Circle of Shadows (13 page)

‘Mrs Westerman is quite right,’ Crowther admitted. ‘I did dine with my professors from time to time, but they did not have the rank to indulge in such flummery, and I did not have the inclination.’

Graves abandoned his attack on his lace cuffs. ‘Still I am curious to see His Serene Highness Ludwig Christoph, Duke of Maulberg. He must cut quite a figure if he is not dwarfed by the magnificence of his surroundings.’ Then he added, ‘Mrs Westerman, are you really resolved to stay here with Manzerotti in residence?’

She stopped walking. ‘I am not happy to be here at all, Graves. But I can bear him.’

‘He is a fascinating man,’ Crowther said.

‘He is a monster,’ Graves said, plucking at his lace again.

Harriet straightened her back. The weight of her gown felt as if it would drag her to her knees.

‘Graves, you have seen enough of the anatomical curiosities Crowther has collected to know there is no contradiction between his monstrosity and Crowther’s fascination.’

The door opened, and a rather wizened-looking gentleman made his slow way towards them with the aid of a pair of ebony canes. He introduced himself, though Harriet got a little lost in the list of titles. He produced a watch, enamelled with the Arms of Maulberg and tapped it unhappily.

‘I must take you in almost immediately! Well, we must do what we can in the minutes that are left to us. Though,’ he squeezed his eyes almost shut, ‘I would normally insist on an hour at least. We have our ways in Maulberg, and we expect them to be honoured. Forgive my lateness. The new Duchess means we have many strangers in court, and they must be accommodated and introduced in the proper fashion. Now a few words on the correct form for meeting the Duke and how to address His Highness …’

The twenty minutes that followed were the longest in Harriet’s life.

As Harriet entered the ballroom on Graves’s arm, with Crowther a pace behind them, she caught her breath. The long hall was lit by a series of magnificent crystal chandeliers, great fountains of light. Above them the ceiling curved, its height amplified by trompe l’oeil that made the walls into the walls of temples, reaching up in romantic pediments and balconies into a false sky of pinks and reds full of angels. The polished floors glistened. The English party found themselves surrounded with men and women in the full costume of the Ulrichsberg court. Every variety of blue and gold was worn, skirts of huge width and flounces, hair piled high and padded, white faces, rouged and painted, in the French fashion, pursed lips. Gold lace, jewels at every neck and waist. It was an assault on the senses that left Harriet’s throat rather dry. There was, she was happy to see, no sign of Manzerotti in the crowd.

It seemed there was a conscious effort among the thirty or forty ladies and gentlemen present to ignore them, though Harriet felt any number of eyes drift over them and away. They were prepared for this reception; until they were presented to the Duke himself they did not quite exist in the room, so it was only right their presence should be unacknowledged. In some ways it was preferable to the occasions when Harriet had entered some gathering and found the conversation come to a halt. The air was heavy with florid scents. A way seemed to clear in front of them. The gentlemen and ladies drifted aside, a lazy embroidered and powdered parting of the waves, or like fantastically patterned theatre drapes opening to reveal the stage at the far end of the room.

It was an impressive setting. A pair of pink marble columns reached from a raised dais to a small pallisaded balcony. Under it, a plumed canopy, with red and gold drapery, flowed down to frame a slight, elegant gentleman in his late thirties sitting cross-legged in a gilt armchair. There was a woman seated on a stool beside him. Her hair was dressed very high and crowned with ostrich feathers, and her sleeves so flounced they almost obscured the diamonds at her wrist. She was a handsome woman, her slender figure much like Harriet’s own, and though she was certainly not in the first flush of youth, her features were so finely sculpted one could still call her beautiful. Harriet felt the woman’s assessing gaze on her, and lowered her eyes.

The Duke continued to pet his dog as they walked towards him. The Officer of Introduction indicated they should wait some paces from him and himself scuttled up on his sticks like a spider to the Duke’s side and whispered in his ear. The Duke glanced up and smiled. Harriet at once swept as deep a curtsey as she could manage and held the pose. Crowther and Graves slid into similarly respectful bows. Eventually she heard the command to rise.

The Duke stood and approached, swaying a little from side to side as if hearing some invisible music and with the spaniel in his arms. His heels clicked on the floor. ‘Mrs Westerman, a delight to meet you.’

Harriet kept her eyes lowered. The Duke’s shoes were patterned with seed pearls on scarlet velvet. ‘An honour, Your Highness.’

He laughed. The sound was musical but not entirely pleasant. ‘I see dear Carlton has been instructing you well. You may look at me now, dear, and talk to me just like a real person, as the formalities are dealt with.’

She did. His Serene Highness Ludwig Christoph, Duke of Maulberg, was a rather mild-looking man with large hazel eyes and thin lips. His skin was very white with powder. Harriet had expected him to resemble an English squire for some reason, but Ludwig Christoph would have looked like a delicate bloom next to a hunting, drinking and dining Englishman, yet there was great confidence in his bearing. His fingers, clasped round the panting flanks of his spaniel, working into its soft fur, were long and thin. She could imagine them exerting great pressure when they wished.

‘So you wish to release my prisoner, you and your Mr Crowther?’ He turned to Crowther. ‘Is it true what they tell me, that you are in fact a Baron, yet refuse to make use of the title and go about with a common name?’

‘It is, sire.’

‘Well, we can see straight away that you are no German!’ The ladies and gentlemen around the room laughed.

‘We are convinced of Mr Clode’s innocence, sire,’ Harriet said softly, ‘and hope to convince you too.’

The Duke put his head on one side. ‘Do you now, Mrs Westerman? I suppose you would not have come so far or so fast with any other intention. Some opinions, such as those of my friend Countess Dieth, are against you.’ He nodded slightly in the direction of the woman on the dais, then continued, ‘Mr Clode’s loss of memory seems a little convenient, does it not?’

‘Convenient to the true murderer also,’ Harriet replied.

The Duke looked amused. ‘Your reputation as an interesting sort of person is justified, I see. You are welcome to Maulberg, madam.’ The eyes hardened. ‘But remember, Lady Martesen was our friend. Whoever killed her will suffer for it, whosoever that might be.’ He raised his voice slightly. ‘We wish it to be known that Mrs Westerman and her party are to be given every assistance. Their requests are our requests. Their questions, our questions.’

There was a whispering shush as the company bowed or curtseyed and their silks slid over the tessellated hardwood floors. The Duke leaned towards Harriet. ‘There, I think that went rather well.’

Another meal cleared away, another pair of wine bottles empty on the floor. Pegel was silent and stared into the fire for a long while before he spoke.

‘Secret societies, Florian? The Freemasons are one thing – good works and fellowship – but you seem to be talking about something else.’

Florian was bent over his glass. ‘Suppose, Jacob, just suppose there was a group of men and women – enlightened, ready to lead the rest, with faithful followers across Europe. Things could change. We could build a new world. A fairer world.’

Pegel shook his head slowly. ‘Such things cannot be. A rational society, built on learning not mysticism such as you describe …’

‘They can! Ready to free the people! Ready in time to sweep away privileges of birth, the tyranny of property, the black night of religious superstition …’

Pegel lifted his hands. ‘Florian! Enough! It cannot exist. It would be a handful of powerless dreamers. No one in any position of power would join such an organisation.’

‘There are intelligent men in positions of power. Idealists! The correctness of these arguments cannot be disputed. They can see the truth.’ The twisting light from the fire fell on the injured side of his face. He still looked perfect in the imperfect light, warmed by his own enthusiasms. ‘The leaders will guide, lead, educate. They will create a better world for us all. What better cause can a man serve?’

Jacob was almost shouting. ‘I know there could be no better cause! No greater glory in devoting oneself to such ends. But no such society could ever exist. Never. It is impossible.’

Florian leaned towards him, his face glowing like a mystic’s. ‘Oh Jacob. It already does.’

Pegel gasped and opened his eyes wide. Internally he sighed, thinking, Of course it does, you little fool. You are the Minervals, and I am come here to blow you all to kingdom come.

Manzerotti made his appearance as they went in to supper, and was immediately surrounded by a number of admirers. As Harriet was guided to her place she heard his laugh and felt a lurch of anger. For a moment she wished she had shot him; she glanced in his direction and found he was looking straight at her. She felt her cheeks redden as if she had spoken her wish out loud. Harriet found herself seated a good distance from Manzerotti, between Colonel Padfield and a gentleman of the court named Frenzel. Krall was nowhere to be seen. Frenzel greeted her in an affable manner and easy French, but saying he was certain she would enjoy conversing in her own tongue, left her to Colonel Padfield. Having thanked the latter for his kindness to her sister, Harriet would have been content to talk about the floods that were at last retreating across the Holy Roman Empire, rather than continue to think on recent horrors, but Colonel Padfield seemed distracted. He was constantly glancing towards a handsome young woman on the opposite side of the table who seemed to be chatting happily to a young man in uniform at her side.

‘Who is that lady, Colonel?’ Harriet said at last.

He started and blushed a little. ‘My wife, Mrs Westerman.’

‘I should be glad to know her. Rachel tells me she has been very kind to her.’

‘She
is
kind,’ said the Colonel with sudden emphasis. ‘And I should have been lost without her here. Madam, do you think we should judge people because of where they come from, because they might have kept some secrets from us?’

Harriet thought of some of the people whom she had met in the last years who had concealed their origins, lied to keep a place in the world. She weighed her words very carefully. ‘I think we should be very slow to judge others, Colonel. I once knew a lady who was brought up very harshly, and if her history were generally known it would have caused great scandal. I thought her an excellent woman and was proud to know her.’ She noticed Mrs Padfield glance towards them as she spoke, then quickly back to her companion. ‘I was shocked when this lady told me her history. But also touched that she trusted me with her confidence.’

The Colonel let out a long sigh. ‘I am glad you have come to Maulberg, Mrs Westerman.’ He lifted his head and his glass towards his wife and Harriet saw the look returned. The lady’s thin shoulders seemed to relax a fraction before she returned her attention to her neighbour.

‘Madam Westerman, I have been wondering what conversation to offer you.’ Harriet realised the gentleman on her other side was speaking to her. ‘Usually one asks visitors to the court of their impressions of Maulberg …’ He had exactly the right sort of amused but sorry smile on his face as he spoke. ‘But I dare not ask that of you.’ She smiled at him in turn. He was perhaps some ten years older than herself, nearer fifty than forty, his colouring pale and his eyes framed with a network of thin lines.

‘Do you dine at court often, Count?’ she asked.

‘Oh, an excellent notion, I shall talk about myself. Yes, since I took a position with the Duke, before last year hardly at all. I have an estate which I hold
unmittelbar
an hour’s ride away. I return there often.’ He saw her confusion. ‘
Unmittelbar
. My estate lies entirely
within
Maulberg, but I am not subject to the Duke. In my more limited territory I have the same power as he does.’

‘I confess I find the complexities of the country confusing.’

‘As Mr Voltaire said, the Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, Roman, nor an Empire. We are a family, but like most families more often at war with each other than with outsiders. But we find you equally difficult to understand. Your people seem to think they are all Kings, the judges Lords and the King himself your servant.’

‘Our people value their freedom.’

‘They abuse it. A glance at your newspapers tell us that.’ He tutted a little. ‘No, matters are a great deal better organised on the continent. Of course, we have our little philosophers who like to rail against the established order, but they will not triumph. Here and in France the people know their place. It is better so.’

Harriet began to find his smile less pleasing than she had at first thought, then noticed that a young gentleman on the opposite side of the table had been listening intently. It was the Major who had ridden with them from the border. He wore a similar uniform to that of Colonel Padfield and rapped his fingers on the table as he spoke.

‘Indeed? And when we have crushed the will out of the people, and squeezed out every Thaler from their pockets, who will pay for your toys then, Frenzel?’

He shrugged and waved his fork. ‘They do breed, Major Auwerk.’

Harriet believed the Major was about to say something else, but she noticed him glance along the table towards a much older man; thin and bent, she thought he looked a little like Crowther might have become, had she not dragged him into the sunlight. He was looking very steadily at Major Auwerk, and though his expression seemed neutral, the younger man only bit his lip and summoned his glass from the footman behind him.

Harriet turned to the plate in front of her. It was silver-gilt, with the arms of Maulberg emblazoned on it. She saw the shadow of her face reflected there among the fragments of rich food and wondered again how she could possibly come to an understanding of those people. She felt, heavily, that Rachel’s trust in her was misplaced.