Woermann watched her cast a pleading look at her father, begging him to say something. But the old man remained silent. She took a deep breath and turned toward the back room.
"You now have a minute and a half," Woermann told her.
"A minute and a half for what?" said a voice behind him. It was Kaempffer.
Groaning inwardly and readying himself for a battle of wills, Woermann faced the SS man.
"Your timing is superb as usual, Major," he said. "I was just telling Fräulein Cuza to pack her things and move herself over to the inn."
Kaempffer opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the professor.
"I forbid it!" he cried in his dry, shrill voice. "I will not permit you to send my daughter away!"
Kaempffer's eyes narrowed as his attention was drawn from Woermann to Cuza. Even Woermann found himself turning in surprise to see what had prompted the outburst.
"Youforbid, old Jew?" Kaempffer said in a hoarse voice as he moved past Woermann to the professor. "You forbid? Let me tell you something: You forbid nothing around here! Nothing!"
The old man bowed his head in resignation.
Satisfied with the result of his vented anger, Kaempffer turned back to Woermann. "See that she's out of here immediately. She's a troublemaker!"
Dazed and bemused, Woermann watched Kaempffer storm out of the room as abruptly as he had arrived. He looked at Cuza whose head was no longer bowed, and who now appeared to be resigned to nothing.
"Why didn't you protest before the major arrived?" Woermann asked him. "I had the impression you wanted her out of the keep."
"Perhaps. But I changed my mind."
"So I noticed—and in a most provocative manner at a most strategic moment. Do you manipulate everyone this way?"
"My dear Captain," Cuza said, his tone serious, "no one pays much attention to a cripple. People look at the body and see that it's wrecked by an accident or wasted by illness, and they automatically carry the infirmity to the mind within that body. 'He can't walk, therefore he can't have anything intelligent or useful or interesting to say.' So a cripple like me soon learns how to make other people come up with an idea he has already thought of, and to have them arrive at that idea in such a way that they believe it originated with them. It's not manipulation—it's a form of persuasion."
As Magda emerged from the rear room, suitcase in hand, Woermann realized with chagrin, and perhaps a touch of admiration, that he, too, had been manipulated—or "persuaded," to give the professor his due. He now knew whose idea it had been for Magda to make those repeated trips to the mess and the cellar. The realization did not bother him too much, though. His own instincts had always been against having a woman in the keep.
"I'm going to leave you at the inn unguarded," he told Magda. "I'm sure you understand that if you run off it will not go well with your father. I'm going to trust in your honor and your devotion to him."
He did not add that it would be courting a riot to decide which soldiers would do guard duty on her—competition for the double benefit of separation from the keep and proximity to an attractive female would further widen the existing rift between the two contingents of soldiers. He had no choice but to trust her.
A look passed between father and daughter.
"Have no fear, Captain," Magda said, glaring at her father. "I have no intention of running off and deserting him."
He watched the professor's hands bunch into two thick, angry fists.
"You'd better take this," Cuza said, pushing one of the books toward her, the one he had called the Al Azif. "Study it tonight so we can discuss it tomorrow."
There was a trace of mischief in her smile. "You know I don't read Arabic, Papa." She picked up another, slimmer volume. "I think I'll take this one instead."
They stared at each other across the table. They were at an impasse of wills, and Woermann thought he had a good idea where the conflict lay.
Without warning, Magda stepped around the table and kissed her father on the cheek. She smoothed his sparse white hairs, then straightened up and looked Woermann directly in the eye.
"Take care of my father, Captain. Please. He's all I have."
Woermann heard himself speaking before he could think: "Don't worry. I'll see to everything."
He cursed himself. He shouldn't have said that! It went against all his officer training, all his Prussian rearing. But there was that look in her eyes that made him want to do as she asked. He had no daughter of his own, but if he had he would want her to care about him the way this girl cared about her father.
No ... he had no need to worry about her running off. But the father—he was a sly one. He would bear watching. Woermann warned himself never to take anything about these two for granted.
The red-haired man sent his mount plunging through the foothills toward the southeast entrance to the Dinu Pass. The greening terrain around him went by unnoticed in his haste. As the sun slipped down the sky ahead of him, the hills on each side grew steeper and rockier, closing on him, narrowing until he was confined to a path a scant dozen feet wide. Once through the bottleneck up ahead he would be on the wide floor of the Dinu Pass. From there on it would be an easy trip, even in the dark. He knew the way.
He was about to congratulate himself on avoiding the many military patrols in the area when he spotted two soldiers up ahead blocking his path with ready rifles and fixed bayonets. Rearing his mount to a halt before the pair, he quickly decided on a course of action—he wanted no trouble, so he would play it meek and mild.
"Where to in such a hurry, goatherd?"
It was the older of the two who spoke. He had a thick mustache and a pitted face. The younger man laughed at the word "goatherd." Apparently it held some derogatory meaning for them.
"Up the pass to my village. My father is sick. Please let me by."
"All in good time. How far up do you intend to go?"
"To the keep."
" 'The keep'? Never heard of it. Where is it?"
That answered one question for the red-haired man. If the keep were involved in a military action in the pass, these men at least would have heard of it.
"Why are you stopping me?" he asked them, trying to look puzzled. "Is something wrong?"
"It is not for the likes of you to question the Iron Guard," Mustache said. "Get down from there so we can have a better look at you."
So they weren't just soldiers; they were members of the Iron Guard. Getting through here was going to be tougher than he had thought. The red-haired man dismounted and stood silent, waiting as they scrutinized him.
"You're not from around here," Mustache said. "Let me see your papers."
That was the question the red-haired man had feared throughout his trip. "I don't have them with me, sir," he said in his most deferential manner. "I left in such a hurry that I forgot them. I'll go back and get them if you wish."
A look passed between the two soldiers. A traveler without papers had no legal rights to speak of—his non-compliance with the law gave them a free hand to deal with him in any way they saw fit.
"No papers?" Mustache had his rifle at the port position across the front of his chest. As he spoke he emphasized his words with sharp outward thrusts of his rifle, slamming the bolt assembly and the side of the stock against the red-haired man's ribs. "How do we know you're not running guns to the peasants in the hills?"
The red-haired man winced and backed away, showing more pain than he felt; to absorb the blows stoically would only incite Mustache to greater violence.