Another Scandal in Bohemia (35 page)

“What do barristers know of?” Tatyana asked, not moving as Godfrey roved around the table, thus forcing him close within her orbit. Even at my ignored distance I could inhale her heady perfume.

Godfrey smiled. “Horsehair wigs. Endless suits. Senile judges. The law’s delay and the client’s greater delay in payment. The injustice of justice. Some triumph, more defeat The pleasure of waiting, and sometimes of winning. None of this adds up to adventure, you will agree.”

“Perhaps.” She took his pewter mug and refilled it herself at the samovar, sipped from it, then replaced it in his hands, curling his fingers around the metal in a most familiar way, as if to warm them.

Godfrey’s eyes narrowed, a sharp expression that only enhanced the striking clarity of his features.

“You are dark-favored for an Englishman,” she commented, “but your eyes are light as pewter.”

“Common enough coloring for an English barrister,” he said.

“Not in Russia, where we do not have many barristers, but an immense number of judges, soldiers, and aristocrats.”

“And what are you there?” he asked suddenly.

She seemed taken aback.

“Are you Everything, or Nothing?"

“You know the answer,” she said, her odd auburn eyes as ruddy as the brew she served. “I was... a ballerina.”

He glanced to the huge painting over the fireplace. “You danced that role?”

“Later I danced many roles. They were all... Everything.”

“As dancing once was.”

She nodded, slowly, taking his cup between both her hands to drink deep of her own lethal liquid.

“You no longer dance?” he asked, and despite his wariness, sympathy tinged his voice.

“Not the ballet,” she admitted, thrusting the cup back at him and swirling away to regard the painting.

He set down the tainted cup. “An injury?”

“Yes. And no. An injury not fully physical.”

“Is any injury physical only?”

“No.” She turned. “Where did you learn that?”

“Not,” he said, “before the English Bar.”

“How have you transgressed?” she demanded suddenly and passionately. “What have you done wrong? Why can you no longer practice law in London? Why you do live in France? Why does your wife not keep a shorter leash on you? What do you hope to gain for the Rothschilds? What are you doing here in Bohemia?”

“My dear woman,” he remonstrated, “you must never rush your cross-examination.”

She had drawn nearer to him on every question. Now she reared back, reminding me of a snake.

“Rush?” she asked.

“Hasten.”

“I am... Russian,” she answered, her smile askew, “therefore I rush. Yet I never invade where I am not wanted.”

“I beg to differ. Russia has a habit of overcoming weaker nations. Consider the A
fghanis
tan adventure.”

“What do you know of that?”

“Only what I read in the newspapers. And what about the recent Naval treaty England parlayed with Italy. Was not Russia eager to interrupt it?”

Now
her
eyes narrowed, and it was not as attractive a sight as the expression was in Godfrey’s face. “How does a simple barrister living abroad know of such things?”

“I read the
Daily Telegraph,
and I work for the Rothschilds.”

“What can they pay you for such employment?’

“You would be surprised.”

“Nothing surprises me,” she swore, drawing closer, then gripping the lapels of his frock coat.

I stifled a gasp, knowing better than to interrupt such an illuminating scene, though it wracked my conscience.

Godfrey had grown very still, as a man might in the presence of a lethal serpent She leaned into him, against him. ‘I would surprise you, Mr. Barrister. I promise it. And I can offer you more than a Rothschild. I am Russian!"

“I believe it,” he said fervently, but whether he referred to her boast to outdo the Rothschilds or to her claims of nationality, I am not certain to this day.

Certainly something very odd was transpiring here. I itched to produce my notebook and jot down a few crucial notations. Irene would no doubt interrogate me as to every word employed when I reported on this encounter. I didn’t wish to miss a telling nuance. Yet I couldn’t doubt that this Tatyana considered herself powerful enough in the current political struggle that she could tempt Godfrey with the promise of turning traitor to her own cause.

She might make a useful ally, but hardly one whom we could trust. “Your sphere of influence is the King,” Godfrey pointed out; indeed, he seemed to wish to stress her improper alliance.

“The King!” she spat contemptuously. “He is... Nothing.”

“As am I,” he reminded her.

“Not if I say otherwise.” Her fingers twined in his lapels, wrapping themselves in the silk facing, as if to bend
him
to her wishes, twining herself into his presence.

She lifted her face slowly to his, swaying slightly, the fur ebbing over her bare shoulders, her eyes heavy and hooded. So I had seen Sarah Bernhardt enact a death scene... and some others.

He clasped her encroaching wrists. Odd. I saw his knuckles whiten, as if he exerted far more force than was evident.

“I am here,” he reminded her, “to inquire if you wish to aid the Rothschild interests.”

Her voice grew low, and slowed. She spoke as thickly as the potent “Russian tea” poured from the spigot of the samovar. “I wish to aid where I desire. If you would serve the Rothschild interests and have Bohemia serve them, you must first serve mine.”

“So little would turn you?”

“You mistake me. I do not dabble... in anything. I am an unforgettable ally, and a merciless enemy.”

“Do you threaten me?”

“With that? Never. Never... you.”

“Do you have as much influence with the King as you imply?”

“With more than the King! With the Czar.”

“Then you admit that Russia takes a deep interest in the doings of Bohemia and its King?”

“Yes!”

“Why'?”

“It does not matter! You have guessed as much. You are not stupid. I prefer you to be not stupid.”

“Is the King stupid?”

“Infinitely!”

“Yet you—”

“One is business; the other—”

“Yes?

She laughed then, lazily—at him, at herself, perhaps at anyone foolish enough to witness this bizarre cross-examination.

“The other is—” Her voice had sunk so low that he unthinkingly bowed toward her, as I leaned forward on my humble hassock to capture every word, every revelation. Was that not what we were here for?

She thrust her face up suddenly to his, whispered fast and warmly into his ear, her face avid, triumphant.

Godfrey drew away as from an attack, but the weight of her entire body hung from his shoulders, all that ponderous brocade and fur weighing him down.

A moment later conventional space intervened between them. I blinked, sensing the jaws of a steel trap released in some invisible fashion.

“I have told you all I can.”

She spoke in smooth, thick, sweet tones, then strode to the fireplace, leaning her forehead against the long cool marble mantelpiece. Above her the savage painted empress glared out on the room and its occupants in surly defense.

The fur swagged so low over Tatyana’s pale naked back that it was clear she wore no corsets. Her shoulder blades seemed as sharp and severe as a shark’s fins. I was shocked that a woman would reveal as much of herself to a strange man, even to a strange woman, but Godfrey seemed beyond shock.

He quickly came to me, took my elbow, and piloted me to the door, where the pert maid curtsied as she let us out. Of the sinister and slovenly man-servant, I saw nothing.

By the time we arrived in silence at the street, we saw that dark had fallen and gazed around us, baffled by such a natural occurrence after the unnatural atmosphere created by Tatyana’s rooms and presence.

“We should probably hunt a hansom,” Godfrey said. Then he turned to me, agitated. “Can you bear to walk, Nell? I feel the need of... air.”

“How close she kept that suite, everything overheated and cluttered. It was even worse that Sarah Bernhardt’s salon.”

He laughed, faintly. “How right you are. Worse than Sarah’s by far. Would it shock you, Nell, if we paused at a beer garden on the way back? Some honest ale would be a boon.”

“I cannot blame you for wishing to rinse your palate after that beverage you shared!” I agreed. “I will not object if you promise not to smoke and we don’t stay long.”

“Not long,” he said fervently, “and we must decide what to tell Irene.”

“What is to decide? This Tatyana has admitted her illegitimate involvement with the King, and that her real interests lie with her native Russia. You masterfully extracted all the pertinent information, and we went on our way after being subjected to some bizarre and barbaric hospitality I do not wish to describe or even recall, for my stomach’s sake. I’m sorry that I found it unnatural to take notes, Godfrey, but I can at least summarize what sense I extracted from the outing.”

“Ah, Nell.” He squeezed my shoulder as if I were young and foolish like Allegra. “Who needs fresh air when you are present and more bracing than a Channel breeze? Of course we will tell Irene all that, but first you must allow me one small detour to... recover from the contents of the samovar. What a man must subject himself to in order to accomplish a simple piece of spy business!”

“The food was as bad as the drink,” I added. “I cannot think what the Russians hope to accomplish in the world if they can cook no better than the Bohemians, the Germans, or the French.”

“You’re right, Nell; English cooking will conquer the globe. Now, I see the sign of U Kalicha banging in the wind. Only a beer parlor sign would bear the image of a chalice. Let’s pause there.”

“I can be no less happy than that awful Tatyana woman to serve my country,” I said stoutly, as he drew me in the torch-lit direction of roistering voices. “Even if the means are extremely unpleasant.”

Chapter Twenty-three

A ROYAL FULL HOUSE

Godfrey’s ingestion
of Bohemian courage (and my renewed immersion in the smoky clatter of a beer garden) proved utterly unnecessary. We returned after dark to the Europa to find Irene and Allegra safe in their suite, full of their own adventures of the afternoon.

“Look!” Allegra demanded, cavorting up to greet us. She flourished her wrist to display a bauble of deep-crimson garnets. “We bought it from a street peddler, can you imagine?”

“A pretty trinket,” Godfrey said absently, eyeing Irene.

I examined it more closely. “No doubt glass, or an inferior type of garnet. One can buy nothing on the street worth having. Remember that in the future, dear girl.”

“And I had my fortune read by a real gypsy woman! Mrs. Norton knows such odd nooks and crannies. This particular place was absolutely thrilling! Dark despite the daylight outside, lit by a lamp shaped like a human skull. Can you believe it, Miss Huxleigh?”

“Indeed I can. And did you manage to make an appointment with the Golem as well?”

“No.” Allegra donned a face of grave disappointment. “But we saw the Jewish cemetery! Such a shiversome site! All those piled tombstones tilting this way and that as if to loose their ancient occupants. Of course, no one has been buried there in more than two centuries, but the Golem’s master, Rabbi Loew, has a prominent tomb. Most grand; almost as large as a London monument. People still leave notes there begging his—and the Golem’s—protection. Can you fathom it?”

While Allegra regaled me with her tales of Prague street life, Godfrey divested himself of hat, cane, and gloves and went to Irene, who sat (or, rather, lounged, after the habit of Sarah Bernhardt) on the sofa.

Allegra demanded a full audience, and capered up to him before he could sit. “What do you think the fortune teller predicted for me, Mr. Norton? She said that I will marry three times! I will have fourteen children, and will travel to China. Do you think that possible?”

“Everything is possible. And what did she predict for Irene?” he asked, turning to his wife.

“Oh, nothing so interesting as my fortune,” Allegra answered hastily for her. “She did say that Irene would have a tattoo.”

“A tattoo?” I repeated faintly.

“Did she say where?’ Godfrey asked, sitting beside Irene with an air of relief.

“In Tibet,” Allegra said.

He smiled. “I meant, where on Irene, not where on the surface of the globe, would this be accomplished?’

Irene bestirred herself. She seemed unusually tired, or contemplative. “Some matters even a fortune teller cannot predict. We must leave something to the imagination.”

“Tibet?” I repeated. “I shall never go there. It must be even more ungodly than Afghanistan.”

Allegra again erupted in a fresh lava of words, catching hold of my hand in her enthusiasm. “Oh, and Miss Huxleigh, I asked if—when—I would ever see my Uncle Quentin again, if he was alive, and she answered instantly. ‘Within a fortnight, child,’ she said in a quivery but most convincing voice. She was quite, quite strangely... believable.”