The Dead Travel Fast (21 page)

Florian related what she said, murmuring hastily to me in German.

“‘I saw him,’ she says,” he told me. “‘I saw him there upon the observatory. I was making the windows fast as I do every night before I retire. I was at the window in the opposite wing, and I saw him perched upon the edge of the observatory walk.
And then I saw him fly!
’”

The countess let out a great sob, and Cosmina reached for the doorframe to steady herself. Dr. Frankopan spoke up.

“What do you mean, child? Count Andrei did not fly. He fell from the observatory and was fortunate enough to fall through the window. He might have plunged straight to his death in the valley had he not caught himself,” he said firmly. Tereza blinked at him and he repeated his argument in Roumanian.

But Tereza continued to utter the same phrases she had used before, and I had no need of Florian to know she would not be swayed.

“Child, he did not fly,” Dr. Frankopan said patiently, saying the words over and again in Roumanian and German. “He fell.”

“Or was pushed,” Frau Amsel said, her voice overloud in the quiet room.

There was a gasp, and I think pandemonium might have broken out were it not for the fact that Frau Amsel was pointing to a bit of fabric snagged upon the broken window. She walked over and plucked it free, but I did not need to look upon it to know what she brandished in her hand. Clutched in her triumphant hands was the tartan shawl I had left in the garden draped over a tarragon bush.

17

I did not feel it when the countess slapped me, for I had gone quite numb, and it was only distantly that I heard Charles remonstrate with her angrily. The room spun and jerked around me, faces swam before my eyes, and the only constant was my own voice, repeating over and over again, “But I love him.”

It was Charles who finally guided me away and took me to my chamber, and when we reached the room, he wrenched open the window and pushed my head outside, forcing me to drink in great draughts of the cold, crisp air until my head cleared. At last he drew me back in, and pressed a flask upon me.

“Good Scottish whisky,” he said firmly. I drank deeply of it, and the room cleared at last.

“I do not understand,” I said, my voice thin and feeble.

“Neither do I,” he told me, his expression grim. “But it is best to stay here quietly until someone comes.”

I did as he bade me, sitting upon my hands to stop them shaking and listening to the little clock tick off the hours. The night was half gone when there was a rap at the door and Dr. Frankopan entered, his cuffs folded back and smeared with blood.
His
blood, I thought wildly, and for an instant I was certain the doctor had come to tell me he had died.

“Is he dead?” I demanded.

Dr. Frankopan gave me an odd look. “Dead? Of course not. He suffered a dislocation of the shoulder and some rather severe cuts and bruises, but nothing he cannot overcome with rest and good care.”

I sagged into my chair, murmuring an
Ave
under my breath. If nothing else, the Carpathians would teach me religion, I thought wildly.

Dr. Frankopan drew a chair next to me and motioned for Charles to sit with us as well. “I have spoken to the countess, for it is she who rules during her son’s indisposition. She apologises for her outburst and begs you will understand a mother’s hysteria.”

“She does not think me responsible then?” I asked, dizzy with relief.

Dr. Frankopan’s response was carefully phrased. “She does not know what to think as yet. She wishes to make no decisions until her son has regained consciousness and can speak for himself as to what happened upon the observatory walk.”

“Tereza!” I said suddenly. “Tereza must have seen that I was not there when the count fell. She may absolve me.”

Dr. Frankopan shook his head sorrowfully. “Tereza saw nothing. I questioned her closely, and she saw nothing but the count.”

I lapsed back into my chair, feeling a thousand years old. “What am I to do until the count rouses and can clear my name?”

He shrugged. “It would be best for everyone if you were confined to your room. It would bring a greater ease to the family if you were not at liberty.”

“I am to be held prisoner until he wakes?” I asked, incredulous. It seemed impossible, and I looked to Charles to support me.

“I think it is for the best,” he said, to my astonishment.

“Charles! You cannot think that I—”

“Of course not,” he was quick to reply, using the same tone one might to soothe a fractious horse or a fretful babe. “But this is a necessary expedient. I must insist that Theodora not be locked in without visitors,” he said firmly to Dr. Frankopan. “She will receive regular visits from me, and writing materials and books besides. And anything else she should require for her comfort,” he finished.

“Naturally, naturally. The countess wishes her to think of herself as a guest still,” Dr. Frankopan said, his relief almost palpable. He had expected a fight then. But I had none left in me to give him, for all that mattered to me in that moment was that the count should live.

“Very well. I will sit quietly until I am bade to leave,” I promised.

Dr. Frankopan took his leave then with Charles, and after the door was shut, I heard the turn of the key in the lock, the loneliest, most frightening sound I had ever heard. I was a prisoner in the Castle Dragulescu.

Charles was the first to break in upon my solitude the next day when he carried in my breakfast. I had finally lapsed into sleep just before dawn, and it was very nearly noon before he roused me.

“You needed your rest,” he explained, when I scolded him for not waking me sooner.

“I know. And I know you are the only friend I have at present. Pay no mind to my churlishness. I do not mean it,” I finished helplessly.

He said nothing, but busied himself uncovering dishes and pouring out strong black coffee. The smell of it turned my stomach to water, but he had brought tea besides, and a cup of that with a nibbled bread roll comprised my breakfast.

“How is he this morning?” I asked finally. I had hesitated, both from the fear that he should have taken a turn for the worst, and out of the concern that speaking of him would grieve Charles. It is no easy thing for a man to measure himself against another and be found wanting.

But Charles was more a gentleman than I had credited him, for he brought me news of him and delivered it without resentment. “He does well enough, although he has not yet roused. Dr. Frankopan stays with him, and the countess comes and goes. Cosmina has been there as well, doing what she can. There is naught to do but wait until he wakes. His pulse is strong and his colour good, and although it was a shock of some magnitude to his mother to find that he is an opium-eater, Dr. Frankopan does not think the habit is of long enough standing to have damaged his constitution.” Charles hesitated, then took a breath and plunged on, speaking rather more hurriedly. “He murmurs a good deal in his sleep, and once or twice he has called your name.”

I finished my tea before I could master my tears enough to speak. “Thank you for that. It could not have been easy to tell me, but I am glad to know it.”

“Do not thank me. Half of them seem to think it proof of your guilt—as if he speaks your name to accuse you. Still, I know you are guiltless, and so will everyone else once he wakes.”

A sudden chill ran through me, stiffening my hand so that I nearly dropped the cup. “Charles, I am innocent, but someone else is not.”

“What do you mean?”

I replaced the cup carefully onto the saucer and rose to pace the room. “They think I pushed him, but we know I did not. What if he did not fall or fly of his own accord? What if he was pushed, but
by someone else
?”

Charles absently took a sweet from his pocket and sucked at it, furrowing his brow. “I did not think on that. I suppose it is possible.”

“Of course it is possible. Charles, I have been on the observatory walk. He did not fall. He was never careless and he is surefooted as a chamois goat. I would wager my life upon it—either something supernatural has attacked him or there was a deliberate and malicious attempt upon his life by someone in this castle.”

“Perhaps the same person who killed the maid Aurelia?” Charles offered.

“Yes!” I whirled to face him, my conviction rising. “I am certain of it. The peasants would say it was his father, Count Bogdan, who tried to destroy him. But what if the superstitions and monsters are merely a diversion? What if there is nothing afoot here more sinister than simple human evil?”

“And whom would you suspect of the deed?”

I stopped pacing and thought, turning each of the castle’s inhabitants over in my mind. “Frau Amsel,” I said. “Aurelia carried the late count’s child, a possible successor to the Dragulescu name and fortune. She was slain with her unborn child. If the present count died, who then would benefit? The countess would want a male to inherit, it is the way of things here. And who better than Florian, Frau Amsel’s son, who already has a grasp of things and would keep the estate under the countess’s rule? There would be no other direct heir of the Dragulescu line. She would have only to adopt him, and such things are easily arranged.”

“Possibly,” Charles said, his voice tinged with doubt.

“And she loathes me. It would give her great pleasure to dispatch me at the same time by putting my shawl in such a place as to implicate me. She could easily have slipped into the garden to retrieve it. And it was she who named me in the count’s workroom when she retrieved my shawl.”

I was hungry then, suddenly and ravenously hungry. I sat to eat the other things Charles had brought, dipping my spoon into the bowl of
mămăligă
.

Charles said nothing, turning my pretty theory over in his businessman’s mind. At length he nodded. “It is a sound enough suspicion, I suppose. Although I notice you do not entertain the notion that another, even likelier suspect may have done the deed.”

I took another spoonful of the hearty porridge. “Who?”

Charles sat back, managing to look simultaneously smug and uncomfortable. “The count himself.”

I put down my spoon. “You think Count Andrei did this to himself? You are mad.”

“Am I? Or perhaps you are simply unwilling to consider all possibilities.”

I folded my arms and when I spoke it was with a stranger’s voice, clipped and cold. “Go on.”

Charles leaned forward. “You said yourself that the maid Aurelia carried a rival claimant to the estate. Who better to resent this than the sitting count?”

“Precisely,” I replied by way of retort. “
The sitting count
. He had no need to put Aurelia’s child out of the way. He had secured his inheritance as his father’s lawful heir.”

“But was he? How easy might it have been for the girl to produce a piece of paper, a bit of forgery with Count Bogdan’s signature upon it, claiming responsibility for the child and naming it his heir? You said there was a quarrel between the countess and her husband. He meant to put her away and marry the girl. Perhaps he had taken steps to do so, irrevocable steps that would have disinherited your paramour.”

I flinched at his use of the word “paramour” but I did not rise to the bait. “Surely the fact that Count Bogdan was dead put paid to whatever schemes the girl might have had to see her illegitimate child established as a Dragulescu heir.”

Charles shrugged. “If she was cunning and ruthless, she might well have gambled upon her child’s blood. Think how easily one might bribe a country priest or solicitor to draw up a bit of paper to stake her child’s claim. She could promise them a hearty share of the estate upon settlement. Many a villain has been bought with less,” he said sagely.

“I suppose it is possible,” I admitted, though grudgingly so.

“Or perhaps the count simply bears the hot blood of his ancestors,” Charles mused, “and thought to answer the insult done to his mother by dispatching the maid and her offspring. A colder plot, to be sure, but not impossible.”

I did not answer this; I could not. Was it possible? Could he have killed the girl with no greater provocation than the knowledge that she had supplanted his own mother in his father’s affections? It was monstrous; it could not be so. And yet, the possibility of it lived, like a monstrous thorny weed, pricking at my convictions.

“You are angry with me,” Charles said at last.

I stirred the
mămăligă
, but it had gone cold. “I am not angry, only heartsick and longing to go from here.”

He reached a hand to cover mine. “I will take you, as soon as it may be arranged, wherever you wish to go—to England to see Anna, to the Highlands, to Timbuktu. I will make it so.”

His hand was warm and comfortable over mine, but I was no longer the girl who could reasonably contemplate warm and comfortable. Still, I managed a smile and thanked him, and soon after he left me alone with my thoughts.

That evening it was Cosmina who brought my meal. She entered quietly and put the food upon the table and opened her arms. I went to her, resting my head upon her shoulder.

“I am glad to see you,” I told her, my voice muffled. She put a hand to my head, cradling me close as one might a beloved child.

When she drew back, there were tears standing in her eyes. “I am so sorry, Theodora. I ought never to have brought you here. I hesitated to come tonight because I feared you would be angry with me.”

“Angry with you? Whatever for?”

She grasped my hands in her own. “For inviting you to this place. For this,” she said, taking in my little prison with a glance.

I had not drawn the curtains yet, and she walked to the window where the setting sun had already dropped beyond the mountains and the long shadows of evening were beginning to lengthen.

“There is a Scottish word for this time of day. You told me once, but I cannot remember it.”

“Gloaming,” I told her, coming to stand beside her at the window. “When the light has fled but the stars have not yet shown themselves. That is the gloaming, the loveliest and saddest hour of the day.”

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “And I thought only in Transylvania was there such poetry.”

“It is a poetic place,” I agreed.

“I hope you will remember it with affection,” she said, her brow furrowing anxiously.

“Remember it? Shall I be permitted to leave then?” I asked her, a tinge of hysteria sharpening my tone.

She hastened to soothe me. “Of course! Oh, my dear, you must not believe this is anything other than the most fleeting of circumstances. Andrei began to stir this afternoon. It is only a matter of hours before he wakens and speaks the truth. Then you will be freed. It is simply that the countess is too fearful for his life to take any chances he might be attacked again.”

“And she thinks I am a threat to him?” I asked evenly.

“She does not know what to think. In fact,” Cosmina hesitated, biting at her lip, as if considering whether to share a confidence. “In fact, she fears it is Count Bogdan who has tried to destroy their son.”

“Then why keep me here, locked away like some villain?” I demanded.

Cosmina spread her hands. “She is ill and confused and afraid. She believes the
strigoi
has attacked Andrei, but she also realises the truth may be more mundane. She will take no risks with his life, and even though she fears the
strigoi
, she must listen to the Amsels filling her ears with poison against you. Pity her, my friend. She only wants to protect her beloved son. Surely you can understand such a thing.”