Blood Spirits (38 page)

Beka was amused. “Ruli had at least a dozen domestic servants. Her wardrobe was substantial.”

“Oh, I remember.”

“Good. Are we agreed, then?”

“Sure. I'll take care of Tania, but hey, aren't the roads going to be impassable? I mean, if this storm ever ends?”

“This storm is supposed to be gone by midnight. See? It is already breaking, over the north. I see stars. I'll come by after an early breakfast, and we shall have to stop by Madame Celine for your fitting. I would be very, very surprised if the Vigilzhi do not see to it that the south road is cleared by mid-morning.”

TWENTY-THREE

A
T BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY, I found Tania and Theresa together, setting the tables. Because I knew the sisters shared everything, I broached my offer.

“Oh, I would like that so very much,” Tania said longingly. “But—”

“So you
shall
,” Theresa said with a ferocious grin. “I shall come with you to see you take leave!”

We left at once, Theresa holding her sister's hand tightly.

Halfway down the steep street behind the inn, Tania pulled away from us and stooped. A skinny cat emerged from a crack between the inn wall and the foundation of the stone house next to it. It sniffed Tania's hand, and its tail lifted high. Tania took something out of her pocket, gave it to the cat, who chomped on what looked like a bit of dried fish, and with a twitch of the tail, vanished.

We continued on to the shop. As soon as we got in the door, Madam Petrov began scolding in that high, shrill voice, “Taaania! Why have you brought company? Do you expect them to watch you sweeping?”

“We have come to inform you that Tania has been offered a paying position,” I said.

“Who is this?” Madam asked, flicking her fingers in my direction, though she looked back uncertainly when she saw me without a smothering hat or scarf. For the first time ever, I reveled in my resemblance to Ruli.

“This,” Theresa said in a portentous voice, with a relishing grin, “is the granddaughter of the Princess Royal, Aurelia Dsaret, daughter of the last king!”

Madam's mouth opened, round as her eyes. But as she took me in from top to toe, her forehead wrinkles altered from annoyance to perplexity. I felt an unexpected spurt of sympathy, irritating as she was. Here was yet another change in a lifetime of sudden changes.

“I would like to hire Tania,” I said politely, then turned to the lens maker. “Domnu Petrov. I hope that you will declare her apprenticeship finished.”

Domnu Petrov gave me a dignified nod, almost a bow, then turned to Tania. “Tania, you will have your certificate by day's end. In fact, I will walk it to the guild myself, if you are required by your new employer to begin your duties now.”

“But I—the sweeping! The windows! The snow!” Madam's voice got more shrill with each word. “Can it not wait a day?”

“Thank you, Domnu Petrov. Here is my key,” Tania said with her pensive smile, and laid the key down on the counter. “God be with you.”

Her gentle voice was drowned out by Theresa's crisp, “God with you!” And she closed the door with a snap. “I would kick the snow, except that I think Madam must sweep it, and I would not help her a bit.” Theresa stamped down the enormous drifts, saying to me, “I never liked her when she was at the bakery, and she would scold her brother if he gave us day-old buns when we walked to school. She would rather throw them to the pigs. Tchah!”

On the walk back up the steep street, even while we were slipping and sliding in the enormous drifts, Tania seemed to expand inwardly. By the time we reached the inn, Wednesday Addams had vanished, leaving a tall, grave young woman with her head up.

Beka was there at the inn, drinking coffee. Madam Waleska hovered. Beka was saying in a patient tone that made me wonder how many times she'd had to repeat it, “No, thank you. I really did eat breakfast right before I set out.”

“But you could say my rolls are kosher. I know your laws! No meat touches my good rolls, and you must know we buy our meats from your own butchers!”

“Thank you, thank you, but I am truly not hungry. I am only waiting for—ah. Here they are.”

“Mama,” Tania said, her chin up. “I am now employed. I am to be Mademoiselle's assistant.”

Madam W. threw her hands up, then turned to me. “You need the spectacles?” She made circles of her thumbs and forefingers, holding them before her eyes.

“Tania will have many duties,” I said. “Beginning with accompanying me on my shopping expedition today.”

Madam went off to the kitchens to share the news. I said to Beka, “What first? The fittings for my ball gown?” Listen to me, I thought, laughing inside.

Beka obviously didn't find anything amusing in that. She had been studying Tania's usual shirtwaist dress. This one was a dull dun, instead of gray, or murky blue. “We might have to climb,” she said slowly. “There is a shop around the corner from Madame Celine's. Very comfortable, Persian-style loose clothes.”

“Lead on!”

Beka drove, bumping slowly over the streets that hadn't been cleared yet, as sleighs jingled by us. The fitting went fast, as I wanted to get in and out. I found the other two in the shop Beka had mentioned, Tania having been drawn to linsey-woolsey outfits of loose trousers under a long belted tunic.

“Must I wear a certain color?” she asked me, as soon as I appeared.

I felt weird about this invisible money. My instincts kept sending off alarm bells. From everything I'd ever heard or read, big money always comes with big trouble. No one is able to be neutral about it. But for now? Why not enjoy the Lady Bountiful role! “Get what you want.”

With a little of her younger sister's ferocity, Tania said, “Then I shall have violet.”

Within a short time we were on the street again, Tania with the ugly dun shirtwaist in a bag, wearing a warm outfit of deep violet that turned her slightly sallow complexion golden. It was embroidered with patterns of leafed rowan berries. She'd chosen another of deep midnight blue, embroidered with tiny blood roses.

“One more stop,” Beka said. “Any questions before we do? Phaedra Danilov is going to drive—she is much better behind the wheel than I am. She can be trusted to keep silent, whether we are successful or not.”

Phaedra? That was a surprise. “Oh. Maybe I shouldn't have brought this,” I said, patting my pocket where I'd tucked my prism.

“You don't have to take it out,” Beka said.

“True. So tell me. Who is this Jerzy guy? Phaedra called him uncle, but said something about my mother. Is he a von Mecklundburg, or not?”

“Heh.” Beka's mouth twisted. “Not so easy to answer.”

“Well, what's his background?”

“That much I can tell you. His mother was the stonemason's daughter up on the Devil's Mountain, and when Count Armandros . . . no, he was the duke then, briefly, because his brother had already been killed. Anyway, he was wounded after an encounter with some Germans. Hid up in her village as he dared not go to the Eyrie, which they held. She took care of him, and . . . well, along came a son. Gossip was evenly divided about who seduced whom. A year or so after Armandros died, she came to the city and first tried to blackmail the family, but by then everyone knew about Princess Aurelia and her daughter Marie, so this new little scandal hardly raised a brow. So she sold him outright to the family and vanished.”

“That sounds kind of harsh.”

“Your Aunt Sisi took to this little red-haired baby her own age, and they have always been close. He always traveled with the family. When they came here in the fifties, he began getting into trouble. During the sixties and the early seventies, the trouble escalated, especially with women.”

“Just like his dad, eh? I don't remember any mention of Jerzy in Milo's diary.”

“Milo was very discreet about certain kinds of trouble.”

“Yes, as in didn't mention at all.”

Beka gave that French shrug. “Jerzy was also implicated in a series of thefts, though he always seemed to have an alibi—usually corroborated by women. When one of those thefts ended up with a death they all insisted was accidental, his friends went to the prison work force for a time, and Milo and Grandfather prevailed on the Council to ban Jerzy from the country.”

“But he's here now.”

“This ban was forty years ago. Because of Ruli, and for the duchess's sake, you understand, no one has said anything about his reappearance. Anyway, we all called him Uncle Jerzy when we stayed at the von Mecklundburg flat in Paris.”

“I take it this flat is not a small apartment.”

Beka threw me an amused glance. “Your Tante Sisi have something small? It is the upper floor of a very fine address. Four suites altogether. We all called it Uncle Jerzy's place. I do not know if he actually owns it, as I do not know how legal is his use of the family name, but he acted as host as the family and their guests came and went. Here we are.” She pulled into the palace parking lot.

I felt Tania's gaze and said, “Uncle Jerzy seems to have been over at the inn asking questions about me.”

Beka pulled up and parked. “He must have been as surprised as everyone that the mysterious Marie's daughter was back.”

I laughed at the idea of Mom being mysterious as Phaedra Danilov came striding out of the Vigilzhi command post, looking elegant and athletic in a black and white ski outfit.

She beckoned impatiently.

“Ah. All ready for us,” Beka said in a brisk voice.

We got out, and Phaedra pulled off her sunglasses. “I want you to know I think going to the crash site is a stupid idea. I'm only here because I don't want to hear about
you
driving off a cliff.” She waved the sunglasses dismissively at Tania. “Who's that?”

“We will talk in the car,” Beka said.

Phaedra shrugged sharply. We climbed into a four-wheel drive vehicle with huge snow tires, and began bumping up the steep road behind the palace, Phaedra handling the wheel like an expert.

“Tania speaks to ghosts,” Beka said over the rim noise.

Phaedra shot a fast look in the rear view mirror. She drove like a maniac in the city, but I was relieved to discover that she was more circumspect in her mountain driving—still fast, but not crazy. “So you really think you'll find Ruli's ghost at the crash site?”

“It hasn't been seen by anyone else except Kim. When she died, yes?” Beka turned to regard me.

“Actually, Tuesday morning, if we figured right,” I answered. “I don't know if that makes a difference.”

Phaedra shrugged sharply. Clearly it made no difference to her. Beka gave me a perplexed glance.

“Ruli would go back to Paris if she was going to haunt anything,” Phaedra stated with conviction.

“Perhaps. Perhaps there is no choosing,” Beka replied. “All I know is what the Salfmattas say, that sites of violent death will most often have a revenant, at least for a while.”

Phaedra did not respond, and we fell into silence.

The mountain roads were beautiful, but bumpy with snow that had drifted down after the plowing, and had turned icy in the shadowy canyons and turnings. Tania rode beside me in the back, eyes closed. I wondered how many times she had ever been in a car.

The dramatic slopes had been smoothed into blue-white folds, punctuated here and there by stands of evergreen and weather-worn rock. Once I saw a grayish goat-like creature bounding like a deer high on a peak and realized I'd seen my first chamois.

Then Phaedra let out a “Hah,” and pulled up to a stop.

A flag had been planted on the roadside. Phaedra got out, slammed the door, and walked to the snow piled along the edge of the cliff. The rest of us got out more slowly. Tania rubbed her temples with her mittened fingertips, rewrapped her scarf, then took a deep breath.

“Go ahead, whenever you're ready,” I said, disappointed that I couldn't see any ghosts.

Tania turned to me, I shrugged, then she said quietly, “No one here.”

“Let's look over the ledge, shall we?” Beka asked.

The crash site was below a hairpin turn. We walked carefully along the piled snow at the verge, but we couldn't see directly down. I was hesitant to climb on that pile—it was fresh, loose, and I couldn't see how close to the edge it was.

The trunk slammed, and footsteps crunched up. Phaedra reappeared with coiled rope over one shoulder and a broad shovel balanced on the other.

She attacked the plowed snow, flinging shovelfuls over her shoulder. She soon created a gap. We edged into it, and peered down at the smooth expanse of white. To the left was a ledge. Below that, a steep drop. Here and there snow-dappled trees reached skyward. One was broken off. The other trees showed pale bark where branches had been violently torn away. At the bottom were two blackened tree skeletons sticking up from the fresh snowfall.

I saw no ghost. Tania's gaze was fixed, and I felt a surge of hope.

“Ready for a climb?” Phaedra snapped an end of the rope free of the coil, and began fashioning a knot. “Or is there nothing to see?” she addressed Tania.

“I think . . . I think there is something,” Tania said to me.

“Okay,” I said in my most encouraging tone.

By that time Phaedra had anchored her ropes to a strong young pine, and had tested them. “You know anything about rappelling?” she asked Tania, who shook her head.

Phaedra had only a single harness, which she worked over Tania's coat, and checked it. “Let's go.”

“Do you need a harness?” Beka asked.