Circle of Shadows

by Imogen Robertson

  She put her hand on his sleeve. ‘No, I think not, Clode. He seems to be after the blood of these individuals alone.’

  Daniel smiled briefly. ‘I find that oddly comforting.’

  Harriet had on her lap the product of her friends’ work in Castle Grenzhow. There were a number of sheets in Rachel’s neat handwriting, each one carefully dated with a series of visits and meetings. ‘Lord, Daniel, you kept yourself well-occupied here. I assume if anything had appeared to you that was particularly strange, you would have mentioned it by now.’

  ‘We have written down everything, and I see nothing suspicious,’ Daniel said.

  Harriet began to read more carefully. ‘You saw something, Clode. Something that made you seem a danger to this creature and his plans. I wish we knew what we were looking for.’

  ‘Murder will out, Mrs Westerman,’ Graves said, and stretched his arms. ‘I am going to rest for a while if Mr and Mrs Clode will take the first part of the evening at Swann’s side. Fine way for you to celebrate your reunion.’

  When Rachel and Daniel entered the chamber of Chancellor Swann to relieve Crowther, they found he was not alone with the patient. Herr Kupfel had arrived at last. Clode and Crowther were still shaking hands, with great warmth on both sides, when Kupfel patted him on the sleeve.

  ‘I need things.’

  ‘What can I do for you, sir?’ Clode asked.

  The Alchemist rattled off a list of equipment and ingredients in a mixture of French, English and German that made Clode’s head spin. ‘I shall do my best,’ he said doubtfully and Kupfel rolled his eyes and shuffled back towards the bed again, where he stood, staring down at Swann’s sweating, sleeping form.

  ‘Don’t worry, Daniel. I think it best if I go. They know me in the kitchen and gardens,’ Rachel said, a little wearily.

  Kupfel turned to her with a look of deep suspicion. ‘You remember the list?’ he said at last. His accent in English was heavy, as if the words had to be spat out individually like rocks.

  Rachel repeated it back to him. ‘Would you like the Creeping Jenny fresh or dried? It is just coming into flower, but I know the cook has a store from last season. She takes it for her cough.’

  ‘Creeping Jenny?’

  ‘Lysimachia nummularia.’

  ‘Fresh.’

  Rachel simply nodded. Her husband and Kupfel watched her leave, a little open-mouthed. Crowther smiled.

  Evening, and Harriet found herself once more changing her costume. To listen to music in the court, it seemed, required a different standard of dress than was thought seemly during the day. It was lucky that Dido had been insistent about the proper number of dresses, gowns, gloves and jewels that were necessary for residence at a foreign court. Harriet said so, and Dido grinned. ‘It is a pleasure to dress you up nice from time to time, Mrs Westerman. You’re never out of riding dress at home, and before then, of course, it was the mourning clothes – such dull colours.’ She put her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, madam.’

  Harriet shook her head. ‘Don’t worry, Dido. They were dull colours. James said so himself when I wore them for my father.’

  ‘I wish I’d known the Captain better, madam,’ she said. ‘Everyone is full of stories about him at Caveley. He sounds like a good man.’

  Harriet looked at herself in the mirror. The dress was cut quite low and showed off the length of her neck and the paleness of her skin.

  ‘He was, Dido, and much loved by his family and his friends.’ She turned and smiled at the maid. ‘But it is just as you said before, my dear, about travel. We must make our own stories now.’

  Harriet met Crowther in the concert chamber. He raised his eyebrows when he saw her and nodded in approval. Having enjoyed that minor triumph, Harriet wondered where to begin. Most of the faces in the room were strangers to her. She thought of Mrs Padfield: perhaps she might be able to offer some insight into old stories that could have driven someone to wreak a terrible revenge. Tomorrow morning, she would return to the Al-Saids’ workshop and see what other threads they could offer. She and Crowther joined the Colonel and Mrs Padfield as the company began to take their seats. They shook hands and Harriet was glad to notice the Colonel looking at his wife with affectionate admiration.

  ‘Lord, what a crush!’ the Colonel said, a little loudly. Mrs Padfield put her arm on his sleeve and he blushed and said more quietly, ‘So many strangers here for the wedding.’

  His wife was looking around the room. ‘Yet I do not see Glucke, do you, my dear?’ The Colonel shook his head. ‘Strange,’ Mrs Padfield continued. ‘He is such a lover of music.’

  Harriet smiled. ‘That is the gentleman who keeps cats, if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Indeed. But he is almost as passionate about opera. He helped design the Opera House, and I have never seen a man so delighted as the day he heard that Manzerotti was coming here.’

  They found their places but, frustratingly, Harriet found herself next to the Colonel rather than his wife.

  The Duke entered, alone apart from his dog, and once the room had risen to greet him and all had taken their seats again, Manzerotti strolled out on to the stage and bowed. Seeing him on stage was somehow worse than sitting with him in Swann’s chamber. The leader of the opera band played a shimmering clamber of notes on the harpsichord, the violinists began a rhythm, dance-like, neat and tripping, then Manzerotti began to sing. It was as beautiful as ever. Light, dancing over the air rather than through it, a thing as perfect and fleeting as the glimmer on the crystal chandeliers. Harriet felt her lungs compress. It seemed so very wrong to take pleasure in his music, but her body simply ignored her objections as she was lifted and fell with it. She raised her fan to cover her eyes. What would it be, to know such perfect lightness?

  The aria ended to the usual storm of applause, and with a bow to the Duke, Manzerotti made way for the dancers. Crowther saw something in Harriet’s expression and turned his head towards her, saying softly, ‘You cannot blame yourself, Mrs Westerman, for the effects Manzerotti produces.’

  Colonel Padfield, who was seated on her right, was obviously one of those gentlemen who saw instrumental music as an invitation to general conversation. ‘Amazing thing, power of music, isn’t it, madam? And the fairer sex are particularly prone to it, I believe.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Harriet said, steadying her breathing and wishing him in Hades.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said comfortably. ‘There was a woman here at the court some six years ago, before my time, you know, who was so taken with some Italian violin player she made quite a fool of herself. Apparently the Duke was on the point of putting her under his protection, but she couldn’t resist her passion for the fiddler. Had to leave court under a cloud, of course, and her son was taken away from her. Then the sovereign’s eye landed on Countess Dieth. There was quite an amusing anecdote about it. When they told the Duke what the lady was up to, apparently he said, “But I have estates in Italy, and I play the flute very well!”’

  ‘They removed her child from her?’

  ‘Lord, they had to! She was the widow of one of the officers, and the son was a godson of the Duke. Couldn’t let him be raised by such a woman.’

  One of the dancers was lifted across the stage in a series of leaps that seemed designed to show off her form rather than advance the drama to any degree that Harriet could understand, but the general applause provoked drew Colonel Padfield’s attention back to the stage once more. Harriet closed her eyes briefly and thought of her son and daughter at Caveley. She knew what she was capable of if they were under threat. She wondered.

  Kupfel received the basket from Rachel with a suspicious eye. He rifled through it, then placing it on the floor by the fire, said only, ‘Good.’

  Clode took a seat next to his wife.

  ‘Rachel, how did you ever manage to gather all those things in an hour?’

  She yawned for she was tired now. ‘I made some friends among the servants, and learned something of their cures. The
nobility thinking you a murderer gave me the opportunity for some study.’

  Clode removed his hand from her arm and Rachel bit her lip. She was becoming as outspoken as her sister. She glanced at Herr Kupfel. He was on his knees in front of the fire with the basket at his side. He was quite still and Rachel realised, with a slight shock, that he was praying. It had never occurred to her to pray before she started similar work. Kupfel brushed something from his eye, then picked up the saucepan and the crock of milk.

  Manzerotti began his second aria. Harriet let it carry her. She did not know the piece, only that the music seemed to rage as it rose, then in a moment became slow, thick and open, grieving alongside the hautbois before becoming a battle again. His audience applauded and the Duke rose and walked to meet him on the stage. Manzerotti went down on one knee to kiss his hand.

  ‘Revenge and love from Flavio! Most appropriate.’ The Duke looked pleased. ‘That is the opera you will be giving us tomorrow, I believe.’

  Manzerotti got to his feet and bowed. ‘It is, sire.’

  ‘An opera that touches on the responsibilities of ruling a kingdom.’ The Duke turned to the audience. ‘Even musicians have the opportunity at court to lecture their sovereigns and be paid for it.’ There was a ripple of sycophantic laughter.

  ‘I will do all in my power to give you pleasure, sire,’ Manzerotti said. Harriet heard a woman sigh lustily behind her.

  ‘Very good, songbird.’ The Duke removed a large diamond from his second finger and handed it to him. ‘See that you do.’

  Kupfel had left as soon as he had completed his work, his head lowered. The remnants of his cure lay scattered where they fell. Rachel had tidied them as best she could. Now she and her husband sat in silence watching Swann sleep.

  ‘He seems a great deal easier,’ Rachel said at last. ‘I wish I knew what Mr Kupfel was about.’ She crossed to the bed and checked the bandages wrapped around the Chancellor’s hands. They were greasy with the preparation Kupfel had made over the fireplace. She had watched him cover the skin with egg-whites, then his strange custard of herbs, milk and oil.

  ‘Rachel …’ She turned towards her husband. He looked very young. ‘Why did he choose me – whoever did all this? I don’t understand what I did.’

  She returned to him and sat at his feet. It was how she used to sit with Harriet when they talked late at night at Caveley. She realised even as she settled that she had never sat by his side in this way before.

  ‘I hope the answer lies somewhere in those notes we have made. Harriet will work it out. She has that fire in her eyes. I feel myself as if we are lost in some magical tale.’

  ‘What do you mean, my dear?’

  ‘Do you remember Jocasta Bligh’s cards, the ones she uses to tell fortunes?’

  ‘Of course. When last we met, she threatened you with five children.’

  Rachel laughed softly, and felt Daniel’s hand on her shoulder; his touch was tentative, unsure. She reached up and took it in her own, lifting the back of his hand to her mouth and kissing it before laying it back in its place.

  ‘I think this man is a poet, of sorts,’ she went on. ‘I mean, these deaths, these death scenes are like little horror plays. And everyone circling round this seems like characters from Mrs Bligh’s pack of cards. The Page who found Mrs Dieth; Kupfel is a Hermit if ever I saw one. Perhaps Harriet is Justice now! There is even an Emperor in the shape of the Duke. Is it not strange? When you begin to look for such things in the world, they appear everywhere.’

  ‘I think each one of us tries to make a story for ourselves. To understand the pattern of life.’

  ‘You are right. Daniel, I hope the story we make will be a happy one.’

  ‘From this time on, Rachel.’ He was silent for a moment, and she looked up at him, the line of his jaw beginning to shade with stubble, the shape of his throat. ‘And what of me? Where am I in this fairytale of yours?’

  ‘I thought of The Fool, the first card in the pack. The beginning of things.’

  ‘My costume? Of course. Do you think that might be why he chose me?’ Daniel said, breathing out. ‘That was all? Because I looked like the illustration on a pack of cards?’

  ‘Perhaps that was enough.’

  Daniel was quiet a long time. ‘Do you think me a fool, Rachel?’

  ‘No, but I think we have both been foolish, don’t you?’

  ‘I think I have married a clever woman.’

  ‘Of course you have, but perhaps not very wise. Daniel … that letter you wrote to me the morning after you had been arrested …’

  ‘I apologise for it, Rachel. It fell from me – no wonder you thought me deranged, that you were frightened of me.’

  ‘No, Daniel, that’s just it. It was a little wild, but my dear I should have said this the moment that I came to see you at Castle Grenzhow …’

  ‘But I behaved as if you were a stranger making a social call. I wanted to let you see I was no longer mad, or at least that I had some control.’

  ‘I know, darling, and I was a fool not to tell you to stop being an idiot then, but I was so afraid for you. But let me finish: when you spoke in that letter of me being disgusted with you, frightened of you, I swear to you, Daniel, it was never so. The drug made you think such things. I have always loved and trusted you.’ She twisted round so she could look up into his face, hopeful, unafraid. ‘Darling, whatever strangeness has marked the beginning of our marriage, I swear there has never been a single moment where I have been frightened of you, or disgusted by you. I swear it, Daniel, on those five children Jocasta has promised us.’

  He got down on his knees beside her and took her in his arms.

  V.12

  THE AUDIENCE BEGAN TO make its way into the supper chamber. Harriet took Crowther’s arm and turned to the Colonel.

  ‘What happened to the lady?’ she asked. ‘The one whose son was taken away?’

  Colonel Padfield shook his head. ‘I haven’t a clue, madam. I am afraid I have told you all I know of the matter. One moment – Doctor von Reymen?’

  The Duke’s physician turned towards them and Padfield continued in French. His words were fluent enough, but spoken with an English accent so uncompromising, Harriet felt herself smile. ‘Do you remember the story of that young woman who wanted to run off with the violinist? Mrs Westerman has just asked me how the story ended. I have had to confess, I don’t know.’

  Von Reymen came closer to them and looked about him as he approached, as if delighted to be observed in conversation with them. Harriet was sure she and Crowther would do nothing to enhance Reymen’s reputation. The Colonel’s stock, however, was obviously on the rise.

  ‘Ah yes! I remember it well. You must always come to me for the tittle-tattle, mon Colonel, I have been at Ludwig’s side so long. Kastner was the lady’s name. The fiddler Bertolini. Well, I say Lady. Her French was not well, not well at all. She was sent away and her son, Carl, was enrolled at the Ludwigsschule, here in Ulrichsberg.’

  ‘Was she never allowed to visit him?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘She might have been in time. But after the first year, there was no one to visit! An outbreak of fever came to the town and the child was one of the eight who died. Very sad, of course, he was a brave little chap. But no doubt she was glad of his death – so much easier to find a new rich protector without a child.’

  Harriet clenched her jaw. It was probably a good thing that Crowther intervened to ask, ‘You attended the child? Did he tell you nothing of his mother?’

  ‘It was a terrible time, milord. I had no time to chat to him, there were so many taken ill. Now there was a man, the drawing master … Durnham – Dreher, that was it! He must have taken a liking to the boy, since one often found him at the bedside. None of the other masters seemed to think the child would amount to much.’

  Harriet closed her eyes, thinking of her son Stephen, the terrors she had felt whenever he was ill, and the death of her first child half a world away. The memory of it
still lay vivid and black in the core of her.

  ‘Mrs Westerman?’

  She opened her eyes to look at Crowther and he nodded to the far corner of the room. Krall was standing by the double doors, waiting for them to notice him. His brows were drawn tightly together.

  Crowther bowed towards her. ‘I think you may have to change your dress again, Mrs Westerman.’

  Krall had told them only that Adolphus Glucke had been found dead; he then waited in their private parlour, staring ferociously at the fire as Harriet and Crowther dressed to leave the palace. Harriet did not speak to Dido as she changed her clothes. She tried to remember what had happened since she first dressed that day in the darkness: Countess Dieth found, her mouth full of earth and her ring with the owl symbol missing; Clode’s release and the discovery of Swann staggering and senseless in the garden. A fragment of the aria Manzerotti had sung had stuck, repeating itself in her brain, and again and again she saw the image of a young boy dying of fever and separated from his mother.

  Adolphus Glucke was not provided with an apartment in court, but in common with several other senior members of the Privy Council, his house was only a short stroll from the grounds. There he had lived with his books and scores, unmarried, a little aloof but devoted to the service of the Duke and Maulberg. His home was one of the first in Neue Strasse, a tall, narrow building that reminded Crowther of those built in Soho Square or Portland Place for families coming to spend the season in Town, and not concerned if they were a little cramped. The height of the frontage gave Crowther the impression he was being looked down upon. He turned; the view was much the same that he had first had of the palace, yet, set to the west of the marketplace as it was, Glucke’s house seemed to be looking at it slightly askance. The street was dark and quiet, and Krall hurried them up the steps and into the hallway, glancing about him as he did so. At the bottom of a steep internal staircase was a small group of people. Krall barked and glowered, and it was established with reasonable quickness that they were Glucke’s housekeeper, who had discovered him, and her daughter and son-in-law to whom she had run; also the member of the Watch, who had just begun his work of singing out the hours and Biblical quotes when she gave him the news. Mr Glucke’s footman was the last of the group.