A Winter's Night Read online

  A Winter’s Night

  A Short story

  By

  Theodore brun

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright Theodore Brun, 2018

  The moral right of Theodore Brun to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 8595

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  A Winter’s Night

  A Winter’s Night

  The events I set out to describe here took place just over ten years ago. They might have gone unrecorded for far longer were it not for a note I recently received from a cousin of mine, who lives in the south of the island of Zealand in Denmark. In the note – a simple message telling me of his plans to visit me this coming winter – he happened to mention the funeral of an old Dane of mutual acquaintance called Fleming Trolleskjold.

  Trolleskjold .

  I had not heard nor spoken that name for many years. Although I confess that in all that time I have, more often than I care to recall, known it whispered in my mind, as in a dream, on nights when the wind blows biting cold or the snow lies thick on the ground.

  Then my thoughts fly back to that strange meeting ten years ago, when, as a young man of twenty-five, I was welcomed as a guest in the old Kammerherre’s house. A house? No, a castle! Yet what took place that night I have never told a soul, for who would credit what I had to tell? I should certainly not believe it myself.

  Nevertheless, the old man is now at rest and with him the ancient story of his name. So, here I must set down on paper as much of this encounter as I can recall, for no better reason than it is true.

  It was one of the first days in the month of January, 2002. I was driving west from Copenhagen and it was snowing. I should not have even been there. I was merely fulfilling a social obligation of my father’s – to attend a pheasant shoot on the estate of a friend of his in Jutland. He was unable to come himself owing to an unexpected lapse in his health. So I had come in his place.

  The expressway cut like a blade across the island of Zealand, over the long bridge – newly built – that spanned the Great Belt, then across the isle of Fyn onto the mainland peninsula of Jutland, where it turned north. The darkness and the snow, which fell ever heavier, slowed the traffic to a crawl. I drove along staring into the murk, following the line of tail lights that glared at me, red and sullen.

  At last, I came to that part of the country the Danes call the nose of Jutland. Here I was to continue cross-country along ever-shrinking roads to the estate of Grenholm, which stood on the coast looking eastwards, across the sea towards Sweden.

  As the road became narrower and the snow grew thicker, the woods at last swallowed up everything in shadow. I was cursing my tight-fistedness. Being an impecunious young man, I had rented the cheapest hire car I could find: a Nissan Micra, which evidently had not been designed with a Nordic snowstorm in mind. Several times my heart lurched into my mouth as I rounded a bend and felt the tyres lose their grip, slewing the back end towards the shallow ditch by the roadside. I drove slower and slower, glancing down at the map in my lap from which I was trying to make sense of the web of little lanes that were supposed to lead me to a decent supper and a warm bed. Even so, I was already hours late.

  The snow was piling up in thick drifts by now, sometimes spilling onto the road. The windscreen wipers thrashed with less and less effect as the snow clogged the glass. The heaters could hardly stave off the deepening cold. Eventually, I came to a sign almost entirely buried under the drifting snow. I could make out only the last few letters:

  “ … holm 3 ”

  I looked at my map. Was I that close already? The roads all seemed to run into each other like tendrils of ivy. There was no main road anymore, only forks and junctions. Maybe that’s it , I thought to myself. But I didn’t fancy leaving the insipid warmth of my little car and digging out the rest of the signpost. That must be it. How many places ending in “-holm” can there be round here?

  I took the turning.

  Feeling more confident that I was closing on my destination, I picked up a little speed, glancing down at my map after a particularly sharp bend in the road to check this corresponded with the road I thought I was on. An error: when I looked up, the windscreen flooded with white light, blinding me. My fingers clamped down on the steering wheel as a much bigger vehicle shot past me in a rush of air and engine. All I could do was blink helplessly, adrenaline exploding through my body as the little car churned into the heavier snow on the verge. I hauled the wheel left, right, then felt the back wheels lose their grip. A horrible, giddy moment in which all I could do was cling on. The car pirouetted, rucked violently up and down as the road curved away to the left, and then spun onto rougher ground. The bonnet lurched downwards and I was thrown forwards and left, before coming to an abrupt halt.

  My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding in my ears. The windscreen and driver’s window were white from hard-packed snow. But above me I could see the dark colour of night through the passenger window, see the snowflakes falling onto its surface, oddly gentle after the shock of the crash.

  It took a moment to assure myself that I was uninjured. A few bruises maybe, a little disorientated, but I had soon freed myself from my seatbelt and climbed out of the passenger door into the snow. The freezing air was another shock, making me catch my breath. A strong wind was blowing through the treetops from the north bringing with it air straight from the arctic that bit to the bone.

  I pulled out my coat from the car, wrapped myself up as warmly as I could, then tried to figure what to do. I pulled out my phone. At least I’d thought to save my host’s number at Grenholm earlier in the day. I scrolled through to it and pressed the green button. The tone rang off. I tried again. Same thing. No reception. I swore.

  That would have been too bloody easy, of course .

  Clearly the car wasn’t going any further that night. Half-buried in snow, it would need digging out in the morning. Anyway I could hardly wait inside an upturned car in this weather. I’d probably die of hypothermia before anyone else happened along a road this obscure.

  I looked at my watch. Ten thirty. Most sensible people round here would be inside by now. No, the only thing for it was to walk – and walk fast before my limbs froze up.

  Retrieving the map, I set off along the road. If it was less than three kilometres to Grenholm I should make it, so long as no one else tried to drive me into the ditch.

  The road was at least solid underfoot. Even so, I slipped a good deal as the blanket of snow grew up about my ankles. But at least the ribbon of snow on the road made it easier to navigate my way through the dark woodland.

  The hair on my head was stiffening, snow turning into solid ice; and despite my exertions trud
ging and slipping along the road, my nose and ears tingled with that strange spreading numbness before frostbite, lashed as they were by the northerly wind.

  What a ridiculous way to lose my nose , I thought, quickening my pace.

  At last, the lane broke from the woods and I could see more open snow-covered land that must have been a wide verge beside the road, then perhaps a low hedge and fields beyond. The road sloped and began a slow bend to the right. When I reached the apex of the bend I noticed through the falling snow darker shapes to my left. I approached them and, peering closer, found they were whitewashed buildings – barns or stables or something. But there were no signs of life, no lights on.

  The ground underfoot felt different. I kicked away some snow and felt around with the leather sole of my boot, which was by now miserably soaked through. In spite of my numb toes, I knew what I was feeling: cobblestones.

  Round here, cobblestones meant castles. The way my father had described Grenholm, I knew it was a big place, and I was suddenly optimistic that I was on the right track.

  Passing the farm buildings, an archway suddenly loomed out of the darkness, a sort of gatehouse over a tunnel whitewashed in the same style. I walked through it, happy to be out of the falling snow, even for a moment, though the funnel of wind whistled louder in my ears. On the other side, there were more whitewashed buildings – a kind of diminutive village street, picturesque in its way but for the blizzard – but there were no signs of life here either. Instead my eye was drawn to the lights I could make out up ahead. I came to a short stone bridge that spanned what must have been a moat buried under all the snow, and at the far end of that, a large gateway, its black iron gates standing open.

  Beyond was a courtyard, three sides of which were framed by a massive stone building, a monstrous shadow rising up into the night. I saw four floors of windows. The first row was low, as if the ground floor were half submerged. The second was set higher and accessed at the front by a hefty stone staircase leading up to a huge front door, framed in a smaller wing of the house that projected into the middle of the courtyard. I crossed to the foot of the staircase where two wrought-iron lanterns shone out dimly through the heavy snowfall. Gazing upwards, I could see above the main section of the house a great square stone tower, with another three floors with much smaller windows.

  Apart from the light from the lanterns, I counted only seven other lights in all the rows and rows of darkened windows that peered grimly down into the courtyard. All of these were on the second and third floors in the wing of the main entrance ahead.

  With muted footsteps, I mounted the staircase, which was now thick with snow. At the top I came to the massive double-door. On each half-door hung a large circular knocker, wrought in black iron in the same style as the lanterns. Each was fixed with an ornamented boss, on which was stamped the face of some sort of malevolent-looking being. I thought of Scrooge, and Marley’s waxen face on the old miser’s knocker. But here, in the dim light of the lanterns, all I could make out were impish eyebrows creased into a frown and a mocking sneer on the little gargoyle’s lips.

  I stood there for a moment, looking for a doorbell or something like it, but could see nothing. Instead, I raised one of the knockers and pounded at the door three or four times. The door shook, and I heard the echo of my knocking inside the hallway, even over the sound of the wind blowing around me.

  Wake Duncan with your knocking! my mind blurted nervously.

  I was just wondering how long I should wait before I could give the door another thump when I heard footsteps approaching.

  A latch lifted, the door opened, and into the weak light stepped a giant of a man.

  He stood six and a half feet tall if he was an inch, with a head as wide as it was long, a great block of bone, crowned with thinning white hair combed straight back. He had grey eyes, unusually bright and sharp for an old man. For he was old, with cheeks hollowed out by age and deep lines around his eyes. His mouth was cavernous but narrow, like the slit in a post-box, set over an angular chin. He must have been broad and strong once, but his shoulders had now slumped forwards, like two cannon balls butting against the great barrel of his chest. All this, together with his ponderous movements, only deepened my first impression that I must have woken not Duncan but some ancient titan with my knocking.

  He was looking me up and down, somehow combining an expression of extreme disdain with sudden shock. I realised I must have looked to him like some sort of ice-spirit conjured out of the storm.

  “Good evening,” I began in hesitant Danish. “Is this place Grenholm Slot?”

  “Grenholm?” His voice was like sandpaper. “Grenholm? No, no! This is Trolleholm. Who are you?”

  “I am English. I am staying at Grenholm this evening. Sorry, I can only speak a little Danish.”

  “Oh, you are English, are you?” he replied, switching effortlessly to that language. “The iceman cometh, heh?”

  “Excuse me.”

  “Tell me, do Englishmen make a habit of wandering around the countryside in a snowstorm?”

  “No, no,” I spluttered. “Gosh, I must look a state. I’m expected at Grenholm tonight. But I had an accident. My car skidded into a ditch a couple of kilometres back. I’m afraid I must have got lost.”

  “Well, you’re only a few kilometres out. You’d better come in.”

  The whistling flurries of snow were all but silenced as the latch fell into place behind me. I followed his hulking form under a short archway and into the hallway, melting ice trickling down my neck.

  A large circular wooden table filled most of the space. The walls were sky blue, and the hall was laid out in the shape of an enormous cross. Each of the four arms of the cross was a short corridor that led away somewhere else. I looked up and realised that I must be standing under the huge central stone tower.

  “Over here.” The old man motioned me towards an exquisitely polished telephone with an old-fashioned dial perched on a side-table. “Let’s see if old Claus is still up.”

  He laboriously dialled out eight numbers from memory, then abruptly held out the receiver. I took it in time to hear two rings before a voice answered. It was my host at Grenholm.

  I garbled out an inarticulate introduction over the phone and explained what had happened. All the while, the old man was eyeing me carefully. I returned his gaze, not wanting him to think that I couldn’t, but I was unable to judge whether his expression was one of indifference, hostility or a rough kind of concern.

  Meanwhile, my host was telling me not to worry. That they couldn’t collect me tonight; that he’d send someone in the morning; that they’d pull me out no problem; that he was sure I could stay at Trolleholm; that I should sleep well.

  Before I could reply, the phone went dead.

  “Well?”

  “They can’t do anything until tomorrow morning. I’m sorry to impose on you like this, but—”

  “Yah, yah, of course,” he croaked. “We’ll find you a bed. What’s your name by the way?”

  I told him.

  “Well. Good. Mine is Trolleskjold. Fleming Trolleskjold.”

  I extended a hand. He crushed it.

  “Take off your coat. You can leave it on the table. Your boots too, if you like. Then we’ll get you thawed out.”

  I removed my coat, but feeling that padding around this house in wet socks was a little undignified, I kept my boots on.

  I followed him down the right-hand arm of the cross-shaped hall, at the end of which he bent down and opened the door into a room. A room like no other I’ve ever seen before or since.

  My first impression was of pure heat, which blazed past him into the corridor as soon as he had opened the door. The door opened wider, and I saw why. On the far side of the room, and the first thing that met my eye, was an open fireplace that resembled a small cave. A short man could happily have walked right into it without knocking his head on the massive granite crosspiece that stretched nearly three metres, end to end. A ter
rific fire was burning in the hearth, which anywhere else would have seemed a bonfire, but here only matched the monolithic scale of the fireplace itself.

  In the centre of the cavernous room was a column of reddish stone, perhaps two feet in diameter. From its capital, a fan of brick-lined Gothic arches spread in every direction, each of which came to a point in the vaulted ceiling above. At the apex of each arch, a large circular boss was affixed to the ceiling, each one bearing a different coat of arms.

  From the ceiling hung four chandeliers, Gothic in style like the rest of the room and freshly stocked with candles, which remained unlit. What light there was came from the fire and three or four smaller lamps on side-tables. On the walls hung antiquated tapestries, so worn and faded that in the muted light it was impossible to see what they depicted. Against the walls were four chests and in one corner a mahogany writing desk with a reading lamp and a few papers scattered over its blood-red surface.

  Heavy curtains concealed the windows, and close to the fire, in front of a rug that surely hailed from some far-off Central Asian emporium, were two low-backed armchairs. These and the desk were the only signs that this room was for living in, and not some drafty chamber in a medieval museum.

  For all this, what drew and held my eye was the rug by the fire. For in the flickering light I could see it was alive with creatures. Piles of hairy limbs and muzzles and tails, twitching, wriggling, breathing.

  Dogs.

  “Take a seat, young man. I assume you’d like a drink.”

  “Whatever you’re having. Thank you.”

  He must have seen me hesitate.

  “Oh, don’t mind them. They’re friendly enough.”

  I slipped into one of the armchairs and was momentarily overcome by a wave of pleasure at being off my feet and feeling something approaching warm again.

  “How many do you have?” I asked, nodding at the heap of animals.

  “Seven. Five wolfhounds. Then there’s a black retriever. The terrier is my wife’s.”

  I almost bit my tongue in surprise at hearing he was married. One by one, I was able to pick out the different dogs lying about the place. Most were in front of the fire, but one or two lay off to the side, curled up and enjoying the warmth of the room, as I was.