Blood Spirits (19 page)

Of me and my supposed plot
. At least he didn't say it.

“Yes, about that,” I returned cordially, as I used one of the target posts as a barre and began warming up my legs with low kicks, then high. “What exactly did she say to you? Considering the fact that she knew that Tony had Ruli up at the Eyrie all along?” I did a
battement fondu développé
with full extension, toes pointed Tony's way as I said to Danilov, “So you didn't know that Tony was planning to hijack the government?”

The fire crackled. Porcelain clinked as Danilov set down his glass cup. I worked through both legs, and began a set of
grandes battements
as
Smack!
Honoré's rapier point dug into the target's heart.

Tony leaned against the stone fireplace, damp strands of hair across his brow, and smiled.

Then Phaedra took me by surprise. “I didn't know,” she said flatly. As though still angry. “I knew there was some conspiracy, and it seemed that Alec was either a party to it, or pretending not to see it. Everyone was aware that he didn't want to marry Ruli.”

I looked at her, amazed that even after knowing what Tony had done, she still blamed me through this “Alec conspiracy” theory.

As I snapped my feet out in hard, fast
frappés,
Honoré muttered again—this time in Ancient Greek. Then he set aside his rapier with a precise movement and smoothed a black lock of hair off his brow with his other hand. When his hair wasn't slicked back, it reminded me a lot of Alec's—thick and fine, with a natural wave.

I said, “By the way, who's di Peretti again? Seems to me I've heard that name before.”
Oh yeah, the boyfriend Ruli was going to install at the palace.

“Marzio di Peretti?” Phaedra said, eyes wide in disbelief. “You met him, in Split. You
danced
with him.”

“I told you why I did that—to flush Ruli out of hiding.” I paused and took in the Danilovs' skeptical faces. “But I don't think you want to believe anything I say.”

Whoosh! A welcome draft of cold air swirled in. Honoré had opened the far door and a window beyond that. Within seconds the temperature inside became more bearable, the fresh, chilly air welcome.

Phaedra crossed her arms. “No. Yes. There is the matter of Tante Sisi's actions. But the only person you talked to besides Alec was Ruli, and then you left the country. Tante Sisi said you left because you discovered there is no Dsaret treasure. Not that any of us believed there's still such a thing, but we could see how
you
would.”

A fast glance back at Tony. I remembered what I'd said just after he'd killed Reithermann. In spite of the fact that I'd been shot, I'd figured out where the Dsaret Treasure was hidden. Then I had to go and retort like a six-year-old:
I know where the treasure is, and I won't tell you.
How dorktastic can anyone possibly get? Granted I had a bullet in my shoulder and a raging fever.

Tony smiled gently at me, like we were the only two people in the room. I bet myself all the treasure in the bank—in the world—that he was thinking of it, too, and that he was going to pick up this unfinished business when he could pick the place. And the time.

I'd have to make sure that there would be no place and time.

I forced my gaze away from him. The others were watching Honoré again. Last summer I'd thought of them as a kind of monolith of elegant snobbery, indistinguishable except in looks, equally uninteresting. Now that I was seeing them up close, and the only similarity between them was this undercurrent of tension. This much I was sure of: Whatever Tony's motivation had been at that horrid wreath party at the Ridotskis', the Danilovs had brought me here for their own reasons; not as a friendly gesture but for this interrogation in an overheated room.

I was not going to tell them about Ruli's ghost. But I could tell them what she had caused me to decide. I said, “I came to try to reason with Ruli, because I heard she wasn't happy. I didn't know she was dead.”

The Danilovs turned Honoré's way.

He raised his weapon. I braced myself for another odd mutter, but all he said was, “
En avant
.”

Let's go
.

As if released from invisible ties, the others pulled on fencing tunics. Within a few more minutes my expectations took another hit. This wasn't merely a setup to grill me. At least, it had been partly that. But not wholly. It was clear from the ways they fell into familiar patterns of warm-up, then paired off, that this gathering was habitual.

I finished a few combinations, then hunted through the available clothing in search of a tunic that more or less fit. It felt different from the fencing jackets I was used to, but it was sturdy and quilted. As I sat on the floor to put my socks and boots back on, Tony spoke up from behind me.

“If there was anyone wanting evidence you were raised in California, those bare feet would convince them.”

I shrugged as I pulled on the gauntlets. They fit in length, though they were tight in width, which wasn't surprising. Phaedra was a tad taller than me.

Tony tipped his head toward the rack. “Pick a weapon.”

“Are you too cool for warm-ups?”

He snorted. “No. If I do have to defend myself, no one is going to stand aside while I stretch.”

“I'm half warmed. I usually do some lunges.”

“We'll take it slow,” he said.

“Bad guys won't do that, either.”

He shrugged.

I said, “Where are the helmets?”

“We could dig one up for you, if that makes you feel more comfortable.”

“I take it no one worries about lawsuits any more than they worry about poked eyes?”

“What can I say? We're backward here. Danilov says his family used this room as a
salle
in days of yore, until his great-great-grandmother put a stop to it when she noticed the boys' spurs cutting up the floor.” He pointed to the parquet a few yards away.

“Where did you practice before?” I asked, as I sorted through the blades. I found a fine rapier, what we called a saber in competition fencing. I tested the length. Perfect.

“My place,” he said as we squared up. “When I was in town.”

“And you can't anymore because?”

“The way the estate is tied up. Robert has that wing of the house now. Goes to the heir. He chucked us out. My mother still has hold of the duke's wing.”

“What's Robert turning it into, a torture chamber?”

Tony laughed and struck, easy and slow. I parried, and we worked through some exchanges, neither of us moving fast, as he said, “Restoring the grand gallery. His big project is the opera house.”

“Opera house? Robert? That has to be a front for something sinister.”

“No more sinister than having to listen to opera.” Tony flashed a grin. “Robert got infected by it while studying in Italy.” He increased the pace. “So you came to talk to my sister?”

“Another third degree?”

“No, it's fencing practice.”

“It was the third degree—and a slaughter—back in London.”

He grinned and attacked in the high line. “So?”

“Why didn't you tell me Ruli was dead? Nevermind, you obviously thought Alec and I were up to some evil plot, just as you were last summer. Do you really see the rest of the world as conniving liars?”

He didn't answer the question—or the implication that he was a conniving liar. Instead, he pressed an attack on my right, which I warded with a snap. “So answer this instead,” I said. “Phaedra stopped near a fountain. I think she was going to begin her third degree then, but she changed her mind when I told her the fountain figures were moving. Why?”

“I think you spooked her.”

“Why?”

“Family secret.”

“I thought I was a member of the family.”

“I'm wondering about that.” Tony whipped the blade around, attacking in the low line. “When we were at Sedania. Did you see something through that old portal?”

“Yes,” I said, recalling golden light and strange faces. I whistled my blade up in a fast block, then lunged high. “For about a second.”

“And you've seen that sort of thing before?”

“Yes.” Mentally I vowed to redouble my pushups as I leaped back. “Your turn to answer. Did you know that Grandfather Armandros has been following me around?”

He checked, his eyes widening. “No. You've seen him?”

“Briefly. Reflected in the wardrobe mirror. But someone else has seen him around me.”

“Heh.”

“You told me after Niklos shot me that you have seen ghosts.”

“Yes. Up at the Eyrie. Ever since I was small. But not here in the city. And I've never seen our respected grandfather.”

Clashes and clangs resounded to my right. Danilov was fighting against his sister. Clearly they'd been working with one another for a long time. They were superlative fencers.

Tony whacked me on the shoulder. “Warmed up?”

Warmed up? My arm felt like string! “As good as it gets.”

And mayhem is what I got. Though my strength was sorely lacking, at least I wasn't pole-axed by jet lag after a thousand mile drive, as I'd been when he attacked me in London. I had enough of my old speed to land a couple of good hits, causing Tony to laugh out loud. Other than that, he demonstrated with pitiless detail not only how out of shape I'd let myself get, but how much of an advantage height and strength had. I would have to recover my flexibility as well as my speed, which had been more than a match for the tall and strong when I was doing serious competition.

Finally I lifted my blade, wringing with sweat. “Break.”

He sauntered over to Honoré, who leaned against the opposite wall, sipping coffee as he watched Niklos and Danilov finish. Phaedra gestured to Tony, who walked her way. To discuss me? No, to fight: they squared up. I reached the breakfast table, wiped my damp forehead—and there was Honoré's considering gaze zapping me from the other side of the room, from beneath an enormous portrait of some guy on the back of a rearing horse. The guy was tall and thin and blond, wearing a variation on the Vigilzhi uniform.

Most of the other noble figures in the portraits were dark-haired. As I recovered my breath, I wandered along the walls looking up at the various styles of clothing and painting. I could guess when this family had first married with the von Mecklundburgs, judging from the variations of my own genetic markers that began appearing in the portraits. It looked like they'd been closely allied since the Vasas brought in pale hair. One of Queen Sofia's daughters, maybe?

When I returned from my perusal of the gallery, the others had changed partners. They were all extremely good, but Niklos and Honoré were world class fencers, playing ten-moves-ahead chess with their blades.

When the matches broke up, Tony sauntered back in my direction. “Up to your speed?”

“Those two are amazing.” I jerked a thumb at Honoré, who was demonstrating something with his point as Niklos observed.

“Honoré used to do competitions in Germany a few years ago.”

“Before what?” I asked. “Do Honoré and Danilov have jobs? What do they do? Or if that's a state secret, tell me this: Have you ever included Alec in these private meets?”

Tony's brows rose. “He used to practice with us, when we were young. Over at our house. This was while Ysvorod House was still occupied by the Soviet captain, and he was still stopping with his father at the Dominican Friars, who had been sheltering Milo for years. That all changed when Alec became Statthalter and got his house back.”

“He had no time after he became Statthalter, is that what you're saying?”

“Partly that, but also my mother objected to the inevitable streams of messengers and minions running through our house. Actually, I think she hated having Klaus Kilber lurking around. So Alec started going to the Vigilzhi officers' gym at the old convent.”

“The Vigilzhi kicked out a bunch of nuns?”

He laughed. “The Soviets did. They made us build an up-to-date gym for their officers, and the Vigilzhi took it over when they left. The Clares who used to live there now live behind the hospital.”

“Do any of you have actual jobs?” I asked, as Niklos took on Phaedra, pressing her hard.

“Danilov and Honoré sit on the High Council—began as soon as they reached twenty-five.”

“
High
Council? I thought it was just the Council.”

Tony looked across the room in Honoré's direction, then shrugged. “We usually call it the Council. As opposed to the General Council, whose members are elected.” He gave me one of those sardonic looks.

“So Danilov didn't run for his Council seat?” I couldn't imagine the elegant Danilov stooping to campaign, even a low key campaign of the sort Alec had told me about during summer.

“The five families have hereditary seats, as does the mayor of Riev, the guilds' rep—you could think of him as the unions' rep. Then there's the bishop, the chief rabbi, and the Orthodox metropolitan. There is actual work involved. Whether we tend to that work or appoint someone to serve as proxy is a matter of . . . negotiation.” He dropped his voice and continued in English, “Phaedra has always wanted to be an officer in the Vigilzhi. Alec once promised her that the Vigilzhi would be open to women—with Dmitros Trasyemova's full support.”

“But it isn't?”

“No. I also promised,” he added with a humorous shrug, “and also failed to keep the promise. In Alec's case, the change was to have been initiated after Milo's return, at which time the Statthalter would be retired. As Statthalter Alec has one vote. If Milo returns, Alec would have two votes: as the Ysvorod on the High Council and as heir. The old generation is mostly holdouts for the old ways. His two votes would have broken the deadlock, and opened the Vigilzhi to women.”