It was a brisk December day in 1811. He was almost three years old. As Mrs. Allan's hired hack bore him away, along the cobbled streets of Richmond, he became aware at some point that his baby sister Rosalie was gone, also.
He was taken to the three-story Georgian brick house at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Tobacco Alley which was now to be his home. She did not come back for him. It was taking very long.
We came after considerable travel to the quiet duchy of Aragon. No signs of war here, as back in Spain proper. Some of Prospero's subjects spoke French, others Spanish, and still others English. The peace here was of a deathlike sort. If there had been foreign armies in this land recently, they had fled months ago. This domain was devastated not by war, but by disease. Traveling, we first heard rumors and then saw terrible evidence—funeral processions, chanting monks, deserted villages—of the presence of the Red Death, a variant of pneumonic plague.
We had entered a new year while working our way around a war zone. Valdemar, again, was invaluable in this respect. Another matter on which he'd advised us concerned Prince Prospero and his present situation. The prince had apparently removed himself from all human commerce only a few days before our arrival. Nor was it a simple sequestration. Rather, careless of what happened to the majority of his people, he had called to his side a thousand friends and companions. Determined to escape the Red Death, they—with a suitable staff of servants and a company or two of soldiers—had barricaded themselves inside one of his castellated abbeys where, well supplied with all manner of provisions, they expected to wait out the epidemic.
All of which would be pretty much academic, save that Prospero was apparently one of the men Von Kempelen had approached on the matter so near to everyone's heart. And Von Kempelen had elected to enter the refuge with the prince.
Because of the involvement of Annie, Valdemar could not be certain, but he felt it likely that Templeton, Goodfellow, and Griswold had also taken sanctuary with Prospero.
"Find me the place," I insisted.
"It is outside Tarragona," Valdemar explained, gesturing now. "To the northwest. A little village called Santa Creus."
And so we headed east.
The following week our coach rattled into Santa Creus. It was an eerie feeling, for the town was mainly deserted. We rolled about its streets for a time that afternoon, viewing at last what had to be the abbey, in the distance—an enormous building with soldiers on the walls and at every point which might possess a gate. I told our driver to head for it.
When our approach was noted several shots were fired in our direction, and orders to halt were shouted in Spanish, French, and English. We complied.
I stepped down from the coach. I took one step in the direction of the abbey.
"Halt!" a guard repeated.
"Certainly. I'd appreciate speaking English."
"What do you want, English?" one called back.
"I'm looking for some people I believe may have gone inside a few days ago."
"If that is the case there is no way to reach them," he said.
"It's very important." I flipped a gold coin into the air and caught it.
"We're billeted just inside the wall," he said. "Even we can't go any farther. The inner doors are welded shut."
"What about messages then? Is there no way to get a message inside?"
"No," he answered. "No way."
"All right," I said. "I understand. In that case, I'd like some information."
"Don't have any," he said. "You'd better be moving along."
"Wait! I'll pay you for it," I offered.
He laughed.
"Wouldn't touch your gold," he said. "Might be tainted with the Death."
I assumed my best parade ground voice then, "Soldier, was there a German named Von Kempelen? And four Americans—three men and a woman?"
He straightened visibly, his shoulders moving back.
"Sir, I do not know," he replied. "There were so many."
"Thank you, soldier. I take it nobody's doing business in town?"
"No, sir. And if I were you I'd not stop there. I'd head for the border and beat the horses till they fell.
Then I'd start running."
"Thanks." I turned away. I entered the coach.
"What now?" Ligeia asked me.
"We ride away," I replied. "We stop as soon as we're out of sight of the place. Then we have a talk with Valdemar. Annie may or may not be inside, but it's not her I want to ask about."
We parked near a skeletal olive grove. The others helped get down the coffin, and then took a walk when I explained that Ligeia and I were about to open it—save for Grip, who stood upon my left shoulder and observed.
Valdemar's eyes came open immediately when I raised the lid, without any preliminary mesmerism. The daylight did not seem to be bothering him either. Ligeia gave me a strange look and passed her hands above him then. Even before she had finished, he spoke: "What place is this?" he asked. It was not at all like him to initiate conversation.
"This is Santa Creus, near Tarragona, in Aragon," she answered.
"What is there that is special about it?"
"The Red Death has apparently taken a massive toll here," she said.
"Ah!" he said. "Those lucky, lucky dead! How fine! How fortunate! Gladly would I trade caskets with any of them. To sleep! Perchance never to dream!"
I cleared my throat.
"I hate to keep bothering you with the mundane and earthly," I said, "but there's no one else I can ask."
"I understand your mortal predicament," he replied. "Ask."
"There is a huge abbey near here. We just visited the place," I explained. "There seems to be no way in.
It is guarded. The doors are even welded shut. But I believe that Von Kempelen is inside, and possibly Annie, Templeton, Goodfellow, and Griswold. It occurs to me that large ancient buildings often possessed secret entrances. Can you tell whether this is the case here? I want badly to get inside."
His eyes rolled back suddenly, showing only the whites once more. His hands fell into place across his breast. There was a long pause before he spoke, then, "There is a secret passage from the abbey to the city," came his sepulchral tones. "A tunnel. It has been out of use for so long that I cannot see where life may pass. It has been changed. Perhaps sealed. The town has changed above it."
Again, silence.
Finally, "Could you be more specific?" I inquired.
"No," he replied. "But Von Kempelen is within, and there is that ambiguous quality I have learned to associate with Annie. She may well be there, also."
"Could it also be as it was in Toledo? Confusion at the crossing of her path?"
"Yes."
"Still, I have no choice."
He said nothing.
"The tunnel is the only secret way in?" I asked.
"The only one that I see. Let me rest."
I executed the dismissing gesture myself, without thinking. His eyes closed and the lid slammed. At this, Grip did his champagne uncorking sound.
In a little while we were loaded again and on our way into town.
We parked in a mews near the plaza, and I hung my saber from my belt. The afternoon was running on toward evening. Peters and I thought to explore quickly, obtain a general notion of the place's layout and perhaps gain an impression of the likeliest area for the tunnel's terminus. Ligeia was to wait with the coachman during our excursion.
And so we hiked about, Emerson flitting from building to building and through an occasional treetop, pacing us. The town was very quiet. Storefronts were boarded over. We saw no one, heard no voices.