Blood Spirits

by Sherwood Smith

  “Comfortable?” Jerzy asked as he climbed onto the driver’s seat, and took up the reins.

  Up front was a matched pair of huge horses, their manes decorated with black and white ribbons.

  “Very,” I said, feeling a tad silly sitting all alone at the back of a sleigh large enough to comfortably seat ten. “This was a very nice gesture, but I can take an inkri if the family needs this sleigh.”

  Jerzy glanced back over his shoulder as the horses pulled us into the middle of the street, harnesses jingling. “The family is already there. Some have been all day, busy at their tasks. Mine is to serve as chauffeur tonight.” He sounded like a Frenchman, unlike the rest of the family, who had the faintest trace of Dobreni accent.

  “You’re not attending the gala?”

  He laughed. “I’m not supposed to be in the country at all. I was wild as a youth, and they banned me. I’m content to play roles now. Behold me, am I not fine?” He flicked his wig with an insouciant air that brought Tony to mind.

  “Very fine. And so is this sleigh.”

  “It’s been in the family for six generations. I’m surprised the Russians didn’t break it up for firewood.”

  “That would have been a shame. It’s lovely.” I leaned forward. “Shall I come sit beside you? I feel silly, sitting back here all by myself.”

  “No, no. We must play our roles. The crowd expects it. I can hear you, and I shall turn my head, so, and you will hear me.”

  I raised my hand to block the halo around the swinging lights, and discovered people standing in the remains of the most recent snowfall, watching as we glided by. Some wore elaborate masks, others didn’t. Many were talking, laughing, and drinking.

  “Tell me about your mother,” he asked. His half-sister. Weird.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Has she ever been to Dobrenica?”

  “No.”

  “Has she plans to visit? Perhaps she might wish to stop in Paris on her way here.”

  “Here?” I said witlessly.

  “You sound surprised. Will she not want to visit the land of her mother’s birth? Parents’ births?”

  “She never said so. But you have to remember, she didn’t know where her mother came from until four months ago.”

  “So she is not curious? I was.” He flashed that smile over his shoulder.

  “All my mother knew was that her father was shot down during the war, which was a very distant sort of thing in Los Angeles. She was more interested in the present, like becoming a pastry chef, than in the past.”

  “Perhaps we can lure her to Paris,” he said cheerfully. “What a crowd!”

  We? I thought. Who’s included in that we? If he meant the duchess and Robert, yeah right. A safe bet they wanted to meet my mom about as much as they wanted to catch a dose of pink-eye. Time to change the subject. But I didn’t have to. The crowd had swelled. The street streamed with decorated sleighs a-jingle and alight with colored lanterns swaying merrily.

  The city showed another of its many lovely faces that night, framed by softly glowing snow on street and rooftop, the lanterns on every balcony and post and pilaster throwing into dramatic relief the medieval carvings: amaranth and acanthus, rowan and rose, extravagant creatures of every degree—winged, fanged, pop-eyed, grinning, claws outstretched or curved protectively. Figures medieval and Renaissance, and here and there, agesmoothed classical, given a semblance of life in the beating light.

  Jerzy slowed the animals as we neared St. Xanpia’s fountain. Up on balconies of all the grand buildings, people waved lanterns and shouted “Urra! Urra!” as decorated conveyances hissed by, ringing and jingling. I smiled, feeling self-conscious as our magnificent sleigh jostled into the stream moving slowly around the circle. Someone had decorated the statues and trees with ribbons and tiny lights, which emphasized the shocking gap where the murdered tree had been dug up—no doubt to prevent salt from leaching into the ground and poisoning the rest of the trees. And how hard had it been to break that iron ground?

  Voices swelled in song, the melody rising and falling around the once-forbidden tritones. More voices joined in the love song turned anthem, until the St. Xanpia song seemed to come from everywhere at once. And here I was at her fountain as the stone creatures shifted. No. It wasn’t the stone creatures. They were ghost animals—fifty, a hundred, more. Dogs, cats, badgers, rats, ferrets, foxes, even a few wolves, all manner of small mammals, swarming, leaping, chasing about, flicking in and out of view, their shapes silver and gray, amorphous as smoke.

  From them, Shurisko leaped out at me, a vaporous glow. Glints of starlight gathered in his eye sockets as he barked noiselessly, galloping around the sleigh. Around and around he raced, then he vanished beyond the sleigh in front of me, the crowd of people in it unaware. From the spicy aroma carried on the cold air, they were sharing out mulled wine as they talked and laughed, and I caught the clink of glasses above the ring of tiny bells.

  I sat up straight, hands in my lap. I felt very much on stage, which was an odd sensation without ballet shoes on my feet, and a clearly choreographed dance to follow.

  Some children raced between the sleighs in a line, chasing and laughing, until one of the mounted Vigilzhi shooed them back behind an invisible line. I caught a few admonishing words about horse and reindeer hooves. Most of the children wore masks of beasts, birds, and a couple that looked like Fyadar, the mythic boy faun who’d befriended St. Xanpia in centuries-old Dobreni children’s stories.

  Shurisko raced out again and leaped across my sleigh. Then he was gone like a puff of smoke, as in the distance, the singing receded until it was subsumed under the closer noise of merrymakers.

  “Monsieur von Mecklundburg,” I began.

  “Call me Uncle Jerzy. All your cousins do.”

  “Uncle Jerzy, what’s the story behind the masks? Not everyone wears one.”

  “That’s because the custom fell out of habit during the Soviet years. Superstition of any kind was frowned upon. When the Soviets left, some promptly went back to the old ways because they could, but many didn’t.”

  “So masks on New Year’s Eve was a tradition?”

  “For centuries. To hide from the ghosts of the old year, it was said. And from other mythological figures. There was a practical aspect—hiding one’s identity, so whatever you did that night, you would not begin the new year with regrets. Ideally, anyway.” He laughed. “Rules were relaxed on New Year’s Eve, like the Twelfth Night celebrations in some countries west of us.”

  Ghosts of the old year. I was tempted to ask if he saw Shurisko but was reluctant to talk about ghosts. Besides, what would I learn if he saw the dog? Zip.

  We jingled down one of the many short streets that spoked off St. Xanpia Circle. On either side of the street were three grand Palladian buildings, with Greek statuary along the edges of the roofs. The shops on the first floor were all lit, though closed to custom. Richly hued rugs hanging in one window complemented marquetry furniture across the way. Antique clocks on my right reminded me of Dad, and I wondered what my parents were doing—if they were having fun in London.

  Of course they were. They’d always believed in creating your own fun. But this was the first time ever that the four of us were not celebrating in our small kitchen in Santa Monica.

  Homesickness washed through me. Not for place but for people. A vivid image of Mom and Dad laughing around the kitchen table seized me, followed by Gran’s quiet smile, her silver head held high. The images vanished, restoring me to the here and now as the sleigh jolted past a row of four conveyances that seemed to be in one party.

  What was the hurry? But then we slowed again as we emerged onto a smaller traffic circle with a Renaissance era fountain at the center. The buildings around this square were all Italianate. To the right was the start of the grand St. Ladislas Street, and to the left Ysroel ben Elizier Street, which curved back toward the temple.

  The crowd on both sides had thickened. Jerzy stood onc
e or twice, peering ahead, then sent the team into a trot as he wove between sleighs, trying to avoid the traffic jam.

  “Oh, for the days when the bluebloods could send out minions to clear the streets,” I said facetiously.

  “They still can.” Jerzy flashed a grin back at me. “Or could. Milo forbade such things, I’m told, unless there is dire emergency.”

  “I guess a dance doesn’t rank as an emergency,” I said. “Why would Milo forbid it? Can’t afford the minions?”

  “I’m told that the saintly Milo felt that such actions caused resentment. I must say, I understand. Would it not be annoying to be cleared to the sides of the road in pouring-down rain because some baron was in a hurry to go to lunch?”

  He was so right, and I laughed as I looked around. We’d lurched forward a bit and had reached the area of the exclusive shops I’d visited with Beka. We’d soon reach the place where St. Ladislas Street widened and became tree lined. The cathedral complex lay on one side, and what had once been the royal riding school on the other. It had since been divided into the museum, library, Vigilzhi headquarters, and now—the new opera house.

  Jerzy pulled us back into line as the crowd surged, making way for four mounted Vigilzhi on horseback, wearing full uniform right down to epaulettes. They surrounded a handsome fiacre, in which rode: Alec, alone, wearing a fine tux that reminded me of an Edwardian frock coat. Over open top coat, he wore a long, beautiful silk scarf.

  As his fiacre slowed, someone in the back of the huge crowd bellowed, “Murderer!” And again, “Mur-der-er, mur-der-er, mur-der-er,” in a cadence meant to start a chant.

  My mood snapped from enjoyment to anxiety, and from there to anger as a few people took up the cry.

  The mounted Vigilzhi pulled their swords (not ornamental, either) but Alec gestured impatiently toward the guy at his right—Dmitros Trasyemova—and stood up in his fiacre.

  He said something, lifted his voice, and said it again. I couldn’t hear him over those hissing, “Silence!” at the chanters behind.

  “Murderer!” the unseen man yelled again, as the crowd noise diminished. “Murdered your wife to marry your French trollop!”

  “Come out and face me,” Alec said as he jumped down from the fiacre, his fine formal shoes sinking in the layer of slush. I’d never heard Alec lift his voice. He had been trained in public speaking, of course, and he pitched it to be heard but without yelling. “I am visible to you as well as answerable. But I have the right to see my accuser.”

  “That’s right,” someone called, and a woman yelled, “Show yourself!”

  That same voice bellowed, “You killed your wife!” And tried to begin a chant, “MURderer! MURderer! MURderer!”

  One or two joined him, but mostly the crowd noise escalated to arguments and questions and unheeded cries of “Be quiet!” and “Don’t shove!”

  Alec walked directly into the crowd, as people moved back to give him space. Others surged at the back, and I heard fierce hissing, but not what anyone was actually saying. Alec said again: “You have a right to accuse me, but I have a right to see my accuser. Come out and talk to me.”

  The roiling in the back of the crowd radiated outward as people tried to move and to see. Dmitros gestured to his people to dismount and walk among the crowd. “No weapons,” I heard him say.

  They were waiting for the accuser to appear. The mood could go either way. I knew enough about crowds to be scared, my toes cramped in my shoes, my hands gripped.

  “I will answer all your questions truthfully,” Alec said. “You have only to ask. But face me first.”

  Then that same voice bellowed hoarsely, from farther back, “Maybe we should ask your doxy! She’s right there!”

  People looked around—I looked around—until I discovered everyone looking at me. Sick with embarrassment and anger (and a bubble of hilarity—doxy?) I sat there, exposed to view.

  The crowd stirred restlessly—then a girl’s high voice shrilled, “That’s Mam’zelle Dsaret, who saved the Baron de Vauban from the fire!”

  Another girl yelled, “Urra, Mam’zelle Dsaret, Urra!”

  The shrill one screeched, “She fought the villains on Devil’s Mountain!”

  “Murder . . . conspiracy . . .” The shouter was moving farther away. Other voices rose angrily, for and against, but that shrill girl’s voice cut through them all: “She saved our city!”

  “Urra! Urra! Urra!” A ragged cheer went up. It sounded like kids.

  Then a boy yelled, “Mam’zelle Dsaret, urra, urra, urra!”

  More people took up the cry.

  As the crowd surged, focus shifting, I caught a glimpse of teenage girls standing in a line holding hands, as other teens joined them. At the center was a scrawny figure with long red braids: Miriam.

  “Urra! Urra! Urra!” the teens chanted. “Urra, Urra, Urra, Dsaret!”

  “URRA!” The crowd took up the cry. “DSARET!”

  The Vigilzhi walked slowly among them, but by then there was no need to break up a mob, because everyone had taken up the cry, as the teens clapped their hands to the beat. “Urra, urra, urra, Dsaret!”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I LOOKED AROUND, amazed, gratified, and embarrassed, too, as Jerzy clucked to the animals, and we caught up quickly with the line in front of the opera house. There, with somewhat more haste than order, guests were climbing out and going inside.

  Alec was somewhere behind me. Would it make things better or worse for him if I walked over and joined him?

  Urra, urra, urra, Dsaret! The crowd chanted.

  Jerzy had tied the reins. I tried to peer past the heads. If I saw Alec, I could take my cue from him.

  But Jerzy’s hand closed firmly on my arm. “Quite a claque you have there,” he said, flashing that slanting, jaunty smile. “Careful with the step. It’s slippery on the pavement.”

  Firmly he helped me down, guiding me toward the entrance steps as the chant dissolved into a general roar of approval, then talking and laughing. The moment was passing, and I still couldn’t see Alec, so I walked up the steps next to Jerzy and then said, “Thank you for the ride.”

  “It would be my pleasure to escort you inside,” he said gallantly, “but I must be off to fetch my aunt, the baroness.” He left me at the door and started down the steps. “Also, I mustn’t leave the animals standing about.”

  A wigged footman came forward to take my wraps. Another came forward with towels to wipe the slush off my shoes.

  The wind was turning icy, teasing at my skirts and hair. I was already shivering. Then I passed through the next set of doors into a vast chamber filled with gold light, whose vaulted ceiling was starred by thousands of candles. The stage was framed by magnificent swagged curtains of deep burgundy, very much in the grand old style. On the stage an orchestra was busy tuning as guests walked around admiring one another, talking, laughing, or cruising the food-filled tables on the opposite side of the room. The refreshments were dominated by ice sculptures of musical instruments wielded by mythological figures.

  “There you are.” That was Cerisette von Mecklundburg in a retro Chanel flapper dress, the one look that is seriously chill on scrawny women. It had two layers of very long fringe, one overlapping the other at hip length. The dress itself was black silk damask, the fringes black at the top and slowly shading down to silver at the ends. Over her elaborate chignon she wore an art deco headband decorated with diamonds and a single ruby brooch pinning a white feather that curled up and back over her head. Her necklace was a single, very long strand of jet, with ruby rosettes every foot or so.

  Thinking that if I complimented her she’d probably go straight home and change, I said only, “As you see.”

  “Where is Uncle Jerzy?” She peered past me. When she wasn’t glaring at me, she looked stressed. But then she was running this entire party.

  “He went to fetch his aunt. A baroness,” I said, feeling an unexpected spurt of sympathy for Cerisette.

  She sighed. “Tha
t can only mean Grandmother Romesçu, who’s so shortsighted she wouldn’t know if a bear had the reins. Damn it! He’s got Tante Sisi’s pills. . . .” She spoke under her breath, sounding like someone pushed to the limits. “This way,” she said, and as I fell in step beside her, she added, “My father invites you to sit at the high table.”

  Instantly suspicious, I stopped walking. “Why?” No matter the reason, Robert von M was the last person I wanted to share this evening with.

  She stopped as well. “Why what?” For the first time she looked right at me, not past my shoulder, or raking her gaze dismissively down my body, no doubt in search of fashion flaws. Her gaze met mine for about a heartbeat, her eyes a shade darker than my own. There were subtle silver sparkles in her eye shadow, and she was close enough that the acrid scent of cigarette smoke wafted from her clothes and hair, mixing with her expensive perfume.

  “Why this invitation to the high table?” Red flags were waving wildly, as the inner Kim insisted, I’m being set up.

  Tic-tic-tic. One of Cerisette’s elegant long fingers tapped against a ruby rosette in her necklace, reminding me more than ever of a cat’s tail twitching. Or the rhythmic flicker of antennae.

  “Look, I know what your family thinks of me. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to ruin my evening by walking into some kind of bad scene.”

  “My father wants to speak to you—” she began.

  I was choking off the words, No chance! when the Danilovs swooped down on either side of us; he, looking like Prince Charming in period frock coat with a hint of lace at the cuffs and a diamond stick pin in his silver-patterned silk cravat. Phaedra wore a tight black sheath that only a perfect figure could carry off, and super high heels.

  “There’s Alec. Right on time,” Phaedra said, nodding just past my shoulder. “Shall I give the signal?”