Heidelberg Effect (15 page)

“Shall we get a coffee around the corner?”
she said.

Heidi stirred sugar into her coffee and
smiled at Rowan. He could see she was used to being admired and
forgiven many, many times over. Her skin was so flawless, it didn’t
look real.

“Hugo lied about sleeping with Ella,” she
said.

“Okay,” he said. He had to admit to not
feeling wonderful when the bastard said he’d slept with Ella. But
it occurred to him that Heidi wasn’t the last word in truth and
honesty either.

“It was because she
wouldn’t
sleep with him
that all the trouble started.”

“How is that?”

“Hugo found out a terrible
secret about Ella’s family at the same time
she
did.”

“And when she wouldn’t sleep with him, he
told her secret.”

“Yes,” Heidi said, sighing. “It’s
despicable, really. But that is men.” Hurriedly she put a hand on
Rowan’s hand as it rested on the table. “But not you, Herr Pierce.
I mean most men.”

“And the secret was so terrible that once
revealed, you believe it prompted Ella to quit her job and move out
of the country?”

“Absolutely.”

“And what is this terrible secret that
everyone now knows?”

Heidi poured more cream in her coffee. Rowan
felt like he was witnessing a performance of some kind but he
realized it didn’t mean she wasn’t telling the truth. As beautiful
as she was, she might just be used to making everything a
drama.

“Ella discovered that her grandfather was
hanged as a war criminal after the war.”

Rowan whistled.

“Indeed,” Heidi said.

“Yeah, that would do it.”

“In Germany?” Heidi nodded.
“She
had
to
leave. I understand that. I just wish I had a chance to say goodbye
and to tell her it didn’t matter to me.”

“But she didn’t leave the country,” Rowan
said. “She didn’t pack up her apartment. She didn’t shut off her
utilities. She just disappeared.”

“I agree that is very strange.”

“And you have no idea where she might have
gone?”

Heidi widened her eyes. “Me? No.”

Rowan watched her for a moment and then
tossed out five Euros in coins onto the table.

“I hope I didn’t get you in trouble at the
office,” he said.

“No, no,” she said, obviously in no hurry to
go. “Hugo needed what he got. If he hadn’t told the whole office
her terrible secret, Ella would not have run.”

“Maybe. Anyway, thank you, Heidi, for all
your help.”

He smiled at her and then
left the coffee shop, heading back down
Kirchstrasse
toward Ella’s
flat.

Well,
hell
, he thought as he walked.
Now what?

Axel slid the bridle over the nose of the
stallion and took a half step back to carefully latch the leather
strips securing it while staying out from under the beast’s
constantly moving feet. Dojo, his father’s personal valet and
general head of household, had suggested his father have the animal
gelded or perhaps used only for stud. It had been all Axel could do
not to have the old man beaten for the insult. Axel thought back to
how his younger brother, Christof, had pleaded to stay Axel’s hand
and how Dojo had stood bravely to face his wrath. Dojo was worth
ten of Christof, Axel thought to himself with disgust.

His mind distracted, the horse’s front right
hoof lashed out and missed Axel’s instep by inches. Grabbing the
bridle with both hands, its barbed bit sticking out of the beast’s
mouth, Axel jerked hard until he saw its mouth bleed and the eyes
full of terror. A perfect animal, he thought, easing his grip on
the bridle but keeping a careful eye on him. Beautiful, powerful,
lethal. Not unlike himself. He put a hand up to stroke the horse’s
nose but only succeeded in making it shy violently, jerking the
bridle reins from his grasp as the horse wheeled away.

Axel felt his face redden even though there
was no one to witness the horse’s behavior. It stirred in him a
memory, hidden far down in his heart, and the vein in his forehead
began to twitch.

Bastard
, he thought, watching the horse pace the courtyard in front
of the stables. He glanced around. There was no one. Whatever
chores or activities had been going on when he arrived a few
minutes earlier, the boys had vanished. Even that useless stable
master was nowhere to be found.

They feared him, he thought, as he slapped
his gloves against his thigh, turning his back on the horse and
jerking open a stall door. He glimpsed the heel end of a boot
disappear around the corner of the stall and it pleased him to
think of whoever it was fleeing as if he were the devil himself. It
was moments like these—when he was well and truly alone—amidst all
the noise and community of the castle, that he missed her the most.
He couldn’t say what it was that brought the thought of her, the
smell of her into his head—where it could only cause pain. And yet
he never resisted the onslaught, so infrequent were the
memories.

She had never looked at him with fear. She
had only adored him. He knew that and forever after he would know
it in contrast to the admiration and sycophantic love he received
from every other woman he knew. She had stood between him and his
father. When he was a boy and couldn’t defend himself, she took the
beatings that should have been his.

He sat down on a bale of hay in the
abandoned stable yard. He could hear his horse snorting and pawing
in one of the alcoves across the courtyard. The horse would soon
calm himself and wander away looking for his feed, dragging his
reins before him. Axel found he didn’t care if the animal tripped
over them and broke his neck. The horse brought him no joy. Not
even whipping helped. It just made the horse hate him.

Just as he had hated his father so many
years ago.

His father had forbidden his mother from
going to the convent to nurse the sick during the last outbreak.
Axel remembered hearing him tell her and he remembered, as young as
he was, feeling relief that his mother would remain safe. When she
tiptoed past his bedroom and found him awake, she sang to him until
he was sleepy and made him promise not to tell.

Christof was too little and
too stupid, the province of his nursemaid. Mother was
his
. And they had
secrets. It was a special pride to him that he and his mother
shared their secrets. Secrets that would save him from all the
beatings he deserved and never received. And this one last secret,
kept so well by an earnest and adoring boy, that served to kill his
angel mother as surely as if he had driven the dirk past the damask
blouse and linen girdle into her loving, all-giving
heart.

He stood, the restlessness coming over him
again, and looked in the direction of the convent. His silence that
night killed her but not immediately. It took a fortnight for her
to succumb to the pox and die by inches and pieces. Axel waited
outside her room and prayed he would see her again and feel her
arms around him again.

When his father told Axel that his mother
had died, he did it with a boot that sent the eight-year old
sprawling down the hall where he was led away, weeping, by
Dojo.

Within a few years, his father knew better
than to raise a hand to Axel. Teeth were not easily replaced and he
needed every one he had to chew his food. Axel knew his position in
the castle was de facto leader. No one questioned his power—no
matter how savage or unreasonable. The so-called peace he made with
his father was forged by Axel’s strength and cunning as his father
weakened with age.

But the convent and the Catholic holy women
who had lured his mother to share their good works—and then
survived when she could not—had yet to pay for their part in her
death.

But pay they would.

Greta walked into the kitchen and looked
around. The stonewalls, looking more like cave walls, were streaked
with black where the weather had come in through the many crevices
in the stone and stained the rock. It made sense that the kitchen
was carved out of rock. When the oven was going—as it usually
was—the room was not unbearably cold as it would have been. She saw
two loaves of dough rising on a large wooden platter on top of the
stove. She frowned and moved to touch the oven. It was cold. The
other nuns were at prayer or doing chores. Ella was supposed to be
baking the bread and had clearly let the fire go out.

It’s like having
children
, she thought, not for the first
time. But she couldn’t help smiling.

“Mother?” One of the older nuns paused in
the entrance of the kitchen. “Do you need assistance?”

Greta smiled and shook her head without
answering, then opened the oven door to shove kindling inside.

The older nun entered the room. She had her
hands tucked into the sleeves of her habit. “The strange girl let
the oven go out,” she said.

“Yes, she is strange, isn’t she?” Greta
said, her voice calm and slow. “I love the energy she brings to us.
Don’t you?”

The woman, Sister Therese, snorted. “No one
can understand her speech,” she said. “Where did you say she comes
from?”

Greta lit the kindling and poked at it to
get it to catch. She examined her hands which were now smudged
black from soot.

“Lunch may be a little late,” Greta said,
moving to the sink to find the bucket of clear water.

“She doesn’t know how to do basic chores,”
Sister Therese said. “That is, if she does them at all. And I have
yet to see her pray with the others.”

“It is not your responsibility to determine
when our sister talks with God,” Greta said gently as she dried her
hands on a clean rag.

“I would have thought it
was
yours
,”
Sister Therese said.

Greta grinned and took her by both her
hands. “You are such a hard worker, Sister,” she said. “And the
novices all look up to you. It gives me such peace to know I have
you to depend upon.”

Sister Therese blushed and tried to pull her
hands away. But Greta could tell she was pleased.

“Don’t worry about Ella, Sister Therese. She
is doing God’s work right now even if she never cleans another pot
for us or bakes another loaf of bread. You must believe me when I
tell you this.”

“Can she help us get Hannah back? Or any of
the others? Can she prevent the monsters from coming for us at
night?”

Greta could feel the old woman’s hands
trembling in her own. At the mention of Hannah’s name, she knew her
brave face had slipped. While she wept most nights over the loss,
she always admonished herself for having so little faith in God,
especially now that Ella had come—surely a gift from Him. Now, as
she saw the insecurity in this bold, strong woman who had faced
death many times without flinching, Greta only saw her own
failure.

Did they all live in fear for the moment
that the men would come for them?

“I believe she can help us,” Greta said.
“And it’s up to us to have faith and to not be afraid in the
meantime.”

“Are you able to do that, Mother?”

Greta could detect no sarcasm in the woman’s
question. She leaned over and kissed Sister Therese on the cheek.
“On my good days,” Greta said. “The other days I just pray a little
harder.”

“Why would she want to help us? Even if she
is as powerful as you seem to think?”

“She has something to make up for,” Greta
said. “Something to wash away.”

Sister Therese pulled her hands to herself
and crossed her arms.

“As do we all, Sister,” Greta said
pointedly. She smiled at the nun but waved a hand toward the door
to indicate Sister Therese had other places to be.

At the end of the third week of Ella’s life
in 1620, the nightmare began.

It started as a typical day
in the convent except for being allowed to accompany one of the
elder nuns and a young novice again to
Altstadt
. Ella knew the scuffle from
the last time had been reported to Greta. When Ella downplayed it
to her and had succeeded in completing the shopping expedition
without further mishap, Greta began to believe she could be trusted
out again.

Ella hadn’t mentioned Axel.

They left at daybreak, carrying their
baskets of produce to trade. Ella knew that Sister Therese didn’t
like her but the novice—a silly girl of fourteen—made up for
Therese’s glowers by being cheerful and chatty. As soon as they
were on the road and moving toward the market, the girl fell
silent.

Just like that, Ella
marveled. Like turning off a switch. She wondered if the girl had a
tragic backstory or was simply a product of her times when women
counted for nothing and girls less than nothing.
God, history sucks
, she
thought as she directed her own eyes to the road at her
feet.

She let Sister Therese take the lead because
this allowed Ella to keep the old nun’s black form in the corner of
her eye while looking around at the surroundings. Ella also thought
that Sister Therese liked being the leader. Ella knew that part of
Sister’s unfriendliness was because of how close Ella had become to
Greta. These little communities had their pecking orders and it
stood to reason that Ella had bumped someone close to the chief.
She decided she would kill the old girl with kindness and make a
point not to seek Greta out so much when Therese was around.

Since her last outing, Ella had made a point
of always looking over her shoulder as she walked. She was sure she
looked suspicious because she did not look only at the ground as
she walked. She noticed a few people crossing themselves as they
passed, as though trying to ward off evil. She would have to ask
Greta what that was all about.