Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘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.

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.