Otto decided that we had to leave Himmelsberg before the Cardinal and his cronies returned with some evil new scheme up their clerical sleeves. Leaving Saure behind as a caretaker, Hell, Pipi, Lady Rudolphine, and I set off in Pipi's Range Rover, weary wanderers in the winter night, cascading down treacherously icy switchbacks, taking shortcuts straight down mountains when Hell was driving, because, showing a chivalrous side I had never suspected, he insisted on taking turns with Pipi at the wheel, or perhaps, he was just showing off to her, and it worked, judging from Pipi's ecstatic squeals when she was pushed up hard against the old rake as he accelerated through tight curves, oblivious of the blaring horns, audible curses, and angry glares of white-faced truckers forced to swerve out of the way of this maniac in the luxurious tank... And then the short wait at Munich airport, all glass and white metal pipes and frosty efficiency, and the plane ride back to Prague, back to the slovenly little terminal with its lackluster lighting and single creaking conveyor belt and luggage trolleys with stuck wheels and unsmiling customs officers in drab olive polyester, an hour by plane and forty years back in time, back to the dingy days of post-war, of black markets and the occasional luxury of an American cigarette or candy bar, and I began to understand why Hell, after a life misspent in the academic fleshpots of the West, might have wanted to return to Prague, to live again amidst these shabby baroque palaces and picturesque lanes, driven by a nostalgia for his youth, for the days when, as a young soldier, army cap perched cheekily on his brilliantined head, he wandered around the town, getting drunk, picking fights and picking up girls, already forgetting the adrenalin-laced boredom of the fight behind him, still ignorant of the long exile that lay before him, blithely unaware of the plots and struggles which would transform him into the grim terrible old man who sat before us now in his office at the University of Truth and Justice, having one last nightcap.
"Did the Cardinal really poison Ludi?" Pipi asked breathlessly.
"Through Dr. Dufarge and his Zurich clinic. Utterly unscrupulous man. Does whatever his confessor tells him to do. Ludwig began to suspect poison when his arthritis mysteriously turned into cancer."
"Why would the Cardinal want to get rid of Ludwig?" Lady Rudolphine asked reasonably.
"Wants to become Pope. Don't ask me why. Hotline to God and all that."
"But how was Ludwig an obstacle to the Cardinal's ambitions? What was all that about the Himmelsberg legacy?"
"Control over the lineage."
"Lineage? You mean..." Lady Rudolphine's eyes widened.
"The Cardinal and his friends have been playing the long game. Anastasia and her boy," Hell replied incomprehensibly.
"I don't get it. What does..." Suppressing a gulp, I continued, "What do Anastasia and her son have to do with the Cardinal's ambitions of becoming Pope?"
Hell and Lady Rudolphine exchanged meaningful glances. "It's a long story, dear," Lady Rudolphine replied gently. "Did Anastasia ever mention the circumstances in which she... conceived Ulrich?"
"She said that she had been raped. When she was sixteen," I said, faltering.
"Exactly," Lady Rudolphine said. "Her rapist and future husband, Axel von Schadenfreude, is, literally, a bastard. He is the natural son of Franz Jozef von Gapsburg. Does the name mean anything to you?"
"Professor Hohenstaufen mentioned him once. Something to do with the Holy Roman Empire. But what does that have to do with Anastasia?" I protested. "The Holy Roman Empire is history!"
"Some people don't think so," Hell observed quietly.
I gaped at him. "They want to bring the Holy Roman Empire back?" All my acquired Amerikan sensibilities were outraged. "But what about democracy?"
Hell barked a laugh. "Ask Hohenstinken what he thinks about democracy." He looked at me with irritated pity. "Look, young fellow, you're not in Kansas anymore."
"And you're not the Wizard of Oz either," I retorted hotly. I'd be damned if I'd let Hell treat me like some hayseed hick hillbilly. I cherished my cosmopolitan credentials almost as much as the clarity of my complexion. "So young Ulrich inherits Himmelsberg. How does that help the Cardinal restore the Holy Roman Empire?"
"What if we told you that Anastasia was raped on purpose?" Lady Rudolphine asked. "That Axel had been programmed to rape her?"
"Lady Rudolphine, I've heard a lot of weird things in the last two months but this is just too ridiculous! Why couldn't Axel just give her flowers and seduce her nicely?"
"You met Axel," Lady Rudolphine replied. "Did you feel that giving a girl flowers was quite his style?"
I grimaced as I gingerly touched Axels' shaving job on my chin. "I take your point. But still, why would anyone get Axel to rape Anastasia?"
"Fetch the Almanach de Gotha from the library," Hell abruptly ordered.
I shrugged sulkily. I hadn't slept in three days and my nightcap was already turning into a hangover. In my swimming head swam an excruciating vision, the freckled face of a young girl with curly red hair pinned under a hard heavy male body, struggling, squirming, screaming, trying desperately to break free. Bitter tears rose to my eyes and I dragged myself out of my seat: I did not understand the gibberish Hell and Lady Rudolphine were babbling, but I had to get to the heart of the matter if only so that I could recover the only person in the whole wide world who mattered to me anymore, my sad sweetheart, Anastasia. It was three in the morning and the library was closed but it didn't matter: I would coax, bribe, or kill to get in, to find this book, to force Hell to explain, to torture the Cardinal, to murder Axel, if anything could bring her back to me I would do it.
As it happened, Annichka was on night duty at the reception desk, Annichka of the short dark curly hair and the adorable dimples, and she was glad to see me, and trustingly she held out her porcelain cheek for me to kiss, and gave me the key to the library without any questions. I could steal as many books as I wanted. "Where have you been all this time?" she squealed. "Will you stay here now?'
"I don't know, Annichka," I answered heavily.
"Don't you want to play with crayons with me? You promised."
"I did, didn't I?" I sighed. A sudden longing almost bowled me over as I stood there: I desperately craved to lie on a floor with pieces of paper and brightly colored crayons spread out everywhere, a yearning for silly laughter and chocolate milk...
"And you were going to get drugs for me," Annichka pouted. But then she smiled, showing rows of shiny milk teeth. "It's okay. Whenever you get them. I'll wait. But hurry!"
I grinned back at her. "Don't worry. I haven't forgotten." I leaned over the counter and kissed her again out of sheer gratitude: embroiled against my will in these grown-up games of conspiracy, murder, and rape, I had almost lost touch with childishness.
I went to the library, found the heavy volume for which I had been sent, returned the library key to Annichka (and kissed her again), and then went back to Hell's office. Pipi was emitting lady-like little snores on the couch. Lady Rudolphine and Hell broke off an animated conversation when I entered the room.
"Took your time," Hell said grumpily as I laid the huge tome on his desk. "Look up the G and T's."
I flipped through the studbook until I got to the section on the higher German nobility. I whistled in surprise. I had never realized how many ancestors Anastasia had.
"Look for a Ferdinand von G and T who died around 1820," Hell ordered. I climbed up the intertwined branches of the interminable family tree until I found the name. "Whom did he marry?"
"Francizska von Gapsburg. But what does all this..."
"How many times after 1820 does a G and T marry a Gapsburg?"
I sighed and bent over the book. "Six. But what does..."
"See any pattern?"
I looked blearily at the book. "Every second generation," I mumbled. "But what..."
"Who do the G and T's marry between each marriage to a Gapsburg?"
I bent my head again. "Another G and T," I exclaimed.
"What was Anastasia's mother?"
"You told me that she was Prince Ludwig's first cousin. Lady Rudolphine left Prince Ludwig because he had an affair with Anastasia's mother. But was Prince Ludwig programmed too?"
Hell turned to Lady Rudolphine. "You answer that."
"I am not possessive," Lady Rudolphine said quietly. "One has affairs. And marriages come and go. But I had to leave Ludwig when he raped Agnieszka..."
"What?" My startled cry rang out like a scream. Pipi turned in her sleep and moaned, an oddly lascivious sound of torment and languorous delight that sent fragmented flashes flickering through my mind, the freckled face of another young girl with curly red hair pinned under a hard male body and when the man turned I saw that he was Prince Ludwig, younger, harder, and his handsome face was twisted in an arrogant snarl, and then they were riding in some verdant landscape, and there was a small child, and these pictures were like clips of a black and white movie I had never seen, odd images like memories which I had never known of a life I had never led, and I wondered dully why I once again tasted the warm salty taste of blood on my lips...
"I tried to understand why it disturbed me so much," Lady Rudolphine continued. "Incest holds no taboo for me. Agnieszka was only fifteen but I had made love when I was as young and I was hardly an innocent even before that. Nor was she, for that matter, as I later heard," Lady Rudolphine said drily. "I only realized years later what had disturbed me so. It was the look on Ludwig's face as he raped her..." I shuddered. Lady Rudolphine nodded again. Her eyes were fixed on my face but they seemed to see something very far away. "Ludwig was never a soft man, but his hardness was honest, even refined... But that day when I heard the screams and went to see what the matter was, I stood transfixed at the door because he wore a face I had never seen in all the years of our marriage, a face full of rage and cruelty and animal greed, positively bestial..."
"You saw the family genie," Hell growled.
"That was what I thought." Lady Rudolphine answered. "But after Anastasia was raped by Axel, I began to wonder..."
Hell shrugged. "Same blood."
Daylight was beginning to seep through the curtains in Hell's office and through my thick skull. "Otto," I gasped. "Is this all part of some program to breed..."
"The next Holy Roman Emperor," he confirmed. "The Cardinal and his friends have been at it for quite a while. Centuries. Ludwig began to suspect that he had been used. Made him furious." Otto yawned and rose heavily to his feet. "Talk about it tomorrow. Time for bed." He frowned at Pipi's supine form. "I'll take care of her," he said. "You sleep with Rudi."
I looked at Hell in confusion and then at Lady Rudolphine. She smiled at me invitingly. "I don't understand," I faltered.
Lady Rudolphine glided across the room and kissed me lightly on the lips. Her bright blue eyes probed mockingly into mine. "Don't worry," she purred. "You will."
"Do I have to?" I stammered.
"Why, of course you do." Lady Rudolphine raised an eyebrow. "It's part of the anti-plot. Don't you want Anastasia back? Well, then. Trust me."
I sighed and followed her meekly. Plots make strange bedfellows.
"Did the Cardinal really poison Ludi?" Pipi asked breathlessly.
"Through Dr. Dufarge and his Zurich clinic. Utterly unscrupulous man. Does whatever his confessor tells him to do. Ludwig began to suspect poison when his arthritis mysteriously turned into cancer."
"Why would the Cardinal want to get rid of Ludwig?" Lady Rudolphine asked reasonably.
"Wants to become Pope. Don't ask me why. Hotline to God and all that."
"But how was Ludwig an obstacle to the Cardinal's ambitions? What was all that about the Himmelsberg legacy?"
"Control over the lineage."
"Lineage? You mean..." Lady Rudolphine's eyes widened.
"The Cardinal and his friends have been playing the long game. Anastasia and her boy," Hell replied incomprehensibly.
"I don't get it. What does..." Suppressing a gulp, I continued, "What do Anastasia and her son have to do with the Cardinal's ambitions of becoming Pope?"
Hell and Lady Rudolphine exchanged meaningful glances. "It's a long story, dear," Lady Rudolphine replied gently. "Did Anastasia ever mention the circumstances in which she... conceived Ulrich?"
"She said that she had been raped. When she was sixteen," I said, faltering.
"Exactly," Lady Rudolphine said. "Her rapist and future husband, Axel von Schadenfreude, is, literally, a bastard. He is the natural son of Franz Jozef von Gapsburg. Does the name mean anything to you?"
"Professor Hohenstaufen mentioned him once. Something to do with the Holy Roman Empire. But what does that have to do with Anastasia?" I protested. "The Holy Roman Empire is history!"
"Some people don't think so," Hell observed quietly.
I gaped at him. "They want to bring the Holy Roman Empire back?" All my acquired Amerikan sensibilities were outraged. "But what about democracy?"
Hell barked a laugh. "Ask Hohenstinken what he thinks about democracy." He looked at me with irritated pity. "Look, young fellow, you're not in Kansas anymore."
"And you're not the Wizard of Oz either," I retorted hotly. I'd be damned if I'd let Hell treat me like some hayseed hick hillbilly. I cherished my cosmopolitan credentials almost as much as the clarity of my complexion. "So young Ulrich inherits Himmelsberg. How does that help the Cardinal restore the Holy Roman Empire?"
"What if we told you that Anastasia was raped on purpose?" Lady Rudolphine asked. "That Axel had been programmed to rape her?"
"Lady Rudolphine, I've heard a lot of weird things in the last two months but this is just too ridiculous! Why couldn't Axel just give her flowers and seduce her nicely?"
"You met Axel," Lady Rudolphine replied. "Did you feel that giving a girl flowers was quite his style?"
I grimaced as I gingerly touched Axels' shaving job on my chin. "I take your point. But still, why would anyone get Axel to rape Anastasia?"
"Fetch the Almanach de Gotha from the library," Hell abruptly ordered.
I shrugged sulkily. I hadn't slept in three days and my nightcap was already turning into a hangover. In my swimming head swam an excruciating vision, the freckled face of a young girl with curly red hair pinned under a hard heavy male body, struggling, squirming, screaming, trying desperately to break free. Bitter tears rose to my eyes and I dragged myself out of my seat: I did not understand the gibberish Hell and Lady Rudolphine were babbling, but I had to get to the heart of the matter if only so that I could recover the only person in the whole wide world who mattered to me anymore, my sad sweetheart, Anastasia. It was three in the morning and the library was closed but it didn't matter: I would coax, bribe, or kill to get in, to find this book, to force Hell to explain, to torture the Cardinal, to murder Axel, if anything could bring her back to me I would do it.
As it happened, Annichka was on night duty at the reception desk, Annichka of the short dark curly hair and the adorable dimples, and she was glad to see me, and trustingly she held out her porcelain cheek for me to kiss, and gave me the key to the library without any questions. I could steal as many books as I wanted. "Where have you been all this time?" she squealed. "Will you stay here now?'
"I don't know, Annichka," I answered heavily.
"Don't you want to play with crayons with me? You promised."
"I did, didn't I?" I sighed. A sudden longing almost bowled me over as I stood there: I desperately craved to lie on a floor with pieces of paper and brightly colored crayons spread out everywhere, a yearning for silly laughter and chocolate milk...
"And you were going to get drugs for me," Annichka pouted. But then she smiled, showing rows of shiny milk teeth. "It's okay. Whenever you get them. I'll wait. But hurry!"
I grinned back at her. "Don't worry. I haven't forgotten." I leaned over the counter and kissed her again out of sheer gratitude: embroiled against my will in these grown-up games of conspiracy, murder, and rape, I had almost lost touch with childishness.
I went to the library, found the heavy volume for which I had been sent, returned the library key to Annichka (and kissed her again), and then went back to Hell's office. Pipi was emitting lady-like little snores on the couch. Lady Rudolphine and Hell broke off an animated conversation when I entered the room.
"Took your time," Hell said grumpily as I laid the huge tome on his desk. "Look up the G and T's."
I flipped through the studbook until I got to the section on the higher German nobility. I whistled in surprise. I had never realized how many ancestors Anastasia had.
"Look for a Ferdinand von G and T who died around 1820," Hell ordered. I climbed up the intertwined branches of the interminable family tree until I found the name. "Whom did he marry?"
"Francizska von Gapsburg. But what does all this..."
"How many times after 1820 does a G and T marry a Gapsburg?"
I sighed and bent over the book. "Six. But what does..."
"See any pattern?"
I looked blearily at the book. "Every second generation," I mumbled. "But what..."
"Who do the G and T's marry between each marriage to a Gapsburg?"
I bent my head again. "Another G and T," I exclaimed.
"What was Anastasia's mother?"
"You told me that she was Prince Ludwig's first cousin. Lady Rudolphine left Prince Ludwig because he had an affair with Anastasia's mother. But was Prince Ludwig programmed too?"
Hell turned to Lady Rudolphine. "You answer that."
"I am not possessive," Lady Rudolphine said quietly. "One has affairs. And marriages come and go. But I had to leave Ludwig when he raped Agnieszka..."
"What?" My startled cry rang out like a scream. Pipi turned in her sleep and moaned, an oddly lascivious sound of torment and languorous delight that sent fragmented flashes flickering through my mind, the freckled face of another young girl with curly red hair pinned under a hard male body and when the man turned I saw that he was Prince Ludwig, younger, harder, and his handsome face was twisted in an arrogant snarl, and then they were riding in some verdant landscape, and there was a small child, and these pictures were like clips of a black and white movie I had never seen, odd images like memories which I had never known of a life I had never led, and I wondered dully why I once again tasted the warm salty taste of blood on my lips...
"I tried to understand why it disturbed me so much," Lady Rudolphine continued. "Incest holds no taboo for me. Agnieszka was only fifteen but I had made love when I was as young and I was hardly an innocent even before that. Nor was she, for that matter, as I later heard," Lady Rudolphine said drily. "I only realized years later what had disturbed me so. It was the look on Ludwig's face as he raped her..." I shuddered. Lady Rudolphine nodded again. Her eyes were fixed on my face but they seemed to see something very far away. "Ludwig was never a soft man, but his hardness was honest, even refined... But that day when I heard the screams and went to see what the matter was, I stood transfixed at the door because he wore a face I had never seen in all the years of our marriage, a face full of rage and cruelty and animal greed, positively bestial..."
"You saw the family genie," Hell growled.
"That was what I thought." Lady Rudolphine answered. "But after Anastasia was raped by Axel, I began to wonder..."
Hell shrugged. "Same blood."
Daylight was beginning to seep through the curtains in Hell's office and through my thick skull. "Otto," I gasped. "Is this all part of some program to breed..."
"The next Holy Roman Emperor," he confirmed. "The Cardinal and his friends have been at it for quite a while. Centuries. Ludwig began to suspect that he had been used. Made him furious." Otto yawned and rose heavily to his feet. "Talk about it tomorrow. Time for bed." He frowned at Pipi's supine form. "I'll take care of her," he said. "You sleep with Rudi."
I looked at Hell in confusion and then at Lady Rudolphine. She smiled at me invitingly. "I don't understand," I faltered.
Lady Rudolphine glided across the room and kissed me lightly on the lips. Her bright blue eyes probed mockingly into mine. "Don't worry," she purred. "You will."
"Do I have to?" I stammered.
"Why, of course you do." Lady Rudolphine raised an eyebrow. "It's part of the anti-plot. Don't you want Anastasia back? Well, then. Trust me."
I sighed and followed her meekly. Plots make strange bedfellows.
