Crowther 04 - Circle of Shadows by Imogen Robertson

Author:Imogen Robertson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Historical
ISBN: 9780755372096
Publisher: Review
Published: 2012-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

PART V

V.1

5 May 1784

KRALL DID NOT KNOW why he had been summoned to the Mirrored Hall of Ulrichsberg Palace, but when he found Chancellor Swann there in his shirt-sleeves, grey-faced and alone with a candle in his hands, he began to suspect.

He had been woken, dressed and then guided to the Chancellor by Wimpf, who had taken the role of his personal servant while he was in the palace. As they approached, Krall found the Chancellor surrounded by a hundred broken images of himself. Together they filled the room like a crowd.

Swann wasted no words on greeting Krall, but only nodded and swung open a hidden door on the wall behind him, sending their gathered images dancing among each other in the candlelight till they were legion. Wimpf disappeared back into the shadows.

‘This way,’ Swann said. The hidden door led to a long corridor, unadorned, and crimped and bent by the rooms between which it snaked. Krall had a sense of being lost in the entrails of some great beast, or finding himself cast suddenly in an abandoned mine. Even in the light of the travelling candle he could see doors and panels to his left and right. From here surely all the court could be observed, reached, secretly. He wondered about his own rooms. After some minutes Swann came to a halt with his hand on a latch to his left. The candlelight made him look a great deal older; his shoulders seemed to have acquired a stoop since they had seen each other a few hours before. There was a light grey stubble across his chin, and his cravat was only carelessly tied.

‘Krall, are you loyal to the state you serve?’

‘Yes, Your Excellency,’ Krall said, frowning and irritated by the pantomime.

‘And your sovereign?’

‘My sovereign is the state I serve.’

Swann seemed to consider this a moment before he continued. He handed the candle to the District Officer and, pushing open the door, gestured for him to enter.

It was one of the smaller guest chambers. Krall stepped forward. Countess Dieth was seated in the middle of the room on a straight-backed armchair in a full court gown of plum silk, her chin down like someone sleeping over their book. Her left hand hung loosely, pointing towards the floor. Her stillness. In his first confusion, it took Krall a moment to realise she was dead. ‘Huh …’ he said and crossed slowly towards her, his steps heavy and awkward. Her dress pooled out around her feet. Krall lowered his candle and with his right hand gently lifted her chin.

Her face was white with powder, her cheeks rouged, but around her mouth was a flurry of dark specks, coal dust on snow. He brought the light closer. Her lips were covered in what looked like soil, loose dry soil. Krall looked about him, but the room was clean. Her eyes were open, bloodshot, empty.

‘When was she found?’ he said, resting his palm on her cheek. Quite cold.

‘Half an hour past,’ Swann said, his voice rather thick.

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