The ambassadorial equipage returned to a humid and overcast Munich during the afternoon of Wednesday 13 April 1774. Fatigue from the journey did not prevent the countess, notebook in hand, immediately seeking out Herr Abentauer, the embassy’s comptroller and steward. There were arrangements to make for tomorrow’s salon. Frank Potts for his part sought the garret office he had once shared with Freddie Winslow, but now occupied alone. He abstractedly sorted the correspondence he found on his desk while pondering once again where his interview with the being calling himself Jonas Niemand had left him.
He was recalled to himself by the clatter of boots on the stairs outside. A brisk knock was followed by the smiling face of Teddie Carfax.
‘Welcome back, Frank! How was Ruritania? I hear you made it to Zenda. I was there in ’68 when the king opened the forest to favoured envoys and old Windlesham put together a hunting party in which I was graciously included. It was the first time I’d seen a wild boar brought down … by dogs, it was a gory business believe me.’
Frank rolled his eyes. ‘This is you wanting to know about his lordship’s meeting with King Rudolf. I can’t help you, Teddie. I didn’t even know His Majesty was at Zenda till Freddie pointed out that the royal banner was floating over the castle for a reason. His lordship was reticent on the subject on the ride back to Saptenburg too.’
‘Still, you have to wonder if it was a meeting for family reasons or something else.’
‘Like what, Teddie?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. There was that business with the Diet some time back. The Bavarian Question is going to have been discussed. You mark my words.’
‘I shall, Teddie. But I rather think that family concerns were more to the point in a meeting of father and son.’
‘Did his lordship let anything slip?’
‘About their meeting …? Let me think. Yes, there was one thing.’ Teddie Carfax looked expectant, and Frank let the moment drag on before answering. ‘He did say the king did not have a wig on, but wore his own hair.’
‘Damn you, Frank Potts. Well be discreet. You have the look of a man who’s not telling me all that he might. Is the salon going ahead tomorrow?’
‘I believe so,’ Frank replied. ‘Her ladyship was eager to get back today for that very reason. She’s full of plans. She wrote to Ingolstadt to make sure Professor Weishaupt will be in Munich for the event.’
‘Really? Old Dunbar will be pleased. Another lecture on Moral Reformation, you think?’
‘I have no idea, Teddie. I do hope he has more than one string to his bow, though. There’s only so much reformation my morals can take.’
Teddie Carfax departed laughing, while Frank resumed staring at his desktop. ‘That Antonin girl’ came back to his mind. The elf had told him and Freddie that his main worry was Sebastienne Wollherz, and he was counting on them to keep her under observation. He recalled that Professor Weishaupt had appeared at the last embassy salon at her recommendation. His mind snapped back to the present moment. Whether or not she was in Munich, Frank should investigate the unlikely connection between a young, dangerous and beautiful baroness and a professor of civil and canon law.
***
The day after his return to Strelsau, Freddie made his way in the early morning from his lodgings at the Sign of the Elephant to the fencing gallery he and Bastian patronised off the Alt Markt. They found ways to make their reunion a passionate, if quick one, before exercising, washing and heading across to their favoured coffee house on the square, the Black Bear. It had its name from the huge stuffed bear in the entrance which had been killed in the primeval forests west of Ranstadt in the duchy of Glottenburg, where a number of the great beasts still lingered, along with wolves and small herds of bison. As usual, Bastian hung his hat on one of the animal’s outstretched paws, and he and Freddie greeted several acquaintances among the early morning regulars before selecting a table and taking the morning newssheets racked at the entrance.
As Freddie perused the sheets and enjoyed the fresh pastries that appeared on their table he glanced across at his lover, as handsome and desirable as ever. Bastian looked up as he did, and his easy and glorious smile as their eyes met sent shivers up Freddie’s spine. He was quite overwhelmed for a moment by his passion for the younger man.
‘Dinner tonight at Engelngasse, Freddie?’ Bastian asked. ‘Father knows you’re back in Strelsau and will expect you to put in an appearance.’
‘Is Bessie in town? I didn’t see her with Princess Osra at Zenda.’
‘No idea. She’s getting more and more mysterious these days. I believe the princess hasn’t returned to Strelsau, but moved on to Medeln with little Duke Staszek to inspect the new palace she’s building for herself in the abbey. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bessie’s there with her. She’s always had a thing about nuns.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, there was a time around our thirteenth birthday – some time before she discovered the delights of the male sexual organ – when she upset Father and Mother by her insistence she’d join the Clares in Munich.’
‘Seriously?’
‘She was having simultaneous erotic relationships with two fellow pupils and a novice at the Anger convent. I was going through the change at the time and her torrid accounts of what she was getting up to in the priory across the road gave me a permanent horn. But all in all, I don’t think her vocation was a true one and she was wise not to pursue it. In fact I half believe she only harped on it as part of her warfare with Mother. She was still bringing it up when she was sixteen, complaining how Mother had frustrated her desire to become a bride of Christ. She had her there. Mother is passionate about her religion and was unwisely vocal in her admiration of the female religious.’
Freddie frowned to himself. Medeln had become a place of interest to him after his brief interview with Jonas Niemand at Zenda. He paused and then observed to Bastian ‘You know, I’d like to go and inspect the abbey.’
‘Really? Out to Ober Husbrau? Is this for your book?’
‘I’ve not gone that far up the Taveln valley. But why not? Summer is coming and if I can get a week to myself from His Royal Highness, it would make a fine expedition.’
Bastian gave him a quizzical look and then shot him a smile. ‘Do that, and I’ll come too. It’s been a while since we travelled together, and we had such fun on your first tour of Ruritania.’
‘Oh, I think this will be a very different sort of fun, believe me.’
***
Frank Potts took a post near the door between the entrance hall to the embassy and the larger reception room. It was a good place to observe the arrivals and circulating groups in the countess’s reception. Professor Weishaupt arrived a half hour after the start of the event, Frank taking a close look at the man as he entered. Although actually in his mid-twenties he looked more as if he ha attained his mid-thirties and was slightly stooped, as might be expected of a scholar. Nonetheless he had a definite presence about him. Frank discovered the professor had a way of seizing the eye as he fixed his gaze on him and took his hand. It was a strangely intense moment, and it left Frank wondering if Professor Weishaupt had some sort of power himself. He shook Frank’s hand as he went past, following the circulating crowd which was heading towards the sofa where Countess Christina held court.
The main guest that afternoon was however the distinguished diplomat and historian, Christian Friedrich Pfeffel von Kriegelstein, who arrived with his friend the French ambassador. Lord Burlesdon had invested in the many thick volumes of Bavarian history von Kriegelstein had published, and Frank had been ordered to read them, which he had done with some interest. So when Professor Weishaupt circulated into the group surrounding the pair Frank followed him.
Von Kriegelstein was a tall and affable fellow in his late forties, and had brought several trays of his collection of historical seals, which were displayed on a table and on which he discoursed amusingly. Professor Weishaupt was one of those who perused them with interest, and seemed particularly struck by one large red specimen, on which he questioned its owner.
‘Oh that! My dear professor, it is quite the oddity,’ came the reply. ‘It’s from Ruritania. Let me get it out of the box. It’s from the last century, it’s sound and quite safe to handle and pass around. You’ll notice the kabbalistic symbols around the rim. I half believe they actually amount to some sort of arcane incantation.’
‘A magical spell, Christian?’ said an amused Monsieur de Folard, the French ambassador. ‘Who was the heretic who dared put that nonsense on his seal, and in Ruritania! Such a very orthodox place.’
The historian shrugged. ‘It was the notorious Oskar, the Graf von Tarlenheim.’
‘Ah, that man. Now I understand.’ The Frenchman nodded as if the name meant something to him.
Professor Weishaupt stirred himself. ‘Monsieur, was the man infamous?’
‘Very much so, my dear professor,’ came the reply. ‘I was sent as minister to Strelsau in 1750 and stayed in post for a year, and he was still talked of then. Graf Oskar was the great grandfather of the Marshal Prince of Tarlenheim, of whom all have heard: the enemy of my king in the late wars. Back in those days because of Oskar there was still some bad odour round the family, though their fortunes had once more begun to rise in the kingdom.’
‘And what had caused the fall, monsieur?’ another guest asked.
‘I believe it was tampering with forces that mortals are supposed not to commune with. He was one of the great alchemists of the last century, and searched the secrets such men desired: the transformation of base metals and the elixir of youth. He is supposed to have had more success in his experiments than some, though I notice that he still died in debt and distressed circumstances as so many of them do. It took the family some generations to recover from his wastefulness.
‘But it was the manner of his death that raised notoriety. He went to an abbey in the north of the land and conducted some obscene experiment in its precinct in the course of which he was blasted from the face of the earth, with the usual smell of brimstone and howling of demons as I understand. One thing I do know, the family is said as a consequence to be cursed by the haunting of a number of phantoms, and to one of those I can attest at least.’
‘Really Hubert?’ von Kriegelstein asked. ‘You’ve not told me that story.’ Several others of the group demanded to know more.
The ambassador inclined his head and continued. ‘The Tarlenheim family has a mansion in the New City of Strelsau, a rambling place with an internal courtyard. I attended a reception there held by the Marshal Prince, which was very good of me as some years before he had inflicted one of the most humiliating defeats France had suffered since the day of Le roi soleil.
‘The prince was very hospitable however, and indeed we struck up quite a friendly relationship that evening. So he and I were still over our wine long after midnight in one of the inner galleries. Now lights were burning in the upper floor across the courtyard, and the marshal informed me that his old mother, then a grand lady in her seventies, occupied that suite and had been complaining of a chill earlier that day. He was debating whether to send after news of her, since she was evidently up and about, when I distinctly heard the outer gate to the street roll open and clang back. Not only that but till my dying day I will swear that I heard the rumble of wheels and rattle of hooves in the court below and the jingle of harness. But when I craned to look down into the courtyard, it was empty in the flickering light of the wall torches.
‘It was then that I caught the prince’s expression, and a look of horror was fixed upon it. He is a brave man who has ridden unmoved across many fields of battle, but his face was struck white in that moment. For he clearly saw something in the court below that I could not. In a moment the palace was ablaze with lights with servants running everywhere, but too late for his mother, for she had been struck by apoplexy in her rooms and she died well before the dawn came.’
A pause gave a tribute to the ambassador’s storytelling skills. Then Professor Weishaupt spoke up. ‘Tell me, monsieur. What was the name of the abbey where the old count died?’
‘My apologies, professor,’ came the reply, ‘but I fear I have no idea.’
But von Kriegelstein said. ‘Ah! I can help you there. In this box here you will see a fourteenth-century seal in green wax of that very house, the abbey of Our Lady of Medeln. A very well executed effigy of the Virgin but not otherwise remarkable. It is a royal abbey of Ruritania, very wealthy and distinguished with quite a collection of saintly relics I believe. It has the shrine of St Fenice of Tarlenheim, who as it happens was an ancestress of the Graf Oskar. Tell me professor, what is your opinion on such things?’
The man pondered a moment, then said in the measured tones of what must be his lecture hall voice ‘Many of my colleagues in the universities of the Empire argue that the energising principle of the Universe is an invisible Weltgeist: as you would say in French ‘l’ésprit du monde’. Now it is a fact that a force acts upon and within the physical world, as in the intangible influence of magnetism or the invisible force of gravity. It would seem to me that if you admit a power that infuses the observable universe and its involvement in our daily world, as many do, then it would be no great step to arguing that men of great mental power may be those with sensitivity to the Weltgeist, who may even try to influence it.’
‘What sir, as the man Swedenborg claimed to?’ remarked a bystander.
‘Ah, now that would imply that the Weltgeist is sentient, and is capable of communicating, which is not a view the Church would approve, for it implies that spirits other than the Lord God have power over this world. Your Graf Oskar, Monsieur de Folard, would seem to have been seeking to win a transmutive power, if I understand your account. He was trying to wrench supernatural power for himself by brute force, rather than negotiate with any world-embracing spirit.
‘Still, it would seem to me that if you give some credit to the report of Graf Oskar’s fatal experiment at Medeln, and admit that Swedenborg could indeed walk the spirit realm in his head, as very many believe he could, then it may be that those of greater mental powers could indeed ascend by their natural gifts and mental training to a higher state of communion with the universe.’
Frank looked narrowly as the professor pursued his line of reasoning, and it seemed to him that Herr Weishaupt was arguing no more than he himself believed.
***
Freddie and Bastian rode into the town of Tarlenheim as the sun went down on the last day of April. It was a cool and clear evening with shadows long across the town’s river meadows as they rode along the Taveln, brown and swollen after recent rains. Freddie had passed through the town during one of his earlier tours of the province, but had not then managed to gain entry to the abbey, which was ten miles upriver of Tarlenheim. He let Bastian deal with the innkeeper, as Rothenian was the daily language of the province of Uber Husbrau.
‘With your help I hope to get into the precinct this time,’ Freddie observed over dinner that evening. ‘After all, you know everyone who is anyone in Ruritania.’
Bastian shook his head. ‘Confess Freddie, you’re still uneasy about our Catholic abbeys. You don’t deep down want to get inside the Marienkloster. You’re afraid of papist contamination.’
Freddie rolled his eyes. ‘You may jest, Sebastian Wollherz, but I was brought up to think of Catholic clergy as masked and cloaked agents of a foreign power, plotting to finish off what the Armada started and destroy Old England. Don’t forget Frank Potts’s great-uncle was hung at Tyburn for being found in possession of a mass book.’
‘Then may he rest with the angels amongst the other martyrs.’
‘Mind you, Frank did admit that the man was a Benedictine and implicated in a plot to assassinate the Dutch king William, so he wasn’t entirely an innocent. So how are we going to get in the abbey?’
‘It should be straightforward. I carry the name of Wollherz, which gives me a claim to be among the patrons of Medeln. Father told me there’s a Wollherz chantry altar in the abbey crypt, where mass is said for the souls of Karl and his family, which I suppose could be argued to include me and Bessie at a pinch, even though there’s no blood link. In fact I could pretend to be seeking information as to the state of the chantry. What do you think?’
‘Sounds a cast iron argument to me.’
‘Good. Then I shall now write a polite note to the lady Maria Radegunda, the prioress, asking to make my visitation and if I can bring my friend with me, the eminent writer on Rothenian antiquities, Herr Frederick Wilmslow, secretary to His Royal Highness Henry Elphberg, prince of Ruritania. It does sound rather impressive like that. Tomorrow’s Sunday so we may get access in the afternoon.’ Bastian paused. ‘Still, I would very much like to know what you are looking for, Freddie. I have the distinct impression you’re not telling me all you could about this expedition of yours.’
The sudden shaft of perception from his lover quite took Freddie aback. The easy-going charm Sebastian Wollherz displayed to the world had encouraged Freddie to forget that he possessed an intellect quite as acute as his sister’s. Freddie barely fumbled a response, which left the sharp look in Bastian’s eye quite unchanged.
***
It was midday when the two riders came to the abbey gate. It was a cool day with a low roof of grey cloud, and the fields to the east of the abbey which ran down to the village of Medelnbrücke were bleak and empty. Maybe it was the effect of the weather but Freddie found the massive turreted gate rearing over them to be forbidding. Even more forbidding was a black painted cage of iron straps hung by chains from a gallows opposite the gate arch on the road to the village. Though it was empty, Freddie recognised it as a gibbet in which executed felons’ bodies could be hung till they decayed and the bones fell to the ground.
‘That’s an odd thing to find outside an abbey, Bastian,’ he remarked.
‘It’s no ordinary nunnery,’ came the reply. ‘Medeln’s a royal abbey, and the abbess rules a principality which makes up this entire stretch of the Taveln valley and she exercises justice of life and limbs, or rather, it’s exercised in her name.’
‘Which means Princess Osra Madeleine does it now herself, I suppose,’ said Freddie. ‘Something makes me think she’d be rather good at the justice of life and limbs thing. I bet she could be very stern if she wanted to be.’
‘No doubt,’ Bastian replied. ‘I’d better go ring the bell.’
The young men dismounted. The clangour of the bell brought a lay sister in brown robes to the gate. Bastian removed his hat, gave a low bow and introduced them.
The sister knew him for the young Baron Wollherz and a leaf of the great door was opened so they could lead their horses in and then confide them to a waiting abbey servant. They were guided across the wide inner court, surrounded with stables, barns and other service buildings. Over their roofs could be seen claustral buildings and the church beyond.
The prioress of Medeln was a great lady, even though she was not the official head of the community. In those days, when the titular abbacy had been conferred on a woman outside the chapter of nuns, Prioress Maria Radegunda more or less ruled Medeln with the authority of the abbess within the walls. She had her own residence leading off the cloister; not as impressive as Princess Osra’s new palace that now occupied the site of the old abbatial wing, but still handsome enough. Such were the great privileges of Medeln abbey that the prioress, as much as the abbess, was entitled to the insignia of a mitre, which adorned the heraldry carved into the stonework of her hall.
The woman herself greeted them at its entrance. Both youths delivered an elegant court bow, since the prioress was not just a senior religious figure but a countess and the youngest sister of the Marshal Prince of Tarlenheim. She beamed and offered her hand.
‘My dear baron, such a pleasure to welcome you here, and this must be Herr Winslow. Come through and let me offer you both some tea. I can even have cake brought, as it’s a Sunday.’
They settled in a small drawing room and the prioress asked after Bastian’s parents, whom she had met. ‘I was professed as a nun two years before Karl Wollherz died and was buried here, and my own mother, the Countess Catherine of Tarlenheim, was acquainted with your mother’s people. Of course your grandfather was occasionally out at Herr Wollherz’s property at Templerstadt for business reasons. He was an executor of old Karl’s estate, and I believe the legal responsibility has since devolved on your father. Is that what brings you here?’
‘Only in part, my lady,’ replied Bastian, ‘though it is perhaps long overdue for the family to visit. But since my good friend Herr Winslow is preparing to publish a travel directory and gazette for the Rothenian lands in the English language, we thought it would be a good idea for him to use the opportunity to visit Ober Husbrau, which he does not know well.’
‘As a patron of our house, dear baron, you may feel free to visit the cloister as well as the choir of the church, and I’m happy to extend the privilege to Herr Winslow. He might find it interesting to talk to the sister-librarian, who is a fount of knowledge on the abbey’s history.’
As they chatted over the teacups Freddie shot the occasional glance at this woman robed in white and black, who Jonas Niemand had told him was the other of the two mystic guardians of the abbey’s secrets. She seemed however no more than her appearances indicated: a nun in her late middle age, her round face kindly but marked by years of authority and her own high aristocratic birth. Eventually the sister-librarian was summoned and introduced to the pair, and was charged to take them into the abbey church through the cloister. And so, notebook in hand, Freddie duly followed the lady through the precinct. She was in fact a rather good guide to the history of Medeln, with a dry humour unexpected in a choir nun.
She finally left them in the crossing under the tower, with liberty to wander the choir of the church and the crypt, but not to stray into the other buildings of the abbey other than to use the cloister to find their way out. They were not alone in the church. A number of lay people were at prayer in the nave, and workmen were repairing a window in the north aisle. They headed first through the screen that closed off the north choir aisle.
‘My word!’ Freddie remarked, as they paused in the ambulatory to stare up at the tall shrine of St Fenice behind the high altar. Six tall candles burned around it, as did a thurible of incense, sending up spirals of scented smoke. ‘Is that silver plated?’
‘I believe so,’ Bastian responded, crossing himself. ‘It must be about a hundred pound weight of the stuff, not to mention all those little silver and jewelled statuettes in the niches.’
Freddie marvelled at the burial place of one of the greater Rothenian saints. He did so uneasily aware that in Rothenia saints did not all rest quietly in their tombs, and that the people of the Dead were looking back to the mortal realms and working their own purposes, as Jonas Niemand had warned him.
The pair walked back along the choir aisle, Bastian apparently looking for something. ‘Ah, here!’ he announced as he paused at a line of three doors opening north out of the church.
‘What’s this?’ Freddie asked.
‘I was told to look out for these. There are three anchorites’ cells on this side of the church.’
‘Anchorites? Hermits?’
‘Nuns who used to shut themselves away in these little rooms and lived in isolation from the community. These windows allowed them to watch the mass the abbey priests said and to receive communion, but otherwise they lived in prayer, contemplation and study. I think they’re empty these days.’
‘Interesting, but …’.
‘The thing is, Freddie, take a look at this middle one. Up above this window into the cell there’s a wall tablet. The light’s not too good, but you should see the manner of the sculpture well enough.’
Freddie squinted up at a memorial placed well above head height. The inscription at the base was not that easy to read but his eye was caught by the sculpted scene it featured in deep relief. His neck prickled. He had seen it before. A lake scattered with tall islands lay surrounded by grassy mountains, some sort of winged creatures circling above them. The central island was crested by a tower from which beams of light shot out. It was much the same scene he had found sculpted on the memorial to the Count of St-Germain in the Frauenkirche Friedhof in the Old City of Strelsau, the count who had been the lifelong friend of Karl Wollherz and was otherwise known as Willem Antonin, the man who was Bastian’s great grandfather.
‘Is this a memorial to Karl Wollherz?’ he asked.
‘His tomb and chantry altar’s directly below us in the crypt. I was told to keep an eye out for it. You recognise the theme? Odd isn’t it.’
‘It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, for sure, but I don’t know what it means,’ Freddie confessed, aware that his heart was hammering for some reason. Whether or not it was something to do with Jonas Niemand, he had acquired a new sense. The prickle of his neck and a surge of light-headedness told him that the air around him had suddenly come alive with magical energy. It must have been the same sense that had drawn him towards Medeln, and clearly there was more yet to find here. He took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go down to the crypt, Bastian.’
***
Frank Potts had been sent back from Zenda to Munich with a mission of a sort. He was supposed to try to find out what Professor Weishaupt was up to, and if possible to discover his connection to Sebastienne Wollherz. He had the good fortune that the professor was at Lady Burlesdon’s Thursday reception on his return, and he was able to observe and listen to him. After that his luck dried up. The professor was absent from the next two weekly salons. There was no sign of the Baroness Wollherz in the city, either. Of course the house that the family had once had in the Anger was now sold. He knew there was a family villa near the Wollherz stud and farm out at Neuhausen to the west of Munich, but could not think of any credible excuse why he should go out there and snoop, nor did he have any expectation that it would be worth the effort.
After a fortnight, Frank gave up hopes of any lead dropping into his lap. He was more and more oppressed by the feeling that he was disappointing whatever expectations Jonas the elf might have had in him. So as he sat in his garret office he drafted a brief to Freddie in Strelsau, since he obviously couldn’t send a letter to the elf direct. The exercise was helpful. Perhaps he ought to be more ‘professional’, he thought. What that involved was the sort of concentrated work Lord Burlesdon expected of him when he constructed briefs about aspects of ecclesiastical or court politics in Bavaria.
The easier target for him was Professor Weishaupt. There were rumours of his association with Freemasons in the electorate, and maybe that was an avenue he could research. He had detected that Weishaupt was a man who had a mission in life, and from what he understood the professor had some strange ideas of the power of the human mind. It also happened that he now knew Sebastienne Wollherz possessed a mind with some strange powers of its own. He needed to know more of how those two things were connected. So he needs must go to Ingolstadt, to the university.
As luck would have it, at that morning’s coffee break in the embassy library Herr Mossinger, the first secretary, brought up the subject of the closing down of the Jesuit order in Bavaria.
‘Wasn’t the University of Ingolstadt a Jesuit institution,’ Frank chipped in.
‘What? It had a Jesuit college as part of it. Now I think of it the countess’s friend, Weishaupt, benefitted when the defunct Jesuit chair of canon law was added to his existing post in the university. There must have been quite an upheaval on the campus. You attended the University of Heidelberg did you not, Mr Potts? Perhaps you could get some materials together about higher education in Bavaria and put it on file. You’ll understand the way German institutions work.’
‘Yes sir,’ Frank agreed. ‘It might be as well to find something about Herr Weishaupt and his circumstances, since he is associating with her ladyship. I could take a run out to Ingolstadt.’
Secretary Mossinger pursed his lips, then nodded. ‘Do so … but do be discreet, young man.’
***
Bastian and Freddie found the stairs down into the abbey crypt in a chapel east of the south transept. There was an iron gate, but it was not locked. At the bottom of the flight a large round headed arch led into a subterranean church mirroring the choir and choir aisles of the church above. It was surprisingly airy, for the arches holding up the church were higher than Freddie expected, and a fair amount of natural light filtered into the crypt from numerous lancets and shafts.
The spaces directly under the high altar and the shrine of St Fenice were sealed, but otherwise it was possible to walk around freely. Several alcoves under the choir aisles and ambulatory had acquired chapels, and the Wollherz chapel was one of three on the north side. So far as Freddie could tell, it was situated to the east of the anchorite cells and it seemed to have been expensively fitted. It was not particularly gloomy, so its marble altar and the impressive reredos could be readily admired. The altar cloths and drapes were of fine linen and heavy silk.
Bastian checked the altar conscientiously, and grinned when he reported the candles had been lit that morning for a mass for the soul of the deceased Karl Wollherz and the welfare of his family. ‘That explains why I tend to perk up around ten in the morning, do you think?’
‘And here’s the man himself,’ Freddie announced.
‘What!’ Bastian exclaimed as he spun round on him.
Freddie was taken aback by the startled look on his lover’s face. ‘Just an expression,’ he soothed. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, as we say in England.’
Bastian swept his hand across his forehead. Then he gave a shake of his head. ‘Don’t mind me. Place like this get to me sometimes.’
Freddie indicated a stone set in the floor immediately in front of the altar. It was carved with the same armorial device that Bastian used: a shield of a pegasus, surmounted by a knight’s helmet itself crested by a horse’s head. It was inscribed simply in gilded letters with the words: HIC IACET CAROLVS WOLLHERZ : ORA PRO ANIMA SVA.
‘So he was ennobled?’ Freddie asked.
‘Must have been,’ Bastian replied. ‘Looks like he had been created a Ritter, maybe in the time of old King Henry. I’d imagine that Karl would have been very much in favour at his court. He provided a large number of the horses of the Ruritanian army in his day. He was Staroman of the Altstadt and one of the Guardians of the Fenizenhaus. Also, the old fellow had many friends at court, not least General Wittig von Bernenstein. Those two were very close. Karl never married or had any known affairs. Rumour still has it that when they were youngsters back in the last century Karl and old Andreas did the sort of thing we’d be burned at the stake for if it ever got out we did.’
‘Really? Seriously? How do you know that?’
But Bastian did not immediately answer. Eventually he fixed a speculative gaze on his friend and said ‘When are you going to tell me why we’re really out here in Husbrau, Freddie?’
‘Er … what?’
‘It’s been obvious to me for a while something’s going on in your head which is nothing to do with Prince Henry or your old friends in the Munich embassy. Not only that but I rather think that whatever it is has a definite element of danger.’
Freddie let out a long sigh. He was a little glad that this moment had come, but how he could explain it to his lover without making him doubt his sanity was a problem? Jonas Niemand was not going to help him this time. The elf had made it clear that he suspected Bastian was in league with ‘that Antonin girl,’ his twin sister, and refused to trust him.
‘Look Bastian, you’re right,’ he began. ‘But it’s very complicated and difficult to explain, and I don’t know how to begin.’
‘Then let me help you,’ came a third quiet, but somehow weighty voice, from behind him. Freddie spun around, to find himself face to face with a handsome blond youth whose face was ominously familiar and whose dress was that of the last century.