Chapter 16: Weekly Routine

The first week of my duties sets the pattern of the next few months of my indenture. A dozen of the rooms in the Schloss are open to the public once a week in exchange for a European Union cultural grant that helps pay for the running repairs to the Schloss. The von Herrschaft conglomerate could probably afford the repairs from their millions, but rich people stay rich by claiming every grant and state subsidy that they can.

Most of the main building is a seventyyearold replica of the former fourteenth century castle. Much of the original castle had been left to decay for over a century. The von Herrschafts acquired the Schloss in the 1890s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that any serious refurbishment work was done. Now it serves as a one of several palatial homes for the von Herrschafts, and as a local history museum for the tourists.

The rooms that are open to the public are each filled with an assortment of medieval furniture, costumes, armour and paintings. Everything has been loaned from a variety of museums and collectors, and none of them are authentic historic artefacts from the Schloss. According to the Hausmeister, when the von Herrschafts acquired the Schloss in the 1890s, it had been abandoned for eighty years, and anything portable had already been looted. The original baron who owned the Schloss apparently backed the wrong side in the Napoleonic Wars.

My former experience as a tour guide comes in surprisingly useful when dealing with the odd assortment of tourists joining the Tuesday afternoon tour. There’s the knowitall types who argue over every detail. Then there’s the perverts who would rather feel me up than listen to my commentary. It’s a good job they don’t discover that my arse is naked under my dress. And finally there are the illiterate wanderers who ignore the multilanguage ‘keep out’ signs as though they don’t apply to them. Somehow I survive the ordeal and manage to herd them back onto their bus in a contented mood at the appointed time.

The university research group who arrive on Wednesday are an equally odd bunch. The professor in charge is obviously exmilitary, and he makes his three research assistants accompanying him very nervous. The two men and one woman assistants are about my age and seem more relaxed once they are away from the professor. Apparently the group has been coming most Wednesdays for several weeks and until now they have been allowed to wander about on their own. The professor doesn’t take kindly to me being imposed on them, but there’s nothing he or I can do about that. I must obey orders, and he can only continue his research with the Schlossherrin’s permission.

“I will continue to study the old gatehouse with Hans and Wilhelm,” says the professor to me. “You can escort Luisa to do some preliminary research on the basement ruins.”

I suspect that the professor is splitting his team in order to get me out of the way. I’ve no idea what game he is playing, but my orders are to assist the team as required. The old gatehouse he wants to study is part of the twelfth century castle that once stood on this site. Only a shinhigh wall of stones buried in long grass marks the original layout, which is about thirty metres beyond the battlements of the fourteenth century walls. According to the Hausmeister the twelfth century castle was destroyed during one of the many thirteenth century wars. A smaller Schloss was built over part of the site a few decades later, using the salvageable material from the original castle.

“Why the interest in the old gatehouse?” I ask Luisa.

“Ich verstehe nicht. Ich spreche nicht sehr gut Englisch,” replies Luisa.

My understanding of German is restricted to a few common words, but I get the gist of what Luisa says. She doesn’t speak much English. We are going to have a difficult time talking if neither of us can speak the other’s language beyond a few words. Fortunately we both speak French well enough to communicate simple questions and answers. It appears the significance of the professor’s research is that the original castle was the last one in Germany to be destroyed by siege prior to the introduction of cannon into Europe. Apparently using cannon made besieging castles a whole lot easier. My immediate reaction to Luisa’s answer is ‘so what’, but I keep my opinion to myself.

Although wandering about the basement passages is creepy, the prospect of being able to see the lower basement overcomes my fears. I call at the Hausmeister’s office, and he gives me the key to the iron grill across the only known entrance to the lower basement. Apparently there are no maps of the lower basement and even the Hausmeister hasn’t been down there in the last decade. I collect some battery powered lanterns, and Luisa and I step into the unknown.

We pause halfway down the stairs between the two basements while Luisa studies the wall. She shows me the join between the original castle and the 1950s repairs. She removes her tablet computer from her bag and shows me pictures of the Schloss over the last eighty or ninety years. I finally understand that the lower part of the wall in front of us is the remains of the original twelfth century castle, which was well made with snug fitting stones. Above it, the fourteenth century rebuild was a more haphazard effort, requiring copious amounts of mortar to fill the joins between stones. Over the centuries the mortar has crumbled, which is what caused parts of the Schloss to collapse. The 1950s repairs restacked the fallen stones, added reinforcing steel rods in places, and filled the joins with concrete. Luisa takes a few photographs before we continue downward.