The Golden Portifor - 9. Chapter 9

Karl stared at the boy perched on the altar. He seemed to be a boy, but to Karl’s mind there was something not so much wrong about him, as just too right. He was perfect and even to Karl’s young mind that sort of perfection and that level of beauty could not be accepted as natural. Then there was the matter of his casual nudity in midwinter and of course his possession of what seemed to be horns. Karl trawled his memory and what bubbled up were details from the stories his mother had told him. Eventually his tongue unloosed.

‘You’re Herr Nobody,’ he stated. ‘And you’re one of the white ones, one of the Alpe.’

The boy’s grin got even wider. ‘Can’t fool you, can I Karl Wollherz.’

‘How come you know my name?’

‘Cos I do,’ the being answered. He shifted his position to dangle his legs over the side of the table, kicking them casually as a real boy would.

‘How come I can see you in daylight?’

‘Full of questions aren’t you. Say, can I go say hello to Brunhild?’

‘You won’t bewitch her will you?’

The unnatural boy gave his fascinating laugh, which bubbled up like a mountain spring. He shook his head and hopped down right next to Karl, who could not but notice that the boy was complete in every detail, from his perfectly shaped toes up to his curling black hair and sparkling cobalt blue eyes. But there was not so much as a goose bump to be seen on him, nor for that matter a freckle or mole. He took Karl’s hand in a strong, warm grip and led him out on to the sward, where the horse looked up from her business of cropping the grass.

The elf, if that was what he was, strolled over to the horse. It was some reassurance to Karl that Brunhild seemed not in the least unnerved by the strange visitor, indeed she allowed him to stroke her head and snuffled at the boy, who giggled. He looked over at Karl and said ‘She really loves you, Karl Wollherz.’

‘Can you speak to horses?’

‘Not really. But I know what she thinks, and she thinks you’re her best friend in all the world, even more than Jennet.’

Karl’s heart filled with sunshine. He knew that Brunhild and he had a bond, but it had to be read from the horse’s movements and gestures. Now she had more or less told him. He went over to her and kissed her nose.

‘That makes you feel happier than if I’d given you a bag of gold, doesn’t it Karl Wollherz?’

‘What? Do you spirits do that?’

The wonderful laugh broke out again. ‘No. Though even some grown-ups think they can force it out of the creatures of the unseen world. As if spirits could care less. And that’s actually why you and I are talking, because a man tried that and it all went wrong. Congratulations. It’s been quite a few years since I last found a boy I could play with.’

‘You’re a good spirit then?’

The kid came close, took Karl’s hand and kissed his cheek. His breath was fresh and excitingly scented. ‘That’s for you to decide.’

‘You helped me lots when I ran away and only a good spirit would do that. But why the little horns?’

‘Hmm? Y’know, I keep on forgetting they turn up when I ... er ... appear. They bother you?’

Karl was getting more and more at ease with this supernatural creature who seemed to want to be his friend. He reached up and felt the boy’s left spike, testing how sharp it was. The kid giggled as he twanged it.

‘You felt that?’

‘Course. Say, can we go for a ride?’

‘I suppose. But I have to get back down to the house. My lord needs his letter from Father Heer, Jennet needs her exercise and Brunhild needs rubbing down and brushing.’

‘Pity. Maybe I can help you with the horses?’

‘You’d do that? But you got no clothes on. People will notice.’

The eldritch boy rolled his clear blue eyes. ‘Annoying that. It’s an effort to do clothes. Body’s easy, but oh well ... here goes.’

Something very strange then happened, as if the world had clicked off for a moment and then on again, and when it ended the boy was dressed in respectable breeches, shirt and waistcoat, with even a muffler tied round his neck and a hat identical to Karl’s on his head. The horns were no longer to be seen. Nothing was out of order other perhaps than the clothes were utterly pristine, as if they’d never been worn before, and the boy was still barelegged and barefoot. Karl remounted and hauled the strange boy up behind him. A little kick got Brunhild trotting back out through the castle gate. The eldritch boy held Karl tight round his waist.

‘So you live up here?’ Karl asked as they ambled back out on to the hillside.

‘Me? No. But it’s a special place, where the barriers are thin. A lady once lived here and she and I were friends too, though she never saw or heard me as you do. I have other places I can be me in this world. I’ll show you some of them maybe.’

‘I wish I had a name for you. It’s not Rumpelstilzchen is it?’

‘You what?’

‘It’s a story I heard. What if I call you ... er ... Jonas.’

‘Why that name?’

‘I just like it. Jonas Niemand. That’s you.’

The elf gave a low laugh in Karl’s left ear. ‘It’s way better than some I’ve been called.’

***

Serge needed Jan Lisku, and rather than ask a house servant to find him saved time and did it himself. The best bet was the stables, since the horses were his chief concern. Though Jan wasn’t in fact there, a stablehand directed Serge to the extensive paddocks to the west of the house. He found Jan leaning on the rails watching Karl in the distance trotting Jennet around a track. Another boy was riding Brunhild alongside him, chatting away, and for some reason was barelegged despite the weather.

‘Karl found a friend?’

‘Apparently, sir. A boy from the stables. He’s talented with horses too. I’ve been watching him go round the track He barely uses the reins, Brunhild just seems to read his mind. Though of course she’s a biddable mare. I’ve got Father Heer’s note here, sir.’

‘I need you indoors, Jan. We have a cellar to ransack on the good father’s behalf.’

They re-entered the house and sought the narrow stairs towards the rear, which led down to the cellars under the main block. There were portable lamps lit next to the chapel undercroft and Serge took a couple of these down after he had unlocked the great, iron-plated door. It was not too dark inside however, as barred and glazed cellar windows let in light on the north side, opposite the entrance. There were a dozen iron and timber trunks ranked down the left, on which Serge suggested they begin. The job turned out to be easier than he expected. Just opening the lids usually revealed stacks and litters of deeds and rolls in which he had no interest. But the fifth attempt was on a dark and substantial trunk maybe two centuries old.

‘Well, well,’ Serge pronounced. ‘Our search is over. A book box I believe. Just empty it, Jan. There must be about fifty of them, all bound manuscripts and judging by the bindings anything from the middle ages up to the last century. They really shouldn’t be down here at all. So we’ll take them up to the library and have a good look.’

‘That’s made this holiday for you then, sir.’

They laid them out on one of the library tables and Serge sorted them by what he imagined the date of each might be. The sixteenth-century ones were collected tracts and sermons in defence of the Church and attacks on Lutheran and Calvinist heresies, as it described them. The ones from the century before that were far more interesting to Serge’s mind. The thickest of them was a huge charter-book in which were copied all the family’s deeds going back to its earliest days. It opened with a grant from Duke Tassilo to Serge’s own remote ancestor, Ansegadis of Terlenehem. He put that one aside with reluctance. The next was a much thinner volume, but lavishly illuminated by a master, with floral borders and pictorial capitals. The opening page was headed Vita opera et miracula beate matronis Fenicie comitisse Terlhemensis.

‘Got it,’ he alerted Jan, who looked over his shoulder.

‘That’s quite something, sir: “The Life, Works and Miracles of the Blessed Matron, Countess Fenice of Tarlenheim”,’ he translated. ‘That’s a fine picture.’

Indeed it was. A large illumination filled the best part of the opening page, depicting the countess at her desk in a great tower chamber with windows looking out on a summer landscape below. Before her stood an angel displaying a napkin to her gaze on which was depicted with some skill a handsome male face, beardless and golden-haired. On either side of the angel two lines of ladies were ranked, some with coronets, others with garlands on their heads. Some carried sceptres and others spindles. But all had silver brooches on their right breast, figured as skulls.

It took a while to drink in the detail. Serge finally said, ‘At a guess, I’d imagine that’s St Fenice having one of her visions. Remarkable.’

‘Yes, sir. And what’s the most remarkable thing is the face on the cloth she’s looking at. It’s your face, my lord.’

***

After dinner that night the adult Tarlenheims and Father Heer repaired to the library, which had been lit and heated for the occasion. It looked a rather friendlier place as a result. Serge had already laid out the manuscripts on the central table for the benefit of the family and guest. Pride of place was given to the Vita.

‘I’ll admit it does look a bit like you, Sergius,’ his father said on viewing the illumination in the manuscript, ‘but it also brings another face to mind, wouldn’t you say, brother?’

The count pursed his lips and nodded. He rang a bell and the butler appeared. He was given instructions and reappeared ten minutes later with a shrouded, framed canvas, which he propped up on a chair.

The count looked at his brother and, with something of an air of drama, unveiled the picture. It was a portrait of a youth in the clothing of some four decades before. ‘This was a likeness of my father taken by Van Lint at Antwerp in ’49, when he would not have been that much older than you are Sergius.’

‘But ... they are so alike!’ Serge’s mother said. ‘Why have I not seen this?’

Graf Sergius shrugged. ‘My dear mother cleared the house of memorials of Graf Oskar on his death, though this one had already been put away by the count himself many years before. But Ruprecht and I remember it in his study when he used to examine us on our Latin and Greek in the years before his great travels began. You’ll know how his face fell in prematurely with age long before it should have; an effect of his tampering with things best left alone in my view.’

‘Then how do you explain such a likeness between generations and yet also this ancient painting, excellency?’ Father Heer asked. But Graf Sergius shrugged.

Serge had been mesmerised by the image of his youthful grandfather, but snapped out of it. ‘It may be exactly that, Father. A face that recurs from generation to generation, after all doesn’t Aristotle say that in the son one sees the species ... the image ... of the father?’

His own father laughed. ‘Child, then it has to be said that Fate has been kind to you and cancelled your debt to Nature.’

‘Hush, Ruprecht!’ his mother said. ‘You are and always have been a fine figure of a man. But it is truth that our Serge does not resemble you markedly.’

Serge hadn’t completed his point. ‘Plainly these features do not pass from father to son, but what if the picture painted here by that artist of St Fenice’s day used the features of a Tarlenheim he had borrowed for his art? Her son perhaps, or even the first Count Sergius, her husband? This face may recur randomly in the lineage, as Fate determines.’

‘Hmmph!’ his father said, ‘then we had best hope that Fate has no other surprises planned for you, my boy. I need a tobacco pipe; this has put me a little out of sorts. Perhaps the good Father Heer and my son can discuss this at their leisure. We’ll have a bottle sent in to you.’

The priest perched a pair of spectacles on his nose and spent some time examining the manuscript.

‘Any thoughts, Father?’

‘About the manuscript? Several. It isn’t the autograph copy I’m looking for, but it is an early one. I would guess a luxurious version of Bernard’s vita commissioned by the family soon after her canonisation, possibly even before, as the rubric calls Fenice beata rather than sancta. I would appreciate the chance to transcribe the vita section at least, especially if the original doesn’t turn up at Medeln. I have had a letter from Abbess Maria permitting me to enter the library next Monday after terce.’

‘Good. I intend to accompany you. I’m quite keen to meet my aunt. I’ve heard some things about her which arouse my curiosity. And I’d like to view the shrine of St Fenice in the abbey choir.’ Serge did not mention that the shrine had a considerable interest in his head now as being the site of his mysterious grandfather’s demise.

***

Neither Serge nor his page found it easy to settle that night. Hearing the repeated rustling as the boy stirred restlessly by the hearth, he eventually called over ‘Can’t sleep, Karl? But you had a busy day.’

‘Oh sorry, my lord. My head’s all full of things and won’t let me drop off.’

‘Mine too, if truth be told. You’re not keeping me awake. Come on, hop up here on the bed. We can try some reading if you’d like.’

‘Not sure if my eyes want that, sir.’ But Karl scrambled up beside Serge, who lifted the bedding so the boy could join him in the warmth.

Karl cuddled down and asked ‘Sir? Do you believe in Alpe and Zwercen, the white folk of the forests?’

‘Hmm? When I was your age, I half wanted to. Did you see something in the woods?’

‘Well, my question is, are they good, sir?’

‘They don’t have that respectable a reputation, I’ve heard. They can bewitch cows so they don’t give milk, they steal babies and they play tricks on people. Ask Master Jan. I’m pretty sure he has opinions on the subject.’

‘But I’ve heard some of the fey folk can be good.’

‘Ah. The faerie. They’re a different breed. Oddly enough I’ve been doing some reading on that very subject lately. You may remember from your bible stories that many angels rebelled against God and assailed him on His throne, and eventually they were defeated and cast out of heaven. Now one story goes that those angels who did not help God’s host even though they didn’t join the rebel leader – the one the bible calls Lucifer or Satan – they were not condemned to hell with him, but were exiled from heaven in punishment. So they are neither angel nor demon, but spirits of the between-world.’

‘Ah, sir. So do they have wings as angels do?’

‘I would imagine not. They’re not good enough for them.’

‘Might they have horns?’

That one Serge had to think about. ‘The question should be not so much what’s on their heads, but rather what goes on in them. The stories don’t tell us whether those angelic refugees are bad or good. But I think that such creatures, with a memory of heaven, must wish desperately to be back there. They would want to be good, however difficult their circumstances. Does that answer your questions?’

Karl smiled and then yawned. ‘Yes, my lord. Thank you.’

Within minutes he was breathing deeply and fast asleep. Smiling, Serge went up on his elbow to look at the sleeping boy, curled up beside him. From his height of late adolescence Serge rather envied Karl the naivety and simplicity of his childish life. He settled down and soon was himself asleep.

***

Come Monday, Serge was up well before dawn, as also was Karl Wollherz, who was down in the stables saddling Brunhild and Acheron for a day’s labour. Serge grabbed some of the fresh bread just issuing from the kitchens as he headed for the stables.

They were on the road as the sky lightened towards dawn, and found Father Heer awaiting them in the empty town square. A bright, cloudless start to the day promised fine if chilly weather for their ride. It was a ten-mile jog along the Taveln valley and Serge was in two minds whether to return that night or solicit hospitality. He knew Father Heer would be asking to stay over as he expected to find plenty to investigate in the abbey library.

By Serge’s pocket watch it was a little past the hour of terce when they sighted the white buildings of the abbey, set in green river meadows. They reined in and contemplated the idyllic sunlit scene.

‘You’ve not been here before, my lord?’ the priest asked.

‘No. But of course my family has been involved with the place since the thirteenth century, even though it’s a royal abbey and not a family house. But a lot of my female relations have been nuns and abbesses here, and of course it’s where Fenice ended her days and was buried. I understand the church itself is a perfect example of the Cistercian architecture of its day, rather resembling the French king’s abbey of Royaumont.’

‘Is Fenice the only Tarlenheim buried here?’

‘As far as I know only Fenice is here, and of course those ladies of my family who took the veil. Most of us have ended up in the crypts under the college of SS Andrew and Fenice in Tarlenheim itself. I rather fancy I and my Tarlenheim successors at Olmusch will be starting a new burial tradition. The Olmusches to date have occupied vaults under the cathedral at Ranstadt, but my grandfather is planning to rest in a mausoleum he is having constructed in the park of Olmusch, by the new ornamental lake. A beautiful spot. I may well join him there.’

‘One should think of these things, Sergius.’

‘I’d agree with that. So, time to say hello to my reverend aunt.’

They left Karl and the horses at the stables within the abbey’s great gate. They crossed the yard to the abbatial lodgings and rang the bell at the entrance. A lay sister in a grey habit and black scapular responded and bowed them within, directing Serge and Father Heer to a timber staircase leading to the abbess’s great chamber.

The woman who rose to greet them from behind her desk was taller than Serge, a height emphasised by her spotless white habit and black wimple. A handsome cross of office sparkled on her breast. The men bowed low. As he rose, Serge caught from her an appraising glance rather familiar otherwise from his encounters at court. He was being assessed for his value to this great lady of the Ruritanian church, a countess of the highest nobility as well as abbess.

‘My dear nephew,’ she said, ‘I don’t believe we’ve met since you were a very small child, which of course you wouldn’t remember. Do please take a seat, gentlemen. Some refreshment after your morning’s journey?’

Following cake and a cup of small beer, in which the abbess did not join them, she was ready enough when asked to offer them beds for the night in the guesthouse. ‘I’d be delighted also if you would join me for dinner in my lodgings; you, Father, as a priest of God’s church, and you, Sergius, as a member of a family which has long been the leading patron of our house in Husbrau.’

‘We’re honoured, aunt,’ Serge replied. ‘I know Father Heer is eager to be in your library, but may I ask to be permitted to visit our ancestor Fenice’s shrine in the ambulatory? I have my sketch book, and I’d like to spend the day recording the abbey’s antiquities.’

The abbess smiled and observed that he had nearly two hours yet before the office of sext, so she would have him shown down into the precinct and the good father taken to the library. As a patron, Serge might have the privilege of walking the cloister to get to his destination. They took their leave of her with appropriate ceremony.

Serge made sure to walk the cloister bare-headed and quite charmed the nuns he encountered with the civility of his bows to each of the ladies. He did not presume to address them, assuming they were in a period of silence. He knew the usual plan of an abbey and so found his way up the eastern arm of the cloister and through a rather fine Gothic door into the south transept.

Within the church all was perfectly quiet. As he stood at the head of the nave under the great rood cross upon its pulpitum it struck him how plain the limewashed church was, in the primitive tradition of its order. There were no elaborate tombs to be seen, though quite a number of sculpted ledger stones were set in the floor and a few plaques graced the walls. He avoided the choir and took the south choir aisle around to the rear of the high altar.

Serge could not resist a thrill at the sight of the towering and magnificent shrine of his sainted ancestor, set high enough so it could be seen from the choir above the reredos to the high altar. He stared at it for quite a while. It was in the late Gothic style, figured with blank niches and crocketed finials. But it was not bare stone. He had not realised, but the tomb was plated with silver which had been polished so it sparkled in the sunlight flooding into the church through the clerestory windows. A rich golden silk pall was draped over its gabled roof and a dozen tall candles burned around it.

Eventually he got out his sketch book and drawing materials and laid them on a stone bench that ran along the walls of the ambulatory and the radial chapels opening off it. Before getting to work, however, he took some moments to walk over and contemplate the place where his grandfather had met his end. There was nothing to mark it, of course, yet somehow he knew exactly where it had happened without the benefit of occult markings, fire, blood and brimstone. Count Oskar would have stood in the centre of the way and had his face to the shrine, so that he could read the book he had in his hand in the full light from the chapels behind.

Serge looked into the one directly east of the shrine which would have been behind his grandfather’s back. It was dedicated to the Holy Angels, and a St Michael was slaying a serpent above its altar. The glass was of the fifteenth century, and each of the four round-headed windows had a stained glass cartouche of an archangel. He corrected himself, three were there: Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel. The fourth winged figure was unfamiliar to him. It was a youthful angel armed with a spear of flame. He was adorned with a rich coronet but otherwise was perfectly naked. His wings were grey and dark blue. The text in the legend offered no name but simply gave references:

+ EXOD. XII : xxix + II REG. : XXIV : xv +.

From this Serge realised the figure was intended to be the anonymous, dark and destroying angel who was tasked to lay waste the land of Egypt and punish the people of Israel with pestilence.

He shook his head and went to take up his materials. Soon he was absorbed in the work. He carefully framed the perspective and made preliminary lines with a charcoal stick. Then he began to sketch in detail with light pencil strokes, though he intended to finish in pen. Once he had taken a general perspective he was going to produce detailed east end and side elevations. He was still intent on the work when a lay sister bustled up to warn him the office of sext was about to begin. He vacated the ambulatory before the nuns processed in and took a place in the nave for the office, rather charmed than otherwise by the unfamiliar sound of female voices performing the daily liturgy of a great church.

It was a while before he noticed an odd echo effect in the singing, which perhaps only someone sitting in the nave could perceive. There were voices singing other than those of the occupants of the choir stalls. They seemed to be coming from beyond the aisle screen on the north side of the choir. He edged closer to the screen, but was none the wiser. He would have to investigate later. The Lady Mass done, he resumed his work.

But the drafting was too absorbing, and he was still at it when he was chased out for the office of nones. This time, his aching back persuaded him to give it a rest for a while. He went out the open west doors and into the abbey court. A red-coated figure loitering near the stables reminded him of his responsibilities. He called out and Karl came running up.

‘All well, youngster?’

‘Yes, my lord. I’ve looked after the horses, Father Heer’s hack as well as ours.’

‘And now you’re bored.’

The boy looked sheepish. ‘A bit.’

‘Have you had anything to eat?’

‘The bread you gave me, sir.’

‘Hmm. We’re likely to be staying here tonight, so I’d better see you’re taken care of.’ Serge found a lay sister who reassured him that food and a bed in the guest house would be prepared for his page after Vespers. The abbess would be entertaining him and Father Heer for dinner in her own apartments of course.

He led the boy in a little exploration while the service was going on, and they took a northern archway out of the court which led to a yard with a smithy and various workshops.

‘The place has got a wall with towers just like a castle, sir,’ Karl observed.

‘Abbeys needed to be defended in the old days. In the bad times in the great war between the Emperor and the princes fifty years ago, this abbey was attacked by marauders and the abbess herself took up a musket. I’m told she manned the walls with the abbey’s tenants and fought off the Swedish brigands who wanted to loot the place and burn it down. As our Prince Henry would observe, it’s well sited for defence, with the river Taveln protecting the south side and a deep mill race like a moat on two other sides. It’s only open to the west, where the walls are highest.’

Another arch took them out of the yard and into a quieter green space under the north wall of the abbey nave. Here were laid the graves of nuns, each marked by a plain stone with a name and date. It was a large abbey and there were many interments. A towering crucifix brooded over the remains. The graves continued around the north transept and as they turned the corner it appeared that those at the east end were the burial sites of the leaders of the community, some marked with a crozier and mitre for an abbess and others with a simple staff for a prioress.

‘Sir, look!’ Karl pointed. ‘Little cottages.’ And indeed up against the north arm of the choir aisle was a line of cells. Finally the penny dropped for Serge. Certain nuns had taken anchoritic vows and lived in isolation from the community in cells. They had windows to the north so they could meditate on their dead sisters in the graveyard and south into the church so they might witness the mass, join the offices and pray to St Fenice for intercession. But they never left their cells unless they needed to be taken into the infirmary. Theirs were the voices he had heard singing the responses from outside the choir.

He explained this to a wide-eyed Karl, who seemed very sorry for the women. ‘But at least they have fireplaces,’ he observed, and indeed each little cell had a chimney stack from which blue smoke was curling on that cold day. He carried on musing. ‘Perhaps they can make toast? That would be nice.’

***

The Abbess Maria kept a fine table, as perhaps was necessary for the greatest ecclesiastical lady in Ruritania and one of the chief landowners in the province of Ober Husbrau, with a baronial liberty embracing ten townships. Serge noted that she ate sparingly herself. She was also still the intelligent and informed conversationalist who had presided over her father’s celebrated salon in the Tarlenheim palace in Strelsau in the early years of Rudolf II’s reign. She was most interested in Father Heer’s findings in her library.

‘Of course, I have little time to explore our books these days,’ she said. ‘But I make sure the Sister Librarian has a decent budget for the purchase of up-to-date theology and history. My predecessors were less keen on books. The good Abbess Clothilde considered reading to be a dangerous activity for women and much preferred them to take up needlework to engage their minds. It has to be said, she at least left us with a reputation for the creation of the finest liturgical vestments in the kingdom. We even take commissions from Austria.’

Serge had a curiosity about his aunt’s immediate predecessor. ‘The Abbess Clothilde is quite famous, I understand, aunt.’

Abbess Maria chuckled. ‘You might say, notorious. But she was in the tradition of the Fürstäbtissin of the Empire, princesses as much as, if not more than, abbesses. She actually wore a mitre on her head on processional feasts, which she had fashioned with a coronet around its base. The bishop of Modenheim didn’t like it, but Medeln has a papal privilege and is outside his jurisdiction. It’s just that few abbesses actually exercise the right. I can show you it if you’re curious, Sergius. I could never dream of wearing it. I feel odd enough walking about with an abbatial crozier.

‘You’ll have heard the story of what happened here in ’43. She was only a young abbess at the time but energetic and already a commanding personality. As a company of Swedish marauders pillaged the barony she collected and armed the tenants; scraped together some stray soldiers and fortified the precinct. They assaulted the west wall and she herself took a musket up to the battlements.

‘Opinion is divided as to whether she actually levelled and fired it, though I wouldn’t have put it past her. But she certainly rallied and steadied the men and boys there, who did enough slaughter when the Swedes attempted an escalade to convince them there were easier places to attack, even when she had sacred banners draped from the walls to taunt their Lutheran sensitivities. Then of course her brother the king turned up with an army the next week and expelled the invaders from the kingdom bloodily. Some regarded her stand as grounds for canonisation. I rather fear she liked the idea of becoming St Clothilde of Medeln. Now, my dear Father Heer, tell me about my predecessor who did succeed in becoming a saint of the church.’

‘With pleasure, reverend lady. It seems, Sergius, that Bernard’s autograph manuscript of her Life is indeed in the library here. His hand can be identified from the colophon of others of his works the abbey has. It seems he was a chaplain to the community and was commissioned by Medeln abbey to write it soon after her death. The section on her miracles is missing, and perhaps it may be that he was not the author of that compilation. But I now have found the original of the Vita and I’m proceeding with a transcript, a copy of which I will send to Antwerp.’

The abbess was clearly pleased. ‘I must say, Father Heer, that I’d be interested in promoting a private printing of your edition of her Life if you’d be willing. It seems absurd that the life and works of one of Ruritania’s greatest saints has not yet been committed to print. But you were saying that there were difficulties with her prophecies and meditative works.’

‘I fear so,’ the priest replied. ‘Not so much in their content, which was examined at the Holy See and found orthodox. It’s in the fact that she wrote in the Rothenian vernacular, and the Church had rather such works were printed in Latin for wider circulation across Catholic Christendom. It is a valid point. But it may be that Serge’s honoured grandfather might have the wherewithal to promote an edition in the original language.’

‘All very interesting, Father. You are of course welcome to continue your studies here for as long as Prince Henry can spare you. How about you, Sergius? It would be a pleasure to me to host you for a longer stay than one night.’

‘I’ll have to leave you on Wednesday, aunt.’

The abbess laughed. ‘Good choice, Sergius. The Ember Day fasting begins that day. Through no fault of mine, the abbey will become perforce less welcoming. So I suggest you eat up while you may. May I recommend the milk pudding.’

***

The fine weather continued to Wednesday but it was consequently a very cold road Serge and Karl had back to Tarlenheim. The way was iron hard and Brunhild caused some anxiety when she skidded on an icy patch and began limping. Serge set a worried Karl in front of him on Acheron and transferred the heavier baggage to the stallion, leading a lightly laden Brunhild the rest of the way.

They conferred with the stablemaster at Tarlenheim when they reached the house. He pursed his lips after examining the left front leg. ‘Possibly no more than a slight sprain at the fetlock. I’ll treat her with liniment and bind her for a few days. Only hand walking for the next week or so, young lady,’ he pronounced.

‘Sorry, Brunhild. It doesn’t look too serious, Karl,’ Serge said to his relieved page. He looked around the stable and observed the increase in occupancy.

‘Ah sir, new guests from Strelsau, and they brought extra mounts with them.’

Serge sought out Jan Lisku before going to report his return to his father and uncle. He found him polishing boots and folding laundry in his chamber.

‘How did it go at the abbey, sir? I hope the boy behaved himself,’ were the first questions after the greeting.

Serge gave him a full report. Jan seemed regretful at not meeting St Fenice face to face. ‘Maybe your next visit, sir. The house is a bit fuller since you left.’

‘Who’s turned up?’

‘Ah. No less than Colonel Dudley and two other officers, including that man Barkozy. Apparently your good father had left the colonel an open invitation to return over the Christmas period, and so here he is, in time for the grand hunt on Friday.’