The Count still had hold of him. ‘I am very well, my boy. And you are always welcome here, now more than ever. How perfect it is that you come today — how wonderfully Providence plans every detail.’
Florian looked bemused, but recovering slightly said, ‘This is my friend, Mr Jacob Pegel. A fellow student at Leuchtenstadt.’
Pegel bowed and found himself clapped on the shoulder with such enthusiasm he almost stumbled. ‘But you are so much more than that! Aren’t you, Mr Pegel? We were not introduced this morning, but I was there when you explained matters to the Duke. I am proud to have you here, my boy.’ Pegel opened and shut his mouth. There had been a number of people in the room … ‘And you are a friend of my son’s? Wonderful! Now I know why you are here. You are consideration itself. So much better for Florian to be out of Leuchtenstadt while the Faculty and student body are purged of these Minervals! They are so many that Florian must have acquaintance among them.’ He became serious. ‘Good of you to remove him at such a distressing time.’ Pegel became aware that Florian was looking at him, his mouth slightly open. ‘Yes, your friend is a hero of Maulberg, Florian. Now come, I shall take you up to your rooms myself. Is that all your luggage?’
He turned to lead the way into the building and skipped lightly up the main staircase then turned to the left. Pegel followed with his eyes down. He had known he would have to tell Florian some time, but he wanted to explain over a bottle of wine. Later. Not have it dropped on him like this. He could feel the anger and pain coming off his friend in waves.
If the Count noticed the distress of the two young men, he gave no sign of it. ‘Here you are,’ he said, opening the door. ‘Your mother’s room for the time being, I think. Now, you boys rest and I shall have Wimpf bring you up something to eat and drink. I’ll just turn the key on you …’
‘Father?’ Florian said with an embarrassed laugh.
‘A few matters I must take care of, Florian. Then we can all be together.’ He squeezed his son’s shoulder. ‘I am so pleased you are here, my child. And your friend.’
He was out of the door in a moment and the key turned.
Pegel tried to talk to him, but Florian would not look at him. Wimpf brought food and wine, and Florian only stared at the floor while Jacob ate. His face was pink with rage.
‘It was you,’ he said at last.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because doing so will make me very rich.’
‘Is that the only way you have to make money? With a brain like yours?’
‘No, but it’s one I have come to enjoy.’
‘I thought you were my friend.’
Pegel threw down the remains of a chicken leg. ‘And so I have been! You are not locked up in one of the Duke’s cellars now, are you? I owe a favour to the most dangerous man in Europe now, because I decided to save your skin. And I lied to a Duke in getting your name off that list. I wonder if Daddy would have been so pleased to see you if he knew you were up to your neck in this Minervals crap.’
‘You expect me to be grateful!’
‘Well, I didn’t know your father was going to lock us up instead.’ Pegel got to his feet and began to pace the room. ‘Enough of this. I will not wait on your father, Florian! I cannot sit still behind a locked door. What sort of man is he?’
‘I hardly know,’ Frenzel replied miserably. ‘He has always been a man of strong passions. I have never seen him like this, though. He has never been affectionate with me before. Even when my step-mother was alive … I only met her once, at the wedding.’
There was a gentle scraping at the door. Not the sharp rap that Wimpf had used, but a cautious whispering call. Frenzel went to the door. ‘Who is it?’
‘Master Florian? It’s Gunter, sir.’
‘Gunter! How are you? Lord, I wish I could see your face. Can you open the door?’
‘That devil Wimpf has taken the key. I am only to give you this. You are to read it.’ A thick bundle of papers appeared under the door. Florian picked it up. ‘I wish you hadn’t have come, Master Florian. He’s taken a turn for the worse.’
‘Look out for yourself, Gunter. And the other servants.’
‘There’s only me and Cook left now. He sent the others away when that girl first came.’
‘What girl?’
‘I have to go. Be careful.’
Whatever doubts Pegel had had before, that overheard conversation dispelled them. He opened the narrow window of the bedchamber as wide as it would go. Florian was at his shoulder almost at once. ‘Jacob! What are you thinking of? The drop is too far.’
‘I won’t sit here like a chicken ready for the pot, Florian. Stay here and read your letters if you want.’ Pegel stripped the linens from the bed and began to tie them into a rope end to end. Still far too short for the drop, but it would at least take twenty feet off it. He tied one end to the bedpost and pulled it with all his strength to test the knot.
‘Do people really make ropes out of sheets?’ Florian said, slightly amazed. ‘I thought they only did that in novels.’
‘I have never done it before, but it seems as good an idea as any.’
‘You don’t often have to escape from your treachery out of high windows?’
Pegel spun round at him. ‘You are a bloody fool! And the worst sort. The sort who so believes in his own high purposes that he’s forgotten most of the world is blood and stink, and most people are blood and stink. You’d be as much use in an actual revolution as a nun in the Grenadiers. Your only purpose, your only use is to feed each other’s delusions about your ideas for the greater good. You’re a naive idiot and why I risked my neck to get you out of Leuchtenstadt, I have no idea.’
‘Neither do I! All my friends betrayed, everything destroyed. Our plans set back a dozen years. You have brought misery on a nation, Pegel!’
‘Oh fuck off, you self-important little fool. Some madman has hunted down the Minervals in Ulrichsberg. That secret circle of seven at the court are wiped out! And what did they do when they had power? Poison anyone who threatened it, and slander some poor woman so they could plant one of your little friends in the Duke’s bed.’
‘What are you saying? That’s not true. That can’t be true!’
‘I’ve read the letters. Her name was Kastner.’
‘Kastner? That was my step-mother’s name before she married my father.’
Pegel hardly heard him. ‘Now get out of my way.’ Pegel clambered up onto the window-ledge and pulled a loop of the improvised rope around him. As his foot pressed against the ledge his ankle screamed at him, but he set his teeth.
‘What’s to stop me cutting the sheet and sending you to your death?’ Florian said, desperation in his eyes.
‘You haven’t got the guts,’ Pegel said simply and began to lower himself down the wall.
At the end of his rope, he hesitated. It was still perhaps ten feet left to fall, then a long sloping roof leading into one of the internal courtyards. He found himself wondering what would be better, to further injure his right leg, or to risk his left and aim to fall on that side. He closed his eyes and let fate decide. He landed on his side, then slid down the deep slope of the roof. Even as he fought for a grip on the tiles he felt a certain peace. It was as if he was watching the whole from above. I wonder what will happen now? some calm, mildly interested voice asked in the back of his head as he tumbled forward, his chin scraping and bouncing, the wounds on his hands opening up. He rolled off the guttering and something hard struck him at the base of his skull.
My child,
This is a love story. I know that when you have read these pages you will understand this. Love gave me life, love took it away. Love gave me the power I now have. With it, I serve love.
Your mother and I were married to join two houses, two estates, never two hearts. She was a good wife to me in the brief years of our union and I grieved for her sincerely, though I could not then understand the fierce passion of loss that you felt as a child. How can one imagine what one has never felt? I thought you weak and unreasonable and I fear you must have seen that, must have felt it. I hope others were more generous to you than I. Is it any comfort to you to know that I have experienced all the horrors of grief since then? And in feeling them have thought of you?