Elizabeth Peters - Borrower of the Night

‘Sure. Irma. The last frail twig on the Drachenstein family tree.’

‘Irma!’ It was some name for a girl who looked like a Persian houri. I was about to express this sentiment – and get some additional insight into Tony’s attitude towards her – when a man walked up to the table. He was a stocky young man with brown hair and blue eyes, a deeply tanned face, and an expression as animated as a block of wood. He distributed two brusque nods and a curt ‘ Abend ’ around the table, and sat down.

Now as I have indicated, I find the usual leering male look quite repulsive. I am accustomed, however, to having my presence noted. Tony, who knows me only too well, glanced from me to the newcomer and said, with a nasty grin.

‘This is Herr Doktor Blankenhagen, from Frankfurt. Doc, meet Fräulein Doktor Bliss.’

The young man half rose, clutching his napkin, and made a stiff bow.

‘Doctor of medicine,’ he said, in heavily accented English.

‘Doctor of philosophy,’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘How do you do?’

‘Very pleased,’ said Herr Doktor Blankenhagen, without conviction. He opened a newspaper and retreated behind it.

‘Hmmph,’ I said; and then, before Tony’s grin could get any more obnoxious, I went on, ‘One more place at the table. Who’s that for?’

Tony’s grin faded into the limbo of lost smiles. I knew then. I had been half expecting it, but I still didn’t like it.

‘Hi, there,’ said George Nolan, making his appearance with theatrical skill, at just the right moment. ‘Glad you got here, Vicky.’

‘Hi yourself,’ I said. ‘Congratulations on your detective skill. Or did you just follow Tony?’

George laughed, and leaned over to give Tony a friendly smack on the shoulder. Tony swayed.

‘Right the second time.’

‘No problem following him?’ I asked sweetly. ‘Not for a man who has tracked the deadly tiger to its lair, and hunted the Abominable Snowman in his mysterious haunts.’

‘He went to the Jones Travel Agency,’ said George, still grinning. ‘As soon as my gratuity to one of the help produced the name of Rothenburg, I put two and two together.’

We both burst out laughing. Tony glowered. Blankenhagen lowered his newspaper, gave us a contemptuous stare in common, and hid behind it again.

The waitress, a stolid blond damsel, came with our soup, and the meal proceeded. Tony sulked in silence, Blankenhagen read his newspaper, and George and I kept up the social amenities. He was a master of the double entendre, and I don’t mean just the sexual entendre. He kept dropping hints about sculpture and secret passages in ancient castles. Tony writhed, but I was pleased to see he was learning to control his tongue. Part of George’s technique was to probe until he got an angry, unthinking response.

With the dessert came Irma, hot and harassed, but still disgustingly beautiful, to inquire how we had liked the meal. She didn’t give a damn, really. It was just part of the job. Tony bounded to his feet the moment she appeared, and even Blankenhagen registered a touch of emotion. I began to wonder about Tony’s joie de vivre. Maybe it had another cause than the one I had suspected.

When the meal was over, Tony got to his feet and reached for my hand.

‘Excuse us,’ he said firmly. ‘I want to talk to Vicky alone.’

George was amused.

‘Help yourself,’ he said.

We proceeded, in pregnant silence, to the courtyard. Behind the sheltering hedge lay a diminutive garden, its flowers pale pastel in the twilight. Tony sat me down on a bench and stood over me.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

Tony sat down beside me and reached out.

‘Oh, come off it,’ he mumbled. ‘Don’t be that way. No reason why we can’t be civil, is there?’

‘Civil, is it?’ I said, into the hollow between his neck and his right shoulder. ‘Hmmm . . . I wasn’t the one who started this stand-off business, you know.’

The succeeding interval lasted a shorter time than one might have expected. All at once Tony took me by the shoulders and pushed me away.

‘I can’t concentrate,’ he said in an aggrieved tone. ‘Why did we start this silly fight in the first place? I haven’t been able to think of anything else for months. It’s interfering with my social life and my normal emotional development.’

‘You challenged me,’ I reminded him. ‘Want to take back what you said?’

‘No!’

‘Then we’d better kiss and part. I can’t concentrate on any other subject either; and we aren’t collaborating, are we?’

‘No . . .’

‘Only?’

‘Only – well, we could compare background notes, couldn’t we? Nothing significant, just research. So we can start out even.’

‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘Why the change of heart?’

‘It isn’t a change of heart. I’m not asking you to give anything away, and I’m not going to tell you anything important. Only – well, Nolan bugs me. I didn’t realize he was so hot on the trail. And if I can’t find the thing myself, I’d rather have you get it than Nolan.’

I didn’t return the compliment. If I couldn’t find the shrine, I hoped nobody would. But his suggestion made sense. I didn’t have anything that could be called a clue; maybe he did. I had nothing to lose by collaborating.

As it turned out, I didn’t gain much. For the most part, Tony’s research duplicated mine.

We had both gone back to the old chronicle, which contributed very little except a description of the shrine. If my appetite had needed whetting, that description would have done the trick.

According to the chronicler, the reliquary depicted the Three Kings kneeling before the Child – the ‘ Anbetung der Könige ,’ as the Germans put it. The subject was popular with European artists in earlier, more devout, eras, so it is not surprising that another version of the Anbetung , by Riemenschneider, should exist. This one is a bas-relief, on the side panel of the Altar of the Virgin, which he did for the church at Creglingen, not far from Rothenburg. So when I pictured our shrine I pictured it as he had done it at Creglingen, only in the round instead of in relief. The design was simple and forceful – the Virgin, seated, with two of the kings kneeling before her and the third standing at her right. Of course I knew the Drachenstein shrine wouldn’t be quite the same, but the subject was only open to a few variations. Since the old chronicle mentioned angels, I gave my visionary shrine a few of Riemenschneider’s typical winged beauties – not chubby dimpled babies, but grave ageless creatures with flowing hair and robes fluttering in the splendour of flight.

The three jewels were a ruby, an emerald, and an enormous baroque pearl.

Tony had looked this up too, but he professed to be more intrigued by the people who had been involved with the shrine back in 1525. (Women are always moved by crass materialistic things such as jewels; men concern themselves with the higher things of life.)

‘You had better get the characters straight in your mind,’ Tony said smugly. ‘There were three of them. The count, Burckhardt, was a typical knight – and I’m not thinking, like, Sir Galahad. I assume you had the simple wit to write the author of The Peasants’ Revolt , and ask if there were any other letters from Burckhardt? Oh. You did.

‘Burckhardt was a rat. A bloodthirsty, illiterate lout. His repulsive personality is even more apparent in the unpublished letters. I guess that’s why they weren’t published; they tell more about Burckhardt than about the war. He was obstinate, unimaginative, arrogant – ’

‘My goodness,’ I said mildly. ‘You really are down on the lad.’