Circle of Shadows

by Imogen Robertson

  Michaels suppressed a smile, though he noticed a definite cooling in the air, as if a draught had just come in from the angle where Mrs Valentin was sitting.

  ‘Sorry to hear that, miss. But I still have a duty to my poor mother. What became of her?’

  Gurt crossed her arms and sat back in her chair looking sulky. ‘No notion, I’m sure. She was here through the spring and summer, then pouff! Gone away! I asked Whistler if he’d got sick of her and blown her up in one of his experiments. He looked at me as if I were stupid then ran away. But you might ask Simon. They seemed friendly. You’ll find him hammering for the blacksmith off Ludwig’s Platz. She took a coin or two off him, and he don’t part with them easy.’

  ‘Or there’s the son,’ Mrs Valentin continued. ‘Theo Kupfel. He sells ointments and perfumes on Karlstrasse, and pays them that wait on his father.’

  Michaels got to his feet. ‘Thank you, ladies. You’ve been very kind to a stranger.’

  IV.4

  MICHAELS WOULD PROBABLY HAVE gone straight back to the palace to see Crowther and find out why their paths had crossed at Whistler’s door, except his way took him along Karlstrasse, so shrugging his shoulders he pushed open the door of the perfumers, and stood slightly stunned by the smell of rosewater, as it clanged to behind him.

  It was a large shop, crammed with dainty-looking porcelain and glass jars in gleaming and glowing display cabinets. Three neat young women, gleaming and glowing too in their way, stood behind the counter, all engaged in what looked like intimate conversation with ladies whose elaborate hair and impractical costumes marked them out as nobility. There were a number of vitrined display cases on chests scattered about the room. He leaned over and examined the one nearest to him: silver-backed brushes and minuscule combs resting in velvet boxes, and to his left a display of snuffboxes, each one crowded with painted cherubs and chariots. His nose began to itch. There was a sign above the counter, the writing in gold leaf: Kupfel’s miracles for ladies and gentlemen. Elixirs of youth and vitality by appointment to the court.

  The prettiest of the young women standing behind the counter gave him a long look, and rang a tiny little bell by her side. Michaels felt as if he were the bear from his own inn sign, ungainly and unsure on his two hind legs.

  A door to the back of the shop opened and a man, probably some years younger than Michaels, appeared. He was very thin and pale. His hair was pulled up off his head at such an unnatural angle it must have been stiffened with sugar water, and he wore his breeches so tight, to take a seat must be impossible.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Michaels was briefly distracted by the thought of breaking off a portion of that reddish quiff and eating it like barley sugar.

  ‘I said, can I help you?’

  Michaels dragged his eyes to the man’s face. ‘I want to ask you something concerning your father. If you are Theo Kupfel, that is.’

  The man gave a dramatic sigh and exchanged sad and weary smiles with his shop girls. ‘What has he done now? More explosions?’

  Michaels shrugged. ‘No, nothing that I know of. Thing is, there was a girl working for him a couple of years ago who I think might be a niece of mine. Dark hair. Pretty. Goes by the name of Beatrice.’

  ‘Apologies! No idea! I must have hired a hundred girls to try and look after my father, and most of them can’t take his manners for more than a fortnight. So sorry, bye bye, off you go!’ He made a little shooing gesture.

  Michaels wandered over to the counter. ‘I’m in no hurry, son. She stayed a fair while longer than that. I’ll just have a look around until you’ve had a chance to think.’

  He stuck his finger into one of the pots and lifted it to his nose. It made him sneeze. A bell jangled and a woman in red silk opened the door. Michaels smiled broadly at her. She retreated. The women already in the shop began to cast slightly nervous glances at him while their servers waved coloured powders at them like matadors trying to attract the attention of a bull.

  ‘Very well,’ Kupfel said sharply. ‘I shall tell you what I can remember. Out the back, if you please.’

  Michaels followed him and noticed one of the shop girls shaking her head sympathetically as he went.

  Michaels sat down on one of Kupfel Junior’s spindly little chairs rather more heavily than he needed to, and was glad to see its owner wince. He leaned up against his desk and folded his arms across his narrow chest.

  ‘Beatrice? It does ring a bell – she lasted a few months, now I think of it. Though I can’t tell you much about her. And we’re very, very busy with the wedding around the corner. Everyone wants to look their absolute best for the arrival of the new Duchess.’

  Michaels shifted his weight from side to side on the chair and grinned as if childishly amused by the little squeaking noise it made. ‘Very well!’ the perfumer almost screeched. ‘If you can just stay still while I think.’

  The squeaking stopped.

  ‘She was prettyish, I suppose, for a common girl. That black hair. I even offered her employment in the shop, as I was a little short-handed, but for some reason she preferred to go to my father.’

  ‘He had no one at that time?’

  ‘His last girl gave notice the day before Beatrice arrived at my shop. Said she had come into some money and meant to go and marry on it, but that she had a cousin willing to take the place. That was Beatrice.’

  Any thoughts on the convenience of the arrangement, Michaels kept to himself.

  ‘And you had no complaints of her?’

  He shrugged his shoulders and Michaels noticed they were padded. ‘None. Then she was gone and gave me no notice. First I knew of it was my father turning up at the shop demanding to know where his dinner was. I suppose I would have owed her wages for the last month, but she made no effort to collect them.’

  ‘That not strike you as unusual?’

  ‘Young girls can be flighty.’

  ‘See much of your father, do you?’ Michaels asked, looking about him.

  ‘Our relations are a little strained. Not surprising, given his eccentricities. I took what he taught me of his arts and have created the best cosmetics in Europe. Do you have a wife? I have a skin cream that will make her look as fresh as she did on the morning of your marriage! I can create scents to charm a hermit from his cave, rouge that looks as natural as the blush on a rose. I make the world a better place and he despises me for it. He thinks himself superior because all he has become is scarred and poor, while I am rich.’

  He tossed his head and Michaels stood up. The man looked as if he were made of china, his pointed little chin aiming at the air, his ridiculous quiff. This is what has come of his father’s lifetime of work then, he thought. Money enough to stuff a man’s shoulders with horsehair.

  ‘He taught you then?’

  ‘Not as such. I never spent enough time curled up over his damned books to be thought worth teaching. But I watched in my youth and that’s how I learned. He talks to himself as he tends his furnace.’

  ‘Thank you. But I like the way my wife looks right now.’ Michaels turned towards the door. Kupfel stood holding out his hand.

  ‘Perhaps if you could leave by the back way? We wouldn’t want you to have another sneezing fit, now would we?’

  IV.5

  CROWTHER HAD NOT YET returned to the palace, and Rachel and Graves had once more headed up towards Castle Grenzhow. Harriet tried to read, briefly, and considered to whom she should write, and what she could or should say, then picked up her cloak once more and headed for the gardens. Her footsteps took her towards the automata-makers. Her theft of the file was not mentioned. News of the demonstration of the mask had drifted up the hill towards them too.

  ‘I had thought there was an agreement to not let that news out,’ she said, accepting a glass of tea from Sami.

  ‘Mr Manzerotti is a keen collector of works such as ours,’ Adnan said. ‘He knows we are friends of Mrs Clode’s and while examining our wares let a few details slip. We of
course gave him a very reasonable price.’

  ‘What did he buy?’

  ‘The caged songbirds.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Harriet thought of Manzerotti and wondered whom he was working for now. The King of Prussia? Why not. He was a powerful man who would of course be interested in a state such as this, squeezed in between the kingdoms of Austria and France. She tried, as she watched Adnan work, to think like a King. To have Maulberg strong must be to his advantage. If Austria were to absorb it, Prussia must feel threatened, but if Prussia were to try and claim it overtly, then Austria would protest. Poor Maulberg, she thought, all these great powers grouped round it, watching each other, laying a claim for influence. Then these Masons with a revolutionary bent. Did they exist? And if they did and did manage to destabilise Maulberg, didn’t they realise they would be swept away in the flood as France, Austria and Prussia tried to rush into the gap. She sighed.

  ‘Mr Al-Said, explain this marriage to me.’

  Adnan set his file to one side. ‘Mrs Westerman, I am a Turk and a commoner. Why do you believe I can tell you anything of the matter?’

  Harriet picked up one of the brass keys in front of her and spun it between her fingertips. ‘For just that reason. You and Mr Sami have been here nearly two years, but you have observed, not been drawn into it all. How did you come here?’

  ‘We knew that the Duke liked to spend generously on items such as ours. We had hoped to tempt Count Frenzel too.’ Adnan blew the fine metal shavings away from the brass disc on which he worked. They glimmered. ‘He once had a reputation for buying works such as ours, but as far as we know, he has not bought anything from us yet.’

  Harriet lifted up the key and smiled with artificial brightness. ‘What makes this place tick?’

  ‘Same as any court. Gossip. Intrigue. Alliance. Influence. Power,’ Adnan replied.

  ‘Power. A strange concept in a state with an absolute monarch.’

  ‘Indeed. It can bestowed and whipped away again at any moment. People contort themselves in many ways to try and capture it, retain it.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘They watch each other. They impress or indulge each other. Some buy amulets from any fakir who comes through the city that promise to make them invulnerable.’

  She smiled and sat back a little. ‘Do they really?’

  ‘Oh yes. When money and influence pass so quickly, so … whimsically, people will cling to whatever they can convince themselves will help them.’

  ‘This marriage is important, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, I think it is. The Princess is the only child of the Elector of Saxe Ettlingham. It is not a large kingdom, but it has tactical advantages.’

  ‘And it borders Maulberg.’

  ‘Indeed. The Duke has some interests in it through his mother’s family. In agreeing to marry the Princess to him, the Elector has named the Duke his heir.’

  ‘So Maulberg should rejoice? Yet the wedding negotiations seem to have been carried out very quietly.’

  ‘Indeed. Six months ago when the Duke announced his betrothal, the news fell on the court like a thunderclap. The Duke seems to have kept his secret even from his most intimate friends.’

  ‘Why?’

  Adnan examined the air above her head. From outside Harriet could hear a cuckoo calling. She had never liked the birds since she first heard the stories of their breeding. Creatures that grew fat on the labours of others.

  ‘I think he likes to surprise. He has such a love of spectacle, to drop this coup of a marriage into the court … pleased him, I suspect.’

  ‘How was it arranged then?’

  ‘Colonel Padfield seems to have had a hand in the negotiations, and Count Frenzel.’

  Harriet rested her cheek in her hand, placed the key on the workbench and spun it on its axis with a fingertip. ‘Why do I feel not everyone is delighted?’

  ‘I cannot say why you feel what you feel, madam.’

  ‘Mr Al-Said …?’

  ‘A shift of influence, of power perhaps. Also, the Princess has been granted the great indulgence of bringing a number of gentlemen from her own court and placing them in positions of power here. Some members of court also wished the Duke to marry a different Princess. One with less powerful friends.’

  She watched him work a few minutes more, finding the patience and exactness of his movements deeply calming. ‘I can see why my sister has found refuge here, Mr Al-Said.’

  ‘I shall tell you what I have told her, Mrs Westerman,’ Adnan said. ‘Remember it is a false refuge. We are still in the grounds of a palace, not lost in the woods.’

  Harriet had intended to read the papers she had received from Herr Dorf in the quiet of the gardens on leaving the Al-Saids, but as she emerged into the spring air she found Michaels outside, in conversation with the metalworker, Julius. The latter was in full conversational flow, speaking in the local dialect. As soon as he noticed Harriet he switched to French and made his bow.

  ‘Mrs Westerman! Delighted to make your acquaintance. I understand you gave up a rather pretty necklace yesterday. Would you like to commission a replacement? I shall make you something so charming you will be glad you gave the first away. Gold and emeralds to bring out the colour of your eyes. What do you say?’

  She shook her head. ‘Is there anyone who doesn’t know the details of the demonstration?’

  ‘I rather suspect the Duke is preparing the court for Clode’s return from Castle Grenzhow by letting little details slip. How about a gift for Mr Clode? A snuffbox, perhaps. Enamelled?’

  ‘The Duke is still considering whether to release Clode. I would not want to presume, and in any case I have not come to Maulberg to spend my housekeeping.’

  ‘Another serious lady! Thank the Lord not all of your sex can refuse me so easily. I should starve.’ He frowned for a moment. ‘What about an Athenian Owl! Perfect emblem for a seeker after truth such as yourself, and I’ve already …’ He suddenly blushed. ‘Forgive me. That would be tasteless in the extreme.’

  Harriet shook her head, confused. ‘You shall not tempt me, but why should it be tasteless?’

  His face was still very red. ‘I did make one before, but it was for Lady Martesen. She wore it often. The idea of offering you a replica, in the circumstances … I apologise, I have no idea what I was thinking.’ Harriet felt rather sorry for him.

  ‘No need to mention it further, sir. And you are quite a salesman. Now do tell me, what were you saying to Michaels so excitedly when I interrupted you?’

  He looked grateful for the chance to recover himself; his voice became lower and softer. ‘Only how glad I was when the Al-Said brothers arrived in court and took up residence here. The servants from the palace had been sneaking into the building night after night to amuse themselves with parlour games and ghost stories. I don’t begrudge them some entertainment, but sometimes the women would let out a shriek that would wake the dead. Certainly woke me anyway.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But you have both had more than your fair share of my nonsense now. Good day, Mrs Westerman, Michaels.’

  He nodded to them both and returned to his workshop. ‘If he can control his tongue, I think that young man will do well in life,’ Harriet said, watching him retreat

  Michaels grunted. ‘He thinks too well of himself, if you want my opinion. I asked him who the people were who came up here, and all he had to say was “servants”, as if anyone without a title has no right to a name of their own.’ He glanced at her sideways. ‘No need to grin at me, missus. I doubt you like this set-up any more than me. Never realised how easy I had it in England till I saw all the bowing and scraping goes on round here.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you ever bowing to anyone, at home or here, Michaels. Yet you would not ride in the carriage with us, or dine with us on the road, and when you come to Caveley you come in through the kitchen door.’

  ‘I like the fresh air, and my boots are always dirty.’

  She sighed. ‘I suppose I should be g
rateful you didn’t say you know your place.’

  ‘Maybe you should.’ He winked at her.

  ‘Enough! I know better than to fence with you. What news then, Michaels?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Some dribs and drabs. But it seems my path and Mr Crowther’s have led us the same way. That needs thinking on. I’d be willing to come and chew it over with you both, if you’re at liberty.’

  They found Crowther in his room, and when Michaels had finished telling them what he had learned, and they in turn told him of the uses Kupfel’s drugs had been put to, Michaels hissed between his teeth.

  ‘It makes me worry for the girl,’ he said. ‘I’ve no doubt that it was she who took the books and supplies, but she was all cons and flummeries, not murders. I reckon she’s passed those poison notes on to someone else, and I wonder what has happened to her now.’

  Harriet put her chin in her hand. ‘I fear you may be right. Is there no way of finding out where Beatrice went?’

  ‘Maybe. There was a boy here who liked her, we had a word or two as I passed him coming back, and though I don’t think he knows much, I reckon he knows a little more than he’s saying. I just haven’t found the right way to wind him up to talking. I’ll ask about here too. Sounds like my Beatrice could have been caught up in the spirit nonsense that Julius made mention of.’

  ‘Good luck, Michaels,’ Crowther said. ‘It seems you might have the best chance of running this matter to ground for now.’

  ‘We’ll see. Plenty of riddles for all of us.’ He paused. ‘So Mrs Padfield’s been hanging on and waiting till someone like me came along that might help her, trying to keep this quiet.’