Speaking of low status I noticed that the scene was being observed by our gardener, Ulf, from outside the conservatory. The last time I'd seen him, when I first arrived half an hour ago, he'd been tending plants many metres away. Now the plants directly outside the conservatory clearly required his attention. He was watching through the glass with mouth open and a look of lust on his face. His hands went inside his trousers and pulled out his phallus. It was of a good length, just over average in that regard, but it was the girth that was astonishing. It was as fat as the mason's arms with a huge flat head that resembled an animal's phallus more than a human being. Ulf leant on the glass with one hand and furiously stimulated this monster of a phallus with the other as he stared at what my Mother had called 'a transaction.'
I made a judgement to engage Mother in conversation at this point. She had got her way, and perhaps Gerda and the workmen could get along just fine without her directions, I might safely approach.
"Mother," I said. "May I be permitted to examine the Red Room?"
"Push harder," said Mother to the master mason. "Put some effort into it, man! I want her ready and willing to take both these two handsome lads. If you slow down then we will lose the momentum in this exchange, which must stay constant if Gerda is to learn her place. Gerda, get those legs wider, he doesn't want to have to push past your fat thighs to get balls deep. Sorry Damion, what was that you wanted?"
"To visit the Red Room," I explained. "I believe there are some papers relating to number 34 that Father neglected to give me."
"Don't bother me with business matters, Damion," Mother replied. "You know I have no head for it. Yes, go ahead." I thought for a moment she was talking to me but it turned out she was directing her remarks to one of the apprentices. "Spit on her nipples lad," she ordered. "Then roll them between finger and thumb, yes that's right. See... she arches her back and pushes her breasts up when you do that."
"Thank you Mother," I said, deliberately misinterpreting her comment about going ahead, and started to back out of this bacchanalian scene. There was a pattering like heavy drops of rain on the glass of the conservatory and I observed that Ulf had spurted his seed directly at the glass. It slowly slid down to become fertiliser. Gerda made a muffled scream and twitched on the table between her three lovers, she was having what she referred to as a 'wheeeee!' After a minute or so of spasms she grabbed out at her lovers to encourage them to continue. It seemed she and my Mother would be busy for a while longer yet. It was safe to explore.
Upstairs I paused at the door to the Red Room to stroke the cat.
A cat! I didn't think we had a cat. Not in the house. There were cats on the farms but my recollection was that we'd never had one in the house. The cat was elegant, no doubt about it. It was jet black and had short, sleek fur. Its yellow eyes seemed very exotic. This was not a scruffy farm cat but the pampered pet of a princess. It looked up at me and licked its paw. My eyes were drawn to the only fur on it that wasn't black. There was a little patch of white on the upper part of its chest, it looked like the beast was wearing a tiny diamond pendant.
I realised that I was stalling, using this creature as an excuse not to enter my Father's domain. The last time I had been here was to receive the deeds to number 34, and to witness Una's abuse. Father was away, there was no danger, but years of my mother saying things like 'your Father is in his study, do not disturb him' had left its mark on me. I took a deep breath, screwed up my courage, and entered.
The problem with the Red Room, to my mind, was that everywhere you looked there were instruments of death. Things specifically designed to kill people, to get past protections like shields and armour, to fracture bones, and pierce the soft flesh of the victim. They sat in their holders on the walls, or upright in racks, just waiting for a mind with the will to use them.
The worst items, and the ones I couldn't look at without getting a terrible twisting in my stomach, were the three poles at the southern end of the room near the door. They were about four metres tall and, upright, they nearly reached the ceiling which was just a couple of metres higher. They slotted into brackets on the floor which permitted them to be lowered and raised and they were tipped with a metal point. The point was about a metre long and tapered to the width of a finger, but was not sharpened further. They were designed for that most terrible form of execution and humiliation, to be impaled.
Invented centuries ago impalement had been the favoured punishment delivered by Vlad Dracul. He was the Voivode, or ruler, of Wallachia and fought Ottoman enemies and even his own family. He would skewer his enemies through their stomachs and raise them on poles to watch them die, horribly, whilst he sat and ate his supper.
He died in battle in 1476 but since his time some rulers had 'improved' on his technique, trying to make the suffering more extended, and the finger-pole was one solution. It would be lowered and the victim would be pushed onto the tip. Impaled through the anus, if a man, or the vagina, if a woman. Then the pole would be raised again and locked into place. There was a heavy counterweight on the butt end of the pole to help raising it. The weight of the victim would then drive the pole through their body and out of their mouth or through their shoulder or upper chest. The onlookers would cruelly laugh as the victim tried to climb off the pole, an impossibility since the pole was polished smooth and probably slick with their blood. The victim would quickly become weak from the pain and shock of this invasion of their body, sliding down until their crotch met a small metal crossbar. Depending on the degree of internal bleeding the victim could last hours, or even days. This was why the tip was not fully sharpened but narrowed to a rounded finger-sized tip, it could push through the body doing the least damage, extending their suffering.
For all our talk of civilization in the world, we bred too many people who saw violence, war, and torture as a way to get power, or keep it. Which meant that other people, who could have happily lived their whole lives never touching any of these weapons, also had to pick them up and use them in defence. I turned to my investigations, very aware that I had nearly got to the logical conclusion that I might have to lift a weapon against my own father. That I might have to be part of the process of arresting him. Damn! I just thought it!
My father's desk was an impressive thing. Designed to intimidate. Solid, far larger than was needed, with red leather panels on the top, and a wide range of drawers, it sat saying 'this is the seat of power.' The side that faced the visitor was carved with panels depicting famous victories, leaving the viewer with a graphic impression of what war is like. War, and its aftermath, for some panels showed how captured enemy were treated - and it wasn't with mercy.
I avoided looking at the carved decorations and concentrated on the drawers, working my way through each in turn. Luckily they were not locked. Father did not expect his authority to be challenged, or his family to conspire against him, so had never fitted locks on things. Fear of what he might do to a servant who pried, or a child who peeked, kept everyone behaving themselves.
A quick look through the larger drawers told me how our family made their money, and it was nothing to do with the farms that brother Karl was studiously managing. No, it seems we own property, lots of property. Some as far away as Vienna. The rents from these was a small fortune. In Vienna, for example, father had to employ an agent, who himself employed many rent collectors, to gather the money - such was the number of properties. I made a note of the man's name and address in case we ever needed to contact him. However there was no sign of actual deeds to these properties, they must be elsewhere. Perhaps Father's lawyer was holding them. Or... perhaps not. I thought of the secret panel in the old doctor's desk. Could there be one here?
I started by checking inside the drawers for a false bottom, or compartment at the back. I found nothing except that they only went halfway into the depth of the desk. So, plenty of room for compartments in the pillars. I moved to the front of the desk. It would be typical of a craftsman's sense of humour that the hidden doors would be facing a visitor, but so subtly hidden that they would never know. I chose a column and ran my fingers over the carvings, trying not to look too closely at the scenes of death and destruction. To my surprise, after only a minute, I came across a figure of an impaled male captive which seemed promising. It seemed loose on the stake and when I slid the figure down a short way, so that the stake emerged - horrifically - from his mouth, there was a click. A panel opened.
Leather bags chinked when I handled them. There were a dozen here. I took a peek in one to find gold coins. The quantities here would dwarf the old doctor's hoard, thirty, forty, fifty times over! I had found my father's secure hiding place. Buying number 34 would have hardly dented this fortune. I closed the panel again. Money was not what I had come to find. Convinced that there must be at least one other hidden space, I studied the desk again.
