by D J Mcintosh
We huddled underneath the tree trunk on a deep bed of pine needles, damp but soft. Dina wriggled into the extra sweater she’d brought with her and I gave her my fleece sweatshirt to put on over top. It was a tossup whether our wet windbreakers provided protection or added to the problem, but we decided to keep them on. Dina’s hands had turned white with the cold so I rubbed them between mine. I pulled out the bottle of Bordeaux from my pack and the little plastic glasses we’d brought. Our bread had turned to mush so we contented ourselves with the brie and washed it down with generous draughts of wine. Dina nestled as close as possible to me, her reluctance to get close forgotten with the frigid weather. Our shared body warmth helped alleviate the cold.
A while later, the flurries stopped and the clouds thinned out, revealing a full moon casting beams through the forest. An owl hooted. The horses swished their tails as they grazed. The scent of cedar, loamy earth, and forest mushrooms pervaded the night air.
“How far behind do you think Alessio is?” Dina asked nervously. “Maybe he took your bait and used the other road.”
She nodded without much conviction.
“Did Alessio ever hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No. Not him. I was the conte’s toy to abuse.”
I wondered, after spending several years in their household as a kind of ward, whether she’d begun a romance with Mancini willingly only to find he abused her trust. “How did it start—your relationship with him?”
“Relationship? That’s what you call it?” Her voice echoed sharply and the sordid history came tumbling out. “I was fifteen, barely even a teenager when he first set his eyes on me. He and his wife seemed friendly and kind in the beginning. With my mother dead and my father barely interested in me, naturally I gravitated to them. It wasn’t long before I’d catch his eyes sliding over my body and had to endure hugs that lasted too long. I ignored it but that only encouraged him. He would press himself against me so I could feel his hardness, touch me when he knew no one else was looking. It was a relief to be away at school in London most of the time, but on holidays and over the summer break I had no choice. They made me stay with them. When I turned sixteen and reached the age of consent in Italy, he raped me.”
“You were still a kid.” My first impression fell apart like a house of cards. The scene I’d witnessed outside the Naples club was just the latest episode in a long pattern of sexual crime.
“At seventeen he forced me to leave my London boarding school. That’s when he became much more public about his relationship with me. He began showing me off at parties and events. He chose my dresses, always tight, clingy ones, and got secret pleasure out of watching other men eye me.
“When we walked into a room at these gatherings I heard the whispers. I felt so ashamed. And he had a terrible temper. If I did one minor thing wrong he’d—”
“You went through total hell.”
“For years and years.” Her mood seemed to switch from sorrow to anger. “The only way out for me is to kill him. I’ll have to or he’ll do it to me.”
Hearing her say that froze my blood. “We’ll get away from him, Dina. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
Dina drew her arms around her legs, shivering through her clothes. If the cold hadn’t caused it, her memories certainly would. “He’ll just track me down. He won’t let me go—ever. I spent so many years steeling myself whenever he touched me. Panicking the minute I’d hear his footsteps treading on the hall tiles. The sight of him made me sick. The smell of his hair turned my stomach. That becomes ingrained in your brain, you know. I’ll never get rid of it now.”
“You’ll find someone who treats you gently. Who really cares for you.” My words were inadequate and I knew it. After such a long period of mistreatment, she might well find it impossible to ever trust another man.
“After what he did, I can’t imagine how. It happened one summer night in Naples. I’d invited a bunch of people over for a party. We were passing around joints, drinking a lot, stuff kids do. Partying late into the night. The next thing I remember was waking up, so out of it I could barely move or speak. He’d stripped off all my clothes and lay on top of me. He’d fixed my drink, sent everyone home, and raped me while I was semi-conscious. And his wife knew! She stood aside, saying and doing nothing!”
Her raw words turned my stomach. “There was no one at school to tell?”
“Not in summer. And even if I’d been able to reach anyone there, what could they do, so far away? I ran away the next morning but I had no money. My friends were afraid of him so they wouldn’t help. Twenty miles outside Naples his men found me. They tied my wrists, dumped me into a car, and drove me back to the estate. He refused to send me back to school.”
Mancini belonged in prison, but the chances of that ever happening were slim to none. My blood boiled at the thought of him getting away with it.
Her story touched a nerve. At my first boarding school an instructor made a practice of being overly friendly to some of the boys. He singled me out for his attention. He chose kids like me without parents watching their every step. Even at that age, I knew something was wrong and lashed out at him. He retaliated with punishments, demeaning me in front of the entire class and whipping me for another boy’s mischief. I couldn’t imagine trying to explain a sexual predator to Evelyn, who would in any event have been afraid to confront school authorities. Samuel was unreachable, away on a long stretch of field work. I had to cope on my own.
Dina gave me a measured look. “How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty-four on June seventh.”
“That means you’re a Gemini, a male sign with a dual nature. You’re like Mercury—quicksilver—and Geminis fall in love hard and fast. If love is so easy for you, why aren’t you with someone?”
“There was a woman I felt close to recently,” I said, thinking of Laurel again. “But it didn’t work out that way.”
Dina scrambled up. “Oh. I’m sorry about that. But you see? Nothing about love is ever simple, is it?” She glimpsed the patch of sky between the trees. “We should get going while the moon is still bright.”
Where to go was the question. We had no clear path. I spotted a clearing between the trees, so we gave the horses their leads and they picked their way along it. Dina rode the mare and I led the limping stallion.
We’d gone about a third of a mile when a howl pierced the night. Even though the sound came from far away, it was unsettling. Both horses brought their heads up sharply and twitched their ears.
“What was that?” Dina asked nervously. “Are there wolves in France?”
“Not anymore. Possibly deep in the Alps. Not here. A farmer’s dog maybe.”
The howl came again. A little closer this time. Not the yelping bark I remembered from wolves in the Adirondacks but a prolonged, mournful wail. The horses yanked at their leads.
Dina let the reins droop while I continued to lead the stallion, hobbling along on his injured leg. The mare needed no encouragement to get going and she seemed to have a sense of the right direction. Aside from having to duck low-hanging branches and stumbling on the odd tree root or rock, we made headway, the horses’ hooves muffled as they proceeded along the forest floor covered with a soft layer of snow.
Twenty minutes later we came upon a little glade and the first signs of human activity. Stacks of neatly piled wood stood in the center of the clearing beside a felled tree with a large ax embedded in its trunk. We reeled from a rank smell. I looked behind the wood pile and recoiled at the sight of a doe, its head pointing skyward on a twisted neck, its belly ripped wide open. “How could anyone kill a beautiful animal like that?” I walked away from it in distaste.
Dina shook her head. “You’re in the country now. People hunt. You need to get used to that. I think we’re on the right route anyway. Look over there. That might be the driveway.” An opening had appeared through the trees, a pathway. Under the moon’s bright light, the snow sparkled like silver.
Deeper in the forest, another howl broke through the cold air, this time jarringly close. The sound of breaking branches spooked the stallion. It took all my strength to control him. Alarmed, I looked behind me.
Moonlight illuminated Alessio’s form on the crisp white avenue of snow.
Dina’s mare caught his scent and stampeded down the path. The stallion wrenched the reins out of my hand and raced after them, heedless of his damaged leg.
I faced Alessio. I’d matched him in a fight before. I could do it again as long as I avoided the mesmerizing effect of his eyes. But in an instant two forms burst out of the bushes between us—huge hunting dogs, their bodies the size of small ponies, growling low in their throats. They came to a stop and stood stock-still halfway between Alessio and me. Their tails were lowered, their hackles raised.
Alessio stiffened. One of the dogs crept toward him and crouched, its haunches tightened, ready to spring. The other veered off to the left, foiling any chance for him to retreat. Alessio had no hope of escape. He crashed sidelong into the bushes and the dogs tore after him.
Once the dogs finished with Alessio they’d come for me. I ran down the trail. It was a path to nowhere. A few hundred yards along it dead-ended at a wall of trees.
Torn clumps of frost-tipped grass showed the route the horses took when they charged into the wood. Ahead I could discern movement through the trees. Drawing nearer, I saw it wasn’t the horses. They’d vanished. Dina sat up holding one arm awkwardly. Her clothing was torn and the snow around her spattered with blood.
Twenty-Seven
Iran to her. As I bent down, I noticed her top had torn, exposing small white scars crisscrossing her stomach underneath her breasts. They looked like incisions made with a small blade. More of Mancini’s torment or an act of self-harm?
Dina murmured something in Italian.
“You’ve had a bad fall,” I said. “Do you think you can get up?”
“Hit a branch when the mare ran into the wood.”
With my arm securely around her, I helped her stand. She winced in pain. “Try to walk. We’ll take it slowly.” Her hair hung in wet drapes around her face and she grimaced with every step.
I listened for the sound of the hounds. They must have finished with Alessio by now. The man hadn’t even cried out, so fast had the animals attacked him. We had to find shelter quickly. I decided we could do no worse than to follow the horses. To our immense relief, within a short time the wood thinned, ending at a stone barrier. We entered through a hole in a crumbling wall and found ourselves in a garden.
It was a strange garden, tangled and wild, but also a place of rare beauty. Oddly, no snow lay on the ground here. A beam of moonlight on a sundial cast a shadow over the Roman numeral three. It may indeed have been three in the morning by now. I couldn’t tell.
Rows of lavender, the flowers dried on their thin stalks, lined a gravel walk, throwing off a sweet, pungent odor. Ahead, life-sized statues of Grecian robed men and women holding flaming torches gave the place a magical air. Farther on we saw banks of flower beds in disarray, huge rose bushes with briars overgrown, blossoms gone to seed.
Beyond the roses was a rectangular reflecting pool, its surface a mat of floating yellow leaves. The pool was surrounded with paving stones almost hidden by plush moss. At one end stood an arbor, also covered with rose vines, where one fragile flower still bloomed. The arbor surrounded a sculpture of Eros, the fluid muscles of his masculine shoulders ready to loose an arrow from his bow, his gaze directed longingly at a slumbering Psyche.
The path led to a short set of broken stone steps, two gigantic iron urns on either side. As we looked higher we could see palm trees and the rising wall and roof of an enormous house. All the windows were shuttered and no light seeped from between the cracks.
Dina revived at the sight. “Thank the Lord. We made it after all.”
“Assuming it’s Renard’s home, who knows if he’s even here? It’s all shut up.”
“Didn’t Hanzi say he never goes anywhere?”
“This looks like the rear of the house. Let’s find an entrance.” Behind the palms another stone wall emerged, this one about five feet high. It appeared to be the foundation of an old building. A wooden gate kept in good condition was firmly locked. I desperately wanted to find a route past the wall away from the dogs. We walked its length and it eventually opened onto a stretch of overgrown grass with a circular driveway.
The magnificent facade of an estate house rose before us. It reminded me of a Grecian temple, simple and elegant. Corinthian columns supporting a portico ran the entire width of the building. A wide flight of central stairs made from variegated stone ran up to the portico. A coat of arms was emblazoned over the door. Here, as well, blazing torches had been fixed in brackets to each of the pillars.
Two sets of shutters were thrown open on the main-floor French windows. Warm, golden light poured forth. Despite our aches and pains we hastened up the stairs to the massive set of doors. One of them stood open a few inches. Dina stumbled inside. I followed her in and shut the door. The lock closed with a satisfying click.
The entrance hall floor, large squares of black-and-white tile, resembled a giant chess board. A split staircase curved up to a balustrade on the second floor. A trompe l’oeil painting graced the ceiling with a fantasy of mythological creatures—a black bull’s head on a nude male body with exaggerated genitals brandished an ugly mace, a winged serpent coiled around a staff, a gorgon with a fish tail held a sword. Suspended from the ceiling, an elaborate chandelier supported scores of ceramic candles lit by flickering gas flames.
A brass bell sat on a wooden table inlaid with ivory in Arabic designs. Dina shook the bell. Its ring echoed through the corridors. When no one came, I called out. We waited for ages and tried the bell several more times. Stillness reigned. The absence of sound in such a large place felt ominous and I wondered whether we’d escaped from our adversaries outside only to encounter more dangers in here.
“It’s so late,” Dina said. “They must all be asleep. He’ll probably throw us out for barging in like this when he wakes up.”
“Then he’ll have a fight on his hands. Nothing could get me outside again.” I looked around. “You don’t run an establishment like this without staff. Where are they?”
“I don’t feel like camping out in this hall; I’m still hurting all over and there’s not even a chair to sit in. Let’s see what’s in here.” She tried the nearest door. It swung open.
The drawing room, for that’s what it appeared to be, was someone’s idea of a Middle Eastern fantasy. A giant hearth with a brightly burning log fire was enclosed by a massive mantel finished with Persian mosaics. Genie lamps placed around the room looked as if they’d come out of a page of “Aladdin”; gas flames shot from their spouts. Kayseri floss carpets adorned the tile floor. The walls sported woven textiles and a faint scent of incense hung over the room. Several low divans had been placed close to the fireplace. Dina winced as she lowered herself onto one of them.
“You should get out of those wet clothes,” I said.
“Into what? Our packs disappeared with the horses.”
I found a throw warmed by the firelight hanging on a screen and handed it to her. She went behind the screen to strip off her outerwear. Emerging with the throw wrapped around her like a hijab, she lay back down on the divan.
“I’m staying right here,” she said, “and not moving ever again.”
A crystal decanter containing amber liquid sat on a side table covered with a burgundy cloth. A stopper lay beside it with two cognac glasses. I sniffed the golden liquor and drew in the aroma of fine Courvoisier. I dribbled some into the glasses and handed one to her.
Dina sipped it slowly and when she’d finished pressed her hand to her throat. “Ah, that burned like a fury. It tastes wonderful.” She sank back onto th
e sofa and shut her eyes.
I ambled over to look at several large books displayed on a banquette. They were in French and illustrated. One appeared to be a book of magic spells; it had a handsome black leather cover with an eight-sided star and crescent moons embossed in silver. The other two were atlases, their pages opened to sections on Arabia and Turkey.
Dina was half asleep already on the divan. The cut on her shoulder hadn’t been as bad as I thought, but with all the trauma of our day her pale skin looked as white as the forest snow and the damp had turned her dark hair to ebony. Only her lips retained some color.
I left her to rest and exited the drawing room by another door near the fireplace. The kitchen I found myself in had an antiquated feel, with copper pots hanging from a ceiling rack, an enamel sink, a huge trestle table, and a large cooking stove. I retraced my steps to the entrance hall and climbed the main staircase.
Determined to find either the book that brought us here in the first place or our host, I ventured down the hall. Gas wall lights sprang on and I surmised they’d been set to some kind of motion detector. Many bedchambers led off the gallery; the beds, freshly made up, smelled of lavender. Each room had been beautifully decorated with French landscapes. In one room decked out with teal Regency wallpaper and containing a grand four-poster bed, a Poussin hung in a delicate golden frame.
I found a bathroom with a huge clawfoot iron tub with golden faucets. Despite the warmth of the house and the cognac, I was still cold. I always took showers but the temptation to plunge into steaming water was irresistible. Plump, clean towels hung on the rack and a long robe was suspended from a hook on the door. At that moment it dawned on me what must have happened. The entire house felt as if it had been prepared for guests. Hanzi must have found a way to send word to the merchant of our intention to visit. Renard would have known we couldn’t make the journey back at night and had his people prepare the house for us. It was clear he intended us to stay. I didn’t waste another minute before filling the tub with hot water and sliding into its welcoming depths.