Iron Butterflies Read online

  Once there did come a cry which startled me into a choked answer. Only that sounded from beyond the slit of the window. Some night hunter, winged and seeking its prey, I told myself. All else was silence, which was so abiding I fancied soon I could hear the beating of my own heart.

  No, I must put my mind to other things, to thinking about what I could do. I must refuse to let myself be cowed by the past, even by my present helplessness. I was alive—I was gaining again my strength. Tomorrow I must try to learn what I could from my wardress—I must demand that I be heard by whoever commanded this place.

  Truda—the Gräfin—both had said there was a garrison here. Very well, the commander of that must be my gaoler. If I created enough disturbance, might not that reach his ears? I could do no less than try—I must—

  The sound this time was not any cry of a night bird—no! I tightened my grip on the coverlet around me as I turned my head in the dark—first to the slit of window just barely visible still—but in a moment or two I was sure it did not come from there.

  Rather it—it was out of the wall—that very wall from which hung the bench bearing the Electress’s ill-fated name! As if, through the very solid stone, the sounds managed to seep like a trickle of water. Singing? If so faint, and perhaps faraway, that no words could be distinguished. Only, I was sure, it bore a rhythm which suggested singing—or a chant.

  I strained so hard to hear, and at last I was sure I????? was right. That rise and fall of song was coming closer or growing louder, though still there were no true words within it.

  The sound was thin, I thought that only one voice was raised. Now it grew so loud that I could distinguish the breaks between words. It was a chant rather than a true song. But the words were in a foreign tongue oddly accented, the tones running up and down the scale—sometimes so high they were like the cry of a small bird, other times descending near to a guttural mumbling.

  To my ears it would seem to be just on the other side of the wall now. I threw aside the covering and did????? what I would not, could not, have done earlier, crossed the room, leaned far enough across the table shelf to????? lay one palm against the cold stone. With my right????? hand I dragged up the battered tankard, splashing the????? lees of the bitter beer wide cast, and used that vessel????? to pound on the wall.

  That I could expect any help from the singer or????? chanter, I did not even stop to think of the possibility of that. However this was sound, produced by a human????? voice. I was not completely alone and forgotten in the????? dark, and I longed for some acknowledgement of my????? being.

  The chant ended sharply at the first clang of the????? metal against the stone. Another prisoner on the other????? side of the wall? That was my first guess. There followed utter silence, to my vast disappointment, though I was not sure what I expected. Then—words—not in any chant now—but uttered in a weird moaning:

  “Death—death—”

  A warning? Yet there was something strange about that cry. Firmly I raised the tankard and once more rapped sharply.

  “Death—” the wail once more answered me.

  “Who are you?!” I raised my own voice, hoping that it would carry through the barrier wall. “Where are you?”

  “Fear death—”

  Not fear, but a kind of irritation, gave me force to rap for the third time. I had begun to suspect that perhaps this voice was another device of my gaolers, meant to keep me unsure of my own sanity. Devious to be sure, but who could tell what refinements of torment the Baron might have designed to keep me under control?

  “Who are you?” I demanded again.

  There was only silence for an answer and at last I put down the battered tankard, feeling that I was going to get nothing more out of that frustrating wall this night.

  I returned to the cot, but I felt more at ease, in a manner, than I had since I had come to my clear senses here. If they were playing such childish tricks on me, then that argued that I was still of such importance to them that they must take care in my handling. That gave me a little satisfaction, so that at last I huddled down among my covers and slept.

  Nor did I dream. It seemed that within me there had arisen a new confidence. Perhaps because I had not been thrown into a panic by the wailing voice I had defeated that earlier shock my imagination had bestowed when I had thought that device on the table had glowed under my touch. I had conquered my morbid fears and stood confidently against the attempt to terrify me. At least my nerves were so quiet that I awoke from that sleep feeling far stronger in mind and body than I had since that last clearly remembered morning in the Kesterhof.

  The light of day lay across the cell in a shaft from the slit of the window. Sight of that added to my confidence, made firmer my resolve that this time I would not play the cowed captive. My chance to make good that resolve came soon after I awoke. For once more the grate of the massive door sounded through the cell. This time I stood up, away from any support, ready to face my wardress.

  She entered as usual, this time her burden being a can of water, while over her other arm were folds of what looked like clothing. This she dumped without ceremony on the foot of my tumbled cot, setting down the can with a force which slopped its contents of water over the brim.

  “Who are you?” I asked clearly, placing myself in her way as she turned to collect the dishes she had brought the night before. She looked at me as if I were no more than the stool, the chained table. Nor did she utter a sound.

  I put out my hand and caught her arm under the tight gray stuff of her sleeve. With a surprising show of strength she gave a single twist which loosened my grip, then with a push of her flattened palm sent me near off balance, back against the cot. Pointing to me and then to the contents of the can, the pile of clothing, she made emphatic gestures that I was to wash, to dress in what she had brought. But she uttered no sound, and I wondered if she were indeed mute, or merely obeying some command that she was not to communicate with any prisoner.

  Taking up her tray, and giving me no more notice, she went out.

  I found two towels among the clothing, a bone comb, and a piece of strong-smelling yellow soap wrapped in a bit of cloth undoubtedly meant to serve also for washing. The clothing was coarse—a smock of heavy material, a petticoat, and last of all a dress of the same drab color and shape as that worn by the wardress herself. All were clean and I was glad to be rid of my own soiled and crumpled clothing, even to put on what I was sure was prison garb. I washed, though the soap made my skin smart, and I could only dab lightly at my cut and bruised face. There was no mirror, but I unbraided my straggling hair, combed it well and re-braided it by touch, having to leave the braids hanging loose over my shoulders.

  My toilet was hardly finished before the wardress returned. This time she had a tray in her hands, and, folded over one of her stooping shoulders some coverings for the bed. Slapping the tray down on the table, she dragged the present sheets off my cot, dumped the fresh ones in a heap in its middle, making plain that the task of spreading them out was to be left to me.

  The food was gruel of some grain, gritty and without flavoring, but warm. There was also another tankard, this time holding thin and bluish milk. But that was all. She waited at the door, her witch face impassive until I had finished, then took the dishes with her and left.

  My new garments, though clean, were clearly old and fashioned for someone shorter and of much fuller body than my own. The baggy folds hung about me. They had a musty smell, as if they had lain in close packing for a long time, while the skirts ended well above my ankles and the sleeves left both wrists and a goodly part of the forearm uncovered. I shook out the rough sheets and made up the cot bed, drawing out the process as long as I could for the need of something to occupy myself. Then I began a much more careful survey of the cell itself.

  Yesterday I had climbed the stool by the window and realized that, even though I could in some way force my body through that narrow way, nothing lay beyond but a frightening drop down into
a depth I could not even measure. There was the cot, the stool, the table ledge—and in one corner a place for other bodily necessities, which was merely a hole in a three sided ridge, leading far down into darkness.

  For want of any better employment I moved the stool to the side of the ledge table and started to trace those marks which must have been left by those who had proceeded me here in imprisonment. There were names—mainly, I noted, of women. None were as deeply scored as that I had found the night before by chance. That lay directly at the end of one of the supporting chains where the rusty metal was embedded in the wood. For a second time I traced the letters with a finger tip.

  I had no doubt that the “Ludovika” who must have spent much time and no little energy in setting those letters there was the same woman whose story had been used as an object lesson thereafter to all unfaithful wives. Perhaps she had richly deserved what had happened to her—yet—

  It was the device under that name which fascinated me more. Now that the light from the window was better, I could see the lines of indentation. There was a circle, and it contained a five-pointed star—the lines of that surprisingly straight for being drawn freehand. I could have covered it all well with my flattened palm, thought I had no desire to touch the wood anywhere near it.

  Peering even more closely now, I could see that in each point of the star there were smaller lines which were much dimmer than those which enclosed them, merely squiggles, though I believed that each differed from the other. It was certainly not any crest or part of an armorial bearing.

  Glancing along the table I noted that beneath or above some of those other names were also symbols. But the majority of those were rudely scratched crosses or other religious designs, none having been done with the exact precision of that which lay to mark Ludovika’s despair.

  Despair? No, somehow I could not couple that deadening expression with the woman of the Gräfin’s tale. Rage, bursting, unappeasable rage might better express what she must have felt to be so entrapped after her years of freedom to do just as she pleased. I was as sure of that as if the long-vanished Electress still paced up and down the narrow space here between door and window, her hands doubled into fists, her mind dealing only with the vengeance she would wreak—if she could.

  So vividly did that picture of her come into my mind that I found it, a fraction of a second later, startling. It was as if there was some link between past and present, that she reached out with her hatred and found something in me which bound us together.

  I shivered, steadying myself with both hands on the edge of the shelf table. Yes, I had reason enough to want justice for myself, but surely I had a right to that! My present plight was none of my own contrivance, save I had been foolish when I should have been wise. But to my mind I had never harmed any other soul to gain my way. Unless—

  Truda! What if she had been disposed of merely because she knew too much? That fear was back with me again. Perhaps I would never know.

  I sat staring at that star within the circle, the symbol which—which— I made myself now loosen the grip on the table, advance my left hand, the one which still wore that branding ring. With the tip of my forefinger I touched the middle point of the star. Though those subordinate lines were so faintly etched in connection with the others, I could feel the one there against my flesh. Was I waiting for warmth to rise? But that was folly! I had only imagined that!

  Still it was without my conscious willing that now my fingertip traveled about the points of the star, counterclockwise, lingering for the period of several breaths on each of those symbols I could feel so well, see so little. This was as if I were following some ritual, some necessary pattern as one might unseal a secret lock—

  Nor at this moment did I regain that sensation of fear which had sent me back in such a hurry in the night. Rather there was something sensuous, pleasant, almost comforting in the feel of the lined wood under my questing finger. In my mind that oddly vivid picture of the raging woman faded. Something else was growing, a confidence, a belief that, though every possible fact appeared against me now, there was hope and more than hope ahead.

  Having traced the pattern to the end, I sat back on the stool, my hands now folded in my lap, my eyes on the wall, on the chains set there to support that ledge. Rusty they were on the surface, still I did not doubt that the metal beneath them was still core strong. I saw that they were not set into any blocks, but rather wedged between the stones. There was no hope of freeing either, I was sure. If I did—then what good would a short length of chain do me. Such certainly would not give me a ladder to climb down the side of the cliff on which this fortress had been erected.

  That chanting—the wailing— I had dismissed that as an attempt to prey upon my nerves—the wailing at least. Though the chanting now seemed to be a different matter. One thought of chanting in relation to a church. This was a fortress, a prison. My thought flashed off to my single look at the Princess Adelaide, the formidable Abbess. Perhaps I had been wrong about my wardress. She was, instead of a gaolkeeper, rather a member of some religious order—housed here at Wallenstein—strange as that might be. Some vow of silence could make her mute.

  Then the chanting in the night might well be a part of worship. I knew little of the formal church here in Hesse-Dohna, of what rites they followed. But that any order under the command of, direct or merely influenced by, the Princess Adelaide would look upon me with favor was too much to be expected. If, however, I were here by not the Baron’s orders but by those of another, there might be a new bargaining. Perhaps I could make clear my own desire to have nothing the late Elector had seen fit to bestow on me—beginning with a husband. Again I found my fingers on that ring, striving to twist it off—with no better result than I had met before.

  The day was very long and I found it maddening at times to be pent in this cell, tormented by my thoughts, with nothing to do. I made myself relive from the beginning the whole of the decision which had brought me here, seeing now how very great had been my folly. The Colonel—I had been (I decided now, bitterly) far too influenced in a strange way by the very personality of the man. He had, in some manner, exuded confidence to the point that I had accepted him as a guarantee of safety. I should have been warned at how slight that protection was when he had avoided me so persistently during the voyage, the trip to Hesse-Dohna, left me to the company of the Gräfin—disappeared utterly once he reached Axelburg.

  Our wild adventure in the night, when I had at last made the acquaintance of my grandfather, had once more made me feel that, in his company, all would go well, that danger was kept at bay. But he could not even protect himself. Arrested, the Gräfin had reported. Perhaps already dead—

  Dead—the wailing behind the wall lashed out from memory. We find it hard to think of dying when we are strong and young. It is an end which comes to others, but not us. I could not accept death even now.

  I made myself lie down on the cot after I had eaten from the food brought by my silent wardress at what might have been, judging by the light outside, mid-afternoon. It was again a stew-soup, with the hard bread, the tankard of beer. But that I pushed aside and boldly demanded water.

  She took no notice of my words, only standing by the door to wait for me to eat. However I learned then that my supposition that she was a religious must be right, for she looped between her age-crooked fingers as she waited a cord which was knotted, her touch resting for a long moment on each knot, though her lips did not move in any prayer that I could perceive.

  When I had done she came to the bench table, but she lifted the tankard from the tray and put it down with some force on the board, leaving it behind. The door closed. I surveyed the tankard suspiciously—the drugged wine I remembered only too well. Could this drink have been doctored as well—leading to all I had heard, or thought I heard, in the night? That could well be—the stuff was bitter enough to cover the taste of any dose. I was thirsty, but the liquid of the stew would have to serve for tonight. Taking up the
tankard I went and emptied its contents down the convenience in the corner. Perhaps they might believe I had drunk it.

  As the light from the window faded, I drew about me again that velvet covering which I had used as a shawl, and which the wardress had not taken with her when she gathered up the used bed linen. I hated the touch of the stuff, it was spattered in places by what seemed old greasy stains. I wondered if it were indeed a remnant of the days when Ludovika had been pent here.

  I think I dozed off at last. There were no more visits and I decided that two meals a day was to be my due. However, I was much stronger, and certainly far more clear headed than I had been the night before. A queer expectancy awoke me into the dark. I had no way of telling the hour save that the night was very black and it took me some time before I could even make out the windowsill.

  Then it came—that same distant chanting growing ever stronger beyond the wall. I imagined a procession of women, perhaps only a handful of ancient, forgotten sisters of an order also now unknown to the world outside these walls, passing through the night on their way to some chapel. But that way must lie in part just beyond my wall.

  Listening so intently as I did now, I began to believe that what I could hear was a single voice, not the well-blended chorus of a number. My wardress alone, finding her tongue to mark out a ritual which made her days here meaningful?

  I was off the cot, close to the wall. This time I did not reach for the tankard to signal. That was of no use. I would only get mockery in return. Still I would not leave this post, that sound, as unintelligible as it was, meant I was not alone in a place where the only voice ever to be heard would be my own.

  The chant broke off, not as sharply as it had at my rapping the night before, but rather as if the ritual it signified had now been completed. There was silence, the thick silence of the night, not even any sound of wind from beyond the window.

  Then—a sound from within the very room where I stood. I threw out my hands, caught at the edge of the ledge table. That was moving! Again a clank. And—