Kingdom of Shadows

Later that night, Morath heard a soft tapping and opened his door. After venison from Prince Hrubal’s forest and trout from his stream, a servant girl from his kitchen. They never spoke a word. She stared at him with grave, dark eyes and, when he’d closed the door, lit the candle by his bedside and pulled her shift over her head. She had a faint mustache, a lush body, and wore knitted, red-wool stockings that came to midthigh.

A sweet morning, Morath thought, riding through the orange leaves on the floor of the forest. Delicately, the mare walked across a wide stream-a few inches of fast silver water-then down a series of rocky ledges. Morath kept the reins loose, let her find her own way. It was an old Magyar cavalryman who’d taught him that a horse can go anywhere a man can go without using his hands.

Morath kept his weight balanced, steadied the briefcase on the saddle, tugged a gentle reproach when the mare saw something she wanted for breakfast. “Manners,” he whispered. Did she speak Hungarian? A Transylvanian horse, she must.

Up ahead, Hrubal’s head groom rode his bay gelding. Morath pulled up for a moment and whistled softly, the groom half turned in the saddle to look back at him. He thought he’d heard other horses, not far away, but, when he listened, they weren’t there. He rode up even with the groom and asked him about it.

“No, your excellency,” the groom said. “I believe we are alone.”

“Hunters, perhaps.”

The groom listened, then shook his head.

They rode on. Morath watched a bank of mist as it drifted over the side of a mountain. He looked at his watch-a little after noon. The groom carried a picnic hamper of sandwiches and beer. Morath was hungry, but decided to ride for another hour.

In the forest, somewhere above him on the gentle slope, a horse whickered, then stopped, abruptly, as though someone had put a hand over its muzzle.

Morath rode even with the groom. “Surely you heard that.”

“No, your excellency. I did not.”

Morath stared at him. He had a sharp face, with gray hair and beard cut short, and there was something in his voice, subtle but there, that suggested defiance: I chose not to hear it.

“Are you armed?”

The groom reached under his shirt, held up a large revolver, then put it away. Morath wanted it.

“Are you able to use it?” he asked.

“Yes, your excellency.”

“May I see it for a moment?”

“Forgive me, your excellency, but I must decline.”

Morath felt the heat in his face. He was going to be murdered for this money and he was very angry. He threw the reins over hard and dug his heels in the horse’s side. She sped off, dead leaves whispering beneath her hooves as she galloped down the slope. Morath looked back and saw that the groom was following him, his horse easily keeping pace. But there was no revolver to be seen, and Morath let the mare slow to a walk.

“You’d better go back now,” he called out to the groom. “I’ll go on by myself.” He was breathing hard, after the gallop.

“I cannot, your excellency.”

Why don’t you shoot me and get it over with? Morath let the mare walk downhill. Something made him look back once more, and he saw, through the bare trees, a horse and rider, then another, some way up the slope. When they realized he’d seen them they walked their horses into cover, but seemed to be in no great hurry. Morath thought of tossing the briefcase away, but by then he knew it wouldn’t matter. He called up to the groom, “Who are your friends?” his voice almost mocking, but the man wouldn’t answer.

A few minutes later he came to the road. It had been built in Roman times, the stone blocks hollowed and cracked by centuries of horse and wagon traffic. Morath turned toward Kolozsvar. When he looked up into the forest, he caught an occasional glimpse of the other riders, keeping pace with him. Directly behind him was the groom, on the bay gelding.

When he heard the automobile, sputtering and tapping, he stopped, and stroked the mare on her heaving side. A gentle animal, she’d done her best, he hoped they wouldn’t shoot her. It was an old Citroen that appeared from a grove of birch trees by the side of the road. There was mud spattered on the doors and the wheel guards, a brown sweep across the windshield where the driver had tried to clear the dust with the single wiper.

The Citroen stopped with a loud squeak from the brakes and two men climbed out, both of them heavy and short. They wore straw hats, dark suits, and soiled white shirts buttoned at the throat. Siguranza, he thought. Roumanian secret police. Obviously they’d been waiting for him.

“Get down from there,” the driver said. It was Hungarian, badly spoken. Morath took a little longer to dismount than they liked. The man on the passenger side of the car opened his jacket, showing Morath the handgrip of an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. “If you need to be shot, we’ll be happy to oblige you,” he said. “Maybe it’s a matter of honor, or something.”

“Don’t bother,” Morath said. He got off the horse and held her by the bridle. The driver approached and took the briefcase. Something about him made the mare nervous, she tossed her head and stamped her feet on the stone block. The driver unbuckled the briefcase and had a look inside, then he called out to the groom, “You can go home now, Vilmos. Take his horse.”

“Yes, excellency,” the groom said. He was very frightened.

“And keep your mouth shut.”

Morath watched as he rode back up into the forest, leading the mare by the reins.

The Siguranza men tied his wrists with a length of cord and shoved him into the backseat of the car, then made jokes as the starter engine whined and faded until the engine caught. They talked for a moment more-Morath didn’t understand Roumanian but caught the word Bistrita, a small town north of Kolozsvar. As the car bounced along the road, the passenger opened the briefcase and divided up Morath’s underwear and shaving kit. The two men argued briefly over Morath’s spare shirt but the driver gave in almost immediately. The passenger then turned in his seat and stared at Morath. He hadn’t shaved for several days, the stubble on his face black and gray.

He leaned over the back of the seat and slapped Morath in the face. Then did it again, harder. The driver laughed. The passenger stretched sideways until he could see himself in the rearview mirror and adjusted the brim of his hat.

Morath did not feel pain where he’d been slapped, he felt it in his wrists, where he’d tried to break the cord as the Siguranza man hit him. Later on, when he managed to twist around and get a look, he saw that he was bleeding.

Bistrita had been part of the Ottoman Empire until 1878, and not that much had changed. Dusty streets and lime trees, stucco buildings painted yellow and pale green, with fishscale roofing on the better houses. The Catholic crosses were mounted on the domes of the former mosques, the women on the street kept their eyes lowered, and so did the men.

The Citroen pulled up in front of the police station, and the two men hauled Morath out by the elbow and kicked him through the door. He made a point of not falling down. Then they beat him down the stairs, along a hallway, and to the door of a cell. When they cut the cord on his wrists, the knife sliced through the back of his jacket. One of them made a joke, the other one snickered. Then they cleaned out his pockets, took his shoes and socks, jacket and tie, threw him in the cell, slammed the iron door, shot the bolt.

Black dark in the cell, no window, and the walls breathed cold air. There was a straw mattress, a bucket, and a pair of rusted, ancient brackets in the wall. Used for chains-in 1540, or last night. They brought him a salt herring, which he knew better than to eat-he would suffer terribly from thirst-a lump of bread, and a small cup of water. He could hear, in the room directly above him, somebody pacing back and forth.

Heidelberg. Half-timbered houses, the bridge over the Neckar. When he was at Eotvos they’d gone up there for Schollwagen’s lectures on Aristophanes. And-it was late February-just to be somewhere else. In a weinstube, Frieda. Curly hair, broad hips, a wonderful laugh. He could hear it.

A two-day love affair, and long ago, but every minute of it stayed in his memory and, now and then, he liked