Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [22]
I gulped, and told myself to be rational. What I had seen was not a ghost light, but a candle, behind one of the windows of the keep. But why would anyone be in the crumbling ruin at this time of night?
A possible answer wasn’t hard to find.
Frowning, I turned from the window and met the enigmatic eyes of the Countess Konstanze.
I lifted the lamp from the table and held it up so that its light fell full on the painted face. It was not one of the world’s great portraits. Though the physical features seemed to be accurately represented, the painter had failed to capture a personality. He had been more successful with the pose – the shape of the head and shoulders, the arrogant tilt of the chin suggested a strength of character not implicit in the expressionless face. The resemblance of the sixteenth-century countess to her downtrodden descendant was probably not one of character; but feature by feature the resemblance was uncannily exact.
‘If you could only talk,’ I muttered – and then made a quick, instinctive gesture of denial. The Gothic atmosphere was thick enough already. A talking portrait would send me screaming out into the night.
I looked at my watch. It was after midnight. The old Schloss and its inhabitants should be sleeping soundly by now. I put on a dark sweater, which I had brought for the purpose of nocturnal prowling, and tied a scarf over my light hair. I found my flashlight, and blew out the lamp.
Talk about dark. I hadn’t seen anything like it since the old days on the farm. The faint moonlight from the window didn’t help much, and when I closed the door of my room behind me the corridor was pitch-black. I didn’t want to use the flashlight until it was necessary, so I stood waiting for my eyes to adjust.
A hand touched my shoulder.
I thought of screaming, but my vocal cords didn’t cooperate. Before I could get them into operation I heard a voice.
‘Hi,’ it whispered.
‘Tony,’ I whispered back. ‘You rat.’
‘Scare you?’
‘Scared? Me?’
‘I figured you’d be prowling tonight. Couldn’t let you go alone. Who knows, you might be nervous.’
‘Sssh!’
‘Come on, let’s get away from all these doors.’
He found my hand and I let him lead me until a turn in the corridor brought light – the sickly sheen on the moon filtering through the leaded panes of a window set high above an ascending stair. Tony stopped.
‘Those are the tower stairs.’
‘I was heading for the Great Hall.’
‘Down this way.’
As we shuffled along the dark passageways, my pulse was uncomfortably quick. The castle was too quiet. There weren’t even the creaks and squeaks of settling timber. This place had settled centuries ago.
Finally we stepped onto the balcony over the Great Hall. I put one hand on the balustrade and moved back in alarm as it gave slightly. The Schloss needed repairs. No doubt there wasn’t enough money. The proud old family of the Drachensteins wouldn’t have gone into the innkeeping business unless they needed cash. I reminded myself not to lean heavily against that balustrade.
Below, in the Hall, the armoured shapes were dim in the grey moonlight. The shadows of tree branches swaying in the night wind slid back and forth across the polished floor . . .
My scalp prickled. That motion was no swaying shadow. There was something moving at the far end of the Hall – something pale and slim, like a column of foggy light.
The thing came out into the moonlight. I forgot my qualms about the shaky banister, and clutched it with straining fingers.
The figure below had the face of the woman in the portrait. I could see it distinctly in the light from the windows, even to its expression. The eyes were set and staring; the face was as blank as the face on the painted canvas.
The apparition wore a long, light robe, with flowing sleeves. The feet – if it had feet – were hidden by the folds of the garment, so that it seemed to float instead of walk. Slowly it glided across the floor, the staring eyes raised, the lips slightly parted.
There was a sound behind us. Tony, who had been