Thorn

by Fred Saberhagen

  At this meeting the king for the first time dismissed his soldiers completely. We were for all intents and purposes alone, there remaining in our sight only a couple of graybearded researchers at the end of a long gallery, doddering the remainder of their lives away over manuscripts.

  The young king’s smile lay thinly across his prominent jaw. “Drakulya, we have heard it said that you are a completely fearless man. Nor have we ever seen evidence of dread in you, not even on that first day when you stood before us in chains.”

  To my surprise, His Majesty had spoken not in Hungarian or Rumanian, our usual vehicles of discourse, but in Italian. His slow, mechanical pronunciation gave me the impression that he might have learned the little speech by rote.

  Puzzled, I bowed to him, and made shift to answer in the same tongue. “My life’s ration of fear was used up, Majesty, before I had a beard to shave.”

  Smiling, evidently pleased by my reply, the king relaxed the conversation into Hungarian. “The Turkish prison, yes. Well, it is the Turks who fear you now, Kaziklu Bey. I remember well the bags you used to send me, Lord Impaler, stinking to high heaven by the time I got them, filled with Turkish noses, ears … but never mind that now.” He paused. “There are certain Christians who dread you also.”

  “A few may have good reason, Majesty. Most certainly do not.”

  “And, by the way, we have sometimes wondered why it is that you have never presumed during these talks to remind us of our father’s friendship for you. It might be expected that a man in the position of a prisoner could hardly fail to do that.”

  I bowed again. “It had never occurred to me that such a friendship could possibly have been forgotten by Your Majesty.”

  “Ha. And some say you are no diplomat. Well.” And Matthias stared at me, thoughtfully, as only kings in the age of kings could stare, his eyes a regal gray above his still almost beardless cheeks. “Of diplomats we have enough at present. Of army officers too, it seems. Although rumor has it that the Sultan himself intends to lead his armies this year, in Bosnia, as I mean to lead my own against him … you see, I trust you with a military secret. Though I suppose it can hardly be a secret any longer. Oh, you are an excellent field commander, Drakulya. But if I gave you a command old jealousies would come to life again, old enmities would be rekindled. I have a lot of Germans in the Black Army, you know. In adding one fine leader, yourself, I would be bound to lose others, in one way or another … no, our army is not for you. Not right now. Yet we are loath to see you wasted in a cell.”

  I spoke impulsively. “Sire, I hear from my guards that the Holy Father is still preaching a Crusade, and still means to lead it in person. That the Emperor and Philip the Good have both pledged their support. If Your Majesty were to release me, secretly perhaps—”

  “You would follow the Pope?” Matthias immediately seemed interested, and my hopes leaped up.

  “I am a Christian, if no Catholic. The Pope has my respect. I will follow him if he will have me. Any attack upon the Turk should work at least indirectly to Your Majesty’s benefit.”

  But I had misinterpreted the king’s interest, which at the moment was not centered on the Turks. “Is it then not beyond the bounds of possibility, Drakulya, that for sufficient reason you might abjure your Orthodox faith and accept Catholicism?”

  I had no idea why the king should put such a question to me, but I could see that he was very serious. And of course it was not a question to be answered lightly. But after giving it some thought, I nodded my assent. “If that were how I might best serve my king—it would not be impossible.”

  Matthias gripped my arm. “Drakulya, it rejoices our heart to see your loyalty! Those intercepted messages, that sowed such enmity between us, and caused your imprisonment—I can see now that they were, as you said, a vile trick of your enemies. And now we will unfold to you our wishes, regarding your own immediate future.”

  Here the king paused, eyes fixed on mine. With my own heart rejoicing perhaps even more than his, I waited to hear his plan.

  When he went on, he was obviously choosing his words with great deliberation. “The service we have in mind requires a man well born, utterly loyal, and of the most solid judgment. He must be able to—how shall we put it?—inspire respect. He must also be able to follow orders. And to hold his tongue. To be utterly ruthless when the need arises. And he should have skill in arms—yes, that may prove to be of importance.”

  “I am honored that Your Majesty thinks I—”

  “But not in this so-called Crusade. That is a great folly. You hear garbled rumors about it from your guards. But we are informed by shrewd observers everywhere. No one is going to follow the Pope. What we have in mind for you, Drakulya, is something altogether different. It is not only an important matter of state, it also concerns our own family very closely.”

  The king, gesturing for me to keep up with him, began to walk, as he was wont to do when weighty matters were to be decided. I remained in close attendance. His voice fell to a whisper now, so that I had to bend my head to hear.

  “Drakulya, do you know how many sisters I have?” Of course everyone knows such things, and more, about his reigning monarch. But before I could fall to naming siblings, Matthias silenced me with a raised finger. Suddenly he was not so much a ruler as simply the young, worried head of a family.

  “I have a younger sister, Helen, whose name has not been mentioned in my family for two years. Her age is now seventeen. At fifteen she was betrothed to a Sforza. That would have made a valuable alliance. But she behaved with great folly, so that the engagement had to be broken off. She ran away with an artisan, if you can believe it, rather than marry into one of the great houses of Italy. When she was found, we had her put into an Italian convent, until we could decide what to do next. But it was the wrong convent, as it proved, so gentle a place that she had no trouble getting out of it and running away again.

  “A few months ago some Medici traders brought me the latest news of her. Quite unpleasant news, and they were too diplomatic to tell it to me directly, realizing that I must not be put in the position of having to take notice publicly of her scandalous affairs. But their report placed her in Venice … you can and must hear the sordid details later, and I will give them to you myself, if you agree that you are the man I need. As I think you are. I need one who will restore the honor of my crown and of my family—in one way or another—”

  Chapter Three

  “Because he’s a bloody murderer, and I want the world to know him for what he is. That’s why I did it. I waited till they brought the painting out so all the guards would be concentrating on it. I knew he wouldn’t press charges against me, he doesn’t want any more publicity.”

  Outrage and enjoyment made a heady mixture in Mary Rogers’ voice, and she talked as if she were familiar with their blended taste. At the moment she was seated in an awkward armchair in Mr. Thorn’s expensive Phoenix hotel suite, sipping from time to time at a can of beer. Her sturdy legs were crossed in their tight blue jeans.

  It was evening again, almost exactly twenty-four hours after Mary’s dye-throwing outrage. Over in Scottsdale, just a few miles away, the auction should be getting started just about now, doubtless under a heavily reinforced guard. Mr. Thorn was going to miss the bidding, which was all right with him. He had seen the painting, and he was virtually certain who was going to buy it. And even if by some chance the Magdalen should be bought by someone else, he could easily find out whom. It was not going to get away from him again.

  So he felt that he could afford the time to indulge his curiosity regarding Mary and her motives. He had the habit of thinking, whenever anything bizarre happened nearby, that it was somehow meant for him. Quite often he was right.

  Lounging near the window now, he glanced out through his new polarizing sunglasses at the last fading tinges of a gory sunset. Clouds were hung theatrically above a distant reach of desert, studded with a few Hollywood mountains. From the twentieth floor, a
lot of distant scenery was visible beyond the smoky metropolitan sprawl.

  “You can bet I didn’t know what she was going to do.” This was the voice of Robinson Miller, Mary’s young man from the auction room, who had turned out to be her lawyer also. He and Mary, Thorn understood, had encountered each other on some pathway of the legal jungle into which she had been parachuted by her accidental connection with the infamous Seabright murder-kidnapping; and they had been getting better acquainted ever since.

  “Completely irrational behavior,” Miller added now, drilling Mary with a stern look that she did not seem to feel at all. From what Thorn had seen of her lifestyle so far, it was hard to estimate whether she needed friend or lawyer most.

  Last night as Mary was giving the police her name, address, and phone number, Thorn had been nearby, although she had not seen him. Today Thorn had called her up—Miller answering the phone—and had invited her up to his suite for this evening chat, saying there were matters of mutual advantage to be discussed. Yes, certainly, she was welcome to bring a friend along to the hotel lair of the mysterious stranger; and so it was that her legal adviser and probable lover sat beside her now in another chair constructed like hers at disabling angles, sipping a glass of ginger ale and ice and puffing at a large-bowled pipe.

  “What I really wanted,” Mary announced now, “was to get hold of some blood.”

  Mr. Thorn, who had been paying only desultory attention, forgot about the scenery and took off his glasses long enough to give her an intense look. It took him a moment to realize what she had meant.

  “At first I thought maybe I’d use beef blood. But then I realized that it wouldn’t be appropriate to throw anything real on him. Except maybe some real acid.” Mary gave a bright giggle. “So it was just that stuff they use in movies, harmless. A friend of mine who works in a studio got hold of some for me.”

  “The dry cleaner found it interesting,” commented Mr. Thorn. “A type of stain with which he had never had to deal before. But it came out of my suit quite easily.”

  “Your—?” In a second Mary’s mood changed to regret and horror. “Oh, I’m sorry! I hadn’t realized that any of the glop hit you. Is that why you wanted me to come up here? No, of course not. Look, I really am sorry.”

  “Your apology is accepted. Think no more of the matter, I was not harmed. And it is fortunate that the painting sustained no damage either.”

  “Yes, fortunate,” concurred the lawyer. Taking his pipe from his mouth, he made fencing motions in the air with the curved stem. “Ah, you mentioned some matters of mutual advantage?”

  “I did.” Thorn smiled at them both, then addressed himself mainly to Mary. “It is to my advantage to learn more about Mr. Ellison Seabright. It may be to your advantage to help me do so.”

  “Whom do you represent?” Miller asked quickly, before Mary could respond.

  Thorn turned to him. “Only myself. Therefore any information you may give me will go no farther.” After a pause he added: “You may be confident also that none of it is likely to be used to Mr. Seabright’s advantage.”

  His visitors exchanged a cautious glance, and slight shrugs. Then Mary asked: “What sort of things do you want to know?”

  Mr. Thorn moved a little closer to his guests, taking a seat on a sofa opposite their chairs, his lean hands clasped before him. “To begin with, whom do you accuse Mr. Seabright of having murdered?”

  “Mary,” Robinson Miller cautioned, shaking his beard at her.

  Mary took another sip of Coors and ignored legal counsel. “He killed his half-brother, Delaunay Seabright. And Helen, his own stepdaughter. You must have heard and read about those killings, they made news all over the country. Oh, I don’t mean he did it with his own hands. But you can bet he was involved.”

  Thorn allowed himself a pained frown, and objected gently: “Were not the police of the opinion that Helen was killed by men trying to abduct Delaunay for ransom? And that Delaunay himself died almost accidentally, though while he was in the unknown kidnappers’ hands?”

  Mary brushed back her wayward hair. “I bet they weren’t unknown to Ellison. I was there that night, when Del and Helen were killed—was I ever there. And I know what I saw. And I know that Ellison’s no good.”

  “Kid,” warned Miller, hopelessly.

  Thorn nodded to Mary. “When I learned your name, I of course could place you as the escaped hostage of the news stories. But your claim that Ellison was implicated comes as a surprise to me. Have you any evidence that will support it?”

  “No, if you mean legal evidence,” said Mary, dismissing the idea. “Do you know the family at all?”

  “Only through the news accounts.”

  “Well.” Mary looked at her lawyer at last, then back to Thorn. “Excuse me, but just what good is all this going to do you?”

  Thorn was not at all sure of that himself, but he was interested. He said: “I find myself in the position of being Mr. Ellison Seabright’s rival. Therefore I wish to learn everything of importance that I can learn about him. If, as you say, he is really involved in murder, that is certainly an important fact.”

  “You’re his rival as an art collector?”

  “Exactly. Now can you explain to me just what he stood to gain from his brother’s death? Or from the girl’s?”

  “His half-brother,” Mary corrected, as if she thought the difference had significance. “What did he gain? The chance to buy up Delaunay’s collection, at least the part of it that he really wanted. That’s what he’s doing over in Scottsdale right this minute. Look, poor old Del hated Ellison. He wouldn’t have given him the sweat off … so according to Del’s will, Helen was to get it all. She was the closest family he had, that he cared anything about. Del’s own wife died years ago, and they were childless.”

  “You say he left all to Helen. His half-brother’s step-daughter.”

  “Yes. I don’t suppose she ever knew about the will. He was always nice to her but I don’t think she appreciated him very much. In some ways, I have to admit, Helen could be a snotty little bitch.” It was said much more in affection than in anger. Mary gulped beer audibly. “She was still a minor, only seventeen. So everything was to be held in trust. Right, Robby? And if Helen predeceased Del, or died at about the same time, which was the way things turned out, then everything in the collection was to be sold at auction, proceeds going to a charitable foundation Delaunay was setting up. Except—”

  Here Mary broke off with a sigh, an unexpected, hopeless sound. Miller was shaking his head again.

  “What?” Thorn prompted.

  Mary said: “The Verrocchio, that’s what. It’s really mine.”

  Miller said quickly: “I think Mary is quite right, I mean I believe what she tells me. But of course legally, again—”

  Mary interrupted him. “You see, Mr. Thorn, I lived there in the Seabright house for a couple of months before the night of the killings. And two weeks to the day before he died, Delaunay Sea-bright stood there with me in the midst of his collection, and told me that Verrocchio was mine. I didn’t know what to say, how to react. Then he got sick, and that meant there was a delay in making the gift official, and evidently he never mentioned it to anyone else before he died. Or if he did, no one is going to admit it now.”

  Thorn made no attempt to hide his doubts. “You say he simply gave you the Verrocchio.”

  “I know it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to believe, that anyone could be so generous. ‘This is yours now, Mary, I want you to have it.’ Those were his words.”

  “You told this to the police?”

  She glanced at Robinson Miller once more. “Yes. Or I tried. For all good it did me. We’ve never tried to file any kind of legal claim, since I have nothing to support it.”

  Thorn could not tell whether she was fantasizing or not He felt sure she was not simply lying. He asked, in curiosity: “What would you have done with the painting, Mary? If it had actually come to you?”

&nb
sp; Her laugh was surprisingly gentle. “Why, hung it over Robby’s Salvation Army sofa. No, I’d have sold it, of course. I would have hoped to be able to sell it to some museum, where everybody would be able to see it for a change … Del didn’t care for museums, you know, he thought they were more arrogant and greedy than anybody else. The people who run them … did you get a chance to look at the painting closely? It’s really so beautiful.”

  “I agree.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t have sold it to that creep who’s got it now. I’d have made sure he never got his hands on it, and I’m sure he knew I felt that way.”

  There was a little silence. “May I refresh your drinks?” Thorn offered.

  “You see,” Mary explained suddenly, “I got to know Del because I helped out his niece when she was a runaway. I met Helen in Chicago, when she was ready to give up being on the road. I was a kind of official social worker then.”

  “You were a nun,” her lawyer interjected.

  Mary gave him a glance. “I hadn’t taken my final vows. Anyway, I was able to help Helen get her head together somewhat. Delaunay appreciated that, and at his request I wound up living with them here in Phoenix for a couple of months. Helen’s parents came along too, at his urging. The old man was grateful to me for helping Helen, that’s all there ever was between us.”

  “I see.” Mr. Thorn considered Mary’s lush figure, the full veins in her throat. He was unsure whether he ought to envy the young lawyer with whom she was apparently living now, and/or feel regret on behalf of the dead old man who had been only grateful. There wandered into his mind the image, thin and dark, of the other attractive woman who had been at the auction room. Stephanie Seabright, mother and sister-in-law respectively of the two victims. A woman desperately wanting to be young, to start over, perhaps, somehow…

  Mary had paused for a full breath. “Excuse me, Mr. Thorn, but you’re not an American, are you?”