Borrower of the Night

Tony shook his head.

‘It may have been abandoned as living quarters, but I’ll bet it was still in use as a guard tower. Anyhow, if I were the count, I’d prefer to have my valuables closer at hand, so I could keep an eye on them. Way out here – ’

He stopped speaking. He was opposite one of the window slits, and a narrow shaft of sunlight lay across the section of the floor at which he was staring.

‘What – ’ But I didn’t have to finish the question. I saw them too – footprints, clearly marked in the thick dust. The footprints of a man – a big man.

Tony knelt down. He thumped the floor with his fist, and sneezed as a cloud of dust enveloped his head.

‘If anything has been hidden under these boards, I’ll eat it,’ he announced, between sneezes. ‘Feel them. You’d expect wood so old to be rotten and crumbling, but these boards are practically petrified.’

I joined him on the floor. As my fingers touched the rock-hard surface of the wood, I felt weighted down by the sheer overwhelming age of the place.

‘They wouldn’t have been this hard four hundred years ago,’ I said.

‘That’s not what I meant. Look at the construction of the floor. There’s only one thickness of wood – each plank is a foot thick, sure, but there’s no space for a hiding place in between them. The beams in the ceiling below support these planks.’

‘How big is the shrine, anyhow?’

‘No dimensions were given.’ Tony went to the wall and thumped ineffectually at the stones. ‘But I should think it would have to be a metre or so high. Maybe bigger.’

Okay, I thought to myself; if you don’t want to talk about those footprints, we won’t talk about them. And I won’t mention the light I saw here last night. For all I knew, it might have been Tony who had carried that light, and this expedition might be a blind, to convince me of the futility of the Wachtturm as a hiding place. I watched Tony idiotically bruising his hands on impenetrable stone, and winced. If he had come here alone in the small hours of the night, I had to admire his nerve. The place was sinister enough in broad daylight. I tried to remember how much time had elapsed between my seeing the light, and leaving my room. I couldn’t estimate accurately. Tony might have had time to get back from the keep and accost me in the corridor.

Tony turned from the wall.

‘These stones look solid to me. We’d have to demolish the place to make sure nothing was hidden here.’

‘So why are we wasting our time?’

‘Let’s have a look at the top floor, just in case.’

I got to the stairs ahead of him. When I came out onto the next floor, I stopped short, swaying with a sudden attack of vertigo. There was no top floor. The roofless walls were waist high at some points; mostly there was no wall at all, only a sudden drop into the thorny brambles far below. The view across the green valley was sensational, but I didn’t linger to look at it. I backed cautiously towards the stairs, and Tony went with me. It was unnecessary to speak; there was no hiding place up there.

When we were out in the sunlight again, Tony drew a deep breath.

‘That takes care of that. The Schloss is the place for us.’

‘It’s so damned big. Where do we start looking?’

‘I think more research is indicated.’

‘You just want to sit around and read books,’ I said unreasonably. ‘I want to do something. Even if we don’t know where Burckhardt’s room was, there are other possibilities. The crypt, for instance – ’

‘How do you know there is a crypt?’

‘There’s a chapel.’

‘Okay, I’ll give you the crypt. I still want a detailed plan of the Schloss.’

‘And where do you expect to find it?’

‘Two possibilities. The town archives, for one. Also the library, or muniment room of the Schloss. There may be other letters or useful documents there too.’

‘Okay,’ I said grumpily. ‘If you’re going to be the honest, candid little fellow, I can do no less. You take the archives, I’ll take the library. We share any information we find.’

‘Agreed.’

When we reached the courtyard, we found an unexpected duo sitting at one of the tables in the garden. George Nolan and Professor Schmidt were deep in conversation – or rather, Schmidt was talking and George was listening. I thought he looked bored. He brightened when he saw us.

‘Exploring, on a hot day like this?’ he inquired.

‘You know us.’ I dropped into a chair and smiled affably at him. ‘Nothing in the Wachtturm but dust and decay.’

‘But I thought Americans admired the old and decayed,’ said Schmidt.

I was getting a little tired of hearing that sentiment expressed, but I said only, ‘That place is too old.’

‘You should see the town. It is not too old. It is very nice.’

‘I’ve been here before,’ I said.

‘But not with me,’ George said. ‘Let’s go sightseeing. Harmless occupation,’ he added.

‘Gut, gut,’ said Schmidt eagerly. ‘I know Rothenburg well. There is a Gasthaus where we will lunch.’

‘We have to be back here by four,’ Tony said, regarding Schmidt unfavourably. ‘The countess has invited us – ’

‘But I also! I also have tea with the Grafin. We can easily return by four.’

There was no way of ditching him, short of deliberate rudeness. He turned out to be a rather pleasant companion, and an absolute mine of useless information. My half-formed doubts about him faded as the morning passed; he seemed harmless and rather endearing.

Looking like innocent tourists – which three of us certainly were not – we wandered clear across town to the old hospital area, while Schmidt spouted statistics about every building we passed. There are some lovely old buildings in the big hospital court; some of them are now used as a youth hostel. After the rather oppressive antiquity of the Schloss and its sombre inhabitants, I enjoyed seeing the kids swarming around, weighted down by their backpacks but having a marvellous time anyhow. Sure, most of them were pretty dirty by the time they got halfway across Europe; cleanliness is a luxury when you are short on money and even shorter on time. Like any other mixed group, they had their share of no goods, but most of them were nice kids seeing the world – pilgrims, of a kind. As we stood there, a pair of them emerged from the unadorned facade of the early Gothic church. I admit it was hard to determine their sex; but with their long locks and faded clothes they didn’t look as incongruous as one might have expected.

Outside the hospital stands one of the more formidable of the city gates. George, who was visiting Rothenburg for the first time, seemed fascinated by the fortifications. He nodded approvingly at the sections of wall that stretched out from both sides of the gate.

‘They wouldn’t stand up against artillery, but I’d hate to attack the place with anything less. A roofed walkway all around for the defenders – arrow slits, I suppose, on the outer wall . . . ?’

‘That is correct,’ Schmidt said. ‘They are proud of their wall, it is one of the best preserved in Europe.’

‘Can you walk along it?’

It was a stupid question; we could see at least a dozen people up above, walking or leaning over the wooden rail that fenced the walkway on the town side. But Schmidt answered seriously, ‘To be sure you can. The walk is kept in repair.’

‘But not now,’ Tony said. ‘Where’s this restaurant? I’m starved.’

We had an excellent lunch, which included one glass of beer too many for me. Schmidt was glassy-eyed; he had eaten everything he could get his hands on, including a couple of extra platters of heavy dark bread. He announced his intention of taking a nap, and I had to admit it sounded like a good idea.

‘I’m going to walk some more,’ said Tony, with a meaningful glance at me. ‘See you later.’

He intended, of course, to search out the town archives. I really meant to look for the library, to keep my part of our bargain. But it was a hot day, and my stone-walled room was nice and cool, and the bed was soft. I didn’t wake up till Tony banged on the door, and I discovered I had just time enough to assume my best bib and tucker for