The pain came back when she rose from the bed, but it was a dull ache now. She’d suffered far worse in the plane crash and had lived. She would live through this.
She found Uncle Reinhardt in the grand hall, stoking the fire. A scullery maid in a traditional uniform was carrying loaves of bread and curtsied to Aubrey despite her load.
“Fraulein. Did you sleep well?” Reinhardt asked.
“I did. Wonderful bed. How large is this place?”
“Fourteen rooms. Helmut’s father had it built in 1909 after he gave up forever restoring the castle. Too much money, stone and mortar. Better to build with bricks and beams, ja?”
“There’s this and the castle and…”
“And one hundred acres, most of it at a very steep angle.”
Aubrey laughed and her torso hurt.
“You’re in pain, Fraulein. What did you do?” he asked, concerned.
“Had a little accident. Where is the count?”
“Forget about those formalities and protocol here, Fraulein. It will go to his head. Helmut is out sorting the firewood. This fire is the only heat for the entire lodge. If we let it go out, we’ll freeze. It gives a wonderful perspective on life, the balance we must all maintain. The heat is sent up through the main duct and reflected to the rooms. A chimney takes the smoke to the outside.”
“I know—I felt the heat it puts out. Wonderful engineering.”
Hands behind her back, she wandered over to the animal trophies. Their glass eyes stared down at her. “The count—Helmut—likes to hunt?”
“Those are not his. Those animals were walking the earth before you or he were born, I suspect. The hunting tradition has gone from our family, along with everything else. We used to own large tracts of land in Africa. Helmut was once, for a brief moment, one of the wealthiest dukes in the German empire. But at the end of the war, the Kaiser abdicated and our family was forced to renounce our titles and give up most of our lands. Germany’s empire has shrunk, considerably.”
“But Helmut’s business—I got the impression it is very successful.”
“Oh, he’s made a success of it. His father invested in a small firm at the turn of the century. It has morphed into a conglomerate. Most of the manufacturing is done in the Sudetenland.”
“Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s in that abominable creation they call Czechoslovakia, another edict from you Americans and the other victors in the last war. You really have stuck the knife into us. We barely made it through the twenties… So much turmoil. Now we’re saved, at least for the time being, until the next war.”
“I’ve heard that a lot.” She didn’t add from whom. Both her uncle in America and Hewitt had alluded to a coming conflict more than once in their brief time together. All the more reason to get the information on the new fighter plane without further delay and get out of Germany. If that was possible. She was safe here, for the time being.
“Don’t you worry; the Führer has made more than one speech about reclaiming the Sudetenland. There are ethnic Germans there; they work at Helmut’s factory. But he is worried. If they come under state control, there’s nothing stopping that little Austrian from nationalizing them. And then, all this—pffft,” he said.
“Reinhardt, that is quite enough.”
Aubrey whirled at the sound of the count’s voice, and then winced. Helmut was standing in the doorway. He wore a pair of tan pants that were tucked into brightly polished brown riding boots. He wore a heavy work coat, in contrast to Reinhardt’s simple Bavarian lederhosen and white shirt. Maybe he was out of practice at being comfortable in the cold air.
“Helmut,” Reinhardt scolded him playfully, “you shouldn’t sneak up on an old man like that when he is talking treason. Are you going to turn me in to the authorities?”
“Not for the moment. I’ve come to collect Aubrey. I thought she could use that walk we talked about. There is a small café two miles down the path where we could have a light meal before dinner.”
“Sounds delightful.”
“I have a warm jacket for you.”
“Lead the way.”
The path was steep but, thankfully, strewn with broken pine boughs for traction. The sun’s final rays flitted through the branches overhead. There was the roar of a waterfall somewhere deeper in the woods, and she could smell the oxygenated, misty air filtered by pine and earth surrounding her.
“We can go there tomorrow to see it,” Helmut said, meaning the waterfall. “It’s too late in the day, and besides, I’m hungry for my tea.”
“What have you been doing all day?”
“Working on my automobile.”
“Doesn’t your driver take care of that?”
“I won’t let him touch those beautiful twelve cylinders. Besides, he thinks it is beneath him. To get grease under those fingernails would be dishonourable. Sometimes I have a hard time distinguishing who the person with the title is. But I assure you, he never has that problem. He may not vocalize it, but I know his feelings on the subject.”
Aubrey’s laugh was genuine, and Helmut joined in.
They came out of the woods onto a granite ledge that ran for a mile in either direction. Before them lay the great expanse of the Bavarian Alps, huge beasts of rock and snow that scraped the top of the sky and made the clouds conform around them. Their peaks alternated between startling clarity and misty apparitions in the ever-moving blanket of white.
Aubrey had no words. She had not been able to take in the full majesty of the place from the confines of the Mercedes; during their drive, she had been preoccupied with the steep drop over the unguarded road and the terrible aches in her body. But now, the sheer size of the mountain range demanded her attention. She found she could not take her eyes from it.
On the ledge between the road and the drop-off was a château. There was a patio next to it, and as they descended the last hundred
