The Golden Portifor - 39. Chapter 39

Andreas relaxed back into his chair. ‘Lord Willi and I’ve been talking about a scheme that’s been on me mind for quite a while, and I think it’s time to discuss it wiv yers all.’

Willi von Strelsau nodded. ‘Would this be about my estate up the hill?’

‘Exactly, Willi. My lord Serge, Master Jan, Father Waxmann and all the rest of them volunteers did a good thing last winter for the street children of our city. Many of ‘em survived the snow and ice as probably would not have otherwise. But it wuz a struggle and it cost yer a lot, I know. And all credit to yer an’ all, but the need’s still there and is worse, and so I’m gonna sort the problem once and for all. I has a huge amount of money courtesy of old Mehmed and the fortunes of war, and it’s enough and more for me to build a proper home for the poor and abandoned children of Strelsau. And it begins tomorrer, ‘cos you, Willi, Karlo and me are going up the hill to decide on a site. And once we has, you my lord Serge are gonna design for me the perfect shelter, school and home for the kids of the Conduit and the other street gangs.’

A tumult of exclamations and applause broke out around the table. ‘I’d be delighted to do that for no fee at all,’ Serge declared.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ Jan intervened, ‘I think you haven’t yet got the idea about us escaping poverty.’

‘Exactly,’ laughed Andreas. ‘If yer turns away fees how yer gonna have money to pay Karlo, Margrit, Cecile and even Gottlieb otherwise?’

Willi smiled fondly at his lover. ‘I have some news to add. Since these days my dear royal uncle has acknowledged my existence, and even deigns to treat me as an adult, I asked an audience to discuss this very question with him. I sometimes forget he is quite acute in the brain department. I only went to ask him for consent for such a foundation as Andreas intends, bearing in mind that it’s to be built on a former royal estate which in the course of things might well return to the king. But instead the old crow told me to take a seat and summoned up the Lord Chancellor, who arrived with a thick file of documents.

‘So it turns out that he’d noticed the church authorities had dispersed the Franciscan community that had run the Reformatory and that since then the Neustadt authorities had seized its property in a legal dispute about unpaid tax assessments. There’s a big row going on in the courts at the moment, and when my uncle investigated it turned out that the convent had been founded back in the days of Duke Rudolf II and was endowed by the Elphbergs for charitable uses in the new city. The king’s attorneys have now argued the defunct house with its associated properties and rents are an escheat of the Crown, and the Neustadt has backed off. In other words, my uncle now intends to add the former properties of the Reformatory to the endowment of Andreas’s children’s home and has graciously signified that he wishes to be known as one of its patrons.’

***

Willi, Serge and Andreas scrutinised the plan Serge had constructed as they stood in the street.

‘It’s been a while since we were up here with Mehmed,’ Serge commented. ‘It’s not got any healthier looking since. Let’s go look at that old chapel we found. It was up this tunnel of an alley. I always intended to come back up here with my sketchbook, but never got round to it.’

‘Chapel, my lord Serge?’ Andreas asked.

‘We reckoned it was a chapel of the old ducal castle that used to be on this site. Somehow it escaped demolition though the rest of the buildings are gone. But take a look at this, Andreas. This is a sketch map of the old precinct that I worked up with some clues from old books on the city I had. This area where we now are was the inner court of the castle, and the Gothic arch in front of us gave admittance to it. Now here’s the chapel as you see, and off to your right in this jumble of tenements is where the great hall must have been. Quite a grand and palatial hall it would have been too judging by the quality of the chapel. This way now.’

The chapel was not empty when they pushed open the door. A nun in a white habit was sitting on a stone bench which ran around the walls of the building. She was telling her rosary and the three young men moderated the volume of their discussion accordingly.

Willi looked around curiously. ‘The place isn’t derelict. In fact it’s quite well taken care of. Did you find out anything more about it?’

Serge nodded. ‘Father Waxmann said the ancient castle was extraparochial and the chapel now stands in for the parish church the old precinct doesn’t have. One of the chantry priests in the Dom takes a salary to say mass here on Sunday and once in the week. The thing that keeps it going is that there’s an old prayer guild on the Altstadt which uses it for its festivities and processions, and funds the repairs and the priest. Father Waxmann thinks the guild’s pretty active and well-endowed, though the congregation otherwise is small. I get the impression he’d rather like it if the guild transferred its activities to his Veronkenkirche.’

‘What do you think, Andreas?’

The youth was pensive, staring across the building at the white figure opposite. He jerked his attention back to his companions. ‘I thinks I’d like to build our children’s home right next to this chapel. Something’s telling me this’d be a good and healthy place for the kids to have next door. I’m planning that there should be a priest attached to their school. It’d be so good if there was a boys’ choir from our home to sing here, like in the Hofkapelle.’

Willi caught the idea. ‘Absolutely! You’d need to install an organ and pay an organist and music master though.’

‘Money well spent,’ Serge agreed. ‘So I’ll take measurements and incorporate this chapel in the plans.’

‘What’s the dedication of the chapel?’ Willi asked him.

But it was Andreas who answered. ‘Has to be SS Mary and Fenice, don’t it.’

‘Quite right. Well done, Andreas, you’re getting the hang of these things. And the dedication of the Guild that uses it is the Holy Angels, the same that used to own our house and gave its name to Engelngasse.’

‘Can we actually do this with the chapel?’ Willi mused.

‘You’d have to ask the patron,’ Serge laughed.

‘And who’s that?’

‘Why, the Count of Strelsau! The chapel’s part of your estate, Willi. It’s yours to dispose of.’

Andreas was still staring across the church at the nun. ‘Almost like it was all intended, ain’t it,’ he muttered, half to himself.

***

Serge and Willi got into the habit of beginning most weekday mornings – after Willi’s extended toilette – at one of the coffee houses on the Platz. That particular Monday morning, the eighth of September, was a busy one in the capital. Prince Henry had returned triumphant from the Peace of Vorplatzenberg to Strelsau. He had brought the Elector Max Emmanuel with him, and they were apparently now good friends.

Willi tutted as he perused the latest newssheet. ‘Our Zeus may be a modern Alexander, but a wily old fox like the elector can still wrap him round his finger. Mannie tells me he’s dazzled Henry with fantasies of ambitious campaigns down the Danube, replanting the cross on Hagia Sophia, and returning the Holy Land to the faith. Henry swallows it all. He’s even persuaded Cronos to receive that serpent Landsberg back as ambassador to Ruritania.’

‘No longer any business of mine, Willi,’ Serge said. ‘My future’s in Glottenburg. Grandfather has intimated that he wants me back home in the duchy once I’ve finished my studies and completed my projects here.’

‘Yes well, don’t be in too much of a hurry. It’ll be a couple of years yet before Andreas’s children’s home is fully ready. And what’s happening in the meantime about the Conduit gang, I ask? Winter will be here soon enough yet there they are out on the streets barefoot still, carrying water and street sweeping, just like always.’

‘Not for much longer. Next week the old Reformatory reopens as a night shelter for the street children, offering safe and clean beds, baths and a morning meal before they return to the streets for the day. The idea is to put together a register of the needy and slowly wean them off the streets and out of their gangs, and then gather them into the new house in the Altstadt when it opens year after next. Homeless and abandoned children will be able to admit themselves to the house as their need demands; they won’t need sponsors or patrons.

‘Andreas has recruited his first staff to open his campaign to save the homeless. There’s a matron, an impressive lady he met in the Veronkenkirche who used to preside over the guild of midwives. The master he’s appointed is a former sergeant major of the Prinzengarde, a kindly and distinguished man, who’s just married and was ready to quit the army and settle down for his wife’s sake. Your boy Wilchin’s regularly out on the streets rounding up strays. He has quite a gift for persuading the children that the Fenizenhaus is where they’ll want to be. He speaks their language I suppose.’

Willi looked up. ‘Fenizenhaus? Is that what they’re calling it?’

‘The documents being drawn up call it the Royal Hospital for the Poor Children of Strelsau in the Peculiar of the Blessed Fenice of the Altstadt.’

‘Fenizenhaus will do. Can I have a look at those plans you’ve got there. My! What a fine elevation. Frankly my dear, I may admit myself there as a waif and stray. It’s far more handsome than the little house I’m preparing for my own use next door to your building site. Andreas’s purchases may have improved my financial situation, but your Jan Lisku is warning me severely against extravagance. He’s suggesting I concentrate on improving my estate by going into partnership with builders, clearing and releasing the sites for development as funds permit. Then I let out the stylish new buildings to the aspirational merchant class of Strelsau. That man of yours has quite the business head on his shoulders. I may poach him from you one day.’

‘And what about the slum-dwellers you’ll be depriving of their homes?’ Serge asked sharply.

Willi rolled his eyes. ‘Master Lisku wouldn’t let me get away with my indifference to their fate. I’m to build model almshouses for the respectable poor along the north of the site as money becomes available. Happy now?’

***

Colonel the Freiherr Andreas Wittig von Bernenstein took the salute of his regiment, no longer to be known as the Prinzengarde but to be called Bernenstein’s Regiment of Guard Cuirassiers. Prince Henry proved willing to sell him the colonelcy once Andreas had secured the lieutenancy from Serge. The king was cutting back on military expenses now the Bavarian threat was over and had proposed disbanding all the Mittenheimer brigade including the Prinzengarde, but the prince had secured the regiment’s future by selling it on and getting it formally recognised as the second most senior regiment in the army.

A new guidon had been given to the regiment by the Princess Dorothea Sophia, who had become very fond of Andreas, a young man whose wealth, modesty, looks and valour made him all the rage in Strelsauener society. King Rudolf had presented the prince and princess of Glottenburg with the Marmorpalast to be their residence while in Ruritania, Prince Henry having returned to his apartments at the Hofburg. Dodie had chosen to stay on with her husband in Strelsau once the court physicians had confirmed her pregnancy. There was also the surprising new development that Staszek had formed a close and respectful friendship with the old king, rather closer than his more distant relationship with the crown prince. The Countess of Vesterborg’s pregnancy was another factor, Dodie wishing to be present at the birth of her good friend’s child, her niece or nephew.

The Glottenburger court at the Marmorpalast was forming a new centre of political and social life in the capital, and was particularly welcoming to Serge, who had received Staszek’s appointment as his honorary chamberlain, which many took as a rebuke to Prince Henry. Staszek was attending lectures in philosophy at the Rudolf University with Serge, and also enjoying incognito nights out with him and his friends in the student inns along the Ebersfeld road. He was in no hurry to return to Glottenburg.

Having inspected and dismissed his regiment, Andreas trotted off the parade ground of the Arsenal and headed up to the Altstadt where he inspected the progress of the building works around the Fenizenkapelle. The whole site had been cleared of the unhealthy slum that had grown up around the chapel court; the trenches of the foundations and drains of the new Royal Hospital had been dug and the bricklayers and masons were now busy, impeded only by Serge’s tendency to haunt the site and call halts when ancient coins, old foundations, bones and other curious items were turned up by builders, who silently cursed his meddling.

Andreas surveyed the site from his saddle and patted Orcus, who looked back and whinnied, for friends were approaching up the lane that led north from the cathedral. Brunhild trotted up with Karl and Wilchin on her back. The boys paused for a while to look at the buildings rising from the trenches.

‘I may admit meself,’ Wilchin commented.

‘Age limit for entry’s gonna be fifteen,’ came the laconic reply from Andreas. ‘Yer’ll be too old by the time it’s open for business.’

‘It’s gonna be brilliant, Ando,’ Karl enthused, his eyes shining. ‘I can really see how it’ll be now the walls are going up. Is that the school house? Where’s the playgrounds and garden gonna be?’ These last were Karl’s own request when they had sat round with Serge and his sketches and given their views on the shape of the future children’s home. ‘But better be one playground for boys and another for girls,’ he had insisted. ‘Girls stand and talk in gangs or do funny little songs and dances, but boys just run around and around till they hit a wall and fall over.’ After a further consultation with Cecile for her views, his suggestion had been heeded.

‘Where’s our Boro?’ Andreas asked, checking his fine English pocket watch in its gold case, a gift from a besotted countess at the royal court, one of many such women it had to be said.

‘Here he is on Onyx, like Brunhild asked,’ Karl cried, waving at the approaching officer. ‘We better head off down to the close. Hope there’s no one there.’

They made their way through the lanes of the Altstadt and out through the North Gate. The road beyond was lined with cottages and market gardens, and behind them a patchwork of hedged closes spread eastward around the city walls till they encountered an eastern suburb. The pasture close Serge rented was one of the distant ones which bordered on the Strelsenerwald.

Arriving there the four boys dismounted. Karl removed all the horses’ tack and stored it neatly in the shed Gottlieb had built. He looked around with a lop-sided grin and said ‘Time to remove our own tack.’ They went into the shed and stripped. Then they rejoined the horses.

Karl registered the beauty of Andreas in the daylight. A young man now, not a boy, his proportions were perfection and he was perfectly unselfconscious of his nudity, which Karl only otherwise saw in his bedchamber where they still on occasion made love, though it was now far from a nightly occurrence. Mostly these days Andreas bedded the young women of the court who took his fancy and were all too willing to couple with the young hero. He laughed with Karl about this, but did not disguise his activities or how much satisfaction he got from his sexual adventuring.

Karl shook free from his present concern and turned to Brunhild. He cradled her head and communed for a moment, while she gave a nervous Orcus and Onyx their instructions. The four then swarmed up on to the bare backs of their mounts, Wilchin again seated behind Karl.

‘Hold me tight, Wilchin,’ he said. ‘Put yer head next to mine, and think of where you been but not us, the Islands of the Dead.’

‘Yer sure about this, Karlo?’

‘What can go wrong? But if it does, we’ll all end up in a hedge bruised and covered in scratches. Ready? Ride!’

The three horses went for maximum speed, divots of turf spraying back from their hoofs as they bore down on the hedge. Karl buried his fists in Brunhild’s mane and his inner eye deep in Wilchin’s mind, fixing the image of the dark lake and surrounding hills, and he did as Jonas had done when last he made the jump in that very place. The world around them flickered, and then their mounts drew up hard on a green hill top above a great space of sparkling water.

Andreas reached over to his friend, grinned and embraced him round the neck. ‘Karlo, yer just brilliant. The greatest wizard of all time!’

‘But how do we get across to the island? Do we need to think up a boat like Wilchin did for Jonas?’ asked Boromeo.

‘Everybody off the horses!’ Karl ordered.

‘Are yer goin’ to do what I think yer is?’ Wilchin asked.

Karl alerted Brunhild and frowned with concentration. Brunhild stood still, but the two stallions, taken by surprise, bucked and reared as huge blue wings burst from their backs.

‘That answer yer question, Boro?’ said Andreas.

‘What about me!’ cried Wilchin. ‘Can yer ... wow! Fuckin’ hell!’ He yelped and leapt into the air, wings opening and flexing as he did and taking him rapidly upwards.

‘Nice trick,’ Andreas said. ‘Can we try that?’

Karl shook his head. ‘Nah. Jonas changed Wilchin in some way. He’s not all human now, a lot of him is elf, and if he’s here, I’d guess most of him is elf. So he can have wings and probably do other things we’ve yet to learn about. So, mount up! Wilchin can lead the horses across the lake. He knows where to land.’

Wilchin hovered in the air, his elfin wings rich and red, shot with gold that glittered in the celestial sunlight. ‘Come on, lads,’ he shouted down. ‘This is just too good!’

The other three mounted up, and with Wilchin buzzing in front they flew up and across the gulf of air between them and the tallest of the islands, on which were several buildings, with a low tower at the topmost point.

The horses glided in a great arc around the island before joining Wilchin, who had fluttered directly down on to the lawn at the tower door and folded his wings away. The boys dismounted.

‘She’s here,’ Wilchin said with a grin.

‘I can feel her,’ Karl agreed. ‘C’mon Boro and Ando, time for yer to meet the Lady Fenice.’

With a degree of caution, mixed with awe for that solemn place, all four boys passed the threshold of the council chamber. As they did something strange happened, and Karl felt momentarily dizzy.

Karl looked round hastily. The three boys he had entered with were not the three who were with him now, or rather they were, but all were back as if they were children. Andreas was once again the boy he had met when first confined at the Reformatory, and Wilchin as he was when they met at the Conduit, but all four were beautiful and vital in ways they never had been at the age of nine or ten, even Boromeo.

He turned back to the chamber and there in a seat at the end of the long stone table was a smiling Lady Fenice. ‘Greetings my lady,’ Karl said in a high, piping voice that had not been his for a couple of years, and he bowed low. ‘Why have you done this to us?’

The lady acknowledged his bow, and those of the other three boys. ‘Some might say that you four as you are now are how to truly meet you, before the harshness of adult life, its compromises, pain and temptation change and roughen you. And you four glow now with an inner beauty of virtue the change has liberated.

‘I don’t believe you have any idea what it is you’ve done, and how you’ve shaped the futures of the worlds seen and unseen. Perhaps it’s as well. If you had any idea what was at issue, you would have been paralysed with fear. Instead you went forward into the unknown as the honest, straightforward, brave and loving boys you truly are. However, that is not the only reason. But more of that in a moment. You have questions I believe?’

‘My lady!’ Andreas piped up, ‘was it you in the Fenizenkapelle the other week when I visited it with Serge and Willi?’

She gave the slightest of shrugs. ‘There are many nuns in Strelsau. It is a great thing you’ve begun in Strelsau, child, and it will be a crown of glory for you on the day you pass across the waters below this island to the Final Sea. What’s more your selflessness has encouraged it in others, so you are doubly redeemed. For many years to come the abandoned children of your city will know safety rather than fear, and will be gifted with a future when otherwise starvation and exploitation would have been all they might expect in their short lives, and all because of you.’

Wilchin leaped in. ‘My lady, what of our friend Jonas Niemand?’

She looked at the earnest faces of the children in front of her and shook her head. ‘Perhaps the strangest thing in this entire affair is how it has drawn in that being. They call me a seer, but I would never have foreseen the honest love that has blossomed between you boys and Him, nor can I guess at its effect, which may be far deeper than any of the wise could pretend to know. It’s veiled from me, and that in itself is a thing that troubles me. You, Master Antonin, may hold the key to it.’

‘How’s that, lady?’

‘It’s a number of things. Your character is one that comes closest to His own, and that brought out something human in Him, yet believe me when I say He is the spirit who ought to be furthest removed from humanity. And in turn that’s sparked something else. I detect that He’s beginning to consider the meaning of humanity and by sharing His life with yours, He’s begun to understand better its flaws and tragedies. Yet this is not the purpose for which He was created. It would seem to me that the World Beyond may be turned upside down by the curiosity and compassion you boys have inspired in Him.’

‘But is he alright?’ Karl burst out.

The lady smiled at his concern. ‘In body and spirit? Nothing can ever harm Him. He is too great. His pride has taken a beating though. There are spirits more powerful than He is outside the world, and he has begun to irritate them. He took a false step in attempting to annex Eden, the place you call Fäerie, as a home for his own people so he could continue his experiment. And so the Others came in force to restore the equilibrium they so prefer.’

‘So where is Jonas, lady?’ Wilchin asked.

‘You might say He’s been arrested, but “called home” might be closer to the truth. He has to account for Himself before the greatest authority of all.’

‘So will we see him again?’ Wilchin asked anxiously.

‘I expect so. I’m not party to what goes on in that world, yet I and my people have – you might say – our own line of communication with that authority. And I’m confident it will let your Jonas get away with a lot. As humans say, it has a soft spot for him. Don’t fear, He’ll seek you out. Especially you, Master Antonin. For you I think He has great plans. And I have to say my own people are curious as to what He’s done with you. How you grow may tell us a lot about the future fate of our living kinsfolk.

‘Now children, you are here where few of your folk ever have stood, and we welcome you. So go play with your friends the winged horses! Around this lake and on these islands and as far as the Unlikely Forest you are safe from the elemental spirits. And know that time spent here will not pass in the world you came from, however long it is. You’ll return to the moment you left. Just don’t drink from any spring that bubbles up on this island.’

Wilchin perked up. ‘Jonas said not to as well. Why’s that?’

‘The waters of this island will erase all memories of your past life. And they’re meant for only one special human to drink. So play and explore, but for you Karl Wollherz there is one greater gift, freely awarded you by the Assembly of the Dead and given to few otherwise of our living cousins. So, when you leave here, fly with your dearest friend Brunhild to the green island sunwards of this one, and there ... you will see what you will see.’

The boys bowed low once more and left the tower. ‘What do yer think it’ll be, Karlo?’ asked Andreas as they stood on the lawn outside.

‘I wonder,’ his friend replied. ‘But I won’t find out here. See you later! Brunhild will find you and the others! Careful what you make!’

‘What’s he mean?’ Boromeo asked.

‘He means we’re in for the hugest fun any boys have ever had, that’s what!’ whooped Wilchin, as his wings burst again from his shoulders. Karl watched his friends go, then he went over to hug and kiss Brunhild and clambered up on her back, with some difficulty in his present state when his ankles barely reached below her ribs. She galloped up into the air and took the direction from his mind. She alighted on the other island on a lawn close to the shore, and Karl slid off her. He patted her shoulder and walked inland, following a path that led through the trees. In a few minutes the path took him upwards to a stone house surrounded by a garden of some beauty. He paused as the distant sound of a small child’s chuckling laugh came to his ears. His neck prickled. He knew that laugh. And then he was running through the flowers and bushes to the door of the house.

Karl paused almost fearful at the door, for he sensed figures beyond it. Then he entered. He stood and blinked in the light within and tears flooded his eyes. ‘Mutta? Vater?’ he called out.

***

It was 16 June 1694, the feast of St Fenice of Tarlenheim, and the Erchbiscofsplatz of the Altstadt was full. At the west door of his cathedral the cardinal archbishop, under a canopy borne by gentlemen of the Guild of the Holy Angels, was waiting. At the gate of the abbey of St Waclaw so also was King Rudolf II, astride a great white stallion the gentlemen of his court behind him. The sound of the approaching singing of children caused all to look to the Domstrasse entrance, and the square erupted with cheers, for in procession, two by two, appeared the now no longer lost and abandoned children of the city of Strelsau. Sixty boys walked on the right, in their laced Elphberg green coats and fine white hose and linen, while on the left walked sixty girls in white bonnets and dresses of the same green. Their procession was headed by the handsome figure of the first Governor of the Royal Hospital, Andreas Wittig von Bernenstein, walking bare-headed with an ebony, gold-headed stave, leading the children up from their temporary quarters at the old reformatory to their brand new home on the hill.

The children, well-schooled, made a line and bowed to the king, and kept their heads low as the cardinal came over to bless them, following which the bells of the cathedral, the abbey and the Frauenkirche of the Altstadt rang out loud and long and Andreas led his children onwards and northwards to the grand frontage of the hospital on the new street called Armenhausgasse, through its sculpted and figured arch and into the paved court. At the other end of the court the doors of the restored Fenizenkapelle were open, and from within the chapel came the glorious sound of the new organ in its gallery at the west end. A dozen of the hospital’s boys filed into the stalls to join the boys and men of the Hofkapelle choir, ready for the inaugural mass of St Fenice to a setting commissioned by the king from Heinrich Biber, his favourite composer. The king had taken a close interest in the music of the new chapel and hospital, and the organ was his contribution to the foundation.

Serge settled to listen, leaning up against one of the pillars of the organ gallery. Apart from the gallery and the stalls for the hospital choir, which he had designed, little else had been done in the medieval chapel but to repair and tidy this part of the precinct. He had walked the completed and empty buildings yesterday with a deal of satisfaction, but also some melancholy. The snug, small bedrooms in the boys’ and girls’ wards, the training workshops for the older children, the airy schoolrooms and children’s library were all he had hoped. The playgrounds with their climbing frames and miniature forts and play houses had been designed with ideas Karl Wollherz had contributed, including wooden horses with wings that could be swung on ropes to the delight of the children who had tested them out. The hospital garden with its fountain modelled on the old Conduit on the Platz had been laid out by Willi von Strelsau, who had a talent that way.

It was all perfect and it was finished, as also was the house he had designed for Countess Ulrica, called the Wenzlerhof, where she presently resided with both her children by Prince Henry. It was therefore time to wind up his affairs in Strelsau and return home to Olmusch.

At the conclusion of the mass, Serge joined the flood of people up the stairs to the grand dining hall and council chamber, with their painted ceilings depicting the gods of Olympus as children. He took a glass of wine and stood next the hearth with its state portrait of King Rudolf up on the chimney piece. He greeted the guests who came up to congratulate him on his work, and chatted. Finally, Willi turned up, having slipped away from the court party surrounding his uncle.

‘I do love that ceiling, dear,’ he pronounced, looking up.

‘It was your artist. You found him. Clever fellow.’

‘Another one of my former mignons, my dear. You see that corner? He couldn’t resist sneaking in a naked Ganymede kissing a naked Hyacinth. He gave Ganymede your face, the dirty boy. Who’s Hyacinth? Oh my God! It’s fucking Hans Blicke! Oh of course, that artist feller used to be Hans’s principal resort for chastisement at one time. I wonder how the dear boy is doing in Constantinople?’

‘We can only pray. Willi, my work is now done here. You know what I’m going to say.’

‘Oh must we go there? It’s been a glorious couple of years. What about Engelngasse?’

‘Jan Lisku will be coming back with me, and I hope Karl will too. He’s become fluent in Rothenian so Glottenburg won’t be a problem for him in that respect. Your groom, Wilchin, has got my Cecile pregnant, but at least he’s pledged to do the decent thing after Andreas thrashed him and bought them a cottage to bring the baby up in. As for Margrit, she’s tempted to take on the post of chief cook here, which Andreas has been begging for her to do, and where she goes Gottlieb will too, though it may be rather that Boromeo might take him on. He has a fine stable of his own these days.’

‘You’ve done it haven’t you.’

‘I surrender the lease at Michaelmas, if that’s what you mean. Then it’s home to Olmusch till Christmas. After that, we’ll see.’

‘And what about me?’ Willi said plaintively.

‘Willi, you now have a nice little house of your own, and groom, pages, maids and stableman. True, without Jan Lisku around they’ll soon devolve into chaos, but maybe young master Antonin is capable of taking up the burden. He has a head on his shoulders.’

‘And a cock between his legs, as we’ve discovered.’

‘With Cecile going to present him with a little Antonin, he’ll have to settle down, like it or not.’

‘I have to admit he’s grown into quite reasonable company under my tuition. When he wants he can be quite the gentleman. He’s even reading these days. I sent him to day school to learn how to cast accounts, but he came back remarkably and rapidly literate, as if he’d sucked the skill directly out of his teacher’s head.’

‘I’m sorry you’re so negative about this, Willi. But I tell you what. Staszek and Dodie have produced a baby prince Willem Stanislas and with the succession secure Staszek’s being encouraged by my grandfather to take a year and travel in Italy and France, maybe even as far as London. I’m reasonably solvent and I’ll be happy to go with him in his entourage at least to Italy, and why don’t you join us? If Dodie goes too, she’ll be utterly delighted. It’ll be a great opportunity for me to study the architecture of the Ancients, and I’m thinking that we can take ship to Greece and Rumelia if we’re still at peace with the Porte. I could fill a dozen sketchbooks. We could look up Mehmed and see how his plans for world domination are going, if the Grand Signior hasn’t yet had him garroted. And you can pursue your fantasies about Ottoman men.’

Willi grinned. ‘Darling Phoebus, always you read my mind. Let’s do it.’

***

On the last day before Karl’s departure from Strelsau, he put off livery and dressed in his street clothes. He and Jan Lisku had finished packing, and the boxes were stacked ready for the carriers who would take them on to Olmusch. They would spend the night in Willi’s hôtel on Armenhausgasse, so this was goodbye to the Sign of the Angel and all its memories. He loaded up Brunhild with his baggage and with a sad heart quit the house where he had been the happiest in his life. Brunhild caught his mood and ambled slowly up Domstrasse, leaving him the space to think.

Karl Wollherz was now a full-grown young man, fulfilling all his promise in looks and grace. But though Andreas was already notorious as being one of the great lovers as well as eminent soldiers of his day, and Wilchin too was taking as many opportunities as he could to bed willing females, not just the unfortunately pregnant Cecile, Karl had no inclination to follow his friends in that direction, even with the boys he met who made their interest in him very evident. The fact was that he had set his affections early on Andreas Wittig, and there they had stayed, even though there was no longer any physical consummation on offer, only friendship.

He was still brooding when he stabled Brunhild at Willi’s. He stopped off at the kitchen to hug Cecile and inspect her bump, then after some laughter he wandered next door into the Royal Hospital. He was well-known there and so was admitted. He took a seat in the sunlit garden near the Conduit fountain and listened to the babble, chatter and shrieks of happy children coming from the playgrounds he had designed. The horse-swings were very busy. Two boys of about ten or eleven were clinging together on one of them, their faces alight as their friends pushed them through the air, and Karl’s memory irresistibly took him back to his last ride through the Fäerie with Wilchin clinging on to him.

It occurred to Karl once more that his melancholy had a lot to do with the fact that he had not seen Jonas Niemand in over two years and no word had come from the elf to either him or Wilchin. Was he still a captive of his enemies in the World Beyond? Then one of the two boys swinging on the horse caught his eye, giving him a familiar enthusiastic wave and a very wide grin. Karl shot up. The lad slid off the swing and ran at full tilt into the garden. Karl grabbed him, swung him round and kissed him. It was Jonas, in the day clothes of a boy of the Royal Hospital. Karl held him tight and the elf grinned into his face. ‘I love this place, Conduit boy,’ he declared. ‘I’m so proud of you!’

Hand-in-hand, the pair walked into the Fenizenkapelle and sat in the choir stalls. Karl commented that the lady herself had been glimpsed here by Andreas, or so he believed. ‘Have you seen her, Jonas?’

‘Me? No. I had to promise to keep out of Eden before they let me out again. Still, there wasn’t too much fuss about it. After all, with your help, I did close up the portal and I punished those responsible, as I was charged to. So I had some favours to call in.’

‘So what’re you doing now?’

‘Oh, back to my old job. But of course I now have help in the world.’

‘Wilchin’s dying to see you again.’

‘He’s going to be busy for me. There’s been none like him ever before, and he’ll have a lot of travelling to do. The time’s come for me to start exploring why it is humans are changing, and Wilchin has all the skills necessary to go anywhere and talk to anyone for me.’

‘You know your friend Cecile is going to have Wilchin’s baby?’

‘What! That wasn’t supposed to happen.’

‘She told me just now she thought Jonas was a lovely name if it’s a boy.’ Karl laughed at the look on the elf’s face. ‘You’re going to be a fairy godfather.’

‘What does that mean!’ he protested.

‘You have to give him presents, I guess.’

The elf nodded seriously. ‘Then I suppose I had better steal him away to Eden one night, and dip him in the river.’

‘But you’re not supposed to go there!’

Jonas scoffed. ‘So what? Anyway, I came to see you. I need your gifts too. There has to be a plan and you have all Her gifts and more besides. So take my hand and we’ll see what your clear sight tells us.’