Read Online The Pierced Heart: A Novel by Lynn Shepherd - Free Book Online

lightning can, perforce, be studied only in a storm. I have written a number of monographs on this subject, which I should be most happy to show you. I have, for example, offered a theory of my own concerning the variant known as ball lightning, which has hitherto never been explained, and which country people believe to be the sign of the devil’s hand. But forked lightning such as we witnessed last night is, I am afraid, only too commonplace and mundane—”
    “Then why should you put yourself at such risk to study it?”
    Is there now the faintest of flushes across the Baron’s hollow cheeks? He picks up his spectacles once more and takes his pen.
    “There were some minor observations I wished to make. I believe breakfast awaits you, Herr Maddox.”
    There is no question of the flush now, and Charles elects merely to bow and depart. But now he has food for thought as well as body.
    When he returns to his room, he goes immediately to the shelves of books and looks among them for any written by the Baron himself.There are several, as it turns out; most on his chemical discoveries, but one in German—
Ueber Blitz ohne Donner
—that judging by the diagrams might well be on the subject of lightning. It’s not the first time Charles has wished he had a better facility for languages. But as he flips through pages densely printed with words that seem to go on forever and have nothing like enough vowels, he remembers with a smile something Maddox said to him when he was a boy—Maddox, who devoted so many years to the study of classical tongues but had rather less time for the modern variety. And what was it his uncle had said? “
Life is short, my boy. Far too short for German irregular verbs.
” He’s still smiling as he puts the book back and scans the rest of the bookshelf to find, rather to his surprise, a copy of
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
from four years before. The journal falls open at a piece titled “Letters on the Truths Contained in Popular Superstitions,” and several pages in Charles finds a brief reference to the Baron’s name. He’s just making a brief note in his pocket-book when there’s a sudden loud knocking at the door, and he marks the page with a slip of paper and puts the journal hastily back. It’s Herr Bremmer, come to enquire whether he would like to resume his researches in the library. Uneasily aware that he appears to be neglecting the task for which he has been hired, Charles gathers his notebook quickly and follows the librarian out of the room.
    He is more than two hours in the library, desperate all the while to return to his room and finish the article. Even at noon he is thwarted when, for the first time, he is accompanied by a silent black-suited servant to the dining-parlour, and thence back to the library once more. When night falls at last, Herr Bremmer accompanies him, as unnecessarily as before, to the door of his room, informs him dinner has been laid there for him, then bows low. Charles closes the door and stands behind it, listening, but it is only when he thrusts the bolt noisily across that he hears the librarian’s leather slippers creak softly away. Then he goes quickly to the shelf and pulls out the journal,turning to the page he marked. There’s not much, only a few paragraphs. But it’s enough. Enough to make him wonder whether there is an answer hidden here that explains everything he has found so unnerving about this place. An answer that might even account for the presence of the girl, and what it is the Baron really wants with her. He shoves the journal carelessly back on the shelf, not caring that it’s now protruding at least an inch from the rest, then carefully slides the bolt back and opens the door. Then he makes his way silently to the door beneath the tower, unaware, in his haste and his eagerness, that in the far shadows of the gallery, the librarian is watching.
    It is no more than a minute before he hears it. Faint at first, and strangely