Imogen Robertson: Circle of Shadows

17 July 1782, Ulrichsberg, Duchy of Maulberg, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation

The room is dark, lit only by a single candle on the surface of a rough wooden table. The air is perfumed, like church, and heavy with the heat of the day now gone. On one side of the table sits a woman, hardly more than a girl, in a dark blue dress. A gold cross glints at her throat. Her hair, black as pitch and combed to a sleek shine, frames her face and hangs loose over her shoulders. Her face is white and thin. She looks up and smiles.

‘Are we prepared?’

Opposite her, seated in a line like children at their lessons, are four other young people. Two men, two women. They do not look as brightly confident as she. Their shoulders are hunched, their eyes wide. To judge by their clothes, they work for a living. The cloth that covers them is of good quality, but earthy in its tones. No silk. No jewellery to throw the light around. The candle flutters suddenly and one of the women jumps, startled by the movement in the still air, but she feels the girl’s eyes on her and nods bravely. The girl places her hands flat on the table and the four others copy her. Their fingers creep towards each other till they touch lightly, little finger to little finger, thumb to thumb till the outstretched hands form a circle around the base of the candle, the fronds of their fingers reaching towards the light. The shadows leap and play around them, weaving back and forth as if driven by something more than the flame, running towards them and away like waves. The girl in blue breathes deeply and tosses her dark hair from her face. She begins to speak.

‘Sagar, Adona, Egolo, Catan, by our Lord and God, by His holy angels, by the Light of the World, I ask you to come to us. Show what is hidden, tell the truths concealed, open the tomb, pull back the terrible veil of night, and let the dead speak …’ Her voice begins in a sing-song, then sinks to a low, guttural command. It no longer sounds entirely human. Her eyes are half-closed. One of the women opposite begins to tremble and the light flickers again. The strange floral scent in the air has grown stronger. The girl in blue lifts her head and the table starts shaking violently then settles, suddenly. The girl’s companions are as white as she now. The older woman has started to recite the Lord’s Prayer very quietly.

‘The spirits are with us.’ The girl’s eyes are blank, but she tilts her head slightly. ‘Who is it that comes?’ She looks as if she is trying to hear something far off. ‘A lady, noble … she is tall, young. Were you taken from this world in childbirth, madam?’ The youngest of the men flinches, and the girl in blue sees it. ‘She looks so sad.’ Her companions glance about them, furtively searching the rising and falling shadows, but afraid of what they might see. ‘What is your name, madam? Sarah?’ No, she shakes her head. ‘Anne?’ The young man, barely more than a boy, wets his lips and stares at the girl intently. The girl in blue frowns. ‘Anna …’

The boy opens his mouth. ‘Antonia, madam? Is it Antonia?’

The girl in blue nods. ‘Antonia. Antonia sends greetings to her most faithful servant, and friend.’ The boy flushes, his eyes fill with tears. ‘Antonia is come to hear news of those she left behind. She fears for them, their grief. Her concern draws her out of the darkness of death to speak to us.’ The boy is crying now, but he keeps his hands where they are and nods his head.

‘Is her son with her?’ he asks.

‘He plays by her side.’

‘Praise be.’

The girl in blue is silent, listening. From the copse outside an owl calls, its rising voice like a lost question. The woman opposite shudders and continues with her prayers.

‘We hear you, madam. She says you have helped her before, and she asks your assistance again. Will you help her?’

‘With all my heart, and tell her … tell her I’m sorry.’

The girl in blue smiles so kindly, all her companions feel a little of their guilt, their worry roll off their shoulders and into the shadows.

‘She knows, and she thanks you.’

25 February 1784, Oberbach, Duchy of Maulberg

District Officer Benedict von Krall lowered his weight onto the stool with a grunt and lit his pipe, all the while watching the young Englishman sitting on the other side of the table. The man was leaning his head against the wall and staring blankly in front of him. The oil lamp sputtered and settled. He gave no sign of having heard Krall enter the room, but he seemed calm enough. Krall jerked his head and heard a shuffle as the guard retreated into the shadows a pace. The ties at the neck of the Englishman’s shirt were loose, showing the hollows around his throat and collarbone. Krall thought of a portrait he had seen once at the palace of a young man, similarly perfect in looks. The high cheekbones, large eyes, full mouth — a strange mix of the innocent and the sensuous. Here, tucked under the Town Hall of Oberbach with its rough plaster walls and earth floors, they could, like that youth caught on canvas, be from any age, any time. The lamp between them sputtered again and the darkness crossed the young man’s face like the wing of a crow, and away. The Englishman was twenty-five — twenty-six, perhaps. His smooth forehead was smeared with blood.

‘Why did you kill her, Mr Clode?’

No answer.

English felt like a forgotten taste on Krall’s tongue. The words were rusty with lack of use, but there they were, as soon as he called on them. For a moment he thought he caught the stink of the Thames at Black Wharf. He sniffed sharply and looked down. The Englishman’s hands lay on the table in front of him, his bandaged wrists uppermost with dark blooms showing, the wounds declaring themselves, as if he were offering them up, asking for some explanation, but then his face was turned away. Not a request for enlightenment then. More an appeal. See what you have made me do . The palms of his hands looked very white. Not the hands of a working man.

Krall had had thick dark hair once, had it when he spent his years in London, learning trade, learning the language till for a while it was as familiar as his mother tongue. That was long ago, before war and worry turned his hair grey and cut deep lines into his forehead, around his eyes and mouth. Then, during his ten years as District Officer in Oberbach, he’d heard enough stories to turn his grey hair white. Women who’d smothered their bastard children; men who had taken a life over a game of cards, or lashed out at a friend to find a moment later that hell had chosen them in that second and they were damned. Nothing quite like this though. He blew the smoke out of his nose, feeling old.

‘Tell me what happened,’ he said more sharply. The floor and walls seemed to muffle his voice, steal it away from the air, so Krall brought his fist down hard on the wooden table, making the timbers dance.

It startled the younger man. He blinked and looked about the cellar as if seeing it for the first time. The cellar smelled of damp earth and wood-smoke. The air here still belonged to winter, as if the town were keeping some of the cold as a souvenir of the season passed.

The Englishman was still dressed in Carnival costume, in the chequered blue and yellow motley of the Fool. He seemed to notice this as Krall watched him, and rubbed the cotton with his fingers. His wooden mask lay on the table between them with its wide carved grin, a nose long and hooked like a beak.

‘There was a party.’

Krall blew out another lung-full of smoke. ‘Yes, there was a party. It is Festennacht , Carnival.’