Written in the Blood

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  When she declined to answer, his fear ratcheted up a notch. ‘You don’t need to hurt me, OK? Whatever it is you want, you don’t need to do that.’

  She unlocked the ranch’s front door. It swung wide, revealing a wedge of darkness, and an odour that troubled her.

  He caught it too. ‘No, I don’t want to go in there. Seriously. Let me stay out here, in the light, just for a while. Just for a while, OK? We’ll work this out. If we talk. Come on. Please. I don’t want to die.’

  She turned to him. Stared. Lifted her mouth into a smile. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘J . . . Jason.’

  ‘You’re not going to die, Jason. Not here. Not today.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘I know this is distressing. But you don’t have to be scared. I haven’t brought you all the way out here just to kill you.’

  His eyes moved to the shadows inside the ranch. ‘Then what? What’s in there?’

  ‘Something incredible. Something that will change your life forever. Trust me, Jason. Now go inside.’

  ‘I don’t want to. I . . .’

  She came towards him.

  ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t touch me again! I’ll go in. I’ll trust you.’ He started crying as he shuffled across the threshold.

  ‘Down the hall,’ she instructed.

  Inside, the air was thick with a rotten dead-poultry stench. Shadows gathered, pressing close. At the end of the hall they came to a door.

  ‘Open it,’ she told him. ‘Go inside.’

  Trembling, he obeyed, and she followed. Just enough light was seeping between the drapes to make out details: a large room, square in shape, lacking any furniture except five wingback chairs arranged in a semi-circle. The meagre light prevented her from seeing their occupants, but she heard a creaking of springs, and a whispery sound, like sheets of paper carried by the wind.

  On the floor stood a Coleman lantern. She fired it up, the gas hissing as its light brightened the room.

  Now she saw them more clearly, staring up at her. Their limbs were shrivelled and brittle, faces lined and pallid. Some had dried blood on their chins where they had spat out teeth. Cloudy eyes blinked.

  ‘My darlings,’ she told them softly. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Oh, please God,’ whispered the youth in the Grizzlies jacket. ‘What the hell is this? What the hell?’

  ‘All I ask,’ she said, ‘is that you do as I say.’

  He raised his eyes from the chairs’ occupants. ‘Which is what?’

  She led him to the nearest chair and instructed him to kneel.

  The old woman sitting there had lost almost all her hair. Her hands, veined and liver-spotted, were clutched in her lap, aged before their time. Around her neck she wore an amber locket, its chain fashioned from interlinked beetles. She sighed, and with great effort she lifted a hand and draped it onto his head. Immediately the contact was made she slumped back in her seat, breath rattling out of her like an avalanche of stones.

  The young man stared at the crone. The terror slid from his face, replaced by a reverential calm; he bowed his head. ‘You honour me with your gift,’ he said. Rising, he turned to the woman who had brought him and held out his hands. She cut through his bonds.

  ‘Do you bring news?’ he asked.

  ‘He asks for patience.’

  ‘We’ve been patient. It’s killing us.’

  ‘We won’t abandon you.’

  ‘You brought others?’

  She nodded. ‘Outside.’

  ‘I’ll fetch them.’

  Once he’d left, she turned back to the old woman in the chair.

  Her eyes were open. They scanned the room blindly, wide with confusion. ‘What . . .’ she croaked, voice rasping and dry. ‘Where is this? Where’s it gone?’

  ‘Hush, Angel. It’s over now. You did well.’

  ‘Where . . . Is it coming back? I can’t see.’

  The woman with the seaweed eyes and sunlight hair moved towards her, holding out the knife.

  CHAPTER 29

  Villa del Osservatore, Italy

  Tungsten clouds sailed the skies above Lake Como, darkening the water to an indigo hue. From her seat in the stern of the bow rider, Leah Wilde watched the lake’s western shore as it slipped by. On its slopes she saw groves of olives, figs and pomegranates; solitary cypresses clinging to limestone crags. As their boat motored through the water, carving a wide white wash, the shoreline revealed inlets sheltering hidden villas and peeling palazzi. To the east rose the Triangolo Lariano, a mountainous wedge of land dominated by the snow-covered peak of Monte San Primo, which split the lower half of the lake in two.

  Beside Leah stood one of the Belső Őr, closest of the Örökös Főnök’s personal retinue of guards. The man held himself as still as the statues that decorated the terraces of the villa they sought, staring north-east across the water with eyes that constantly shifted their focus. He had spoken little since welcoming her aboard at Cernobbio. Whether that was because he disapproved of her presence here, or it was simply his nature, she did not know.

  Behind them, piloting the vessel, a second member of the Belső Őr, and in the bow, the five women Leah had brought along. Etienne and Soraya sat the furthest forward, eyes narrowed against the spray the boat kicked up as it knifed through the water. Behind them, on the second row of seats, sat the other kirekesztett volunteers she had recruited during her journey through Europe: from Budapest, Mária Wagner; from Milan, Alida Argento; from Paris, Delphine Binoche.

  Clustered around a crag a few hundred metres above the western shore, she saw the collection of sixteenth-century chapels that formed the Sacro Monte di Ossucci. On the summit itself perched the even older sanctuary of the Madonna del Soccorso, its bell tower rising proud of the nearby trees.

  It meant they were close. Leah heard their engine drop in pitch, and saw the bow dip down to meet the water. They motored towards a peninsula thrusting from the shore in a series of wooded humps.

  On its rocky tip, dominating the scenery for miles around, stood the Villa del Osservatore. Breathtakingly beautiful, it comprised three individual buildings and a single watchtower, roofed in terracotta tile and connected by stone bridges and loggias. Its lush gardens and lawns encircled the peninsula in steadily descending terraces, and a wide stone-built staircase hugged the rock all the way down to the waterline, terminating at a landing stage edged with balustrades. Higher up the hillside she saw pergolas straining under the branches of ancient wisteria, and huge displays of azaleas and camellias. Ivy clung to the west-facing sides of the buildings and curled among its statues.

  Built on the site of a former Benedictine monastery, the Villa del Osservatore had stood on the shores of Lake Como for nearly six hundred years. For half of those it had been owned by the Örökös Főnök, gifted by Clement XII in return for services rendered to the papacy. Although the villa was only one of a number of palatial European residences presented to the hosszú életek leader in times past, it was easily the most elegant.

  Leah felt her stomach flutter when she saw it. Even now, the building raised a conflicting set of emotions in her: memories of pain and loss, but also of healing and discovery.

  It was here she had come with her mother, immediately after the fire at Le Moulin Bellerose. Here, in its meditative gardens and graceful rooms, she had learned to live with her grief over her father’s death. Here, too, her mother had begun the slow process of healing – not just from the physical injuries she had suffered during her encounter with Jakab, but from the psychological trauma the episode had inflicted.

  Behind her, the Belső Őr skipper cut his engine and the boat arced towards the landing stage. Leah noticed Etienne and Soraya surveying Villa del Osservatore’s landscaped terraces, and smiled.

  In truth there had been no need to arrive via the lakeside entrance, but the Főnök had suggested it days earlier, and Leah understood why.

  Although the hosszú életek leader acted unilaterally, witho
ut the consent, or even the knowledge, of her tanács, Catharina had realised this visit might just be perceived as a homecoming of sorts for the kirekesztett women inside the boat. Fitting, she had reasoned, that there should be an element of majesty to their arrival. The villa’s lakeside vista arrested the senses in a way that could not be experienced as readily from the shore. The Főnök had desired to welcome these five women with a spectacle of beauty and serenity.

  The craft bumped against the landing stage and its two crewmen jumped out, lashing it to the dock. Together they helped their passengers alight, remaining beside the boat as Leah led her party up the flight of steps. Above them, a gated entrance opened onto a manicured lawn shaded by cypress trees. On the final step, resplendent, waited the one hundred and thirty-third Örökös Főnök of the hosszú életek.

  Catharina Maria-Magdalena Szöllösi wore a simple white dress, a gold torc encircling her throat. She smiled when she saw the approaching kirekesztett, her face radiating a warmth so all-encompassing that Leah felt her heart swell in her chest.

  When Etienne and Soraya saw Catharina standing between the gates, they came to a halt a few steps below. The others paused behind.

  For long seconds, nobody moved. A breeze feathered about them, carrying the distant chimes of church bells.

  Finally the Főnök raised her hands, palms outward. ‘Welcome to Villa del Osservatore. Welcome home.’ She smiled. ‘You know, I’d planned a quite lengthy speech. But sometimes speeches are a welcome of themselves, and sometimes they are not. Allow me simply to say this: I bow to your courage. I know coming here wasn’t easy, and I’m sure you view me with a certain amount of distrust. You should know that the tanács is unaware of your presence. Through my own deficiencies I’ve failed to bring consensus in this task we face, which is why you – and what you attempt – must remain secret for now.

  ‘Our society has fractured during your absence; its bonds have begun to unravel. I hope to save this once-proud family of ours and repair the ties that bound us, but I cannot promise you your safety, even as I welcome you home.

  ‘I act not with the will of a unified tanács, but with the power I hold through the title of Örökös Főnök. I will not knowingly admit kirekesztett into these halls. I repeal, therefore, the sentence of banishment from all five of you. Enter as friends, and let us cast the past aside.’

  She dropped her hands to her side and her smile returned, abashed. ‘Forgive me. What was that if not a speech?’

  Leah watched the reactions of her fellow travellers. Etienne’s eyes, usually so flat and hinting at disdain, brimmed now with emotion. Trembling, she dropped to her knees. ‘My thanks,’ she said. One by one, the remaining women dropped to their knees too.

  Her smile faltering, the Főnök hurried down the steps. She passed among them, touching shoulders, wiping away tears, urging them to their feet. Together, they ascended the remaining steps and passed through the gates into Villa del Osservatore’s grounds.

  A path led them across the first lawn. It curved up a steep slope bordered with boxwood and laurel. The second terrace was planted with magnolias and two enormous sycamores. A running balustrade with two crescent balconies overlooked the sheer face of the peninsula’s western edge. Along it a row of statues, chiselled into the likenesses of past hosszú életek leaders, stared out across the water.

  Catharina led them along a path bisecting a lawn outside the villa’s main residence. The building rose three storeys in height, tall windows interrupting the creep of ivy across its façade.

  Six huge doors on the ground floor opened onto a loggia adorned with stone benches and urns filled with star jasmine. Leah smelled their perfume as she followed Catharina into the house via the villa’s music room.

  Inside, pale walls were hung with gilt-framed artworks. A fifteenth-century Botticelli dominated the south end of the room, hanging above two concert grands. Elsewhere, pieces by Rubens, Titian and Holbein. Walnut-framed sofas on cabriole legs, upholstered in a rich cream velvet, surrounded a fireplace in the north wall.

  Leah smiled as she looked at the people gathered inside the room. On one of the sofas, Kata Lendvai read a book to her children, Dávid and Lícia. On the floor nearby sat Ara Schulteisz and her daughter Tünde. In a corner, playing an intricate game involving metal soldiers, dominoes and dice, were some of the Calw programme’s oldest children: seven-year-old Emánuel and his brother Levi; six-year-olds Carina and Philipp; eight-year-old Pia and her younger brother Alex. Even Flóra, a mother now only a few short weeks, was there with her son, Elias.

  And, right beside the fireplace, Leah saw her mother. Hannah Wilde perched next to Gabriel on one of the sofas. Ibsen lay at their feet.

  It did her heart good to see her family together like that, and for a moment she just watched them. After her father’s murder all those years ago, Leah had thought the hole he had left in her mother’s heart would never be filled. In the months and years that followed, Gabriel never sought to replace Nate in Hannah’s affections, or Leah’s; he’d simply offered them his love. The speed with which they had reciprocated it had surprised them all.

  Gabriel raised his head and when he saw her he grinned and whispered something to Hannah. Leah picked her way through the children playing on the floor as her mother rose to greet her.

  Do not cry, she told herself. But of course she did.

  Hannah opened her arms and Leah folded herself into her embrace. For a while she felt so emotional that she struggled even to breathe. Her mother seemed smaller somehow, as if she had shrunk in stature since they’d been apart. But Leah knew it was an illusion. Her mother’s physical presence, while by no means diminutive, could never adequately reflect the force of will it contained.

  ‘How have you been?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘I’m fine. Good, in fact. Great to be here with everyone.’

  It was true. Gathered in this room were all the people she cared most about in the world. Together they had worked towards a goal no one had thought possible, and even though the future had never seemed so bleak, they had already achieved something remarkable: the laughter of the children playing on the floor was testament to that.

  ‘You can’t fool me,’ Hannah murmured. ‘There’s something. What?’

  ‘Later. Not now, not in front of everyone.’

  ‘We’ll find somewhere quiet. I know Catharina wants to speak to you too.’

  Leah released herself from her mother’s embrace, and immediately found herself enveloped in Gabriel’s.

  ‘Little miss,’ the Irishman said. ‘You had us worried for a while. Glad you’re back safe.’

  ‘I blame you. All those stories of the Cŵn Annwn over the years must have given me itchy feet.’

  He pulled back from her, grinning, and studied her closely. ‘Did you meet any?’

  ‘I met something,’ she replied, the smile sliding from her face.

  The Főnök crossed the room and slid her hand around Leah’s arm. ‘I’m intruding, I know I am,’ she said. ‘You should have some time alone. But we do need to talk, as soon as we can.’

  Hannah’s face grew serious. ‘Thank you, Cat, but you’re right. We all need to hear Leah’s news, and I don’t think we should wait. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up later.’

  Etienne watched Leah Wilde embrace her mother, her mind a whirl of emotions. She had not expected to be so overcome by her arrival at Villa del Osservatore. But the sight of the Örökös Főnök, waiting to greet her at the lakeside gate, had moved her to tears for reasons she could not explain. Perhaps it was the empathy she saw in the hosszú életek leader’s eyes; perhaps it was her touch, or the words, whispered in her ear: You’re home, Etienne. I can’t repair the past, but you have my love, my apology.

  Did the woman know Etienne had been cast out not for crimes she herself had committed, but for those committed by her family, against her? Etienne thought she must. Her words certainly seemed to indicate it.

  An apology, even as sincer
e as the one she had just received, could repair not one hour of the suffering she had endured over the last one hundred years, but . . . her thoughts trailed away from her and her mouth fell open.

  So you finally admit it, Etienne? You finally admit that you were hurt? That you can feel pain?

  Yes, it seemed so. She stared around this grand old room, at the women playing with their children, at the nervous faces of her fellow volunteers, and suddenly felt shame. She was an impostor here, unfit to be around these innocent lives. For years she had locked away her feelings, selling her body to the highest bidder, fooling herself that she did good in the world, that she entertained the darkest fantasies of her clients so that others might not live them.

  It had been more than a lie; it had been a betrayal. She had been damaged before she arrived at Tansik House, even more damaged by the time she left, and yet the longest years of suffering she’d endured had been delivered by her own hands. She had locked her feelings away so deep that now, as they flooded up to the surface, bitter and poisoned and so, so sad, she felt herself flailing, sinking beneath them.

  Beside her, Soraya touched her arm. ‘It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?’

  Etienne stared, unable to speak. She thought of her Aviary back in London, of the rooms decorated to suit her visitors’ tastes, and felt bile rising. It would go, all of it. For the first time in her life, she had an overpowering desire to be part of something: to be part of this; to be part of these people gathered here.

  She watched Leah release herself from her mother’s embrace.

  Hannah Wilde. It was undoubtedly her. Until now, the woman had been little more than a face in a collection of old photographs, a role to play. Jakab had never revealed the reason behind his obsession with Hannah or the circumstances surrounding his loss of her, and Etienne had never asked, content to slip into the role he had cast for her and close her eyes to the rest.

  Now, as she watched the woman disappear through a door with her daughter and others, she felt not violated, but violator. Even though they had been separated by hundreds of miles of space, she had assumed this woman’s shape, had stolen her identity, had supplanted her.