feet up on a spiral path that wrapped the mountain until reaching the bottommost of the castle’s six stories. Turrets and flanking towers gave relief to the long-sided curtain walls, with rounded corner towers gracing the four endpoints. A centered watchtower stood another five stories above the roof.
Prior to major renovation, any tourist could approach up the path to the front door and knock, a privilege since revoked and replaced with a guarded entrance gate at the mountain’s base. Luc was received by the guard, who closed the gate and showed us to a horse-drawn carriage, an open-top wagon with rubber-tired wheels and red side-mounted lanterns. A lone horse pulled us up the path. As the path spiraled up the mountain and rose above the trees, I looked out at the valley and wished our ride never to end. But end it did and deposited us at the entrance, a couple of dozen stone steps below the front door.
Of solid oak and a mere six feet tall, the door surprised me with its stunted size, allowing only a single entrant at a time. I knocked on the door . . . simply because I wanted to. Seconds later, the loud locking mechanism freed the door and a man stood back away from the light.
“Do come in, sir.” I recognized Arthur Ardelean’s voice.
“Mr. Ardelean.” I held out my hand and we exchanged greetings.
“Kindly leave your bags to the staff, Mr. Barkeley.”
If one could look like his voice, Arthur did, his face long with the jowls of an elder, eyes that turned down at the corners, hair black and retreating from a widow’s peak. He was tall and thin, with long arms and legs, and wore an ascot, much like the one I had expected to see in his envelope. He wore the shoes of a working man—blucher oxfords with a heavy leather welt. His hands were large, and his handshake grip belied his apparent age.
Arthur showed me inside, and I was taken by the entrance room’s smell, a mixture of old wood, fabric, smoke, and the cool breeze generated by stone walls. It looked to be a large gathering room with fifteen-foot ceilings and tall, narrow windows, sparse of furnishings but decorated with frescos and dark-colored tapestries. Underfoot a dense patterned rug led to a perimeter of wide, dark oak plank flooring. We traversed the room, a good forty feet in length, and stepped into an elevator while a young man tended to my bags. Luc took his leave and bid to rejoin us for dinner.
The elevator’s accordion doors closed before us, and I faced the stone texture of the shaft as we climbed. Judging height is challenging inside a slow-moving box, but I guessed we had reached the fourth story when the doors opened to a receiving room. I signed a guest book that rested on an old board table and, while tempted to peruse the pages, followed Arthur through arched doors into a hallway.
“Allow me to show you to your room first, Mr. Barkeley, so you can freshen for dinner.” He pointed me through large double doors at the end of the hallway to a corner suite, where three sides of picture window offered a startling view three hundred feet above the valley floor. Cool afternoon mountain breezes swept across the room.
Staring at the vista, I suddenly realized that Arthur had spoken.
“I’m sorry, pardon me?”
“I trust your accommodations meet with your expectations, sir,” he said.
I nodded, unable to find a worthy superlative.
“Dinner will be served in an hour, sir, and you need only to pick up the telephone should you need something.” He pointed to a black cradle telephone on a nightstand; it had no keypad.
After Arthur left, I noticed my bags had already been placed on the stands awaiting my arrival. Odd; it felt like we had taken the most direct route possible. A change of clothes followed a shower, and as much as I wished to explore the castle, I waited out the hour seated on the windowsill instead, looking all directions over the valley. I thought of the street people I had seen that day and, but for a fateful
Prior to major renovation, any tourist could approach up the path to the front door and knock, a privilege since revoked and replaced with a guarded entrance gate at the mountain’s base. Luc was received by the guard, who closed the gate and showed us to a horse-drawn carriage, an open-top wagon with rubber-tired wheels and red side-mounted lanterns. A lone horse pulled us up the path. As the path spiraled up the mountain and rose above the trees, I looked out at the valley and wished our ride never to end. But end it did and deposited us at the entrance, a couple of dozen stone steps below the front door.
Of solid oak and a mere six feet tall, the door surprised me with its stunted size, allowing only a single entrant at a time. I knocked on the door . . . simply because I wanted to. Seconds later, the loud locking mechanism freed the door and a man stood back away from the light.
“Do come in, sir.” I recognized Arthur Ardelean’s voice.
“Mr. Ardelean.” I held out my hand and we exchanged greetings.
“Kindly leave your bags to the staff, Mr. Barkeley.”
If one could look like his voice, Arthur did, his face long with the jowls of an elder, eyes that turned down at the corners, hair black and retreating from a widow’s peak. He was tall and thin, with long arms and legs, and wore an ascot, much like the one I had expected to see in his envelope. He wore the shoes of a working man—blucher oxfords with a heavy leather welt. His hands were large, and his handshake grip belied his apparent age.
Arthur showed me inside, and I was taken by the entrance room’s smell, a mixture of old wood, fabric, smoke, and the cool breeze generated by stone walls. It looked to be a large gathering room with fifteen-foot ceilings and tall, narrow windows, sparse of furnishings but decorated with frescos and dark-colored tapestries. Underfoot a dense patterned rug led to a perimeter of wide, dark oak plank flooring. We traversed the room, a good forty feet in length, and stepped into an elevator while a young man tended to my bags. Luc took his leave and bid to rejoin us for dinner.
The elevator’s accordion doors closed before us, and I faced the stone texture of the shaft as we climbed. Judging height is challenging inside a slow-moving box, but I guessed we had reached the fourth story when the doors opened to a receiving room. I signed a guest book that rested on an old board table and, while tempted to peruse the pages, followed Arthur through arched doors into a hallway.
“Allow me to show you to your room first, Mr. Barkeley, so you can freshen for dinner.” He pointed me through large double doors at the end of the hallway to a corner suite, where three sides of picture window offered a startling view three hundred feet above the valley floor. Cool afternoon mountain breezes swept across the room.
Staring at the vista, I suddenly realized that Arthur had spoken.
“I’m sorry, pardon me?”
“I trust your accommodations meet with your expectations, sir,” he said.
I nodded, unable to find a worthy superlative.
“Dinner will be served in an hour, sir, and you need only to pick up the telephone should you need something.” He pointed to a black cradle telephone on a nightstand; it had no keypad.
After Arthur left, I noticed my bags had already been placed on the stands awaiting my arrival. Odd; it felt like we had taken the most direct route possible. A change of clothes followed a shower, and as much as I wished to explore the castle, I waited out the hour seated on the windowsill instead, looking all directions over the valley. I thought of the street people I had seen that day and, but for a fateful
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