Faro wondered how he could politely take his leave of the Colonel and insist on continuing on the train to Stuttgart. The Colonel had observed his bleak expression and realised that he did not look very enthusiastic at this change of plans. 'You do not wish to accompany us?'
Faro smiled. ‘I was hoping to take a train to Heidelberg. I am meeting a friend there.'
'A lady, perhaps?' The Colonel gave him a teasing glance. 'A romantic meeting?'
Faro's enigmatic smile was rightly interpreted.
'Can this impatient lady wait a little longer? I believe the Grand Duchess is very anxious to see you, to thank you personally for bringing George to her.'
This piece of news made Faro groan inwardly. Meeting Amelie again, with George at his side, was something he had hoped to avoid.
'It is inconvenient, yes?' asked the Colonel anxiously.
'A little.'
'But we will only delay your journey by a few days,' he insisted. 'And Mosheim is a place you should see. It dates back to Roman times, indeed the remains of a Roman settlement have been found here. Once it was a monastic town.'
But Faro wasn't listening any more. How could he find a valid excuse to decline Amelie's invitation? Did she know he was coming? Would she be equally embarrassed? What would it be like for those closest to her to meet him?
He cursed the resemblance between himself and George, evident to even a casual observer. Anyone seeing them together must guess the truth. Remembering the shock of seeing their mirrored reflections together, he wondered whether others were as observant. He was certain that Dieter had guessed, or was that the workings of his guilty conscience?
'I had hoped to send a telegraph to my friend from Stuttgart,' he told the Colonel, who laughed.
'If that is all, Mr Faro, I can assure you it will be taken care of. We have excellent facilities on board the train. The Kaiser has thought of everything for his passengers' and his own comfort.'
Pausing, he added, 'I wish you to stay also. I have enjoyed our short acquaintance. And I am secretly hoping that a meeting with Amelie will jolt your memory regarding her visit to your country and the people she met. Perhaps it might provide some clues to the mystery concerning George.
'I also hope that you will have a chance to call upon my sister Melissa when you are in Heidelberg. She will want to meet the good man who looked after her son so well on the journey from Scotland.
'I have to make arrangements for his future, since he is unlikely to return to the Scottish college. I think perhaps the military academy but Melissa would rather he chose a less war-like career. He takes after her and wishes to be an actor, which seems a very strange choice for a male from an old Junker family.'
Faro smiled. 'I can assure you he would do very well. He has a natural ability, from what I observed in the Shakespearean scenes put on by his school.' adding that he had been present as a visitor on that occasion.
'Then your judgement is indeed a recommendation to bear in mind, Mr Faro. The boy is young enough and with his mother's career, which is doing so well at present, she must leave his education in my hands as his legal guardian. I have little to do with children, I am afraid.'
Faro pushed to the back of his mind the darker side of Anton's acting ability that Dieter had stressed. The ability to shed tears at will, the screen for telling outrageous and convincing lies.
At that moment, the door opened to admit George and Anton. As George rushed over and sat down at his side, Faro felt again the intensity of the Colonel's disconcerting gaze.
Fortunately the two boys were full of questions. George was telling his uncle that he was longing to see his pet falcon again. There was a small menagerie at Mosheim, Faro gathered, kept for the Kaiser's shooting guests.
Steps were provided for the party to leave the train and in the small station precinct a carriage awaited to take them through the town and on to the Kaiserhof.
The Colonel pointed to a hillside with a dark forest. 'That is our destination, Mr Faro. It was once upon a time a Franciscan monastery, quite secluded. You will see it in due course.'
The drive through the town was picturesque enough for anyone's taste, thought Faro. There was a fairy-tale look about the ancient half-timbered houses leaning towards each other across narrow cobbled streets and the wide market-place dominated by an equestrian statue of some early benefactor staring reverently towards a handsome and equally ancient church, unmistakably a one-time fortification. The atmosphere of Mosheim recalled illustrations from the children's stories of the Brothers Grimm. Here was a place where anything could happen, wildly romantic and remote as a distant planet from stern-faced Scottish streets where tight-windowed grey houses paid careful tribute to respectability.
The passage of the royal carriage was enhanced by the ringing of church bells. They were not to greet young George of Luxoria however but to call people to Mass.
Leaving the town behind, the horses began their strenuous upward climb on the last stage of the journey, along roads twisting up through the forest. Looking down, Faro saw a water-mill and a twist of river far below the treeline, the houses and church now reduced to the dimensions of a child's toy village.
Suddenly the forest cleared a little to reveal glimpses of a small castle, romantic and quite unreal.
So this was the hunting-lodge, the old castle Wilhelm's parents had discovered and renovated long ago in
