farewell.
Reznik walked across to the carriage and looked into the rear section, behind the seats. The coffin was already in place, the gleaming black wood marred in two places by the leather straps that held it in situ, a precaution against the jolting the carriage would experience on the rough and unmade road that ran from the castle to the church of St Vitus, where the princess’s body was destined to rest for all eternity. Reznik nodded in satisfaction: all his instructions had been followed to the letter. Finally, he clambered up on to the carriage, the driver joining him a few moments later.
For a couple of minutes nothing else happened, and then the castle clock struck eight. As the first peal of the bell echoed around the courtyard, the servants standing beside the large wooden gates stepped forward, released the bolts, and pulled them open. Only then did the driver tap the reins lightly across the broad backs of the two mares. Obediently, the horses stepped forward, their hooves clattering on the uneven stones of the courtyard, and the carriage began to move, creaking gently as it did so.
The funeral cortege, if that word could accurately be applied to only a single carriage containing two men and one corpse, passed through the wide gateway and out of the castle. The sight that greeted the two men outside the walls was both spectacular and sad: the road that wound away from the castle was lined on both sides by silent and unmoving figures, each holding aloft a flaming brand. Indeed, from the castle gates, it looked as if a thin double ribbon of fire was stretching out in front of the carriage, illuminating the final route that the princess’s body would take.
Reznik glanced at the first few figures as the carriage drove slowly past them. Some of the torchbearers had been drawn from the local villagers, but the others, and perhaps the majority, were men and women of the cloth: monks and nuns who had been summoned by Reznik so that their piety and righteousness might lend a certain dignity – and protection – to the proceedings. Each of them bowed his or her head in respectful supplication as the carriage passed, and then made the sign of the cross.
And as the carriage trundled slowly past the silent ranks, the torchbearers extinguished their burning brands in metal water buckets which had been placed beside each of them specifically for that purpose. The moving end of the ribbon of fire marked the position of the carriage, while behind it darkness again reclaimed the land.
An impartial observer might have wondered at a funeral for a princess of the Schwarzenberg dynasty being conducted in such a manner. It was unusual enough that the presiding clergyman should be just a village priest rather than a bishop or some other high Church official, but even more surprising was the complete absence of a single member of the Schwarzenberg family, or any representatives from the other aristocratic families to which the Schwarzenbergs were linked or related. Even Eleonora Amalia’s son Joseph was missing.
It was as if the only people who had any regard or respect or affection for the princess were the peasants and villagers of Krumlov itself, but even that impression was false. The local men and women lining the route and holding the torches aloft had been ordered to do so by Reznik, on pain of punishment.
About twenty minutes after leaving the castle, the carriage drew to a halt outside the open doors of the Church of St Vitus. Reznik climbed down from his seat and issued a series of instructions. The straps holding the coffin in place were released, and the heavy wooden box was hoisted on to the shoulders of six powerfully built monks. They carried the coffin into the church and placed it on a wooden trestle that had been prepared and positioned in front of the altar.
The service was short – about as brief as Reznik could make it – and almost all the pews in front of the pulpit were noticeably empty. The only people sitting in the church were wearing the habits of monks and nuns, summoned like the torchbearers before them. Once his duty was done, Reznik stepped down from the pulpit to supervise the actual burial.
As a Schwarzenberg, it might have been expected that the princess would be laid to rest in the family vault, in St Augustine’s church in Vienna, but Eleonora had been denied that privilege. Instead, Reznik led the way into a small side chapel where a large section of the stone-flagged floor had already been removed and a deep grave dug, a grave that had been lined with a clay-based concrete. The six monks lowered the casket to the floor where three substantial ropes had been placed in readiness. Then they each seized the end of one of the ropes and lifted the coffin off the floor, moving awkwardly in the confined space around the grave, and manoeuvred the casket over the hole. Slowly they lowered the coffin into the waiting void.
Reznik murmured a few last prayers, and then ordered the handful of official mourners out of the church. The final rituals were to be witnessed by as small a number of people as possible.
Reznik stepped to one side of the chapel and picked up a crudely fashioned wooden ladder, which he carried over to the side of the grave and then lowered into it. He gestured to the monks, who silently descended into the pit. Reznik held a torch over the void so they could see what they were doing. Stacked along both sides of the grave were a number of heavy flat stones. Working under the priest’s direction, the monks picked these up, two men to each stone, and placed them carefully on the flat top of the black wooden coffin, in a double layer.
Reznik inspected their work carefully from the top of the grave, and ordered them to climb out again. Their next task required all the considerable strength the monks possessed. Reznik had already arranged for a rough wooden arch fitted with a heavy-duty pulley to be positioned inside the chapel to allow a single heavy slab to be laid across the top of the open grave to seal it completely. Even with this mechanical device to assist them, it still took almost half an hour before the slab was positioned to Reznik’s satisfaction and, despite the cool evening air, the sweat was pouring off the faces of the six men.
But still they weren’t finished. Reznik permitted them a short break to recover their strength, then supervised the disassembly of the wooden arch, the component pieces of which they stacked against the side wall of the chapel. Once that had been completed, he instructed them to drag three heavy sacks containing soil, taken from the cemetery outside the church, across to the slab that now covered the tomb. They upended the sacks and spread the contents into a single even layer over the slab.
Now, finally, the monks’ work was almost over. They replaced the flagstones that had been removed to allow the hole to be dug, but left enough space directly over the grave for the gravestone itself, a slab that Reznik had had prepared by a stone mason in the village the previous day. Two of the monks picked up the stone and lowered it carefully into position.
Reznik stepped to the end of the gravestone and lowered his head in prayer for the last time, the six monks who had assisted him kneeling on the flagstone floor beside the tomb.
Moonlight speared in through one of the chapel’s side windows and the beam played silently across the freshly cut and very simple inscription in the stone. The words made no mention of Eleonora Amalia’s family name or her aristocratic status. It didn’t even include the Schwarzenberg coat of arms. On the specific instructions of Reznik, who had himself simply been following the orders he had been given by the men who had prepared the parchment, the inscription simply listed the first name of the princess, and the date of her death:
Hier liget die arme sunderin Eleonora bittet fur sie. Obut die 5 Mai A1741.
With the body of Eleonora now safely consigned to the earth, Reznik had two more tasks to perform. The carriage was standing outside the church, the driver waiting for him. Reznik climbed up on to the vehicle and instructed the man to return to Krumlov Castle.
The gates were still wide open, but the courtyard was now virtually deserted. Only three men waited for Reznik’s return and the orders they expected him to issue. The priest stepped down from the carriage and walked across to them.
The men were all wearing tunics that identified them as servants of the Schwarzenberg dynasty, and two of them were armed with short swords, the scabbards buckled to their belts. It was these two men that Reznik approached first.
‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘Do it now. Kill them all, and dump the bodies in the forest.’
The men nodded, turned on their heels and vanished inside the building.
Reznik turned to the third man. ‘Show me the painting.’
The servant led Reznik into the castle and to a long gallery, at one end of which hung a life-size portrait of Eleonora. The priest stared at the princess’s pale face for a few moments, his lip curling in disgust.
‘Lift it down,’ he ordered.
Once the painting was leaning against the wall, Reznik took his folding knife and opened it. He drove the point of the blade through the canvas to the left of the princess’s head and hacked downwards in a vertical line. He repeated the operation on the right-hand side of the image as well, then sliced a horizontal line above the head to join the two cuts. He seized the flap of canvas that now fell forward, and started to cut along the last remaining
