Circle of Shadows

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘Sorry about that! Good, solid work you’ve been doing here. Just it’s nice to put on a show when you’re new in town. Sure you understand, Herr Professor.’ He clapped him on the shoulder, causing a haze of ancient chalk to lift from his gown. Pegel’s eyes watered and he coughed.

  The Professor did not seem to notice. His eyes were still tracking back and forth across the calculations on the board.

  Pegel picked up the duster again. ‘Shall I rub this all off for you then, sir? Leave it nice and clean for your next group?’ The Professor’s thin hand clamped suddenly around Pegel’s wrist.

  ‘Do. Not. Touch. It.’

  ‘All right, governor.’ Pegel was released and started to shake the blood back into his fingers, stepping back a pace as he did.

  ‘Righty-ho then, as you like, Herr Professor! Any points you want clearing up I shall be knocking about the university for a few weeks, I suppose.’

  The Professor spun towards him. His eyes really were red. ‘Tonight. Come tonight.’

  Pegel began to back away slowly. ‘Sorry, not possible. Busy. Very busy. Can’t work all the time. Tomorrow, or the day after maybe. But soon, certainly soon. Promise.’

  The Professor hissed and turned back to the equation, leaving Pegel to escape with a skipping step into the corridor. He was not surprised to find the blond scribbler waiting for him. He put his hand out to Pegel and blushed.

  ‘My name is Florian zu Frenzel – Lord, actually. I wanted to ask—’

  Pegel took the hand offered him and put his free arm around Florian’s shoulders.

  ‘Course you must, Your Holy Graceness. But I’ve got a question too. Where does a fellow get a drink round here?’

  Frenzel stuttered a little. ‘I w-would be very glad if you w-would be my guest at—’

  ‘Then be glad!’ Jacob interrupted, giving his shoulder a squeeze. ‘Lead on, and tell me where we’re going only when we get there. I love to be surprised.’

  Pegel had taken rooms in Leuchtenstadt on 3 February, and in the three months since then had grown very fond of the little town, its medieval buildings all tumbling down in cheerful disorder to the river. The university held its classes in halls and buildings scattered all round the town, which meant the roadways were constantly filled with young men making their way from lecture to lecture, spending their money in the taverns or their youth bent over their books depending on their abilities, rank and proclivities. The Professors stalked the streets like little Kings, nodding each to each and scowling at the young men. Pegel watched, listened, heard and followed. He mapped the streets in his mind, till he could make his way through them blindfold. He handed out pennies to children, flirted with housemaids, and made a lot of notes in a pocketbook that never left his side. He had a healthy supply of gold sewn into the lining of his coat, but lived frugally. When the proper time came and his plans were laid he presented himself to the Head of the University and handed him a letter. The Head of the University read the letter and went rather pale. The boy in front of him was so unremarkable. The letter was remarkable and deeply upsetting. It mentioned his mistress, his gaming debts and some rather unfortunate remarks he had made about two of his senior colleagues. The Head of the University offered Mr Pegel whatever assistance he required. Pegel took the letter back and asked to be admitted to the Higher Maths Lectures, then reassured the Head of the University that he would not return. Pegel left, whistling.

  Pegel’s first talent was mathematics. It came to him as naturally as speech and before he was eight years old he had leaped ahead of his parish schoolmaster. The schoolmaster, rather amazed, handed the child book after book, but when he realised Jacob had managed to teach himself passable French and better Latin to read further, he acknowledged that he could do no more and appealed to the Bishop. Pegel was removed to the Bishop’s Palace at ten and fed sweetmeats and the contents of the Bishop’s library. It was just after his fourteenth birthday that the old Empress paid the Bishop a visit and Pegel’s life became rather more interesting. She carried back the little prodigy to Vienna, and there Pegel began work breaking codes to read a great deal of European diplomatic correspondence. When he was eighteen he met a man who suggested he might prefer a line of work, less confined to a desk. Life got a lot more interesting again. He had developed several other talents in the last few years, but numbers were still his closest friends. Some said God was an architect, but Pegel had seen too many mis-shaped beings in the world to believe that. No, for Pegel, God was a mathematician. Numbers worked. It had been a delight then to learn, within a week of following him home with his two older friends, that Florian was regarded as gifted in that science, and was a slightly shy, lonely young man among the duellists and drinkers who made up the greater part of the student body. He was perfect. Pegel went, for the first and only time, to class. Then, on Florian’s arm, to the tavern.

  II.3

  THE CLOUDS PARTED TO let the sun smile on the long frontage of the Palace of Ulrichsberg. The butter-coloured walls glowed and the windows flashed even as the sky behind it remained dark slate and stormy. The vast curving wings of the palace that faced the city were like the wings of an eagle. In front of its high central portico, a company of soldiers in blue and gold were performing the complicated choreography of the changing of the guard, dwarfed by the architecture they protected. The steel on their pikes glimmered, as did the polish on their high boots. Their commander’s sharp, barked instructions echoed off the walls.

  Between the palace and the road lay an extensive, open formal garden of sculpted hedgerows and a series of fountains, each sending great plumes of water into the air. There were perhaps a dozen men at work here, clearing any leaf or weed that dared to litter the lawns, all dwarfed by the ranks of clipped yew trees that extended from each side of the garden. Some looked up as the jangle of the Hussars’ spurs reached them, to watch the oil-black horses and their straight-backed riders pass by, then turn north along Eugene Strasse, leading the carriages they accompanied towards the rear of the palace. None of the gardeners recognised the coat-of-arms on the carriage doors.

  District Officer von Krall, seated on a bench in the market square on the other side of the road, did recognise it. The crest of the Earl of Sussex. So they had arrived. He tapped out his pipe and stuck it into his pocket, then rubbed at his forehead with his gnarled fingers. After nearly two months of laborious work, Krall had found himself awaiting the arrival of Mrs Westerman and Mr Crowther a confused and frustrated man. Mr Clode still had only a fragmentary memory of the Carnival. He was no longer the rather deranged creature that Krall had first encountered, however. He had spent almost the entirety of his first two days of confinement asleep, then woken weak, but with his senses restored. Krall crossed his ankles and glowered at the cobbles, thinking of the young man in the tower like something out of a fairy story. Clode could recall preparing for the parade with perfect clarity, but sometime after his party had joined the crowd he seemed to have lost his mind. He admitted to Krall, haltingly, that he had started to see not men and women in costumes, but actual demons and gods. Spirits that whispered to him. One memory that seemed horribly clear was the look of disgust and shame on his young wife’s face when he tried to dance with her at the ball. Then there was this man in the black mask who promised to look after him. Of his time in the room with Lady Martesen he seemed to recall nothing but his own fear, his dream of drowning and pain.

  Krall realised he was hungry. He got to his feet and began to stamp away from the castle towards a little tavern he knew where he could get a good beer and simple cooking. Dining so often from the court kitchen was playing merry devils with his digestion. He looked at the higher ranks of the old nobility with a new respect, having tasted the riches on which they subsisted. Clode never claimed he was innocent. He left that to his pretty wife. All he said was he had no memory of doing harm to Lady Martesen. That he had no memory of his first meeting with Krall either. Krall hesitated on the tavern steps. He had to admit he liked
Daniel Clode. He seemed an honest man, and a brave one. He had a haunted look, but Krall was reasonably sure it was not fear of the axe that disturbed his rest and hampered his recovery, but those odd visions of Festennacht. Krall could give a full account of the movements, histories and passions of all the principals, but as to the facts of Carnival night he could only say that Lady Martesen should not be dead, though she was, and though Clode was the only man who, it seemed, could have killed her, Krall had doubts about his guilt. Well, it was all written down. Let these clever friends of Mr Clode’s worry at the problems now. He pushed the door to the tavern open and welcomed the sour yeasty smell of the beer, and the sharp tang of liver coming off the grill. He breathed deeply and found a place among the tables.

  The carriage turned down a road on the far side of the garden, and after a significant journey down the east flank of the palace, the horsemen preceded them under a great arch into one of the interior courtyards. The Hussars wheeled about and exited at once, all flashing braid and polished stirrups. The carriage halted, and Harriet peered out of the window.

  A gentleman was there to meet them, dressed magnificently in pink satin and with a small squadron of liveried footmen behind him. Two stepped forward and with the formalised movements of ballet dancers, they let down the steps of the coach and, as Harriet emerged, one, without looking at her, offered her his arm to help her descend. The footman’s wig was such a startling white she had to fight the impulse to reach out and touch it.

  The cobbles looked as if they had only just been laid, so clean and neat they were. The man in pink satin introduced himself in slightly affected French as the Court Harbinger and requested the honour of showing them to their apartments. Harriet replied in as flowery a manner as she knew how. She glanced backwards at Michaels as the gentlemen took their turn at exchanging civilities. He winked at her and climbed down from the box, his leather bag over his shoulder. Her maid emerged from the other carriage and shot a look of such concentrated suspicion at one of the footmen, he blinked. Monsieur Clemme waved his hand and the liveried footmen swarmed over the luggage like scarlet ants attacking the picnic meats. Harriet realised she was being addressed by the magnificent Monsieur Clemme once more.

  ‘Mrs Clode is waiting for you in your rooms, madam.’ He bowed and offered his arm.

  The servants of such a palace as Ulrichsberg naturally prided themselves on not being overly impressed by the rank and fame of visitors to the court. Monarchs, Lords and luminaries of the world of music and art passed through Ulrichsberg continually, but they watched the arrival of the Englishwoman and her companions with interest. A little knot of some of the more senior servants in the east wing had found it convenient to pause in their labours and watch as the carriage was unloaded and the gentry led away.

  Mr Kinkel, head footman in the east wing, the cook to the servants’ hall and the housekeeper observed while their more junior fellows bustled round with baggage and band boxes in the swept yard. Mr Crowther, he that was some Lord or other in his own country but liked to pretend otherwise, was easy to identify. Thin as a rake with a long nose – and, Mr Kinkel suspected – a habit of looking down it. The younger man they thought perhaps a Prince of some sort. Handsome youth, still some years short of thirty and awkward as a newborn calf. He stumbled on the cobbles as Monsieur Clemme led them off. The maid remained rooted to the spot, obviously intending to keep her eye on the luggage. The likeness between Mrs Westerman and her pretty sister young Mrs Clode was easy to spot.

  ‘That poor little cabbage, marry a man and find him a murderer!’ Cook observed, preserving her reputation for great kindness to the unfortunate. ‘Lovely frock Mrs Westerman has on though. Green is such a blessing for red-heads. Isn’t it true her husband was murdered himself?’

  ‘Unlucky in love, that’s true enough. Covered in tragic blood, the pair of them.’ The housekeeper sighed. She was the romantic.

  Mr Kinkel’s attention was distracted by the sight of a large muscular-looking man having a word with one of the under-footmen, then approaching his little group with a leather bag over his shoulder. He walked with rather more swagger than Kinkel thought appropriate to those in service. He wore no livery. Kinkel had seen the valets and secretaries of Kings cross the yard before him, but this great bearded fellow looked like none of those. Certainly not a valet in that coat, and his hands looked too broad and meaty to wield a pen.

  As he came closer to them, Kinkel leaned towards the two women at his side and muttered to them. ‘The English have brought their tame bear with them. It is true what they say, an English person will not be separated from their pets!’ The ladies tittered. He was their satirist. The man stopped in front of them and to their collective shock spoke to them in their own dialect.

  ‘They’ve brought a friend with big fists and big ears, brother.’ With his free hand he slapped the pocket of his coat and made it jingle promisingly. ‘Now my preference is to sleep warm on my own bedroll and eat as the servants eat. Can you accommodate me?’

  Kinkel shut his hanging jaw and managed a bow. ‘Naturally, whatever sir wishes. I am Mr Kinkel.’

  ‘Don’t “Sir” me. I am Michaels. As long as my friends are looked after, I’m a lamb and a generous friend. If they are spoken of without respect, then I am like to get a little riled. Do we understand each other?’

  Mr Kinkel hesitated, then put out his hand. Michaels took it and grinned. His teeth looked very white and sharp. Was he a fox or bear? Mr Kinkel could not decide. ‘Can I ask how you come to speak our language so well, Mr Michaels?’

  ‘Mother was born on the border here, and wont to express herself very free in her native tongue. So I came to see my party travelled fast and safe. Now can I trouble you for a billet and hot water? The roads are nothing but dust and I can hardly breathe for the muck on me.’

  Kinkel considered. He thought of himself as a clever man and pondered the problem at hand with a certain confidence. Service at the palace often threw up interesting problems of this nature. This Michaels was too large a creature, and his money clattered too nicely for Kinkel to think it appropriate to put him to sleep among the servants, but at the same time he could not see a man who wanted to sleep on his own bedroll wishing to stay in the luxurious surroundings of the guest suites. After a moment’s thought he smiled. ‘I think I have an idea where you might be comfortable, Mr Michaels, if you don’t mind being a little bit out of the way.’

  ‘Out of the way is fine with me, Mr Kinkel.’ With a significant glance at his companions, Kinkel put his hand on Michaels’s sleeve and guided him out of the courtyard.

  By the time the sausage, bread and potatoes had been disposed of and their leavings carried away by a sweet-faced daughter of the house, Florian zu Frenzel was well on his way to being drunk. Jacob Pegel was giving a good impression of being so.

  The tavern was popular with the middle-ranking students. The beer was strong and cheap, the food not bad at all, and it was clean enough for a man brought up in respectable comfort to feel at his ease. In other places a man might risk his wealth among a crowd of men who liked to gamble as deep as their courage would let them. In other dark corners, especially those nearest the river on the edge of the old town, he might risk his health with one of the whores who sashayed to and fro for business, or lose his pocketbook to the thieves and slut-masters who watched the drunken young gentlemen like wolves seeking out the injured deer in the herd.

  To be fair Pegel had never seen Florian in that corner of town, and found he liked him for it. A serious devotion to cards or women might have made him easy to blackmail, but Pegel suspected the more earnest and serious the young man was, the closer he might lead him to his goal. Pegel suspected he would only get what was required from an idealist.

  The beer had loosened their tongues, then smeared the talk from mathematics to the personal. Pegel began laying down his lies to build a friendship on like a mason settling his first cornerstone. There were ways to dance into intimacy with a boy such
as Florian, like a mountain goat, but he needed to establish a solid base first.

  ‘There are some good men in Weimar,’ he said. ‘Good thinkers. I thought there was a chance of a place there, but no! Some squid who can barely add up got the job.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘His father was a Baron, of course. He had the name, he had the grease …’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘So, it’s “Sorry, Mr Pegel, maybe next year”. Bah! Perhaps I should go to England. They take a man there for his brains, not some bit of paper that proves no man in his family has done a day’s work in generations.’

  ‘My father is a Count.’

  ‘I’ll try not to hold it against you, but honestly, don’t you ever feel this … this rage against the system we live in? Good men ground down, the arrogance of the nobility while better men starve. Ah, forgive me. The beer is heating me up.’

  Florian put a hand on Pegel’s sleeve. ‘You are not alone.’ Then in a lower tone, ‘You are not alone, brother.’

  Pegel had his pocket-watch in his hand. There were no numbers on it, but a compass, set-square, radiant eye. He flicked it shut and thrust it into his pocket now it had done its work. He had bought it from a man in Strasbourg who had offered him some interesting stories of Leuchtenstadt for the chance to rant about his own misfortunes. Now Florian had seen it and assumed Pegel was a member of a masonic lodge. He had also confessed, by calling Pegel ‘brother’, that he was one himself. Easy. Pegel began to build. ‘I don’t know. There are good men in the fraternity, but in the Lodge in Weimar they seemed more interested in legends of Templars and Alchemy than in the truth of universal brotherhood. I am afraid I held out hopes …’ He turned away slightly and touched the corner of his eye as if wiping away a manly tear. He almost felt it. Germany had lost a fine actor when Pegel was trained as a code-breaker. When Jacob looked back, Florian’s eyes were sparkling in sympathy. God, it was too easy.