Royal Blood (9 page)

Before us was a large square black vehicle with tinted windows. A chauffeur in black uniform stood beside it.

“My God,” Miss Deer-Harte exclaimed in a horrified voice. “They’ve sent a hearse.”

Chapter 11

Bran Castle
Somewhere in the hills of Romania
Wednesday, November 16
Cold, bleak, mountainous.

“Is this the only motorcar?” Lady Middlesex demanded, waving her arms in the way that English people do when speaking with foreigners who don’t understand them. “Only one automobile? What about the servants? They can’t ride with us. Simply not done. Is there a bus they can take? A train?”

None of her questions produced any response at all and in the end she had to concede that the maids would have to sit in the front with the chauffeur. He didn’t seem to like the idea of this and yelled a lot, but it became clear that braver men than he had quailed before the force of Lady M’s determination. Chantal and Queenie tried to squeeze into the other front seat, but there simply wasn’t room. In spite of the spacious interior of the motorcar, there was only one seat and we three women fit rather snugly. In the end Chantal was given the front seat and poor Queenie had to sit on the floor with her back to the driver and the train cases and hatboxes piled beside her. The rest of the baggage was eventually loaded with some difficulty into the boot of the motorcar. It wouldn’t close, of course, and string had to be found to tie it together. We looked anything but regal—more like a traveling circus—as we finally set off from the station.

It was now almost dark but from what I could see we were driving through a small medieval city with narrow cobbled streets, picturesque fountains and tall gabled houses. Lights shone out and the streets were almost deserted. Those few pedestrians we passed were bundled into shapeless forms against the cold. As we left the town behind, snow started to fall in earnest, blanketing the ground around us with a carpet of white. The driver mumbled something in whatever language he spoke, presumably Romanian. For a while we drove in silence. Then the road entered a dark pine forest and started to climb.

“I don’t like the look of this at all,” Miss Deer-Harte said. “What did I tell you about brigands and wolves?”

“Wolves?” Queenie wailed. “Don’t tell me we’re going to be eaten by wolves!”

The driver perked up at a word he understood. He turned to us, revealing a mouth of yellow pointed teeth. “
Ja
—wolffs,” he said, and gave a sinister laugh.

Up and up we drove, the road twisting back and forth around hairpin bends with glimpses of a sickening drop on one side. Snow was falling so fast now that it was hard to see what was road and what might have been a ditch beside it. The driver sat up very straight, peering ahead through the windshield into murky darkness. There was not a light to be seen, only dark forest and rocky cliffs.

“If I had any idea it was this far, I would have arranged for a night in a hotel before we began the trip.” For the first time Lady Middlesex’s voice sounded tense and strained. “I do hope the man knows what he’s doing. The weather is really awfully bad.”

I was beginning to feel queasy from being in the middle and flung from side to side around those bends. Miss Deer-Harte’s bony elbow dug into my side. Queenie tried to brace herself in a corner but had a handkerchief to her mouth.

“You are to tell us if you wish to vomit,” Lady Middlesex said. “I shall make him stop for you. But you are to contain yourself until you can get out of the vehicle, is that clear?”

Queenie managed a watery smile.

“I’m sure it’s not far now,” Lady Middlesex said cheerfully. She leaned forward. “Driver, is it far now?
Est it beau-coup loin?
” she repeated in atrocious French.

He didn’t answer. At last we came to the top of the pass. A small inn was beside the road and lights shone out from it. The driver stopped and went around to open the bonnet, presumably to let the motor cool down. Then he disappeared inside the inn, leaving us in the freezing car.

“What’s that?” Miss Deer-Harte whispered, pointing into the darkness on the other side of the road. “Look, among the trees. It’s a wolf.”

“Only a large dog, I’m sure,” Lady Middlesex said.

I said nothing. It looked like a wolf to me. But at that moment the inn door opened and several figures emerged.

“Brigands,” Miss Deer-Harte whispered. “We’ll all have our throats slit.”

“Ordinary peasants,” Lady Middlesex sniffed. “See, they even have children with them.”

If they were peasants they certainly looked like a murderous bunch, the men with big black drooping mustaches, the women large and muscular. They poured out of the inn, a remarkably large number of them, peering into the motorcar with suspicious faces. One woman crossed herself and another held up crossed fingers, as if warding off evil. A third snatched a child who was venturing too close to us and held it protectively wrapped in her arms.

“What on earth is the matter with them?” Lady Middlesex demanded.

One old man dared to come closer than the rest. “Bad,” he hissed, his face right at the window. “Not go. Beware.” And he spat on the snow.

“Extraordinary,” Lady Middlesex said.

The chauffeur returned, driving back the people, of whom there was now quite a crowd. He closed the bonnet, climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine again. Words were shouted at us and we took off to a scene of people gesticulating after us.

“What was that all about, driver?” Lady Middlesex asked, hoping that he miraculously now understood English, but the man stared straight ahead of him as the road dipped precariously downward.

I was now feeling rather uneasy about the whole thing. Had Lady Middlesex misunderstood and made us disembark from the train at the wrong station? Were we in fact in the wrong car? Surely no royal castle could be at such a godforsaken spot as this. Clearly Miss Deer-Harte was echoing my thoughts.

“Why on earth would they choose to hold a royal wedding at such an isolated place?” she said.

“Tradition, apparently.” Lady Middlesex still attempted to sound confident but I could sense she was also having doubts. “The oldest daughter always has to be married at the ancestral home. It’s been done for centuries. After the ceremony here the wedding party will travel to Bulgaria, where there will be a second ceremony at the cathedral and the bride will be presented to her new countrymen.” She sighed. “Ah, well, if one will travel abroad, one is bound to encounter strange customs. So primitive compared with home.”

We were slowing down. The driver grinned, showing his pointy teeth. “Bran,” he said.

We had no idea what Bran was but we could see that there were lights shining from a rocky outcropping towering over the road. As we peered out of the window we could make out the shape of a massive castle, so old and formidable looking that it appeared to be part of the rock itself. The motorcar stopped outside a pair of massive wooden gates. These slowly rolled mysteriously open and we glided through into a courtyard. The gates shut behind us with loud finality. The motorcar came to a halt and the driver opened the doors for us.

Miss Deer-Harte was first to step out into the snow. She stood, peering up in horror at the towering stone battlements that seemed to stretch into the sky all around us. “My God,” she said. “What have you brought us to, Lady M? This is a veritable house of horrors, I can sense it. I’ve always been able to smell death and I smell it here.” She turned to Lady Middlesex, who had just emerged on the other side of the motorcar. “Oh, please let’s leave straightaway. Can’t we pay this man to drive us back to the train station? I’m sure there will be an inn in the town where we can spend the night. I really don’t want to stay here.”

“Fiddlesticks,” Lady Middlesex said. “I’m sure it will be perfectly comfortable inside and of course we must do our duty to Lady Georgiana and present her properly to her royal hosts. We can’t leave her in the lurch. It’s simply not British. Now buck up, Deer-Harte. You’ll feel better after a good meal.”

I too was staring up at those massive walls. There seemed to be no windows below a second or third floor and the only chinks of light shone between closed shutters. I have to admit that I also swallowed hard and all the snippets of conversation came rushing back to me—Binky saying the king and queen didn’t want to send their sons because it was too dangerous, and even Belinda making jokes about brigands and vampires. And why had those people at the top of the pass looked at us with fear and loathing and even crossed themselves? I echoed Lady Middlesex’s words to myself. Buck up. This is the twentieth century. The place might look quaint and gothic but inside it will be normal and comfortable.

Queenie clambered out of the car and stood close to me, clutching at my sleeve. “Ain’t this a god-awful-looking place, miss?” she whispered. “Gives you the willies. It makes the Tower of London look like a nice country cottage, don’t it?”

I had to smile at this. “It certainly does, but you know I live in an old castle in Scotland and it’s perfectly nice inside. I’m sure we’ll have a grand time. Look, here comes somebody now.”

A door had opened at the top of a flight of stone steps and a man in black and silver livery with a silver star-shaped decoration hanging at his neck was descending. He was silver haired and rather grand looking with high cheekbones and strange light eyes that glinted like a cat’s.

“Vous êtes Lady Georgiana of Glen Garry and Rannoch?”
he asked in French, which threw us all off balance. “
Bienvenue.
Welcome to Bran Castle.”

I suppose I had forgotten that French tended to be the common language of the aristocracy of Europe.

“This is Lady Georgiana,” Lady Middlesex said in the atrociously English-sounding French of most of my countrymen. She indicated me. “I am her traveling companion, Lady Middlesex, and this is my companion, Miss Deer-Harte.”

“And for companion Miss Deer-Harte has somebody?” he inquired. “A little dog, maybe?”

I suspected he was attempting humor but Lady Middlesex said coldly, “No animal of any kind.”

“Allow me to present myself,” the man said. “I am Count Dragomir, steward of this castle. I welcome you on behalf of Their Royal Highnesses. I hope you will have a pleasant stay here.” He clicked his heels and gave a curt little bow, reminding me of Prince Siegfried, my would-be groom, who was also related to the royal house of Romania. Oh, Lord, of course he’d be here. That aspect hadn’t struck me before. The moment I had this thought, another followed. This couldn’t possibly be a trap, could it? Both my family and Prince Siegfried had been annoyed when I had turned down his marriage proposal. And Siegfried was the type who likes to get his own way. Had I been specially invited to this wedding so that I’d be trapped in a spooky old castle in the middle of the mountains of Romania with a convenient priest to perform a marriage ceremony?

I looked back longingly at the motorcar as Count Dragomir indicated we should follow him up the steps.

We entered the castle into a towering hall hung with banners and weapons. Archways around the walls led into dark passageways. The floor and walls were solid stone and it was almost as cold inside as it was out.

“You will rest after exhausting journey,” Dragomir said. His breath hung visibly in the cold air. “I will have servants show you to your rooms. We dine at eight. Her Highness Princess Maria Theresa looks forward to renewing acquaintanceship with her old friend Lady Georgiana of Rannoch. Please do follow now.”

He clapped his hands. A bevy of footmen leaped out of the shadows, snatched up our train cases and started up another flight of steep stone steps that ascended one of the walls with no railing. My feet felt as tired as if I’d been on a long hike and I realized it was a long way down if I were to stumble. At the top we came out to a hallway colder and draftier than anything at Castle Rannoch, then up a spiral staircase, round and round until I was feeling dizzy. The staircase ended in a broad corridor with a carved wooden ceiling. Again the floor was stone, and it was lined with ancestral portraits of people who looked fierce, half mad or both. Queenie had been following hard on my heels. Suddenly she gave a scream and leaped to grab me, nearly sending us both sprawling.

“There’s someone standing behind the pillar,” she gasped.

I turned to look. “It’s only a suit of armor,” I said.

“But I could swear it moved, miss. I saw it raise its arm.”

The suit was indeed standing holding a pike with one arm raised. I opened the visor. “See. There’s nobody inside. Come on, or we’ll lose our guide.”

Queenie followed, keeping so close that she kept bumping into me every time I slowed. A door was opened, curtains were held back and I stepped into an impressively large room.

Queenie was breathing down my neck. “Ooh, heck,” she said. “It looks like something out of the pictures, don’t it, miss? Boris Karloff and Frankenstein.”

“Come,” the footman now said to Queenie. “Mistress rest now. Come.”

“Go with him, Queenie,” I said. “He’ll take you to your room. Have a rest yourself but come back in time to dress me for dinner.”

Queenie shot me a frightened glance and went after him reluctantly. The curtains fell into place and I was alone. The room smelled old and damp, in a way that was not unfamiliar to me from our castle at home. But whereas the rooms at Castle Rannoch were spartan in the extreme, this room was full of drapes, hangings and heavy furniture. In the middle was a four-poster bed hung with velvet curtains that would have been quite suitable for the Princess and the Pea. Similar heavy curtains covered one wall, with presumably a window behind them. More curtains concealed the door I had just come through. A fire was burning in an ornate marble fireplace but it hadn’t succeeded in heating the room very well. There was a massive wardrobe, a dressing table, a bulky chest of drawers, a writing desk by the window and a huge painting on the wall of a pale, rather good-looking young man in a white shirt, reminding me of one of the Romantic poets—had Lord Byron visited these parts? But then Byron had been dark and this young man was blond. The lighting was extremely poor, dim and flickering, coming from a couple of sconces on the walls. I looked around, still feeling queasy from the ride and uneasy from the strange tension that had been building ever since that man had tried to enter my compartment. It wasn’t the pleasantest feeling standing in a room with no obvious window or door and I decided to go and pull back the curtains on the far wall.