Extract:
XVIII
KARELIUS obtained a plan by the simple expedient of ordering a footman to get one for him. It duly arrived about three-quarters of an hour later. The maze was obligingly symmetrical, and twenty minutes sufficed to commit the details to memory. He would also take the plan with him, though it would be difficult to consult in the half-light, and he had no wish to draw attention to his presence by carrying a torch.
For weapons he took his sword, plus a dagger tucked into his belt, though the latter seemed unlikely to be of much use. More practically he padded out his jacket with thick stuffing to mitigate the effects of a sword-thrust. It would not stop a gunshot, but that did not seem likely to be part of his adversary’s plan. There had been plenty of chances to gun him down already. What was the woman’s object? If indeed it was a woman.
Aranyos absented himself from the pre-concert banquet pleading an attack of toothache, and had disappeared by about half-past seven. Karelius excused himself from the refreshment break at nine, saying that he would look in on Aranyos. Instead he made his way on to the deserted terrace, and thence in the direction of the maze. There was broken cloud, and fitful moonlight cast the gardens into alternating patterns of light and shade.
As he entered the woodland he glanced at his watch again. Twelve minutes past the hour. It had rained earlier in the day; there was a smell of damp earth and growing things. Birds had gone to roost, but sounds of the night became audible as small creatures scurried about their business. He heard a chorus of bats squeaking. No-one aged over thirty was supposed to be able to hear them, so this time next year they would be inaudible. He didn’t really believe that. The silence that followed was broken by the distant strains of the Beethoven masterpiece. The opening of the first movement, if he was not mistaken. There was still plenty of time.
Slowly and with great care he made his way from tree to tree. Now they broke into the clearing housing the maze; not so much a clearing as a patch of untended scrub. The maze, likewise neglected in a riotous tangle of hedgerow, saplings and creepers, stood approximately in the middle. He could just make out the nearest entrance. According to the plan there was one on each of the four sides. The place seemed deserted.
He sidled up to the giant oak. A solid, dependable old fellow. He’d been here five hundred years, maybe a thousand, and would see Karelius, his contemporaries, and many of their descendants to their graves. Karelius placed his back against the trunk. Five and twenty minutes past nine. Then Aranyos’s voice, low but distinct.
‘A courting couple entered the maze by the far entrance half an hour ago. Couldn’t get much of a view of them, except that the girl was more than a bit overweight, and did a lot of silly giggling. Hard to say whether they were genuine. I can see all four entrances from here. They haven’t left, and no-one else has entered since I’ve been here.’
Karelius nodded slowly to indicate that he had heard, and set off to cover the fifty yards to the entrance, constantly glancing round. The state of the light was less fitful now, as the gibbous moon swam smoothly through thin cloud. Faintly from afar he heard the horns proclaiming the hero of the symphony. The Eroica was not to everyone’s taste. He wasn’t sure that it was to his, being so long and complex. For that matter, he considered symphonies in general to suffer from the same fault. He preferred shorter works.
Twenty yards. And now he was at the entrance to the maze. He cast a swift glance down at his plan. As he had feared, it was indistingu-ishable. He would have to rely on memory alone.
The first turn was forced – to the right. Then came one to the left. He ignored it and continued on. Next left, and he turned. A bullet fired through any of these hedges would have been fatal, but they were so thick that any assassin would have been unlikely to see him. For which reason it was important to make his way as quietly as possible.
Considering the time of year he was surprised it was so dark; within the maze the blackness was almost complete. It occurred to him that had circumstances been normal he might have been troubled by irrational fears of the supernatural: a malignant ghost, or some dreadful creature of the night. There was nothing like practical fears for driving away morbid fancies.
Four turns later, and according to him he should be on the brink of the centre. No sign yet of the amorous couple. And to reach his goal he had to make one more turn to the left, then a final one to the right. He paused again. The ominous notes of the Marcia Funèbre drifted to him through the night air.
There was someone there. How he knew, he could not have said, but he did. Someone on the other side of the hedge. Straight ahead, where the way was blocked off so that he had to turn left. With infinite care he edged around the corner. Had he been completely silent? Did the mysterious enemy know he was there?
As the distance from the dangerous corner increased he began to feel better. Anyone intending to shoot him would surely have done so by now. And here was the final turn, into the hundred-foot square forming the central area of the maze. He took a deep breath, drew his sword and entered.
*
IN the open space the sudden glare of moonlight seemed almost as bright as day. The first thing he noticed was a stone seat forming the centrepiece of the enclosure, with someone dressed all in black sprawling upon it. A slim dark youth. No, not a youth; it was a young woman dressed as a man, as unconvincingly as in a Shakespearean comedy. The enclosure itself had presumably once been neatly-mown grass, but was now a tangle of briars, twitch-grass and fugitive weeds.
‘Turn and defend yourself, monsieur!’
A man’s voice. His attention had been on the woman. Had his assailant entered by one of the other gaps in the hedge, or had be been hiding amongst the scrub? And why had he called out a warning?
Had it not been for that, Karelius might have died. He would have died anyway had the first lunge not been slow and clumsy. As it was he just managed to block the enemy blade. And again. And again. A series of remises. His opponent was a well-built youngish man with fair hair. And he was fast, very fast; far more skilled than his first awkward lunge had suggested.
‘Kill him!’ he heard a hellish screech from the woman. ‘Kill him! Kill the filthy traitor! I want to see him die!’
The young man who was his mortal enemy did his best, launching himself into the attack time and again, and with no mean skill. He had learned his trade from a master swordsman, that was clear. It was some time since Karelius had himself earned a meagre living as a mâitre d’armes in Hamburg. Thank God he had kept in practice, after a fashion at least. And some things you never forgot.
Now he had been driven back to within a yard of the boundary hedge. No further retreat was possible.