A Sojourn in Bohemia Read online

Under cover of darkness, they drove out into the Prussian hinterland, following the road that Julius had taken during their last visit. Despite the moonless night, Luka seemed confident of the route. Varanus suspected that it was one part memory, another part deduction, and a tremendous amount of bravado. But as long as they arrived with the Von Raabe household still abed, she did not feel inclined to comment.

  Next to her, Friedrich rubbed his hands against the cold. There was a sharp wind blowing in from the Baltic, bringing with it a northerly chill more suited to the past winter than the new spring. As one of the Living, Varanus barely noticed it.

  “Here,” she said, pulling the shawl from her shoulders and wrapping it around him.

  Friedrich pushed the shawl away gently. “I am perfectly well, Mother. Just a little chill. Nothing I cannot manage.” He smiled and nudged her. “I daresay you need it more than I do.”

  “Nonsense,” Varanus retorted, though she returned his smile. It pleased her to spend time with her son, even under such unfortunate circumstances. “I only have the thing to make foolish onlookers mistake me for a peasant woman.”

  Friedrich laughed. “You would never be mistaken for a peasant, Mother.”

  “Even so,” Varanus said. “I doubt that the German authorities will have any cause to investigate us when all this is over, but I would prefer to avoid any possibility of being recognized.”

  “I will drink to that,” Friedrich said, reaching into the pocket of his overcoat, no doubt for a flask of spirits.

  Varanus placed her hand on his arm and stopped him. Her son was welcome to be a drunk on his own time, though she did not like it one bit. But she was not about to have him drinking at a time like this.

  She glanced at Iosef and saw him frowning ever so slightly. It was an expression typical of the Living, and Varanus doubted that Friedrich noticed it—if he could even make it out in the dark. But Varanus saw it and it troubled her. She knew that Iosef harbored unfounded concerns about her son’s reliability. They were wrong, of course, but did Friedrich have to be giving those fears more credence all of the time?

  “Reaching for the wine, no doubt,” Iosef mumbled in Svanish.

  “Certainly not, My Lord,” Varanus replied. There was an uncomfortable pause. “More likely it will be brandy.”

  Iosef smirked a little. “Brandy is a kind of wine.”

  “It is medicinal,” Varanus said.

  “Of course it is.” Iosef did not sound convinced.

  Overhearing them, Luka leaned back in the driver’s seat and asked, “Did someone mention wine? I could do with a bottle.”

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” Iosef told him sternly. “If we lose our way, we will have lost a day, and we do not have many of those before our adversaries arrive in force.”

  “I can see perfectly well,” Luka retorted.

  “No you cannot,” Iosef corrected him.

  And with that, the two of them promptly launched into a good-natured argument about the road, the night, and the frigid weather. It was not often that Varanus witnessed such disagreements between them, but they occurred. Such was to be expected from comrades who had lived as brothers for two lifetimes or more.

  “What is happening?” Friedrich whispered in her ear. “What are you all talking about?”

  Varanus quickly returned to German and replied, “We are merely…um…discussing how best to get your friends back to Austria-Hungary. I doubt that either of them will be in particularly sound condition. A journey on the train might prove difficult.”

  Friedrich nodded, evidently relieved to hear her speaking in such a way. It comforted him to hear her talk about his friends both being alive now and surviving to return home. And Varanus was skeptical about both of those possibilities, especially where the violinist was concerned. She was confident that the girl Erzsebet would be largely unharmed until she could be married to Von Steiersberg and could begin producing heirs. That was usually how these things happened. But the one called Stanislav was certainly traveling to his death, if he had not been killed already, either for spite or for expediency. Though perhaps he was being kept alive just long enough to make Erzsebet docile for the wedding, Varanus mused. It seemed like the sort of thing such people would do.

  Then again, it was their fault that all of this had happened, Varanus reminded herself. If Friedrich hadn’t known Stanislav, there would have been no attempt on his life, no attempted murder by Julius, none of it. So there was still that to consider. Varanus did not intend to feel callous about such things, but she was certainly annoyed. And she had noticed that empathy for mortals grew harder and harder as the years passed. They would all be dead one day, wouldn’t they?

  “That is rather hardhearted of you, Liebchen,” said Korbinian.

  His voice gave Varanus a start. She had not seen or heard from him since their encounter at Von Steiersberg’s house in Prague. Now he was back, sitting on the driver’s seat next to Luka and leaning over to speak with her. His face was pale, and crimson tears glistened at the corners of his eyes, but he was far more himself than he had been for the past several months.

  “I am merely acknowledging the truth,” she murmured, turning her head so that the conversation would go unnoticed by her companions. “The girl should not have run away with the violinist. Another nobleman, one with the standing and influence to placate her father, certainly. But a penniless musician? A socialist?” Varanus shook her head. “Within a few years she would be dead in the street or…ill from her lover’s recklessness.”

  “Perhaps,” Korbinian acknowledged sadly. “But is that so much worse than to be married to a bully and a tyrant? I know such men well. The girl’s flesh and bones would have told the history of her marriage by the time she gave birth to her first child.”

  Varanus frowned at this, knowing that it was true. The realization made her angry. And it also frightened her a little to know how easily she could have found herself in the same circumstances. If she had been forced to marry a brute like Alfonse des Louveteaux, she knew that her back would have been inscribed with each instance of her husband’s displeasure, at least until she had found an opportunity to kill him for it. Fortunately, her circumstances had been immeasurably different.

  “In Fuchsburg such things are not tolerated,” Korbinian said, his tone clouded with the same anger that Varanus felt. “We have old laws and better men.”

  “We are not in Fuchsburg, my love,” Varanus reminded him. “Nor are we among the Shashavani. We are in the world, and in the world women are seldom given a choice between good and bad. Rather the choice is between tolerable and worse.”

  “It was not so with us, Liebchen,” Korbinian ventured.

  Varanus frowned. “No. You died.” She looked into Korbinian’s eyes as blood began to trickle across his lips. “I was given a choice, and my choice was stolen from me.”

  “I am sorry, Liebchen,” Korbinian said sadly.

  “Why are you sorry?” Varanus asked. “You did not kill yourself.”

  “No,” Korbinian agreed, as tears of blood rolled down his cheeks. “But I did not remain alive. And for that, I will always be sorry. I would have fought God Himself if it meant I did not have to leave you alone, but the coward would not give me the chance.”

  Varanus felt her chest tightened. She tried to speak and suddenly found her lungs empty of air. She took a deep breath and began to reply, but Korbinian interrupted her as he pointed his finger toward the coast.

  “I wonder,” he mused, “why there are fires burning at Castle Valkenburg.”

  This observation surprised Varanus, for surely it was not possible. Valkenburg was a deserted ruin, the sort of place to be visited by sightseers and the curious only during the daytime for a picnic or some other outing. And yet, as she turned and looked across the dark countryside, she saw that his words were true.

  The remains of Cas
tle Valkenburg loomed against the black sky, its stones illuminated here and there with scattered fires that burned behind its empty windows. To anyone but the Living, it might have gone unnoticed, for the lights were faint and well obscured by the remains of the castle’s walls, but Varanus’s eyes saw them clearly, just as Korbinian’s had. This was no trick of starlight.

  “Iosef…” she said softly, pointing toward the castle.

  “Hmm?” Interrupted from his argument with Luka, Iosef looked toward the castle, and his eyes widened ever so slightly, barely enough for Varanus to notice. But she recognized his astonishment. “There are people at the castle,” he murmured. “But why?”

  “Vagrants, perhaps?” Varanus suggested. But even as she spoke, she doubted it.

  “There is little shelter to be had there for a vagabond,” Iosef replied, echoing Varanus’s sentiments. “And there is too much light for it to be a wanderer’s humble campfire.”

  “Julius, perhaps,” Varanus said, though the very suggestion sounded false to her. “Though if they went by horse and carriage, they should be days behind us.”

  “Indeed,” Iosef agreed. “And yet, who would have cause to be among the ruins at this hour?”

  “I suppose we have but one way to answer that question,” Varanus said.

  Iosef considered this and then nodded. He patted Luka on the shoulder to get the man’s attention and then motioned toward Valkenburg.

  “Luka, we are making a detour. Take us to the castle.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Without the aid of moonlight, it was difficult going once they left the road, so after a few minutes of careful plodding along the winding dirt path, they abandoned the wagon and continued on foot, leaving the horse hitched by its reins to the branch of a tree. Varanus tried in vain to convince her son to remain behind to safeguard their transportation, but Friedrich flatly refused. He would not wait patiently in the dark while his friends were in danger, he said; and while it angered Varanus that her son insisted on endangering himself, she was not surprised by it. Nor was there much that she could do. Better to keep him in sight than to risk him rushing off into certain danger on his own.

  They approached the castle on foot, careful to avoid the dips and falls of the landscape. Drawing nearer, Varanus saw clearly the fires burning within the castle walls. There were torches standing in rows along the ruined halls, their flames flickering in the cold breeze. And somewhere at the heart of the castle burned bonfires. Varanus smelled the rich fragrance of the burning wood as it drifted past on the wind.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked Iosef as the two of them crouched in the shadows next to the castle’s crumbling outer wall. The wall had suffered badly at the hands of the elements, leaving breaks and gaps that could no longer keep out the wind or conceal the fragrance of burning that flowed through the halls within.

  Iosef nodded. “The fires? Wood smoke…and in great quantity.”

  “Why would anyone be burning firewood here?”

  “My mind suggests vagrants but finds that solution untenable,” Iosef replied.

  “Vagrants would set one fire for warmth and no more,” Varanus said, “lest they be discovered.”

  “Perhaps some of the local folk engaged in a tradition of great antiquity,” Iosef suggested.

  “Perhaps,” Varanus agreed, “but then who? The nearest people are the Von Raabes. Do you suppose they set candles and burn torches in their patriarch’s absence?”

  Iosef shrugged, admitting his ignorance to the answer.

  Behind them, Luka crouched down and murmured, “We are in Europe, Doctor. Half of the time I do not understand anything that you people do.”

  It was spoken as much in jest as in sincerity, and Varanus snickered slightly. “Were Ekaterine here, she would no doubt explain it as a manifestation of ‘Latin paganism’ and suggest its origins in ‘uncharted Kent’.”

  “I have always found the inhabitants of Kent to be unrepentant pagans,” Luka mused.

  Iosef snorted with distain at his comrade’s words. “You have never even been to Kent, Brother.”

  “I have heard stories about it,” Luka replied, his moustache twitching.

  “Ekaterine’s stories no doubt,” Varanus said.

  Luka’s moustache twitched again.

  Friedrich joined them and knelt beside Varanus, looking very puzzled. Of course, as they spoke in Svanish, he could not understand what they were saying.

  “What are you all going on about?” he asked.

  Iosef and Luka exchanged a glance, and Varanus noticed a very thin smile creep across Luka’s lips.

  “Kent,” he said.

  Varanus shook her head at him. She placed a hand on Friedrich’s arm and whispered, “We are attempting to ascertain who is burning a fire in the ruins at this hour and why they are doing it.”

  “Vagrants?” Friedrich suggested.

  At his words, Luka almost laughed aloud, and Iosef glowered in reply.

  “Possibly,” Varanus answered. “Still, we will not get our answer waiting here.” She motioned toward the nearest gap in the broken exterior wall. “Shall we?”

  She crept into the castle ruin, her ears carefully searching for any hint of activity nearby. She heard no footsteps nor anything she could count as voices in the vicinity, although truly it was hard to make out any sounds at all aside from the moaning of the wind as it blew through the roofless corridors. There was a distinct saltiness to the breeze that made Varanus cringe. The bothersome influence of the nearby sea, of course.

  Crossing through an outer passage, Varanus entered a crumbling hall near the entrance. To her surprise, she saw two parallel rows of torches leading from the empty doorway into the shadowy depths of the ruin. This was not merely some temporary haven for the dispossessed. Someone had come here with a purpose and put great effort into arranging things. The meticulous placement of the torches was as elegant as it was ominous, each one the same distance from the ones before and after it.

  The sound of loud applause echoed from the flickering darkness further down the hall. Varanus almost jumped in surprise, afraid that someone had spotted them. But she relaxed a little as she saw Korbinian advancing toward her down the row of torches, clapping his hands as if enjoying a private performance.

  “How very theatrical!” he announced. “I do so enjoy pageantry.”

  “It is rather dramatic,” Varanus agreed softly.

  “Dramatic!” Korbinian exclaimed, as the hint of scarlet tears formed in the corners of his eyes. “But why should it not be a drama, Liebchen? Surely you can see that this is a scene set for a tragedy.”

  Varanus eyed the torches and said, “Nonsense. Torches at midnight in a ruined castle? It is assuredly farce.”

  Korbinian smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. “Of course, Liebchen,” he said. “I am laughing already.” And with that, he withdrew back into the darkness.

  “What are you looking at, Varanus?” Iosef murmured, startling her. He and the others had joined her in the hall.

  “I am pondering where this illuminated path leads,” Varanus said.

  “Indeed,” Iosef agreed. “This is not happenstance. This is meant to be seen.”

  “Yes, but not by us,” Varanus replied.

  “By whom, then?” It was as much a question spoken by Iosef to himself as to her.

  Varanus sniffed the air, searching for some distinctive smell that could be separated from the salt. There was a brief respite as the wind died down, and Varanus managed to discern the distant scent of burning wood.

  “That I do not know, My Lord,” she said, “but that way is the bonfire.”

  “The bonfire and our answers,” Iosef replied.

  With the wind now quiet, Varanus heard the sound of voices speaking just outside the entrance to the castle.

  “You hear some
thing?” asked a man’s gruff voice.

  There was a pause.

  “No.… Maybe?”

  “Luka,” Iosef said, putting a hand on his comrade’s shoulder and nodding toward the door.

  “Of course,” Luka replied, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  He detached himself from the group and hurried across the hallway toward the door just as a pair of men standing guard rounded the corner. Luka lunged forward into the darkness outside, grabbing each of the men by the throat so they could not cry out for help as he knocked them to the ground.

  Nearby, Friedrich turned to watch Luka pass and then took a step backward at the sight of the confrontation. He quickly drew a pistol from beneath his coat and rushed to offer Luka his assistance—which was neither needed nor wanted. Varanus caught her son’s hand and pulled him back.

  “Nothing to worry about Alis…Friedrich,” she said, smiling to reassure him. “Only some interlopers. Luka will handle it.”

  “Oh.… Right.” Friedrich frowned but he did not protest.

  Presently, Luka returned, cracking his knuckles with a satisfied half smile. He exchanged a knowing nod with Iosef.

  “Is it done?” Iosef asked.

  Luka shook his head. “That you should even need to ask.…”

  “Unconscious?”

  “It is a kind of sleep,” Luka replied.

  “Any indication of who they were or why they are here?” Varanus asked.

  In reply, Luka held out two pistols, which he had obviously taken from the men. “I cannot say for certain, but they carried weapons.”

  Friedrich, unable to understand what was being said, nevertheless started in shock at the sight of the guns.

  “Those men were armed?” he asked.

  Varanus gave Iosef and Luka a pointed look and said in Svanish, “For the sake of my son, we should use German until we are done here. If the men who lit the fires hear us, we will be discovered whether or not they understand our words.”

  Iosef sighed softly but he nodded. “Agreed.”