Borrower of the Night

Chapter One

WHEN I WAS ten years, old I knew I was never going to get married. Not only was I six inches taller than any boy in the fifth grade – except Matthew Finch, who was five ten and weighed ninety-eight pounds – but my IQ was as formidable as my height. It was sixty points higher than that of any of the boys – except the aforesaid Matthew Pinch. I topped him by only thirty points.

I know – this isn’t the right way to start a narrative, if I hope to command the sympathy of the reader. A narrator should at least try to sound modest. But believe me, I’m not bragging. The facts are as stated, and they are a handicap, not a cause for conceit. If there is anything worse than being a tall girl, it is being a tall smart girl.

For several years my decision didn’t give me much pain. I wasn’t thinking seriously of marriage in the fifth grade. Then I reached adolescence, and the trouble began. I kept growing up, but I grew in another dimension besides height. The results were appalling. I won’t quote my final proportions; they call to mind one of those revolting Bunnies in Playboy. I dieted strenuously, but that only made matters worse. I got thin in all the right places and I was still broad where, as the old classic says, a broad should be broad.

Mind you, I am still not bragging. I am not beautiful. I admire people who are slender and fine-boned and aesthetic-looking. The heroine of my adolescent daydreams had a heart-shaped face framed in clouds of smoky black hair. She was a tiny creature with an ivory complexion and a rosebud mouth. When she was enfolded in the hero’s brawny arms, her head only reached as high as his heart.

All my genes come from my father’s Scandinavian ancestors – big blond men with rosy cheeks and blazing blue eyes. They were about as aesthetic-looking as oxen. That’s what I felt like – a big, blond, blue-eyed cow.

The result of this was to make me painfully shy. I suppose that seems funny. Nobody expects a bouncing Brunhild to be self-conscious. But I was. The intelligent, sensitive, poetic boys were terrified of me; and the ones that weren’t terrified didn’t want to talk about poetry or Prescott. They didn’t want to talk at all. Rubbing my bruises, I became a confirmed misandrist. That attitude left me lots of time in which to study. I collected degrees the way some girls collect engagement rings. Then I got a job as a history instructor at a small Mid-western college which, in view of what is to follow, had better be nameless. It was there I met Tony. Tony teaches history too. He’s bright; very bright. He is also six feet five inches tall, and, except for his height, he rather resembles Keats in the later stages of consumption.

I met Tony on the occasion of the first departmental faculty meeting. I was late. Being late was a mistake; I hate walking the gauntlet of all those male eyes. There was one other woman present. She looked the way I wanted to look – thin, dark, and intellectual. I smiled hopefully at her and received a fishy stare in return. Most women take an instant dislike to me. I can’t say I don’t know why.

I spotted Tony amid the crowd because of his height. There were other things worth noticing – big brown eyes, broad shoulders, and black hair that flopped over his forehead and curled around his ears. His face was fine-boned and aesthetic-looking. At that moment, however, it had the same expression that was on all the other male faces, except that of Dr Bronson, the head of the department. He had interviewed me and had hired me in spite of my measurements. I’m not kidding; it is a common delusion, unshaken by résumés and grades, that a woman with my proportions cannot have anything in her head but air.

I sat down with an awkward thump in the nearest chair, and several men gulped audibly. Dear old Dr Bronson smiled his weary smile, brushed his silvery hair back from his intellectual forehead, and started the meeting.

It was the usual sort of meeting, with discussions of schedules and committees and so on. After it was over I headed for the door. Tony was there ahead of me.

I don’t remember how he got me out of the building and into the Campus Coffee Shoppe, but I have never denied he is a fairly smooth talker. I remember some of our conversation. I hadn’t encountered a technique quite like his before.

The first thing he said was, ‘Will you marry me?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?’

‘I’ve heard of it. I don’t believe in it. And if I did, love and marriage don’t necessarily go together. Au contraire.’

‘So beautiful and so cynical,’ said Tony sadly. ‘Doesn’t my honourable proposal restore your faith in my sex?’

‘It merely reinforces my impression that you are crazy.’

‘Look at it this way.’ Tony put his elbows on the table. The table wasn’t very clean, but neither were Tony’s elbows; I deduced that this pose was characteristic. ‘All my life I’ve been looking for my ideal woman. I’m pushing thirty, you know; I’ve had time to think about it. Beauty, brains, and a sense of humour, that’s what I want. Now I know you’re intelligent or old Bronson wouldn’t have hired you. He’s above the sins of the flesh, or thinks he is. You are obviously beautiful. Your sense of humour – ’

‘Ha,’ I said. ‘You deduced that from the twinkle in my eye, I suppose.’

Tony cocked his head and considered me seriously. A lock of black hair fell over his left eyebrow.

‘Is that a twinkle? It looks more like a cold, steely glint. No, I’m willing to take the sense of humour on trust.’

‘You’d be making a mistake. I am not amused. And even if I were amused, I wouldn’t marry you. I’m not going to marry anyone. Ever.’

‘If you prefer that arrangement,’ said Tony, with a shrug.

So it went, for most of the winter. The demoralizing thing about Tony was that he wasn’t kidding. He really did want to get married. That didn’t surprise me; any man with a grain of sense knows that marriage is the only way, these days, to acquire a full-time maid who works twenty-five hours a day, with no time off and no pay except room and board.

Naturally Tony wouldn’t admit to these motives. He kept babbling about love. He couldn’t help it. His background was hopelessly conventional. He came from a big jolly family out in the Bible Belt, with a fat jolly mother and a tall, thin jolly father – he showed me their pictures, which he kept on his desk. That shows you what he was like. He was crazy about his parents. He even liked his brothers and sisters, of whom there seemed to be an indeterminate number. He had a half-ashamed and inarticulate desire for children of his own. Oh, his ostensible motives were admirable – and his attractions were considerable. To say we were physically compatible is to put it mildly, but that wasn’t all; we had a hundred interests in common, from European history to basketball. (He had been the star of his high school team, and so had I.) He shared my passion for medieval sculpture, and he was crazy about old Marx Brothers movies. I couldn’t imagine finding anyone I liked better. But I didn’t weaken.

‘Why not?’ Tony demanded one day. It was a day in January or the beginning of February, and he was getting exasperated. ‘Damn it, why not? Are you down on marriage just because it’s out of fashion? I didn’t think you were so conventional!’

‘That has nothing to do with it. I’m not against marriage per se. I’m against it for me. I’m not going to get married. Why the hell do I have to repeat it every other day? I think I’ll make a tape.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘What, the tape? It would save the wear and tear on my vocal cords. Now listen, Tony – ’ I put my elbows on the table, and then removed them; I was certainly not going to imitate his vulgar habits. ‘Your attitude is a perfect illustration of the reason why I don’t intend to marry. I state a point of view, and you attack it. You don’t listen, you don’t try to understand, you just say – ’

Tony said it.

‘Obscenities will get you nowhere,’ I said. ‘My feelings are a fact, not a personal delusion. They are valid for me. What business have you got trying to tell me how I ought to feel? You think you want an intellectual wife, who can discuss your work with you. But it wouldn’t last. After awhile you’d start expecting apple pie instead of articles, and then you’d want me to quit work, and if I got promoted and you didn’t, you would sulk, and then if we had a baby you wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night and change its dirty diapers – ’

I stopped, not because I had finished my monologue, but because Tony wasn’t listening. His elbows were on the table, his face was hidden in his hands, and he was laughing so hard that the table shook.

Since he wasn’t looking, I permitted myself a sour smile. So maybe it did sound funny. But the basic premise was sound. I knocked one of Tony’s elbows out from under him so that his chin splashed into his coffee cup, and that ended that discussion.

But it wasn’t the end of the argument. I could tell by the speculative gleam in Tony’s eye that for the first time he was really thinking about the problem. It was amusing to watch him ponder my hang-up, as he called it, as methodically as he would consider an abstract academic question. At least it was amusing until he came out with his conclusions.

We were at Tony’s apartment. He had built a fire in the fireplace and had carefully seated himself in a chair across from the couch where I was sitting. He hadn’t touched me all evening, which was enough of a change to make me wary. He sat there for a long time staring at me, and finally he said, ‘I’ve figured it out.’

‘Oh, have you?’

‘Yes. What you need is to be dominated.’

‘Is that right,’ I said.

‘That tough exterior is a defence,’ Tony explained. ‘Underneath, you are looking for a stronger shoulder to lean on. But since you are a superior female, you need to be convinced that the male is even more superior.’

‘All right,’ I said, between my teeth. ‘You may be stronger than I am, you ape, but just try those gorilla tactics on me and you’ll get something you – ’

‘No, no, I’m not talking about anything as crude as physical domination. I intend to convince you of my intellectual superiority.’

‘Ha, ha,’ I said.

‘You doubt that I am your intellectual superior,’ Tony said calmly. ‘Of course you do. That’s your trouble.’

I bit back the yell of outrage that was right on the tip of my tongue. He wanted me to lose my temper; that would prove my emotional immaturity.

I leaned back on the couch, crossed my legs, and took a deep breath. Tony’s eyes glazed, but he didn’t move.

‘And how,’ I inquired, practising deep breathing, ‘do you propose to convince me?’

Tony was a funny colour. With some effort he dragged his eyes away from my torso and stared at the fire.

‘I haven’t figured that out yet,’ he admitted. ‘But I will.’

‘Let me know when you do.’ I fell back onto the couch, hands clasped behind my head. I kicked off one of my shoes. ‘Did I tell you I expect to have two articles published by the end of the year? How are you coming with the one you started last fall?’

That was too much. Tony growled and lunged. I was ready for him; I slid out from underneath and stood looking fondly down on him as he sprawled awkwardly across the couch.

‘Since you are going to dominate me mentally, there’s no point in this sort of thing,’ I said, slipping my foot back into my shoe. ‘Call me when you’re ready to start dominating.’

He was ready sooner than I expected.

It was one of those awful March days in the Midwest, when ice and snow and sleet seem doubly outrageous because they follow a few days of mild weather. Slogging along through the slush, I was not in my best mood, even though the evening ahead looked interesting. Tony was about to share one of his finds with me – a man, not a theory of history. Jacob Myers was one of the big wheels in our little town. Actually, he was the only wheel of any size. One of his ancestors had donated the land on which the university was built; the family automobile plant was the leading industry. The public library, the main street, and the park were all named after members of the clan. Having too much money (if that is possible) and a weakness for culture, Myers dispensed fellowships and research grants with a lavish hand. Oddly enough, one of the few faculty members who hadn’t profited from this generosity was Tony, though his father and Myers were lodge brothers, or something. I happened to know – though not from Tony – that he had even paid back the money Myers had loaned him to finish graduate school. Myers hadn’t liked that. My informant declared the old man used to light his cigars with Tony’s cheques until Tony threatened to leave the town and the university.

I never said Tony lacked good qualities.

Anyhow, this was the night on which I was destined to meet the great man. And if he was inclined to throw any research money my way, I was fully prepared to accept it.

Tony should have picked me up that night, but that was one of his weapons in our not-so-unarmed cold war: no concessions to femininity, not even common politeness. If I wanted to be liberated, Tony’s manner implied, I could damned well be good and liberated. I had no intention of engaging in a vulgar debate on the subject; if he couldn’t see for himself that basic courtesy has nothing to do with sexual competition, I was not the girl to point it out. I would have picked him up if I had owned a car, on such a stinking wet, dreary night.

With my thoughts running along those lines and my face covered with a thin sheet of ice, I cannot be blamed for greeting him with a snarl instead of a smile. He was as rosy and warm as a nice baby when he opened his door; behind him a cheerful fire crackled on the hearth, and the half-empty bottle on the coffee table indicated that he had been lightening his heavy labours with bourbon. That was his ostensible excuse for not picking me up; he had a dozen books to read and review for the next issue of the university history journal.

He gave me a beaming smile and let me take off my own coat. I threw it, soggy wet as it was, onto the couch. That was wasted effort; I should have thrown it at his notes. He was as neat as a cat about his academic work, and a complete slob otherwise. He pushed the coat off onto the floor and sat calmly down in the damp patch it had left. He started typing.

‘I’ve got two more books to do after this one,’ he said, pecking away. ‘Take a load off.’

I poured a drink since he hadn’t offered me one, and sat down on the floor near the fire. Books were scattered all over the place, where he had presumably flung them after looking them over.

The fire and the bourbon gradually restored my equanimity, and I felt a faint stir of affectionate amusement as I watched poor, unsubtle Tony pecking away at his antique typewriter. He typed with four fingers – two on each hand – and the effort made his tongue stick out between his teeth. His hair was standing on end, there was a black smudge across one cheek, and beads of perspiration bedewed his upper lip. He looked about eighteen, and damned attractive; if I had had the slightest maternal instinct, I’d have gone all soft and marsh-mallowy inside. I seem, however, to be totally lacking in maternal instincts. It’s one of the reasons why I fight marriage. I watched Tony sweat with the kindliest feelings, and with certain hormonal stirrings, but I didn’t have the slightest urge to rush over and offer to do his typing for him. I type sixty words a minute. Tony knows that.

‘We’re supposed to be there in half an hour,’ I said.

‘If you’ll keep quiet, we’ll make it easily.’

‘You plan to read two books and type out a review of each in twenty-five minutes?’

‘Read?’ Tony stopped typing long enough to give me a look of honest indignation. ‘Nobody reads these things. Don’t be silly.’

He started typing again.

I picked up the nearest book and glanced at it.

‘I see what you mean,’ I admitted.

All the books were inches thick; I don’t know why scholars judge accomplishment by weight instead of content. This one was the heaviest of the lot, and its title, in German, was also ponderous.

‘The Peasants’ Revolt: A Discussion of the Events of 1525 in Franconia, and the Effects of the Reformation,’ I translated. ‘Is it any good?’

‘How would I know? I haven’t seen that one yet.’

Tony went on typing. Casually I began leafing through the book. Scholarly prose is generally poor, and scholarly German prose is worse. But the author had gotten hold of some new material – contemporary letters and diaries. Also, the subject interested me.

In recent years, students have done a lot of complaining about ‘relevance.’ No one can quarrel with the basic idea: that education should have something to do with real life and its problems. The trouble comes when you try to define the word. What is relevant? Not history, according to the more radical critics. Who cares what happened in ancient Babylon or medieval England? It’s now that counts.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Everything has happened before – not once, but over and over again. We may not be able to solve our problems through what are pompously called ‘the lessons of history,’ but at least we should be able to recognize the issues and perhaps avoid some of the solutions that have failed in the past. And we can take heart in our own dilemma by realizing that other people in other times have survived worse.

Social upheaval and revolution are old issues, as old as society itself. The Peasants’ Revolt, in the southern and western provinces of Germany, is not one of the better-known revolutions, but it has some interesting parallels with our own times. The peasants are always revolting, says the old joke. It’s a sick old joke. The peasants had plenty to revolt about. There had been many rebellions, by groups driven to desperation by conditions that make modern slums look like Shangri-La, but in the sixteenth century social discontent and misery found a focus. The focus was a real rebel – a renegade monk who called the Pope bad names and loudly proclaimed the abuses of the Establishment. He even married an ex-nun, whom his bad example had seduced from her vows. His name was Martin Luther

Although his teachings gave the malcontents a mystique, Luther was against violence. ‘No insurrection is ever right, whatever the cause.’ And, in the crude style which was typical of the man at times, ‘A rebel is not worth answering with arguments, for he does not accept them. The answer for such mouths is a fist that brings blood to the nose.’

The autocratic princes of the rebellious provinces agreed with both comments. Many of them approved of Luther’s attacks on the Church, since that institution restrained their local powers, but they definitely did not like complaints from their ungrateful subjects. They applied the fist to the nose. The Peasants’ Revolt was savagely suppressed by the nobles and the high clergy, many of whom were temporal princes as well as bishops of the church.

Today the province of Franconia is one of the loveliest parts of Germany. Beautiful old towns preserve their medieval walls, their Renaissance houses and Gothic churches. It’s hard to imagine these quaint old streets as scenes of violence, and yet this region was the centre of the rebellion; blood literally flowed like water down the paved gutters. The city of Würzburg, with its lordly fortress looming over the town, was the seat of a prince-bishop whose subjects rose up and besieged him in his own castle. Another centre of revolt was Rothenburg, now the most famous of the medieval cities of Germany.

I visited Rothenburg on a summer tour one year and promptly fell in love with it. Among its numerous attractions is a castle – Schloss Drachenstein, the home of the Counts von und zu Drachenstein. Although I admit to a sneaking weakness for such outmoded relics of romanticism, I was not collecting castles that summer. It was one of those coincidences, which Tony and other romantics like to think of as Fate, that Tony had spent a summer doing the same thing I did. We were both in search of Tilman Riemenschneider.

A sculptor and woodcarver, Riemenschneider was probably Germany’s greatest master of the late Gothic. The tomb sculptures and altarpieces he created are concentrated in the area around his home town of Würzburg, where for many years he served as a councillor. At the time of the Peasants’ Revolt he was an elderly man, prosperous and honoured – a good, respectable member of the Establishment. It wouldn’t have been surprising if he had supported the Church which had commissioned many of his works, and shaken his greying locks over the depravity of the rebels. Instead, he joined his fellow councillors in support of the peasants’ cause. When the rebellion was suppressed, he ended up in the bishop’s dungeon; and although he came out of it alive and lived for six more years, he never again worked with his hands. The altar at Maidbronn, finished in 1525, was his last work.

Yet there were tantalizing references to another work by Riemenschneider, which had vanished during the turmoil of the revolt. A reliquary, or shrine, it incorporated three great jewels that had been ‘liberated’ from the Saracens by a Count of Drachenstein. According to an old chronicle, the shrine had been commissioned by a descendant of this nobleman in the early fifteen hundreds.

Art historians derided this tradition. No trace of the reliquary had ever been found, and there was no mention of it except in the monkish chronicle – a species of literature which is not noted for factual accuracy. I never gave the story a second thought – until that winter afternoon when I found myself translating the letter of a Count of Drachenstein, written at a time when Riemenschneider was a prisoner in the dungeons of the Bishop of Würzburg.

I must tell you, my beloved wife, that the old man remains obdurate. I saw him today, in the prison of the Katzenwickers, where he has lain since the fourth day of July, daily subjected to the question. It would be thought that the fear of outraged God, whom he has so greatly offended, would soften his guilty heart. Yet he refuses to tell me where he has hidden it. This, though it was commissioned by my late noble father, whom God hold in his keeping. It is true that my father promised him payment, as well as the return of the bond he gave for the gems, but there can be no payment now, since the wretch is traitor and rebel. I return to the prison tomorrow, with better hopes. The Lord God will support the right, as He supported me in the battle.

I sat there with the fire warm on my back, holding the book with fingers that had gone a little numb. The room faded from my sight, and the uneven patter of Tony’s typewriter went unheard. I was seeing another century and hearing other voices.

The old man.

Riemenschneider was born in 1455. He would be seventy years old in 1525. He had been imprisoned, and tortured – ‘put to the question,’ as the pretty euphemism of the day had it.

I glanced at Tony, who was still hunched over his typing. Without looking up he threw down the book he had finished, and groped for another. I slid the remaining volume into his hand. He muttered an absent word of thanks and went on working; and I returned to The Peasants’ Revolt.

There were two more letters from Count Burckhardt of Drachenstein. He had been one of the knights called up by the Bishop of Würzburg when that worthy’s subjects got out of hand. Not all the knights fought against the peasants. Götz von Berlichingen, the romantic robber knight known as Götz of the Iron Hand, had led a group of rebels from Odenwald. True, he maintained later that he had been forced into this action, and an imperial court acquitted him of treason. One is justified in being cynical about both the avowal and the acquittal.

For Burckhardt von und zu Drachenstein, radical chic had no appeal. He marched out to defend the status quo and the Church. His description of the siege, where he had wielded his battle-axe with bloody effect, made me wince, not so much because of the descriptions of lopped-off heads and split carcasses as because of the tone in which they were couched. He counted bodies the way kids count the stamps in their collections.

The clincher came in the third letter.

Today, my beloved wife, the old man finally broke under the question. I have the thing itself now in my hands, I will make plans to send it home, but this will not be easy, since the countryside is still unsafe. The old man cursed me as I left. I care nothing for that. God will protect his true knight.

The glittering vision that had taken shape in my imagination faded, to be replaced by another picture, equally vivid and far less appealing. My imagination is excellent, and it had plenty of information to work with; in my naïve youth I had visited several torture museums, before it occurred to me that my subsequent nightmares might have some connection with the grisly exhibits. You don’t forget things like that – ugly things like thumbscrews and the rack, the iron boot that crushed flesh and bone, the black metal shape of the Maiden, with her sickly archaic smile. I could see the old man in my mind’s eye too. There is a self-portrait of Riemenschneider on the altar-piece he did for the church at Creglingen. His face is jowly and a little plump in that carving. It wouldn’t have been plump after a few weeks in the bishop’s prison. It would have been emaciated and smeared with filth, like his ageing body – marred by festering rat-bites and the marks of pincer, awl, and fire. Oh, yes, I could see the whole thing only too clearly, and I could see Burckhardt standing by, cheering the torturers on. One of the great creative artists of his century, gloated over by a lout whose skull was as thick as his armour – who couldn’t even write his own name.

I worked myself into such a state of rage and horror that I made a fatal mistake. I didn’t feel Tony’s breath on the back of my neck until he let it out in a windy gasp.

Clutching the book to my bosom, I turned my head. My forehead hit Tony on the nose. A blow on that appendage hurts; it maddens the victim. Holding his nose with one hand, Tony grabbed with the other. Instinctively I resisted. An undignified struggle ensued. I gave up the book, finally, rather than see it damaged. Tony was mad enough to tear the pages apart.

He was panting when he sat back, clutching his prize and eyeing me warily.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said coldly. ‘You’re safe from me.’

‘Thanks. You female Benedict Arnold, were you going to keep this a secret?’

‘Keep what a secret?’

‘Don’t be cute, it doesn’t suit you. I was reading over your shoulder for some time, Vicky. And I know my Riemenschneider as well as you do.’

I maintained a haughty silence while he read the letters again. When he looked up from the book, his eyes were shining.

‘Hey,’ he said, grinning like a boy idiot. ‘Hey. Do you realize – ’

‘I realize that we are late. That we are going to be even later. If you want to offend Mr Myers – ’

‘All right,’ Tony said. ‘All right!’

He got to his feet – always a fascinating process to watch, because of the length of his arms and legs – and glowered down at me.

‘All right,’ he repeated monotonously. ‘If that’s how you’re going to be, then that’s how – uh – you’re going to be. Let’s go.’

He was still carrying the book when he stormed out of the door.

I turned off the lights and made sure the door was locked. I put on my coat. I had seen Tony’s overcoat slung over a chair, and I left it there. They say righteous indignation is very warming, and I am nobody’s keeper. By the time I got downstairs, I decided I’d better calm Tony. He is the world’s most maniacal driver even when he’s in a good mood, and the combination of icy streets and Tony’s rage could be fatal – to me.

He was in the car, waiting, when I reached the street. That was a relief; I half expected him to drive off and leave me. As I got in I said meekly.

‘Okay, Tony, I apologize. Of course I wasn’t going to hold out on you. You startled me, that’s all.’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Tony. But he was mollified; we started off with only a little skid, turning halfway around. Tony straightened the car out and we proceeded at a moderate fifty.

‘I know you’re thinking what I’m thinking,’ I went on. ‘But I also think we’re both going off half-cocked. It’s pretty vague, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Tony.

He’s about as sly as Christopher Robin. His tone and his prompt acquiescence told me all I needed to know about where Tony was going to spend the summer.

I took advantage of his silence to make a few plans of my own. The evidence was far from conclusive. Burckhardt had not been specific about details, which was not surprising; I didn’t suppose for a moment that he had penned the letter with his own mailed fist. He was probably semiliterate, like many of his noble contemporaries. No, the letter had been dictated to a secretary or public letter writer, and Burckhardt would naturally avoid names. But the given details fit the case. How many objects of value could there be, belonging to a Count of Drachenstein, that had been ‘commissioned’ from an old man of Würzburg? The letter even mentioned a bond, or surety, given by the old man for jewels such as the legend described.

I winced as Tony narrowly avoided a scuttling pedestrian, and went on thinking. The author of the book had not been concerned with art history or offbeat legends. He had only quoted Burckhardt because, in other parts of the letters, the count had described the fighting. Unless someone knew the legend, he wouldn’t notice the vital details, thanks to Burckhardt’s caution. But I was reasonably certain that the letters did indeed refer to Riemerschneider’s lost masterpiece. Burckhardt mentioned sending ‘it’ home. Even with a strong guard, the trip would be hazardous. It was quite possible that the caravan had been ambushed and the shrine seized and broken up for the sake of the jewels set in its carving. It was also possible . . .

I hadn’t made any plans for the summer. If Riemenschneider’s shrine still existed, anywhere on the face of the earth, there was one obvious place in which to look for it. And there was nothing to prevent me from looking.

I had reached that point in my meditations when we skidded into a gatepost, bounced off, and continued along a dark, tree-lined drive. We had arrived, only half an hour late.

I was prepared to dislike Jacob Myers on sight, the way we always hate people who have more money than we do. He was bald and fat. His stomach hung out over his cummerbund. He came up to my chin. He had the mouth of a shark and the eyes of a poet. I felt an immediate rapport – with the shark, as well as the poet.

Myers’ house was something of a surprise. I knew his reputation as an art patron and collector, but that didn’t mean he had good taste; rich people can afford to buy taste. In size and sheer opulence the house was what I had expected, but the overall impression was unorthodox. The most unexpected objects were juxtaposed and somehow they looked right together. They had only one thing in common. They were all beautiful, from the faded Persian rug on the dining-room floor to the little glazed blue pot on the table. I recognized the pot by its glaze; one of the girls in the college makes them as a hobby, and they sell, in local specialty shops, for about six bucks.

Jake – he told me to call him that – answered the door himself. There was a butler. Jake called him Al, and so did Tony. He looked like a heavyweight boxer and addressed me in tones reminiscent of Sir Laurence Olivier. I was staggering slightly as Jake led us into the living room, bawling out orders for cocktails as we went.

It would take a couple of chapters to describe that living room, so I won’t try. There were more Persian rugs – I hated to walk on them – and pictures that could have hung in the Uffizi. There was also a man. He rose from a chair by the hearth as we entered. I had plenty of time to study him as we marched from the door to the fireplace; the room was about sixty feet long.

He was a big man. The breadth of his shoulders and chest made Tony look like an adolescent. He had crisp auburn hair, cut shorter than is fashionable, and his features were more notable for strength than harmony. He radiated animal vitality, plus that indescribable air of – how do I describe it? Competence is the word that comes to mind. He looked like a man who could do anything, and do it well. But maybe I was reading things into his face. I knew him, even before Jake introduced us. He told me to call him George. Everybody was very matey that night – everybody but Tony. He hadn’t expected this guest, and didn’t bother concealing his lack of enthusiasm.

‘Hi, Nolan,’ he said. ‘Climbed any more mountains lately?’

‘Not since Everest,’ said George, his smile broadening.

As a put-down, it was pretty good. He had climbed Everest. He had also won the amateur tennis singles and sailed the Atlantic in a one man canoe, or a raft, or some stupid thing. Sports Illustrated loved to feature his activities. Certain less naïve publications had described other aspects of his expeditions – the Sherpa who didn’t get back down Everest, the animals whose pelts and heads decorated Nolan’s walls in defiance of protective laws.

I wondered at first how such disparate personalities as George and Jake Myers had become acquainted. As the conversation proceeded, I realized that it was not business or social interests that made them friends, but a common passion. They were both art collectors, and the rivalry between them added to the appeal of beauty for its own sake. Jake was brutally frank about the rivalry. No sooner had we been served with drinks than he burst out in a childish explosion of spleen. George had beaten him out in acquiring a van der Weyden painting, and the loss rankled.

‘How much did you bribe that dealer?’ he inquired. ‘He promised it to me, you know. That was the dirtiest piece of crummy underhanded swindling – ’

‘Since you stole the Sienese triptych out from under my nose,’ George interrupted. ‘This makes us even. Keep cool, Jake; I told you I’d let you have the van der Weyden.’

‘At a neat profit to yourself.’

‘Naturally.’

Looking back, I can see that what transpired that evening was as inevitable as a chemical formula. If you mix the right amounts of the right chemicals (chemistry was never my forte), you always get nitroglycerine. You don’t sometimes get Caesar salad and sometimes Chanel Number Five. Here we had two men, each massively arrogant in his own fashion, who enjoyed their rivalry with the blind passion of nasty little boys; a third man, who was viewed by the other two with varying degrees of good-natured contempt, and little me. Poor Tony had obviously taken a lot from George Nolan; I could tell by the way they looked at each other, and by the barbed comments. Now I am not being a female chauvinist when I maintain that some men get awfully silly in the presence of a woman. They start showing off. Roosters and little boys fight; human males try to put the other guy down in more subtle ways.

George started moving in on me. He did it very well, but I knew his heart wasn’t in it; he was only trying to aggravate Tony. Jake saw what was going on, and sat back to watch. He liked Tony and he didn’t much care for George; but he loved dissension.

I never said he was a nice guy.

I don’t know when I saw the gleam in Tony’s eye and realized what he was going to do. It must have been before dinner, because apprehension ruined the meal for me. I was so annoyed with all three men that I munched my way grimly through a magnificent spread, wishing I could get my teeth into somebody’s hand. I couldn’t figure out any way of stopping Tony, short of falling on the floor in a fit, and that seemed a trifle drastic. George kept needling Tony; there were frequent references to ivory towers and effete scholars and muscles that had grown flabby from too much study. Yet in a way, what happened was my fault. If Tony and I hadn’t been feuding . . .

Sure enough, with the dessert, the inevitable name was introduced, by Tony, with all the subtlety of a bulldozer.

‘Speaking of sculpture’ – which nobody was – ‘how much would you give for a Riemenschneider?’

George had the face of an actor or a con man, beautifully schooled; but I saw him blink before he readjusted his mask. Then I knew. The guy was a fake. He’d never heard of Riemenschneider, and I felt sure his passion for art was not genuine. For him it was a device to outdo lesser men. As a kid he had probably collected rocks or bottles with the same single-minded fury, chiselling and outbidding other kids in order to get the biggest collection in town.

I would have tripped him up, then and there – and I had thought of a couple of ways in which to do it – but Jake outmanoeuvered me.

‘Riemenschneider,’ he rumbled, in his bass bullfrog voice. ‘Yes – the German woodcarver. Saint Stephen in the Cleveland Museum. God that’s a masterpiece. That’s really great. Yeah, yeah; there was a theft, couple years ago. The Madonna from Volkach. German government ransomed it.’

‘Not the government; the editor of Der Stern.’

‘Shut up,’ Myers said, glaring at Tony. ‘Twenty-five thousand ransom. That’s a lot of money. Yeah, sure, I remember the case. Nothing wrong with my memory. You just stop interrupting me, Tony.’

George, for one, had no intention of interrupting. He sat tapping his fingers gently on the table, a faint, knowing smile on his face. But the smile didn’t fool me. I couldn’t expose his ignorance now; foxy Grandpa had already told him what he needed to know. Myers really did have a fabulous memory. His enthusiasm was genuine, even if it was amplified by the old acquisitive instinct.

‘Tony,’ I said gently, ‘do you think you ought – ’

Jake leaned forwards, elbows planted squarely on the table, and squinted at me.

‘So you’re in on this.’ His voice was unexpectedly genial. It made a chill run up my spine. ‘Well, well. That makes it even more interesting. Now don’t you interrupt me again, young woman! Let me talk. Let me think. Sure, I know Riemenschneider. I also know it would be virtually impossible to get hold of a major piece. Most of his stuff is in churches or museums. And you wouldn’t dangle a minor work in front of my nose . . .’

He wasn’t talking to us. He was thinking aloud. His squinty little black eyes shone like jet. Another chill explored my backbone. The old devil was smart, smart and hard as nails. With one half-hearted question Tony had set a bloodhound on the trail.

Tony, who knew him better than I did, was thinking the same thing. His mouth had dropped open, and there were two parallel lines between his eyebrows. He caught my eye, and his mouth tightened. He looked away.

‘You’re not a dealer,’ Myers went on. ‘Private collectors wouldn’t approach you. Which one are you planning to steal, and how do you propose to go about it?’

George laughed. My jaw dropped, in its turn. I shouldn’t have been taken aback. I know enough about rabid collectors to realize they will stop at nothing, including homicide, to get what they want. A little matter of robbery doesn’t bother them a bit. It’s common knowledge that dozens of ‘lost’ art treasures, stolen from the world’s great museums, now repose cosily in locked and hidden vaults, where the millionaire owners can gloat over them in secret.

‘Damn it, Tony,’ I burst out. ‘Why can’t you keep your big mouth shut?’

George laughed again, and Jake grinned at me. He looked more like a shark than ever.

‘Don’t blame him, honey. If you hadn’t stuck your two cents in, I wouldn’t have paid any attention to Tony. I know he goes off half-cocked all the time. But if there are two of you in this deal – and one of them is a girl like you – ’

‘Oh – ’ I began; but before I could get the dear old Anglo-Saxon word out, George interrupted. His face was purple with amusement.

‘You’re the one who’s going off half-cocked, Jake. You know our moral laddy here; he isn’t going to steal anything. He’s a good boy. No; if I were to hazard a guess – and I always do hazard – I would say that our two experts have stumbled on an unknown work. Or,’ he added; watching my face, ‘on a clue to such a work. Isn’t there a story . . . ?’

He let the word trail off suggestively.

I was torn between self-reproach and admiration at the guy’s technique. He didn’t know a bloody thing about the legend of the shrine. He was guessing; but it was inspired guessing, the method of a skilled fortune-teller who uses his victim’s facial expressions as a guide to the accuracy of his surmises. And heaven knows my big, round, candid face was as readable as print.

I tried to freeze the face, and I watched Jake, who had responded to the hint as a fish to the lure. His brow wrinkled as he searched his capacious memory. My heart sank. I didn’t realize until then how deeply my emotions were involved. It was my discovery, damn it, and nobody was going to take it away from me.

‘Nope,’ Jake said finally. ‘Seems to me I did read something, once . . . But I’ve forgotten. Can’t remember everything. Is that it, Tony? Found yourself a clue, boy?’

I felt like sagging with relief. Jake had accepted George’s reasoning, and, as a result, he was less excited. A robbery made sense to him. A vague, unspecified clue to an unknown work was not in his line.

His tone maddened Tony, as did George’s superior smile. He sat up straight in his chair and looked directly at Jake. His hair was hanging down over one eyebrow, but I must admit he had a kind of dignity.

‘Are you interested?’ he said. ‘Yes or no.’

‘Sure I’m interested.’

‘That doesn’t mean you’re going to get it,’ George said gently. He smiled at me. ‘It’s a matter of pride not to let Jake get things away from me.’

‘Now wait a minute,’ I said indignantly. ‘Who’s offering what to whom? It’s just as much my idea as Tony’s, more so, because I saw the book first, and furthermore – ’

Tony let out a yelp, but I didn’t need that to know what I had done. I shut up, thankful I hadn’t said more. Jake, who was shaking all over, let out a loud ‘haw-haw.’

‘I should let you two go on arguing,’ he said, when he had gotten his mirth under control. ‘It’s not only funny, it could be informative. But the information is apt to help Nolan more than it does me. So shut up, the pair of you. Tell you what I’ll do. I don’t know what you’ve got on your minds, or what your plans are, but if either of you turns up with a Riemenschneider, I’ll buy it. Fair price, no questions asked. I’ll even stake you, if you need money.’

‘No,’ Tony said.

‘No, thanks,’ I snapped.

We glared at each other.

The rest of the evening was not notable for the wit and intellectuality of the conversation. I had taken Jake’s warning to heart, and so had Tony; since neither of us could control our mouths, it was better not to discuss the subject at all. But it was impossible to think about anything else. By the time we got into the car to go home, I had been suppressing my thoughts long enough. Tony was fumbling with the key and the ignition when I exploded.

‘Of all the stupid, conceited, dumb . . . One indefinite comment in an old letter, and you promise him a Riemenschneider! The chances are a thousand to one that it’s been destroyed. And even if it hasn’t – ’

Tony dropped the key. Turning, he grabbed me by the shoulders. He shook me. Then he kissed me. Then he shook me again. Taking unfair advantage of my temporary lack of breath, he said, ‘It’s all your fault. You got me into this, and by God, I’ll get myself out with no help from you. I can read your sneaky underhanded female mind. I know what you’re planning. Go ahead. I’ll beat you to it. We’re starting out fair and square, with the same information.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘A challenge. Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘It’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of. The chances of success for either of us are infinitesimal. Even if we found the thing, it doesn’t belong to us. You can’t promise Jake – ’

‘I don’t give a damn about Jake. I’m going to find the shrine just to prove to you that you aren’t as smart as you think you are.’

Tony and I continued to meet socially, but neither of us mentioned any subject that had the remotest bearing on late Gothic sculpture. This tacit restriction limited conversation considerably. It also cast a pall over our non-vocal activities. I finally figured out why Tony was behaving like a desert anchorite harassed by voluptuous female demons, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or sneer. He thought he might babble, under the softening influence of sex. And he might have, at that. I never got the chance to find out. We were both busy.

I wasn’t surprised when George started calling me, nor was I particularly worried. If he was more interested in picking my brains than pursuing my body, it made a restful change from my usual dates. He was a wonderful dancer, an epicure, a connoisseur of fine wines, and he spent money like water. He was also witty and amusing. Even his hints about sculpture were thrown out with a grin and a tongue in the cheek, and no expectation of success. But I knew that behind the grin and the charm lay a will of iron. He had announced his intentions of beating both of us to the treasure; and if he lacked Tony’s and my special knowledge, he had a lot of other things going for him. Money, for instance, and a high degree of ruthlessness. As a rival for the shrine he was much more dangerous than Tony, and I didn’t underestimate him for a second. But that didn’t keep me from enjoying the country club and the weekends in New York.

Don’t misunderstand those weekends. I spotted George right away; women were very low down on his list of temptations. He wasn’t gay, in the usual sense; he just wasn’t interested in people at all – people of either sex. Of course Tony, the goop, didn’t know that. Men are such suckers for externals; they think a bass voice and a broad chest make a male. We could tell them a few things; but why give away an advantage? Anyhow, George’s professed interest in me was just one more irritation for Tony, and George knew it. As the months went on, Tony withdrew altogether. I only saw him at faculty meetings, or in the halls. But I knew what he was doing. And, of course, vice versa. I was hooked, and I had been, from the beginning. The challenge was enough to arouse any red-blooded, six-foot American girl, but that wasn’t the only reason I was making plans to head for Germany in June. I was caught by the sheer romance of it. Hidden treasures – lost masterpieces – castles – jewels – and those beautiful melancholy faces only Riemenschneider could carve. To rescue something like that from the dust and darkness of centuries . . .

Furthermore, if that long, lanky male chauvinist thought he could outsmart me, he had another think coming.