Scarlet in the Snow (15 page)

I did not even have to make up an excuse to go to town, for Mama announced at breakfast that she had decided on the house we were going to rent in Byeloka and would go in to arrange things with the agent. Of course then my sisters wanted to know which house, and when it proved to be a small but charming one set on a canal not far from the central square, but also one neither of them had put high on their list, they made a bit of a fuss before admitting that it wasn’t too bad. And when Mama said that she also intended to begin choosing furnishings and curtains from the agent’s order books, they jumped at the chance to be part of it, laughing at me for saying I didn’t mind leaving it all to their good taste, as I had some research I’d promised to do for Professor Feyovin in the library.

‘You want to watch out you don’t turn into some dusty bespectacled old body just like him,’ said Anya.

‘With holes in your stockings and blotches on your nose,’ added Liza, teasingly.

Mama told them both sternly that they should be ashamed of themselves, that Professor Feyovin was obviously a good and generous man, who had done us proud in every way, and that furthermore she respected my loyalty and dedication and that if Liza and Anya didn’t apologise immediately, they could stay home and help Sveta with the chickens. Of course they did exactly as she said, though Liza couldn’t resist whispering to me, as we were going up the stairs, ‘Scribble, scribble, scribble! When did that ever make the world go round?’

I gave her a haughty look. ‘What, so you think you know more of the world than me?’

‘Much more, I’d say, than someone with her nose always stuck in a book,’ she retorted.

‘Ha! Little do you know,’ I said crossly. ‘You’ve just been here while I –’

‘While you what?’ she said sharply, as I cursed myself inwardly for my imprudence.

‘While I learned about really important things,’ I said quickly, ‘like the . . . the formula for levitation, and a gadget that may help us to understand the speech of animals, and –’

‘Pooh!’ scoffed Liza. ‘Who cares? Magicians are always going on about their great works that will change the world for ever, but I’ve yet to hear of one who did anything worthwhile, like make money grow on trees, for instance, or roast ducks that fly straight onto your plate.’

I couldn’t help smiling, thinking of Luel doing that very thing.

Liza gave me a sharp look. ‘What are you hiding, Natasha? What’s going on?’

‘Nothing,’ I hurried to say, ‘I just think it’s funny you can’t see what’s right in front of your nose. For wasn’t Dr ter Zhaber a magician, and didn’t his legacy make exactly the kind of magic for us that you speak of?’

Liza looked startled for a moment, then exclaimed crossly, ‘Oh, you’ve always got to have the last word!’

‘No, that’s you,’ I said teasingly, and she laughed.

‘Honestly, Natasha, you can be impossible sometimes!’

I had successfully managed to evade her suspicions, but it had taught me a lesson. If I was to keep my secret, I had to guard my tongue a little more carefully.

It was market day in Kolorgrod and the town was very busy. Oleg, who had driven us in, had to drop us off in the main square and go to find somewhere else to park the sleigh, for there was no room in the usual spots. Mama arranged for him to meet us at midday, which gave me just over two hours for my search. I left Mama and my sisters in front of the agent’s office and hurried to the newspaper office a few doors down. A surly young woman at the entrance desk told me reluctantly that, yes, they did have an archive, and yes, the public might consult it, but first I had to get permission from the editor, who was away on an assignment and not expected to return for a day or two.

But I wasn’t going to be beaten as easily as that. ‘I am secretary to a very great gentleman scholar,’ I said grandly.
‘His name is Professor Feyovin. You may have heard of him; he has given papers at all the learned academies, and just last month he presented a copy of his latest work to the King. And he has charged me with looking up a certain matter arising three years ago; he told me that it was surely to be found in your archives for, as he said, the
Kolorgrod Messenger
is one of the best and most thorough newspapers in the land.’

‘He said that, did he?’ said the surly girl, softening.

‘Yes, he did, and he also said that he would be making full acknowledgements in his book, and sending the editor a copy of it as well,’ I embroidered. ‘You may also be interested to know that this book is to be presented to the Emperor himself, so that the name of the
Kolorgrod Messenger
will reach the highest ears in the land.’

Even I thought I might be laying the butter on a little too thick here, but she lapped it up. ‘Of course we will be more than happy to help a true scholar,’ she said eagerly, reaching under the desk and taking out a heavy brass key. ‘Please follow me, Miss, and perhaps if you like I may be of assistance to find what you want?’

‘Oh no, it is quite fine. I know you must have a good deal of work at the desk; it’s so busy in a newspaper office,’ I said hastily. ‘But thank you very much for the offer. I will be sure to mention you to my employer, who I know will be most grateful too.’

‘Oh, that is quite all right,’ she simpered, the surliness quite gone as she led me a little way down a corridor to a door which she unlocked with the brass key. ‘If you find you do need my help after all, please don’t hesitate to ask.’

‘Thank you,’ I said a little faintly, for although the room was small it was a daunting sight, with dusty boxes piled upon dusty boxes, each labelled with dates, and stacks of newspapers tied with string covered just about every other spare surface. But there was no way I wanted her peering over my shoulder while I looked. ‘And now I’d better start, I suppose,’ I said, smiling. She took the hint and left, taking the brass key with her, to my dismay.

Still, who else was likely to come into this dusty bolthole? The
Kolorgrod Messenger
, despite my hypocritical praise, was hardly the stuff of legend, and its pages mostly sent you to sleep. But occasionally there were news items about more sensational happenings from far and wide, sometimes of a magical nature, dotted like crystallised fruit in everyday porridge, and this is what I looked for as I slowly and painstakingly picked my way through all the editions of the
Kolorgrod Messenger
from three years back to the present.

I found some extraordinary snippets, such as a lurid tale of a love potion gone wrong, a fur-trapper’s report of stumbling into an enchanted village in the forest, and a macabre story of a man devoured by a spirit-wolf called up by a northern shaman. But I discovered nothing that bore any relationship to what I was looking for. Whatever spell the sorcerer had used to transform poor Ivan into an
abartyen
, it had not been noticed – at least not by our august newspaper.

So I tried another tack, and went through them all again looking for any mention of art and artists. There was very little of any consequence, though I did find a
small mention of Gelden and his fisticuffs with the critic in an Almain art gallery. It was most discouraging. And the dust was tickling my nose and my throat and making me sneeze.

It was sheer luck that my eye happened to light upon something down the bottom of a page of a Christmas issue. A rather uneasy mix of news and advertisement, it bore the tagline ‘Golden Express Brings Art World’s Brightest Stars to Faustina Festival’, and went on to say:
Artists from all over the world have converged on Faustina for the city’s new Imperial Art Festival and its offers of rich prizes. The festival is in part sponsored by the luxury Golden Express, which provides discounted fares for every artist whose work has been accepted for the festival. On the train from Palume to Faustina this year were some of the finest artists from Champaine, Almain, and the Prettanic Islands, to mention only a few
. Below the article was a rather blurry tinted photograph of a large group of men and three or four women, all of them in evening dress, grinning at the camera in the luxurious surrounds of the Golden Express dining car.

My skin prickled with excitement. Real information at last! And it gave me a different theory to the one I’d had before: this train had run from Palume to Faustina, so if Ivan had been on it, Palume was where he’d come from. So he probably wasn’t Faustinian, but Champainian. And maybe it was in Faustina, at the Imperial Art Festival, that the fatal event had occurred, which meant Ivan had made an enemy of a ‘powerful and very dangerous man’.

My ears burned. My fingertips tingled. I felt like a hound on the scent, eager for my prey. I went to the door and cautiously looked down the corridor. No-one was around, so I hurried back to the newspaper, ripped out the page I needed, folded it very small and put it deep into the pocket of my dress. No-one would notice, I thought, as I hurriedly put all the rest of the papers from that year on top and replaced the box. Opening the first box I’d looked at, I scribbled down a few random things from those newspapers in my notebook, just in case the surly girl wanted to see the results of my research. Not that I thought she would, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Then, my cheeks burning, my throat tight, I put everything away and headed back to the reception desk.

A weedy young man was talking to the surly girl. He wore a dark suit and stovepipe hat, and had a bushy blond moustache that ate up nearly half his face. He broke off his conversation when I appeared and politely raised his hat to me. I nodded a little nervously and, turning to the girl, said, ‘Thank you very much; the professor will be so grateful.’

‘Did you find what you wanted?’ the girl asked.

‘I did, thank you.’

I was about to leave when the girl said, ‘It’s a funny thing, you know, but this gentleman also wants to consult the archives. Nobody from one year to the next, and then there’s two in the one morning!’

‘Er, yes, indeed,’ I said, shooting a glance at the man, who smiled discreetly and, doffing his hat, went off down the corridor towards the archives room. I hoped
he wouldn’t notice I’d torn out that page. ‘How far back was the gentleman looking, as a matter of interest?’ I said, trying to sound casual.

‘Oh, only about a year or two,’ she said. ‘He’s looking for information on land sales in the district around that time.’

I was relieved. There would be no need at all for him to go looking into that older box. I was safe. No-one would know what I’d done.

It was nearly eleven-thirty now, so I had no time to waste. I dashed into the library, picked up a few books at random on various subjects ‘Professor Feyovin’ might be expected to be interested in, and asked the librarian if she had any information on the Imperial Art Festival in Faustina.

‘I believe there may be a pamphlet somewhere,’ she replied, ‘but unfortunately, my dear, it’s all in Faustinian, so it might be not very useful for you.’

‘That’s all right, I can read the language a little and I have a dictionary at home,’ I said quickly.

The librarian left and returned with a four-leaf pamphlet that featured a coloured picture of the imperial family of Faustina, with the logo of the Golden Express company. Inside was a good deal of print, of which I could only understand a few words. But at the back there was also an address, and it gave me an idea.

‘Are you thinking your mother might like to enter it, my dear?’ said the librarian, looking at me a little curiously. She knew my family circumstances, of course.

‘Yes, I thought she might,’ I lied brazenly. ‘Is it all right if I borrow this too?’

‘I’m not sure if the prize is really what she . . .’ the librarian began, but I had already tucked the pamphlet with the books under my arm and, with a cheery thanks, headed out of the library to my final destination – the post and telegraph office.

That morning Mama had announced that she could give us an allowance now, so we each had a little money of our own. I did not want to spend too much of mine, so after thinking carefully, I wrote the following short telegraph:
Urgently need list participants in first competition, for book. Prof Ivan Feyovin, c/o Kupeda residence, Kolor Province, Ruvenya
. I paid for it and watched as the woman sent it down the line to the address on the back of the pamphlet. Now it was gone, and all I needed to do was wait until they answered.

Meanwhile, I had the page and the photograph on the Golden Express. With a magnifying glass, I might be able to make out those faces more clearly. And one of them was probably Ivan’s. Of course I had not seen him as he was before the spell had made his face monstrous, but I had looked into his eyes and I had seen his spirit. Something told me there was a good chance I would recognise him, and it made my heart beat faster to think that soon I might know who he really was.