I was lost to her. I knew it. I believe she knew it. I began to laugh.
I bowed to her.
“It is true, madam,” said I, “that I cannot refuse you. Boredom, curiosity and what is left of my good manners drive me to accept. But most of all, madam, it is yourself, for I’ll swear I see a fellow spirit and one as intelligent as myself. A rare combination, you’d agree?”
“I take your meaning, sir. And I share your feeling, too.” Those wonderful eyes shone with ironic pleasure. I thought that she, too, could be laughing, somewhere within her. With a delicate hand she brushed hair away from the left side of her face and tilted her head to look at me. A conscious gesture, I knew, and a flirtatious one. I grinned this time.
“Then you’ll guest with me?” she said.
“On one condition,” said I.
“Sir?”
“That you promise to explain some of the mysteries of your castle and its surrounds.”
She raised her brows. “It is an ordinary castle. In ordinary grounds.”
“You know that it is not.”
She answered my grin with a smile. “Very well,” she said. “I promise that you shall understand everything very soon.”
“I note your promise,” said I.
I sheathed my pistol and turned my horse towards the castle.
I had taken my first decisive step towards Hell.
Chapter II
I GAVE THE lady my arm and escorted her through her courtyard, up the steps and into her castle, while her horrid servants took horse and coach to the stables. Curiosity had me trapped.
Lust, half-appreciated as yet, also had me trapped.
I thought to myself with a certain relish that I was, all in all, thoroughly snared. And at that moment I did not care.
“I am Ulrich von Bek, son of the Graf von Bek,” I told her. “I am a Captain of Infantry in the present struggle.”
Her perfume was as warm and lulling as summer roses. “On whose side?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Whichever is the better organized and less divided.”
“You have no strong religious beliefs, then?”
“None.”
I added: “Is that unusual for men of my kind in times like these?”
“Not at all. Not at all.” She seemed quietly amused.
She took off her own cloak. She was almost as tall as I and wonderfully formed. For all that she gave the impression of possessing a strong and perhaps even eccentric will, there was yet a softness about her now which suggested to me that she was presently defeated by her circumstances.
“I am Sabrina,” she said, and gave no title or family name.
“This is your castle, Lady Sabrina?”
“I often reside here.” She was noncommittal.
It could be that she was reluctant to discuss her family. Or perhaps she was the mistress of the powerful prince I had originally guessed as owner. Perhaps she had been exiled here for some appalling crime. Perhaps she had been sent here by her husband or some other relative to avoid the vicissitudes either of love or of war. From tact I could ask her no other questions on the matter.
She laid a fair hand upon my arm. “You will eat with me, Captain von Bek?”
“I do not relish eating in the presence of your servants, madam.”
“No need. I’ll prepare the food myself later. They are not permitted to enter these quarters. They have their own barracks in the far tower.”
I had seen the barracks. They did not seem large enough for so many.
“How long have you been here?” She glanced about the hall as we entered it.
“A week or two.”
“You kept it in good order.”
“It was not my intention to loot the place, Lady Sabrina, but to use it as a temporary refuge. How long has your home been empty?”
She waved a vague hand. “Oh, some little while. Why do you ask?”
“Everything was so well-preserved. So free of vermin. Of dust, even.”
“Ah. We do not have much trouble of that kind.”
“No damp. No rot.”
“None visible,” she said. She seemed to become impatient with my remarks.
“I remain grateful for the shelter,” I said, to end this theme.
“You are welcome.” Her voice became a little distant. She frowned. “The soldiers delayed us.”
“How so?”
“On the road.” She gestured. “Back there.”
“You were attacked?”
“Pursued for a while. Chased.” Her finger sought dust on a chest and found none. She seemed to be considering my recent remarks. “They fear us, of course. But there were so many of them.” She smiled, displaying white, even teeth. She spoke as if I would understand and sympathize. As if I were a comrade.
All I could do was nod.
“I cannot blame them,” she continued. “I cannot blame any of them.” She sighed. Her dark eyes clouded, became in-turned, dreamy. “But you are here. And that is good.”
I should have found her manner disturbing, but at the time I found it captivating. She spoke as if I had been expected, as if she were a poor hostess who, delayed abroad, returns to discover an unattended guest.
I offered some formal compliment to her beauty and grace. She smiled a little, accepting it as one who was very used to such remarks, who perhaps even regarded them as the opening feints in an emotional duel. I recognized her expression. It caused me to become just a little more remote, a little more guarded. She was a gameswoman, I thought, trained by one or more masters in the terrible, cold art of intellectual coquetry. I found the woman too interesting to wish to give her a match, so I changed the subject back to my original reason for accepting her invitation.
“You have promised to explain the castle’s mysteries,” I said. “And why there is no animal life in these parts.”
“It is true,” she said. “There is none.”
“You have agreed with me, madam,” I said gently, “but you have not explained anything to me.”
Her tone became a shade brusque. “I promised you an explanation, did I not, sir?”
“Indeed, you did.”
“And an explanation will be forthcoming.”
I was not, in those days, a man to be brushed off with insubstantial reassurances. “I’m a soldier, madam. I had intended to be on my way south by now. You will recall that I returned here at your invitation and because of your promise. Soldiers are an impatient breed.”
She seemed just a fraction agitated by my remark, pushing at her long hair, touching her cheek. Her words were rapid and they stumbled. She said: “No soul—that is no free soul, however small—can exist here.”
This was not good enough for me, although I was intrigued. “I do not follow you, madam,” I said with deliberate firmness. “You are obscure. I am used to action and simple facts. From those simple facts I am able to determine what action I should take.”
“I do not wish to confuse you, sir.” She appealed to me, but I refused to respond to her.
I sighed. “What do you mean when you say that no soul can exist here?”
She hesitated. “Nothing which belongs,” she said, “to God.”
“Belongs? To God? The forest, surely … ?”
“The forest lies upon the”—she made a baffled gesture—”upon the borders.”
“I still do not understand.”
She controlled herself, returning my stare. “Neither should you,” she said.
“I am not much impressed by metaphysics.” I was becoming angry. Such abstract debate had caused our present woes. “Are you suggesting that some sort of plague once infested this land? Is that why both men and beasts avoid it?”
She made no reply.
I continued: “Your servants, after all, suffer from disease. Could they be suffering from an infection local to this area?”
“Their souls—” she began again.
I interrupted. “The same abstraction …”
&n
bsp; “I do my best, sir,” she said.
“Madam, you offer me no facts.”
“I have offered you facts, as I understand them. It is hard …”
“You speak of a sickness, in truth. Do you not? You are afraid that if you name it, I shall become nervous, that you will drive me away.”
“If you like,” she said.
“I am afraid of very little, though I must admit to a certain caution where the Plague is concerned. On the other hand I have reason to believe that I am one of those lucky souls apparently immune to the Plague, so you must know that I shall not immediately run quaking from this place. Tell me. Is it a sickness of which you speak?”
“Aye,” she said, as if tired, as if willing to agree to almost any definition I provided. “It could be as you say.”
“But you are untouched.” I moved a pace towards her. “And I.”
She became silent. Was I to think, I wondered, that the signs of that horrible sickness which possessed her servants had not yet manifested themselves in us? I shuddered.
“How long have you lived at the castle?” I asked.
“I am here only from time to time.”
This answer suggested to me that perhaps she was immune. If she were immune, then so, perhaps, was I. With that consideration I relaxed more.
She seated herself upon a couch. Sunlight poured through stained glass representing Diana at the hunt. It was only then that I realized not a single Christian scene existed here, no crucifix, no representations of Jesus or the saints. Tapestries, glass, statuary and decoration were all pagan in subject.
“How old is this castle?” I stood before the window, running my fingers over the lead.
“Very old, I think. Several centuries, at least.”
“It has been well-maintained.”
She knew that my questions were not innocent or casual. I was seeking further knowledge of the estate and the mysterious sickness which haunted it.
“True,” she said.
I sensed a new kind of tension. I turned.
She went from that room into the next and came back with wine for us. As she handed me my cup I observed that she did not wear a marriage ring. “You have no lord, madam?”
“I have a lord,” she said, and she stared back into my eyes as if I had challenged her. Then, seeing my question to be fairly innocent, she shrugged. “Yes, I have a lord, captain.”
“But this is not your family property.”
“Oh, well. Family?” She began to smile very strangely, then controlled her features. “The castle is my master’s, and has been his for many years.”
“Not always his, however?”
“No. He won it, I believe.”
“Spoils of war?”
She shook her head. “A gambling debt.”
“Your master is a gambler, eh? And plays for good-sized stakes. Does he participate in our War?”
“Oh, yes.” Her manner changed again. She became brisk. “I’ll not be cryptic with you, Captain von Bek.” She smiled; a hint, once more, of helplessness. “On the other hand it does not suit me to pursue this conversation further at present.”
“Please forgive my rudeness.” I think that I sounded cold.
“You are direct, captain, but not rude.” She spoke quietly. “For a man who has doubtless seen and done so much in the matter of war you seem to retain a fair share of grace.”
I touched the cup to my lips—half a toast to her own good manners. “I am astonished that you should think so. Yet, in comparison with your servants, I suppose I must seem better than I am …”
She laughed. Her skin appeared to glow. I smelled roses. I felt as if the heat of the sun were upon me in that room. I knew that I desired Sabrina as I had desired no one or nothing else in all my life. Yet my caution maintained distance. Far that moment I was content merely to experience those sensations (which I had not experienced in many years of soldiering) and not attempt fulfillment.
“How did you come by your servants?” I sipped my wine. It tasted better than any of the other vintages I had sampled here. It increased the impression that all my senses were coming alive again at once.
She pursed her lips before replying. Then: “They are pensioners, you might say, of my master.”
“Your master? You mention him much. But you do not name him.” I pointed this out most gently.
“It is true.” She moved hair from her face.
“You do not wish to name him?”
“At this time? No.”
“He sent you here?” I savoured the wine.
“Yes,” she said.
“Because he fears for your safety?” I suggested.
“No.” Sadness and desperate amusement showed for a second in the set of her lips.
“Then you have an errand here?” I asked. Again I moved closer.
“Yes.” She took a couple of paces back from me. I guessed that she was as affected by me as I was by her, but it could have been merely that my questions cut too close to the bone and that I was unnerving her.
I paused.
“Could I ask you what that errand can be?”
She became gay, but plainly her mood was not altogether natural. “To entertain you”—a flirt of the hand—”captain.”
“But you were not aware that I stayed here.”
She dropped her gaze.
“Were you?” I continued. “Unless some unseen servant of your master reported me to you.”
She raised her eyes. She ignored my last remark and said: “I have been looking for a brave man. A brave man and an intelligent one.”
“On your master’s instructions? Is that the implication?”
She offered me a challenging look now. “If you like.”
The instinct which had helped me keep my life and health through all my exploits warned me now that this unusual woman could be bait for a trap. For once, however, I ignored the warning. She was willing, she suggested, to give herself to me. In return, I guessed, I would be called upon to pay a high price. At that moment I did not care what the price was. I was, anyway, I reminded myself, a resourceful man and could always, with reasonable odds, escape later. One can act too much in the cause of self-preservation and experience nothing fresh as a result.
“He gives you liberty to do what?” I asked her.
“To do almost anything I like.” She shrugged.
“He is not jealous?”
“Not conventionally so, Captain von Bek.” She drained her cup. I followed her example. She took both cups and filled them again. She sat herself beside me, now, upon a couch under the window. My flesh, my skin, every vein and sinew, sang. I, who had practiced self-control for years, was barely able to hold onto a coherent thought as I took her hand and kissed it, murmuring: “He is an unusual master, your lord.”
“That is also true.”
I withdrew my lips and fell back a little, looking carefully at her wonderful face. “He indulges you? Is it because he loves you very much?”
Her breathing matched mine. Her eyes were bright, passionate gems. She said: “I am not sure that my master understands the nature of love. Not as you and I would understand it.”
I laughed and let myself relax a little more. “You become cryptic again, Lady Sabrina, when you swore that you would not be.”
“Forgive me.” She rose for fresh cups.
I watched her form. I had never seen such beauty and such wit combined in any human individual before. “You will not tell me your history?”
“Not yet.”
I interpreted this remark as a promise, yet I pressed her just a little further:
“You were born in these parts?”
“In Germany, yes.”
“And not very long ago.” This was partly to flatter her. It was unnecessary, that flattery, I knew, but I had learned pothouse habits as a soldier-of-fortune and could not in an instant lose them all.
Her answer was unexpected. She turned to me, with a wine-cup in each hand. “It dep
ends on your definition of Time,” she said. She gave me my filled cup. “Now you probe and I mystify. Shall we talk of less personal matters? Or do you wish to speak of yourself?”
“You seem to have determined who and what I am already, my lady.”
“Not in fine, captain.”
“I’ve few secrets. Most of my recent life has been spent in soldiering. Before that it was spent in receiving an education. Life is not very brisk in Bek.”
“But you have seen and done much, as a soldier?”
“The usual things.” I frowned. I did not desire too much recollection. Magdeburg memories still lingered and were resisted with a certain amount of effort.
“You have killed frequently?”
“Of course.” I displayed reluctance to expand upon this theme.
“And taken part in looting? In torture?”
“When necessary, aye.” I grew close to anger again. I believed that she deliberately discomfited me.
“And rape?”
I peered directly at her. Had I misjudged her? Was she perhaps one of those bored, lascivious ladies of the kind I had once met at Court? They had delighted in such talk. It had excited them. They were eager for sensation, having forgotten or never experienced the subtle forms of human sensuality and emotion. In my cynicism I had given them all that they desired. It had been like bestowing lead on gold-greedy merchants who, in their anxiety to possess as much as possible, could not any longer recognize one metal from another. If the Lady Sabrina was of this caste, I should give her what she desired.
But her eyes remained candid and questioning, so I answered briefly: “Aye. Soldiers, as I said, become impatient. Weary…”
She was not interested in my explanation. She continued: “And have you punished heretics?”
“I have seen them destroyed.”
“But have taken no part in their destruction?”
“By luck and my own distaste, I have not.”
“Could you punish a heretic?”
“Madam, I do not really know what a heretic is. The word is made much of, these days. It seems to describe anyone you wish dead.”