Count Karlstein

A gasp from everyone, then—except for me, for I’d heard it before, of course. But I hadn’t expected this public announcement. Did they have something up their sleeves, this amazing pair? Miss Davenport was looking particularly smug. The audience was all ears, wide eyes, and open mouths, waiting for the next revelation.

  “The true heir,” said the lawyer, looking around in a way that made a courtroom of the village green and a learned judge of the Mayor, “was stolen from his cradle at birth, taken to Geneva, and abandoned. He was brought up in a foundlings’ home, and then became a groom, and then a soldier, and fought Napoleon at the Battle of Bodelheim.”

  “Well, I’m blowed,” said Max. “Who’d have thought it?”

  “After the war,” said the lawyer, “he became a coachman, and then a humble servant—”

  “What d’you think of that?” said Max, looking at Eliza. “Ain’t that amazing? I wonder who he is?”

  Meister Haifisch treated Max to a long cool look, as if to say, hold your tongue, my man, or I’ll clear the court. Then he went on:

  “The identity of this man is still in question. Fortunately, there is a certain way of telling. I have here”—he produced something, too small to see, from his waistcoat pocket and held it up—“the broken half of a silver coin, the other half of which was placed upon a chain and hung around his neck by the unhappy woman who stole him. She intended to hold him for ransom, but died before she could complete her plan. This coin”—he handed it to the Mayor, who peered at it closely—“and all the details, in her diary, were hidden away in an attic in Geneva and only recently found. So if the other half of the coin is traced—there is the new Count Karlstein!”

  Something had been happening to Eliza in the last ten seconds or so—something that made her wriggle and thrust her hand down her neck and make little squeaking noises, as if a beetle had got down her dress. People were giving her very odd looks, but these changed to amazement when she held up a chain in the air and called:

  “Here it is! He gave it to me! Didn’t you, Maxie? Honest, Your Worship, sir! It was his! But he gave it to me as a token of his love, if you please, sir!” She ran to the platform, and then back again and caught Max’s hand and dragged him forward, too.

  “I’ve had that since I was a tiny baby!” he said. “Does that mean I’m Count Karlstein?”

  The lawyer bent down and took the chain from Eliza’s trembling hand. He and the Mayor held it up and compared it with the other. There was a pause of two or three seconds (and that’s a mighty long time!) and then the Mayor nodded, and Meister Haifisch said:

  “Yes, it does. The two halves match exactly! You are the one!”

  Sensation…Hats flew in the air, and Eliza threw her arms around Max’s neck, and the cheers were so loud that a flock of birds flew up in alarm from the trees across the green and added their squawking to the general tumult. As for Max, he didn’t know where to put himself. He scratched his head, he beamed, he blushed, he dug his toes into the ground, he kissed Eliza, he blushed again, he grinned, he whistled, he winked at the Mayor’s wife—and when the noise died away, he said:

  “And all because of a plate of sausages…Well, thank you very much, Your Worship.”

  He bowed to the lawyer, who bowed back at him, very low, and said, “Not at all, Count Karlstein. I am delighted to be of service.”

  “Count Karlstein…” Max said it slowly, still unable to believe it. “But wait a minute. If I’m Count Karlstein, don’t that mean that these girls is my relations, in a manner of speaking?”

  “Most certainly,” said Meister Haifisch, and he smiled at the two of them—sunshine; what a change in his dry old legal face!

  “Then that’s simple,” said Max. “They don’t have to go to an orphanage after all. They can live with me!”

  Lucy and Charlotte ran to him in delight. He patted them on the head, unsure just yet of how an uncle should behave toward his nieces (but he’d soon learn), and then turned toward the person who’d been holding his hand.

  “And I can marry Eliza!” he said, and kissed her to prove it.

  And again, that might have been all—and the village would have a new lord and lady, and good ones, too: just and decent and popular—and we’d all have gone home rejoicing. But it wasn’t quite over yet. For at that moment, Doctor Cadaverezzi came forward, with the chains still tightly around his wrists, and bowed very low—to Max, of course, as the lord.

  “In view of the general happiness, your grace,” he said courteously, “may one request an amnesty?”

  And it was Miss Davenport who answered. She was taken aback—taken quite breathless, for a moment, and I don’t suppose that had happened very often. She took a step backward, clasped her hands over her heart, and said:

  “But—but this is…Signor Rolipolio!”

  And he was, too.

  And in spite of Max, who maintained that he was Doctor Cadaverezzi, and in spite of the sergeant, who said that, on the contrary, he was Luigi Brilliantini—and under arrest, what’s more—it was Miss Davenport who had the last word on the subject.

  “To me,” she said firmly, glaring at the sergeant, “he will always be Rolipolio.”

  “Well,” said Count Max Karlstein, “that settles it, I reckon, Sergeant. If he ain’t Cadaverezzi and he ain’t Brilliantini either, he can’t have done whatever he did, can he? Stands to reason. You’ll have to let him go.”

  “Count Karlstein,” said Doctor Cadaverezzi, “you are too kind. But allow me…” He held his manacled hands in the air, gave them a little shake—and the chain came loose from his wrists and fell ringing to the ground. He bowed, the audience clapped, and the sergeant gaped. “I was going to escape later on,” explained Cadaverezzi-Brilliantini-Rolipolio, “but now I don’t have to. Miss Davenport!” he said, turning to that lady and bowing very low before taking her hand, “I have been searching for you for many years—ever since our paths were separated long ago. And my good fortune is only equaled by my happiness, now that I have found you again!” And the two of them wandered away, talking very closely together. There was a gentle cough from Meister Haifisch. “Count Karlstein,” he said, “there is a great deal to see to….”

  Which is a good place to finish, I think. Because after that all the things that happened were simple things, ordinary, happy things, like marriages. And like the castle having a good spring-clean from top to bottom, and like me getting my job back. It was odd at first having Max as the master, and he found it odd, too, and there were times when he thought he wouldn’t manage it. But common sense and fair play and good humor see you through most things, and he had a fund of those qualities. And Eliza, Countess Karlstein, was and is the perfect wife for a great lord.

  Lucy and Charlotte went back to school. But not to any ordinary school—to a certain Universal Academy of all the Arts and Sciences, in Genoa, run by a Signora Rolipolio, a very learned lady, whose husband, the great actor Antonio Rolipolio, is the proprietor of the finest theater in all Italy. From time to time they made expeditions of scientific discovery to the pyramids, or to Mesopotamia, or to Hindoostan; and they insisted on taking me with them, and I went with great excitement, I can tell you. They spent all their holidays at Castle Karlstein, and over the years a kind of small miracle happened without anyone noticing it: they came to think of it as their home—that great, grim place, echoing with fear and dark with wickedness.

  And soon I had some more children to look after, because Eliza and Max had a daughter, and then two sons, and then another daughter; and a rowdy lot they are, too. And then I married Wilhelm Bruchmann, a clockmaker, a great artist, and had children of my own, and Count Karlstein is their godfather.

  It was Signora Rolipolio’s idea to write the story of what happened, and she would have me do the bulk of it—but then, I suppose I saw more of it than anyone else. Sergeant Snitsch is an inspector now, and he searched out the police records to oblige Count Karlstein, and let us include his report of the night they arrested Doctor Cadaver
ezzi.

  And that’s all there is to tell. But still, on winter nights when the moon is high and the clouds race across it like a pack of hungry wolves, you can hear faint echoes of a hunting horn in the distant sky. And on All Souls’ Eve every house is shut, every door bolted—and every fireside is ringed with wide-eyed faces, listening to the tales they tell of the Prince of the Mountains, the Dark Hunter, the Demon Zamiel.

  PHILIP PULLMAN is the author of the internationally renowned His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, winner of the Carnegie Medal (England); The Subtle Knife, winner of a Parents’ Choice Gold Award; The Amber Spyglass, the first children’s book ever to win the Whitbread (Costa) Book of the Year Award; Lyra’s Oxford; and Once Upon a Time in the North. Philip Pullman’s other books for children and young adults include The Scarecrow and His Servant, Two Crafty Criminals!, I Was a Rat!, Spring-Heeled Jack, Count Karlstein, The White Mercedes, and The Broken Bridge. He is also the author of the award-winning Sally Lockhart mysteries: The Ruby in the Smoke, The Tiger in the Well, The Shadow in the North, and The Tin Princess.

  Philip Pullman lives in Oxford, England. To learn more about the author and his work, please visit hisdarkmaterials.com and philip-pullman.com, and follow him on Twitter at @PhilipPullman.

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