Circle of Shadows

VII.3

The court hunt was not like any hunt Harriet had seen before. Some two miles outside Ulrichsberg was a great walled field. As they were led towards the Duke’s presence, she saw that the wall, which separated the field from the forest was open in several places along its length. On raised ground opposite, a mass of banked seating had been erected, like that which had surrounded the dais where the marriage contract had been signed. There was a great crowd of carriages, and in the stands were some hundred men and women gloriously dressed as if for a ball rather than a hunt. Any number of liveried servants moved among them with food and drink. How anonymous they are, Harriet thought. We never see who is there, who is listening. There were a number of men with guns over their arms in the front ranks of the stands, and looking down into the field below them, but that was the only sign that anyone in the crowd was prepared for sport.

Harriet looked up at Colonel Padfield somewhat quizzically. ‘Is there to be jousting?’ she asked.

‘Hunts in this part of the world are not as they are in England, Mrs Westerman,’ the Colonel said with a grunt. ‘The beaters drive the game in from the surrounding woods and they are funnelled into the field there. Then the gentlemen shoot and the ladies applaud.’

‘It must be a slaughter,’ Harriet said, somewhat appalled.

‘So it is. But it amuses the gentry. Come, the Duke is waiting for us.’

Harriet and Crowther were guided into the Duke’s box, where they found Ludwig Christoph and his new wife seated under an awning bearing the Arms of Maulberg. The Duchess looked very young, but quite content. She had the spaniel on her lap. When Harriet and Crowther were introduced she looked up briefly at them and nodded, then continued to pet the dog. The Duke got up slowly from his seat and walked towards them.

‘A pleasure to see you both. I have been hearing all about your adventures,’ he yawned. ‘And I thought I had a busy day yesterday.’ He glanced back at the girl behind them and smiled.

‘Congratulations on your marriage, Your Highness,’ Harriet said.

‘Thank you, dear. I have called you here to say goodbye and to assure you we have conveyed our gratitude for your service to King George. Oh, and that little picture I mentioned — it is wrapped and boxed and in your rooms. If you would tell Mr Graves to have a word with Herr Zeller before he leaves us, I am sure he will find the new terms of business on the bonds quite satisfactory.’

‘What will happen to Theo Kupfel, sire?’ Harriet said.

The Duke said indulgently, ‘Well, he has been very naughty, but he insists he thought the Minervals were acting with my full knowledge and consent. Remarkable how many of them are saying that! Makes you wonder if any of them have read their own literature. And he does make such lovely creams … I don’t think I can do without him.’

A gentleman appeared at the Duke’s elbow and bowed, a gun in his hand.

‘Ah, wonderful — are they on their way? Goodbye, Mrs Westerman, Mr Crowther.’ He turned to his wife. ‘My dear?’ She sighed and shifted the dog from her lap before standing and taking his arm as he made his way towards the barrier.

From the forest the sound of the beaters whooping and yelling grew louder. The men arranged around the edge of the field lifted their guns. There was a sudden movement in the woods and all at once a great number of animals were pouring into the arena. Wild boar, deer and smaller game, terrified and tumbling into each other, filling the space to capacity almost at once and clambering over each other in their panic. The Duchess raised her handkerchief and let it fall and the guns began to thunder.

They moved away swiftly. Harriet almost didn’t hear someone calling her name. She was already climbing into the carriage when she caught it and turned to see the young woman whose daughter had worn Clode’s mask running over the ground towards her.

‘Good afternoon, my dear,’ Harriet said in French. ‘How is your daughter?’

‘Very well,’ the girl said with a quick smile. ‘She was a little confused for a day or so, but now it all seems like a dream to her. I am so happy to have seen you! Madam, this is yours. You gave it as a comfort for my child, but I cannot let her keep it. It is too fine.’

Harriet looked down at the jewel in her hand — the paste-and-brilliants flower she had let Graves give the little girl — and felt a tiny sting of regret. She had been fond of it. ‘Does your daughter believe it was a gift from the Fairy King?’ The dancer nodded. ‘Then I will certainly not deprive her of it. Keep it. Please.’

‘Oh thank you, madam,’ the girl said, beaming. ‘She holds onto it so tight, I had to take it from her while she was sleeping!’

Harriet smiled. The girl’s delight was infectious. ‘Oh, she must have it back. I can bear the loss much better than she would, I think.’

‘I have been trying to make one a little like it, out of cloth and the seed pearls from one of my costumes.’

‘Is that not stealing from the Duke, dear?’

‘Bah!’ She waved her hand. ‘The costume has so many pearls on it. They cannot even be seen. I would happily steal from a dozen Dukes for my little girl. I thought to tell her it had changed in the night, because it is a fairy jewel, but my efforts have not been very fairylike.’ She giggled. ‘Even though I stayed up every night. Do you have children, madam?’

‘Two,’ Harriet said, thinking of them. ‘A boy of ten and a girl of four.’

‘It is terrible to love so much, is it not? There is nothing I would not do for my daughter.’ She took something from her pocket and handed it to Harriet. It was a fabric flower the size of Harriet’s palm and studded with seed pearls. Perhaps the work was not the finest, but it had been made with all the love and care its creator could manage, that much was obvious. ‘Since you have saved my little girl a great many tears, perhaps this may make your daughter smile.’

Harriet thanked her very warmly. The girl blushed, and murmuring that she would keep them no longer, retreated. In the carriage Harriet stared at the flower and thought of the dancer ruining her eyesight by candlelight to try and lessen her child’s loss.

‘Crowther?’

‘Yes, Mrs Westerman?’

‘Count Frenzel did not poison Swann’s gloves.’

He tilted his head to one side. ‘No, I suppose he did not. It was not one of Frenzel’s poisons, and the attack almost deprived him of his last victim. The poison chamber belonged to the Minervals. Then who on earth did try and kill him?’

Harriet looked at the flower. ‘I think I know.’