“What opportunities?”
“To create. To find pleasure. To live,” he replied, moving closer still.
But as he spoke, I thought of the villagers lacking even fresh water and my indignation rose within me. I said nothing, but arranged my skirts again, spreading them carefully between us as a boundary he must not breach.
“Stop fussing with your dress. You are vexed with me,” he said, directing that piercing gaze at me. “Why?”
“I am a guest in your home. It is not my place to be vexed with anything you choose to do,” I said evenly.
He laughed, a sharp mirthless laugh. “You do not believe that.” He gave a tug to his neckcloth, as if it were wound too tightly. “Come, we have endured too much together for pretence. Tell me why you are cross with me and I will tell you why you are wrong.”
This last bit of arrogance pricked my temper beyond recall. “I am cross because I find we have no point of connection. I thought there was some sympathy between us, some common feeling, and I learn instead that you are everything I have been taught to despise.” I warmed to my theme and carried on, heedless of the words themselves. “You are a libertine and a rake. You take pleasure in everything and responsibility for nothing. You have wealth and opportunity and you squander them both upon idle pleasures. You are the master of this land, and yet you lift not a finger to ease the burdens of its people.”
He gave me a slow, lazy smile. “I had no idea you were such a revolutionary, my dear Miss Lestrange. Shall I build you a barricade from which to denounce me? Or would you prefer a tumbrel to carry me through the streets to my destruction?”
“You have very kindly and quite thoroughly proven my point. I lay the most serious charges of defect of character at your feet and you laugh. You are amused by my scorn rather than abashed at your own failures.”
“Because you do not scorn me,” he said evenly. “You scorn yourself because you see me for what I am and still you cannot help but think of me.”
I gaped at him, but before I could form a proper response, crafted of equal parts logic and disdain, he continued on. “I know all these things about myself, and if you will but call it to mind, I am the one who first revealed them to you. It should come as no surprise to you now that I am an indolent creature of pleasurable habits. I freely confessed to you I am a hedonist, given to frivolity and idleness. Do you think to wound me with the arrows I myself placed in your quiver? Carry on, my dear. You are welcome to try. But I am immune to your barbs, and in fact, I suspect they strike you more deeply than they ever could wound me, because I am content. It is only you who wish me to be better than I am.”
“I wish you to be what you could be,” I rejoined. “Nature has gifted you beyond compare, and you throw these gifts back at her because you cannot be troubled to exert yourself on anyone’s behalf but your own.”
“Really? I remember exerting myself rather a lot last night and at your insistence,” he countered, his eyes bright with mischief.
“I am sorry for that,” I returned. “I had no notion of what I was asking of you.”
“And yet I complied,” he mused, stretching his legs out comfortably, his hands laced behind his head. “I complied solely upon your request. You command me and I obey, and yet I am castigated for failing to exercise my power to better those less fortunate. I could say the same of you.”
His tone was bantering, but his words were arresting.
“You will not speak seriously with me. I ought to have known it was a mistake to attempt this.”
I rose, but he was quicker, placing himself directly in my path with a smoothness and speed that seemed almost inhuman.
“Let me pass,” I said. The top of my head scarcely reached his chin, and even as I said the words, I knew them to be futile.
“She gives an order, and yet I do not feel the force of it,” he said softly, bending his lips to my ear. “She could command me to any crime, lure me to any sin, and yet she does not put out her hand to direct me.”
“Let me pass,” I said again.
“More hesitant yet again,” he said, moving his lips still closer to my ear. “I would do anything you asked of me, Theodora, do you not know that? You have only to stretch out that little hand to save me. You could destroy me with your goodness.”
He took my hand in his, reverently, sacredly, turning it over in his as a pilgrim might a holy relic. And then he pressed his lips to the palm as his other arm stole about my waist.
“I cannot think,” I said stupidly, and I felt a strange giddy lassitude come over me. I swayed, but his arm held me fast.
He guided me to the sofa, and I knew that he had been quite wrong. I did not command him. I was powerless before him, and whatever he asked of me, I would surrender to him.
He pressed me down into the soft velvet cushions, murmuring my name over and again, chanting it like an incantation. I twisted my hands in his hair, begging mutely. He complied, kissing me over and again, introducing me to pleasures I had never imagined, for who could imagine paradise who has never yet wandered there?
He braced himself to pull away his coat and waistcoat, and it was then that I saw the first scarlet drops seeping through the white linen wound about his neck.
A chill ran through me, and I felt my heartbeat hard and fast in my throat as I stared in horror.
“What is it?” he demanded. Seeing the direction of my gaze, he put his hand to his neckcloth. His finger came away red, and he stared at it.
“An accident, when I shaved,” he said, but his complexion had gone white as marble, and he thrust himself away from me. The word strigoi hovered unspoken between us, souring the air.
“Go now,” he said harshly. He turned from me, and I rose, hesitating. Even then, I did not wish to leave him, even then, when the first seeded doubts about what he was began to flower.
He glanced once over his shoulder. “I will save you even if you will not save yourself,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “Go to your room and bolt the door. Hang the basil and say your prayers. Go now!” he roared, and I gathered up my skirts and fled from him.
The next morning I found a note pushed under my door, a small scrap of paper with two words slashed across in thick black ink. Forgive me. I read it over a hundred times and carried it in my clothes, resting against my skin. It was my talisman, my consolation against the doubts that beset me. I had made up my mind that vampires did not exist, that Dr. Frankopan’s tales of strigoi were the ramblings of a frightened old man. But the events in the crypt—the strange and otherworldly appearance of the corpse—and the circumstances of my last parting from the count had shaken my certainty. I had seen the blood upon his neck and I had heard the desperation in his voice. Whatever I believed he was, it was nothing to his own anguish. Had his father, that monstrous revenant, attacked him directly? Had he made something dark and unnatural of his own child? When I lay alone in my bed in the depth of the night, with the low howls of the wolves passing on the wind, I could almost believe it.
And yet by the light of day, it seemed impossible. Aurelia’s death could be put to a wandering maniac—perhaps the work of an itinerant or the savagery of the Popa men who roamed the mountains claiming to be wolves. The castle, for all its battlements and fortifications, remained unlocked. A man wanted only the physical strength to manage the Devil’s Staircase and the stealth to gain entry after the household was fast asleep. Perhaps Aurelia had even arranged an assignation with the fellow and things had gone terribly wrong, I decided. It was certainly a more palatable solution than the notion of vampires.
The Transylvanian strigoi was simply a device, I reasoned. It was a relict of grief and a longing for the departed to come back again. It was achingly sad, a simple people’s response to the suddenness and finality of death. It spoke of the desire to cling to the dead, to keep them alive in one’s memory, walking the earth, searching for a way to break the bonds of mortality. Taken alone, it was merely a tragic bit of harmless folklore, put about
by unlettered people who had seen little of the world and knew nothing of life beyond their mountains. I knew from my grandfather’s writings that every primitive culture boasted a type of vampire, and I knew too that such things were never found amongst civilised folk. There were no revenants in cities. Only in the imaginations of the country peasants were they to be found, incarnations of bereavement and loss and fear, and in so remote a place as Transylvania, even the educated might be seduced into believing.
And it must be acknowledged that the suggestive atmosphere of the castle played its part. It was as Gothic a ruin as any to be found in sensational novels, although I understood well enough why most of the vast castle had been left to decay. The mountains were thick with forests, but it would take acres of trees and dozens of men to fell enough wood to keep the fires blazing through the winter in the castle. Far cheaper and much less bother to simply lock the doors and leave the empty wings to moulder away. The furniture and ornaments, the hangings and books were all costly, doubtless purchased in more solvent times. Such things were expensive to keep in good repair. It would require a sizable staff to keep the castle in good order, the books supple and free of dust and worm, the furniture clean and the moths chased away, the instruments and weapons polished and gleaming. The castle was a pale shadow of what the place must have been at one time, bristling with soldiers, bright banners flying from the turrets, perched proudly upon the mountain.
Now it was merely a sad old relict of a more feudal time. There was nothing sinister in that save the passing of years, I decided. It was a house tragedy had touched, but perhaps with the old count’s passing, a new era could begin. Perhaps with encouragement, Count Andrei would refurbish the place and fill it with light and conversation and music. It could be lovely again, and surely a gentleman with a connoisseur’s eye who spent the better part of his time in elegant cities was just the person to bring sophistication and modern thinking to this old horror.
But it was pointless to hope for such a thing, I reminded myself. Count Andrei had demonstrated his negligence quite thoroughly. He cared little for his castle and less for his people. To wish him to feel otherwise was futile and would only lead to my own disappointment that a man of such possibilities and such natural gifts would scorn them all. I even began to pity him, for while I used logic and reason to dismantle the stories of vampires, I thought of the tormented look upon his face as he ordered me from his room. He had believed he was protecting me from himself, but I did not fear him. By the cold light of day, I saw that he had fallen prey to the superstitions of this place, but I had not, I persuaded myself. There were things I could not explain, but neither could I lay them at the feet of vampires and call it truth, and so long as I did not hold the truth, I could not leave. He might believe he had been made monstrous by his father’s efforts, but I did not, and as the days stretched on, I became increasingly convinced that I must wake him from this nightmare and persuade him once more of his own mortality even as I fought the urge to flee.
The next fortnight passed quietly. By day I wrote in the library, my solitude unbroken, and my afternoons were spent with Cosmina. I saw little of Florian and nothing of the count. The latter suited me. My feelings towards the gentleman were so tangled, so indefinable, I could not think upon him with anything approaching equanimity. Perhaps I ought to have left the castle then. I could have taken myself to London or even to Anna’s and finished my book in more congenial circumstances. But when I lay down to sleep or put aside my pen and closed my eyes, I thought only of the count, of the storm of emotions he had raised within me. I relived every moment that had passed between us during that interlude upon the sofa, how his mouth had lingered over my pulses, the warmth of his breath raising the blood hot and fast just beneath my skin. The pleasures had been exquisite, yet even in my inexperience I knew they were the merest taste of the banquet he could spread before me. To remain in such a place with such a man was to court disaster, I told myself firmly, and yet I could not leave him. I will protect you, he had sworn. I believed him. Had he not sent me away for my own protection? In the face of my doubts and fears, I trusted him still.
Even if I had mustered the will to leave, I should have had a difficult time persuading Cosmina to accept it. Once or twice during the fortnight, I hinted at such a thing, and she fell immediately into such a passion of reproach and pleading I could not refuse her. We walked often down to the village so that she could play the Lady Bountiful in the countess’s place. We carried baskets of scraps from the castle table and little oddments to give them ease. Florian sometimes caught fat brown trout from the river for their suppers, and Cosmina spent much of her time knitting warm caps for the children and shawls for the old women. The weather was growing colder, the air clear and sharp, and each day the morning sun rose upon a landscape that glittered under the first frosts. The pigs in the piggery were growing fat and tall, and the smell of woodsmoke filled the valley from morning to night.
The whole of the valley began to take on a settled air as if preparing to tuck itself in for winter, and with the change in weather, the occurrence of sickness rose. Dr. Frankopan was too often abroad with his patients to call frequently at the castle, and Cosmina did her best to bring comfort and aid to the little hovels where folk could not spare the coin for his attentions. She cared deeply for the villagers, and in her affection for them, she often neglected to care for herself. Whenever she could be spared from attending to the poor of the valley, she devoted herself to the countess, reading aloud with a hoarsening voice or scurrying down to the village to bring some new embrocation from Dr. Frankopan. Not unexpectedly, Cosmina took a chill and grew thin and pale, rather too much of both for my liking, and I began to fuss over her. I saw that she rested better and ate more in my company. She took care of the countess, and in turn, I took care of Cosmina, reminding her to wear a hat on the occasional sunny afternoon in the garden or to take the strengthening tonic prescribed by Dr. Frankopan. In a frank moment, he revealed to me that it was nothing more than a bit of good beef tea, boiled down and flavoured with herbs and wine, but he felt that Cosmina needed a bit of cosseting.
“She is beset by nerves,” he told me seriously. “This business with the strigoi is difficult for one of her temperament. The best remedy for overset nerves is the company of those who are sturdy and strong,” he said with a meaningful look at me.
I felt ashamed then, that I had neglected her rather badly since my arrival. I applied myself to her care, and we spent many happy afternoons stitching together or picking the strange black-skinned apples that grew in the castle garden.
As ever, the countess’s health waxed and waned, and when she was strong enough she joined us of an evening to dine and play piquet. Even Tereza resumed her duties, although she never smiled, and I noticed she wore a vial of blessed water about her neck.
And so the days passed, days when I grew more comfortable at the castle, days when I felt as if I had sipped from the river Lethe, forgetting those I had left behind and the life I had once known. It began to feel as though I had always lived in this mountain fastness, always dwelt in this strange and beautiful land. And even the occasional letter from Anna did nothing to recall me to my previous life. Her existence was an easy and peaceful one, and it seemed far removed from the life I now led.
One morning, a few weeks after the unsettling events in the crypt, Cosmina ran me to ground in the library, fairly dancing in excitement and dressed for an outing, a pretty basket looped over one arm.
“Oh, I am so glad I have found you! You must come, hurry now—I’ve brought your shawl,” she ordered, urging me from my chair and thrusting my plaid into my hands. Her colour was higher than it had been for the past fortnight, almost hectic, but her eyes were shining, and I was pleased to see her looking so well.
“Where are we going?” I demanded.
She grasped my hand and tugged me along behind. “We haven’t time to tidy your papers. You can do that later. If we tarry we will miss him!�
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We hurried into the early afternoon sunshine of the court. It was a glorious day; a bright golden haze lay over the valley and it was unseasonably warm.
“The pedlar is come! We have expected him for weeks, but he was held up in Buda-Pesth. Hurry now, Clara is just ahead there.”
I saw Frau Amsel moving heavily down the Devil’s Staircase, red in the face and puffing. Out of courtesy, I slowed my steps.
“Frau Amsel, the way is difficult, is it not? I think we should descend more safely together.”
I proffered an arm, which she took with a grudging nod.
“Florian usually helps me, but he is very busy today with work for the count,” she advised me. I could smell the distinctive aroma of plum brandy upon her, but her steps were steady and firm.
Cosmina walked hard upon our heels, impatient to descend, but she need not have hurried. A knot of village women had assembled to wait for him as well, and it was fully a quarter of an hour after we arrived before the pedlar drew up in his gaily painted wagon. He was a shifty-looking fellow with sharp features and lank, greasy hair, and he gave us a jovial smile which did not touch his eyes. But he bargained fairly, and after perusing his wares—the pretty painted tin cups and the strings of bright beads and the dainty little looking glasses—I put out my hand to touch a length of fabric. It was violet, the colour of half mourning, and almost appropriate for my state of mourning. It had been woven with a pretty pattern of small black roses, barely noticeable on the field of purple. Too late I remembered I had not stopped to collect any coins before I left the castle.
I turned to Cosmina, dropping the length of fabric. I meant to ask her for the loan of the price just until we returned to the castle, but before I could speak, Frau Amsel swept the fabric into her arms.
“I will take this,” she said, fixing me with a challenging stare.
The pedlar, whose sharp eyes I suspected missed very little, put his thumbs into his braces and rocked back upon his heels with the air of a man who intended to make the most of an opportunity.
The Dead Travel Fast Page 16