"Does it?" Saint-Germain asked in Magyar, as if appealing to their shared Hungarian heritage; he was unimpressed at this attempt at intimidation. "I would have thought that I have done so." There was an ironic shine in his eyes.
"How do you reckon that?" Rakoczi said more pugnaciously, still in German.
Saint-Germain continued in Magyar. "I have said, on those occasions when I have been asked, that I have only done what is required of me, and that until Ferenz Ragoczy himself can be located, alive or dead"--a faint smile fluttered at the corners of his mouth--"the matter must remain unresolved."
"Why does that help me?" Rakoczi asked indignantly in German-accented Magyar.
"I have done everything that law and honor compel me to do were we in Hungary: nothing less and nothing more." He was about to continue when Zozia stood up.
"Both of you--stop. Unless you want to give fuel to more rumors, you will say nothing more." She pushed Saint-Germain on the shoulder. "You are here to promote Polish goals, not to dispute the titles and estates of a missing Hungarian nobleman."
"You are right, Ksiezna," said Saint-Germain, and glanced at Rakoczi. "If you must press your arguments with me, another time
would suit both of us better than doing anything now." Rakoczi looked about the room as if he had been unaware of the attention they had attracted. "For you," he said, recovering himself and bowing to Zozia, "I will withdraw. But only temporarily. I will have answers." Without any acknowledgment of Saint-Germain, he turned on his heel and left the room.
"How dare he snub you!" Zozia exclaimed, ignoring her own stricture.
"He dared quite readily," said Saint-Germain, sounding amused. "And no doubt he has accomplished his purpose."
"What purpose would that be? He said he wanted to dispel rumors. Nothing he did here will have that result." She sat back down and pulled at his sleeve to urge him to take the other chair drawn up at the small table. "For the sake of the Holy Angels, sit down, Hercegek. Everyone's staring as it is."
Settling into the chair, he took one of her hands in his. "I think that he has no reason or inclination to dispel rumors; in fact, I think his intention was to prime the rumor-mill with more grist," he said in Polish, fairly softly. "You may believe what he told you if you like, but to me he is all of a piece."
"You mean you think he's deliberately deceptive?" Her question was genuinely shocked.
"Why is that so astonishing to you?" he inquired gently.
She fixed him with her stare. "What makes you think he is deceptive?"
"He speaks Magyar badly, and from what I could tell, he does not speak Romanian at all," said Saint-Germain. "Yet the inheritance he says is his is in Transylvania. You would think he would know Romanian at the least."
"He might be from another part of the country originally. He is a nephew, not a son," she said. "It wouldn't be the first time a man came to his inheritance as a stranger."
"Would you say the same if he were Polish?" Saint-Germain inquired quietly. "Would you question his assertions more closely then?"
"Until he explains his reasons, I see no reason to condemn him;
he wouldn't be the first man to come by his inheritance early," she said. "You said yourself that his mistake could be an honest one; the Grofok is rumored to be a great traveler, as you yourself have said. I can't bring myself to discredit his explanations."
"Because you admire his bravado, or his dissimulation?" He was about to rise, but Zozia laid her hand on his to stop him.
Color mounted in her face, and though she managed to keep her voice low, her eyes blazed. "If you mean that I must occasionally avoid the truth for the sake of my mission, that's entirely different than what you're implying."
"No; you do not lie to gain position and wealth for yourself, but to secure your country." He looked at her plate of unfinished food. "If you would eat a little more, most of the guests will pay us no more notice."
"And are you going to pretend to drink from the tankard?" Zozia asked, too sweetly.
"No; if I did, Piotyr would probably order it filled, and then things could become unpleasant." He reached over and tweaked one of the curls that hung down beside her ear. "You know how to conduct yourself in these sorts of circumstances: you can hardly blame Rakoczi for seeking an early conclusion to the problem, but all that can be done is being done, and everyone knows how slowly these issues are concluded."
For the first time this evening her laughter was untouched by anger. "I know precisely how that game is played, and for once I'll relish my role in it," she said, anticipating a lively evening of misdirection. "I'll extend every sympathy to Rakoczi, but point out that your situation demands that you present your information. I should have most of the Foreign Quarter concurring by the time the sun sets tomorrow."
"I am most grateful, Ksiezna," he said. "Why not begin with Colonel Broughton?"
"You mean he's here?" She looked around in some alarm.
"Yes, he is here," said Saint-Germain, puzzled by her response. "Did you think he would not be?"
"It's not that," she said hurriedly. "There is something I don't want to have to ... He's been deeply caught up in plans with Benedykt." Belatedly she started to eat again, selecting the sausages, picking them up in her fingers, as she was intended to do.
"Why would you not want to talk to him, if that is the case?" He could see her jaw set as she listened. "You need not tell me if you would prefer not to, but it may be wiser to take me into your confidence a little, so that I may continue to serve your purposes. If I am not familiar with your intentions, I might, accidentally, put you at a marked disadvantage."
She swallowed very slowly. "It would be easier if I knew more about you. I know you're Hungarian, a Grofok, and have good reason to cooperate with Poland, but--"
"It is burdensome to have such secrets between us, I understand, and I chafe at the restrictions as well as you do," he said at his most reassuring. "But they are conditions of our mission, and we are constrained by them."
"Do you really know that Grofok Saint-Germain is alive--"
"Oh, yes."
"--or are you trying to interfere with his heir?" It took all her audacity to ask, and she held her breath as he answered.
"I have good reason to suppose that this Rakoczi is not all he claims to be."
"Because his uncle is alive?"
"That is one way to put it," he said, and would have added more, but he lifted his head to see Colonel Sir Peregrine Broughton coming toward them, a brimming tankard in one hand, a glass of Champagne in the other.
"Ksiezna! The Czar said you might be thirsty," he cried in German as he held out the glass to her.
Zozia took the glass and set it down next to the half-empty one. "I've been enjoying the Czar's table and have neglected his Champagne." She reached for the half-empty glass and hastily drank it down. "There." She smiled at Saint-Germain. "You and Colonel Broughton must have matters you want to discuss, so I will excuse you."
Since there was nothing for Broughton to do but accept his dismissal, he bowed, smiling, his regimentals as grand as dress occasions could make them. "Rest assured that you and I will share a libation later this evening, Ksiezna." He turned to Saint-Germain. "Well, Hercegek, shall we get to it?"
"If you like," said Saint-Germain as he picked up his empty tankard. "That alcove there, behind the baskets of bread?"
"That gives an excellent view of the room. Yes, it will do." He half-bowed to allow Saint-Germain to proceed him. "And you can tell me what you know about the condition of Count von Altenburg," he said in English. "As you can imagine, the tales of his imminent demise are all over the Foreign Quarter."
"He has a high fever and putrid lungs, which is serious but not necessarily deadly," Saint-Germain said automatically.
"And the rumors of an epidemic--would you say they are groundless?" Broughton asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"I would say that in this place, with conditions as they are, it is possible that we will see more of the disease--what the Italian physicians at Padova and Bologna would call
l'influenza,
due to the insalubrious alignment of the stars. I would recommend care with any sign of sickness." He could read the lack of interest in Broughton's eyes, and an underlying uneasiness that revealed an unspoken urgency; he looked directly at Broughton. "Now, Colonel, what do you really want to know?"
Text of a report from Heer van Hoek to Nikolai Evkareivich Fet, Captain of the Sankt Piterburkh Guard, carried by a Guardsman.
To the most distinguished Captain Nikolai Evkareivich Fet, the physician-anatomist Lodewick Kerstan van Hoek sends this report from the care-house.
My esteemed Captain Fet:
It is my unhappy duty to inform you that the spread of the feverish
influenza
continues to spread, and it has become a serious problem among the supervisors of the work-gangs. We now have sixteen men
at the care-house suffering from the disease, and each one of them reports that the disease is rife among the work-gangs, for although most of them are working indoors through the winter finishing buildings to be occupied as soon as the thaw sets in, they are exposed daily to cold and the company of those who already carry the cough and aching muscles that mark the illness. Here at the care-house we are struggling to give the attention needed by these men, but it is proving difficult, and is unlikely to get better before the end of the year, and may, in fact, continue until the thaw.
I fear that the disease has already become prevalent among the residents of the Foreign Quarter and the Russian people of the city. I mention this because my colleague, Hercegek Gyor, has offered to take on the task of visiting the sick in their homes and treating those members of the households, including servants, who show signs of having contracted the condition. He has various treatments to offer, and can assure you of some success in treating the condition, so long as there is no cough or constant flux in the symptoms. If you will provide him an escort and the permission of the Guard and the Metropolitan to do this, he will take up his rounds at once. If you are not inclined to permit this, I must warn you that there is insufficient space here at the care-house to accommodate all those who may contract the
influenza.
We have also had an increase of supervisors and servants with frozen fingers and toes, and also a few noses. If putrefaction is not to set in, such frozen parts as turn black must be removed, or the person will die. At the moment, we have seven cases of frozen extremities recovering from surgery, including two Watchmen who have been patrolling at the third and fourth levees. Also the coachman for the Dutch clock-maker has had his nose and ears removed, and I am by no means sure that the man is yet safe from danger. I have heard, but I do not know of my own witness, that many of the men in the work-gangs, if they show signs of freezing, are dispatched as being useless, and their bodies disposed of in the deep holes sawn in the ice. If this is true, it is a deplorable practice and one I must urge you to make efforts to stop.
For the last four weeks, we have treated no more cases of Swamp
Fever, which is a favorable development, one of the few for which we may thank the cold, for Swamp Fever is inactive when there is ice on the ground. I pray it will not return until May, for it most certainly will be back again. For now, I encourage you to insist on boiling linens and blankets at least once a month through the winter to check the spread of fleas and bed-bugs, which seem to be everywhere. This may not stem the tide of the epidemic disease, but it is likely to increase the haleness of the population and thereby reduce the number of people tending to be subject to infection.
Although the care-house has a devoted staff, Ludmilla Borisevna Svarinskaya and I have decided that we need at least four more men to assist us. Those we have are over-worked and two of them are sick themselves, and one other has died, so none of the three can be of help to us in our work just now. With another four men, we could maintain the level of care we have been providing through the dark of the year. Without additional help, however, if we continue to receive more patients here, the quality of attention we will be able to give must be curtailed, and that, as you must realize, is something none of us can want. Hercegek Gyor has already provided his manservant to help us, and his personal messenger, Yrjo Saari, who was once a Watchman before he was injured in an attack. The Hercegek is already covering most of our expenses from his own purse, so I am loath to ask him to extend himself further. I require you to consider this request as one intended to benefit everyone in this city. Heer Bourgdrei, the recently arrived Resident from Flanders, has offered his under-steward to help us for half-days as a gesture of community support, but this is not the sort of continual assistance we need for the next year or two, until trained nurses may be found to work here.
The six men who have been brought here for treatment for injuries inflicted upon them by gangs are generally improving, except one, who is blind in one eye as a result of the attack he sustained; it is unlikely that he will be fit to return to his barrack for several weeks at least. He has also claimed that the comrade who was with him must have frozen to death, for no Watchman and no Guard has found his
body, and he remains missing. This may not be the time to search, but once the spring arrives, it would behoove you to arrange a squad to find those hapless men who died in the snow. I fear you may find more of them than you presently anticipate.
At the moment all our beds are full and we have brought in an additional nine pallets for those we have taken in beyond our usual limits. We have food enough for all the patients and our reduced staff to last into January, but then we must have more smoked meats and pickled vegetables, or some of our patients may begin to starve. I ask for your consideration when your midwinter supplies arrive from Moscow, for the men who are our patients surely deserve help from you and the garrison as much as from our staff and Hercegek Gyor.
