Blood Spirits (17 page)

“Of course,” I said, with another worried glance at his tense face. It was clear that dragging out the story again was not helping. Time to change the subject. “Tell me instead how are things going in the country otherwise?”

He took a deep breath, like someone had lifted a boulder off his chest. “Incremental progress.” But his fingers were still turning that mug around and around. “You know I want to get wind turbines up in the mountain passes where there is always wind.”

“That's clean energy. Who objects to that? Or rather, why? Is it the cost?”

“The cost is one factor.” Now he was back in territory where he was sure of himself. “There is a solid phalanx of old-fashioned people who feel that we don't need such frivolities as electricity. We did fine without it for centuries. I think I told you how long it took to get the hydroelectric dam built. That was partly the cost, partly because we used its power to run the city's waste management system, which is also new, and partly because there was so much resistance to these innovations, which are relatively benign.”

“Water power is considered green,” I said, thinking,
Keep him going on hydroelectricity, if it eases that burden
. “Is the resistance fear of flooding or environmental damage?”

His smile was brief, automatic rather than warm. “No. We're not that sophisticated, here. It was resistance to change. The underlying worry is that should we need the Blessing, we won't be able to reach the Nasdrafus if we're riddled with the poisons of electricity.”

“Do you think that's true?”

“It doesn't matter what I think.” He lifted his head as, below, another group began to strum a minor key fanfaronade. “The mountain people are difficult to get to, and even more difficult to convince. I can tell you this, however: Magic, or whatever it is, is not destroyed by electricity. Yesterday when you walked in, Beka was demonstrating magicor-whatever-it-is on a tablet computer.”

“She knows magic?”

Alec looked away, then back. Again he was turning his mug around and around. “I'll leave Beka to answer that question for herself. Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything, though I see no danger in it. If you stay here, Kim, you're going to get mired as deeply as the rest of us. You'd better consider what that means for you.”

When are such confessions welcome, and when yet another burden? There was that wedding ring, still on his finger. It had to mean something, because he'd stood beside Ruli and made her his wife.

“Here's what I know,” I said. “I want to help you. Any way I can.” I gave in to my own desire and reached for his left hand, meaning it as an encouraging gesture. “We don't have to talk about whether or not there's a ‘you and me' until you've had as much time as you need.”

His left hand lay under mine unmoving, but his right gripped that mug like it was a hand grenade. “Are you going to come to the funeral? It's at noon on the twenty eighth.”

“Do you think I should? Will my presence make this conspirator gossip about us any worse?” I casually lifted my fingers so I could hold my mug with both hands. And he didn't stop me.

“That gossip would have been just as bad if you hadn't shown up,” he said dryly. “It was all over the valley that your grandmother was visiting Milo for the holidays; and then the rumor reached me that you were expected to show up as well. That was the morning before the accident. It was merely news of interest then. Until the night of the accident.”

“Sheesh. So no matter what I do, I'm toast.”

“Just continue what you are doing. Don't worry about the gossip. You can't. There's always gossip of one sort or another, and worrying about it can drive you mad.”

“Okay. I'm so used to the anonymity of the big city that . . . well, anyway. Tell me about the funeral, what's expected.”

“I can't tell you all the details. Aunt Sisi sent a message requesting that she be permitted to organize the funeral.”

“That sounds more like a grieving mother.”

“That was my thought. As for you, anything beyond showing up at the cathedral is . . . optional.”

“I suppose I ought to be there as the Dsaret representative, then. But hey. If I stay much longer than that, I should probably call my folks, and you know the cell phone issue.”

“You can always use the phone in my office at the palace. Natalie could take you over there, if I am tied up. That's how she keeps in touch with her medical suppliers in London.”

“Thanks.” And because personal issues worsened his tension, and I was feeling protective, I tried for something light. “Do you ever get time to go to a movie? Watch TV? Read a book?”

“All three. During those long drives to the border, I've been listening to Patrick O'Brian's series.”

“You like those?”

“Excellent,” Alec said, and pushed the mug aside as he leaned toward me. “Excellent evocation of the time, of characters, of the world of wooden ships. They have nothing to do with modern day politics, and there is no vestige of magic, or of ghosts.”

“I don't know,” I said. “There are some hints of liminal space in some of Stephen Maturin's scenes.”

“True,” Alec said, and the Mr. Darcy mask eased fractionally. It felt like a victory. “True. But then Stephen Maturin seems to exist in liminal space.”

There we were, off again, just like summer. Liminal space. Vrajhus. Was the Nasdrafus liminal space? Napoleonic times and why the appeal. The conversation was like a tennis match without a score, as he hitched his chair closer to me, so our talk wouldn't disturb the other listeners.

A chance glance up, and we'd slid from personal space back into intimacy. I could hear his breathing and see his pupils dilate. I could feel the chemistry again, as powerful as summer.

I don't know what he saw in my face, but his expression lengthened, for one heartbeat, into pain, or regret, or maybe it was a longing to match mine. He grabbed the mug and tossed back the rest of his wine in a sudden, almost violent gesture.

When the waiter came back, he refilled both our mugs. Before either of us could touch the mulled wine, Kilber appeared, a huge presence. He didn't say anything, but Alec got to his feet. “I have to get back,” he whispered.

“Okay. Bye.”

Alec brushed the tips of his fingers on the top of my hand and then was gone. I kissed the place on my hand where he had touched and stayed there staring at his empty chair until my eyelids ceased to sting.

 

When I got back to the Waleskas' inn, the dining room was heady with the fumes of various mulled drinks. People sat tightly packed around the perimeter of the room. I stood in the background as three very old people played instruments with somewhat rough enthusiasm, one on accordion, another on violin, and the third playing a cimbalom.

In the center of the room, two older men and a teenage boy danced with their arms entwined across each other's shoulders, feet stomping and twisting in complicated rhythms as everyone clapped on the beat.

They finished with a yell and a leap into the air. The claps dissolved into applause, somewhat shortened; it was clear that this had been going on for some time.

Several young girls jumped up, a couple of them giggling self-consciously. I was going to move past, but Madam Waleska had been on the watch. She popped up by the counter and boomed, “Here is Mademoiselle! She has promised to give us French ballet!”

The applause was loud and enthusiastic, the waiting faces mostly friendly, some curious, some expectant. What did dance mean to them? What would
my
dancing mean?

Theresa watched me, her entire body radiating urgency, and I knew it wasn't at the prospect of watching me dance. That meant there was a question of face, or reputation. Maybe if I bowed out the Waleskas would look bad.

So even though I hadn't warmed up, and I was dressed completely wrong, and I felt a little ridiculous, I started humming the first thing in my mind, which was what Misha had played on the taragot at Zorfal; the song with the distinctive minor-key tritone. I hummed as I dancewalked around in a circle.

My singing voice is somewhere between computer-generated flattone and a chipmunk's, but enough of the melodic line managed to convey itself that several gasped. What did that song mean? Yet another hidden pitfall?

I whirled into a pirouette.

Someone picked up the melody on a recorder, and then several girls began to sing. Interpretive dance had never been my thing. My ballet was corps level, never soloist, and I was no good at choreography. My favorite type of free dance is ballroom, with a partner to respond to.

So I used the easy beat and began a Highland step-dance. I'd taken several courses in high school, mindful of my father's Scots background.

The song came to an end at last. I did a double pirouette, took a bow, and sat down, figuring it would be rude to perform and then vanish. The teenage girls jumped up, and began a vigorous folk dance. One of them tried some innovations, working in a few of the Highland steps I'd done. Cool!

After that some guys kicked and leaped in place, Georgian-style, with a lot of masculine flourishing. I wondered if Tony knew any of those dances. If he danced at all, he'd be good at it—far better than these fellows, one of whom was drunk, and the youngest, on the end, was behind the beat just enough to nearly step on his partner's toes.

Did Alec know the dances? I tried to imagine him—the sorrow and yearning I thought I'd successfully suppressed was back, stronger than before, as I thought about Alec's rare grin, pictured his hands loose and easy as he whirled and kicked.

In the distance the cathedral bells rang, and Madam came out, clapping her hands. The party reluctantly broke up. I began to tramp upstairs, then paused, looking back. Madam and her daughters and several young cousins were tiredly stacking dishes and hauling them to the back. Josip and several men were busy moving tables and chairs back into place.

Tania paused before lifting a tray full of crockery, giving a huge yawn. When she met my eyes, I ran down to meet her. “I don't want to keep you,” I whispered. “I only wanted to know if that ghost, my grandfather, lives in that room, or began to appear when I arrived a few days ago.”

Her eyes rounded. “He's always been with you.”

“Always?”

“He was there when you first arrived. I thought you were . . . I thought you were the ghost of Madam Statthalter.”

“I know. But you say there were other ghosts with me?”

“This man arrived with you. After Christmas Eve Mass, there were several of them.”

I put the heels of my hands straight out before me, arms rigid, as if ready to halt an oncoming train. “Wait. They follow me around? So when I'm eating breakfast, a pack of ghosts is watching?”

“It's not quite like that . . .” Another yawn took her, fiercer than before, “they come and go.”

“Thanks, Tania. Good night.”

I refused to worry about ghosts hovering in my room. I had a fencing match to mentally prepare for. A match, or maybe it would be another duel.

TWELVE

I
F THE GHOST OF Grandfather Armandros was really there (for any definition of
really
that you prefer), I saw no sign of him either in my room or reflected in the wardrobe mirror.

I dropped straight into sleep but kept waking up intermittently, restless and worried about oversleeping. At the first faint blue of dawn, I got up, bathed, and then confronted the wardrobe problem.

I'd packed for a very few days. The forest green dress for fancy, the periwinkle blue one for backup or not-so-fancy. My usual jeans and three long sleeved shirts, a nightie, one leotard for stretching, tights, socks, and undies. I had no fencing clothes, and what I had were fast running out.

Time to ask Auntie Nat's wardrobe advice. But
after
the fencing session.

Tony had dropped that hint about the Danilovs keeping their place like an oven, so I pulled on a sleeveless leotard over my tights and then a long-sleeved cotton tee and jeans. I wasn't about to fence in a sleeveless leotard, but I could finish warming up in it, and if the practice space was really sauna-like, strip down to it between bouts.

Last thing, I pinned my hair up in a tight ballet bun, then went downstairs to wait for my ride—who had better be Danilov, I thought. If Tony was driving, I would get the address from him, and take an inkri. Twice, I'd gotten into a car with him and regretted it. I was not going three for three.

In the dining room, I found bread, cheese, preserved fruit, and cold meat pies laid out next to a small stack of plates and silver. When no one appeared, I helped myself and sat alone by a window, looking out at a white world as I ate. I'd finished breakfast and stashed my dishes on the waiting tray when I heard a muffled
vroom
.

A short time later the door opened, then the inner door, and a tall, elegant feminine figure entered, looking around with a haughty air. For the first time in my life I understood the phrase
dressed to kill
. That pants suit and the great coat with its huge fuzzy collar and trimmed sleeves were from Paris fashion houses, and she wore them well.

An equally fuzzy snow hat hid her hair, and sunglasses hid her eyes, so I wasn't sure of her identity until she lifted the glasses, and there was Phaedra Danilov.