Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

Michaels liked the farmland round Oberbach. As the light of the new day found him he was letting his horse amble along the valley with a pipe in his mouth and a sense of cautious approval. The wooden houses he could see from the road were neat, their gardens well-tilled, and the fruit trees that hung over his way were showing the signs of cheerful new growth. Walnut. Apple. Almond. The chimneys of the farms were already pushing woodsmoke into the first sunlight and he thought contentedly of the morning scenes playing inside. The wife at the fireplace, a child at her skirts and her kitchen clean. His own wife would also be up and working at this hour. She was efficient and quick in her movements, sometimes she hummed at her work, and sometimes not. He would walk out round the yard, see to the horses and scan the hedgerow for something pretty to bring back into the kitchen. He had told his son to bring his mother the first primrose he found. He hoped the boy had remembered, trusted he had. He felt it likely they were thinking of him now and felt a solemn happiness.

Michaels entered the town itself from the north, and by the number of travellers he nodded to on the road, suspected he was arriving on a market day. Woman walked along the verges in pairs with baskets over their arms, their aprons washed to a startling, public whiteness. The old town gate under which he rode was hung with baskets of spring flowers and the main street had the look of a place recently scrubbed clean and smiling. The death of the Lady during their carnival had left no visible scar. The old houses in the square looked confident and prosperous. Their half-timbering was outlined in red and green, and the shutters were all folded back. The newly built Town Hall with its wall of tall windows seemed designed to flatter its citizens, not cow them into obedience. It was a proud little place, bustling already, speaking of a group of people who had money enough to satisfy their hungers, then were in the habit of looking about them to see what could be improved.

After two hours of wandering through the marketplace and complimenting the women on their produce and the men on their stock, Michaels thought that if he had ever to leave his own place in Hartswood, he could do a lot worse than taking over the stable where he had left his horse and settling here among these handsome, homely streets and pleasant faces. There had been talk of this last year having been all cruel weather, and the fat on the animals being hard come by, but there were both buyers and sellers enough, it seemed to him, and the local wine was a sweet and delicate thing and had much to say of sunlight and rich soils. He had also realised, with regret, that the trail of Beatrice did not reach here. People stopped in their work and folded their arms to consider, but one after another they shook their heads.

‘We get people passing through often enough,’ one woman selling eggs from a basket over her arm told him. She was red-cheeked and cheerful-looking and wore a shawl round her shoulders Michaels’s own wife would have coveted. ‘But a young girl on her own would have been noticed and looked to.’

‘It would have been two years ago …’

‘It’s not a big town! If she’d stayed here, worked here at all, we’d know her face. A girl with black hair, who liked to wear it loose would be noticed in an hour! Mostly the strangers we see are men travelling about for one reason or another.’

‘She had a fancy to go into service in a great house,’ Michaels said, turning his round hat in his hands.

‘Why come this way then, rather than stay where she was among all the court and their nonsense?’ She spoke almost affectionately, as if the Duke was a child to be indulged with pretty toys, and shifted her basket so her hip could take the weight of it. Michaels only shrugged. She pursed her lips, thinking, then lifted a finger. ‘There are a few places beyond the village of Mittelbach. Estates with fancy houses. You might ask of her along that road. Take the north road back two miles or so, and you’ll see the turn to it heading up the hill, to the west — lies just past old Hahn’s farm. He has five pear trees below his house and coming into flower. You can’t miss the way.’

A man passing in homespun, a pair of rabbits slung over his shoulder, heard her and laughed.

‘What’s the fella ever done to you, to send him to Mittelbach, Maud?’

‘Keep your nose out of others’ conversations, Georg, or expect to have it snipped off!’ Then she turned back to Michaels with a blush. ‘Though he’s right enough. It’s a mean little place. Their pastor does nothing but drink and their head man’s a devil.’

Georg did not seem to be over-worried about his nose. ‘The blacksmith has an amulet — you know, got the hair in it of that robber who killed three travellers in Gottingen in seventy-nine. Means he can’t be vanquished by any man. He deals out the beatings the headman prescribes. Almost killed a woman there last year.’

‘ Did kill her!’ Maud replied. ‘A chill like that would never have carried her off if he hadn’t knocked the health out of her. And she was no adulteress, just had a jealous husband and a friendly disposition. There, you see? We all know each other’s business round here.’

‘Why don’t they complain to the Duke?’ Michaels asked.

‘Not his people. It’s the land of one of the Imperial Knights, surrounded by Maulberg, but not Maulberg, you know? There are a few up that way. A big house, some land, some grand fella who acts like a king and spends all that can be dragged out of the soil on silks to wear in another man’s palace. They don’t care what happens to the people as long as their stewards roll up with a bag of coins once a quarter.’

Michaels thanked her and offered her a coin from his own bag. She laughed at him. ‘No charge for a chat, brother. Keep your money and buy one of May’s cheeses with it; you’ll get nothing worth eating in Mittelbach.’

Harriet was becoming accustomed to spending time with the dead, but that was not the same as being unfeeling in their presence. Countess Dieth was much her own age, and in her interviews with Krall about the death of her friend, she had answered like a woman of passion and intelligence. Harriet remembered her expression when she had understood the effect of the mask — her fear — and suddenly the death of this woman seemed to fall hard on Harriet’s shoulders. What could she — should she — have done yesterday? It seemed to her now that she had spent half the day wandering the palace grounds. She had not pushed .

The doors closed behind them, and Harriet hesitated halfway up the short aisle. It was not a large chapel, but beautiful in its light and proportions even if the floor was messy with dust and wood shavings. Harriet was flanked by carved stalls; she saw the small organ, its pipes freshly gilded, on the south wall, the pulpit to the right, and there the Countess lay, like a sacrifice, on a table covered with white linen set before the altar. There were candles at her head and feet, but the day was bright enough now to make them unnecessary. She was lit by the morning sun coming through the stained glass of the east window. Her plum-coloured dress was patterned with the red, blue and yellow of the Arms of Maulberg. Pushed against the walls were a pair of scaffold frames. Harriet looked up to where the frescos on the ceiling had been abandoned partway through their painting. Christ in the centre, fully coloured and robed. Around Him, any number of angels faded into outlines and bare plaster. Harriet noticed that the colour of Christ’s robe was the same as the Countess’s dress. He had His arms held out wide.

She took another step forward and watched as Crowther opened one of the Countess’s eyes with thumb and forefinger. Krall took a seat in the stalls.