His confident advance stopped precipitously midway across the vast chamber. At that point, he turned his back on the dinner table and began staring up at the three stories of bookshelves, turning slowly to take them all in. I suspect that he was also gathering his wits at being confronted so unexpectedly with two acquaintances from London, and, more latterly, Paris.
“A magnificent library, Madame,” he said, turning finally all the way around to pay Tatyana the necessary tribute of gazing solely at her. “Although the castle is in disrepair, I have not seen so splendid an assemblage of books since England.”
“Indeed. Quite a compliment from an Englishman. We already have two English guests, as you see.” Tatyana waved a bejeweled hand, directing his attention to us and watching carefully.
“What a happy meeting,” he announced back, bowing to Godfrey and myself. “A pair of doughty explorers like myself, I vouchsafe, only it is not Darkest Africa that draws our conjoined curiosity but mysterious Transylvania, eh? Mister and Missus, I presume? I seldom meet a lady in out-of-the-way places, save that she is the adventuresome wife of a man with a wandering instep. Alas, my own wife is a homebody. I envy you your stouthearted companion, Sir.”
Of course the possessive Tatyana writhed like the snake she was at this misapprehension. At this so very clever and theatrical and deliberate misapprehension, which was nothing less than I should expect of our new dinner partner and canny confederate, Mr. Bram Stoker of London and most recently of Paris, France.
I giggled like a schoolgirl. It wasn’t hard to feign. I was so happy to see his broad form and face and to know that he understood enough of our situation to immediately play the part of an utter stranger.
“Oh, my goodness, sir,” I tittered to Bram. “I am a spinster and Mr. Norton’s secretary, but I thank you for your flattering assumption that I am one of those ever so brave lady explorers. I must apologize. My luggage was lost in a river crossing, and I have been forced to wear what can be found for me.”
“Then circumstance has dealt most charmingly with you. I confess that I am a frequent traveler and relish seeing every region’s native dress in all its imagination and history.” He again gazed around the crumbling but grandiose room and at its odd occupants with a scholar’s nearsighted delight, as if nothing could possibly be wrong that this bluff gentleman would ever observe.
“Let me introduce—” Tatyana looked to the quiet figure of the Count on her left.
“We have met,” Bram forestalled her, “in the village when I first came through. It was he who suggested I might be interested in seeing this most impressive example of a twelfth-century castle.”
“Well, then, if the roll has been called, you may take a seat at the opposite head of the table,” Tatyana suggested. “Next to Miss Stanhope.”
Bram raised his eyebrows in polite compliance and nodded at me, accepting my renaming by Tatyana as absolute fact.
In truth, it was all I could do to keep from directing a lancing look her way. How cruelly she could play with those in her power, as Godfrey said. At least Quentin was not here to suffer her barbs—and worse—in person. And she would have no reason to know Bram Stoker was a friend of Irene’s…would she?
“Well, this a treat!” Bram went on, flourishing his napkin like a white flag of truce as he sat down. “To dine in an ancestral castle dating back to the time of the Turks with the incomparably wild music of Gypsies for accompaniment and the most beautiful woman in Transylvania—possibly the world, for I have not yet quite seen all of it—as a hostess.”
Bram Stoker had not spent time buttering up Sarah Bernhardt for nothing. His bow was Elizabethan and his bonhomie was so natural that flattery flowed off him like honey out of beehives.
Dear Bram! How could we have possibly considered him as a candidate for the Ripper? How could I even disdain his possibly inappropriate presence in brothels? He was taking command of the situation almost as persuasively as Irene could when called upon. Just to see a familiar face, hear a reassuring voice…danger took three steps backward and curtseyed like Mignon.
Tatyana, however, expected curtsies to be extended to her. She nodded at the clumsy “pet” always standing behind her, and he again filled the goblets with wine.
As he came to me, his coarse shirt sleeve brushed my bare forearm. I could not resist starting as if snagged by a thornbush. The creature offered me the same vile, knowing grin along with the wine before moving on to fill Bram’s glass.
“Thank you, my good man!” Bram responded, still playing the part of an Englishman so hearty-natured he is blind to all around him.
As soon as our glasses had been filled, Tatyana took command of the conversation again, although Godfrey and I knew better than to try to speak with Bram.
“So, Sir, my servants and the Gypsies tell me you have been exploring the village and environs on foot for more than a week now, Mr.—?”
“Abraham,” Bram said, adroitly substituting first name for last. “Oscar Abraham. And I find walking the sublimest way to travel and see the sights. I have tramped across most of England and western Europe and am now acquainting myself with the wonders of Europe east of the Rhine.”
“For what purpose?”
Bram assumed a smugly modest look. “I have had a few scribbings published. Meditations on the Midlands, that sort of thing. There seems to be a market for the musings of the contemplative traveler. In fact, that is an ideal description for myself…the Contemplative Traveler. I foresee a new monthly column in some literary magazine. I thank you again, Madame, for serving as my occasion of inspiration.”
If ever there was the epitome of a heedless, pompous, self-satisfied man of imagined letters, Bram Stoker was he to the fine point of a goose quill.
What a brilliant ploy! Like all people who mean ill to others, Tatyana tended to underestimate people who imagined that reasonable behavior would answer any human strife.
Godfrey squirmed in his chair at Bram’s posturing, as if to underwrite her opinion of the fool who had been invited to dinner and could probably quite safely be let go again, thus giving her prisoners a tantalizing glimpse of freedom that was never to be theirs.
I took my cue from Godfrey and visibly subsided into a downcast pout, barely touching the food, but—here was my brilliant improvisation of the evening!—pretending to sip frequently from the wine. If later I had an opportunity to opportune my once-seen winking Gypsy, it could be laid to my tipsy behavior. Tipsy with the Gypsy. Perfect!
“And what,” Tatyana inquired, “have you learned about this quiet corner of Transylvania?”
“That it was not so quiet centuries ago! Even today the villagers hush at the mention of certain topics…certain names and practices.”
“Don’t tell me that you are also a collector of ghost stories, Mr. Abraham.”
“Ah, you have caught me out. There is a fierce appetite for tales of ancient evils, from the drama of Macbeth to the legends of Attila the Hun to this Tepes chap who may very well have resided in this very castle at one time, is that not what you were telling me?”
Mr. Stoker deferred to the Count, who stirred in his monsignorial chair. “He had several castles. Yes, this could be one. Where he lived, or died, though, is not important. What matters is that he stopped the advance of the Turks when no one else could. Vlad Tepes, known as the Impaler.”
I knew better than to ask why, but feared that I should soon be told. By then the dinner dishes had been cleared, and it was time for “tales.” Given the company, I knew they would be sinister. Sinister I did not mind. Bloody was another matter.
“A great Christian prince and hero of the fifteenth century,” the Count went on in his soft, accented English.
I wondered why a member of the nobility in an area of Europe dominated by Hungary and Germany for so many centuries should trouble to learn English, yet it had certainly made Godfrey’s assignment easier.
“And,” the Count added, “utterly merciless to his enemies. We are at
table and in the presence of ladies.” He looked at me, not Tatyana, I noticed. “However, I can tell that you are much interested in local lore, Mr. Abraham, which I find admirable in a mere traveler through our land.”
“Such interest is part of my position as a theatrical manager. Last spring the principals of my company spent weeks in the wilds of Scotland to prepare for a new and stunning production of Macbeth.”
“I am not familiar with the name or the play.”
“Macbeth is an ambitious Scottish nobleman who kills his king for the throne, but comes to a bad end. It is a tragedy.”
“Ah, we have seen much of that in Wallachia and Transylvania. In Vlad’s day, too. He was known as Dracul. His brother was buried alive, which may be why he settled on a slow death for his enemies.”
“The impaling,” Mr. Stoker prompted. “Some tribes of American Indians can be quite cruel to captives, even use spears to pin their victims to the ground while they torment them further.”
“Oh, Mr. Abraham, your American Indians have not the imagination of Vlad Dracul. He impaled his victims vertically, you see, and would then thrust the stakes upright into the ground, so an entire forest of suffering souls died over the course of hours and even days. Once he impaled thirty thousand Hungarian boyars who had countered his wishes, arranged in circles around the city. When the Turks rode up to that sight, to see what he had done to his enemies among his own people, they retreated as if from a demon.”
This recital earned a silence, while all present tried to imagine how these impalings were achieved, or, in my case, tried not to imagine it.
“It wasn’t only enemies he treated to slow death on a stake,” the Count continued. “He was most intolerant of village maidens who were no longer maidens, and adulterous wives and widows who did not remain chaste. These he would divest of their female parts by the knife, then impale on red-hot stakes.”
Godfrey and I exchanged a glance. His expressed deep concern for what my ears were hearing, mine sought to remind him that this fifteenth-century fiend was not so different from whoever was committing murder and mutilation in the great cities of Europe. Could even the motive be the same?
“Count,” Godfrey said abruptly. “You are right that such subjects are not fit table talk with women present. I am not sure they are fit with men present.”
“Hear, hear,” said Mr. Stoker. “Such subjects are best read of in books, rather than told among mixed company.”
Tatyana stirred on her chair like an awakening lizard. “The English are so…what is the word? Tender? Easily appalled, perhaps.”
None of us bothered to defend our nicety from the likes of her.
Tatyana’s “bear” lumbered around with more wine, spilling much on the once-pristine cloth Tatyana had apparently brought with her.
As I bent to sop up the stains after he had passed, I managed to lower my voice like Irene’s best onstage aside and address Mr. Stoker. “Occupy our hostess. I have an assignment she should not notice.”
Bram immediately took his overflowing goblet and stumbled a bit as he pushed back his chair. Oh, what oafs and liars we English be!
He paced to the table’s other end and proceeded to chat privately with the Count about even more of the neighborhood legends, none of them very nice from what I heard of them.
While I wondered what Godfrey could find to say to Tatyana, I noticed that the musicians from the hall had migrated one by one into the library. They had settled by the fireplace and proceeded to saw away at their instruments with such exuberance that they did us the service of making talk impossible except in very close quarters.
This was an opportunity to put my plan into play.
I stood up at the table, clasping my goblet against my chest. I strolled toward the feverishly playing Gypsies, surrounded by their bottles of wine.
I counted eight of various ages and sizes, ranging from slight to stout, from beardless youth to old men with their hair and mustaches streaked with swaths of coarse white hair as if Jack Frost had been at work while they slept.
Their skins were as brown as chestnuts and as shiny, for their vigorous motions so near the fire burnished their features with perspiration. Their garb was as bright as they were dark, with red, orange, and purple sashes prominent. The odor of leather, sweat, and strong spirits reminded me a bit of a stable, only there the alcohol is used—usually—to tend to muscle strains on the animals.
Ordinarily I would reel away from such powerful scents in the street, but here I nodded my head to what tune I could detect in the music and quaffed my wine.
I was the only attentive audience they had, and soon their black-berry glances passed over me. Instead of looking instantly away at such rude surveillance, I smiled and nodded even more vacuously to the music.
Now that I confronted a group of Gypsy men, I realized with dismay that I would never be able to identify the fellow who had brought our meal one day and winked at me. I simply had not seen him long enough to mark any individual traits.
My hand stole to my skirt pocket where the precious note and my vial of smelling salts kept company. Apparently they would stay right there.
I sighed, and forgot to pretend to sip my wine, but actually did so, backing away from the musicians.
As I did so, one winked at me!
I stopped where I stood, wondering what to do next.
A wink would be quite inappropriate, so I…smiled at the winker.
He grinned back and dug his chin harder into the rest on his violin, as if urged to greater efforts by my presence.
I smiled more. He was a bearded youth, I saw, with a thick shock of jet-black hair and elbows and knees that stuck out at awkward angles. Oh…my charges had been younger, but it was easy to see something redeemable in this raw youth, and a kind of touching puppylike friendliness in his winks.
At that moment he half-rose from the crate he was seated upon and began a soaring, aching solo that all the other violins softened and gave way to.
He was playing it for me!
Well. Apparently flirting is much easier to accomplish than I had realized. Of course I half looked like a Gypsy girl, and my short skirts and braided hair probably made me look far younger than I was.
My heart soared, partly in tribute to his soulful playing, mostly because I thought I could at least handle this clumsy young swain, whereas trying to flirt with one of the older, hardened men would have been…frightening.
He finished with a flourish of his bow and a shy bow of his head.
The others resumed their previous play, but my target stepped forward toward me.
I managed to clap my hands despite the wine goblet in one.
He bowed again, and smiled, his head at a bashful angle.
“Wonderful!” I said, smiling, expecting him to read my emotions rather than understand my word.
He waggled his head modestly from side to side and sat the bow and violin down on his former seat.
I put a hand to my ear. “It’s so hard to hear. Can we—?” I nodded to an inglenook beside the fireplace.
Smiling, nodding like an idiot, as I was, we edged our way to the bench.
There I set my goblet down on a broad wooden arm and took a deep breath. I made sure my back was to the room and produced the silver trinket from my pocket and thrust it toward him.
His eyes gleamed as they fell upon silver, but he frowned in confusion.
I gestured: for you. I had never realized how much of the stage art I had acquired from my association with Irene.
He shook his head, but his eyes never left the bright gleam in my hand. Among Gypsies, acquiring things of value from other people meant wealth and worth. He pointed to his violin with a question. For his playing?
I nodded. “Can you speak any English?”
He shook his head, then frowned even more deeply. His fingers lifted to his lips and twisted. And then he shrugged hopelessly.
I already felt we were entered into a conspiracy, but stared at
him, unable to guess his meaning.
“Français?” I tried. We had seen Gypsies in France, after all. Perhaps that same group had traveled here.
He shrugged and shook his gleaming black hair so like a rook’s and again made the twisted gesture at his lips.
And then I understood. He locked them with a key.
“You are mute?” I pressed my fingers over my mouth.
He nodded, then lifted the silver piece and placed a hand over his heart. Thank you.
I smiled, but lifted a hand to bid him wait. Then I produced my small-folded paper and showed him the word printed on its surface. I went through my churchly pantomime: steepled fingers, sign of the cross (only I touched right and left shoulder in succession, which I knew was backwards the moment I did it), mouthed the words “Pater” and “Vader” and “Father” for good measure. Then I added my walking fingers at a downward angle to indicate the village below the castle.
During this entire performance my violinist nodded and grinned. When he took the paper, I put a forefinger to my lips and hissed “Shhhhh.”
I was reassured to see him immediately look over my shoulder and tuck the missive into the scarlet sash at his waist. Clever boy! The silver item went into the same secret storage place.
He gave me one last bow, and a wink, then moved to rejoin his band.
I turned to pick up my goblet from the settle arm.
No one seemed to be looking my way at all.
Strolling slowly around the bookshelves that edged the room, I made my wine-sipping way back to the central table. If I had seen myself upon a stage, I would not have recognized a particle of my behavior or my appearance.
And yet, I thought I deserved an inaudible round of applause. I had accomplished my aim without demeaning myself with some drunken Gypsy. In the morning I was sure my Gypsy serenader would make his way to the local church to present the priest with the paper, feeling well paid by the silver trinket in his sash.
If someone official from the village came to the castle to inquire after Godfrey and I, surely not even Tatyana could afford to ignore it. She could not imprison an entire village! And who could contain Gypsies, even with free-flowing chests of silver?
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