Elizabeth Peters: Borrower of the Night

I wasn’t surprised when George started calling me, nor was I particularly worried. If he was more interested in picking my brains than pursuing my body, it made a restful change from my usual dates. He was a wonderful dancer, an epicure, a connoisseur of fine wines, and he spent money like water. He was also witty and amusing. Even his hints about sculpture were thrown out with a grin and a tongue in the cheek, and no expectation of success. But I knew that behind the grin and the charm lay a will of iron. He had announced his intentions of beating both of us to the treasure; and if he lacked Tony’s and my special knowledge, he had a lot of other things going for him. Money, for instance, and a high degree of ruthlessness. As a rival for the shrine he was much more dangerous than Tony, and I didn’t underestimate him for a second. But that didn’t keep me from enjoying the country club and the weekends in New York.

Don’t misunderstand those weekends. I spotted George right away; women were very low down on his list of temptations. He wasn’t gay, in the usual sense; he just wasn’t interested in people at all – people of either sex. Of course Tony, the goop, didn’t know that. Men are such suckers for externals; they think a bass voice and a broad chest make a male. We could tell them a few things; but why give away an advantage? Anyhow, George’s professed interest in me was just one more irritation for Tony, and George knew it. As the months went on, Tony withdrew altogether. I only saw him at faculty meetings, or in the halls. But I knew what he was doing. And, of course, vice versa. I was hooked, and I had been, from the beginning. The challenge was enough to arouse any red-blooded, six-foot American girl, but that wasn’t the only reason I was making plans to head for Germany in June. I was caught by the sheer romance of it. Hidden treasures – lost masterpieces – castles – jewels – and those beautiful melancholy faces only Riemenschneider could carve. To rescue something like that from the dust and darkness of centuries . . .

Furthermore, if that long, lanky male chauvinist thought he could outsmart me, he had another think coming.

Chapter Two

THE VIEW FROM the bus window couldn’t have been more charming – an old town square with a fountain in the middle, a Gothic church on one side, and on the other a tall house whose Wedgwood-blue facade had curves and curlicues as dainty as those of a china shepherdess. As I looked, an airy cascade of soap bubbles floated by, iridescent in the sunlight. Like so many Bavarians, the bus driver was a frustrated comedian. Ever since we left Munich, he had been playing games. He wore funny hats, tooted on horns and whistles, and blew bubbles whenever the bus stopped. His nickname, according to the hostess, was Charlie Brown – a pleasing testimonial to the international appeal of the best of American Kultur.

I joined the other passengers in applauding the soap bubbles, and Charlie, wearing a tall black opera hat, acknowledged our appreciation with a burlesque bow as the hostess announced that we would have an hour to spend in Nördlingen before the bus continued on its way.

The passengers filed out and dispersed. Many of them were Americans, taking advantage of one of the cheapest and most convenient tours in Europe. The bus runs from Munich to Frankfurt, and its route takes in the greater part of what is called the Romantic Road. From Augsburg, founded by the Romans in 15 bc, up to Würzburg on the River Main, the road includes castles and ancient towns, imperial cities and beautiful scenery. Nördlingen, Dinkelsbühl, and Rothenburg on the Tauber are the most interesting towns; the bus stops in each.

For ordinary sightseers this is all very well, but one might reasonably inquire what the Hades I was doing on that bus, along with the starry-eyed barefoot American kids and the earnest tourists. I was on my way to Rothenburg; but this might seem a rather roundabout way of getting there.

It isn’t as roundabout as it seems. Rail connections are complicated, and being an underpaid serf of an educator I couldn’t afford to rent a car. As it was, the trip cleaned out my paltry savings account. I must admit, however, that I had other reasons for taking that bus. I was playing fox and hounds.

My departure from home had been a masterpiece of subterfuge, based on all the spy stories I had ever read. I had not made reservations through a travel bureau. I wrote directly to airlines and hotels, and burned every letter I got back. I left in the middle of the night, wearing a black stretch wig and a friend’s coat, and hid out in New York under a false name for two days.

All this was childish fun and games, and possibly pointless. Tony knew where I was going; I felt sure he was heading for the same place, if he wasn’t there already. But there was a slim chance that George hadn’t figured things out. Hence my cunning manoeuvers. I hoped Tony had managed to elude George, though I doubted it. Tony has a very open nature.

However, there was no reason for me to be naïve, just because Tony suffers from that weakness. I took a plane to Munich. There I confused my trail by going east instead of west. I went to Salzburg. Salzburg is a lovely town, and I had always wanted to see it again. Coincidentally, there was a good exhibit of late Gothic art in the city museum. Strolling through its halls, admiring illuminated manuscripts and the paintings of Rueland Freuauf the Elder, I pictured George Nolan skulking after me, completely baffled. There were no works by Riemenschneider in the exhibit. I got back to Munich just in time to catch my bus.

It was a glorious day, warm and sunny. The first part of the trip, via autobahn to Augsburg, was fairly dull, except for Charlie Brown’s antics. I spent most of the time peering out of the back window to see if any one car stayed constantly behind us. Naturally, none of them did. After we hit the Romantic Road I forgot this nonsense and enjoyed the scenery – the castles perched strategically on hilltops, the churches with their oriental domes, like shiny black radishes, the manicured green fields and little red-roofed villages.

After Nördlingen we stopped again in Dinkelsbühl, whose ancient moat is now a playground for white swans. Then the road began to climb, and as we swung around a curve I saw my goal ahead. It was only visible for a moment; crowning its own high hill, before the lower hills closed in and shut it off – a jumble of turrets and gables and mellow red-brown roofs, enclosed by the stone ramparts of the medieval city wall. Rothenburg is the quintessence of Romance – not the watered-down love stories that pass under that name today, but Romance in the old sense – masked desperadoes lurking in the shadow of a carved archway, to intercept the Duke before he can reach his lady love; conspirators gathered in a raftered tavern room, plotting to restore the Rightful Heir; Cyrano and D’Artagnan, striding out with clanking swords to defend the Honour of the Queen.

I refuse to apologize for that outburst; Rothenburg is that kind of place. The spirit has survived even the cheap gimcrackery of tourism. Over the rooftops I could also see the spires of the church where, on a summer day in 1505, Tilman Riemenschneider had supervised the installation of his altar of the Holy Blood.

The bus joined an ugly jumble of other monsters in a parking lot just inside the walls, and disgorged its passengers. I extracted my suitcases from its belly and started walking. The hostess was summoning taxis for other disembarking passengers, but she didn’t offer me one. I wasn’t surprised. I look as if I could carry a steamer trunk. I didn’t want a taxi anyhow. You can walk clear across Rothenburg in half an hour.