If you’re just joining this story, you may want to start from the beginning.
This story follows the first in Jenn’s Rediscovered series, Last Assault on Oak Island.
New chapters to Room of Fire will soon be released weekly.
As castles and halls went, the Chateau de Rappoltsweiler was moderate in size, but not lacking in lavish furnishings. Lauren had been given what Madame Varlette called the Oriental Room despite its early Dutch and Austrian influences. Mural-draped walls in vivid black, orchid and blue violets, and snowy white depicted a garden scene with pagoda and wooden bridge, broken by panels of wood sanded satin smooth. In a few spots the plaster had chipped and been painstakingly mended, the dark green and mauve paints carefully matched to the originals. A sixteenth century Austrian bed squatted to one side, its carved wooden canopy covering half the mattress, resulted in a cozy, embracing appearance.
Lauren tentatively touched the black lacquered Coromandel screen, tracing one of the lilies etched in gold and green enamel. She could well-understand Madame Varlette's attachment to the room. An evening breeze languidly filled the room with the scent of wisteria and cabbage roses, a pleasant contrast to Madame Poussin.
She took her time undressing, choosing the silk night slip for sleeping. She bundled her short cotton nightgown back into the garment bag. In this room, the simpler material seemed out of place. She pulled on the matching lilac robe and lit the double-domed oil lamp at the teakwood pedestal table. She adjusted the wick and retrieved the small photocopy from her bag.
In the low light of the flickering flame, the Amber Chamber in the photo suddenly came to life. Carved panels of cognac and sherry shimmered. Meticulously rendered amber cherubs danced and the manes of prancing horses seemed to rise and fall. She turned the photo. This angle brought out a honey yellow cast with indistinct root beer borders. The whole room seemed to shift, move, waver in the oil lamp's light.
"Das Bernsteinzimmer," she read the German caption lowly. "The Amber Room."
For a moment longer she marveled at the photo. Then, chiding herself for even bringing it, she removed the lamp's top globe and let the flames lick at the paper.
When Lauren descended into the hollow beneath the chateau the next morning, she realized Elden had vastly understated the magnitude of Gustalav's collection. She stayed close to her host and Elden, but her eyes wandered into every shadowed corner of the arched vault. Behind the glass-paneled doors of mammoth walnut cabinets lining room after room, were armorial china and Meissen porcelain plates and figurines, their brilliance subdued by the dim tubular lighting running overhead. In other cupboards, various antiques withstood the quiet darkness. In one was a pair of Vincennes vases and jasperware teapots from the early nineteenth century, and in another etched silver chargers from the reign of Louis XIV. A few pieces were very much like displays Lauren had seen in Dr. Karen's exhibit rooms at the museum.
They wove deeper into the long room.
"My sister has secured owners for most of the furniture," Gustalav was saying, his voice echoing loudly in the chamber. "She has always been fond of a few periods, particularly the rococo and Directoire styles, and anything japanned. You have a number of the oriental pieces in your room," he said to Lauren.
She averted her eyes from the floor quickly and nodded. "The whole room is very nice," she said without false flattery.
"Most of the furnishings came from the palace of Ping Xi'an, except for the bed. That's early Tyrol."
Both Lauren and Elden found their attentions drawn to the deep scratches in the dusty floor until the Duke halted before a pair of heavy bronze doors that sectioned off the crypt. The track of scrapes was indiscernible in spots with the poor lighting and dust, but they were there if one looked closely. Gustalav pulled the bronze doors open and a wave of slightly acidulous air washed over them.
Lauren immediately recognized it as the chemical smell attached to the amber cabochon Vistoli had sent them. She studied the floor. In the light from Gustalav's lantern, she could see a row of gouges precede them into the crypt. Surely it isn't that easy, she thought.
Elden glanced at her as they stepped into the room.
"The crypt isn't used as it once was," Gustalav said with a sigh. "The fashion now is to be laid to rest in a sepulcher or other equally visible place."
Lauren took careful scrutiny of the chamber, unable to see much beyond the limited scope of the light. The darkness took shape gradually and she could see the gouges ended at a tarp-covered mass at the room's far wall. She looked back to the sideboard they had stopped beside, above which Gustalav had hung the light. Her curiosity on the far wall and tarp was tempered by the plates the Duke presented from the sideboard.
Under the lantern's shine, a glitter rose in the dull chamber that had once housed death as Gustalav removed the plates from the ornate cupboard. There were four in the collection, round, of standard diameter, but there the commonness of the term plate ceased. Lauren recognized the scenes on each piece as being from medieval French tapestries—one was the familiar The Lady and the Unicorn, another Sight—but her fascination was in the materials that comprised the treasures. Gustalav tilted the lantern so that the light showed off the plates to their fullest in the stuffy confines of the room.
It was the depiction of the treasured tapestries in a menagerie of crushed stones, predominately carnelian and lapis lazuli that brought uniqueness to the collection. Bits of green and yellow jade, sugilite, trocha shell, and black onyx gave exquisite detail to most of the surfaces, except the unicorn and lion, which were a smooth intarsia of mother of pearl, melon and canarium shell, and gold.
As if to contradict the beauty of this set, Gustalav brought out four more plates, their construction very like the first set. These were gold-rimmed bronzes with precious stones and black enamel that bore the images of peacocks in different poses. The birds appeared to flutter and ruffle as light reflected the faceted blue sapphire, garnet, emerald, red spinel, and diamond pavé.
Lauren looked to Elden, admiring his ability to remain composed. Instead of commenting on the collections, he only nodded and said, "I'd like to see the pewter again, also."
She thought this a jaded suggestion in the view of such workmanship, but understood better when Gustalav moved farther into the chamber. One of the indistinguishable objects took shape under the lantern light he'd brought with them. He hooked the lantern over a protruding angle of metal above and opened the middle door of the 300-year-old credenza. On its wide top he displayed a set of six pewter plates, their high relief designs portraying the Norman mid-twelfth century battles of Antioch.
Lauren stepped around Elden so her face was hidden by him and casually looked at the canvas-covered mound at the far end wall. There was nothing interesting about the tarp, unless one suspected what she did. The gouges that ran beneath her feet led to one corner of mass. She could see the vague outline of a metal crate as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Below the tarp, four inches of a crate was visible. One side of the corner rib was loose and in stages of separation, leaving the deepest gouge.
She brought her attention back to the plates as Elden's elbow nudged her spine.
"Marlon will be pleased," he said, phrasing his next statement carefully. "I would like to make an offer now, unless you plan to—"
"No. I accept your price," the Duke insisted with a weary smile. "Not all treasures belong to the highest bidder. I've always admired Monsieur Vistoli; he appreciates fine work, and I know he will not put them on the market." His smile lightened. "I will come visit them. Perhaps."
She saw Elden admit a tempered grin. "We'd like that."
Gustalav slowly shut the door on the cherished plate collection, his gaze lingering on them as if closing a casket.
Watch your inbox for more chapters as Dr. Sheldon and Lauren follow rumors of the lost Amber Chamber.
Subscribe below to get alerts for future chapters in the search of one of history’s most fascinating lost World War II treasures.
#treasure #amber #AmberRoom #AmberChamber #mystery #WorldWarTwo #WorldWarII #LostArtwork #history
 | A guest post by
|