The Dead Travel Fast (8 page)

He flinched. “Absolutely not, absolutely not. Do not even suggest such a thing.”

“But it has happened before,” I prodded.

He nodded, still wiping at his brow. “Yes, yes, it has. It was a dark time for us. It happened when the old count, Mircea, died.”

“The present count’s grandfather? When Count Bogdan became the reigning count?”

“Yes. I see you are well-versed in our history,” he said with a ghost of a smile. “There was trouble then. Dark deeds were done, but in time all was made right again. The people began to forget. But I am afraid, now that Count Bogdan is dead…” He trailed off, too distressed to continue.

But I was too engrossed in the conversation to leave off. “What do you fear?” I asked softly.

He pressed the handkerchief to his lips for a long moment, then burst out, as if a dam had broken. “The
strigoi mort
is a creature of evil, of misdeeds in life brought to horrible fruition after death. No good man has ever become a
strigoi
. It requires a special sort of viciousness to cheat death,” he said bitterly. “And Bogdan was the most vicious man I ever knew.”

“You are afraid he will become a
strigoi mort
,” I concluded. “Oh, I see.”

Dr. Frankopan replaced the handkerchief in his pocket. “I know you must think me a silly old man, a silly old man indeed. But I have seen much in my long life, and some of these things I do not wish to see again.”

I pressed his hand. “I understand.”

“I fear most for the family,” he said earnestly. “If Bogdan walks, he will destroy them. Just the possibility could send them into madness. The Dragulescus are, in the end, people of the mountain. They pretend to be worldly and educated, they want to be sophisticated, but the truth is they are no different from the woodcutter in his cottage. They will work themselves into a frenzy over this. Madness is no stranger to this family. It is a weakness that runs in the blood. If they must sit, waiting for this dreadful thing to walk among them, they will make themselves mad.”

“So it is for Count Andrei and the countess you fear most?”

“I fear for all of them. Hysteria is a contagious thing, my dear. It can settle into a house like a disease and it will poison the atmosphere until none are left who can resist it. But you can.”

He grasped my hands again, this time in supplication. His palms were cool and smooth, like new paper.

“You are not of this place. You are from the cold grey north, where common sense and order prevail.”

“I am not so sensible as all that,” I protested.

“You are a great deal more sensible than any of the Dragulescus,” he said with a rueful smile. “I love them dearly. They are family to me as much as my own kin. But I cannot be there at all times to keep watch over them. You are the only one who can do that now.”

I made to pull my hands away but he held them fast. “I am not asking for extraordinary heroics, child. All you need do is keep your wits about you, and if something seems not quite right, send for me. I have my duties in the village, and sometimes I am called far from home for my patients. I cannot keep as close as I would like.”

I did not like the notion of spying upon my hosts for this man, no matter how kindly his manner. He must have sensed my hesitation, for he released my hands, and gentled his tone.

“I do not ask you to break any confidence or to meddle. I only ask that you be watchful, and that if you see something peculiar, you will tell me. Is that so much to ask of you?”

“Of course not,” I said. “The Dragulescus are very lucky to have someone who cares so deeply for their happiness.”

His plump face was wreathed in smiles. “How happy you have made me! Come, we will have another cup of tea and talk of pleasanter things.”

I left the good doctor some time later, wrapping myself warmly against the late-afternoon chill. The sun had sunk low and I realised I must hurry if I meant to make the castle before dusk. I told myself I hastened because the dangers in the mountains were manifestly greater after dark—rockfalls, a treacherous staircase to ascend, the threat of wolf or lynx or bear. But the truth was that I had taken Dr. Frankopan’s conversation very much to heart. Speaking of such things before a cosy fire in a snug cottage was spine-shivering enough. To dwell upon them on a dark forest path was quite another.

I hurried along, noting the scudding clouds lowering above the castle towers. A storm was gathering and I hastened still faster, chiding myself for tarrying so long at Dr. Frankopan’s comfortable hearth. And with each step I noted the rising wind speaking in the trees. The villagers had fled for the safety of their houses, and though I could see the warm glow of candlelight in their windows and smell the sharp comforts of woodsmoke from their chimneys, I knew I had a cold and lonely climb ahead of me.

Just as I put a foot to the Devil’s Staircase, I heard my name called, the voice carried upon the wind.

“Miss Theodora!” I saw Florian, scrambling quickly down the last steps of the staircase, relief writ in his features. I was happy to see him as well. Florian interested me deeply, both for his little kindnesses and his air of sadness. If Cosmina and I wanted to walk in the garden, Florian was quick to ensure that a bench was scrubbed and the path swept. If we wanted music, he obliged us, sometimes working late into the night upon his ledgers to compensate for these indulgences. He was a gifted musician, and whatever instrument he put his hand to, something quite astonishing issued forth. I had wondered how deeply he mourned the life he had not finished, but I had sensed in him no regret. He seemed to take a solid pride in his work as steward; more than once had we seen him buoyed in spirits because Count Andrei had waved a hand in assent when he had requested some trifle for the villagers that would ease their troubles. No, his sadness seemed to well up from within, as if his very core was fashioned of lamentation, and I had often wished for a chance to speak with him alone, the better to gauge his character.

He put out a hand to me. “We have not much long before the storm come down,” he explained in his quaint English. “We will hurry. You are welcome to my arm.”

I smiled in my relief and availed myself of his kindly offer. “I am very happy to see you,” I told him. “I enjoy a good brisk walk, but I think this will be quite strenuous indeed.”

He said nothing more, and neither did I, for the climb was indeed a strenuous one. Florian proved the perfect companion, stalwartly lending his strength when the pace proved too quick for me, and matching his steps to my own so that I should not be left behind. The sky had blackened alarmingly and the clouds were tinged with a strange, luteous light.

“It is raining hard soon, but we have been fast,” Florian advised me as we gained the last turning towards the top. He looked up and nodded. “We may here rest a moment.” He gestured towards a boulder set just off of the staircase path and gallantly placed his handkerchief upon it for me to sit.

“Thank you,” I said, resting myself gratefully. “I do not think I have yet made that climb so quickly. It was very kind of you to come for me.”

He shrugged. “Miss Cosmina worries. She says you are in village and I am to go.”

And he had seized the opportunity to come alone for me, I reflected, wondering uncomfortably if Florian had developed a
tendresse
for me. He was always attentive to our needs, Cosmina’s and mine, always within calling distance if we had need of him. That he might have formed an attachment to me was faintly troubling. He was a servant, albeit an upper one, and it would take dexterous handling to make certain he was neither embarrassed nor angered by my reaction to his attentions.

Deliberately, I diverted the conversation. “I spent the afternoon with Dr. Frankopan. He was talking of Teodor Popa.”

To my surprise Florian responded with a grave nod. “Yes. He has gone wolf,” he said soberly, as if commenting upon a spell of bad weather or the loss of a cow. It was nothing extraordinary to him, nothing beyond the pale of possibility.

“Madame Popa seems quite distressed.”

He shrugged again. “She have many children. They have no father now.”

“A difficult thing for a woman,” I agreed. “Still she is lucky to have employment with Dr. Frankopan. I cannot imagine he will let any evil befall Madame Popa or her children.”

Florian fell silent then, and I realised we had exhausted his conversation upon the subject of Teodor Popa. Were such things really so commonplace as to require no further discussion?

I chose my next words carefully. “And then we spoke of
strigoi
. He explained the difference to me. It was very unsettling. We do not have vampires in Scotland,” I finished with a little smile of invitation. But he did not wish to converse upon this matter either, for his expression became flinty.

“There are greater evils in these mountains than werewolves or
strigoi
,” he said flatly, and it did not escape my attention that the sentence had been rendered in perfectly composed English.

I longed to urge him to elaborate, but he put out his hand. “We will go now. The storm comes.”

I looked up just in time to see a jagged bolt of lightning shred the black veil of clouds shrouding the castle towers, and the rain began to fall. I put my hand in Florian’s and we set our steps for the castle.

7

When we arrived in the great hall, soaked and shivering, Cosmina was waiting.

“Theodora! You are wet through. Come at once and change into dry things,” she ordered. She led me out of the room and I looked back at Florian. He was even wetter than I, for he had tried to shield me from the worst of the storm, and I regretted stopping to rest upon the staircase. He stared after us, his face a study in misery. I called my thanks to him, and for a brief moment, a faint smile warmed his face before he turned away, sunk again into his sadness.

Cosmina hurried me on, pausing at the foot of the tower. She nodded towards the little wooden door I had passed so many times.

“We will hang your wet things here,” she instructed, leading the way.

I stepped inside, catching my breath at the sudden gust of cold air. The room was unfurnished, the cold stone walls and floors unrelieved by tapestry or carpets. The only light came from the arrow slits in the walls, for there were no proper windows. A curious stone bench was set into one wall.

“This was the castle garderobe in medieval times,” Cosmina explained.

She did not elaborate, but I knew that this room would have served two purposes when the castle was first built. A garderobe was a privy, but sometime in the mists of the past some enterprising soul had discovered that the resulting odours discouraged moth and the most valuable clothes would have been hung there as well. The iron hooks for the garments were still in place, albeit crumbling to rust. And the stone bench that ran along one wall was still partially open to the valley below, fashioned so that it would be easily sluiced clean from time to time, as could the floor itself through a wide square drain in the wall. I peered down the disgusting flue to see the same river view I enjoyed from my window. The garderobe was vastly colder than the rest of the castle, and I shivered as Cosmina pulled off my sodden shawls.

She draped them over the stoutest of the hooks and turned to me. “I will bring your dress to dry here as well. Your things would dry faster in your room, but here they will not spoil the carpet or be in your way. Your shoes we will stuff with paper and place upon the hearth.”

I agreed, too cold and woebegone to care. She guided me to my room and waited for my gown before she helped me into bed and drew the heavy coverlets over me. The fire had already been built up, and Cosmina promised to send Tereza with a fresh pot of tea to warm me.

“You needn’t come downstairs to dine if you feel too poorly,” she told me, putting an anxious hand to my brow. “You are not starting a fever, at least not yet.”

I smiled at her from my comfortable downy nest. “I have been caught in more rainstorms than I care to remember. Once I am warm again, I will be quite well.”

Her brow was still furrowed. “I hope so. I would feel very responsible if you were to fall ill.”

“Why? The fault would be my own for tarrying too long at Dr. Frankopan’s,” I said, feeling warmer and rather drowsy.

Her worry seemed to ease a little. “You enjoy his company, do you not? Such a kindly old man.”

“Very,” I agreed. “He was telling me of poor Madame Popa and her troubles with her husband and then we talked of
strigoi
.”

Cosmina’s brows lifted slightly. “
Strigoi?
That is hardly a topic for pleasant teatime conversation. I hope he did not frighten you.”

“No more than you did when we were girls at school together,” I teased.

She looked a little abashed and began to fidget with my coverlet, tucking it more securely. “I do not remember what I said.” She hesitated, biting at her lip, before bursting out, “I would not have you afraid here, Theodora. Whatever this place is, whatever walks here, I could not bear for you to leave. Not yet.”

She seized my hand and gave it a quick kiss, pressing it to her cheek before she rose abruptly. “I will leave you to rest now. Forget what you have been told this day, and dream of pleasant things.”

I longed to ask her what she meant, but before I could do so, she left me, taking away my wet gown, and I felt a delicious, creeping lassitude overtake me and I surrendered to the arms of Morpheus.

Dinner that night seemed a tense affair—most likely from the storm, which howled and thrashed about the castle—and I was not sorry to retire. As had become his custom, the count collected me after a little while and we retreated to his grandfather’s workroom. A clammy chill had settled upon the castle, but he had built a fire upon the hearth, burning tree roots instead of logs. They were twisted, monstrous things, and I sat upon a cushion near the hearth to watch them burn. The roots looked like claws, reaching out in supplication, wicked and unearthly, beckoning. Tycho had followed us and the great dog stretched out next to me, his head upon my lap. I petted him slowly, from the coarse fur of his neck to the silken ears that twitched at my touch.

The count lounged upon a sofa he had unearthed, a comfortable affair in green velvet. He smoked a pipe as we sat in silence, and I sniffed at the air, taking in the sweetly pungent odour of ripe fruit. It was unlike any pipe I had seen before, and I noticed the ritual for lighting it was quite intricate.

After a long while, he saw that I watched him. “It is opium. Would you care to smoke?”

I shook my head regretfully. I would have liked to have smoked the opium, to have taken that sweet smoke into my mouth and held it on my tongue. But I knew opium dulled the senses, and it had become my practise to memorise every moment spent in his company. He meant to leave in another month’s time and I wanted to commit every feeling, every sensation, every cell of him to memory.

He shrugged and tamped out the pipe. “You do not approve of my pleasures?”

“It is not my place to judge such things.”

He gave a low rumble of laughter. “So primly she replies, all prickles like a pretty Scottish hedgehog. And yet you are not so conventional as all that, are you? There is more to you than meets the eye, or I do not know women.”

“I am not conventional in all of my attitudes,” I allowed. “Propriety dictates I ought not to spend my evenings in your company, and yet I do.”

“And to what do you owe such freethinking? Did your grandfather encourage you?”

I felt Tycho give a low snore under my palm. “He did, after a fashion. Mine was a unique education. I was left to my own devices for many years before I went to school, and he gave me free rein to read anything I fancied in his library. I educated myself from whatever books he brought into the house. I read philosophy, comparative religion, history, languages. And from all of these I formed the foundation of my philosophy as a writer, that man is a universal creature.”

“In what way?”

I warmed to my theme. “All men, no matter their station or situation, desire to be fed and sheltered. Beyond that, there is a need for self-determination, to work according to one’s interests and talents and to shape one’s own destiny.”

“Ah, the good American pursuit of happiness,” he said.

“You think me naïve.”

“No, I think the Americans naïve. You presume that all men are happier for being permitted to decide their own fate. I have seen differently. The average peasant in this valley is happy enough to have his roof and his bed and his full belly, you are right. But beyond that, if each was permitted to please himself according to his own desires rather than what was best for the community, what would happen? Suppose the blacksmith’s son decides to become a poet. Shall we shoe our horses with sonnets?”

“I should not expect a man born to feudalism to see the merit in another system,” I replied evenly.

“Indeed you should not. I am a feudalist—if there is indeed such a word—because I was born to be, just as the peasant in the field is born to be.”

“And a man may not better himself, ought not to change his station with hard work and education?”

“God forbid!” he said roundly. “Miss Lestrange, it is perfectly well for the Americans to have embraced such ideals. They had a new country to build. Without an aristocracy of birth, they had to establish one of merit. But we Europeans have an older way—a better way—that has served us for two millennia. Would you stage a revolution to make us other than we are?”

“No, but neither would I wish to be what I am told I ought to be, a proper wife and mother,” I said slowly. “It was the notion that I could decide what my own life should be that prompted me to leave Edinburgh, to make my own way in the world upon the strength of my pen.”

He gave me a slow, warm smile. “You claim not to be a bluestocking, and yet I have discussed far weightier subjects with you than I have ever discussed with any other woman. I find I can speak to you as easily as I do a man, a singular thing in my world, Miss Lestrange.”

“Are there no ladies of your acquaintance with whom you may converse about such things? No educated women from your own circle? I understood Parisiennes to be most highly opinionated and articulate.”

“Not the ones who dance at the Paris Opera,” he said, his eyes bright with mischief. “Serious women have always given me dyspepsia, but you are different. Somehow you say the most appalling things and I am intrigued rather than horrified.”

“Do you not cultivate the friendship of thinking women?”

“What need have I for a woman who thinks? Ah, the hedgehog bristles are out again. I have insulted your sex and you will take up cudgels on behalf of your sisters! And yet, you must reflect, I keep low company. The women of my acquaintance are giddy, silly creatures, but not bad ones. They talk only of clothes and jewels, and it is enough to drive a thinking man quite mad, and yet I have come to expect that when I marry, it will be just such a creature, a woman who cares only for the next pleasure.”

“I thought your betrothal was already decided,” I remarked carefully. We had not spoken of Cosmina, I had not dared. But I longed to know the depth of his regard for her, whether he held her in esteem or affection.

He stared at me, his grey eyes wide and guileless. “Do you refer to Cosmina? Ah, schoolgirl gossip, of course. Let me guess, the two of you whispered into your pillows about me after the schoolmistresses doused the lamps. Yes, it is my mother’s fondest wish that I marry Cosmina. But it will not happen,” he said decisively. “There is no power in Heaven or on earth that could move me upon this point.”

“Then you are not to be married,” I said slowly.

“No, Miss Lestrange. I am as free and unattached as you.”

There was something in his voice, some subtle shade of meaning I could not quite interpret.

“But how do you know I am unattached?” I asked, slanting him a mischievous glance. He need not know that I had refused Charles absolutely. Even Charles expected me to capitulate eventually.

He looked suddenly more alert and not at all pleased.

“You have a connection? Ah, I can see by the pretty way you preen yourself that you do. You are a woman of great personal attraction and a remarkable mind. It was stupid of me to assume you were not attached. Tell me about the man. Is he dull and predictable? Of course he is. I expect he wears brown suits and always eats his peas before his mutton and will not take port after dinner because it upsets his digestion,” he finished nastily.

I struggled against the rising mirth. “Do not be so hard upon Charles. He is a good man, and unlike most gentlemen, he would not object to keeping a novelist for a wife.”

“Oh, Charles! Its name is Charles, how utterly predictable,” the count rejoined. “But you do not deny my description of him, so I will take it as accurate. No, do not attempt to defend him. It will only make me more determined to dislike him. Come, Miss Lestrange, what are you thinking? Surely you would not be happy with such a man.”

“I could be as happy with him as you could be with such a wife as you have described. It would be a very long life with nothing to discuss between you but the colour of the new drawing room curtains,” I countered.

He shrugged casually, but his expression was one of pleasure. He was enjoying sparring with me, and for my part, I had seldom felt so exhilarated as I did in that small room with the cosy fire and the storm raging without.

The count parried my last thrust. “Any pleasures a wife does not bring to the marriage can—and perhaps ought to—be found elsewhere. A wife is necessary only to provide an heir.”

“I begin to think that you despise my sex,” I told him.

He sat up straight, his hand to his heart, the heavy silver ring upon his forefinger gleaming in the firelight. Tycho raised his head, then gave a snuff and dropped it to my lap again. “You wound me, Miss Lestrange! Nothing could be further from the truth. I adore women. I have studied them as deeply as old Dr. Frankopan has studied his little pills and potions. And like a true scholar and proper scientist I have even developed a Linnaean taxonomy for my seductions.”

“I tremble to ask.”

“It is quite simple,” he said, warming to his theme. His eyes were alight with enthusiasm, his lips turned upward in amusement. “I have sampled women the world over, from courtesans to countesses, and I can tell you there are only three types of women who matter in a man’s life—those he marries, those he seduces and those he takes. I have only to tailor my behaviour to become whatever the lady in question wants me to be and I am assured of success.”

The air felt heavy within my lungs and something inexplicable began to rush in my blood. The conversation had turned inappropriate, wildly so, and yet I could not,
would not
put an end to it.

“And how do you determine which women are which?”

“Birth and breeding, of course. One marries a woman whose blood is impeccable because one needs her only for the creation of an heir. Nothing matters except that her blood is sound and her pedigree is good. If she has beauty and money, all to the better, but I have money enough of my own and beauty can be found elsewhere. Nothing but blood matters in a wife.”

“And those you take?”

“The least diverting of the lot. Serving wenches, maids, village maidens, chorus girls. Any commerce with them is a simple matter of business, an exchange of services for coin. They may want it in the form of a carriage or a new gown, but make no mistake, the courtesan is no different than the innkeeper’s comely daughter who tumbles any traveller in the barn for a piece of copper. Their commodity is pleasure and they are in trade, as surely as if they hung a shingle above the door. They may interest one for a night, perhaps longer if they are clever and well-trained. But in the end, they are tradesmen, and one cannot love a butcher for the way he cleaves the meat, can one?”