"This care-house or Sankt Piterburkh?" she asked as lightly as she could.
His answer was utterly sincere. "It is hard to take my leave of you, Ludmilla Borisevna." He touched her face with a kind of reverence.
There was a sadness in her eyes as she moved away from him. "Hroger will return in a short while. There isn't enough time for us to take our pleasure of one another, and almost everyone in the house is awake. This is too risky."
He nodded. "It is. But it may be the last chance we have, if you are willing to share your passion with me one last time."
"Then tonight, when I've done my first rounds, I'll come to you." Her face shone with anticipation and she reached out to touch his hand. "You have such beautiful hands. I never thought much about the beauty of hands until I met you, but now I think you have--" She picked up his hand and brought it to her lips. "You've given me much joy. I'll never forget it." Silently she began to weep.
He reached for his handkerchief and gave it to her. "You need not cry on my account," he said gently.
"I'm not," she said, and sniffed. "I'm crying on mine."
Saint-Germain half-sat on the arm of the chair, and drew her close to him. "Tonight I will do all I can to ease your grief."
"And make it that much sharper when you are gone," she said with a mournful attempt at a laugh. "But I'll be glad of your attentions and all that you may give me; everything you have offered me thus far has gratified me in many ways. You have done more to bring me pleasure than any man I have ever known, and I will treasure having known you until I'm an old woman, sitting by the fire, toothless and dreaming." She shook herself, and continued more brightly, "My family is quite long-lived. I may reach sixty-five, or seventy; my father is sixty-one and still hale. I'll have many years to remember you and all you have done for me."
"Do you think you will ever return to your father's house?" Saint-Germain asked.
"Why do you ask?" She studied him with sharpened interest.
"It is my curiosity: I return to my father's lands, from time to time, though my father is long dead." His father had died more than thirty-seven centuries ago, but he kept this last to himself. "There is a
closeness to my native earth; I thought you might feel something similar."
"It's my father's land, not mine, and his house," she said with a touch of acerbity.
"And you do not think it will ever be yours," he said, understanding her response.
"I have brothers, and I'm still married, little as Daniela seems to remember it." She shrugged. "This will become my native earth, this care-house, and its legacy will be my legacy." Her eyes grew keener. "That is my reason for caring for the men who come here, to have a legacy of some value. Van Hoek has been engaged by the Czar and promised a school where he may teach anatomy; it will be built within the decade, according to Piotyr Alexeievich's plan, so it suits him to care for these men, in that it keeps the Czar mindful of his promise while building a reputation in this city. But why do you bother with these patients? What does it benefit you?"
He contemplated her questions, and finally said, "When I was much younger than I am now, I cared little for the suffering of others, and rarely extended myself on any account but my own." He had a miserable memory of an ancient battlefield through which he moved, seeking for those few living men on whom he might slake his thirst; his captors had considered him a demon, and feared him more than they dreaded their enemies. "In time I realized that every time I ignored the misery of others--particularly if it was misery I could alleviate but did not--that I ... died a little. So when I care for patients here, or anywhere; when I extend my hand to those in need, I do it as much for myself as for them. It restores my humanity."
"And what we have done together, what does that do?"
This time he took longer to answer. "When we have lain together, something more than our skins have touched. It is that other touching that makes the loneliness bearable." He touched her shoulder. "So you see, the joy you say I have given you, I have experienced through you--it is the greatest gift I can know."
"Then I am doubly glad you have come to this house." With a
sudden movement, she moved away from him and rose to her feet. "And speaking of this house, I have duties that need my attention."
"You need not leave if you would rather not," he said.
She gave him back his handkerchief. "I'll come around midnight, for our farewell, when the chances of interruption are fewer than they are now. You have much to do, and so do I."
He rose and offered her a bow. "You are an excellent woman, Ludmilla Svarinskaya. You deserve the high opinion of all Sankt Piterburkh."
"In your eyes, perhaps." She turned to leave, but hesitated. "You will be remaining here or going out this afternoon?"
"I am planning to go to the Guard Station of the Foreign Quarter in a while. Grofok Saint-Germain is there, and I have to inform Captain Fet of the hour of our departure tomorrow, if the weather remains clear, of course. I have to present my disposition of goods, for the Archive."
"It will remain clear," she said with complete certainty. "And it should stay clear for three days. That is the pattern here, according to the Karelians, and they should know this place best." She opened the door. "Until midnight, Hercegek."
"Until tonight, Madame," he responded as she left the room; he heard her descend the stairs, and felt relieved that he had told her as much as he did. He spent the next ten minutes finishing packing the red-lacquer chest, then he went to his trestle-table and opened the drawer that held his paper and writing implements; he selected a quill, trimmed it, sanded a sheet of paper, and started to write. When he was through, he went to his strong-box and counted out eighty gold Emperors and thirty silver Angels, all of which he put into a leather pouch, then tied it closed and slipped it into his large pocket. He went out of his quarters and down the stairs, pausing to take his wolf-skin cloak off its peg before he left the care-house.
"Is there anything I can do to help you, Hercegek?" Kyril asked as he came up to Saint-Germain.
"I am going to the Guard Station for the Foreign Quarter to fetch
Grofok Saint-Germain," he said. "I also have a letter to deliver concerning the disposition of the goods we will leave behind, and a year's endowment for the care-house."
"That will please Heer van Hoek and Ludmilla Borisevna greatly," said Kyril, taking a step back from him. "When will you return?"
"An hour at most, I would expect," said Saint-Germain.
"And you will leave tomorrow?" His voice was unusually emotional. "The patients here will be sorry to see you go."
"We must be gone before sunrise. Menshikov wants us on our way by eight o'clock." He watched him, his dark eyes enigmatic. "I am sorry to have to leave, but--"
"If Menshikov says it, it is the same as the Czar saying it; you have to depart." As if this was all he could bring himself to express, Kyril stepped back from the door, making way for Saint-Germain to step out into the cold, cold night. The street was so swaddled in snow its location was apparent only by the houses that lined it; as Saint-Germain made his way toward the Guard Station, he looked up at the tattered clouds sailing under a starry sky, and thought of the orders for the morning. Low-lying fog was gathering on the ice-bound Neva, and the first of its tendrils was slipping into the city, snaking among the buildings, and concealing more than the snow did, although it rose only to waist-height, no more than two hands above the snow; Saint-Germain was more careful walking, unable to make out hidden dangers beneath the mist and drifts. He was half-way to the Guard Station when he became aware of someone behind him. Knowing it was folly to try to run in thigh-deep snow, he stopped and turned. "Who's there?"
"It's Hroger, my master," came the answer in Visigothic Spanish. "I'm going back to the care-house. I saw you and decided to have a word with you--privately, where no one will overhear us."
"For what reason?" Saint-Germain asked; he knew Hroger well enough to intuit that it was something that could prove difficult for them both.
Hroger pointed to a dark object lying in the snow. "The traveling
trunk. When I went to get it from the stable, the Ksiezna's brother saw me and pulled me aside at the rear of the house."
"Why would he do that?" Saint-Germain asked, as much to himself as to Hroger.
Hroger gave a derisive snort. "He was not cordial in his manner, but instead took a tone that I would suppose he is inclined to use with inferiors and enemies. He accused you of having ordered Lajos Rakoczi killed, and of arranging to have the murder concealed, for which crime Stanislas of Poland would consent with the Czar in your execution, should your crime ever be revealed. He told me that if you contradicted any of this, he would accuse you publicly of all your malefactions." He waded back toward the trunk. "He has this warning for you: if you wish to avoid scandal and disgrace, you are to leave as you have been ordered to do, and not return. If you decide to come back to Sankt Piterburkh while the Ksiezna is still in the city, he will denounce you as an impostor and an abuser of his sister." He hefted the trunk and stared back toward the Polish house. "He said that your life would be forfeit if you returned."
"Another of his threats," said Saint-Germain, startled that Benedykt was being so persistent. "What will he do, I wonder, if the real Arpad Arco-Tolvay should return? Then it is the brother who would be in a most awkward position."
"So would his sister be," said Hroger. "I'll see this is packed and readied for the morning; don't worry: I'll say nothing about any of this to anyone, not even Niklos." He stepped into Saint-Germain's tracks in the snow. "You'll bring Niklos back with you from the Guard Station?"
"That is my intention. Thank you for your discretion."
"I've been wondering why Benedykt chose me to bear the message instead of addressing you himself," said Hroger, continuing on in the rutted snow.
"He probably wanted to frighten you as much as he wants to frighten me." Saint-Germain offered a half-bow to Hroger. "Is it possible that Benedykt bribed Lajos Rakoczi to leave as a way to force me to go, or is that too extreme?" He did not expect an answer. "Fet is waiting," he remarked; he watched Hroger lug the chest back toward
the care-house, lingering until Hroger knocked on the door before he resumed his walk to the Guard Station, all the while puzzling on what Hroger had told him. As he reached the Guard Station, he saw the station door flung open and heard one of the Guards shout to him to hurry out of the cold.
"Captain Fet will see you, along with Grofok Saint-Germain, to conclude the questioning that must be done." The Guard was a young man, not more than twenty, and he had a high opinion of his own importance, which he showed in the very slight bow he offered to Saint-Germain as he stepped over the threshold into the main room of the station. "Hercegek Gyor. Captain Fet is expecting you. The second door on the left."
"Thank you," said Saint-Germain as he removed his cloak and straightened his simple neck-bands. He found Captain Fet behind a square writing-table with two oil-lamps burning on it, casting their yellow light on the stack of papers laid out before him. His uniform was a bit untidy, but his posture was imposing; he looked up as Saint-Germain came into the room. "Captain," he said, making an elegant bow. "May God send you good evening."
"Amen to that," said Fet, and nodded to Niklos, who sat in a chair against the wall, very refined in black velvet and white silk. "Grofok Saint-Germain and I were just reviewing the terms of his recognition of claims along with his permit of residency, which expires in the morning." He gave Saint-Germain a piercing look.
"As does my own," said Saint-Germain. "I've come to deliver an official letter to you concerning my belongings." He reached into the pocket of his elk-leather coat and brought out the letter he had written less than an hour ago. "This details my wishes and records the various arrangements that Ksiezna Nisko and I have arrived upon regarding horses and furniture." He handed the letter to Fet. "You will need to present this to Jeremye Kristostomovich Belayov for the Archive of the Foreign Quarter. I have made a copy of it, which is at the care-house. I will entrust it to Heer van Hoek, to ensure that it is honored."
"Do you mean that you believe your letter would be altered?" Fet
demanded, greatly offended. "Hercegek, you have no cause to make such an accusation."
"No; but I know how easily how such items may be lost. This way, if the letter is mislaid, its contents may still be known." Saint-Germain inclined his head and waited for half a minute while Fet made up his mind whether to continue to be outraged or to accept Saint-Germain's assurance. "I rely upon you to attend to this for me." And saying that, he dropped two gold Emperors on Fet's writing-table.
Fet stared at the coins, then quickly snatched them up. "Of course; I will attend to it as soon as I have been informed that you have left Sankt Piterburkh."
"Most gracious," Saint-Germain murmured. "Now, if there is nothing more, the Grofok and I have much to do before tomorrow morning. If you would be kind enough to permit us to take our leave of you?"
"There is one more thing," said Fet with a self-effacing half-bow. "If you wouldn't mind clearing up another few matters."
Saint-Germain concealed his niggle of alarm. "What do you want to know?"
"It's the death of the former Watchman--Yrjo Saari? He worked for you, didn't he?" Fet shifted his papers on the writing-table. "The report here says that you have been supporting him since he was injured."
"That is correct. I was very much shocked at his murder." He paused, thinking back to the sight of his body. "It was a vicious killing."
