The Dead Travel Fast (4 page)

He smiled then, a decidedly feline smile, predatory and slow. I did not know how to reply to him. I had no experience of such people. Sophistry was not a skill I possessed. Cosmina had told me the count had lived for many years in Paris; doubtless his companions were well-versed in polished conversation, in the parry and thrust of social intercourse. I was cast of different metal. But I thought again of my book and the use I might make of him there. He was alluring and noble and decidedly mysterious, all the qualities I required for a memorable hero. I made up my mind to engage him as often as possible in conversation, to study him as a lepidopterist might study an excellent specimen of something rare and unusual.

“You surprise me,” he said suddenly.

“In what manner?”

“When Cosmina told me she was expecting her friend, the writer from Edinburgh, I imagined a quite terrifying young woman, six feet tall with red hair and rough hands and an alarming vocabulary. And instead I find you.”

He finished this remark with a look of such genuine approbation as quite stopped my breath.

“I must indeed have been a surprise,” I said, attempting a light tone. “I like to believe I am clever, but I am no bluestocking.”

“And so small as to scarcely reach my shoulder,” he said softly, leaning a bit closer. He shifted his gaze to my hair. “I had not thought Scotchwomen so dark. Your hair is almost black as mine, and your eyes,” he trailed off, pausing a moment, his lips parted as he drew a great deep breath, smelling me as an animal might.

“Rosewater,” he murmured. “Very lovely.”

I stepped backwards sharply, ashamed at my part in this latest impropriety. “I must beg your leave, sir. I ought to find Cosmina.”

Amusement twitched at the corners of his mouth. “She is with the countess. My mother has spent a restless night and it soothes her to have Cosmina read to her.”

“I am sorry to hear of the countess’s indisposition.”

“So the responsibility of entertaining you falls to me,” he added with another of his enigmatic smiles.

“I would not be a burden to you. I am sure your duties must be quite demanding. If you will excuse me,” I began as I moved to step past him.

“I cannot,” he countered smoothly. And then a curious thing occurred. He seemed to block me with his own body, and yet he did not stir. It was simply that I knew I could not move past him and so remained where I was as he continued to speak. “It is my duty and my pleasure to introduce you to my home.”

“Really, sir, that is not necessary. I might take a book to my room or write letters.” But even as I spoke, I knew it was not to be. There was a peculiar force to his personality, and I understood then that whatever resistance I presented him was no more than the slenderest twig in his path. He would take no note of it as he proceeded upon his way.

“Letters—on such a fine day, when we might walk together? Oh, no, Miss Lestrange. I will begin your education upon the subject of Transylvania, and you will find I am an excellent tutor.”

He offered me his arm then, and as I took it, I thought for some unaccountable reason of Eve and the very little persuasion it took for the serpent to prevail.

I spent the morning with him, and he proved an amiable and courteous host. He behaved with perfect propriety once we quit the library, introducing me to the castle with a connoisseur’s eye for what was best and most beautiful, for the castle
was
beautiful, but tragically so. Everywhere I found signs of decay and neglect, and I became exceedingly puzzled as to what had caused the castle to fall to ruin. It had obviously been loved deeply at one time, with both care and money lavished upon it in equal measure, but some calamity had caused it to lapse into decline. It was not until we had finished the tour of the castle proper—the public rooms only, for he did not take me to the family wing nor to the tower where I slept—and emerged into the garden that I began to understand.

The morning was a cool one, but I had my shawl and the garden was walled, shielded from the wind by heavy stones. The garden was surprisingly large and had been planted with an eye to both purpose and pleasure. A goodly part was used as a kitchen garden, untidy but clearly productive, with serried rows of vegetables and the odd patch of herbs bordered by weedy gravel paths. But at the end of this was a door in the wall and beyond was a forgotten place, thick with overgrown rosebushes and trees heavy with unpicked fruit. A fountain stood in the middle, the pretty statue of Bacchus furred with mold, the water black and rank and covered with a foul slime.

I turned to find the count staring at the garden, his jaw set, his lips thin and cruel.

“I apologise,” he said tightly. “I have not yet seen it. I did not realise it had fallen into disuse. It was once a beautiful place.”

I could feel anger in him, controlled though it was, and I hurried to smooth the moment. “It is not difficult to see what lies beneath. The fountain is a copy of one at Versailles, is it not? My grandfather showed me a sketch he made during his travels as a young man. I recognise the heaps of grapes.”

“Yes,” he said, almost reluctantly. “My grandfather commissioned a copy when he planted his first vineyard. He was very proud of the first bottle of wine he produced.”

“It is an accomplishment. He did well to be proud of it,” I agreed.

To my surprise, he smiled, and it was not the casual smile he had shown before but something more heartfelt and genuine. “He needn’t have been. It was truly awful. The vines were pulled out and tilled over. But he was very fond of his Bacchus,” he finished, his eyes fixed upon the ruined statue.

“And you were very fond of him,” I said boldly.

He did not alter his gaze. “I was. He had the raising of me. Dragulescu men have always had trouble with their sons,” he said with a rueful twist of the lips. “My grandfather, Count Mircea, had neither affection nor esteem for my father. When I was born, my grandfather took it upon himself to educate me, to teach me the things that mattered to him. When he died, life here became insupportable under my father. I left for Paris and I have not been here since.”

“How long have you been away?”

He shrugged. “Twelve years, perhaps a little more.”

“Twelve years! It must seem a lifetime to you.”

“I was seldom here before that. My grandfather sent me to school in Vienna when I was eight. I returned home for holidays sometimes, but only rarely. It was so far there seemed little merit in it.”

“You must have had excellent masters in Vienna,” I ventured. “You speak English as well as any native.”

He flicked me an amused glance. “I ought to. My grandfather always said any gentleman worth the title must attend university in England. I was at Cambridge. After that, my grandfather himself took me upon the Grand Tour. It was shortly after that trip that he died.”

“How lucky you have been!” I breathed. “To have learned so much, travelled so much. And with a treasured companion.”

“You did not travel with your own grandfather?”

“No. He was quite elderly when my sister and I came to him. He preferred his books and his letters. But he travelled extensively as a young man, and he spoke so beautifully about the places he had seen, I could almost imagine I had seen them too.”

“You are growing wistful now,” the count warned.

I smiled at him. “I suppose I am. The loss is still a fresh one.” I hurried on, impulsively. “And I am sorry about your father. I understand the bereavement is recent.”

He said nothing for a moment, merely drew in a deep, shuddering breath. When he turned to me, his eyes were as cold and grey and unyielding as the castle stones.

“Your sympathy is a credit to your kindness, Miss Lestrange, but it is not necessary. I have returned home for the sole purpose of making certain he was dead.”

With that extraordinary statement, he moved to the door in the garden wall. “Come, Miss Lestrange. It grows colder and I would not have you take a chill.”

4

He left me in the great hall to find my way alone, and I returned to my room, followed hard upon by Tereza with a tray of food. I had not realised the hour was so late, but as soon as she lifted the covers from the dishes, the appetising smells pricked my appetite. I ate a dish of steaming soup thick with cabbage and noodles, and sampled a plate of assorted cold things, cheeses and bread and salads, with a few hot, crisp sausages.

When I had finished, I went in search of Cosmina again, but no sooner had I reached the great hall than she appeared, looking pale and a little tired, and full of abject apologies. “Theodora, what must you think of me! I am so sorry to have abandoned you. The countess needed me. She is resting now.”

I waved her aside and reassured her that I had spent the morning pleasantly, careful to mention the count only in passing. But at the mention of his name, her face clouded. “I must speak with you, but not here. The countess needs her medicine from the doctor. We will walk down to the village together. Later we will talk.”

It was all very mysterious, but intriguingly so, and I dutifully retrieved my stout boots and warmest shawl from my room.

“The steps are quite shallow, and the walk is a pretty one,” Cosmina explained when I met her again in the great hall. She carried a little basket and had donned a bright blue cloak that very nearly matched her eyes. “There are still a few wildflowers to be found and there are rocks you may sit and rest upon.” Suddenly, she smiled. “But I forget to whom I am speaking. You still take pleasure in your rambles, do you not? You were always the sturdiest walker in the school.”

“I do indeed,” I said roundly. “I cannot think properly unless I have had fresh air.”

“Then let us be off, for you have not enjoyed Carpathian air, and it is like wine to the senses.”

I almost agreed with her about the excellence of the mountain air until I realised I had not told her about my tour of the garden with the count. But I was not eager to introduce him into our conversation, so I remained silent and followed her from the hall.

We ventured out into the early afternoon, and almost as soon as we left the confines of the castle, a weight seemed to drop away from Cosmina. I had not realised how bowed down she seemed, how anxious, until I saw her pause and take a great, deep breath, raising her face to the sun. After a moment she turned and grasped my hand, and I fancied I saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.

“It is so good to see you, my friend.” I had forgot how demonstrative she could be, and I withdrew my hand, but only after a moment, and gently.

“It is good to see you as well,” I said warmly. “I have missed you.”

“And I you. I ought to have written more,” she said, her expression somewhat abashed. “But there always seemed to be something to do. The countess’s health, the needs of the villagers, my duties at the castle. My aunt has given me copies of all her keys as chatelaine,” she added proudly. “But it means I am often so busy between the castle and the village.” Her voice trailed off. “Now things will be different, I know it.”

“You mean now the old count is dead?” I ventured.

She nodded. “Count Bogdan. I must not speak unkindly of him, for it was he who permitted the countess to bring me here to live. But he was…he is not mourned,” she told me.

I thought of this and of what the count had told me about his father. I thought too of the decaying castle and wondered precisely what sort of man Count Bogdan had been.

She lifted her face to the sun again, closing her eyes and smiling. “I do not want to think of him today. I do not want to talk about unpleasant things yet. You are here and the weather is glorious and all will be well, I know that it will.” She opened her eyes. “It must be,” she added firmly.

True to her word, we did not speak of unpleasant things, only the scenery and the history of the place as we picked our way down the mountain to the valley below. I had been so tired upon my arrival and the night so dark, I had not even realised there was a village tucked at the base of the mountain some little distance from the lodge.

We had almost reached the bottom of the climb when Cosmina ventured off the rough stairs and onto a little grassy patch thick with stalks of odd little hooded flowers that put me greatly in mind of monkshood. Cosmina drew on a pair of gloves and took a small knife from the basket to take careful cuttings from the plants.

“
Omagul
,” Cosmina said happily, showing me the plant she had found. “The proper name is
Aconitum anthora
, the healing wolfsbane. It grows only in the mountains here, and it is a true remedy for rheumatism and pain and it is said to strengthen the heartbeat. It is still in flower, but perhaps only a few days more.” She brandished the tall, spiky plant with its rows of capped blooms with her gloved hands. “I have promised to bring some to the countess’s doctor. He uses a number of native plants for his remedies.”

We made our way into the little hamlet. It was scarcely more than a cluster of houses, bright as an artist’s paintbox, gaily decorated with carving and pargeting, and each set apart from its brothers by a small patch of garden bordered by an iron fence and topped by a rose madder roof. A pair of the houses had been set aside for use as a smithy and an inn, their proprietors keeping living quarters at the back for their families. The gate of the inn was closed and over it hung the bleached white skull of a horse.

“To keep away ghosts,” Cosmina explained, passing by without further comment.

Hard by was a tiny church decorated in the Eastern style, a firm reminder that I had come to a land once menaced by the Turk and ruled by Byzantium. It was exotic and strange, and yet the villagers might have been from any country, any age. They were dressed simply in long shirts of coarse woolen and linen, with high boots and wide trousers for the men and full skirts for the women. Their animals looked well enough, sleek and fat, and the people seemed cheerful and pleasant, calling greetings to us or accompanying their work with snatches of song.

But the further we moved into the village, the more signs of neglect I detected. The bright paint was weathered and in need of refreshment, and the road was dirty and rough. Even the little school was shuttered tight, the lock upon the gate rusted into place.

“The village children do not attend school then?” I asked carefully. I did not wish to seem critical, but it chafed that the children should not be educated. There were few things more precious to a Scot than a thorough education.

Cosmina kept her eyes fixed upon the road. “It was closed when Count Bogdan inherited. Perhaps it will be opened again. It is for the count to say.”

To the rest of my queries—about the state of the road, the church that also proved locked and abandoned, the dry and abandoned well, the river meadow that flooded but might make excellent pasturage when drained—to all of these Cosmina made the same reply. “It is for the count to say.” I began to understand the power that he wielded then. He was a feudal lord in a modern world, the villagers reliant upon him as children for the proper management of their crops and livestock, the education of their children, the health of their bodies and souls. It was a weighty responsibility, but also a necessary one, and I began to wonder at the character of a man who could treat his dependents in so cavalier a fashion. Cosmina held great hope that the new count would effect change, and the villagers seemed to hold that hope as well. In any other locality such neglect would have engendered resentment and despondency, perhaps even rebellion. But here was only resignation to what had been and anticipation of what might yet be. The native temperament of the Roumanian was a complex one, I decided, and therefore interesting.

At last we walked the length of the little village and emerged into a narrow track that led into a wood. Closer and closer the trees pressed in upon us until we could scarcely walk abreast. It was shadowed and greenly gloomy in the little glade, and I was not sorry when upon reaching a little turning in the path we came to a clearing. Set within was a pretty house, old-fashioned and solid, with a steeply pitched roof dotted with gables. Ivy climbed the walls and smoke rose from the stone chimney. A little stone path led the way to the door, and I noticed it was bordered not in flowers but herbs, and each plant was marked with a sign neatly lettered in Latin.

“This is the house of Dr. Frankopan, the countess’s doctor, a Hungarian,” Cosmina informed me. She led the way down the path, but before she could raise her hand to knock at the door, it was thrown wide.

“Cosmina!” bellowed the bewhiskered little gentleman who stood upon the threshold. He wore a red coat fitted with bright brass buttons that gleamed almost as brightly as his eyes. “How good it is to see you, my dear. And is this your friend from Scotland? Of course it must be, for we have no strangers here. Except you, Miss Lestrange. The stranger, Miss Lestrange!” he added with a waggish smile, enjoying his little joke.

I returned his greeting, and he hurried us inside, taking our wraps and hanging them upon pegs, all the while keeping up a ceaseless patter.

“Ah, you have found my
Aconitum anthora
, very good, very good. This will be enough to see me through the winter, I think, so long as I am careful. You must go in, my dears, the fire is laid and Frau Graben was kind enough to send down a cake from the castle. You must share it with me. I hope the path was not too muddy—no, no, you mustn’t worry about your shoes. The carpet is an old one and wants sweeping anyway. Go on through now and take chairs by the fire. I will come along in a moment with cake.”

Cosmina and I took chairs as instructed and the doctor’s absence gave me a little time to look about the room. It was comfortable, lined with books and smelling of tobacco and woodsmoke. There were cosy armchairs and a pretty bird in a cage by the window, and everywhere were draped little bits of colourful needlework, doubtless payment from the villagers for his services. I glanced at Cosmina and she smiled.

“I do hope that you like Dr. Frankopan,” she murmured. “He is a very great friend to the countess, and has been so kind to me. We have worked together in the village, or rather, he has been kind enough to allow me to assist him from time to time. I would have described him to you, but there did not seem to be words,” she finished, and I was forced to agree. She might have said he was elderly and bald as a baby, with bright pink cheeks and an enormous set of white whiskers, but she could never have conveyed the perfect amiability of his manner, the waggish charm. When she had spoken of the countess’s physician, I had expected someone dry and serious, but Dr. Frankopan was like something out of a storybook, with his twinkling eyes and bright red frock coat.

Before I could reply, he hurried in, carrying a tray set with a plump teapot and a cake rich with spices and dried fruits. Cosmina attended to the tea things while the doctor poked up the fire until it blazed merrily upon the hearth.

“There, there, now we have every comfort!” he said, taking his chair with a sigh of satisfaction. “Now, Miss Lestrange, I do not detect the famous Scottish brogue in your speech. Tell me why that should be so.”

“My grandfather was a scholar, sir, and born in England. He had the raising of me, as well as that of my sister, and while he maintained there was no finer city than Edinburgh to achieve an education, he was careful of his vowels to the end.”

“Just so, just so,” he replied, nodding. “And do you consider yourself a Scotswoman or an Englishwoman?” The question was an intimate one, and yet I could not feel the intrusion of it, so genial and open was his manner.

“Both and neither,” I answered truthfully. “I remember no home but Edinburgh, and yet I am a person without a country at present.”

“As I am!” he exclaimed, sitting up excitedly. “I have come to live here in Transylvania, but I was reared between Buda-Pesth and Vienna, one foot in Hungary, the other in Austria, and my heart in the Carpathians,” he finished, sweeping his hand dramatically to his chest. “So, this we have in common. You must tell me more.”

He commenced to ask a series of questions about Scotland and my travels and my perceptions of Transylvania, and so thorough was his inquisition that I was hardly able to manage a sip of my tea or a crumb of the delicious cake. But I enjoyed the conversation immensely, and in turn I learned that the doctor was the son of a noble Hungarian family, the house their hunting lodge. His elder brother was a baron and happy to leave the lodge in the doctor’s hands while he lived in Vienna.

“And Vienna no longer entices you?” I asked before taking a hasty, stolen bite of my cake.

For a moment, his eyes seemed shuttered and his animation faltered, and I wondered if Vienna held a sad memory for him. But as soon as the melancholia touched him, he recovered himself. “Not at all,” he said heartily. “I believe country air is necessary for good health. Country air and brisk walks, wholesome food and good friends. These are the key to excellent health, my dear Miss Lestrange. Besides, Transylvania has other attractions.” He fell silent then, and although the topic of conversation wandered, he never seemed to entirely recover the high spirits of his welcome.

At length we finished our tea and cake and as we rose to leave, he pressed a bottle upon Cosmina. “That is for the countess. Three drops in a glass of wine before retiring. I will call upon her tomorrow. Three drops, no more, no less,” he said firmly to Cosmina.

“I shall remember,” she told him.

He gave her hand an avuncular squeeze. “I know you will. You are a good girl.”

His expression grew pensive again and we made our goodbyes.

“What a charming man,” I said as we gained the little path through the trees.

“Do you think so? I have always been so fond of him. He has lived here for many years. He knew the countess as a girl, can you imagine that?”

“I wonder what she was like as a girl,” I mused, thinking of the austere and remote lady I had met so briefly.

“Beautiful,” Cosmina said promptly. “There is a painting in the castle of her and my mother, painted the year of their debut in Vienna. It hangs in the countess’s bedchamber. I suppose she keeps it to remember Mama. I would have thought it would make her sad, but she says it is good to remember.”