Iron Butterflies Read online

  “However, if you were imprisoned—then how did you get free? How could you have learned of their ways within the walls?”

  “That is all by the courtesy of the Electress Ludo-vika. Please—lift your arm a little—there is a bad scratch here—” For the moment I was not inclined to play at guessing games as to why I was here, it was more important that I discover some method of getting elsewhere as soon as possible. While I could not deny that, irritating as the Colonel could be even in his present seemingly helpless state, he inspired one with confidence.

  “Ludovika?” he repeated.

  So, as I finished such attention as I could give his hurts, I told him the story of Lisolette and her obsession with the dead Electress, of how she had freed and also shown me the secrets which lay within the walls.

  “I would say this is beyond belief,” he commented when I had finished, “yet the fact we are both here proves it true. This is an ill-omened place, and superstition is strong in this part of the country. Your young ‘ghost’ could well have become so fascinated by the story that she began as a game to play such a part, and now has thought herself into believing it. The legends about Ludovika are not pleasant ones. It is very true that the commoners—and the court (even the Elector of that time, himself, if accounts are to be credited— and I have seen those set down with the exactitude of legal documents)—believed her to have access to unnatural powers. Certainly her closest adviser was executed as a follower and servant of the devil.” He picked up his shirt and slipped it on, drawing it carefully about him.

  “I wish I had salve.” I was sure those careful movements told more of pain that he would ever admit. “Perhaps when Lisolette comes again I can persuade her—”

  “I do not think from what you have said she may take kindly to giving me any aid.” He arose to his feet and was once more peering out of the window. “When she comes it would be better for me to stay out of sight. Have you any idea how far those wall passages extend? In the other direction, I mean? Such ways often have an exit to the outside—used in times of siege or storming of a fortress. I wonder how that girl chanced on them at all—”

  “When she opened the way into my cell I did not look in the other direction, I just followed her. But my cell was on the outer wall—and there seemed to be nothing below but a deep cliff.” I described all I had been able to see through the slit window.

  “However, there could be some turn, some linkage.” He was frowning a little. “The commandant here is in two minds over what game to play. It can be true that these sisters would conceal your escape—if they are as Lisolette reports them. But there will be no such covering my vanishing. It could be that the entrance in the wall cannot be detected from that side. Certainly I had no idea of it. It may also be true that the commandant has no idea concerning the games his daughter plays. That does not mean, however, that a strict search would not uncover something, or that the girl, weak minded as she appears to be, cannot be startled or frightened into revealing what she has been doing. Even to bar that door”—he nodded to the one leading to the outer hall—“would arouse suspicion if a room-to-room search was made.”

  His words so followed my earlier speculations that I believed there was a necessity of once more retracing the way through the walls to discover whether, somewhere beyond my own cell, might lie just such a hidden exit as he suggested. Only when I spoke that thought aloud, he shook his head.

  “Not now—not yet. It would be better if you play Lisolette's game a little longer, learn more. What lies in here? This seemed to be built against the wall very tightly.” He had gone to the wardrobe and was running his hands along its side toward the wall. “Such sometimes have secrets also.”

  “She keeps her ghost dress—and another in there.” I opened the door and let him see the hanging garments.

  He touched the wide, stiff skirt of the one she had worn with the fingertip veil. “This is old right enough. It could well have been one of Ludovika's. What's this?” He stooped and picked up the book-box, holding it closer into the candle flame.

  I pointed to the design deep graven on the cover and told of its fellow which had been carved on the shelf table in the cell.

  “Hex,” he said. “You can see such on doors, even on the walls of barns. The countrymen believe some designs mean protection. Others are symbols to draw power when used according to secret doctrines. This is very old also—” He had been striving to open it, but the lock resisted even as it had for me.

  Now, box in one hand, he took the candle from me with the other and prowled around the room, looking at the two tables, one of which had a second candlestick on it. Instead of a cup ready to hold a candle, this possessed a sharp-pointed spike on which the wax could be impaled. He caught that up, having set down the box with the light, and began to lever the edge of that point beneath the edge of the box lid.

  I could see that he worked delicately and with caution, as if he had no wish to mar the ancient wood. Whether he could have solved the problem so, we had no chance to learn, for we were startled into frozen silence by a sound at the door.

  For once I thought quickly and took from him the box, heading for the wardrobe, with my heart pounding. I had it back and the door closed and then I turned—to see an empty room. Where my companion had taken refuge I did not know. Only there lay his jacket, and that I sprang to collect, having just time enough to throw it, with the mass of torn and wet, now bloodstained linen, under the edge of the window draperies, trusting to the luck which had not failed me so far that those would conceal it all.

  Lisolette came in, appearing almost as ghostlike in her cambric dress, her pale hair floating loosely about her shoulders, as she had worn it in her disguise. To my surprise she was giggling as might any schoolgirl who had managed some mischief in a way- successful to herself and confounding to those she had some reason to dislike.

  Clasped in her arms was a bundle of some size. This she dropped on the floor as if she had found its contents both heavy and cumbersome. She smiled slyly up at me.

  “They are so angry—and I think that my father is also frightened. Yes, I do believe he is frightened!” She had dropped down on the dusty floor beside her package and now she again looked up at me, plainly highly amused.

  “Something has gone wrong—with his prisoner— I could not hear much—the lieutenant was there and so I could not listen at the door. It is good—now they will not be thinking about us! We have so much to do. It is the right time of the moon, you know—perhaps you could not see that when you were down there. But the phases of the moon are of the greatest jmportance— the power rises with it, and weakens with it. We are lucky in that this is the right time and we do not have to wait. But of course she knew that and it is why she sent me to you. Only I did not understand then how important it all was.

  “Now—” The girl stood up and stood back a step or two looking me up and down critically as if such an inspection was of the utmost importance. “Yes, I am sure it will fit—it must. And I have brought undergarments. You could not wear those clumsy things you have—not under what she has for you.”

  She stooped again and twitched her bundle open. There was another basket—this without a handle— also a number of folded garments, which certainly looked far finer than the coarse chemise and petticoata my wardress had supplied.

  “Wait—” Lisolette sped back to the door and reached outside to drag in a can of water and a basin.

  “I had to made two trips,” she said, as one pointing out the fulfillment of a distasteful duty. “Now you can wash and be ready. I cannot stay—but I shall be back. There is more food there— And—”

  She went to the wardrobe to open the door. Her hand stroked the skirt of the red dress.

  “This is for you. It was hers. You are to wear it.”

  With that she was gone, leaving me still more mystified at the meaning of the game she played, and in which she now proposed to include me. The bed curtains moved and Colonel Fenwick emerged fro
m hiding.

  “Do you see?” I demanded of him. He was looking, not at me, but to the door through which Lisolette had vanished.

  “Tell me,” he ordered, “everything you can remember that she has said concerning this she, whom I take to be Ludovika—”

  Though I could not see what such imaginings would mean, his authority was such that I did struggle to recall all the disjointed and superstitious nonsense, or so it seemed to me, Lisolette had said at one time or another. He listened gravely, as if every word I called to mind was a portion of a puzzle which it was very necessary to fit together.

  “It seems that she believes Ludovika escaped—”

  ‘If she did, it was through death. But Lisolette apparently believes that she is still alive—in some manner.”

  He again wore the look of one thinking out a complicated plan of action.

  “Show me the trick of the panels.” He spoke with even greater sharpness, and took up the candle. “I must learn where the other end of that passage may be.”

  “We can—”

  Now he shook his head. “No, I go alone. Do as the girl has said.” He pointed to the clothing she had brought, the waiting water. “It may be that only through her we can hope to get out. But I must make sure.”

  Though I was ready to protest hotly, I could see by his expression that it would do no good. He added as he took up the candlestick:

  “Be very sure, I will take no chances. And I shall return as quickly as I can.”

  I made him free of the secret of the eye hinge and watched him vanish into the wall runs. Reluctantly I returned to follow Lisolette's instruction, though it was good to wash the dust and grime from my body, put on again the soft, clean linen she had brought me. To wear the red dress was another matter. The skirt went on easily enough, though I had to draw in my breath to fasten it. But the bodice, so extremely low cut, was another matter.

  Certainly I filled it better than Lisolette did the other dress, but the bareness of my shoulders was something I could not get used to, while the bones of the sewed in stiffening pushed my breasts up and out in what I considered a most indecent display, though I could not view the results in any mirror. The iron necklace was the only covering I could cling to—I neither had shawl nor scarf.

  I had to comb my hair and braid it, but there were no pins left to establish my customary style of coiffure, so those braids spilled down across my shoulders, giving me some manner of concealment. The wide, stiff skirts were difficult to manage and brushed the floor, I had tried to cram my feet into a pair of the slippers, but all those were too small and I had to remain content with my heavy wool stockings, those already thickened with dust, as my only foot covering.

  Beneath my new dress I still slung the bag of gold and that parchment which now meant so little. Suppose we did get free, how could I go across any countryside in this dress—fashioned for appearance at court a hundred years ago or more?

  The small basket contained more food; also, something else which I caught up with a surge of excitement. For a weapon it was not very formidable, being a knife with a blade long enough to deal with the round of smoked sausage beside which it lay, but it was the closest thing to a weapon that I had seen for days. I used it to carve off a section of the meat, delighting in its keenness as it slid through the hard brown roll. I ate only a small portion of the food, putting the rest aside for the Colonel.

  Then I gathered up the torn linen I had used to tend his hurts and brought his jacket out of hiding. The linen I spread out flat on the bed and drew over all the disintegrating covers, arranging the scene as best I could as it had first appeared, while the jacket I laid in the shadow of the hangings. Lisolette had not appeared to notice the disheveled condition of the bed earlier—I hoped that if she came again, she would not see anything amiss.

  I could not sit still, but paced back and forth, from the place I could look out the window, to the panel behind which Fenwick had gone, looking out from one to try to see any sign of search, listening at the other for some sound to herald his return. The silence of the room weighed upon me. Can one hear quiet? In those long, long moments I felt that it did have some substance of its own which could be heard—that the absence of sound itself was a weighty thing to listen to.

  It was almost a relief at last to catch sight of movement in the courtyard. One of the doors that set in the wall opposite the window from which I spied was thrown open abruptly. A squad of soldiers issued forth, spreading out fanwise as they came. They held muskets and had the air of men about to engage in some deadly skirmish.

  I could not see what lay a floor below my own window. Was there another door there through which they must now enter? Three of the men had gone to that Other door and passed within, but the rest were heading straight for the wall of the wing in which I sheltered. I turned so swiftly my skirts swept around the stool and I nearly lost my balance. To bar the door—that would make any searcher suspicious.

  If I could erase from this room any sign of my occupancy— I must! There were the garments I had thrown off, the basin now full of soapy water in which I had washed—the empty can—the baskets of food— What could I do with them? Transport all into the passage?

  The dress in the wardrobe, that which Lisolette wore in her night wanderings—a single glance at that might well betray her secret for all time. I must do the best I could to hide all signs of occupancy.

  It took me only a moment to open the panel and brace it so. Then to speed back and forth with all the things I had noted, taking at the last the dress and veil of Lisoletie's wearing, together with the coat Fenwick had left.

  To edge through the narrow door of the panel in my own present bulky wear was a problem. I had had no time to bring with me a lighted candle! I retreated so into utter darkness, letting the panel close, waiting to hear the tramp of feet as the searchers must be making their way from room to room.

  I dared not move in this thick dark, for I had so bundled in all the things I must hide that they were in a chaotic mass about my feet. From the dress and veil I held pressed tightly to me arose a faint scent—cloying—sweet—yet unpleasant. That seemed to grow stronger until I felt dizzy as it choked my nostrils, filled the air. It was like no perfume I had ever scented before—sickly—perhaps rising from flowers cut only to quickly die—

  No! I shook my head vigorously. I must concentrate on listening—be sure, if the room was entered, that nothing could reveal our presence. The dark was so heavy it was like being locked within a tomb—no! I must not allow my thoughts to stray so morbidly.

  A sound! I had guessed rightly! That had been the room door flung open. There came the tramp of feet, heavy on the floor. Could they track me? The thought just occurred to me. With all that dust—how could we not have left tracks.

  “Phuh—!” An exclamation of disgust. “Three spiders here if the sergeant asks.”

  ‘This is a strange room—” Another voice, younger, not so coarse.

  “Strange it is, Florian—Prince Franzel was murdered here if the story is right. All this wing is unlucky. Come—there is nothing but dust, and how could he have gotten into this wing anyhow? The outer door below was locked, you saw how hard it was for the sergeant to turn the key. Unless he went through walls—”

  It was as if a hand, large and brutal, had closed upon my throat. Go through walls! That searcher had lit upon the truth. They need only follow such a suggestion and—

  Those steps were retreating. I heard the door thud shut. However, I continued to stand where I was, my arms filled with dress and jacket, my heart pounding so hard I wished I dared lean against the wall for support. I counted slowly to a hundred, hoping thus, in a little, to measure time. Then I slid open the panel.

  The chamber was just as I had left. Their search had not been thorough, though the curtains had been dragged farther back and torn even more. We must, I made note, be careful to avoid passing near that window, keep well back in the room,

  I moved out of hiding a
nd once more transferred all that I had hidden. When I opened the door of the wardrobe to rehang the dress, I was startled. There stood the rows of shoes, and beside them the book-box. If the searchers had sighted those, why had they not said anything, or taken such evidence? Maybe they had not noticed, the wardrobe did stand in such a shadowed corner. They had been looking for a man in hiding, they could well have thought that both shoes and box were left here in the long ago.

  Suddenly, weak with relief, I sat down on a chair to wait.

  I had no way of telling time. It seemed that the Colonel had been gone far longer than it would have taken him to make the trip even down as far as my cell. Did the passage run much farther, perhaps being cut into the raw stone of the outcrop of mountain on which Wallenstein had been erected? In my mind I could picture a flight of uncounted stairs winding down and down into the depth of the rock—to come out— where?

  As time passed I grew so overwrought that it was all I could do to sit still. However, I knew that I must not move around lest some searcher either catch a glimpse of me through that now uncurtained window, or, passing perhaps in the corridor, hear me. When one is prevented from doing something, then that becomes the very thing each nerve in one's body strains to do.

  There was a sound! I looked quickly and eagerly to the panel, but that did not herald the return of the Colonel, rather it was Lisolette who came through from the secret way. But how—?

  At the edge of the room she hesitated, giving a quick glance around. Then she blew out the candle she had carried and walked around the foot of the bed, avoiding the window. Standing there, she gave me a measuring survey and then nodded.