and dark corners we had gone past were here fresh plaster and bright whitewash. Snug wood-frame windows held glass modern enough to see through; newly tile
d floors gleamed with polish between colourful rugs. The furniture, antiques all, gleamed with polish: heavily carved four-poster bed, age-dark wooden drawers, tall iron candelabras set with candles as big around as my wrist—it would appear that the renovations did not extend to electricity. A massive tiled fireplace, thankfully unlit, held a polished copper bowl of flame-coloured roses.

  I moved to one of the deep-set windows, kneeling down on its cushioned seat. We were on the northern side of the castle, overlooking the portion of village we had motored through, and the room was high enough that its openings were actual windows rather than arrow-resistant slits. The gleaming walls made the most of the late afternoon sunlight, although the room would soon grow dim.

  No ghosts here.

  “Velcome to Cahstle Brahn, Meesus Holmes,” said the major-domo, the pointy ends of his moustache rising and falling with the rhythm of his words. “My name is Florescu. I hope these rooms will prove comfortable. May I ask, when would Sir and Madam care for dinner?”

  I replied before Holmes could. “Thank you, Mr Florescu, the rooms are lovely, and supper would be heavenly, but right now I’d appreciate a cup of tea.”

  “But of course, Madam. I will have it brought immediately. Let me first give you air…” He walked down the row of windows, throwing them open, and reassured us that if we wished to leave our door open for a brief time, the air would cool—and we were the only guests up on this level.

  “A girl will come to light the candles,” he added, and bowed himself out.

  Heaven only knew what manner of beverage would be considered “tea” in this distant part of the world, I thought with a mental sigh, and went to explore our Transylvanian quarters.

  To my astonishment and joy, one of the doors opened into an actual bath-room, with a brand-new porcelain tub and gas geyser. Running water—in a Medieval castle! In disbelief, I cracked open the tap, expecting nothing but dust—but instead, after a moment, water came.

  That did not guarantee that the geyser was connected, or that the device would not blow up, but it did suggest that housemaids would not have to haul steaming buckets up an Everest of stairs to indulge my wish for cleanliness.

  I was humming as I scrubbed my face and arms free of heaven only knew how many days of travel. I changed my shirt, combed my hair, glanced at the mirror—definitely not the castle of Count Dracula, I thought happily, if it had a looking glass—and walked back into our sitting-room area feeling considerably more human.

  I then came to a dead halt, at this latest in a day of astonishing sights. Delicate porcelain cups and plates, crisp white linen, a polished silver tea-pot suspended over a little blue flame—and was that…?

  “Good Lord, are those scones?”

  The girl setting out this feast looked taken aback, but Holmes merely said, in a voice that sounded suspiciously muffled, “Both fruit and savoury.”

  I stared down at a tea-tray that would not have discredited a head waiter at the Ritz, and realised that I should have trusted that an English Queen, no matter how many years she had lived in Roumania, would not abandon such a cultural tradition as afternoon tea.

  The promise of a bath, a proper cup of tea—I suddenly felt much better about this venture into the hinterland. My face must have shown my relief, because the young woman stepped forward to finish arranging the spoons into a neat line.

  “May I pour tea, Missus?”

  I listened to the same accent I had heard from the butler and the driver before him—the exaggerated diphthong of may, the tongue’s tap on the end of pour, the elongated vowels that turned which and Miss into “wheech” and “Mees,” and the marked tonal slides up and down, compared to that of a native English speaker. “Thank you. What is your name?”

  She showed me her dimples and made a quick curtsey. “I am Gabriela, Missus.”

  She was on that border between adolescence and womanhood, with a face of fifteen but the attitude of someone two or three years older—not uncommon with working-class girls, who confront reality sooner than their sheltered counterparts. This one was taller than most of her country-women, only two or three inches shorter than I, but she was dressed in the same costume I had seen since we arrived, with embroidered overskirt and full-sleeved blouse gathered under a wide belt. Her head, however, was uncovered, the cut of her light-brown curls suggesting that fashion magazines were not unknown here. The pious touch of a little gold cross at her throat was somewhat undermined by the mischief in her dark eyes. Charming, confident, intelligent—and if she wasn’t known to all as a troublemaker, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

  I grinned at her. “Thank you, Gabriela, tell the cook that she has saved my life.”

  She laughed—not a giggle, a laugh—and swept out of the room.

  I heaped strawberry jam onto a scone and carried it and the cup over to the colourful pillows of the window-seat.

  Bran stood at the spot where the Carpathian Mountains, which run from the north-west to the south-east, meet the east-west horizontal of the Transylvanian Alps, forming an arrow aimed at the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea. The view from this window showed the agricultural plateau within the point of the arrow, with the forested wilderness on its edges.

  Below Castle Bran lay a collection of roofs and roads, green gardens and tiny splashes of flower beds. Touches of white marked the presence of cows and goats, and ambling through the more distant fields were the tall figures of the haystacks. Leaning closer to the window, I saw that the base of the castle was a sort of park around a wide spot in the little river. On a map, the roads in and out of Bran described a sort of lopsided H, the upper section of which was visible here: right arm reaching up towards Brașov, left arm meandering along between the fields and the hills, joined by the cross-piece that ran through the village at the edge of the castle’s park. Out of sight, the left leg of the H followed the river valley up to the mountain pass, while the right, little more than a lane, kicked up into the hills in the direction of Bucharest.

  From my current god-like position, I could see the common themes of the buildings: roofs were of thatch, shingle, corrugated iron, or tile, but all were sharply angled—the winters here would see a lot of snow. Houses were of wood rather than stone or brick, and generally two-storey, often with the stairs on the outside. Windows were small, both because of the cost and to keep out the cold. Looking over those high walls and carved gates, I found that most encircled a small compound of house, sheds, and garden—some with vine-draped arbours and simple benches. Many appeared to have their own wells, wash-houses, and drying-lines.

  From the lower right corner of my view, emerging from the lane into the hills, appeared a wagon that might have evoked a Constable painting had it not been for the surprising number of people clinging to its raised sides. I could hear their voices, then a burst of laughter. Adding to the rustic idyll, a rooster crowed, followed by the complaint of a cow. I did not have to rush to catch a train; no one was shooting at me or bleeding at my feet. I’d even been given a cup of quite decent Indian tea.

  I sighed in contentment. “Shall we take a walk?” I suggested. “Before night falls?”

  Holmes picked up his tobacco pouch, I dabbed up the last crumbs of scone, and we made our way out to the Transylvanian countryside.

  We walked down the steep drive and into the small village, pausing to avoid the dust from another heavily populated cart. This one was pulled by a pale ox with wide horns, and every person in it, from tiny child to wrinkled grandmother, stared and giggled when they spotted us, two alien creatures in our Western clothing and great height. As they passed on, I noticed that the watery eyes and head-ache of recent days were subsiding. I could even smell the clean odours of hay and sweat that trailed behind them.

  My brain seemed to be crawling back into life as well. As I watched the cart rumble along the road to Brașov, it occurred to me that the way in had be
en remarkably straight. “Holmes, do you think that if an archaeological team were to dig into that road, they would find the stone slabs of a Roman highway?”

  “Without a doubt. This is Trajan’s Dacia Felix. The small town halfway between here and Brașov was once a Roman outpost named Comidava. I have found myself wondering if some of the symbols in the gates here originated in Rome.”

  I followed his gaze to the nearby example: wide and high enough for a laden cart, its tall uprights were carved with a braided pattern, from top to bottom, while the cross-beam had a number of elements that I did not think were mere design. He pointed upward.

  “That at the centre is the Eye, for protection. Those marching peaks represent a wolf’s teeth, providing guidance even through dark and wild places. The braids are life unbroken, that generations of family might be protected by the house. I have seen patterns like them in ancient Roman artefacts. And I understand,” he added, “that the women’s embroidery is similarly crafted to bear meaning, blessings, and protection.”