Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [65]
‘Kitchen,’ Tony announced unnecessarily. ‘How would you like to whip up a meal in this mausoleum? We’re under the Great Hall – I’ll bet that stair goes up to it. Here’s where the banquets were cooked.’
‘We won’t have to thump on these walls, then. I haven’t got any skin left on my knuckles.’
‘Here’s your well.’
Tony tugged at a stone which was equipped with a rusted iron ring. The stone slid aside with a screech, leaving a gaping hole. Peering into it I saw, far below, the glimmer of water.
‘Cover it up,’ I said suddenly, glancing over my shoulder.
Tony heaved the stone back into place.
‘You can see,’ he said, ‘why I don’t recommend solitary exploring. If something went down there, it wouldn’t come up.’
He led the way along the corridor outside the kitchen, dismissing a series of closed doors with the comment, ‘More storerooms.’
At the end of the corridor we found something that couldn’t be dismissed so casually.
Stairs led down into Stygian darkness, far below ground level. Below was a short corridor with three doors opening onto it. The doors were of iron, with bolts as thick as Tony’s arm. In the upper half of each door was a small barred opening that could be closed by a sliding iron plate.
We didn’t need Tony’s keys. The doors had not been locked for centuries, not since the last Count of Drachenstein had given up his seignorial privileges of imprisonment and execution to the state. But the doors looked functional, even now.
‘They will squeak,’ Tony warned, and pushed on the first door.
Squeak was hardly the word. The hinges screamed like a wounded animal.
I was secretly relieved when the flashlight showed no heap of mouldering bones, no grinning skeleton held erect by rusted chains. There was nothing in the cell, not even a bench or a shard from a broken water bowl. It was simply a square, windowless stone box about eight feet by eight. Yet there was an aura in that room which would have made human bones seem like meaningless stage props. The cell stank of fear and despair; a miasma of ancient agony shrouded the walls like fog. It required all the courage I possessed to step into that evil little room. From the sound of Tony’s breathing I suspected he didn’t like it either.
The walls and floors seemed to be solid. The second cell was a duplicate of the first, and the third, which was so small that neither of us could stand erect in it, was equally unproductive. Tony let me precede him in a retreat which closely resembled flight, and neither of us stopped running until we stood panting in the Great Hall, with a closed door between us and the grim medieval kitchen.
I don’t know how Tony passed the rest of the day; I spent quite a lot of time washing. I was grey with dust and sticky with perspiration, but I kept on washing long after my surface was clean. The stink of those cells had penetrated to the bone.
I had another errand to take care of. By the time I finished, I was good and hungry. The dining room was full when I arrived. Glancing around, I realized I had been so absorbed by the small group of guests who occupied my wing of the Schloss that I had lost track of the others. The family from Hamburg and the honeymooners were gone. Most of the tables were occupied by a party of German students, husky, tanned youngsters who made even Tony look elderly.
George was brash and cheery as ever.
‘Where were you two?’ he asked. ‘I went downtown later, but I couldn’t find you.’
‘We drank beer,’ I said. ‘What did you do for amusement?’
‘Went to church. I was breaking the Tenth Commandment – or is it the Ninth?’
‘Coveting your neighbour’s goods?’ Tony was not amused. ‘The Riemenschneider altar?’
‘Yes. I’d steal it if I could think of a way to get it out of Germany. There’s another altar at Creglingen, across the valley. I think I’ll drive up there tomorrow.’
‘It is considered his masterpiece