sentences.
‘. . . send this by the hand of our loyal steward Nicolas,’ said one of the two. ‘I beg your return. The Bishop came agam today, to ask when the shrine will come to him. God knows I do not oppose him, for this was the desire of your blessed father. But I feel he regards me with coldness . . .’
I’ll bet he did, I thought. A sixteenth-century chauvinist cleric, and a woman who was both foreigner and scholar. The impeccable Latin was evidence of the countess’s intelligence. No doubt she had been educated by a family priest, as a few rare women were in those days. I thought I knew who had owned the volume of Trithemius in the
I picked up the last scrap of parchment. It was written in a hasty scrawl that was very unlike the neatness of the earlier letters. I deduced that it was, in date, the last of the three.
‘. . . anxious. No news has come since you wrote you were sending it here, in the care of Nicolas the steward. It is too long, he should have arrived a week since. In God’s name, my husband, come home. The Bishop . . .’
The rest was gone, presumably into the interior of an ancient rat. I sat there staring at the dusty little bit of paper that had knocked my theories into a cocked hat.
Our second possibility had been the right one. The shrine had never reached Rothenburg. The caravan must have been ambushed after all – the steward killed, the shrine stolen. I felt tired enough to die. I tossed the papers haphazardly into the box and staggered to my bed.
I woke next morning to golden sunlight, the singing of birds, and a balmy breeze from the open window. I felt terrible. After a second I remembered why.
I was late to breakfast, but Tony was still there. After one look at me, he shoved a cup of coffee in my direction and remarked, ‘You look like hell. What’s the matter, did our little expedition last night scare you that much?’
‘It didn’t scare me at all. But it was odd, not to find her there.’
‘It kept me awake for a while,’ Tony admitted. ‘Konstanze may not be haunting Irma, but she’s beginning to haunt me. If it weren’t for the shrine, I’d be tempted . . .’
‘To pack up and leave? Go ahead. The shrine isn’t here.’
I told him about the letters.
‘The roll of maps is gone too,’ I concluded glumly. ‘I don’t suppose you took them? Okay, okay, I was just asking. I’m upset.’
‘Things are getting confused, aren’t they? Sorry you came? Willing to admit this is too much for your poor little female brain?’
I sneered at him over the coffee cup, and he grinned.
‘Then start using those brains you keep bragging about. You haven’t been thinking, you’ve been reacting intuitively and emotionally. The letters are only negative evidence. Our reasoning still stands. Why haven’t the jewels turned up, unless the shrine is hidden somewhere?’
‘Oh, I had no intention of giving up. I haven’t even begun to search yet. I just wanted to give you an excuse to cop out.’
‘I’m staying, whether the shrine is here or not.’
I stared at him in surprise. His voice was grave and his face sober.
‘That girl needs help,’ he went on. ‘I don’t know why the old lady hates her so, but she’s slowly driving her crazy. I can’t walk out on a situation like that.’
‘Sucker,’ I said. ‘Softhearted chump. Easy mark.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Tony agreed. ‘I talked to Blankenhagen at breakfast. He thinks Irma needs to get away from this place. She ought to be amused and distracted. So I told him you’d take her shopping this morning. Isn’t that the universal panacea for disturbed females?’
‘You have your nerve promising my services. I have other things to do this morning. I’m going to – ’
‘Take Irma shopping. Don’t put it that way; tell her you need her to show you the best stores. You’re a paying guest; the old lady can’t object if you ask for Irma’s services.’
‘Huh,’ I said.
‘I knew you would. Sucker, chump . . . We’re meeting Blankenhagen at the Architect’s House for lunch. One o’clock.’
‘And you, my knight in shining armour? Are you coming along to carry our parcels?’
‘Not me. I have other things to do this morning. I’m going back to the archives. I’ll meet you at one.’
But Tony didn’t appear at the Architect’s House at one, or at two, or at two thirty, when our party rose to leave.
The excursion had done Irma good, and it hadn’t hurt me either. This nonsense about shopping being good therapy doesn’t apply to
I also bought a carved wooden reproduction of a Gothic saint, and didn’t even wonder how I was going to get it in my suitcase. It was three feet high. I also bought . . . Well, we could have used Tony as a carrier. But I wistfully declined peasant blouses trimmed with lace, and rose-printed dirndl dresses with white aprons, and stuff like that. I love it, but on me it looks the way a pinafore would look on Tony.
One particularly charming dress, which had a laced black velvet bodice embroidered with tiny white rosebuds and green leaves, made my mouth water. I showed it to Irma.
‘Why don’t you try it on? It would look gorgeous on you.’
Irma and I had gotten quite matey by then – two girls together, and all that. It was nice to see the kid smile for a change. At my question the smile disappeared, and she shook her head.
‘No, no, this is for tourists. The money is far too much.’
Tactfully I dropped the subject and we made our way towards the restaurant. The rest of Irma’s wardrobe was as hideous as her nightgowns; that day she was wearing another high-necked dark print that hung like a burlap bag from her shoulders. I had never seen her in one of the pretty peasant dresses of the region, which are common street wear in southern Germany, and which would have suited her petite beauty.
As Irma sparkled and giggled at Blankenhagen, I continued to wonder why she was so broke. The hotel was making money. The prices were outrageous, as I had cause to know. The countess had spoken of selling books; Irma said furniture and objets d’art, even the iron gates, had gone under the dealer’s hammer. Were taxes and running expenses so high that two women, living frugally, could barely eke out a living? Judging from the objects I had seen – most of them in Elfrida’s quarters – the stuff that had been sold was of prime quality, worth a considerable amount.
As the time wore on and no Tony came loping into the courtyard dining room, with its vine-hung balconies, worry replaced my curiosity about the Drachenstein finances. I kept telling myself it was absurd to worry; what could happen to him in broad daylight, in the law-abiding streets of Rothenburg? But it wasn’t like him to forget an appointment. I was increasingly silent and distracted, and Blankenhagen started casting me significant glances, raising and lowering his eyebrows and making other signals. He didn’t care whether Tony was missing or not, he just wanted to entertain Irma.
Finally, as we were leaving, I saw Tony in the doorway. My whole body sagged with relief. I hadn’t realized how uptight I was. So, naturally, I was furious with him.
‘Where the – ’ I began, as we went towards him. And then I shut up, because I had gotten a good look at his face.
‘Sorry for being late,’ Tony mumbled. ‘I got . . . I got interested’ – he choked oddly – ‘in something. I forgot the time. No, thanks, I’ll grab a sandwich someplace. I’m not hungry.’
‘The scholarly habit,’ said Irma, smiling at him. ‘It must be very difficult for a wife.’
She was pretty obtuse, that girl. There was Tony, looking like a sick dog, and she thought he was just an absentminded professor. But when she blushed and batted those long lashes at him, he revived enough to blush back. Irma was certainly responding nicely to treatment, I thought. Maybe a girl that resilient didn’t need quite as much TLC as she had been getting lately.
