The Dead Travel Fast

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I moved my hand a little to stroke him behind the ear, but the effort was tiring and he seemed to sense it, for he licked my hand once and settled back on his haunches, watching me closely.

  “You came to find me?” I asked. Talking was proving rather difficult as well, and my eyelids began to droop.

  “Florian and I, at the count’s insistence,” Charles told me.

  My eyelids flew upward and I winced against the light. “He is awake?”

  Charles gave me a small, regretful smile. “Yes. And suffered no ill effects from his accident, it seems. He rages rather impressively, so I think he will be as he ever was. Aside from the scars, of course.” A lesser man might have savoured the thought, but Charles was a stranger to smugness, and he had no pettiness within him.

  “Where is he?” I asked, and Charles knew that I did not mean the count.

  He hesitated. “You ought to sleep now. You are quite safe. He is not to be found. He fled as soon as he left you in the forest. Oh, Theodora, why did you run away?” he asked, his voice anguished.

  I wanted to tell him, but my eyelids drooped again, and as I succumbed to sleep, I could not dismiss the notion that Charles was glad of it.

  19

  When next I woke it was evening, and Tereza brought water for me to wash and a tray of good, plain food. She helped me to dress, and when I had eaten all of the food and wiped my plate with the bread and eaten that, too, Charles came again.

  “They are in the count’s room. The entire household. Things must be discussed and you are summoned,” he added apologetically.

  The food that I had eaten sat like lead in my stomach, but I rose and smoothed my hair and followed him to the door. They were assembled as Charles had said, and to my astonishment, the count was dressed and seated in a chair by the fire. The countess and Frau Amsel had taken the sofa while Florian stood sentinel behind them. Cosmina huddled on the hassock at their feet and a pair of chairs had been brought for Charles and for me, completing the circle by the fire. Tycho raised his head when he saw me and thumped his tail by way of greeting, but he remained at his master’s feet, guarding him, it seemed. When we had seated ourselves, I saw that Tereza and Frau Graben stood in the shadows, neither included in the circle nor apart from it.

  I folded my hands together to keep them still. The count spoke first.

  “I am glad to see you have suffered no ill effects from your experience, Miss Lestrange,” he said formally. The same could not be said of him. He held a walking stick in his free hand, a heavy affair of ebony more suited to country pursuits than city idleness. He wore a sling at his neck, cradling his arm, and the wound upon his face slashed from brow to temple to cheek. The stitches were even and black, and rather than spoiling his looks, the effect was piratical and dashing. I had little doubt the Parisiennes would find him even more attractive with the addition.

  “Thank you,” I replied, and my voice sounded hollow to my ears. “It is good to see you as well,” I added impulsively.

  He inclined his head, but there was no warmth in him, only cool appraisal. “I have been apprised of the events that have passed, and I must apologise on behalf of our family that a connection of ours has attempted to harm you so grievously. The fault is entirely ours and we are abject in our sorrow.”

  The words were of the flowery sort the Eastern Europeans loved so much, a relic of their days of attachment to the Ottoman Empire, I thought. It was my turn to incline my head to acknowledge the sentiment and I did, gathering in the countess with my gesture to show I did not bear them ill will.

  “Would you mind explaining to us why you sought the company of Dr. Frankopan last night?” he asked evenly.

  And now we come to it, I thought. I could repudiate my convictions about Cosmina, even now. I had told no one save Dr. Frankopan my thoughts. The objects I had taken from her room were my only proofs of her instability. Without them, it was simply my word to hers, and she was nothing if not clever. It would be an easy thing to turn them all against me. She was, after all, as good as the daughter of the house.

  I glanced at her, and she was watching me, her eyes large and sorrowful.

  “I was afraid.” I temporised.

  The count lifted a brow to suggest disbelief. “Afraid of what?”

  I hesitated again. I could say I feared the strigoi; I could claim I was afraid of them for keeping me locked in my room. I could choose expediency and hope to leave as soon as possible, putting all of the horrors of the place behind me.

  Or I could choose to tell the truth and damn the lie.

  “I was afraid of Cosmina,” I said boldly, and stirring in the depths of the count’s eyes I saw approval.

  The countess gave an indignant sniff, and Cosmina put her hands to her mouth as if to smother a sob. Charles looked frankly astonished, and only Florian and Frau Amsel betrayed no emotion.

  “Why were you afraid of Cosmina?” the count asked, leading me gently towards the edge of the precipice.

  I looked only at him then, putting the others out of my mind. I spoke only to him, cared only for him.

  “I think I always was. She used to fly into terrible rages at school. I told myself I never wanted to be friends with the other girls, but now I think back, I see I was afraid to befriend them—afraid of what she might do. I loved her as a sister, but I see now that I was always afraid, only I did not understand it was fear. I used to work so hard to make certain she was happy. I left off speaking to girls she did not like because I did not wish her to become angry. I studied German instead of French because she wished me to and I wanted to please her because she was my friend. At least, I believed she was. I found a rosary in her possession. It was the only thing I owned of my mother’s and she stole it.”

  “Was there anything else?” the count prodded.

  “A letter,” I said softly. “A letter addressed to me that I never received. It was stolen from my room and when I discovered it, it had been torn to pieces and sewn back together.”

  I dared not look at Cosmina, but she had made no sound of protest. Doubtless she had discovered the objects missing from her room almost as soon as I had taken them.

  “If we are to believe you, Miss Lestrange, then Cosmina is at worst a thief. You had only to confront her with the items and they would have been restored to you. Why did you flee?”

  I twisted my hands together. They were cold, as cold as they had been when I had lain upon the forest floor, waiting to die.

  “Because I was certain she had killed Aurelia. Under her pillow, with my things, I found the carving fork from the dining hall. It has been missing since Aurelia’s death, and if it were compared to Aurelia’s body, I believe the prongs would fit the wounds that killed the girl.” I had seen it as soon as I had held the object in my hands, the two wickedly sharp prongs, a few inches between. If Cosmina had stabbed Aurelia with the thing, it would have rendered a wound precisely the same as a pair of very sharp teeth.

  “No!” cried Cosmina. I looked at her then and her expression was one of outrage, her tone that of profound denial. She had been found out, and the shock of it was too much for her to bear. At the sound of her outcry, Tereza burst out sobbing and praying and Frau Graben hastened to calm her. The rest of the group said nothing, but I heard the countess’s hiss of disbelief.

  “This is an extremely serious charge,” the count said soberly. “If you believed her to be a murderess, why did you not come forward?”

  I flushed painfully. My flight had been foolish and ill-advised, and I had no excuse save that Dr. Frankopan had been sensible and persuasive and I had feared for my life.

  “Dr. Frankopan insisted we leave. He said we could accomplish much more by leaving the castle and going directly to the obergespan in Hermannstadt. I believed he meant to help me.”

  “And instead he attempted your life,” the count finished softly. My flush deepened.

  “I trusted where I ought not to have,” I said.

  “And doubted where y
ou ought not to have as well,” he added. For a long moment, he said nothing, merely holding my gaze with his until I dropped my eyes to my lap. “Cosmina, Miss Lestrange believes you killed the maid Aurelia and ought to be brought to justice. What say you?”

  I looked at her then, and her expression was blank, her voice soft and low. But under it all, I caught the note of rage, barely suppressed. “I can only say that I am sorry, profoundly sorry, that we have broken trust with one another. I cannot say how her things came to be in my room except that she must have put them there with an eye to discrediting me and blaming me for her own misdeeds.”

  Too late I saw the trap, springing neatly about me, catching me in its grim teeth. I could only sit, numbed to the horror of it.

  “I did love Theodora, and I believed her my friend, but I see now I was deceived, and every lie she tells carries a seed of truth within it. She did lose a rosary at school, but I restored it to her when I found it and she has had it ever since. I do not know what letter she speaks of, nor have I seen the carving fork since it disappeared from the dining hall, but I think it is quite obvious she placed the things in my room, attempting to discredit me in the eyes of my family. We must thank God that she left her shawl behind when she attacked Count Andrei, or we would never know the depth of her villainy,” she finished viciously.

  Her facade was cool and almost entirely composed, but I knew something dark and violent seethed within. I thought of the time it must have taken her to stitch the love letter back together, the anger that must have raged within her as she set each stitch. I thought of the sharp blades of her scissors snapping my silhouetted head from my shoulders, and I knew what I must do.

  “It maddens you, doesn’t it?” I said softly. “Even now, you cannot stop thinking about it. You think about it every day, don’t you? He refused you. You are not good enough for him because he knows what you are.”

  She flew at me then, cursing, but the count had anticipated her, and raised his walking stick to block her. Florian darted forward, but the count waved him off.

  “Cosmina, sit. You will not respond to Miss Lestrange’s provocations,” he said coolly. But even as he said the words, he gave me a nod, almost imperceptible, and I continued on.

  “And you know what you are as well, do you not? You know the truth about your mother. She is not dead. She lives on, completely mad, locked in the same asylum where she has been since you were a small child. You know madness runs in the blood and you have waited for it to come for you.”

  She gave me a basilisk stare, as if she wished the flesh would melt from my bones, but I dared not stop.

  “But did you know that you are Dr. Frankopan’s child? He told me himself last night. You are his natural daughter, no more a legitimate Dragulescu than the child Aurelia carried. You do not belong here.”

  The words poured from my lips, goading her to some reaction that would betray her villainy. I laid at her door all of the crimes I believed her guilty of, but to my astonishment, it would be the most venal of them that broke her. I raised again the subject of my rosary. “It was my mother’s. Why would you take it from me?”

  “Because it was the only thing I had of yours,” she cried, breaking her reserve at last. “That was the day that Fraulein Möller made such a pet of you, and you spent ages discussing the poetry of Heine with her, do you remember? But it was supposed to be our outing, our day. And you neglected me to sit and talk about poems with that stupid schoolmistress.”

  “And you took the rosary to punish her?” the count asked quietly.

  “No, to make her look at me!” Cosmina returned, her eyes bright and lit with some unnatural fire. “We were friends and she ought not to have ignored me. When she thought the rosary was lost, she noticed me again. We were friends, and women must cling together in this world, for men are our destruction,” she said, turning to the countess, pleading with her aunt to understand.

  “And the letter?” I urged.

  The beautiful complexion flushed, a stain of anger spreading across her cheeks. “Andrei should not have written it. It was wrong of him to write it. I had to take it away,” she said stubbornly.

  “And my son?” the countess asked, her voice even and low.

  Cosmina said nothing, but the countess came at her, taking her by the shoulders and imploring her, “Tell me you did not harm my son. What did you do to him?”

  Under her aunt’s careful attention, Cosmina broke into sobs and the countess’s hands fell away. “I did not think you capable of that, child. Not my Andrei. My son,” she murmured, collapsing into a chair, her shoulder heaving as she coughed into her handkerchief.

  Cosmina gathered her composure. She took a great, shuddering breath and squared her shoulders. She looked around the room, collecting us, and then spoke, slowly and distinctly. “Andrei is like a brother to me, and I would sooner die than harm a hair of his head. There is a strigoi that walks this place, and he came to claim his own son. You know this,” she said, once more casting entreating eyes upon her aunt. “You know that Count Bogdan walks, that he demands the life of his son. You know these things. Why do you doubt me?” she asked, her tone persuading now.

  The countess half turned from her. “I do not know what to believe.”

  “Believe she is a murderess,” I said firmly.

  It was this last that prodded Cosmina beyond endurance, for she flew at me again and this time the count surged from his chair, rising up to put himself between us and shielding me from her with his own body. “Cosmina!” he said sharply.

  She paused, her hands outstretched, curled like claws, her eyes avid and hungry for vengeance. The count flicked one finger and Tycho sprang between them, baring his teeth at Cosmina, a low growl rolling in his throat.

  “A word from me and he will tear out your throat,” the count told her softly.

  She darted her eyes to Tycho and then to me, perhaps gauging the distance between us and wondering if she could reach me before the dog reached her.

  But she hesitated a moment too long, and in that second the count assumed control. He issued a command to Charles and Florian, never taking his eyes from Cosmina.

  “Lock her in the garderobe,” the count instructed them.

  “No!” she cried. “I cannot stay there. That is where she died! She bled there,” Cosmina protested, but the count would not be moved.

  She twisted and writhed at first, and I watched Charles’s expressionless face, knowing he hated what he must do. But neither he nor Florian faltered, and when Cosmina realised they would give no quarter, she calmed herself and allowed them to lead her docilely from the room. They removed her to the cold and comfortless garderobe, and as they did, the countess sat, ashen-faced, watching the devastation of her favourite niece. The two women exchanged wordless glances, and there was a froideur between them, a new coldness born of the countess’s doubts and Cosmina’s denials. I wondered if it would ever be mended, or if Cosmina had lost her aunt’s affections forever.

  We fell to silence until Charles and Florian returned, pale and unhappy. Charles gave a short nod to the count to indicate that his orders had been carried out, but Florian merely stood, his shoulders bowed, his woeful poet’s eyes fixed upon the floor.

  The countess turned to me. “I will never forgive you for this,” she said clearly. Her eyes were dry and her expression stony. She was a woman who would hate implacably, and I knew I had made an enemy that night.

  “I am sorry, madame,” I said, and I meant it, for I had loved Cosmina too, and the revelations of the past day had been difficult to bear. I had not liked the count’s methods, but I had understood them. Cosmina had to be shown for what she was, and her unnatural rages had persuaded everyone save the countess.

  “Cosmina has stolen, and for that she must be punished. But I believe her. She is not responsible for the darkest deeds in this castle. It was the strigoi,” the countess said stubbornly. “Count Bogdan walks this place, and he will come for us all.”

&nb
sp; Upon those chilling words we parted, and although the count gave me no looks of significance, no gesture of collusion, when he appeared in my room, I was not surprised to see him. He came to me by way of the tapestried stair, and stood, saying nothing but opening his arms in invitation. I went to him, putting my head to his shoulder as his good arm came to embrace me.

  “I feel a thousand years old,” he said, murmuring the words into my hair.

  “What will become of her?”

  “She attempted my life, and very likely killed Aurelia as well. She must be put away.”

  I drew back, searching his face. “You mean she will be gaoled? She will hang then.”

  “No,” he said sharply. “I will not have the scandal of it touching my family. What Dr. Frankopan told you is true. Her mother is unwell, a weakness in the head and nerves. She has been locked away since Cosmina was an infant. I know Frankopan and others besides believe such weaknesses may be carried in the blood. If that is true, it is not her fault. She is a flawed and unnatural thing, but not evil.”

  “She has killed,” I said, even then trying to convince myself that the girl I knew could have done such deeds, worked them out, coldly and maliciously, determined to end the lives of those she decided were unfit to live. “But it would give me no pleasure to see her hang for her crimes.”

  “I knew her as a child,” he said, something almost pleading in his eyes as he willed me to understand. “I cannot turn her over to them. They will see only the deed and not the lost child. Even now I pity her.”

  I put a hand to his face, touching the long line of silken black stitches. “It does you credit,” I told him.

  He gave me a cynical smile. “You think so, but it is not merely for Cosmina’s sake that I will not give her over to the authorities. My mother maintains her innocence, and I am not certain enough of my own conviction to persuade her. I know what I believe, but there is no proof of it, and without such proof, the matter would drag through the courts and the newspapers and we would all of us be mired in the mud of it. No, tomorrow Florian will go to Hermannstadt. There is a private clinic there, an asylum. It is the only choice.”