Iron Butterflies Page 3

  Was it because of this “honor” that my grandmother had received the necklace, a furtive recognition of her meaning to the Elector? Or had he been sure she would never have accepted from him any real jewelry of price?

  Besides this dwelling on the Elector's treasure, I gathered from the Grafin a picture of the court which was in no way reassuring. Exaggerated formality of manners when dealing with inferiors in rank, mingled with sottish behavior of men who had few curbs placed upon their wills. Intrigue and spying, maneuvering to better one's position or secure the downfall of an enemy appeared to be the major occupations of all concerned.

  I had to fortify myself many times over with the thought of my grandmother's appeal to my sense of duty to keep me from planning to cut short this journey and return to my own country before I ever saw the boundaries of Hesse-Dohna.

  So distracted I was by this distaste for what might lie ahead that I did not really heed the first time the Grafin introduced the name of Von Werthern into her conversation, though she began to repeat it so much that I was forced finally to listen more carefully to her comments upon the amazing virtues of this member of the inner court circle.

  It would appear from the Grafin's summing up that this young man possessed every known attribute of a romantic hero. So fervent were her praises that I began to suspect her own interest in the Baron was perhaps more than just that of kin as she professed herself to be. He was so handsome as to command instantly, upon first meeting, the full attention of every female, his manners (to me) sounded like those of a well-experienced seducer. But it seemed that he was also a fighting man, a noted horseman, hunter, duelist—a paragon such as would send any female of sensibility into sighing and swooning.

  That she would express her preference for him so openly and so often surprised me a little. Was she in love with him to the point that she must discuss him merely to satisfy herself? Was she thus infatuated to the point that she would not care if I were to repeat some of the remarks made to me?

  On the morning we at last landed after a tedious voyage and were setting out on the last stage of our journey, she produced with a coy affectation, as I thought, of secrecy, a miniature of this Apollo.

  The painted face was handsome enough, though to me the eyes did not have a very pleasant expression. He was clothed (the miniature was a bust portrait) in an exceedingly ornate uniform, with a number of orders among the gold lace and cords which rivaled the bright yellow of his hair. I managed to voice a few generalities in answer to the Grafin's demands for my opinion, but to me he was lacking in appeal.

  I was still reluctantly holding this miniature, which she had pushed into my hand, when Colonel Fenwick came with the message our traveling coach was ready. Glad of an excuse, I offered the painting back to my companion and then saw the Colonel glance at it. His face was without expression for a moment. Then he directed at me a look which made me feel, in an odd and disturbed way, as if I had been judged and found wanting. Perhaps he believed that I was encouraging the Gräfin in her infatuation. Certainly he had made no attempt to know me better during the voyage, keeping to himself, while the Grafin had been ever at my elbow. To him I could be just another empty-minded female—just a responsibility he would be glad to be rid of as soon as we arrived.

  Now I found myself resenting that impression. I would have liked very much to have made plain to him that this visit to Hesse-Dohna meant only one thing to me and I wanted nothing from it except the word of a reputedly dying man—that my grandmother be given at last the honorable position in the sight of the world she had always deserved.

  As he turned away abruptly the Grafin pursed her lips in a pout.

  “He presumes too much,” she said. “Because his father took service with the Elector, knew him years ago in America, and His Highness is his godfather, he believes himself to be a person of consequence. What is he truly but a hireling, a mercenary! You—” She paused a moment and then continued, “Your countrymen would have none of his family once—they considered them traitors, drove them out after your revolution. So some of them sold their swords overseas. He shall find what is thought of his kind—soon!”

  That the Colonel was of Tory descent I had had hinted to me before I left Maryland—when I had had a private interview with Mr. Weston who gave me, at my request, a sum in gold I carried in secret, being prudent enough to want funds if I should need them. But Tories no Jonger were the ogres of one's childhood. Thus I had thought no more of him than that he was an exile who had at last found a place for himself.

  Only the present spiteful note in the Gräfin's voice might have been uttered by one of my own countrywomen a generation ago. It was hard, ugly, out of character—making her for an instant something else than she had continually presented herself to be.

  Our progress across land was hardly more comfortable than the voyage and far more constricted. The Grafin and I, with Katrine seated with her back to the horses, were immured for hours in a great lumbering coach which dipped, rattled, swayed from pothole to pothole on ill-kept roads. The Colonel and the Graf had the better of it, for they rode horseback and kept ahead, with the uniformed escort, of our rocking prison. Another detachment of guards behind added to the small train of carriages and wagons, some transporting luggage, others servants which had been waiting for us.

  It was the duty of some of these to forge well ahead each morning, take over an inn, getting rid of lesser travelers thinking to shelter therein, prepare the beds with our own linen, cook our meals, have all ready for our arrival. That we used only inns surprised me, for the custom of my own country was to visit the nearest manor or plantation along one's route, strangers being welcomed with openhanded hospitality. But, I decided, European customs were perhaps different.

  At last, having survived the queasiness brought on by the imprisonment in the coach, the dullness of long days of riding behind drawn or nearly drawn curtains (for the Grafin had protested on our setting out that too much light gave her headaches), we clattered in the early dusk into the cobbled streets of Axelburg itself.

  The Grafin, who had been drowsing during most of the last dreary day, now jerked back the nearest curtain. I could see lamps shining and a bit of house wall here and there. The coach grated to a stop and there came a blaze of dazzling light as the door was opened, the steps let down, and a number of liveried servants moved to greet us.

  As I stretched my cramped limbs and looked about I saw we had pulled into a walled courtyard and the imposing house before us was no inn. The Grafin twitched her skirts into order and made me the most formal of curtsies.

  “My lady,” she spoke in English, “please to enter. This is Gutterhof, our home.”

  The house was at least three stories high and, in spite of many lights in the windows, bad the heavy look of a fortress rather than a home. But the fact we were at the end of our journey made me welcome this first sight of one of Axelburg's ancient houses, ugly and slightly menacing though it seemed.’ Within I had a confused impression of a large hall through which we followed a lackey holding a branched candlestick. He was quickly joined by a discreetly but richly dressed older woman, while one wearing the apron of a maid fell in behind as I was escorted with some pomp up a staircase and down another but narrower hall. Until at length I was ushered with ceremony into a cavernous room where even four candelabra such as the footman carried made very little way against corner shadows.

  It was a chamber of what seemed to me royal ostentation. The bed itself was a hugh cavern, half walled by curtains supported by carven posts, possessing a canopy surmounted at its peak by a shield upheld by fantastical beasts over which the candlelight flickered so dimly their fierce eyes, claws, and other portions of their gilded anatomy only showed at intervals.

  The curtains, the thick carpet underfoot, those heavy drapes which must conceal windows somewhere behind their folds were all of a time dulled blue. What could be seen of the walls showed panels painted with sprays of flowers wreathed and intertwined as if to
suggest a jungle or a forest such as sheltered Sleeping Beauty in the old tales.

  There was a dressing table of delicate ivory and gold which might have strayed in by mistake, then been too frightened to escape. For it huddled well back from the bed. Some chairs, a few throne-backed in keeping with an earlier age, others more modern, stood about here and there accompanied by small and large tables.

  The lackey had bowed himself out. Now the silk-clad older woman, who might have been sister to Katrine so frozen and correct was her expression, informed me that food and drink was on its way and Truda, indicating the maid, who stood with her hands concealed under her apron, was entirely at the service of the gracious and highborn lady.

  I thanked her and she withdrew in a crablike fashion, making three curtsies, each slightly less deep, before she disappeared through the door. So I was remained with Truda, and any one less like Letty I could not imagine. At that moment I was near overcome by a wave of bitter homesickness. I wanted to be in my own room, in my proper place, so much I could have wailed aloud like a child abandoned in a stark boarding school.

  The room did not smell musty, but I felt as if I could not draw a deep breath here. That massive bed appeared to threaten rather than invite one to rest—

  Nonsense! I must curb my imagination. It was nothing but a bed, and the girl facing me, her eyes cast down, her face blank, had no reason to greet me as a friend. Her face was round, almost childish, while her hair had been so tightly braided, and those braids fastened back under a half-cap, that the hair appeared near pulled from its roots about her forehead.

  ‘There is hot water?” I broke the silence between us.

  She started and for the first time her eyes met mine. She colored and gestured toward a screen. “But, yes, gracious lady. Water—all else for your comfort. Please to look, if all is not right, then I am to do your will.”

  The screen, which was taller than my head, masked a fire on a hearth which was wide enough to be like an alcove. Flames burned bright and hot. There stood a bath and beside it a row of water cans—from others set on the hearth spirals of steam arose. I gave a sigh of relief. Such luxury had not been a part of the service in any of the inns.

  Later, some of the ache and stiffness soaked out of me, my damp hair which had been expertly washed by Truda, and brushed and blotted near dry with towels before being coiled up loosely, I sat down, clad in the warmest of my chamber robes, to eat. So soothed was I that even the bed now ceased to wear its forbidding aspect.

  The food was very good, a clear soup, duckling with peas, tartlets filled with fruit, cheese, a trifle smothered in rich cream. I drank sparingly of some wine and perhaps that added to my sleepiness, for I yawned and yawned again.

  But I was not too weary to keep close to hand the packet which I had guarded closely during this whole journey. When I settled in the bed, finding it somewhat awkward to edge to the center, I pushed that beneath my pillows. The gold I had begged from Weston, the parchment Colonel Fenwick had brought me, my grandmother's last letter, and the necklace, a talisman to keep my mind firmly on my mission here, formed my secret hoard.

  The screen which had hidden the hearth was folded away so I could see the flames. Truda would have drawn the bed curtains, but that I refused. Watching the fire, I drifted into sleep at last.

  I was not too tired to dream.

  Once more I was back in my grandmother's room, sitting with my shawl about me, even as I had on the day of her death. There she was also, but no pillows backed her now. She sat proudly erect, her eyes holding mine. Though her pale lips did not move, there was that in her gaze which was urgent, demanding, striving to tell me something. I was cold, not chilled by the room, but with an ice of fear which filled me, prevented me from speaking or moving.

  Then the walls behind my grandmother's chair changed. From the familiar patterned paper I had always known, they showed gray—they were formed of stone blocks. There was no longer light from any window.

  For the windows had narrowed into slits through which only pallid gleams reached us two. Still I sat and stared at my grandmother and she back at me, struggling, I knew, to communicate. I saw one hand rise from her lap, rise so slowly that it was manifest she put into that action the greatest of efforts, or the dregs of some fast-failing energy.

  Between her white fingers swung a vividly black chain, moving slowly back and forth as might the pendulurn of a clock remorselessly counting out vital minutes, hours. I knew what she held was the string of iron butterflies. Their delicate charm was lost, they could be rather the silhouettes of ill-omened bats, or some other creatures of an evil, haunted night.

  So very slowly her hand moved, but the chain swung faster and faster, until it was a whirling blur. Then it flew free of her grasp—spun through the air toward me, as if it were a knife blade aimed at my throat. Still I could not move, or cry out, but was held in the vise of that ice-cold fear. So great was the terror which now filled me that I felt my heart could not continue to beat but would burst apart in my breast.

  I made the greatest effort of my life and somehow brought up my arm, holding it as a shield against the threatening whirl of the still-spinning chain. Only that never touched my skin. Instead my eyes blinked open— I lay looking up into the reaches of a vast dark cavern.

  Chapter 3

  Lying in a cavern? I was sweat drenched, tangled within the heavy bedclothes of the great state bed. I turned my head and saw, on what seemed a distant night table, a guttering candle set in a safeguard which had the form of a castle—or rather a tower—through the slit windows of which shone the failing light.

  The fire had near burned itself out, only a few dull coals remained. I pulled up on the wide pillows, my hands at my throat, pushing aside the frill of my nightgown, rubbing the skin to assure myself that that whirling black of the butterflies had not struck.

  My grandmother—no, even in the dream I was certain she had not flung that threat at me. The chain itself had appeared to take on purpose—She had been striving to warn—surely that was so!

  Yet I needed no warning. I had been rash in coming here, too sure of myself. Now I had stepped outside all that I knew and understood. There was no one I could call upon. The Gräfin? I had no trust in her. The Graf— I had seen so little of him and what I had did not impress me. The Elector? A man about whom I really knew nothing good, with whom I had no bond except the accident of birth.

  I clutched the edge of the bedclothes with my wet hands. My thoughts traveled on. What of Colonel Fen-wick.

  He was the Elector's man, a very loyal one—of that fact I could be entirely certain. So the Elector's wishes would rule with him.

  My fingers slid beneath the pillows, closed upon the packet I had concealed there. There was a need to make sure that the necklace still lay in hiding. I was too fanciful, no piece of jewelry could do more than just induce a nightmare.

  Packet in hand I slid across the vast surface of the bed and climbed out, my feet bare on the carpet of the dais on which it was enthroned. The season without these walls might be early summer now, but in this room the air of winter held with the fire near dead. I did not wait to pick up my robe, rather I went to that tower-imprisoned candle, scorched my fingers lifting off the shield. That was of no moment now, I must assure myself the packet was intact.

  The cord was firm. I picked at its knots, spread out the parchment, and then the roll of brocade. Even in this very limited light the necklace was startling clear.

  I did not lift it from its soft bedding, only assured myself that this could never be the weapon I had dreamed it. Before this I had never considered myself burdened with a morbid imagination, yet at that moment nothing would have led me to place the circlet against my throat. Instead my mind dwelled upon that desperate appeal which I had read in my grandmother's eyes. A warning?

  Such was pure superstition. Had I been so influenced by Letty that her lore of signs and potents was overriding good sense? I rewrapped the necklace, repacked it with
that paper which made of me a Countess—a state I had no desire to grace—and padded back to bed.

  Resolutely I pushed the packet once more beneath my pillow and forced myself to stretch out. I had not replaced the tower cover of the candle and I turned my head to watch that tiny beacon of light.

  It was my firm intention to remain awake, not to summon any more dream a. But my tired body betrayed me and I do not know when I slipped once more into that place where nightmares lurked. However, those no more troubled me. Or, if they did, I did not remember them when I became aware that someone moved about not too far away and I opened my eyes to uncurtained windows and golden sunlight, warm and welcoming.

  In that sunshine the room, which had appeared so filled with foreboding, was altered, though it lost none of its princely dignity. There were mirrors on some of the walls, their gilt frames as ornate as the leafy, flowered panels I had seen the night before. One corner was filled with a huge painted and tiled stove. A solid wardrobe faced it from across the room. Gilded cupids frolicked across that, and smaller ones formed the door handles.

  The chamber was indeed a strange collection of old and new. The state bed was clearly of the past, several centuries past. While, save for a chair or two in the same massive style, the rest of the furniture was of a later date.

  At a scratching sound from the door, Truda tripped across my range of view to open that, take in a tray which she brought to one of the larger tables. It bore a silver pot of fanciful design, its handle being a queer dragon beast clinging to the side, its head raised to peer into the interior. The rest were covered dishes.

  I had already washed in warm water, but I was still in my chamber robe as I seated myself to breakfast. Truda's answers to my attempts at friendly conversation were strained, nor did she ever look at me directly. I was not used to being so rebuffed, though I guessed that the proper custom here was to ignore the humanity of servants—to consider them only hands and feet to provide one with attention.