HS04 - Unholy Awakening (21 page)

It was the stuff of wild superstition.

I stepped closer to the left-hand wall, and looked through the grating.

I should have guessed, of course, though still it took me by surprise to see it there before my eyes. Fifty paces away was the gateway to the cottage where Grangé had been slaughtered. Had the killer been inspired to murder the French officer by imitating the methods that the butchers used to put down animals? Or had he purposely intended to feed the fires of superstition, exploiting the local belief in supernatural creatures which attacked the throats of their victims?

Sunlight flooded into the building from those windows set in the wall, forming bright rectangular pools beneath the windows, leaving a great deal in dark ness in the centre of the room. It was a trick of the sun, which was almost directly overhead at that time of day, I supposed, combined with the position of the building and the windows in relation to the direction of the rays. As I stepped into the light, I noticed the footprints in the dust.

It was impossible to say how recently they had been left there. The only certainty was that the cottage was visible from that position. It would be an easy matter to spy on the house, to see whoever came, and went. To know when he arrived, and when he left. And whether he was armed, or not.

I recalled something that I had read in one of the reports the night before. It was not about Sebastien Grangé, but concerned the second man who had been murdered, Philippe Gaspard:…
a courageous officer, fearless in battle, of indomitable will and most remarkable physical strength…

These men were no easy prey.

I knelt down and touched the footprints as if they could tell me more. I traced them with my fingers and they almost disappeared, like brittle figures made in dry sand. The ground was too dusty to conserve the marks. At the same time, my eyes wandered to the wall beneath the grating. There, the shadowy dark ness was almost impenetrable. And yet there was something pressed up against the foot of the wall. A lump of some sort, a stone perhaps. I touched it, prised it away from the wall. It was a piece of rag, and it had caught or stuck against the rough surface of the wall. I lifted it into the light, where the sun came in as a solid beam at an acute angle, and saw that it was a strip of cloth which had been ripped from a larger cloth. It was pale in colour, streaked with darker stains. Again, the words of Elspeth returned to my mind.
Blood, sir. I could see it on her hands. They was black and shining ’til she washed them in the water
.

I let the filthy rag drop to the floor, and kicked it away.

As it fell beside the stone trough, I saw something beneath.

A large black dog was hidden in the shadows. It was dead, its throat cut, wriggling with maggots…

I ran for the door, and charged out onto the river path, taking deep breaths.

I walked away quickly, heading back towards the tavern and the road.

I knew that I would say very little to Lavedrine about what I had managed to ‘discover’ that morning. The Black Bull tavern and the old slaughter-house were grim places for the spinning of stories about ghosts and other supernatural beings. He would not be interested in such things.

I might tell him that the place was sinister, and even a little frightening.

And yet, if I did so, I knew that he would laugh at me.

‘No-one enters without a pass. Not even the Emperor.’

The sentries leapt from their boxes as if they had been fired from a cannon. The muskets which had been resting on their shoulders now pointed at me.

‘I am a Prussian magistrate,’ I explained. ‘I walked out of this gate no more than two hours ago. Surely you saw me then? I am working with Colonel Lavedrine.’

The two men exchanged a glance.

‘What was the name of the officer again?’ one of them asked.

‘Lavedrine. Colonel Serge Lavedrine.’

‘Never heard of him,’ the sentry said.

‘You cannot have failed to notice him,’ I insisted. ‘He wears a full-length leather coat, and has curly silver hair…’

‘Fancy earring hanging from his lug?’

I blessed Lavedrine for wearing things in public that very few men would dare to wear in the privacy of their own homes. ‘That’s him,’ I said with relief.

The soldier’s eyes were small and round like brown chick-peas. They opened wide with surprise. ‘I saw him walking out first thing this morning,’ he said. He turned away and spoke to the other man with a hiss. ‘Was he a
colonel
?’

I began to answer this question with renewed vigour. ‘Colonel Lavedrine has been ordered…’

‘Don’t waste your breath, Stiffeniis! I must see Layard. And so must you.’

Lavedrine had appeared like a genie from a lamp. He looked even wilder than usual, his hair a silvery tangle, his trench-coat slung over his left shoulder like a cloak. He placed his right hand on his hip and scrutinised the sentries, who stared ahead as if he were a basilisk who had threatened to kill them with a glance. ‘Do you need to see
my
pass?’

It was quite a spectacle. The men snapped to attention, shouldered arms, clicked their heels, and saluted in perfect synchronism as Lavedrine and I strode in through a gate which Napoleon himself could not enter without a pass. We walked quickly across the parade-ground in silence, then Lavedrine ducked through an arch. We were in a long, wide corridor with columns on one side like a cloister, opening onto a garden.

Marienburg is unlike any Prussian castle that I have seen. Not merely an impregnable fortress, it has all the pretensions of a princely palace. Seen from the out side, everything is solid and stern: stone walls, brick keeps, tall watchtowers. But on the inside, Gothic traceries and coloured ceramic tiles lend grace and elegance to the austere architectural forms. On the walls and ceiling there were frescoed garlands, fruit, flowers, and here and there, a bold heraldic device.

From the pace which Lavedrine set, I realised that there was something urgent which he needed to discuss with General Layard. I would be a witness to it, of course, but I seethed at the thought. Lavedrine would speak, while I would have to listen.

I laid my hand on his arm, and pulled up sharply. ‘Before we go any further, can I know at least what you intend to say to the general?’

At that moment, a squad of soldiers came marching in our direction.

The corridor was wide enough, but suddenly it seemed very narrow. There was a rugged determination in their advance, a disciplined pounding of their boots on the stone flags. Lavedrine stepped back, pressing himself to the wall, and I was forced to do the same. Shoulder to shoulder, a dozen men swept past in files of three. They held muskets across their chests, their bayonets fixed.

‘I hope that they are not going where I think,’ Lavedrine muttered.

The boots moved on like an avalanche.

‘Where might that be?’ I asked him.

‘The Black Bull,’ he said. ‘They’ll make a clean sweep of it.’

‘Why go over there? I questioned them an hour ago. They know nothing which can help us. They are steeped in superstition…’

‘General Layard wanted to raid the place last night. I persuaded him to wait. I did not tell him why, but I wanted to give you the chance to speak with them.’ He was angry as he continued: ‘I warned him. It will do more harm than good, if we blame the murders on Prussians who just happen to live there. We need proof of guilt. If our men even begin to think that the locals have been killing officers of the
Grande Armée
, any thing could happen. Unfortunately, General Layard is not a patient man.’

‘Neither am I,’ I said. ‘You insist that we must work together to solve these crimes. Then, you disappear without a word. I have done exactly as you asked me. But what have you been doing in the meantime?’

His laughter greeted my complaints, ringing along the corridor.

‘You’d have been a hindrance, not a help,’ he said. ‘I have been in places that you’d do better to avoid, Stiffeniis. If you have learnt anything useful at the tavern this morning, tell me now. Before we speak to the general.’

‘We?’ I echoed.

‘Tell me what the Prussians said,’ he insisted.

I stared at him for some moments, concluding that the best way to help the people from the Black Bull was to tell Lavedrine the unadorned truth. ‘The landlord had no idea that Grangé was even in that house. He believes that Grangé is, or was, a smuggler, and that he was purposely trying to avoid any contact with the French.’

‘A smuggler?’ said Lavedrine with a frown. ‘Not a bad guess, though there are a thousand other possibilities. I gather that when the slaughter-house was closed down, the toll-collector’s cottage passed into our hands. The keys were here in the fortress. No-one had taken any notice of the place, of course. It’s in Prussian territory, and out of the way. Yet that’s where Grangé’s body was found. He may well have stolen the key. If there was any danger over there, he chose to ignore it. Did the people at the tavern tell you nothing else?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, though it was not entirely true.

French troops had been sent to the inn. If they spoke to Elsie, the maid might tell them everything that she had told me. Then again, I thought, perhaps it was all for the best. If she said that she had met a wolf, and that the wolf had told her that it intended to eat the entire French army when it perished in the snow, they would certainly believe that she was mad.

Suddenly, I felt the weight of Lavedrine’s hand upon my shoulder.

‘Let me talk to Layard, will you? Don’t say a word unless you are called to do so. There’ll be no mention of the fact that we were out on separate errands this morning. I want the general to believe that we are constantly together, that I know what you know, and vice versa.’

‘In other words, Layard must not be told that I have been to the tavern on my own,’ I said bluntly. ‘I’ll go along with it, but I still want to know where you have been while I was over there, Lavedrine.’

He removed his hand from my shoulder, staring at the palm as if it were a document, and he were reading it. ‘I’ve been making enquiries about the recent history of the
Grande Armée
. Just remember, let
me
speak with General Layard.’

‘Very well,’ I said.

‘Now, for God’s sake, let’s get out of this doorway. It must look as though you’re trying to seduce me!’ he said, pulling back with a laugh. ‘Then again, Hanno, after what I saw last night, I don’t believe that I’d hold out for long.’

He turned and strode away down the corridor, while I followed, speechless and blushing. Two guards were standing at the far end of the corridor, which branched off to the left and the right.

‘Where is General Layard?’ he growled.

‘He’s in the East Wing, sir. Topography room…’ The man stopped short. ‘Have you got a pass?’ he growled back.

‘What do you think, private?’ Lavedrine snapped.

He turned right, marching away with long strides, his leather coat flapping out behind him. His mouth was set in a stiff smile. His lips moved only when some unfortunate soldier had the temerity to ask him where he might be going. Then, he was abrupt to the point of arrogance.

Our wandering ended before a set of large double doors which were made of the very finest mahogany, so brightly polished that they seemed to glow. On the wall above the lintel was a bright blue enamel plaque inscribed in white.

R
EALM OF THE
U
NIVERSAL
I
NTELLECT

The uniform of the sentry in front of the door was truly immaculate. He was even taller than Lavedrine, broad enough to match an Imperial Guard. This man nodded to Lavedrine and stepped aside

‘We are about to enter the territory of Laplace,’ Lavedrine announced. ‘For a follower of Immanuel Kant like yourself, it will be like stepping into the enemy’s camp.’

‘Pierre-Simon Laplace?’

Lavedrine nodded, and smiled grimly.

I knew of the controversy which had linked the Frenchman’s name with that of my master. The Prussian philosopher and the French astronomer had never met, which was fortunate. They were of different generations, and when the young correct the old, there is an inevitable clash and a loss of dignity on both sides. Professor Kant had proposed a theory regarding the formation of the galaxies in the 1750s. Two decades later, Laplace had reformulated the theory on modified principles. Who had the primacy? More to the point, as Kant contended, would Laplace have formulated a theory at all, if all the hard work had not been done for him?

The mahogany doors were thrown open and we entered a large ballroom. A truly magnificent ballroom. The room was panelled with wood which was painted a pale shade of green. Darker green frames outlined many large mirrors which had been fitted into all the walls. The infinite reflections made the room seem limitless. Immense silver-painted carvings like dripping ice provided the dominant motif for the decoration. The room seemed to be melting in the rays of the sun which illuminated the ceiling, where St Cecilia was strumming a harp in the company of a group of red-faced cherubs who were playing fiddles, lutes and flageolets.

Beneath this metaphorical scene was hurly-burly itself, a barrage of syncopated sounds, though it had nothing to do with music. On the right were a dozen men in brown aprons, each armed with a fretsaw – some large, some small, like the string sections of an orchestra. They were cutting slices of white wood into complicated outlines like jigsaw pieces. Next to them were four men wielding large brushes, thrusting them into buckets, applying a layer of glue to the pieces of wood which the carpenters passed on to them. These oddly-shaped wafers were passed on to others in the far corner of the room, who appeared to be placing them one on top of another, like orchestra-masters putting away the sheets of music at the end of the concert. Other men began to hammer them into place like glockenspiel players.

‘What are they doing?’ I whispered involuntarily.

‘Fashioning Prussia from wood and plaster,’ Lavedrine replied.

As we proceeded to the far end of the room, I began to see what he meant. In the centre of the room there were tables covered with maps, some relating to the road system, others to rivers, lakes and woodlands, still more containing written data which gave the relative heights of points upon the land. From all of this a huge three-dimensional model of Prussia in relief was being made.

‘What is it for?’ I whispered.

Lavedrine turned to me. ‘Laplace says something to the effect that the present state of the world foretells its future. If we condense all the relevant data into a single model, he believes that the future will unfold before our eyes.’

‘What do you think of the idea?’ I asked him.

He edged close to my ear, and said: ‘It is what General Layard and the Emperor think that is important. They hope to predict every source of rebellion in the whole of Prussia, and crush it before it happens.’

As he spoke, two messengers came rushing into the room, carrying reports and notes, handing them over to a team of secretaries who seemed to be co-ordinating what was going on. And in the place of honour at the head of the secretaries’ table sat General Layard himself. He was, I thought, like a spider building his web. His intention was to catch a million Prussian flies in it.

‘General Layard.’ Lavedrine’s voice recalled me from the trance into which I had fallen. ‘I need to speak with you, sir.’

I took him at his word. They would speak; I would remain in silence.

Major-General Olivier Layard was small, thin, altogether unimpressive, except for the magnificent uniform that he was wearing. I admired the quality and cut of the dark-blue material, his chest weighed down with bars of medals, while his shoulders, sleeves and collar were richly embroidered with thick gold braid, a figure of the most imposing grandeur. He had imposed smartness on his men, he had imposed it on the fortress of Marienburg, and, as I could see in the Realm of Universal Intellect, he intended to enforce it on the whole of Prussia.

General Layard’s eyes fixed on me like those of a famished hawk.

Those eyes were small, black, close together, divided by a narrow beak of a nose which was short and hooked. He seemed to have no lips, his mouth a thin line drawn across his face. His skin was wrinkled like ancient parchment, yet he looked to be no more than fifty years of age. His brown hair was combed flat over his forehead in a style favoured by the Emperor, though it was longer at the back, tied up with a little blue bow, waxed and twisted. There was not a single hair out of place.

‘This is remarkable, Lavedrine,’ he said at last, and he sounded shocked. ‘A Prussian in this room…Well, it is unthinkable!’

‘What is happening in Marienburg is unthinkable, Monsieur le Général,’ Lavedrine corrected him suavely. ‘And if the Prussian is a magistrate who can help us understand what’s going on, then you must make an exception. I am convinced that the quickest way to solve this case is with the help of Procurator Stiffeniis. You may not know it, General Layard, but Stiffeniis was sent to the Baltic coast by General Malaport last year. Women who collected amber on the shore had been murdered. In just a week…’

Layard started up from his seat.

‘Those were Prussian women,’ the General said stiffly. ‘This case concerns the killing of French officers. Correct me if—’

‘You are wrong, Monsieur le Général.’

If Layard was stunned, I was amazed. Lavedrine might have been setting a servant straight for having forgotten to light the fire. He set his fists upon the table, leant forward and stared down at his superior. Was there any authority that Lavedrine respected more than his own?