by Anne Perry
Herbert thought about it for a few moments. “Italian nationalists,” he said thoughtfully. “Could be trouble there. Disorganized, though, in spite of Cavour and Garibaldi and all the unification stuff. Still quarrel like cats in a bag. Thought they’d quieted down a bit.”
“Perhaps,” Narraway said dubiously. “Do you remember in the past an Italian woman by the name of Montserrat?” He watched Herbert’s face for even the slightest flicker of recognition.
Herbert smiled a long, slow curl of amusement, his eyes bright. “Well, well,” he said with a sigh. “Serafina Montserrat. Why on earth are you asking about her? She must be seventy-five at least, if she’s still alive at all. I remember when she was thirty. Rode a horse better than any man I knew, and fought with a sword. Used to be quite good myself, but I was never in her class. Knew better than to try. Saved me from making a fool of myself.”
“Italian nationalist.” Narraway made it more a statement than a question.
“Oh, yes.” Herbert was still smiling. “But not averse to lending a hand to anyone who was against Austria, wherever they were from.”
“Openly?” Narraway asked.
Herbert looked shocked. “Good God, no! Secretive as a priest, and devious as a Jesuit too.”
“You make her sound religious.”
Herbert laughed. It was a purely happy sound, bringing to his face for a moment the shadow of the young man he had once been. “She was as far from a nun as a woman can get. Although I didn’t know most of that at the time.”
“How did you learn?” Narraway asked. “Perhaps more important to me, when did you learn and from whom?”
“From many people, and over several years,” Herbert replied. “She worked very discreetly.”
“That’s not what you implied,” Narraway pointed out.
Herbert laughed again, although this time it ended in a fit of coughing. “Sometimes, Narraway, you are not nearly as clever as you imagine,” he said after several moments, still gasping for breath. “You should have taken more notice of women. A little self-indulgence would have helped you learn a great deal, not only about women in general, but about yourself as well, and therefore about most men.” His eyes narrowed. “Too much brain and not enough heart, that’s your trouble. I think secretly you’re an idealist! It’s not pleasure you want—it’s love! Good God, man, you’re a total anachronism!”
“Serafina Montserrat,” Narraway reminded him sharply. “Was she a wild woman, riding and fighting beside the men, and sleeping with a good few of them, or was she discreet? I’m not here simply because I have nothing to do and need somebody else’s business to meddle in. This could be important.”
“Of course you need something to meddle in!” Herbert said without losing his smile. “We all do. I’d have died of boredom if I didn’t meddle in everything I could. The locals all loathe me, or pretend they do, but they all come to see me now and then because they think I know everybody’s secrets.”
“And do you?” Narraway inquired.
“Yes, mostly.”
“Serafina,” he prompted.
“Yes, she was as tough and skilled as most of the men, better than many,” Herbert responded. “Not really a beauty, but she had so much vitality that you forgot that. She was …” He seemed to be staring back into memory. “Elemental,” he finished.
Narraway could not help wondering how well Herbert had known her himself. That was a possibility he had not considered before. Was he asking for information about a past lover of Herbert’s? Or was that merely imagination, and a little wishful thinking?
“You have not so far touched on anything remotely discreet about her,” he pointed out.
“No,” Herbert agreed. “She seemed to be so obvious in her support of Italian freedom fighters that most people assumed she was as open about everything else. She wasn’t. I deduced, completely without proof, that she knew a great deal about Bulgarian and Croatian plans as well, and even had connections with early socialist movements in Austria itself. That last I am convinced of, but I couldn’t produce an iota of evidence to support it.”
“A clever woman,” Narraway said ruefully. “Bluff and double bluff.”
“Exactly,” Herbert agreed. He leaned forward in his chair, wrinkling his jacket. “Narraway, tell me why you want to know. It’s all water under the bridge now. You can’t and shouldn’t prosecute her for anything. And if you ask me officially, I shall deny it.”
Narraway smiled, meeting the other man’s eyes. Herbert’s thin cheeks colored very slightly.
“She is ill and vulnerable,” Narraway answered, wondering, even as he said it, if he was wise to do so. “I want to make sure she is protected. To do that, I need to know from what directions attacks might come.”
Herbert’s face lost all its good humor. “Attacks?” he snapped.
“The threat may be more imagined than real. That is why I need to know.”
Herbert sat still without answering for several moments, staring past Narraway to the rainswept garden, with its sharply pruned roses and budding leaves fattening on the trees. When at last he returned his gaze to the present, his eyes were clouded.
“I’ve realized how little I actually knew about her,” he said quietly. “She was a creature of intense passion. Everything done with a whole heart. I assumed I knew why, and what her loyalties were, but since what you need now is far deeper than that, I have only observations and beliefs to offer you—for what they are worth.”
“It will be more than the little I know now,” Narraway replied immediately. “First, is she image or substance, in your belief?”
“At first, I thought image,” Herbert said with an honesty that clearly pained him. “Then I came to believe there was substance. I am still of that opinion.”
“What changed your mind?”
“A betrayal,” Herbert said very quietly. “There is no point in asking me the full story of it because I don’t know. At the time I only knew of the execution, and that it was for plotting an assassination …”
Narraway felt a sudden chill. “An assassination?”
Herbert looked at him sharply. “For God’s sake, man, it was thirty years ago, and it didn’t happen anyway. The whole thing was abortive. The leader himself was captured, beaten, and shot. Most of the others escaped.”
“But Serafina Montserrat was involved?” Narraway persisted. “How? Are you skirting around saying that she was the one who betrayed the leader?”
Herbert was horrified. He glared at Narraway as if he had blasphemed. “No! She was all kinds of things: willful, reckless, arrogant at times—certainly promiscuous, if you want to call it that—but she would have died for the cause. It was only through a mixture of extreme skill and courage, and the loyalty of others, that she survived. And a degree of luck. ‘Fortune favors the bold’ was never truer of anyone than it was of her.”
Again Narraway wondered exactly how well Herbert had known her. Not that it mattered, as long as what he was saying was the truth, as far as he knew it.
“So she could be in danger?” he concluded. It was barely a question anymore.
“I don’t know,” Herbert said honestly, but there was more emotion in his eyes than Narraway could ever recall having seen there before. “It was so long ago, and from the standpoint of anyone in London, far away. Who do you know who gives a damn about Croatian independence now?”
“No one,” Narraway admitted. “But betrayals always matter. The time and place of them are irrelevant.”
“They do matter,” Herbert agreed. “Far too much to wait thirty years for revenge.”
Narraway could not argue with that. Almost certainly all the people concerned were dead, or too old to execute revenge anymore, just as Serafina herself was.
“Thank you.” He acknowledged the point. “Can you think of anyone else who might shed more light on the subject of why she is so afraid?”
“The current expert in that area of the Foreign Office is Tregarron. But yo
u know that. And, of course, for northern Italy, with which Serafina was most concerned, it is Ennio Ruggiero, and for Croatia, Pavao Altabas.”
Narraway got to his feet. “I’m much obliged.” He held out his hand. “Thank you again.”
Herbert smiled. “It’s good to see you, Narraway. I always knew you’d do well.”
“You taught me well,” Narraway replied sincerely. “I hope to hell I taught my successor as much.” He hesitated.
“Why do you say that?” Herbert asked.
“Did you worry about me?” Narraway asked him. “Whether I would succeed, whether I had the steel, and the judgment?”
Herbert smiled. “Of course, but I had more sense than to let you know it at the time.”
“Thank you,” Narraway said wryly.
“Wouldn’t have done you any good,” Herbert replied. “But you caused me a few sleepless nights—unnecessarily, as it turned out.”
Narraway did not ask him about what.
NARRAWAY WENT TO SEE Ruggiero, as Herbert had suggested, and spent over an hour without learning anything beyond what Herbert himself had already mentioned. Ruggiero was an old man and his memory was clouded by emotions. Italy was now united, and he wanted to forget the frictions and griefs of the past. He especially wanted to forget the losses, the sacrifices, and the ugliness of fighting.
Narraway thanked him also. To have probed and argued, perhaps caught the old man in lies, not of intent but of wishful thinking, facts covered over by dreams, would have benefited no one.
Next he went to visit Pavao Altabas and found only his widow. He had died recently, and Herbert had been unaware of it.
The widow was much younger than Pavao had been, and she knew nothing of the uprisings. The name of Serafina Montserrat meant nothing at all to her.
Lastly, he went to see Lord Tregarron, not at the Foreign Office but at the club where both were members. It was the end of the day and Tregarron was tired and unwilling to talk. However, Narraway gave him no civil alternative, short of getting up very conspicuously and leaving.
They sat opposite each other in armchairs on either side of a huge log fire. Narraway ordered brandy for both of them. The steward brought it with murmured words of apology for interrupting them, although they were not as yet in conversation.
“Leave us to talk, will you, Withers?” Narraway asked him. “No interruptions, if you please!”
“Certainly, my lord,” Withers said calmly. “Thank you.” He bowed and withdrew.
Tregarron looked grimly at Narraway, waiting for him to explain his intrusion.
“Damned long day, Narraway,” he said quietly. “Is this really necessary? You’re not in Special Branch anymore.”
Narraway was surprised how deeply the reminder cut him, as if his position had defined his identity, and without it he had no standing with those who had so recently treated him with something akin to awe. He hid his hurt with difficulty. If he had not needed Tregarron, he would have found a way to retaliate, even though, at the same moment, he realized that any retaliation would betray his own vulnerability.
He forced himself to smile, very slightly. “Which removes the responsibility from me, but does not take away the freedom to meddle, if I can do it to the good,” he replied.
Tregarron’s dark face tightened a little. “Am I supposed to deduce from your last remark that you are justifying some interference in foreign affairs that I otherwise might object to?”
Narraway’s smile grew bleaker. “I have no intention of interfering in foreign affairs, justifiably or not. But my concern is with information about the past that may prevent an action in the present of which I am uncertain, and I need to know more.”
Tregarron’s heavy eyebrows rose. “From me? You must know that I cannot tell you anything. Do not keep obliging me to remind you that you are no longer head of Special Branch. It is uncomfortable, and ill-mannered of you to put me in a position where I have no choice.”
Narraway kept his temper with difficulty. He needed Tregarron’s information, and he no longer had any means of forcing it from him, as Tregarron knew. It was this aspect of having lost power to which he was finding it hard to accustom himself.
“I am not seeking any current information,” he said levelly. He found himself suddenly reluctant to explain his reasons to Tregarron. “It is the general climate of issues thirty or forty years ago.”
“Thirty or forty years ago? Narraway, what the devil are you playing at? Thirty or forty years ago where?” Tregarron leaned forward a little in his chair. “What is this about? Is it something I should know?”
“If I should come to believe that it is, I shall certainly tell you,” Narraway answered. “So far it is only rumors, most of which seem to me more like overheated imagination. I wish to prove, or disprove, them before I bother anyone else with them.”
Tregarron’s attention sharpened. “Regarding what, exactly?”
Now Narraway had no choice but to either tell the truth, or very deliberately lie. “Certain whispers about a woman named Serafina Montserrat,” he answered.
A shadow crossed Tregarron’s face. “How on earth could she matter now?”
Narraway changed his mind about what to say next.
“Memories, stories,” he said fairly casually. “If I know the truth, or something close to it, I can dismiss them safely.”
Tregarron tensed. “Who is talking about Mrs. Montserrat?” he asked. “This all sounds like gossip. But it could be dangerous, Narraway. Damage can be done that is hard to reverse. You did the right thing in coming to me. I have looked into her past since we last spoke. She worked mostly in the Austro-Hungarian sphere. She apparently knew a lot of people, and was regrettably free with her favors.”
“But all years ago,” Narraway pointed out. He was surprised how much he resented Tregarron’s implication, even though he had never met Serafina himself. She was Vespasia’s friend. He took a deep breath before he continued. “I imagine most of the men concerned are also dead, and their wives, who might have cared, as well.”
“Would you like it said of your father?” Tregarron snapped.
Narraway could not imagine it. His father had been rather dry, highly intelligent but remote, not a man who would have been accessible to a woman such as he imagined Serafina Montserrat to have been. He smiled at the thought, and saw a flash of fury in Tregarron’s face; it was gone again so rapidly that he was not certain if it had been real, or his imagination.
“The thought amuses you?” Tregarron asked. “You surprise me. Would it have amused your mother too?”
That was a sharp wound, a territory Narraway did not wish to explore. “Of course not,” he said quietly, his voice tighter than he had meant it to be. “It is so far from the truth of what I was inquiring into that it had an oblique humor. No one’s reputation in that area is in jeopardy, so far as I am aware.”
“So what area is it to do with, then?” Tregarron asked, his face now all but expressionless.
Narraway chose his words carefully, thinking of what exactly Vespasia had said. “It is to do with political freedom, old plots and current ones regarding Croatia throwing off the Austrian yoke. And possibly northern Italy.”
“Perhaps you don’t understand me,” Tregarron said, now allowing a faint smile onto his face. “Serafina Montserrat must be in her mid-seventies, at least. According to what I have heard, she was reckless and something of a troublemaker. She created an unfortunate reputation for herself, although some of the stories about her are probably apocryphal. If even half of them are true, she was a highly colorful character, and a passionate Italian nationalist. She would have been quite capable of planning an assassination, and she had the steel in her nature to carry it out. However, so far as I know, she never succeeded in actually doing so.”
He crossed his legs, easing back in his chair a little, his eyes never leaving Narraway’s face.
“The only event anything like that,” he continued, “I heard as a story.
I’m not sure what truth there is in it.”
Narraway watched him intently.
Tregarron assumed the air of a raconteur. “A group of dissidents plotted to assassinate one of the leading Austrian dukes who was particularly vehement in his grip on the local government in northern Italy. It would be fair to say that he was oppressive, and at times unjust. The emperor Franz Josef has always been excessively military, but he used to be less dictatorial than he is now. Nevertheless, this dissident group planned the assassination of some duke—I forget his name—and very nearly succeeded. The plot was clearly thought out and very simple in essence. No clever tricks to go wrong, nothing left to chance.”
“But it didn’t succeed?” Narraway questioned him.
“Because they were betrayed by one of their own,” Tregarron answered. “They fled. It seems Montserrat was among those who fought the hardest to save them, but she couldn’t. She was wounded in the struggle that followed, and the ringleader was taken, summarily tried, and executed.”
It was the kind of bitter tale that Narraway had heard often enough, especially when he had been in Ireland. He thought of Kate O’Neil, and of the actions he had thought responsible for his own loss of office. And then, in spite of himself, he thought of Charlotte Pitt, of love, loyalty, and wounds that would ache eternally.
Was this what it was about, a retreat into ancient sorrows, coming back to haunt one in old age? Was Serafina going back in her mind to that time, or another like it? Could she have been the one who betrayed the would-be assassin, and now feared some final revenge? Or justice?
Tregarron interrupted his thoughts.
“What can this have to do with anything today, Narraway? I can’t help you if I don’t know what on earth you’re really looking for. Or why.”
“From what you say, I rather think it has nothing to do with anything today,” Narraway lied. “As you point out, she must be in her seventies, at least. That is, if she is still alive at all, of course.” He rose to his feet, smiling very slightly. “Thank you for your time, and your candor.”
BUT THAT WAS FAR from what Narraway thought as he rode home in a hansom through the wet streets, glancing every now and then at the cobblestones gleaming in the reflected lamplight.
