Spear of Destiny Page 14

  The houses, many of them painted blue, huddled among trees, thin wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys, grey merging with the grey sky above. There were two churches, one with a white steeple, the other with a white tower topped by a steep red steeple. Romanian orthodoxy swamped in a sea of Hungarian Reform, holding on in spite of everything. Ethan shuddered. He knew next to nothing about these people, beyond what little he’d read in a tourist brochure at the hotel. He pulled in to the kerb and stopped the car. As he did so, he saw their eyes on him, old men and women, young men in black leather jackets, young women in headscarves, their eyes bright and questioning.

  He got out, feeling like someone who has landed in the Spice Islands after long journeying, knowing he is exotic, the object of fear or hatred or scorn, perhaps all these and more. No one smiled, no one welcomed him. It was not the tourist season, he had not brought skis; in short, he was an anomaly, an intrusion, a man from behind the glistening veil that lay between these people and the world outside.

  It had started to snow minutes before he got to the village, and now heavy flakes were shimmering from the slate-coloured sky. On the hills and on the mountain peaks, the clouds pressed down like cushions of damp wool.

  The woman in the tourist office had told him he’d have to leave the Dacia here in Sancraiu and hire a cart with a horse or two horses to take him into the mountains, all the way to Castel Lup, or as near as he could get. Looking round, he saw indifference on the faces of the villagers. He couldn’t even be sure of finding someone who spoke English. He’d been told they spoke Hungarian here.

  There were no shops, at least not in any sense he recognised. Some of the houses had carved wooden fences and elaborate gateways. People passed in and out of the gates, but no one approached him. He saw two women standing watching him, then whispering to one another. He thought it might not be advisable to approach them.

  Then, from a house opposite appeared a young woman, maybe between eighteen and twenty years old, dressed in brighter clothes than the crones staring at him. She came straight to him, a smile on her face, and stood on the road about three feet off.

  ‘Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekér?’ she asked.

  Ethan just stared at her.

  She giggled and put a hand to her mouth. Then, lowering it, she spoke again.

  ‘Bészel romanul?’

  He still had no idea what she’d said, but he rather thought she’d been teasing him with the long expression she’d tried him with at first. She was quite pretty, but there was a mischievous look in her eyes that made her prettiness positively dangerous. He thought she might be making fun of him.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, without the slightest surprise. ‘I would have tried English next, but first I wanted to know if you speak Hungarian, and if not, Romanian. English would have been my third choice. I also speak a little German, some Ukrainian, and of course my father teaches me a little Russian. I thought you looked lost. Tourists don’t come to Sancraiu much at this time of year. There are ski parties, but they aren’t expected for some weeks yet. Perhaps you are not a tourist.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘And you need help. You have probably taken the wrong road. But this isn’t a good place to talk. It’s very cold, and it’s going to get colder. It’s four hours to sunset. Let’s get inside.’

  14

  Ilona

  She led him to a little house that served the village as a bar, a public meeting place, and a general goods store. The shelves were stacked with bags of flour, bottles of oil, loaves of white bread, and other basics. A group of old men stood at the bar, their chins unshaven, their eyes rheumy as they glided over Ethan, labelling him as another outsider they all had to put up with to earn someone in the village welcome foreign currency.

  She sat him at a table and fetched two glasses of red wine. She took off the thick jacket she’d been wearing outside. In the bar, it was very hot.

  ‘How come you speak such good English?’ he asked.

  ‘University of Bucharest. I’m in my final year. I’ve been studying English for four years now. I stayed in England last year, in Brighton. I’m on vacation now, until just after the New Year.’

  He reached a hand across the table.

  ‘Ethan,’ he said. ‘My name’s Ethan Usherwood.’

  She took his hand, gripping it firmly.

  ‘Horváth Ilona,’ she said.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Horváth.’

  She burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I forgot. In Hungarian, the family name comes first, the personal name last. You can call me Ilona.’

  ‘Which means?’

  This time she blushed and mumbled something he could not make out.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘It’s a very embarrassing name, but very popular. It means “beautiful”. It’s a silly name. Don’t pay it any attention.’

  He looked at her more closely. In fact, the name did her justice. She had wavy shoulder-length brown hair, her eyes reminded him of the cat he’d had when he was seven, and when she smiled she was captivating. But seeing a pretty girl sitting opposite him only brought back memories of Sarah and a realisation that he might be within an hour or two of learning whether she was alive or dead.

  They drank wine and talked, mainly about Ilona and the plans she’d made for her life after graduation later that year. What they boiled down to was her longing to be free of Sancraiu, either to stay in the big city in Bucharest or to travel abroad. Since she was fluent in Hungarian and Romanian and had a confident grasp of English; she had hopes of a career in translation or interpreting.

  As she spoke, he wondered just how much he should tell her. He could hardly pretend he’d just turned up in the region as an independent.

  ‘I’m an architectural historian,’ he said in the end. ‘My current project is to study castles in Transylvania.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘How interesting. There are so many of them. Bran, Huniazi – have you been to Huniazi yet? – Sighisoara, Peles. And Margau, of course. What a fabulous castle that is.’

  ‘Absolutely. Fascinating, all of them.’

  ‘Especially Margau. It has always been my favourite.’

  ‘Mine too. Best of a great bunch. But I’m not headed there now. I want to visit a castle much closer.’

  He saw her lips close, her eyes narrow.

  ‘Really? What castle would that be? I don’t know any castles round here. Perhaps you really are lost after all.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It’s called Castel Almásy. Or perhaps you know it as Castel Lup,’ he said. ‘Wolf Castle. Is that right?’

  This time her facial expression changed completely. The friendliness went out of her eyes. She pushed back her chair and got to her feet.

  ‘Ilona? What’s up? What did I say?’

  ‘Nothing. You said nothing. But now it’s time for me to go.’

  She picked up her jacket and shrugged it on.

  ‘Won’t you…?’ he began, but she was already on her way to the door.

  He took some notes from his pocket and slapped them on the table, hoping they would cover the bill, then rushed after her. She was out in the street, headed across the road, her jacket bright against the pearly afternoon light. He rushed after her, passed her and blocked her way.

  ‘What’s going on, Ilona? One moment we’re talking, next thing you run off as though something’s biting you. What the hell is up?’

  She looked as if she was furious about something.

  ‘First you lie to me,’ she said, ‘then you say you plan to head for Castel Lup, of all places. And you’re surprised to find me running away? Now, please, I want to go home. I think I’ve talked with you enough.’

  ‘I just need an explanation. You say I lied to you. What made you think that?’

  ‘You said you’re an architectural historian, but you
know nothing about castles in Transylvania.’

  ‘Of course I do, I—’

  ‘There is no castle in Margau. I made that up, just to see how you would react. I thought you would say “I’ve never heard of such a place, tell me more.” But instead you said, “this my favourite castle, this is the best of them all”.’

  He’d fallen right into her little trap.

  ‘And Castel Lup?’

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you. If you plan to visit it, you know more than I do. But it’s enough for me to know you’re headed there, that you know people there. Now, please let me get past.’

  ‘Ilona, I don’t want to make trouble, and I don’t want to upset you, but there are some things I think you should know.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, to start with, I’m not an architectural historian, I’m a policeman.’

  Ignoring the weather, they walked up and down the street several times. He told her as much as he thought she could stand: his grandfather’s death, Sarah’s abduction, the Austrian and his companion with what sounded like a Hungarian name.

  She began to relax. The anger left her eyes and was replaced by puzzlement. When he finished, she walked him back to the bar. As they came in, eyes opened wide again, and the murmuring recommenced.

  ‘Why should I believe this version?’ she demanded.

  He took the warrant card from his pocket. She read it, nodded, and handed it back.

  ‘I know what a detective is,’ she said. ‘But what is a detective chief inspector?’

  He tried to explain, but grew hopelessly lost in the complexities of police ranks. Seeing his confusion, she smiled for the first time since her walkout.

  ‘And you think this woman, what is her name…?’

  ‘Sarah.’

  ‘Yes, this Sarah, you think she’s in Vár Farkasnak?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘That’s what we call your castle. In Hungarian. Castle of the Wolf. Castel Lup.’

  ‘I can’t be sure she’s there. It’s a guess. Why does this place make you so angry?’

  ‘No one here knows much about it. You call it Almásy Castle, but that was a long time ago, sixty, seventy years, perhaps much more. After the Second World War, when Transylvania finally became part of Romania, a lot of Hungarians left. Most went to Hungary, and some others went to Austria. I think that was when the Almásy family left. Maybe they still make visits here, I don’t know. But the castle belongs to new owners. They don’t like to come here to the town. And they don’t like any of the townspeople to go there. Some people from Oradea, from the tourist office, went to the castle. They wanted to explain that it would make a great location for a hotel, that tourists would flock there and pay a lot of money to stay. Or maybe just to visit.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Something bad. They never went there again. I heard this from a friend, but that’s all she knew. The castle is guarded behind some sort of fence. There are wolves in the forest around it. There are guards who carry guns and have big dogs. We hear stories, but nothing definite. Some say they sacrifice children there, that they belong to a sinister cult, that they bring women and hold orgies, that they are Nazis, that the castle is a very strict monastery. No one knows. Not here, anyway.’

  She stopped and drummed on the table gently for a moment, then snapped her fingers shut.

  ‘You should go to Bucharest,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe the government knows about the castle. You could go to the Serviciul Român de Informatii – the intelligence services. Or the police.’

  ‘Ilona, I don’t have time. If she’s here, she arrived early this morning. These men are ruthless. If she’s still alive, it may not be for long. All I want is a set of directions so I can find the place. The rest is up to me.’

  ‘Do you have a gun?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s—’

  ‘Ethan, you’re not in the land of the famous British bobby now. I won’t help you if you want to go up there without a gun. You’d just be… What is the word?’

  ‘Impediment?’

  ‘No. Liability. Is that right?’

  He nodded. And he agreed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m armed. Will you please put me on the right track? How long will it take to drive there?’

  She laughed, a light silvery laugh that danced through the room, bringing frowns and stares in its wake.

  ‘You can’t drive there. This is a country for walking. There’s no road from here to the castle.’

  ‘I’m driving a four-by-four. As long as I can get close…’

  She gave him a pitying look.

  ‘Chief Inspector, please listen to me. You’re a novice here. I already told you, this isn’t Blake’s green and pleasant land.’ She seemed pleased with herself for making this reference. Ethan smiled to encourage her.

  ‘This is mountain country. There are many cliffs, places where the rock has sheared off, and there are caves everywhere. Big caves. Some of biggest caves you can find in whole world. If you fall into one or even if you just wander into one, you won’t find your way out again. Someone will find what’s left of you in the spring, or perhaps a few years from now. You need a guide. Not your own instinct, not a detective’s guesswork. If I go with you, you must behave yourself. You must do what I say.’

  Ethan spluttered.

  ‘Ilona, I can’t take you. This isn’t a job for—’

  ‘A slip of a girl? A woman? A pitiful, weak-minded, bird-brained woman?’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘That’s exactly what you mean. But let me explain something about Sancraiu. If you expect one of these fine people at the bar to go with you, or if you plan to knock on every door, then you’ll be here all tonight and all tomorrow, but no one will answer your appeal. If you give in and go up there alone, you will die. It’s winter. This is country that can kill even the best prepared. The woman you’re looking for, Sarah, she will die too.’

  ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘Nothing. No money, that is. But later, I want you to get me a job in England. And a visa to work there. Can you do that?’

  Ethan thought he’d be the last person the authorities would want to hear from. But he had plenty of contacts, and his father had even more.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘When do we leave?’

  15

  The Wolf’s Lair

  A short bituminised road led to an opening in dense undergrowth, bare branches painted with frost-edged snow. Here a track started upwards, heading for the mountains. It was some four feet wide, and its floor of packed earth had been made iron with ice, as though they walked on permafrost. On all sides lay snow and hoar frost, spiky and crystalline in the cold air. The snow had stopped falling as night drew close.

  Ilona had changed into a dark green outfit better suited to mountain hiking than the fleece jacket she’d worn earlier. She had brought a small pony to carry equipment she considered necessary. Ethan didn’t know it, but she’d left home without a word to her family, knowing they would have banned her from taking part in what they would have considered a doomed expedition. To any villager who asked, she said she was taking the stranger to a little cabana higher up, where he was to carry out a survey for the government. She had loaded the pony with a spade, an axe, a pair of Nieto hunting knives, food, a small tent (‘If we get stuck, we will not survive without it. But I will not sleep with you, not even if you beg or offer me large sums of money’), a pickaxe, sleeping bags, two head torches, and things Ethan did not even recognise.

  She put the longer of the two knives, an eight-inch blade, into a pocket on her trousers. Ethan took one look at it and whistled.

  ‘Have you ever used a knife like that before?’ he asked. ‘It’s an ugly-looking thing. You could spit an ox with it…’

  ‘I have used a knife like this since I was ten years old,’ she replied cheerily, snapping the pocket shut on a strip of Velcro.

  ‘Won’t we need ropes?’

/>   ‘This isn’t a mountaineering expedition,’ Ilona told him witheringly. ‘We won’t need to do any rope climbing. The mountain we’re going up is covered in trees as far as the castle and beyond.’

  They climbed beneath the branches of dark trees, and if Ethan had thought Sancraiu quiet, or Woodmancote on Christmas Day a silent place, he revised his opinion with every step he took on the mountain trail. They walked in single file now, Ilona followed by Ethan, the horse coming in the rear. For all he knew, she might be leading him on a wild goose chase. It was hard to believe there was really a building, an entire castle up there.

  Suddenly, something howled. Then a second time. There was an answering howl not far away. Ilona stopped the horse, stroking its head, whispering to it softly.

  ‘Farkas,’ she said. ‘Wolf.’

  Ethan shivered, but covered his fear with a quip.

  ‘Children of the Night,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry? Why do you call it a child?’

  He tried to explain, but the joke didn’t travel very well. Maybe they didn’t watch Dracula movies in Transylvania.

  ‘They aren’t always dangerous to human beings,’ Ilona pointed out. ‘But it has been a cold winter. There are no sheep on the pastures, so wolves sneak down to the farms to find what food they can. And if they can’t find a sheep or a goat, and they come across a man or woman or child instead, someone walking outside… This year, several men and a boy have died that way.’

  They went on climbing. And as they climbed, night came down, imperceptibly at first, but suddenly at last, as the sun dropped below the horizon, hanging fire on the mountains, beyond their reach. No moon appeared, no stars twinkled between the branches of the trees. They had left behind the skeletons of oaks and beeches. Now, thick branches of fir and spruce hung over them like a canopy of disquiet, boxing them in. The lamps on their foreheads spilt out on a tunnel of snow and scintillating frost, the light carving out the path ahead. They moved on, talking in soft voices.