The Magic Circle (46 page)

“Salt?” I said.

“Salt, the most valued commodity of the ancient world,” said Dacian. “The Romans paid their troops in it: hence today’s word ‘salary.’ The oldest Celtic settlement in Austria, one of the earliest and richest in Europe, was Hallstatt, high in the Salzkammergut, ‘salt chamber country’—quite close to where our friend Lucky was born and where he lived in later life. Its name reveals its source of wealth: like the German
Salz
and old German
Halle, hal
was the Celtic name for salt.”

With a chill I recalled Lucky’s words to Dacian, as recounted by Laf: that on the river, and in the Salzkammergut, would be found the message from the ancient peoples, written in the runes.… But what did it take to uncover that message? I knew the salt lakes and saline springs high in the Austrian Alps, and the mysterious, crystalline underground salt mines, like Merlin’s cave—like those seventy-seven fabled cities.

“Are you saying that when Hitler built his house in the Obersalzburg he was trying to tap into some force, like the hidden cities of Alexander and King Solomon?” I asked. “But what was it?”

“All these things,” said Dacian, “Solomon, the salamander, the salmon, even the town of Salzburg, have one thing in common. Whether
sal
or
Salz
or
sau
or
sault
—it comes down to ‘saltation,’ a word that means to leap, to jump, to dance—”

“I’m afraid that calls for a quantum leap on my part,” I said.

“That’s the secret ingredient I asked for:
sal sapiente
, wise salt, the Salt of Wisdom,” said Dacian. “Sprinkle a little, and it gives you those leaps of intuition like the ones King Solmon was noted for, a dancing mind filled with sparkling energy. Like the salmon leaping upstream—like a leap of faith.”

My beloved
! I heard the Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s echo in my mind,
behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills
.

Dacian turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders ceremonially, almost as if bestowing an oak cluster or passing a torch. Then he looked over my shoulder at Wolfgang with an enigmatic smile.

“My dear,” he told me, “there’s only one thing for it. You’re surely going to have to learn to dance!” Then he moved into the shadows of the oncoming night.

“I just thought of something,” said Wolfgang, when Dacian left. “I was so hypnotized by the man, I almost forgot. I went back to the office while you were lunching, and there was a fax for you that had been forwarded from your office in the States. I hope it’s nothing urgent.” He reached in his pocket and handed me a folded slip of paper. I opened it under the yellow light of the streetlamp:

The first phase of our project is now completed in earnest, and the information archive for phase two is under way. Please advise how to forward future communications to you as we progress. Our team can be reached at the above number starting tomorrow.

—Yours, R. F. Burton, Quality Assurance

Sir Richard Francis Burton, indefatigable explorer and orientalist, had been one of my favorite authors as a child. I’d read everything he’d written or translated including his sixteen-volume
Thousand Nights and a Night of Scheherezade
. Clearly, this message was from Sam. Though I could hardly dwell on the contents while standing here under a Viennese streetlamp with Wolfgang looking on, it was a simple enough communiqué that I was quickly able to figure out a few things up front:

Phase one “completed in earnest” told me Sam had met with his grandfather, Dark Bear, on the Nez Percé reservation at Lapwai and had learned something pretty important about his father Earnest—or he’d not have taken the risk to communicate with me so overtly though I’d said he could. As for phase two: signing the message Sir Richard Burton said it all. In addition to the many books Burton had written about his treks to exotic locales like al-Medina, Mecca, and the source of the Nile, he’d also written one on his pilgrimage to “City of the Saints”—the Latter-day Saints, that is.

So the fax told me that by tomorrow this time, Sam would be checking out the rest of our family history in that other well-known salt land, America’s version of Salzburg: Salt Lake City, Utah.

THE VINEYARD

In response to an oracle of the goddess [Cybele], Dionysos learned the use of grapes from a snake. Thereupon he invented the most primitive method of making wine
.

—Karl Kerenyi,
Dionysos

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman
.

—Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel of John 15:1

And God said … I do set my rainbow in the clouds, and it shall be a token of the covenant between me and the earth.… And I will remember my covenant … and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.… And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine
.

—God’s Covenant with Noah, Genesis 9:12–21

Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there I will give thee my loves
.

—Song of Solomon 7:12

It was after dusk when Wolfgang and I were on the road that ran out of town along the Danube. The deep periwinkle sky was already sprinkled with a few stars; we left behind the fat yellow moon just rising over the city of Vienna.

We didn’t speak much during the trip. Though I was emotionally drained, I couldn’t close my eyes. Soon the city lights had vanished and we followed the broad, graceful sweep of river west toward the Wachau wine country. Wolfgang drove with the same gracefully timed precision he displayed when skiing, and I looked out the windows at the broad, glassy surface of the river to one side and clusters of hill villages stacked up like Hobbit houses just beside the road on the other. In less than an hour we arrived at the town of Krems, where Wolfgang’s office was located.

By now the moon was high, bathing the surrounding hills in light. We took the branch off the main road uphill into the charming walled town of Krems with its interesting assortment of whitewashed buildings whose potpourri of styles could be picked out in the bright moonlight: Renaissance, Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque. We passed through the town and the Höher Markt with its square of country palaces and museums, but to my surprise Wolfgang headed out of town once more on a narrower, winding road that led up into the open hill country, thick with vineyards, high above the village. I glanced at his profile, outlined by the dull green glow of the dash lights.

“I thought the plan was to drop by your office the very first thing, to go over tomorrow’s agenda,” I said.

“Yes, but my office is in my home,” Wolfgang explained, his eyes still on the road ahead. “It isn’t far, only a few kilometers more. We’ll be there at any moment.”

The road had now become narrower and seemed to be running out of pavement as we continued up the steep hill that led farther and farther from the river and its small pockets of habitation. We passed a tiny thatched mud shed that was built into the hill beside the road, the kind where grape pickers store baskets and tools, and take shelter during those sudden drenching rains so common here in the hill country. Beyond it, there was nothing suggesting civilization—except, of course, row after row of grapevines under cultivation.

When we reached the hilltop, the vineyards abruptly stopped and the road dead-ended at a bridge spanning a wide creek. A cloud momentarily shadowed the moon so it was hard to discern the outline of the rugged and very high stone wall that seemed to provide an impasse on the opposite bank.

Wolfgang stopped the car just before the bridge and got out. I thought perhaps I should do likewise. But suddenly a blaze of floodlights switched on outside, drenching the landscape in golden light like an outdoor theater set. I stared in awed disbelief at the view through the windshield.

What I’d taken for a high pasture wall was instead the crenellated rampart of an ancient Austrian
Burg
, a fortresslike stonework, and what I’d believed to be a creek was really a half-filled moat, its mossy granite walls sloping down into the water. High wooden gates were embedded in the rampart. These stood open so I could see the illuminated interior within: a broad, grassy courtyard, an ancient oak tree spreading its branches above the sweep of lawn, and beyond it the circular stone form of a true medieval castle.

Wolfgang returned to the car without a word, put it in low gear, and slowly drove over the drawbridge and through the open gates. He parked on the grass beneath the oak, just beside an old stone well. He switched off the ignition and looked at me almost shyly.

“Your
house?
” I said, amazed.

“How do you say it—a man’s house is his castle?” he asked. “But in my case, what was left to me was an attractive pile of rocks that nearly a thousand years ago formed a castle here above what would one day be the town of Krems. I’ve spent ten years, and most of my leisure time and income, I admit, finding experts to assist me in trying to restore it. Except for those few—and Bettina, who thinks I am crazy to be doing this—you are the only one I’ve brought here. Tell me, do you like it?”

“It’s incredible!” I said.

I got out of the car for a better look. Wolfgang joined me as I walked around the courtyard studying each detail. It was true that ruined castles dotted nearly every hill throughout Germany and Austria; they were so lovely and seemed to have such terrific views, I’d often wondered why no one bothered to restore them. Now I appreciated what effort must have gone into this one. Even the stones of the ramparts were clearly hewn, laid, and mortared by hand. When Wolfgang unlocked the doors of the castle, let me inside, and flicked on the lights, I was even more astounded.

We stood on the slate-paved floor of a large, circular tower; the ceiling soared what must have been sixty feet above us, with a complex domed skylight like a kaleidoscope at the top through which I could see the night sky. The interior was illuminated by a scattering of embedded lights that twinkled, starlike, from niches set in the stone walls. A metal scaffolding rose like an abstract sculpture from the floor to the top of the tower, supporting from beneath assorted structures in various shapes that looked like treehouses jutting at random angles from the outer stone wall. Each “house” was enclosed by a curved wall of hand-polished wood in warm, graduated shades. And each had a Plexiglas section of wall, a floor-to-ceiling picture window, facing the central open space and curving up partially across the ceiling like a skylight, to let in light from above. It took a moment before I saw that these chambers were connected by a suspended spiral of wooden steps that ran along the circular perimeter of the outer wall. The result was absolutely breathtaking.

“It reminds me of those underground cities Dacian spoke of,” I told Wolfgang. “Like a magical cavern hidden within a mountain.”

“And yet by day, it is completely filled with light,” he said. “In those medieval-style window openings, machicolations, and fenestrations, I’ve installed glass and added skylights everywhere—as you’ll see. When we have breakfast here tomorrow morning, sunlight will flood the place—”

“We’re staying here tonight?” I tried to suppress the flutters this idea caused.

“I was certain you would be too exhausted to go back to your uncle Lafcadio’s tonight as you’d planned,” he told me. “And my house is so near the monastery where we’re going tomorrow morning—”

“It’s fine,” I told him. “If it won’t be too much trouble.”

“It’s all arranged,” he assured me. “We’ll have a light supper at a little inn just below that belongs to the vineyard. It overlooks the river. But first, I’d like to show you the rest of the castle—that is, if you’d like.”

“I’d be delighted,” I told him. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

The slate-tiled ground floor of the tower was about forty-five feet in diameter. At the center was a seating area for meals, a low oak table surrounded by softly upholstered chairs. Beyond this, opposite the entry where we stood, was the kitchen, set apart by yards of open shelving filled with glasses, dishes, and spices. Along the kitchen wall were work surfaces of thick wood, interrupted only by a large hearth-type oven with a stone flue built into the outer wall, as one might expect in a castle. The stairs that rose along the nearby tower wall led to the first tier, the library.

Though somewhat larger than the higher chambers, the library fanned out in a semicircle also supported by scaffolding and pinned into the tower wall for stability. Most of the stone wall here was taken up by a large fireplace already piled with wood and kindling. Wolfgang knelt on one knee before it, pulled open the flue, and with a long straw lit the fire.

Before the hearth was a sofa of glove leather piled deep with pillows, and a boomerang-shaped coffee table stacked with heavy books. The expanse of floor space was strewn with thick Turkish carpets in pale colors. And though there were no actual bookcases, the high Biedermeier desk was stacked with papers and writing tools, with more books piled on tables, chairs—even the floor—throughout the room.

Up the next curved flight of steps, on the second tier, was the room Wolfgang said would be mine, with a large comfortable bed, an armoire, a sofa, and an attached bath. The two rooms above were alternate bed-work-living spaces, and by the abundance of research materials and papers, the computer, and other equipment in one of these, it was clear this had been put into use as Wolfgang’s office. Each room had several tall, slitlike fenestrations fitted with windows that opened to overlook the broad, grassy courtyard below.