“And so it shall,” Varanus replied. “More specifically, it shall remain in my branch of the Varanus family.”
“Were you a man, Cousin Babette, that would suffice.” Robert sighed and shook his head. “But you are not a man. You are a woman. Your children will not be Varanuses. They will not be English. They will not be Protestant. They will not even be of our race! And while you may not understand the significance of that, our family does.”
“How dare—” Varanus began.
“Do you truly not understand?” Robert asked. “Once you are gone, once that property passes to your children, it will be lost to our family, likely forever. Can you do that to us? To your own kin? Can you do that to your grandfather’s memory?”
“I cannot believe that I am hearing this,” Varanus said. “The insult, Robert! The very insult of it all!”
Robert’s mouth twisted into a snarl and he said, “If you will not see reason, then I must tell you that our cousins have given me another message to convey to you.”
“And what is that?” Varanus asked tersely.
“If you refuse to negotiate with us on the matter of your grandfather’s estate, the family will bring a suit against the whole of the property,” Robert said.
Varanus almost burst out laughing and exclaimed, “Surely that will do you no good, Cousin Robert. I am my father’s sole heir, and he his father’s sole heir. And what is more, there is clear evidence that my father willed the whole of the property to me.”
“But is there proof that your grandfather willed it to him?” Robert asked.
“I…” Varanus began, but suddenly paused. Had she confirmed that in France? She had been so concerned with Father’s papers, with taxes, bills, the company.… But surely, Grandfather must have had a will, and to whom else would he have left it but Father?
After a moment, she rallied and answered, “Of course there is. But that is beside the point. I am the sole inheritor, just as my father was before me. There is no just cause for you or any other member of the family to make claim upon the property.”
“That is likely true,” Robert said. “But it does not matter whether the case is upheld or dismissed in the end. The family can and will protract it, both here and in France, until it becomes an unbearable burden upon you.”
“What?” Varanus demanded, suddenly feeling dizzy with shock and anger. “How dare—”
“I told them that they should not do this,” Robert said. “I argued against it. I said that family does not behave so to family. And they told me that if you truly were family, you would agree to our terms without reservation. You would understand the reason for it.”
“I have had just about enough of this,” Varanus said. “Ekaterine and I are departing for London. Good day, Cousin Robert.”
She turned and walked to the door, seething with rage. How dare her own family threaten her? How dare they try to steal what was rightfully hers?
As she placed her hand on the doorknob, she heard Robert call after her:
“Cousin Babette, wait.”
Varanus turned back and asked, “What is it, Cousin Robert?”
“If you leave now, it will be the end,” Robert said. “The family will go to court to obtain the property.”
“I am a woman and a doctor,” Varanus replied. “I am accustomed to fighting.”
“Things need not end this way,” Robert said, crossing around in front of the desk. “I do not wish us to part in anger, and I hope that you feel the same.”
Varanus fixed him with a glare and said, “Cousin Robert, I have been threatened by my own family, which seeks to rob me of my birthright. How else ought we to part, if not in anger?”
“It need not come to this,” Robert said. “Nor do you wish it to, I assure you.”
“You act as if I have a choice in the matter,” Varanus said. “I have been given an ultimatum with no alternatives. I have been told ‘relinquish or die.’ And you expect me to stand here and accept it meekly?”
Behind her Korbinian murmured, “The Bible says that the meek shall inherit the Earth. Though what they shall do with it, I know not.”
Varanus glanced toward him and rolled her eyes, but the distraction was enough to disrupt the plume of anger that had been boiling inside her.
“There must be a compromise,” Robert said. “And together, we shall find it.”
“A compromise?” Varanus asked. The way Robert said it, the word sounded terribly suspicious. “What manner of compromise?”
“You wish to keep ownership of the property,” Robert said. “The family wishes it to remain in the hands of a Varanus. Stay a little while longer and together we shall sort out an agreement that satisfies both. And if in the end we cannot resolve this amicably, then at least you will have enjoyed some peaceful time in the home of your forefathers.”
Varanus looked at Robert cautiously. His face smiled, but his eyes did not.
“Well,” she said, “it does sound like a reasonable proposal. As family, we at least ought to try to find a resolution.”
“Then you’ll stay?” Robert asked.
“For a little while longer,” Varanus said. She paused and continued, “In the meanwhile, Cousin Ekaterine and I have plans to go for a walk on the moors. So, if you would kindly excuse me.…”
“Of course,” Robert said, nodding.
“We shall return in time to dress for dinner,” Varanus said.
She opened the door and slipped out into the hallway. She saw Korbinian leaning against the far wall, his arms folded and his mouth curving into a narrow smile.
“All’s well that ends well, liebchen?” he asked.
Varanus closed the door and said softly, “Oh, hush.”
“You don’t really trust him, do you?” Korbinian asked.
“Of course not,” Varanus murmured.
“Then why agree to his bargain?”
“For the simple reason,” Varanus replied, “that it gives me time.”
“Time for what?” Korbinian asked, taking Varanus’s hand and raising it to his lips.
Varanus smiled at him.
“Why, to find his weakness, of course,” she said.
Chapter Twelve
It was overcast when Varanus went with Ekaterine onto the moors. The afternoon sky was dark and thickly clouded, threatening but not delivering rain. Ekaterine had brought an umbrella just in case a storm broke, but Varanus did not consider it necessary. The air felt heavy, true, but she did not smell rain on the wind. It would be a few hours at least before the skies opened up. It might even wait until dinner.
They walked in silence for a while, strolling across rough and uneven ground as gentlewomen might do in a park. Varanus had enjoyed the coordination of the Shashavani—the unconscious anticipation of where to step and how to balance—for so long that she scarcely noticed it now.
As they passed the old weatherworn church, Varanus was given to wonder whether Mary and the boy where there now, carrying on their illicit tryst like it were nothing untoward.
Foolish girl, she thought. One could only risk pregnancy and escape it so many times before the worst happened. Varanus herself had done so when she was young. If only there were a means of halting the complication altogether, of making the acts of love as benign for a woman as for a man. That would be a great undertaking, Varanus decided. Whoever unraveled that secret would surely be remembered among the great benefactors of humanity.
As they walked up a hill toward the ruins of the priory, Ekaterine looked at Varanus and spoke:
“How did the meeting with our dear cousin proceed?”
Of course, she must have had some idea. Varanus had been almost livid when Ekaterine found her. But she asked the question calmly and casually, as if nothing were amiss—kindly allowing Varanus to dismiss the conversation with a few neutral words. Varanus appreciated it. Still, there were only two people in the world Varanus could confide in about such a thing, and Korbinian was nowhere in sight.
�
�Evidently Cousin Robert has consulted the other members of our family,” Varanus said. “And they are all arrayed against me.”
“I am grieved to hear that,” Ekaterine said. She placed a hand on Varanus’s shoulder and looked at her with sympathy. “But I am here.”
“And me, also,” Korbinian murmured in her ear.
Varanus almost jumped in surprise. Where had he come from?
“So,” Ekaterine continued, “they are not arrayed against you. They are arrayed against us.”
Korbinian walked around in front of them in a leisurely stroll that still managed to outpace them—courtesy of his longer stride, no doubt. He began walking backward, matching them step for step without stumbling.
“Indeed, yes,” he said. “They are arrayed against us. And we will stand firm against them with you.”
Varanus smiled at him. It was a wonderful sentiment from both of them. Just what she needed to calm herself at such a time, when it was all too easy to imagine that she was alone. Not that fighting alone frightened her, but it made her angry, dangerously angry. And now was a time when she needed a cool head.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Of course,” Ekaterine said. “But what do they intend to do? Your property is your property. Short of violent conquest—which, as I understand it, is illegal in England these days—what can they do?”
“They have threatened to tie the estate up in the courts,” Varanus said. “They claim that my grandfather left no will, and on those grounds they will challenge my father’s possession of it, and subsequently mine.”
“I thought that we examined all the papers in France,” Ekaterine said.
“We did,” Varanus replied. “All mountains of them. My father’s will clearly states that I am to inherit all that he possessed. Yet Robert claims that my grandfather left no document granting it to him. I know that Grandfather left me the company, the business assets like the ships and warehouses and stock. The bank accounts were left in my name, with a sizable allowance for Father—though I daresay he knew that I would have cared for Father regardless.”
“Isn’t that a bit odd?” Ekaterine asked. “For him to leave his company to his granddaughter rather than to his son?”
“It is,” Varanus said.
It would have been far more common to leave such holdings to a grandson instead of a daughter. Bypassing a male child in favor of a female grandchild was nothing short of extraordinary, and rather unthinkable as well. But then, Grandfather had always done unthinkable, extraordinary things. It was what had made him so successful.
“But,” she continued, “Grandfather, I think, always intended to leave the company to me. Even as a child, I had a better head for business and figures than my father, and Grandfather knew it. He remarked upon it more than once.” She sighed and shook her head. “And the trouble is, I paid so much attention to the matter of the company—which I assumed was most at risk—that I scarcely paid any mind to the property. I know that Grandfather did not leave it to me. I assumed it had gone to Father. But now.…”
“Your cousins may be lying,” Ekaterine suggested.
“I suspect they are,” Varanus said. “But the question is still there. And besides, even if the case is clearly in my favor, they will simply tie the inheritance up in the courts until it is too expensive for me to withstand. They will make the legal structure devour the substance of the inheritance like it is Jarndyce v Jarndyce and quite probably buy the estate anyway, once I am forced to mortgage it to pay my legal bills.”
Ekaterine frowned, eyes flashing with anger, as she often did when she felt that someone was being allowed to get away with something unfair. That was such a curiously stubborn point for Ekaterine: the question of fairness. Not right nor wrong, but fair, as if the Law had a duty to protect the weak and rein in the strong, when it so often did the opposite.
“Can they do such a thing?” she asked. “Will the courts really allow it?”
Varanus shrugged.
“I can hardly say,” she answered. “I learned long ago never to underestimate just what can be accomplished by corrupt and evil men when they put their minds to it.” She was silent for a short while before the most curious part of the whole affair rose from the back of her memory and into the forefront of her thoughts. “You know, the strangest thing about all of it is that they only want the estate: the house and grounds. There is no mention of the company or the accounts. They seem happy to leave those to me. But my Grandfather’s home—which, though both nostalgic and rather pretty, is likely to be little more than a drain on money—they desperately want. I know not what to make of it.”
In front of her, Korbinian smirked a little and remarked, “That is rather curious, isn’t it? You would think it to be the other way ’round.”
“Robert told me that the house is built on land that once belonged to the founder of our family line in the Middle Ages,” Varanus said, partly to Korbinian, partly to Ekaterine, and mostly to herself. “Perhaps it has something to do with that.”
“That sounds very sentimental of them,” Ekaterine said.
“It does, yes,” Varanus agreed. She shrugged and said, “And in the meantime, they have offered me a sizable allowance in exchange for giving them the property without a fight. It is rather insulting, actually.”
Ekaterine shook her head and said, “No doubt, being men, they assumed that as a woman you would give in to their demands without hesitation and thank them for the privilege.”
“Yes,” Varanus said, laughing. “You can imagine the look on Cousin Robert’s face when I refused and threatened to depart Blackmoor forthwith.”
“And are we departing?” Ekaterine asked.
“No,” Varanus said. “No, Robert insists that I stay so that he and I may work out an agreeable means for me to hold the property while keeping it in the Varanus family. I suspect he believes it possible to wear me down.”
“Then why are we staying?”
“Because I intend to wear him down,” Varanus said with a smile. “I will weather him until he breaks, like the tide upon the rocks.”
They reached the doorway of the priory, which stood open and barren, inviting them into the crumbling nave. The pillars and the remains of the vaulted roof rose around them, arcing against the sky like the ribs of some massive stone skeleton. The building must have been impressive in its day, for even in abandonment it overawed the viewer.
Varanus slowly walked the length of the nave toward the chancel, looking about her with fascination. This had once been the house of God. There was a time when it had been filled with the voices of monks, now long-dead, singing in praise of a Creator they could neither see nor hear, nor indeed had any proof of, save the words of men who had come and gone long before them. It was a place built with labor and toil, care and dedication, and at tremendous cost. Yet now it stood empty and forgotten, a Christian church no longer wanted in a Christian land.
“I am put in mind of Ozymandias,” Korbinian said, approaching from the side and standing next to Varanus. “Though I fear this land is more dreary than antique.”
Varanus chuckled a little and smiled at him.
“You and your Shelley,” she said. She looked back toward the altar and toward the now-empty windows that had once held stained glass. “But I suppose you are right. Once this was a great and awesome place. There was a time when it reminded people of God’s majesty merely by the sight of it, by the awe it inspired. Does it remind us of that still, I wonder? It does not feel so. If there is a God, how could He allow His house to fall into such a state?”
Korbinian gently kissed her temple and placed his arms around her.
“Do not be silly, liebchen,” he said. “This is not a house built for God, but rather for men who believed in God and who needed a place where they could pray and feel their prayers were being heard. But God does not live in churches, does He, liebchen?”
“Doesn’t He?” Varanus asked. She leaned her head against Korbinian and s
miled. “I had rather been taught that He did.”
“Nonsense,” Korbinian murmured, holding her. “God does not live in churches or priests or kings. He lives in the little things. The precious things. God lives in the morning rain, in the bird as it flutters its wings, in the wind rustling through the leaves. God lives in the laughter of a child and in the kind words of a grandparent. God is in mathematics and science, logic and reason.”
This last statement made Varanus smile.
“And God is in love, liebchen,” Korbinian said, leaning down and gently kissing her. “Never forget that wherever there is love, God is there.”
Varanus looked up at him, still smiling, and said, “When you say it, I almost believe it.”
“That must be because it is true,” Korbinian murmured, leaning down to kiss her again.
Varanus closed her eyes and felt herself fall into him, lost in the dizziness of the moment.
* * * *
Leaving Varanus to her own devices, Ekaterine meandered from the nave into the adjoining cloister. The roof of the arcade had long since rotted and collapsed, leaving the walkways exposed to the sky and the elements. Many places were overcome with moss or lichen. The grass in the center of the square was dreadfully overgrown and had been inundated with wild flowers and small, unhealthy-looking shrubs. The remains of the dormitory, the scriptorium, and the other monastery buildings surrounded the cloister, each in an equal state of ruin to its companions. Little remained of the monastery but a weather-beaten shell. And curiously—though perhaps not unexpectedly—the passage of time and the work of the elements had turned the stone dark and mottled, almost black in places.
It was a haunting sight to be sure, and Ekaterine had the sense that she did not want to be in such a place after nightfall. There was probably no real danger, but the imagination was a terrible thing under such circumstances.
A Cautionary Tale for Young Vampires Page 17
