The Relief of Graustadt

Two Years Before

Between fear and hope is where most people spend their lives. For the citizens of Graustadt, the balance is unequally applied. They may nurture a single flame of the latter, but are daily consumed by the former. 

In this linear dwelling place of half-timbered buildings, three-deep at most, the Florian provides the immediate focus. The river, in the slow march of time, has carved a V-shaped valley through the rock. The slopes are now densely wooded, and beneath their canopy, the grey wolves roam. 

It used to be called Florianthal. In documents and in general discourse, it still is. But the residents now call it Graustadt, because for two years, everything has been painted grey. Every house, hovel and barn. 

In addition, the algae which accumulates on the river bank and the quayside is assiduously scraped away and removed, as is any verdant floating matter. Flowers and weeds are uprooted. Only dull river birds are allowed to paddle the water, and the cows in the pasture, once the golden Limousin, are replaced with the black and white Holstein. 

Interiors are equally grey, as is clothing. Hair, unless already so, must be covered. Indeed, everything which can (or cannot) be rendered in this discouraging shade has been painted, plundered or destroyed. Only the sky, which cannot be changed, and the ale, which cannot be anything less than golden, escapes the protocol. 

The trees, like the sky, are unalterable, but the meadow grass where the golden cattle grazed does not escape. The Holsteins, despite their acceptable colouring, have been moved to higher pastures, and in recent months, the remaining grass has been covered by grey sacking, beneath which it withers away. On the north side of the valley, the greenery of the trees is also being removed, limb by limb, because the Margrave believes there is gold in the hills. 

*****

Two years. Not long in a lifespan but an eternity in grey. It began (in full colour) with the removal of citizens in the middle of the night. At first it was assumed they had packed in their lot and gone to the cities, where prospects were more beguiling. But although this habit of exodus was centuries old, the families of such people were not convinced, due to the lack of leave-taking. It was out of character, they protested, and they ought to know the character of their own loved ones. 

The puzzle was solved when an edict was nailed to the church door. Beneath an artistic depiction of a skull and crossbones, the word PLAGUE was writ clear. They were to be quarantined until further notice. On the same day, guards were posted at routes in and out of the village and no one was allowed to enter or leave. The disappeared were returned with no explanation. They appeared healthy, and by the evidence of their ruddy cheeks, the citizens realised that, for whatever reason, they had been duped and could no longer escape. The returned people observed an omertà imposed by threat.

In the days and weeks which followed, all material things turned grey - but their fear was as black as pitch. 

*****

The Present Time

The north walls of the Margrave’s castle overlooked Graustadt. The aspect it presented was not its most appealing. Here were the battlements and the hard business of defence. The south side presented a softer, more sophisticated profile. The lawns backdropped sumptuous planting schemes where all the shapes and colours of nature were displayed. The gardens were acclaimed. Teams of groundsmen worked through the months with a dedicated calendar of what should be pruned, sown, or at the first sign of blight, burned. 

The aroma of these fragrant pyres often drifted through the windows of Clovis’s room, and at such times he would hobble across and breathe in the layered scent. If he was suddenly blinded, it would make no difference to the familiarity of his chambers. He had lived in these rooms all his life and had never once crossed the threshold of them. Although the first born, his siblings never came. It is likely they did not even know he was their brother, and if they ever asked about the boy in the window, no doubt they would be told he was an unfortunate, crippled ward the Margrave was obliged to keep. It was not entirely untrue.

His sister was beautiful. She occasionally waved at Clovis from the garden. His younger brother did not acknowledge him at all, and seemed to have taken on the worst aspects of his father, with his puffed up swagger and his short manner with the servants. And yet there were times when his father showed some affection, perhaps prompted by his catholic soul. He was given access to a priest, who taught him to read and write, but the books he was given were often weighty and ponderous.

Feeling low, Clovis walked clumsily to his bedchamber, from where he could see the village below and the steep hills currently being mined by all the able-bodied people of Florianthal. He knew the story. His father, knowing that Clovis could never escape his commodious prison, was apt to talk at length about the search for gold and the reason for the grey village. 

‘They must be made to feel dispirited,’ he said. ‘There is no better colour than that of ashes to extinguish the flames of mutiny. They are well-fed and I have kept the brewery open, but I need them to work and not leave for the towns. If I had not done this, word would have spread and enterprising men would have sought to profit.'

‘But they are unhappy,’ the boy said. ‘And you are not paying them.’ His father told him, sharply and with some feeling, that there were worse things to be. Clovis could not imagine what. 

The boy persisted, driven by the logic of his mind. ‘How have you been able to deny access for two years? Have none of the other princes and margraves raised it with you?’

‘Of course,’ said his father. ‘Their silence has been guaranteed.’ And here he rubbed his fingers together in the gesture of money and gold. ‘Any travellers who venture by are simply told there is plague in the village. All is well,’ he said, slapping the boy on the back and ruffling his hair.

As he was clearly in such good spirits on that day, Clovis asked him if he could have some paints and canvases. He had never tried it, and thought it might ease the passage of his hours. 

‘I see no reason why not,’ said the Margrave. As he was leaving, stooping under the low door, he said, ‘There is a banquet this evening. I’ll make sure nurse sends some good vittles up for you.’

‘Thank you father,’ he murmured. 

*****

People often believe that magic can be conjured by humanity. That with incantations and slavish adherence to esoteric texts, a spell can be engineered. It is not so. Magic comes from the earth, and the most potent magic of all lies within the motherlode of gold. When some of it escapes, (as it is want to do when pick axes are repeatedly applied), it takes an arbitrary journey. It will linger by the nostrils and the mouth, and if it does not like what it feels, it continues until it finds something it does like. A hundred tons of gold might only yield one such liberty, and it was at the precise moment when Clovis leant out the window and sleepily yawned that the spore found its home. He coughed a little as it went down, and slept without dreams.

*****

His nurse had brought up an easel, and paints kept moist in bladders. Huffing and puffing, she also brought up various canvases and a bundle of charcoal sticks.

At first, he drew sketches of that part of the verdant garden he could see, but he soon tired of shrubs and flowers. Rubbing the charcoal between his fingers and finding the smudge as grey as it appeared on his canvas, he moved his easel, slowly and with difficulty, to his bedchamber, from which he could see Florianthal and the enslaved activity on the hillside. An ugly scar had formed from the removal of trees. Casting his eyes lower, he began to sketch the street scene below. 

He was startled by the soft approach of his nurse, who had brought food for him. 

‘Master Clovis, your food is on the —’

At her sudden silence he felt himself blushing. Was his picture so awful?

‘My goodness,’ she exclaimed. ‘That is remarkable!’ And she walked around, studying his composition from different angles, leaning her head this way and that and whistling under her breath. 

‘Is it?’ he asked. 

‘Indeed it is!’ 

There followed a wheedling silence, in which Clovis had a feeling he knew what was about to be asked. To spare her embarrassment, he said ‘Would you like me to try and draw you, Greta?’

Her eyes twinkled with excitement. Her hands flew to her cheeks and she immediately procured a chair, which she sat on so heavily Clovis feared it might break. He smiled to himself, and drew a fresh sheet. 

And then something crossed her features, and again, Clovis understood. Greta, who was of middle years and neither ugly nor handsome, had a disfiguring wart on the end of her chin which seemed to be getting bigger and hairier with each passing year. Her hand went subconsciously towards it, and she diffidently asked if he might be persuaded to leave that part of her out. 

‘Of course, Greta,’ he said softly. ‘Of course I will.’ 

As the charcoal and chalk formed their shapes and shadows, Clovis was again reminded of how simple he found it. He had read of tortured, temperamental artists, but with Clovis it was as if invisible hands were guiding him. It was as effortless as the lark on the wing. And very soon, in just the time it would take him to eat his supper, the picture of Greta was finished. Where her wart was, he had created an appealing cleft in the chin, and chivalrously ignored some of the wrinkles and broken veins which time itself had painted upon her. 

Nonetheless, however quick he had been, Greta was in a hurry to attend to her other duties and fled without looking at the picture. ‘Show me tomorrow,’ she said, bobbing what felt like an unnecessary curtsey. Clovis was left wondering whether it was because she was fearful of gazing upon herself, looking glasses being so scarce.

*****

The following morning, when Greta brought his breakfast and her etui for some repairs she was about to make to his trousers, Clovis dropped the book he was reading in shock. Greta’s wart had disappeared and had been replaced by a fetching dimple. Her skin was brighter and smoother. Indeed, she seemed twenty years younger than she had appeared the evening before. 

‘It has been noticed,’ she whispered. ‘They say I have been visited by magic.’

She walked towards the easel and looked down at the drawing. ‘Is this how I appear now?’ she asked. Clovis nodded, and then stroked his fingers, which thrummed with a sense of pulsating power he could not feel in the rest of his numb body. 

‘Do you believe in magic, Greta?’

‘Oh yes, Master Clovis. Everyone does.’ She walked towards the window and looked down at Graustadt. ‘Especially down there.’

‘Not God?’ the boy asked. 

Greta crossed herself before saying, ‘Even the church is grey. What are they meant to believe?’ 

*****

When his father paid one of his brief and irregular visits that evening, Clovis asked him for a looking glass. ‘I have never seen myself,’ he said. ‘I only have a vague idea of what I look like from the small panes of glass in the window.’ 

His father shrugged. ‘I see no reason why not,’ he told his son. ‘You’re actually very handsome. It’s such a shame you’re a cripple.’ 

‘What happened to my mother?’ he blurted out. 

‘She died of a fever soon after Odette was born. I shouldn’t mourn her too much, Clovis. As soon as she saw your deformed legs, she wanted nothing to do with you.’ 

*****

While he was waiting for the procurement of the looking glass, Clovis returned to his drawing of the grey village. When he had made all the substantive marks he could make, his fingers reached, unbidden, to a sac of Schonbrunn yellow, which had been the previous colour of the tavern at the centre of the row. It had once been prettified in the summer months with effulgent hanging baskets of trailing begonias, coquelicot, burnt orange nasturtiums, lemon clematis, pink pelargoniums and azure lobelia. Those people who passed by it now, the elderly and the very young, bore complexions which matched the colour of their clothes. It was like observing the bottom of a lead-lined tomb. 

He brushed away a tear with his finger and daubed a trace of yellow under the gables of the tavern. 

He then spent the rest of the day in lonely pursuits. 

When dawn broke, Clovis put on his callipers and shuffled to the window. As he thought, as he knew, there was a glimpse of yellow beneath the gable. The files of people on their way to the mines did not look up to notice. Consumed with haste, he painted the entire facade and added flower baskets as a flourish. When the paint was dry, he turned the canvas around and draped it with a wolf pelt. 

That evening, a servant dropped off a looking glass and a note from his father. The note said, in gleeful prose, that they had found gold several days before. The looking glass revealed a face which challenged his natural humility. Without much to compare against, Clovis conceded that he was far from objectionable to look at. 

*****

When Clovis rose at dawn the following day, struggling with his callipers, he saw a crowd of people gazing at the tavern. The Margrave’s men, confounded in shock, struggled to get them moving again. During the course of the day, every home and storeroom was ransacked for evidence of paint and potting soil. According to Greta, none could be found. 

And so naturally, during that long afternoon, Clovis painted all that he could see from his window. He used all the colours at his disposal, some in their natural form, others blended to form different, more tantalising hues. The wooden timbers were returned to their natural colour, and he painted iridescent ducks on the river. The following morning, when all was a twinkling spool of colour, and the sentries had insisted that nothing untoward had happened in the night, the townspeople refused to go to the mines. The Margrave was warned of magic. No human agency could have done this. Lost in thought, and words, he ignored the militant crowd and turned his horse towards the castle. 

*****

Bestowed with this gift, whether it be long or short, Clovis set about drawing a figure of himself in which the callipers were gone and his legs were strong and sound. He used the mirror on various surfaces and heights until he had achieved the image he required. And Greta, discreet and loyal, helped him to walk unaided until, two days later, though still not quite steady on his feet, he could stand upright without dizziness. 

‘The Margrave believes that his mining has disturbed an angry spirit,’ she confided. 

‘Then let him believe it,’ said Clovis. ‘The townspeople won’t see it that way.’

‘They are celebrating,’ she said, looking out of the window towards the revellers. Only their clothes remained grey. The red heads and the blondes made a striking reverse.

*****

When he knocked on the door of his father’s private office, he was told to go away. Clovis entered and stood before him, tall and without callipers. The Margrave whitened in shock. 

Without explanation, Clovis asked ‘Was my mother gifted in magic?’ 

‘What? No! She wasn’t gifted in anything.’

‘It must have been all these years of solitude then,’ Clovis mused. His father was about to speak, but Clovis put a finger to his lips. 

'I can take off your limbs,' he said. 'While I think on it, I can also take off your head. Or I can paint you out of being.'

He walked to the table where his father sat and looked him fully in the eye. ‘Take what gold you have already mined and leave for your country estate. Do not come here again, or you will pay. I am the Margrave now.’ 

‘And your brother and sister?’

‘You can leave Odette if you like, but you can take Ralf. You deserve each other.’

*****

All would be well again in Florianthal. But before Clovis addressed the crowds, he packed away his easel and left it in the darkest corner of the store rooms. 

All is temptation, and not all of it good.