Eppie was silent, brow still crinkled in bewilderment. In truth, it would have been impossible to distinguish the furrows of confusion from the wrinkles of age. Her cheeks, forehead, neck, and chin were crisscrossed with such a multitude of intersecting lines and folds and crinkles of white skin that one could not help thinking she bore some resemblance to the reptilian species. She still possessed an abundance of hair—though it had thinned considerably and her scalp was visible—every strand of it white as her skin and most of which stuck nearly straight out from her head as if she had just seen a ghost, which, in truth, was more often than not precisely the case.

“Were you here for the premier’s visit, then?” she asked, suddenly in a very faraway tone.

“I’m sorry, Eppie,” said the baron. “Whose visit?”

“The premier’s—Bismarck… of Prussia.”

“When was it?”

“I must have been ten or twelve at the time,” she said, doing her best to make her brain work clearly. “My mother will remember… we must ask her. Yes, Bismarck was here—when he was fighting against the Austrians it was.”

“He was always fighting against the Austrians, was he not, Eppie?” said the baron.

She chuckled. “A fighting man, he was—that’s what the old count found out soon enough!”

“The count? What count, Eppie?”

“The count from next door, who else!” As she spoke her eyes grew wide, and the baron knew she had been transported back in time to some era long before. But as many times as he had heard Eppie’s tales from the past, he had never before heard of a connection between Bismarck and ancestors of the Schmundt clan, if that was who Eppie was even talking about. He had heard her allude to Bismarck upon occasion, but never so directly.

“He was a spy for the Austrians, though his blood was Prussian. But Bismarck found him out and dispatched him through the heart with his sword, the very sword hanging up there.”

She motioned feebly with her hand, indicating the floor above them. They were, in fact, directly below the armory.

“Where did it happen, Eppie?” asked the baron.