“I have quite a few,” Andrei spoke up, “but I doubt any of them will be answered to my satisfaction. We’re supposed to sit around and wait to hear from you, and pretend nothing’s wrong? Say you’re away on a business trip and try not to show we’re worried sick our elder brother may never return and we might not know what happened to him?”
“There’ll be no more talk like that.” Marek made his voice stern. “Since the subject’s arise, however…”
“What about it?” asked Vlad in a childish whine.
“If I don’t come back...” He touched his cousin’s shoulder in the gesture signifying a ghidaj choosing his heir. Dan looked startled. “I’m naming you my successor. If I die, you’re to be head of the family.”
“Marek, I can’t be ghidaj.”
“You’d have been your father’s heir if he’d survived that attack. You and I both know it.” He touched Dan’s damaged arm lightly. “You’ve a physical defect as strong as any you could’ve been born with. This marks you as a ghidaj, Cousin.”
Dan didn’t argue longer, simply bowed his head and pulled Marek’s hand from his shoulder, pressing it to his forehead, marking his acceptance of the charge his cousin placed upon him. Marek turned to the twins.
“You two will obey him. In all things. Is that understood?”
They both gave him sullen looks and he could see rebellion in their eyes, warrior blood begging for combat.
“If it happens, let it stop with me. Dan, promise me you’ll keep them from carrying out their own revenge. Keep the twins away from Ravagiu if you have to take them to Russia.”
“I promise.” Dan had to swallow twice before he answered.
“What if he comes after us?” Andrei asked. “Shall we run like cowards?”
Marek smiled faintly as he met his little brother’s angry eyes. “I’ve a feeling if Ravagiu kills me, it’ll stop. After all, he had you two in his clutches before and harmed neither of you.”
“Guess we aren’t as important as we think,” Vlad muttered. “Don’t worry, we’ll do as Dan says, though it’ll be won’t be easy.”
“Good.” Marek drew in his breath. He had yet to do the most difficult thing before leaving. “I wish to speak to Ruxanda alone. Would the rest of you excuse us?”
Over the heads of the twins, Dan’s eyes met his before he went out the door.
“What else could we have to talk about?” She looked puzzled. “I think you’ve made your wishes quite clear and I assure you, unlike the twins, I won’t find it difficult to obey them.”
“That’s my good girl.” Marek took her hands in his, kissing the backs of her fingers. “Xandi, my dear little sister, I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you something.”
“Tell me what?” Pulling her hands from his, she left her chair and walked over to the fireplace. “Brother, you look so grim.”
“This is a grim moment for all of us.”
“It’s something more than that. This is about me, personally, isn’t it?” She paced back and forth, lower lip beginning to quiver. “That’s why you wished to talk to me alone.”
“Come, sit down.” He guided her back to her chair and knelt beside her.
“I’m sorry. I’m allowing myself to act like a silly female.”
“You may be female,” Marek made his voice quiet, “but silly? I don’t think you’ve ever been that. Do you remember our conversation in the library?”
“About that play? Surely, this is no time to…”
“This isn’t about the play. It’s my way of trying to begin what I wish to say.”
He put his arms around her, hugging her.
“This is so difficult. I truly, truly am unprepared, though I’ve had years to get ready.” Swallowing loudly, he said, “Ruxanda, Dan tells me you’ve begun asking questions about yourself...wondering why you haven’t gotten your wings yet, and other things.”
“I do think it strange,” she admitted. “The twins mentioned they both released their wings before they went away to school and Dan said you and he had them by the time you were fourteen. Yet here I am, long past that age. You can understand why I might be anxious, can’t you?”
“Do you remember anything of your babyhood?” He answered her question with one of his own. “A person, perhaps, who seemed out of place among your memories of Castel Strigoi?”
“How could I?” She frowned as if trying to remember. “I was too young. Although, I used to have this dream of someone holding me. Someone not Ilona. She smelled of apples.” She smiled slightly. “I used to tell myself it was my mother.”
“It may have been,” Marek said.
Your real mother.
“Gods, this is so difficult.”
“Please, Marek.” Her voice rose, absorbing some of his anxiety. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I’m a Strigoi. I swear I can take it.”
“That’s the problem.” He placed a hand over the ones in her lap. “Perhaps I should’ve told you from the beginning.” His voice rose angrikly. “That doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to go back and do it and the gods may damn me for keeping this from you.”
She cowed before his anger, though plainly it was at himself.
“You aren’t a Strigoi, Ruxanda.”
“Not…?” The look she gave him held confusion. “Is this a joke? If so, it’s a very questionable one and I don’t like it.”
He kissed her forehead, and tightened his grip on her fingers.
She looked from his hands to his face, eyes wide. He thought she couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d struck her.
“If I’m not a Strigoi, who am I, then?”
Such a simple question. With such a difficult answer.
When he spoke, his voice was very, very soft as if he were afraid to speak any louder.
“We had a little sister named Ruxanda. She was kidnapped, along with the twins and Károly. She was taken from the cell, and she wasn’t returned. But you were, in her place. When we found out, we kept you as our own. Our little changeling. Enthralled you so you’d appear one of us.”
He shook his head, getting to his feet and turning his back. He couldn’t face the shock in her eyes.
“I’m not one of you? None of you are my brothers? I’m not…” She said those words as if she couldn’t understand them, as if repeating them would translate them so she could comprehend their meaning. “I’m human?”
She got to her feet.
“I-I should g-go…
She didn’t move but Marek did. Whirling, he caught her by the shoulders, pulling her against his chest. She burst into tears, great wracking sobs as if her heart were breaking.
Perhaps it was.
“I don’t understand.” She spoke through her tears. “If it’s against the Law for an aventuriera to mate with a human and produce a child…how could you adopt one?”
“As far as I know, there’s no Law saying a human may not be raised by aventurieri.” He held her tighter, hoping he was telling the truth.
There was a law against letting changelings live, there was a law against letting halfbreeds live, but he’d been unable to find anything relating to making a human a family member.
“Your enthrallment’s an accepted and encouraged practice. If someone talks or becomes suspicious, hell, if the Domnitor himself finds out, why—I’ll face him. Fight him if necessary.”
“Marek, you’d do that?”
“Why not?” His answer was reckless. “He’s already exiled me for trying to defend my family. What more can he do?”
She took a deep breath. In it, he heard an attempt to prevent more tears from falling.
“You must have loved your little sister very much, to let me replace her.”
“We did…we do. You’re our sister, Ruxanda, and no one’s going to say differently.”
She looked up at him. “Why did you wait until now to tell me?”
“You were a baby to be cared for and loved, and I preferred to forget. So I did.” He shied away
from mentioning Joachim. Somehow he got her quiet and soothed, holding her until she raised her head.
“Who am I? Really? Do you know?”
“You’re Ruxanda. Our little sister. Be assured we love you as much as we loved her.”
She looked as if she wanted to dispute that, then shook her head instead. “What’ll happen to me now? What if someone finds out? What if Ravagiu kills you? Who’ll protect me?”
“I haven’t sorted it all out,” he admitted. “But I will…when I have time to consider. Perhaps find a sympathetic human family to take you in, let you travel with them, and when you’re far enough away, you simply won’t come back.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
He didn’t speak and that in itself was answer enough.
“I don’t want to leave you.” She looked tearful again.
“It won’t be right away,” he soothed. “We’ve years yet, but it will be necessary. Some day.”
“I see.” She straightened with a sigh. “Very well. I can do this.” She looked up at him and smiled sadly. “I can face anything. After all, I’m János Strigoi’s daughter.” She gave a sickly smile. “Sort of.”
“You are,” he agreed. “My father would’ve been proud to call you his child.”
There was a gentle rap on the door. To Marek’s call, Hans-Claud peeped in. “The Graf’s coach is here, sir.”
He made the announcement as if Death itself had ridden up and demanded entrance.
“Thank you, Hansel. Have my trunk loaded, please. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered. “I’ve always wanted to see Paris. I just wish we were going for a happier reason.” He hurried away.
“I suppose this is it.”
Marek tried to affect a positive tone and failed. He grasped Ruxanda’s hand rightly. “Will you come and see me off?”
* * *
As he started down the front steps, Ruxanda caught his sleeve, flinging herself into his arms.
“I’m so afraid for you, Marek. Especially now. Please be careful.”
“I’ll be as careful as one can be when facing a rapitor.” He touched her cheek, wiping away the tears. “You’ve known all your life this day might come. I have to do this. For our parents. For Károly. For all the deomi Ravagui killed.” He caught her hands, holding them tightly. “You do see that, don’t you?”
Nodding, she sniffled back her tears. “Promise me something.”
“Whatever you wish, little one.”
“Bring back Mircea Ravagiu’s head.” Her eyes turned hard. “I wish to throw it into the fire myself.”
Behind her, there was a duet of gasps from the twins. Marek pressed her hands to his forehead.
“I swear it, little sister. Yours will be the hand sending him to Hell.”
“May I embrace you, cousin?” Dan stepped toward him.
Marek opened his arms, and Dan went into them, hugging him. For an instant he rested his cheek against Marek’s shoulder. There was a soft sob and when he raised his head, his eyes were wet.
Blinking, he whispered, “I think this may not end the way we expect.”
Marek’s only answer was to push his cousin away and climb into the coach. He didn’t look out, didn’t wave, as Dieter sent the horses galloping down the street.
Part 3
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
― Abraham Lincoln
Chapter 41
Residence de Marquise duCharne
Paris, France
1811
After they left Vienna, the weather changed. By the time they arrived in Paris, winter had set in, snow falling gently and forming small drifts around door stoops. They reached the city at night, finding rooms at a small inn Dieter said the Graf frequented because the landlord asked no questions if his guests slept all day and reveled all night, as had the others in places they stayed on their journey.
The following evening, bathed and dressed in his best, Marek instructed the coachman to take him and Hans-Claud to the Sectiune’s home. It was after twilight when the coach pulled up in front of the town house, a regal edifice located in the Ile de France itself, several blocks from the Place de Concorde and the Arc de Triomph de l’Étoile, that magnificent structure commission by His Royal Emperor Napoleon, though contruction had been recently delayed because of the death of its architect.
“Here we are, mein herr,” Dieter called. “La Marquise duCharne’s city home.”
As if echoing his statement, the horses stamped and snorted, sending vaporous little puffs into the air.
Handing Hans-Claud his card and Karl-Josef’s letter, Marek sent the boy to the door. As the valet mounted the steps to the Marquise’s elaborately bound cherry-wood door, Marek watched from the darkness of the coach’s interior.
When Hans-Claud stopped and looked around, gawking in wonder, he smiled slightly before calling out, “Hansel…get on with it. You can sight-see later.”
Jumping at Marek’s prompt, the boy ran up the last three steps, tugging on the bell-pull located to the side of the door. From inside came a distant sound of chimes. A slight flurry of snow had begun to fall and he looked terribly small and vulnerable standing in the light flickering from a nearby lamppost, the stoop shrouded in shadows.
The massive door opened.
Hans-Claud was bathed in brilliant golden light as a butler who could’ve been Werner’s twin appeared. He looked at Hans-Claud, past him to the coach, noting the von Blitzensturm coat of arms on the door, and back at the boy again, then waited for the manservant to say something.
The boy bowed, a brief dipping of his head that was just polite enough before looking up at the butler and stating, in halting French, “L-Le Marquis offers his compliments to la Marquise duCharne and wishes to present himself.”
Hans-Claud thrust the little white card with its gleaming black script at the butler. The man still didn’t speak, but took the card and glanced at it, frowning as he flicked another gaze at the emblem on the coach’s door.
Hans-Claud went on, “Also, I have a Letter of Introduction to la Marquise from Herr Markgraf von Blitzensturm, my master’s f-foster f-father.”
The butler’s expression changed. He allowed himself a slight smile as he held out his hand for the letter. Hans-Claud placed it on his palm.
The butler studied it briefly. At last, he spoke. “I’ll give this to her ladyship. Please wait here.”
Closing the door, he left the boy standing on the stoop, once more surrounded by shadows.
After what seemed an eternity but was probably only a few moments, the door swung open again.
The butler said, “Please tell your master la Marquise will be delighted to receive him.”
Hans-Claud nodded. Forgetting decorum, he bounced down the stairs and trotted back to the coach, where he repeated the message through the window. He opened the coach door for Marek to descend the fold-out steps and, with a bow, followed him respectfully.
The butler bowed, ushering him inside.
Deciding this time to act the officious aristocrat, Marek strode purposefully over the threshold, not looking to left or right, while behind him, Hans-Claud gaped enough for both of them as he saw the elelgant interior.
Inside he removed his tricorne, pulling off his gloves and dropping them into it before thrusting it at the butler who took it without a murmur.
Marek wondeed if the man was aventurieri. The foyer was wuch a blending of aventurieri and deomi scents, it was difficult to tell.
Unclasping his cape, he shook it slightly, sending snow falling to the floor, then shrugged so the garment slid from his shoulders as he took a step forward, not looking to see whether it was caught. The butler captured it before it fell two inches. Without giving him time to put the garment away, Marek turned, raising his head so he looked down his nose at the servant.
“Announce me to La Marquise.”
The order brooked no delay. He waited with
false impatience while the man vacillated briefly between obeying and putting away his cape and tricorne. Still carrying coat and hat, he hurried into an open room to the right, disappearing into the corridor beyond.
“This is a pretty grand place, isn’t it, sir?” Hans-Claud chose that moment to speak, though in a whisper.
“It is a little overwhelming, isn’t it?” Marek answered. With a slight smile, he added, “By the way, your performance outside was excellent.”
Hans-Claud beamed.
The butler returned, ushering him through the brightly-lit room and into the corridor, where they were met by a young man. This one was clearly another servant, but much higher up, dressed in a severely-cut and expensive frock coat with a high, turned-down collar and wide lapels. A white muslin cravat enhanced his startling good looks. He was slender and blond, hair cut fairly short, fluffed in front of his ears in the dog’s-ear style now the fashion in France. Marek resisted the urge to smooth his own clubbed and beribboned hair.
“M’sieu le Marquis?”
Marek inclined his head slightly, but didn’t answer.
“I’m Gaston Latrec, la Marquise’s dosmestique personnel.” He gestured down another hallway. “Madame has asked me to escort you to her. If you’ll come this way, M’sieu?”
Nodding, Marek started down the hall, only to stop as he heard Hans-Claud take a step.
“Un moment.” He held up one hand. When Latrec paused, he turned to the butler. “You—”
“Étienne, sir,” the butler supplied.
“—Étienne, see that my man’s taken care of.”
There was a bow from the butler and a nonplussed look from Hans-Claud, who began a slight protest. He’d expected to accompany his master. That died away as Marek turned his back, following Latrec down the second hallway.
Once they were out of sight of the others, the domestique said, without looking at him, “You are staying in Paris for a while, M’sieur le Marquis?”
“Only a short time.” Marek thought that an impertinent question to ask a just-arrived guest. “I’ve business here, and once that’s finished, I’ll return to Vienna.”
“I see.” Latrec noded, mouth twisting in a slight smirk as if criticizing his accent.
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