Circle of Shadows

VII.2

Krall was happy to be on horseback. Count Frenzel had been formally arrested on Maulberg land, then sent off to Castle Grenzhow where Krall was sure Herr Hoffman would receive him with delight. Now he rode to make an official visit to the priest at Oberbach with Michaels, though there was a place he needed to stop first. Then he would have to spend months up to his armpits in paperwork. Crimes to be documented, crimes concealed. Statements and further statements to be written, witnessed and sealed. No matter the madman had written out his confession in his letter to his son, it would all need to be checked and ticked. He had already assembled more paper than even the Law Faculty at Leuchtenstadt would know what to do with, and in truth he had only begun to scrape the surface.

In the week since they had arrived Mrs Westerman and Crowther had turned the world upside down, and transformed it from a place he knew, where there were a few niggling questions, into a theatre of horrors. They had also forced him to realise that he loved his sovereign and would always put his battered old body between the Duke and harm.

‘Are they always like this?’ he said, and Michaels smiled.

‘Can’t say, Mr Krall. Mostly I know them from Hartswood, though they stirred things up to a right brew there in the year eighty. Glad they did, though. It’s not their way to make things comfortable for those around them. They’re like a dose of cod liver oil. You curse them at the time, but in general they makes things better in the end.’

‘How did you hear about where the girl might be buried?’ Krall asked, and noticed that Michaels chose that moment to stroke his horse’s mane.

‘Girl who seemed a little simple in Mittelbach.’ Krall was old enough to sense when he was only being told part of a story, but he let it lie. Another secret for the pile.

They were within a short ride of Oberbach when Krall pulled gently at his reins and guided his horse off the road.

‘Mr Krall?’

‘Got to pick up our fugitive, Mr Michaels.’

‘Wimpf? You reckon he’s here?’

‘Here or hereabouts. I know the family.’

Michaels looked at him from under his thick eyebrows. ‘You seem mighty relaxed for a man in pursuit, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘I know his mother. And that means I know there’s no need to rush.’

They turned a corner in the road and Michaels looked about him at the good-sized farmhouse, its chimney already smoking. A pig and a fair number of fat-looking hens bumbled about in front of it, the chickens trying to avoid the attentions of a small, rather grubby little boy of about eight years old. He turned and stared at them as they dismounted, Krall with his pipe clamped between his teeth.

A woman in early middle age appeared on the doorstep and shielded her eyes against the morning light. As soon as she recognised Krall she put her broom aside and, smoothing her apron, walked down the steps towards them.

‘Arno, get inside now,’ she said to the child. He obeyed at once and shut the door behind him. Michaels was impressed; even his own wife had to raise her voice to separate their youngest from his play. ‘Good morning, Benedict.’

‘Morning, Emma.’

‘There’s a little cave up on the slope where he used to play as a kid. Jan’s taken him up there for now. Thought it best to keep him away from the little ones.’

‘I’m sorry, Emma.’

She nodded. ‘I feel it, Benedict. I feel it as my fault. I should have raised him better, kept a closer eye on him these years that he’s been in service, or asked more questions about where the money was coming from. But Jan’s been poorly, and I just took it.’

‘He’s told you all then?’

She looked at the ground. ‘I think so. Couldn’t get it out fast enough once he’d started. My poor boy. He believes it all, still, somehow. He’s a clever lad, and his smartness needed something to fasten on. Lord, I wish I’d never done service with that family. When Count Frenzel returned to court and found my boy there, he called it fate and swelled his head. It was Christian spied on Swann’s little crew, gave the Count all the names. Did his bidding.’ Krall was silent, drawing on his pipe. The chickens scrapped and cooed at each other. ‘I was at the wedding, when poor Miss Antonia married the Count. She would never have wanted this.’ She put her hand to her eyes. ‘May she rest in peace. I shall pray for her.’

‘As shall I,’ Krall said, and waited.

‘What will happen to him, Benedict? He never killed anyone, you know. Helped, it’s true, but he swears he was never there for the killing, and I believe him. Swann would have been the first.’ She looked quite calm.

‘Grenzhow, probably, for a year or two, though I can’t make you any promises.’ Krall sighed. ‘He’ll be treated fairly there. And after? Well, I can find him work with my son-in-law if he’s got his thinking straightened out.’

‘I’ll see that he does.’ Michaels believed it absolutely. ‘Benedict, I have a request to make of you. Let him stay here a day. He’s scared and he’s twisted about with all this nonsense. Let him be with me and Jan for a day before it begins with lawyers and locks. Then let Jan bring him into Ulrichsberg in the morning. That would look better, wouldn’t it? Him coming in with his da?’ Krall hesitated. ‘Benedict, he’s only seventeen years old.’

The District Officer pulled hard on his pipe and exhaled a great cloud of smoke. ‘On your word, Emma. I’ll take that promise. But I have business that’ll keep me in Oberbach all day, then I’ll have a night in my own bed. Bring him to me in the morning. It’ll still stand to his credit.’ The woman looked up at Michaels. ‘Don’t worry about Mr Michaels, Emma.’

‘Thank you.’

Krall got back on his horse and they made their way slowly back to the road.

‘How did you know he’d go back home?’ Michaels said at last.

‘He’s seventeen and his mother loves him. Where else would he go? Now let’s get on and see Beatrice settled in Oberbach.’

‘The headstone is on my charge.’ Krall raised his eyebrows, and Michaels spoke into his beard. ‘I dug the poor kid up — I’m not going to see her stuck in another hole with no marker to it.’

Krall nodded and touched the horse’s flanks with his heels.