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Chapter 9
Anne-Claire stood on the port bridge wing next to her grandpa, deep in thought and pondering his explanation of hidden rock music messages. The iPod and its screaming earphones momentarily found a silent resting place in her Bermuda shorts pocket while she watched her hero work to bring La Suisse skillfully alongside the pier and allow the crew to tie up the vessel with a minimum of exertion and loss of scheduled time. So close to Anne-Claire’s ears, a laughing drawl escaping the ancient paddle steamer’s whistle made her jump. Holding her hand over her heart at the sudden commotion, she watched a plume of steam escape the sculptured pipe and caught her grandpa’s smile as he manipulated the vessel's controls in a plethora of surgical manoeuvring.
A quick scan of the picture-postcard backdrop distracted Anne-Claire’s thoughts with the Château de l’Aile, the troubled but impressive waterfront castle-like structure filling the foreshore scene. From where she stood she had a bird’s-eye view encompassing the village of Vevey-Marché basking in the summer sunshine and bordered by the crystal clear waters of Lac Léman, while down below a large gathering of tourists waited on the Vevey-Marché dock to board the historic vessel. Under Grandpa’s expert handling, the paddle wheels glided to a calculated stop as La Suisse approached the pier. A rope, expertly thrown over a landing pylon by a deckhand and pulled tight against La Suisse’s deck bollard, allowed Grandpa to apply the engines in a slow-ahead-both configuration while the paddle wheels inched forward simultaneously. Gently and skillfully, La Suisse pulled against the midship's mooring ropes and drifted peacefully against the dock without even the slightest bump. Once La Suisse had been tied up securely to the landing, the deck doors were opened and a gangway rolled into place, allowing disembarking passengers off first and then a new portion of anxious passengers to board.
“Wow, Grandpa, you really know what you’re doing,” Anne-Claire’s adoring eyes fixed on her hero.
Grandpa smiled at his granddaughter’s admiration, but continued working until the new group of passengers were aboard and the vessel was ready to leave again. The schedule only allowed him fifteen minutes to disembark one group of commuters and load the new guests for the afternoon dinner cruise to Château de Chillon and once that had been completed, he could relax again.
When Grandpa saw that the dock was clear of people, he signalled to the deckhands to let go of the ropes, followed by two long pulls on the steam whistle. Then with a calculated engagement of the bow thruster, La Suisse eased away from her berth. Once the seventy-eight metre long paddle steamer was clear of the shore obstructions, the powerful twin Sulzer steam engines quickly pushed the steamboat up to speed and on toward the Château de Chillon. The pretty lakefront village of Vevey lazily languished behind in the warm afternoon sun as La Suisse settled back into a steady chuffing beat.
It was a special cruise this afternoon. According to the ship’s purser the passengers were mostly in a tour group from York, so La Suisse would take a leisurely, unhurried pace to Château de Chillon. Grandpa breathed a sigh of relief and watched as the forward deck quickly emptied of captivated sightseers gawking at the sights and chattering excitedly in English. Summoned to the mid deck, the tour group hungrily made their way into the lavishly decorated first-class dining room for a five-star meal; and now that the paddle steamer had reached deeper water and the lake surface was calm, Grandpa cut back the power to the engines. The catering staff could now easily and comfortably balance drinks and meals on trays, arriving unspoilt at expectant tables from the kitchen area without the floor shifting unpredictably under them.
“What are your mum and dad up to, sweetheart?” Grandpa quizzed, knowing he could finally relax.
“They’re down the back giving our cousins a tour of Lac Léman,” Anne-Claire sighed.
“Christelle and Philippe?”
“Yeah, that’s them. We’re supposed to be getting off at the Château de Chillon and spending endless hours wandering around the castle. B-o-r-i-n-g,” Anne-Claire groaned.
“I love visiting Chillon castle,” Grandpa confided. “It’s one of my favorite places and full of our ancient history, too.”
Anne-Claire sighed again. “It’s okay, but I’ve been there so many times and we even had to study it in school. I guess though when I think about Danica’s life-–that’s my internet friend who lives in Central Australia—I have it so much better than she does.”
“Oh?” Grandpa quizzed. “Tell me more about Danica.”
‘Well, she’s my age and she lives on a cattle property somewhere in the desert regions of middle Australia with her Mum and Dad and sisters… do you know, Grandpa, their farm is nearly quarter the size of Switzerland?!”
Grandpa mimicked a silent whistle with his lips, astounded by the sheer size of a single cattle property.
Anne-Claire’s face wrinkled with concern and then she continued, remembering facts and figures the two girls had shared in their emails. “Danica and her family are so isolated, they use the internet to do their schoolwork; and they very rarely interact with people outside the borders of their farm. I know she gets terribly lonely so I try to send her as many pictures and videos of me and our beautiful Switzerland as possible, but their internet is so slow and it takes forever to download one photograph.”
An idea erupted into Anne-Claire’s mind and a smile lit her pretty face. “Would you tell me one of your exciting stories, Grandpa, and then I’ll write it down and send it to her. I’m sure that will lift her spirits.”
Grandpa grinned inwardly and considered his granddaughter’s request with an excited twinkle in his eye. It was time for one of his special tales. “Okay, come and sit with your old grandpa and let me tell you a story of the old lakefront castle, Chillon.”
He gestured Anne-Claire to a chair in the wheelhouse while his second-in-command took the helm, then gazed across the expansive lake, taking in the towering mountain panorama and the distant shores of France. Considering an appropriate place to start and finally agreeing with himself on an fitting beginning, Grandpa coaxed the story from his mind and into life.
“Back in the middle of the eighteenth century lived a fair maiden. She was so beautiful that many an admirer sought to gain her hand in marriage, but she considered only one man and unfortunately for him, he was detained by his service in the army.”
Anne-Claire shifted on her seat, unamused. “Grandpa, if this is about Nicolaïde de Blonay, I’ve studied this at school. Some think it is a fable and some think it’s the same work written by Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Heloise in 1762. Nicolaïde gets abducted by her cousin, Jean-François de Blonay of the Savoie lineage from her home in Blonay castle and taken to Savoie and made to be his wife. Tavel, the man she was actually in love with and going to marry, gets into a scrape with Jean-François de Blonay and the Bernese rulers of the time are left to adjudicate the scuffle. Not wanting to take sides, they make a judgment and chastise the Baron de Blonay for his inept parenting... and that’s about it!” Anne-Claire huffed, unimpressed.
Grandpa marveled at Anne-Claire’s knowledge of her romanticized history. “Ah, quite so, Anne-Claire, but by Nicolaïde’s time the Château de Chillon was little more than a large island storage house for the Bernese.”
Anne-Claire’s face wrinkled, trying to remember her facts.
“You are mostly right in your description of Nicolaïde de Blonay and her abduction too, but most people don’t know about her younger sister...” Grandpa’s eyes sparkled.
“Nicolaïde did not have a younger sister, Grandpa!” Anne-Claire determined adamantly and just a little miffed.
Grandpa raised his eyebrows but continued unperturbed, “You’re also right in the Bernese ruling laid against the Baron de Blonay. However, because he was so distraught by the unfair judgment, he hid his second daughter from all society and she remained an almost unknown. Even so, the second daughter de Blonay was as handsome as her sister and keeping her from the public eye was easy at
first when she was but a small girl, yet as she grew into a woman, her beauty was difficult to hide and the baron became more troubled.”
The second-in-command’s voice broke into the conversation, announcing over the ship’s intercom, “La Tour-de-Peilz on the port side of the vessel.”
Grandpa eyed his co-worker and nodded at his announcement, imagining the hungry passengers taking their minds off their meals long enough to glance at the picturesque village of La Tour-de-Peilz.
Anne-Claire’s curiosity suddenly burst. “So, what was this second daughter’s name, Grandpa?”
“Dominique de Blonay,” Grandpa offered.
Anne-Claire’s cynicism wrinkled and distorted into lines across her elegant face, beholding her elderly grandparent with incredulous eyes and leaving Grandpa with the impression he was losing his audience to unbelief.
“Don’t you want to hear the rest of the legend, Anne-Claire?”
“I am all ears, Grandpa,” folding her arms, Anne-Claire stared at her hero sympathetically as if he had slipped a cog.
“Well, the tale is set in the beautiful lakeside island castle, Château de Chillon four years after Nicolaïde’s abduction.”
Anne-Claire shifted in her seat and settled her back against the wheelhouse wall and listened sceptically to her grandpa’s story. Before long, the eloquent old man had captured her attention and her imagination had been transported back several centuries in time.
“Droplets of water plinked into concealed pools hidden in the musty darkness and echoed against the stone walls. The cavernous chamber, dank and cold, made her shiver and with the absence of light came the absence of warmth and hope. Dominique de Blonay’s hand ached from the cold steel of the chain that pressed ruthlessly into her skin, holding her captive to the underground dungeon pillar. The pillar towered over her in the darkness and in a fit of desperation, she pulled hard against the chain, whipping her off balance and slamming her body into the unmoving stone sentinel. She sighed heavily in frustration, tears slipping from her young face at her folly, gently rubbing the injury site left by the unexpected contact with the stone pillar.
“It had been a mistake, attempting to leave the security of the Château de Blonay on a hapless secret mission to visit her captive older sister, Nicolaïde. Father had strictly forbidden her to abandon the protection of the Château for fear of abduction, and now she was suffering for her folly. She couldn’t work out where she was, or how long she had been prisoner in the darkness of her dungeon, only that it had happened so quickly. Dominique had ridden sidesaddled on her chestnut stead, Rustic, slowly walking through the forested hills toward the lakeshore in brilliant sunshine. Then without warning, a large hand grabbed her around her face, pulled her from her mount and then… DARKNESS!”
Anne-Claire flinched and almost screamed when Grandpa’s ascending voice suddenly pitched up, at the same time making an animated grabbing action to emphasis his story and leaving the young woman’s face alight with tension.
“Alas, she awoke some time later, captive in her dark dungeon prison,” Grandpa’s hoarse whisper tapered off as he reloaded another part of his tale and prepared to awe his granddaughter again.
Grandpa whispered slowly and mysteriously, drawing Anne-Claire’s captivated mind into a frenzy of conflict, “Baron de Blonay paced nervously in La Grande Salle situated at the front of the hillside castle, the Château de Blonay. Dominique’s chestnut stead, Rustic had returned to the castle stables riderless and the young beauty had been missing now for twenty-four hours, setting the old baron to a painful worry.
"‘My Lord,’ a servant interrupted the baron’s disquiet.
"‘Yes. What is it?!’ the baron snapped.
"‘Baron Willy de Bad has arrived from Rougemont.’”
“Baron…Willy…de…Bad?!” Anne-Claire raised her eyebrows incredulously at her grandpa, tearing her imagination into shreds and forcefully depositing her mind back into the present time with an abrupt slam dunk.
La Suisse’s steam whistle laughed hysterically, acknowledging a passing steamer and rocking gently on its wake.
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Chapter 10
The finely manicured ancient stone facade, a gateway guarding the impressive sprawling grounds of Zurich’s ETH campus, gave the ominous notion of no-nonsense learning. But with it came the unwritten expectation that with acceptance into these prodigious halls, pupils like Zilla Swartz were understood to be more than just a serious high achieving student. In her final year of PhD studies at Switzerland’s Eidgenössische Technische Hoschschule or ETH, Zilla Schwarz’s area of study concentrated around seismic geography, closely tied to Schweizerischer Erdbebendienst or SED, Switzerland’s earthquake monitoring facility. On a perimeter boundary isolated from the university’s main hub and alone in a small isolated chalet, her perceptive blue eyes rimmed by black framed spectacles scanned a sophisticated interactive computer screen.
State-of-the-art software gathered information from sensors all over Switzerland, transforming it into a moving coloured line graph and stretching the information across the liquid crystal display monitor in an easily readable format. Swiss territories are a trivial hotbed for constant seismic activity, however, seldom reaching over 3 and more often hovering around 2, a minor classification on the open ended Richter scale by world standards. The seismic activity for today had been unusually quiet, making Schwarz’s voluntary four-hour shift drag. All PhD students who gave their time volunteering to help monitor the earthquake activity in Switzerland could expect extra credit toward their final doctorate, but coincidentally, the student shifts concurred with the cold and lonely late night hours, weekends or public holidays.
Zilla Schwarz turned away from the screen briefly, impatiently glancing at the entry door and contemplating finishing her shift in only moments. Being a conscientious student, her time was partitioned into an elaborately orchestrated schedule, while a tardy and late member of the faculty could seriously disrupt her ordered world if they failed to show up according to plan and sign off on her latest contribution. The strict schedule dominated her young life and partitioned her day into precisely calculated time slots, with each regimented discipline having one goal in mind: finishing her overarching seismic thesis with honours.
A small, high pitched piezo alarm built into the seismic computer hardware screeched and redirected Schwarz’s attention back to the screen with renewed interest. Earthquake sensors all over Switzerland were firing off and reporting back to the SED computer. She stared dumbfounded as the activity began to swarm around Geneva, but the swarms were only relatively small, about 2.1 on the Richter scale and seventy-three kilometres deep. Too deep to be of real concern. Drawing on her knowledge and watching the line graph twitching dementedly, Schwarz studied the information carefully before making a final conclusion. On the whole the activity wasn’t a major threat but it was difficult to predict what earthquakes could do. It could be nothing, or it could be a precursor to something unusual lurking deep within the fractured fault lines crisscrossing Switzerland’s rugged mountainous topography.
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Grandpa shifted slightly on the spot, again trying to evade the sceptical gaze of his beloved granddaughter staring up at him and obviously disturbed by his choice of characters in the latest tale. He was just about to offer a defence of his selection when his second-in-command interrupted Grandpa’s train of thought with a worried murmur, raising his voice and speaking loud enough in the hope Grandpa would take notice of his concern and relieve him of the responsibility for the unfolding situation.
The vessel's radar screen showed two small, fast moving blimps approaching from the stern and then in the distance, the unmistakable whomping pulse of rotor blades as an approaching helicopter beat the surrounding air in a disturbed urgent tempo and making a course directly for the steamboat. La Suisse was close to a kilometre from shore and almost directly in line with the small village of Clarens. Concerned at the unusual sight, Grandpa made
a grab for the ancient honey coloured wood surrounding the vessel's control panel, locating his binoculars with stumbling haste. Focusing the field glasses over the stern and to the distant horizon, Grandpa locked onto the approaching craft speeding from the locality of Lausanne and wondered whether La Suisse was the intended destination.
Intensely magnified, the field glasses caught the name on the side of the helicopter, causing another anxious irritation. “I wonder what they want?” Grandpa murmured with his mind focused on the boat’s severe schedule.
“Who is it, Grandpa?” Anne-Claire sheltered her eyes from the sun with her hand, straining to focus in the direction of the approaching disturbance.
“Gendarmerie!” Grandpa answered, keeping his binoculars focused on the approaching fray.
Before Grandpa could formulate a plan, the ship’s radio burst into life, transmitting the obvious sounds of helicopter rotor blades along with an authoritative voice demanding the vessel come to a complete stop. Intending to obey the directive, Grandpa nodded to the anxious second-in-command, but before he could reach for the engine room telegraph and shift its handle to all stop, an anguished shriek floated up from the forward deck and a distressed crowd gathered on the port railing. Pointing at the water, gaping up at the wheelhouse in horror and willing the capitaine to avert a tragedy, the crowd watched helplessly. It seemed to take hours, but in reality it was only seconds for the engine room crew to respond to the emergency stop order from the wheelhouse.