But every night for the next week this same scenario repeated, until Frank wanted to scream at them both to tell him what they were playing at. But he never quite found the courage, and they didn’t say.
By the end of the week, the constant tense nights meant Frank found it easier to stay awake while it was dark, and to sleep in blessed solitude once his demon and his angel had departed. Last night they had played cards, Frank up and dressed, moving his left arm cautiously, but without too much pain, his ribs having settled down to a dull ache and strength having returned to his legs.
“I should not trouble you much longer,” he’d ventured, taking a six for vingt-et-un and trying to come up with a plausible excuse to leave. They did not need to know he had nowhere else to go. “I should return to Bucharest, where surely there will be someone who knows me and can reunite me with my family.”
Next to the almost palpable threat of . . . something . . . that had been growing in the room ever since he arrived, the thought of wandering alone in the world—never staying anywhere long enough for his misfortune to fall on those he encountered—did not have the desolation it once had. Between this household’s secrets and endless flight, endless flight seemed the better option.
“I can give you a boat,” Văcărescu spoke quietly, his eyes on his cards, “and one, perhaps two men to go with you.”
“But there are many miles of river without habitation nearby at all,” Alaya objected, “and look what happened to Frank the last time he was alone in a boat with only a few men. There are untold dangers out there to which he would be exposed once he left our protection.”
“No one would dare touch a man marked as our family’s guest.” Văcărescu glowered, edging his chair a little closer to Frank’s. His knee, in the long trousers this nation preferred to breeches, came to rest lightly against Frank’s.
A tiny frisson of warmth swept up Frank’s body from the touch, twisting in the pit of his belly, disconcerting him. He edged away.
“In happier times,” Alaya made a pretty moue of disaffection, “that would be so. In happier times our people did not pack up all their possessions and run off to Transylvania. If they have so poor an idea of what obedience means as to do that, do you think they will obey us in this? They will attack him just to spite us.”
Văcărescu breathed deeply and pressed his fingertips into his temples as if to soothe a headache. He wore a grimace of nausea, his eyes blued beneath by the shadows of too little sleep. “It is the Turks and their punitive taxes that they flee, not us. I thought it would improve when the Austrians left, but the Turks are worse. They say they mean to rule us for our own good, but truly I think their aim is to starve us out so they can move their own people in when we’re gone.”
Alaya bounced in her seat suddenly, causing the candle flames to flicker. A gibbous moon shining through Frank’s narrow window made her face as silver as the ornaments that dangled over her brow. She clapped her hands in glee. “We could go to Bucharest. We could all go! I’ve always wanted to. Oh, think of it! We could open up the town house and have balls and carriage rides and evening supper parties by the lake and—”
“No.”
“You would be close to the voivode. You could talk to him, tell him how we suffer, ask him to make the people pay less.”
The hunch of Văcărescu’s shoulders reminded Frank of bear-baiting, the wounded animal pushed into the wall of the pit as the dogs gave tongue. “I said no. I’ve said no a thousand times. Learn to be content.”
Alaya scowled, and fingered one of the silver chains that hung down by her ear. It was the first truly ugly expression Frank had seen on her face, and it threw into sharp contrast the artificial, mannequin-like quality to her innocence.
“It would be the only way we could be sure Frank had got there safely.”
Even to Frank, whose wits were returning slowly in a patchwork of dreams, there was a heaviness in her words. Surely not a threat? But when he looked at Văcărescu he saw, again, a powerful thing overmatched, a man fighting despair as well as terror. Could it be it wasn’t himself the man feared at all, but his daughter? No. That made no sense—it was not a woman Frank had eluded on the path. Not a woman who had towered over him with Văcărescu’s broad shoulders and height.
“My strength is not yet so contemptible that anyone in this domain can afford to challenge it.”
Alaya shook her head, gently so as to avoid dislodging her headdress, which today was the shape of a crescent moon and embroidered all over with gold. “Maybe you’re right. In any case, we must send to the villages to acquire provisions and whatever else they will be needed for the journey. It will take a fortnight at least before we can equip Frank to depart.” She turned her deep-blue eyes on him with an adoring expression that might have suited a spaniel. “I wish you would stay until you are completely better. I don’t like the thought of you on a long journey while you’re still recovering. But if you’re sure that’s what you want, then give us a few weeks and we will make it happen.”
A few weeks. Frank’s heart shrivelled at the thought. But perhaps he was being unfair, twisting their polite words into threats where none had been meant. Perhaps he misinterpreted Radu Văcărescu’s arrogance as anguish because he was allowing his own feelings to taint the world around him, not because he was learning to see the truth that lay beneath it.
He had been knocked hard on the head, after all. How trustworthy could his perceptions be? What if he had simply imagined the demon that had bent close and breathed in his face. And the fear, everywhere in this country, choking around this house like a sulphurous fog, could be due to politics and a poor harvest and the prospect of a long winter without food.
“Thank you,” he said, because what other option was there? “I am eternally obliged to you.”
The next night, everything changed. Voices awoke him so early there remained only a little stain of blue in the western sky. For once, he was alone in his chamber. The sound of an argument grumbled up from one of the other rooms in the castle, making strange echoes along the walls.
He had so much recovered that he was not even stiff as he slid out of bed and clambered into the clothes they’d given him—long russet trousers, embroidered shirt, a woollen waistcoat lined with silk, and an amber-coloured coat lined with hare fur, that fastened only at the neck with an eagle-shaped clasp. He didn’t know what to do with the long green sash (over the waistcoat? Over the coat to hold it closed?) and left it aside.
The garments had been far too large for him when he first put them on—they were Văcărescu’s cast-offs, which swamped him in width but were a little too short in arm and leg. Since then, Alaya had taken them in, added new cuffs, and now they fitted admirably.
In happier days Frank might have delighted in seeing himself dressed like a Wallachian prince. Now he simply shoved them on as he might have done with his scholar’s gown, and wriggled his feet into boots new-made for him, hard and unyielding around his ankles.
When he walked across the room in them, his footsteps clacked like a horse’s iron-shod hooves. He took them off again, and eased around his door in stockinged feet. The Frank he had been before, a man who seemed remarkably timid and polite for a hardened criminal, raised a small protest: did he not know how appalling it was to eavesdrop? The man he was now however, with all the gaps in his mind taken up by a desire to survive, felt entitled to know anything about his current situation that might be turned to his advantage.
So he crept quietly down the stone corridor, following the gleam that slid out from around a distant door. It was closed—a massive, ill-fitting thing, so old its greyed wood had shrunk away from the jamb on either side, leaving a space fully an inch wide where it hung on its enormous hinges. Little chance of those in the room looking out and seeing him here, dark against the background of the unlit corridor, but if he put his eye to the gap, he could see almost everything in the lit room beyond.
And after all his subterfuge, it was only a ple
asant sitting room, the ceiling and upper parts of the walls painted in sea green. The oak panelling below had been carved and gilded with lacework that spoke of Ottoman influence—like the geometrical designs of mosques. These glittered and twinkled in the changing light of a fire on the great hearth. A warm backdrop of stars to this family argument.
Văcărescu stood on one side of the fire, with his lips drawn back from his teeth, all but trembling with rage. On the other side, holding his gaze with an expression of paternal long-suffering, stood a tall gentleman Frank had not seen before. The family resemblance was remarkable. This man, too, had the powerful build, the straight-backed arrogance and the pale triangular eyes. Frank’s heart stuttered in his chest. Could this be his monster? But the man’s long hair was white as paper, the light moving over it as it would over silk. His white beard hung down to his belt and flicked when he talked, like the tail of an angry cat. Surely he was too venerable to be running about his demesne like a wolf? No, Frank would have to unlearn this instinctive terror of any man stronger than himself. Most were, after all.
“Child,” the man said, gently, but with an undertone of steel. “Your mother and I have decided it is long past time.”
He turned to someone blocked from Frank’s field of sight. “Bring them closer.”
The suggestion of a bow in the corner of Frank’s vision, and then a white-veiled figure lurched into view as though someone had shoved her in the back. Frank almost gasped, remembered in time to shove his fist into his mouth and silence it. Mirela! No! Damn it, she was supposed to get away. All his cleverness and sacrifice was not supposed to amount to nothing at all. She was not supposed to be captured and brought here to . . .
As she straightened up, he saw that her long, golden hair had been dressed and braided with new fresh flowers. Her shift had been replaced with finer linen that better showed off her statuesque figure. Her scowling face had been cleaned and painted, two spots of rouge on her cheeks subsumed under a flush of fury.
Brought here to what, though?
The old man inclined his head, and two other girls were supported into the globe of tricksy light around the family’s fire. One was weeping so hard she could barely stand, her face leaving smears of powder on the housekeeper’s gown. Frank found it difficult to believe that kindly matron would have anything to do with . . . whatever this was, though she was masked in iron discretion that could have hidden deeply buried repugnance.
Alaya, on the opposite side of the hearth from Văcărescu and the old gentleman, carried on stitching at her embroidery frame. She scarcely glanced up for Mirela’s pride, or the second girl’s tears, or the nervous trembling of the third.
Văcărescu stood as if he were carved from a single piece of ice, so rigid Frank could hardly see him breathe except by the faint glimmer of his waistcoat buttons. His face was equally frozen, the knuckles of his clenched fists white as bone. “Constantin, you are the head of my family, you are my honoured father. Believe me, then, when I say it gives me no pleasure to ask you, have you gone mad?”
“It is a parent’s duty to find you a wife. Pick one.”
“I am boyar of Valcea. But for the Turks, I would be a prince. And you bring me two peasant girls and a Roma slave?”
Though this set the third girl crying too, Mirela stiffened at it and glared at Văcărescu with narrowed eyes, blue as periwinkle, suspicious as a bull in a slaughterhouse.
“Three peasant girls,” Constantin corrected him, with an air of confused disdain. “None of them is a Roma. I would impale every member of any village that dishonoured us by sending a slave. After I had impaled the girl, of course.”
Propping his arm against the mantel, Văcărescu stared into the heart of the fire, its amber light drenching the ends of his black hair with gold and softening the harsh edges of his expression. Braced there, tall and young and richly dressed, Frank didn’t think he looked too bad a prospect. If marriage, rather than disgrace, were on the table, Frank thought he would take that bargain. One could get used to the brusque manners if it came wrapped in so handsome and masterful a form. Why should the girls be so upset?
He remembered shortly afterwards that if he was desperate to escape this place after a week of kindness, perhaps it was not so unreasonable to fear being tied to it forever. Then he did not know what to think of his earlier willingness. So he shoved it carefully back beneath the veil of forgetting and leaned his too-warm forehead against the cold of the ancient stone wall, closing his eyes for a second.
When he opened them again, he was in time to catch a strange gaze exchanged between Văcărescu and Mirela. Something more complex than insult showed in the lines around the man’s eyes. If this had been a debating society, Frank would have surmised that Mirela had raised a point Văcărescu had never thought of before, that he was wondering if he could afford to engage it with the curiosity it deserved. In exchange, Mirela’s expression was uncertain, as though she had let some truth slip. Her lower lip crept beneath her teeth, whitened as she bit.
“Anca?” Văcărescu said at last, visibly putting his curiosity aside.
The housekeeper stepped forward, and yes, that was disgust, barely veiled in the line of her back. Perhaps Văcărescu’s outburst had encouraged her to show it. “My lord?”
“Take the girls down to the kitchen. Give them food, drink, and send them home.”
“In the dark?” Mirela demanded, her voice tight and high. By her side, the other two girls broke out into fresh tears.
“You leave now, or you stay here till morning. Do what you think is best.”
Constantin and Alaya gave matching little laughs at this, Alaya covering her mouth with a decorous hand. The housekeeper began supporting her half-fainting charges away. Mirela backed towards the far door, following them, passing out of Frank’s sight. But he heard her voice call back, cold and shaking. “You are the only slave in this room, my lord.”
All the humanity flattened out of Văcărescu’s expression, left it the perfect carved mask it so often was.
Constantin hissed and made to stride out in pursuit, but Văcărescu caught him by the arm and prevented it. “What was the meaning of this elaborate insult, sir? Not her taunt—hers is beneath my notice. But yours . . . You have been giving orders to my servants again—”
“My servants.”
“You handed the rule to me. They are mine. You cannot just take everything back when it suits you—”
“And you cannot speak to me like that, young man. I am your elder; I will have your respect.”
Văcărescu gave a short bark of laughter and pressed his hand to the side of his head, as though it hurt. The pause gave Alaya time to set her sewing aside and get between the two of them. Tiny she looked, in comparison, and far too full of affectionate trust to be afraid.
“Radu.” She took his hand and pressed it. “We are your family; we want what’s best for you. That’s all. You should have someone. It would make you happier.”
As any man would, Văcărescu softened at her gentle care. He sank wearily onto a stool with the fire at his back, stretched out his long legs. “I don’t deny I’m lonely. But this? This was nothing more than a mockery, designed to humiliate me. You know it’s as much for your honour as mine that I cannot wed some common drab. Why subject me to this?”
“As you two are so cosy—” Constantin smoothed down his beard and gave a wintery smile “—I will make trial of how matters stand with the girls.”
Again, he headed for the door, and his son held him back. “No. I will have an explanation from both of you.”
The old gentleman stilled so thoroughly it was almost uncanny to watch. His garments, away from the light of the fire, were all white and silver like his hair, and to Frank he looked like a picture cut from a black-and-white storybook, pasted into an illustration from a coloured volume. Văcărescu’s hand tightened on his father’s arm until his fingertips were equally white, but the old man showed no sign of discomfort at all.
“What do you expect?” Constantin said at last. “Do you desire us to summon an heiress by arcane magic? Or do you expect to discover a hidden princess among the goosegirls? If we may not journey to the capital to seek out our peers, this is the best you can hope for.”
“It’s not just for our amusement that we want to go to Bucharest.” Alaya smiled. “It’s for your sake too. Where else do you think the boyaryshynas are?”
“This again?” Văcărescu’s mouth primmed as though he had tasted something bitter.
“This again.” Constantin pulled his arm from the younger man’s grip. They were of a similar height, but the elder still managed to give the impression he was looking down on a child. “It does you no good to be stubborn. We will go to the capital, where we may live as those of our status are meant to live. Or I will escort the girls home personally, and let their parents know what you have done to them.”
The bitterness seemed to explode in Văcărescu’s mouth—he flinched as if at a blow. Turned his face away. “You will do as you must,” he said, heavily. “And so will I. We will not be going to Bucharest.”
A silence fell, as solid as iron, and then Constantin made a third attempt to leave the room, striding out unencumbered this time, with the flared skirts of his long coat flickering like moonlight behind him. A little later, Alaya glided out, patting Văcărescu’s bent head as she went. The rustle of her skirts lingered awhile and then faded.
The lines of Văcărescu’s slumped form hardened slowly from misery back into anger. Frank, who had at first been seized by a strange compulsion to go in there and ask him, honestly, man to man, what was going on, if he could help, seesawed back into wariness and indecision at the sight. He’d have to admit that he’d been eavesdropping. He’d present a perfect target for an anger that had no other outlet. And he was still unclear about who the enemy was in this house, if there was anyone he could afford to trust.
Sons of Devils Page 6