Lord of Snow and Shadows (42 page)

His situation was hopeless. If he allowed himself to become the war leader the
druzhina
wanted him to be, it would be at the cost of his own soul. The creature that inhabited him would force him to give in to its monstrous appetites and desires. His own humanity would be slowly eaten away. Even now he knew he was losing touch with his true self, forgetting the little things that had once been so important to him: the hue of Astasia’s eyes, dark as the velvety petals of a viola; or the sound of his mother’s laughter as they played shuttlecock together on the overgrown lawns of the Villa Andara . . .

He would become nothing but a shell for the Drakhaoul.

Two of the
druzhina
flung their prisoner onto the sand in front of Gavril.

“Doctor Kazimir, Lord Drakhaon.”

The man who lay sprawled at Gavril’s feet was mud-stained, wet, and ragged. Gavril glanced at Jushko for confirmation of the prisoner’s identity; Jushko nodded his head.

“D-don’t hurt me—” The doctor was shaking, his hands clasped over his head as if to ward off blows.

“We found him hiding in a sea cave.”

Slowly the doctor dragged himself to his knees, head drooping forward. His fair hair hung in damp rat’s tails about his face.

“You have instructions for me,” Gavril said.

Kazimir fumbled in the inside of his stained jacket and drew out a leather folder. As he took the folder from Kazimir, Gavril saw with a sudden quickening of the heart that the Orlov crest was tooled on the leather.

Was there some communication inside for him from Astasia?

Tearing open the ribbons, he unwrapped three crumpled papers, two of which bore his mother’s characteristically bold, looping handwriting.

“From my mother,” he said, unable to hide the emotion in his voice. News—after so many long weeks of absence. Now that he held the longed-for letters in his hands, he could hardly bear to open them.

The first was Kazimir’s safe-conduct letter, but the second was addressed to him:

Dearest Gavril,

We have so much to talk about. I cannot wait to see you. I have missed you so much!

Blinking the tears from his eyes, he read on, devouring her words, then returning to the beginning to read them again more slowly. And then he looked sternly at Altan Kazimir, who crouched trembling in the sand at his feet.

“I don’t understand. This reads as if my mother were on her way to see me.”

Kazimir fumbled in his pocket and brought out a pair of twisted spectacles, which he balanced on the bridge of his aquiline nose, winding the wires about his ears. He glanced at the letter and nodded.

“Your mother has been severely misled in this whole affair. Duped. She came to Tielen with me on the understanding she would be granted safe passage to Azhkendir. And now she is Eugene’s prisoner.”

“So it
is
true?”

“It’s explained in the other letter.”

The third letter was sealed in glossy blue wax with the sign of a swan. Gavril broke the seal and swiftly scanned the contents.

To Gavril Nagarian, Lord Drakhaon of Azhkendir:

By the time you read this, my armies will have crossed onto Azhkendi soil.

My terms are these: first, that you allow my armies safe passage through Azhkendir; second, that you relinquish all rights to the throne of Azhkendir in favor of Jaromir Arkhel, rightful lord of Azhkendir; and third, that the said Lord Arkhel is restored to me, unharmed.

In return, I guarantee the release of your mother, Elysia Andar, and a safe passage to permanent exile in Smarna.

Eugene of Tielen.

Jaromir, Eugene’s protégé? Gavril slowly lowered the paper, staring unseeing at the distant horizon. He knew himself to be outmaneuvered. Betrayed. And by the man to whom he had sworn an oath of friendship.

“Well, my lord?” demanded Jushko impatiently. “What does it say?”

Gavril could not speak. He stared at the words as they swam before his smoke-stung eyes. Eventually he said, “It says we are to offer no resistance to Eugene’s armies. If we do, my mother’s life will be forfeit.”

Jushko swore. “Does Eugene expect us to stand idly by while his armies ride roughshod through our lands?”

“But if we resist, they’ll kill her.”

The sound of hoofbeats made him glance round. An Azhkendi scout was riding down along the cliff path, making for the beach.

“Lord Drakhaon!” The rider leapt down from the saddle. “A mighty army crossing the ice—”

“Mighty?” Jushko caught hold of the scout by the shoulders. “What d’you mean, mighty?”

“Hundreds upon thousands. Men, horses, cannons—”

“So we’ve been duped,” Gavril said. “These men were merely decoys, sent ahead to distract us, while the main body of Eugene’s army has just marched in to Azhkendir, unhindered.”

CHAPTER 35

The troops came riding over the snowy hills, regiment after regiment, the faint winter sunlight glittering on boot buckles, harnesses, swords, and pistols.

Elysia watched in growing dismay as hundreds, thousands of soldiers assembled on the bleak shingle shore below. Eugene was sending the might of his northern army against her son, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

A day and a night had passed since Kazimir had sped off across the ice—and in that time, a vast invasion force had gathered along the coastline. Imprisoned in the inn on the cliff, she had watched the troops assembling ice yachts, their breath steaming in the brittle air as they labored.

She had recovered a little of her self-composure. Yesterday she had been furious that she had allowed herself to be so easily duped. By night she was furious with those who had betrayed her. How could she have allowed herself to be deceived by Feodor Velemir? Even thinking of her foolishness brought the color flooding to her face. He had seen her as easy prey: a middle-aged woman, aware that her charms were fast fading, too readily swayed by the attentions of a cultured, urbane diplomat.

What a fool she had been to listen to him and not to her own common sense.

Sitting at the inn window, her cheek resting against her hand, she stared out into the fast-gathering gloom and saw Eugene’s troops lighting flares and torches until the whole icy shore glimmered with lights like a fairground.

A carriage appeared out of the darkness, drawing to a halt outside the inn. Orders were barked and the soldiers on guard duty stood swiftly to attention, carbines on shoulders. The door opened and Prince Eugene came in, followed by several of his officers, shuffling in their haste to escape the icy cold and blowing on their frozen fingers.

Elysia rose. Here was her captor, the man who had given the order to keep her from her son. She forgot about protocol and court etiquette. Head held high, she walked straight up to him.

“Madame Andar,” he said, briefly acknowledging her. His aide-de-camp hurried forward to usher her away.

“How dare you keep me a prisoner here, your highness!” she said, shaking the aide’s hand from her arm. “I demand to be released.”

Eugene handed his gloves and fur-rimmed tricorn to his aide-de-camp.

“I have made arrangements that you be taken back to Swanholm, madame. You should be more comfortable there.”

“Comfortable!” Elysia was almost speechless. “I don’t care about comfort, highness. You are keeping me here against my will. I came here in good faith to plead for my son.”

He looked at her then and she felt the chill of his gaze, the cold, determined look of a man whose strength of purpose is unshakable.

“The situation has altered, madame. We have declared war on Azhkendir. You are our hostage. And will remain so until your son has surrendered. No—not merely surrendered—until he has agreed to all our terms and conditions.” He bowed his head to her and continued on through into a farther firelit chamber, followed by his officers.

Elysia stared after them. When the door was shut, she found that her legs were trembling so violently that she had to sit down.

“Oh Gavril, Gavril, what have I done?” she whispered, her mind an agony of apprehension. “I thought I was saving your life—and all I’ve done is deliver you into the hands of your enemies.”

Later Elysia wondered if she had dreamed it. The hushed voices in the darkness, the sudden glow of a dark light, red as heart’s blood.

“You’re certain?” The voice was Eugene’s, but so different from the formal, commanding tone she had heard earlier. This was the voice of a man riven with hope and fear, a man as vulnerable as her own son.

“Look, highness, look how brightly it burns. He
is
alive.”

“Then pray. Pray we may not be too late.”

And the crimson blood light had abruptly disappeared as if concealed, and the voices did not speak again.

Voices, men’s voices, cracked out orders.

Elysia blinked awake. She had fallen asleep in a chair by the fire and, as she tried to get up, stiffness almost paralyzed her. She hobbled over to the window, peering out through the ice-flowered glass, breathing hard onto the ice to try to melt a peephole.

A dull dawn was breaking over the frozen sea, but the sky was lit with torches, and their light turned the gray-green ice to gold. Hundreds upon hundreds of Eugene’s men were setting out across the ice, some on ice yachts, some leading horses.

How could the ice sustain such a great weight, the weight of a whole army?

Amid the officers leading their men out, she picked out the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Eugene, walking alongside his men just as if he were a common soldier.

Is that the secret of his success?
she wondered.
The common touch? The sharing of his men’s hardships, fighting beside them, shoulder to shoulder?

The Tielen army advanced so efficiently, so purposefully toward the shores of Azhkendir. The undisciplined rabble of mountain brigands Volkh had called his
druzhina
would not stand a chance against such a well-oiled military machine.

“Madame Andar.”

She turned—and saw with a shiver that Kaspar Linnaius was watching her.

“You do not go with them, Magus.”

He smiled. “An old man such as myself would only hinder their progress. No, I return to Swanholm. The prince has requested that you accompany me. A sleigh is waiting for us. . . .”

Outside, Elysia huddled down in the sleigh under the furs opposite the Magus. The dawn air was so cold each breath she drew burned bitter-cold in her nostrils and throat.

As the driver touched the sleigh horses with his whip and they began to glide away across the hard-packed snow, she looked back and saw an extraordinary sight: where there had been desolate, frozen sea, she could see nothing but soldiers and horses, as if Prince Eugene had decided to hold military maneuvers on the ice instead of the parade ground.

If Elysia had entertained any ideas of escape, they were soon dashed.

The sleigh was met by an escort of armed cavalry at the northern gates to the Swanholm estate.

Snow had fallen on Swanholm in the night and transformed it into a shimmering edifice of snow and ice. The soft autumn colors of the birchwoods had been blotted out by the bleak whiteness of the snow. The lake glimmered gray amid the formal parterres, the dark topiary of the yews like black chessmen on a white board.

More true winter palace than the Orlovs’ glittering confection of glass, gilt, and marble,
Elysia thought bitterly, gazing down as the carriage road took them through the leafless alleys of chestnuts.
How fitting for a prison. My prison.

An officer of the household guard led her to the rooms she had occupied before their departure.

“I have orders from his highness that you are to be treated with all courtesy, madame,” he said, saluting her. “Please inform the guard if you need anything.”

Elysia stood on the threshold of the room, gazing about her. A fire burned in the grate. The elegant furniture, the pretty silk hangings, all seemed to belie the fact that she was a prisoner. And yet, in her absence, they had fitted iron bars to the window.

She shook her head.

“Only my freedom,” she whispered.

Gavril pushed aside the bowl of dark red beetroot soup that the landlord had brought him. He had no appetite for food or drink.

He had killed again. And this time it had not been steppe wolves, but men. He had looked into their faces, he had seen their fear—and still he had used his powers to destroy them. And even though he had killed in self-defense, he felt a profound sense of self-loathing.

He stumbled outside to the inn stables where the horses were being fed and watered. Water. He needed water: ice-cold well water to quench his burning thirst. At the back of the stables, nausea overcame him and he knelt in the snow, vomiting up the pitchy contents of his stomach.

“My lord? Are you all right?”

Still queasy, he looked up to see a young serving girl bending over him. The light from the stable lanterns gilded her soft skin, glinted tawny gold in her brown hair.

“You’re sick. Can I help you?” She placed her hand on his shoulder. A tantalizingly delicious fragrance wafted toward him, the fragrance of her young body and her warm, sweet blood. He found himself overwhelmed by a desire to possess, to crush, to rend—

“N-no!” Gavril jerked round, knocking her hand away. “Leave me alone!” He must not let her near him. In this dangerous state, he was not sure what he might do.

“Your
eyes
—” He saw her draw back, staring. And then she turned and ran, almost tripping over her skirts in her haste.

He sat in the snow, shivering, until the cravings had died down a little. Then, feverish and light-headed, he forced himself to go back into the overheated taproom.

Kazimir sat in a corner staring into a mug of ale that he held cupped between his shackled hands. The
druzhina
were warming hands and feet at the fire and dipping rye bread into bowls of soup.

Gavril went over to him.

“Tell me what’s been going on in the world outside, Doctor.”

Kazimir looked up, blinking. “You mean Prince Eugene?”

“Why invade Azhkendir?”

“Eugene is building himself an empire. Only you stand between him and Muscobar. With young Andrei Orlov drowned, there’s no one left but you to stop him marching into Mirom and—”

“Andrei Orlov
drowned
?”

“In a storm in the Straits. Pity poor Muscobar. People starving in Mirom, Eugene and his war hounds baying at the gates . . .”

“But what about Astasia?” All his own troubles forgotten, Gavril could only think of Astasia, alone and in desperate need of comfort, mourning the loss of her beloved brother.

“And when have you ever heard of a woman ruling Muscobar? She’s engaged to marry Eugene. They’re planning some ludicrously expensive wedding ceremony in Mirom . . . parasites, all blood-sucking parasites, these aristocrats, preying on the poor to—” Kazimir broke off. “I—I do beg your pardon, Lord Drakhaon, I quite forgot myself.”

Astasia was to marry Eugene? Gavril had hardly heard the rest of Kazimir’s rambling. Now he felt doubly betrayed.

“Lilias’ device told me that you come as Eugene’s envoy, Doctor. I must do exactly as you say, or it will go ill with my mother.”

“Lilias?” Kazimir glanced around uneasily. “Wh-where is she?”

“She seduced one of my men and fled,” Gavril said, watching the doctor’s face, remembering what Kostya had told him of Kazimir’s feelings for Lilias Arbelian. He was in no mood to be sensitive. “But we discovered her communication device. That was how we knew you were on your way.”

Kazimir slowly nodded.

“She used your elixir to poison my father. Did you know that?”

Kazimir nodded again. “I—guessed as much.” He seemed utterly crushed.

“And now they’ve sent you to poison me, too.”

“No, my lord. Not poison. Cure. Heal.”

“What,” Gavril said, “is the difference, precisely?”

“It’s a . . . scientific thing,” Kazimir said, as though casting around for the right words.

“The man who spoke to us using the device called himself Feodor. Do you know who he is?”

“Feodor Velemir,” Kazimir said in a whisper. Gavril could see from his expression that it was not a name he felt kindly about.

Suddenly he was back in Lilias’ rooms, the aromatic scent of herbal tea perfuming the air. Bewitching green eyes gazed into his.

“Count Velemir, an old friend . . . introduced me to your father. . . .”

“Spymaster to the House of Orlov,” said Kazimir with distaste. “And now it seems, friend and advisor to Prince Eugene. Double agent. Traitor.”

“And Lilias’ ‘old friend’?”

“She started her career as his mistress,” Kazimir said vindictively, “until he grew tired and found a better use for her.”

A bitter rind of moon shed a thin light over the dark snowflats as Gavril and his
druzhina
rode back to Kastel Drakhaon.

The horses were weary, and the last miles of the journey, toiling on through the freezing night, seemed to last forever.

At last they passed under the ivied archway into the torchlit courtyard of the kastel.

Sosia hurried down the steps to greet them.

“Lord Gavril, that cursed contraption of Lilias’. It keeps asking for you. Over and over again. Something about Doctor Kazimir—” She gave a little yelp of surprise. “Oh! He’s here.”

Gavril swung down from the saddle and flung his reins to Ivar. “Jushko, bring the doctor.”

As they entered Lilias’ rooms, Gavril saw Kazimir give an involuntary shiver as he entered, glancing uneasily about him, almost as if he expected her still to be there.

“Lord Drakhaon.”
The faint voice swelled out of the low, intermittent hum.

“I’m here. Who is this, and what do you want?” Gavril said brusquely.

“Is Doctor Kazimir with you?”