Coronets and Steel

by Sherwood Smith

  “All true,” I said, still wary, though there was nothing threatening about Tony. So far.

  “So, you met where?”

  “In Vienna.”

  “Vienna,” Tony repeated. “You were enjoying the sights? And . . . met up? By chance?”

  “Yep. He thought I was your sister.”

  “Of course. He’s been dashing around Europe on her trail for weeks. So you went to Split with him?”

  I sat up. “You knew about that?”

  “Wasn’t that the purpose?” he countered, lifting a shoulder in a slight shrug, as if the whole subject was not to be taken seriously.

  “Yes,” I said slowly, wondering how he’d found out if he’d been in England attending horse races, or traveling around Bordeaux looking for wine. Oh yes, he was notorious for losing cell phones . . . but he certainly didn’t sound out of the loop. And for that matter, why hadn’t he asked me before? The questions, so sensible, seemed odd coming now. “Alec thought if she was hiding and sulking, if she heard about me pretending to be her, she’d come out of hiding. Or whatever. I did it because it was fun and a free trip, and it didn’t seem as if it would do any harm.”

  “It didn’t strike you as peculiar, the whole business?”

  “Yep. Very.” I stood up to shake out my skirt, which had gotten crumpled and covered with bread crumbs. “But he said the reasons were political, which meant ridiculous.”

  He flashed a quick smile. “So you didn’t ask for any of these ridiculous political reasons?”

  “Nope. None of my business.”

  “Then you parted on bad terms?”

  “Why are you so interested?” I crossed my arms.

  “Wouldn’t you be?” He looked surprised. “Sister gone, intended inlaw—incidentally the, ah, current guiding hand, politically speaking—looking for her, at the moment a mysterious cousin pops up. So Alec didn’t find you, you were sprung on him by capricious fate.”

  “That’s it, though I’d reverse the pronouns.”

  “And you exchanged family histories . . . ?”

  “More or less.”

  “And secrets?”

  “Like what?” I asked militantly, daring him to throw Gran’s questioned marriage in my face.

  “Well, for one, the Dsaret treasure, which you might legally lay claim to. You, no doubt, have been asking him where he’s keeping it?” Tony’s elbow leaned on the stone armrest, his cheek on his hand.

  “A treasure? Never heard of it.”

  “Oh, naughty Alec.” He chuckled as a gentle breeze stirred through his hair.

  “You did say treasure? Tell me more.”

  “When it became clear the Germans were going to overrun us, a number of our former leaders put some effort into a secret project that I guess had been going on for some time: consolidating some holdings, liquidating others, usually those in distant, troubled areas of Europe.” He lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “All our families were doing it, to some extent. Alec’s father was particularly long-sighted—or his advisers were—in the matter of what to do with the cash when he got it. He invested everything. My family was not so keen in business. The king, before he transferred the reins of government to Milo, apparently converted his family’s wealth as well as the major portion of the treasury to some liquid form, and it was hidden. Only old Milo—young Milo then—was told its whereabouts.”

  “It still exists?”

  “Apparently. The Germans never found it, nor did the Russkis. It’s possible they never knew about it. At any rate when my mother married, she was given her portion. Or, so she was told.”

  “There weren’t papers, executors, that sort of thing?”

  “We are sometimes medieval in these parts.” He grinned, the long dimple flashing. “The lawyers don’t yet control everything. So you might well have a claim. I’ve no idea what the laws say about descendents of natural children and inheritance. The point is moot since, at present, Alec is the government.”

  “My parents are married,” I said slowly.

  I trusted Alec to a degree. I liked Tony, but that didn’t mean I trusted him, certainly not more than Alec . . . yet that stuff about the treasure was disturbing. If Tony was telling the truth, and there was a Dsaret treasure, and Alec knew Gran was the missing Dsaret . . . then why hadn’t he told me?

  What would Tony get out of a lie?

  Maybe it was time to give him some info. A fair trade.

  I said, “My grandmother was also married.”

  “What?” He paused, then continued to put the last of the items in the basket. “She married someone in Paris?”

  “No. That’s why I’m here—besides the look around. Gran never would have left this country with that man. Your—our grandfather. I’m the evidence she was with him, right? I know her. Have all my life. She would not have gone off with him unless they’d been married. So I’m here to find the record.”

  “There was no record,” he said as he fit the cork into the wine bottle.

  I shook my head. “Are you sure? Anything could have happened to it, what with the traveling and the war. They might even have married in Vienna, but I don’t think she would have gone with him then. Not Gran. Anyway, she wears a wedding band to this day.”

  I glanced away from my hands to meet his slack-lidded, indolent gaze narrowed to intent. His voice was still casual. “I take it you’re looking for proof?”

  “Yep. But I’m on the trail. Several trails. I was hoping you might get me past the gatekeepers to look at official records, for one of my trails. Are we going?” I added as he packed the wine bottle in the hamper.

  “Yes, but first, why don’t we give these to Nonni? She loves Pedro’s French tidbits, and her grandsons do also—” He stopped.

  A fall of sweet sound, silvery laughing music, echoed up the hill through the thick fir trees as if from another world.

  At first I thought it was from some fantastic bird. I ran to the low stone wall, ignoring the moss, and peered into the tangle of standing birch and wild climbing roses left for a century to ramble, twining up and over an ancient, freestanding stone portal. Golden light poured through in slanting rays between young trees, among which faces peered back at me. Not birds, but strange faces blended of green and brown, with tangled curls of bark for hair, and feral catlike eyes.

  The giddiness gripped me so hard every cell in my body seemed to shift, as if I rode through a silent earthquake. Then footsteps broke the weird spell, slamming me back a step or two. Sight: an old ruined door with medieval carving on it, blurred by moss and time, standing a way down a slope; sounds: the complicated arrangement of a violin concerto of Ernst Bloch’s, played on a wind instrument, and Tony’s leisurely step crunching grass and gravel as he joined me at the wall.

  “Sounds like Nonni’s grandson is home.” Tony smiled.

  “He’s—he’s good,” I said numbly, peering at the ancient door. No faces, only the dappled sunlight on leaves tossing in a gentle breeze. Fanciful.

  “He studies music at the temple school. Practices up here, usually when his father’s not around to complain about how little he works and how much he plays.”

  “That’s not play, that’s art.”

  “As you say, he’s good.” Tony cocked his head in the direction of Riev. “But we have a remarkable number of good musicians in our corner of the world, and his father feels that a steady paycheck as a carpenter is a better future. What were you looking at so intently? There are a lot of folktales about that old door.”

  “Like?”

  “Nonni told us stories about its being a magical portal. Ruli and I used to run back and forth through it when we were small. Trying to get to the Nasdrafus.”

  “You mean to Fyadar and his friends?”

  He laughed. “So you heard those old stories, too? Of course—your grandmother must have told you.”

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  “Nuts, insects, and leaves, exactly what you see now. Ruli got bored pret
ty fast, but I didn’t give it up as a bad job until Alec joined us the next summer, bringing Milo’s sensible rationalism to answer such questions as, if magic worked, why couldn’t it do something useful like save Nonni from the Gestapo?”

  As the unseen musician began again on the transcendently soaring piece, Tony remained by my side as we stared at the tangled wood; I was intensely aware of the slow rise and fall of his breathing below the white shirt, the fine scars, like knife cuts, on his long hands. His still profile as he gazed down at that stone doorway—no portal, only an old abandoned arch, its walls long rotted or tumbled down. This time I didn’t imagine any bizarro faces, but enjoyed the brilliantly played music accompanied by the sough of wind in fir branches, and by the far-off cry of birds.

  At the end he said, “Shall we go on your errand?”

  As we trod around the hunting lodge to the front where the car was parked, I sensed his gaze from time to time, though he kept an arm’s length away, out of my personal zone.

  Except my personal zone had widened, and I was aware of all the clues that add up to covert interest: he was watching me, and not idly.

  I shifted my focus to the wooded mountains all around, so thickly wooded they were blue. I glanced skyward, appreciating the clear air, the complicated woods scents, and the crunch of our feet in the gravel.

  Tony said casually, “What was it, ballet?”

  “What?” I felt that zap of nerves I get when I think someone is looking at me and it proves to be true.

  He lifted his hand in an arc. “The way you move. You studied ballet?”

  “Yes.” Without shifting one inch closer to me, he’d crossed from personal space to intimate space.

  I was so not going to go there with him.

  So I said the obvious, “There’s the car.” And the subject dropped as he politely held my door open for me.

  He vaulted over into his seat, fingers tapping lightly on the dangling key chain as I tied on my hat. Then he said, “Who’ve you discussed your search with?”

  “Mmm? No one. You’re the first.”

  “I’m honored, and I promise I shall give you whatever aid you desire.” He flicked my knee with his fingers—casual, even impersonal. The way he would to a kid, or an old friend. “How’s that?”

  “Great.” I sighed. “Thank you.” And, as we started back down the avenue of trees, I remembered Mina and her village. Maybe I could get Tony to take me, instead of finding my own ride. But how far away was it, and was it too late to descend on her unannounced?

  Tony rolled onto the road and began to accelerate.

  “It’s time to head back,” I said, as the afternoon rays began flash in slanting beams between the branches sheltering the road. “I do have my errand.”

  “I thought I’d show you one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” Surely he’d know where Dorike was. Wasn’t his castle on Devil’s Mountain?

  “The Eyrie. First built in 1210, everyone always says it’s a fascinating old pile. And the view from the towers is the best in the entire country.”

  “Oh! Sounds wonderful.” How perfect was that? Straight to his castle—and maybe we could stop at Mina’s on the way to it, or on the way back. “How long a drive is it?”

  “Not very.”

  As the road wound ever higher, the scenery opened into sudden vistas overlooking lacy waterfalls, plunging valleys that vanished into shadowy mystery, and striated cliffs that hinted at dramatic tectonic shifts millions of years before.

  Before I brought up Mina, time for a last test. “I know it’s none of my business, but how exactly do you and Alec disagree?”

  He shrugged. “Thought you weren’t interested in politics.”

  “No, but I am in people.”

  Shading his eyes with a long hand and driving with the other, he said, “Alexander and I have . . . let us say . . . two different plans for regaining our autonomy. He arses around without doing anything, like his old dad.”

  “Anything what? You mean social and fiscal change?”

  “No, I mean getting rid of potential trouble.”

  “Fighting? You can’t take on Russia—that’s like a gnat going after an elephant.”

  He laughed. “A gnat can bring down an elephant if he does it right,” he said. “Never mind. You’re interested in people, not politics, and I am interested in both. Tell me, did Alec send you here to make your search?”

  “No. He thought I went to Greece. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. It was no one’s business. Certainly not his.”

  “What? Even your people?”

  “Pe—oh, family. No, I’m not telling ’em until I know everything. How would you like to tell your mother that her brand new relatives all think she’s a ba—” I choked off the word and stared at Tony in total dismay.

  He flashed that rakish smile. “Bastard? No, I would not like to tell my mother she is a bastard.”

  “Dude! I’m sorry.” I grimaced. “I didn’t think about what it would mean. To your family. If he did marry Gran first.”

  “A proper cock-up, eh? Though it might be worth it, to see the expression on my mother’s face.” He laughed, hair tangling in the wind as he downshifted, and the car jetted up the narrow road.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I’D FINALLY MET Rupert of Hentzau.

  “It’s your timing,” he went on, pleasantly and kindly. As if we shared a big joke together. “If accident really landed you here just now—this month, this week, even—it almost makes me believe in cosmic forces, or at least in cosmic humor.”

  “I’m not here to cause trouble for anyone,” I stated.

  “But you already have.” His tone was unaccusing, even friendly.

  “Then I’ll make amends. On my own.”

  “I salute you for being so cooperative.” He flashed a grin at me, his teeth white and even, a reflected sun glinting in those black eyes which made them not lazy at all, but acutely direct.

  My danger sense—obviously hibernating until now in the Clueless Tent—finally woke up. Except there’d been no threats, no dire hints, not even any anger. We’d had a lovely picnic and pleasant conversation . . . but I was not on my way back to the Waleskas.

  So far I’d agreed to everything. On the surface, no trouble. Maybe it was time to make it clear I wanted to go back.

  He was driving faster, in spite of those lengthening shadows, accelerating hard on the straightaways, and taking corners with tight control and scarcely a touch of the brakes. The lowering sun’s rays slanted between lichen-boughed trees, splashing molten light in speckled patterns here and there in the deepening shadows. The grass at the verge blurred at our speed; the farther scenery changed like a fast-forwarded video.

  “How much farther is this Eyrie?” I asked.

  “Another half hour or so.”

  “It’s getting late, and Madam Waleska expects me. And I’d hoped to get my errand done before we returned.”

  “What is your errand?” he asked. “We’ll make time for it. I promise.”

  No way was I mentioning Mina until we were safely on the road back to town. “Tell me about the Eyrie?” I asked.

  “It’s built in four layers on top of the highest mountain in the country, which is called Riev Dhiavilyi. Oldest part of the castle laid down in 1210, with sections added every three or four centuries afterward. Portions of it are comfortable, I assure you. All the amenities—except, unfortunately, a phone. The cables, which aren’t reliable even at the best of times, were destroyed by some enterprising Russkis on a raid a few years back, and between one thing and another we haven’t been able to restore them.”

  “So is this a sightseeing tour, or—”

  “An extended visit to the home . . . lair . . . seat, depending upon your partisanship, of the blackguardly von Mecklundburg family. Full of history and scenic as bedamned. You’ll like it, I assure you.”

  “If this is an invitation,” I began.

  “Hey. Bear with me! I’m trying
to make it sound like one,” he returned, flashing another grin—all in fun, utterly without threat.

  But the wheel was in his hands, and his foot on the accelerator.

  Okay, I walked right into this one. I gripped my hands in my lap. Let’s see if I can walk right out again.

  “. . . a stream-fed pool, though the weather’s rarely warm enough for outdoor bathing,” he was going on. “And not long ago, to get ready for a visit from my whingeing sister, we hauled a DVD player and a few boxes of films and shows up there. Were you born in the States? I rather wondered if all that wank I heard repeated last night after you left was a payment in kind. Not that I blame you a bit, you understand. I think I would have done the same myself.”

  I said numbly, “I take it you’ve had your sister up there all along. No wonder you weren’t searching.”

  Alec, you were so right.

  “I get away whenever I can. Large as the place is, sometimes I need to put a country between myself and her bleating or I might have to, as my stiff-arsed British cousins say, extend the patio.” He grinned, taking the seriousness out of the threat.

  “Why stick her up there at all, since you don’t like her company?”

  “There we return to your detested politics, Cousin Kim. I would so hate to bore you.”

  “I wonder how you can look your poor mother in the face!” I remembered her reaction to me in the chapel: the shaking hands, the tense eyes. “What a crappy thing to do.”

  “She should be grateful to me for taking Ruli off her hands. You’ll give Ruli sympathy and company, and she’ll use you as a handmaid. And maybe—with any luck—you’ll help her discover a sense of humor. I do appreciate the lack of hysterical invective, by the way.”

  I kept my hands in my lap and my head averted, face as calm as I could manage, though I was furious. One thing for certain: if he was holding his sister, then having both of us would give him an edge over Alec that I did not intend he should have.

  So I had half an hour to think of an escape. When I did act, I couldn’t give him the slightest clue beforehand.

  Tony took the corners at enough speed to cause the car to lean. I hated the idea of jumping out and maybe falling down a cliff. But even if I didn’t fall, a sprint along the road wouldn’t do any good. He could stop the car and be after me in about five seconds flat. If he could run as fast as I could.