The Dead Travel Fast (24 page)

The countess turned to me. “I will never forgive you for this,” she said clearly. Her eyes were dry and her expression stony. She was a woman who would hate implacably, and I knew I had made an enemy that night.

“I am sorry, madame,” I said, and I meant it, for I had loved Cosmina too, and the revelations of the past day had been difficult to bear. I had not liked the count’s methods, but I had understood them. Cosmina had to be shown for what she was, and her unnatural rages had persuaded everyone save the countess.

“Cosmina has stolen, and for that she must be punished. But I believe her. She is not responsible for the darkest deeds in this castle. It was the
strigoi
,” the countess said stubbornly. “Count Bogdan walks this place, and he will come for us all.”

Upon those chilling words we parted, and although the count gave me no looks of significance, no gesture of collusion, when he appeared in my room, I was not surprised to see him. He came to me by way of the tapestried stair, and stood, saying nothing but opening his arms in invitation. I went to him, putting my head to his shoulder as his good arm came to embrace me.

“I feel a thousand years old,” he said, murmuring the words into my hair.

“What will become of her?”

“She attempted my life, and very likely killed Aurelia as well. She must be put away.”

I drew back, searching his face. “You mean she will be gaoled? She will hang then.”

“No,” he said sharply. “I will not have the scandal of it touching my family. What Dr. Frankopan told you is true. Her mother is unwell, a weakness in the head and nerves. She has been locked away since Cosmina was an infant. I know Frankopan and others besides believe such weaknesses may be carried in the blood. If that is true, it is not her fault. She is a flawed and unnatural thing, but not evil.”

“She has killed,” I said, even then trying to convince myself that the girl I knew could have done such deeds, worked them out, coldly and maliciously, determined to end the lives of those she decided were unfit to live. “But it would give me no pleasure to see her hang for her crimes.”

“I knew her as a child,” he said, something almost pleading in his eyes as he willed me to understand. “I cannot turn her over to them. They will see only the deed and not the lost child. Even now I pity her.”

I put a hand to his face, touching the long line of silken black stitches. “It does you credit,” I told him.

He gave me a cynical smile. “You think so, but it is not merely for Cosmina’s sake that I will not give her over to the authorities. My mother maintains her innocence, and I am not certain enough of my own conviction to persuade her. I know what I believe, but there is no proof of it, and without such proof, the matter would drag through the courts and the newspapers and we would all of us be mired in the mud of it. No, tomorrow Florian will go to Hermannstadt. There is a private clinic there, an asylum. It is the only choice.”

“And they will simply accept your word for the fact that she is mad? They would lock her up on your recommendation alone?” I asked.

For a moment, the familiar
hauteur
settled over his features. “I am the Count Dragulescu. They will do as I say.”

“And must she be kept in the garderobe until she is taken away?” I asked. “It is so cold there, and it is where Aurelia died.”

The air of command did not alter. “She will remain there until she is taken. It is the scene of her crime, and it will not harm her to meditate upon her villainy.”

But as soon as the haughtiness descended, it fled and his tone was gentler. “There is nowhere else that I can keep her to ensure our safety. I have sent a mattress for her comfort, and she will be given hot food whenever she wishes. It is the only way.” He searched my face with tender and imploring eyes. “Will you forgive me?” he asked. “I could say I had no choice in how I brought the matter to light, but I did. I was ruthless, deliberately so. I used you to force a reaction from Cosmina, and I nearly destroyed you in the process.”

“You did what you must,” I said slowly. “But if you suspected her, why did you not confront her yourself?”

He paused a moment, as if searching for the proper words, and failing to find them, plunged on, taking honesty as his watchword. “Because I doubted you. I have known her tricks and lies and rages since she was a child. That is the truth of why I refused to marry her. Always there was something not quite human in her, although I never dared speak of it to anyone. But I did not know how deeply rooted the madness was. I too searched her room, when I left you in the garden. I found the letter and the carving fork and the rosary, and I saw how neatly it might all have been done.”

“You found them—and still you did not expose her?” I made to pull away, but he held me fast.

“Because I know her, I have always known her. She is capable of turning any circumstance, no matter how black, to her advantage. The objects alone were no proof, particularly since she would only say you had put them there yourself. And God help me, I doubted you. I had to know the truth.”

I opened my mouth to remonstrate with him, and snapped it closed. Had I not doubted him for the duration of our acquaintance? I owed him a just response.

“I suppose I understand,” I said slowly. “But my goading her into a rage has accomplished nothing. She confessed to theft, nothing more. She will never admit to killing Aurelia or to attempting to harm you. Even your own mother does not believe her guilty.”

“But I do,” he said with a grim note of satisfaction. “And I have the power to send her away.”

“What of the evidence itself? Dr. Frankopan took it from me. If only we can find him.” But even as I said the words, I realised the futility of it all. Dr. Frankopan would die sooner than see his only child swing from a hangman’s noose. Doubtless the evidence against Cosmina had been destroyed, dropped into the river perhaps, to be swept away to the sea.

“He is missing and no one knows where he is bound,” the count told me. “Without evidence, we cannot go to the authorities. It is for me to mete justice to Cosmina, regardless of what my mother believes.”

We both fell silent again, and the strong sturdy rhythm of his heartbeat under my cheek comforted me.

“How did you know to send them for me?” I asked. “How did you know what Dr. Frankopan meant to do?”

He gave me a rueful smile. “I knew nothing. At first, we only knew you had disappeared from your room, that the door was locked and still you had escaped. To me, this meant either you feared someone in the castle or you were fleeing to escape your own misdeeds. Dr. Frankopan was the only person you knew outside the castle and he too had been missed. And then I remembered that before the accident, I had sent word to Dr. Frankopan that I believed I knew who was behind the villainy in the castle. I wanted to consult him about whether Cosmina could have struck the precise blow that killed Aurelia. I knew they often discussed medical matters, and she often helped to nurse the folk in the village under his direction. He would have known if she were knowledgeable enough to effect such a murder.”

He touched the row of stitches in his face absently, and I wondered if they pained him. “But he never came. He sent word he was at a confinement, and that was the night I fell from the observatory.”

“Fell or were pushed?” I asked gently.

“I do not know. I saw no one and I remember nothing, only the sensation of falling and the desperate lunge to catch myself. But as I lay in bed, thinking about you and the possibility that you had done this to me, I thought of my doubts about Cosmina, and I realised Dr. Frankopan was far likelier to play the comrade to her than to you. He has always shown partiality to her, and it did not escape me that my accident happened just a few hours after I gave him reason to fear for Cosmina. And I began to think if I had been deliberately pushed, then perhaps you were in danger as well. I sent out Florian and Charles and told them to take a piece of your clothing and Tycho. He found you, thank God,” the count added fervently. “They carried you first to Frankopan’s cottage, where they discovered the empty bottle of sedative with the tea things and guessed at what he had done. From there they brought you to the castle, hoping that with time the sedative would run its course and you would waken. You must rest now,” he told me. “You have been through a terrible ordeal, and we will speak again later. There is much to discuss.”

I obeyed, but when he left me and I settled into bed, I found I could not sleep. I thought of Dr. Frankopan, so casually capable of leaving me to die, torn apart by wolves. And I thought of Cosmina, savaged by the rage she carried. And the countess, who even now believed that some monstrous revenant stalked her castle. I hated and pitied them all, and I do not know which emotion surprised me the more.

The next day a flurry of letters came and went, and I saw little of Charles or the count, for without the use of his writing arm, the count depended upon Charles as his amanuensis, and Charles spent long hours at the count’s side, penning the letters that would settle Cosmina’s fate. Messengers came and went, village lads who brought letters and gossip, and by the second day, everything had been settled. I had been given strict instructions to rest and saw no one, although my thoughts turned often to Cosmina, biding her time in the garderobe below me.

Early on the second morning, she was summoned to the great hall where the count stood, Tycho at his side, looking for all the world like a feudal prince. The rest of the household had gathered as well, and a quiet and tractable Cosmina was brought to the hall. The countess was pale, but resplendently dressed in a gown stiff with jet embroidery, her chin held very high as she stared directly ahead. A strange gentleman stood at the count’s side, and when Cosmina entered, he regarded her with a cool and professional curiosity. Her gown was creased where she had slept in it, and her hair was untidy, but she did not seem to notice, and her eyes darted strangely, as if the time she had spent in the garderobe had turned her wits entirely, as if the thin thread that had bound her to sanity had snapped once and for all.

“Cosmina, this is Herr Engel. He keeps a private rest home in Hermannstadt. He would like to take you there for a rest,” the count said gently, but I was not deceived. He watched Cosmina as a dog will watch a viper, and she returned the look, cold and calculating.

“I am to be sent away?”

“For a little while,” Herr Engel soothed. “Just until you have recovered your nerves, my dear.”

It was a lie of course, and Cosmina smelled the untruth of it upon him. She laughed, a sharp and bitter sound that shattered the quiet of the great, vaulted room. “I am going away.” She turned to collect us with her look. “I am going away and you all will stay. You will write to me, won’t you?” And then she laughed again until she fell silent, and somehow her silence was worse than anything she could say. No matter how kindly Herr Engel put a question to her, she refused to reply, perhaps as a means to holding the reins of the situation.

At last he shrugged his shoulders and nodded towards the count. The count gestured towards Florian, who opened the doors to the courtyard where a group of village men had gathered. For an instant, it seemed as if a mob had come, and Cosmina’s courage failed her. She staggered a little, but Herr Engel offered his arm in a very gentlemanly fashion, and she took it, raising her chin in a gesture of noble dignity very reminiscent of the countess.

At the doors they paused and Cosmina looked at him. “What about my things? Shall they be sent on? I should like my things.” Her tone was anxious, and Herr Engel was quick to reassure her.

“We have all that you could require. And if there is something of importance, we will send for it,” he soothed.

Mollified, Cosmina walked out with him, never turning back, never saying goodbye. I heard later that the party of villagers divided and seven strong men walked in front of her and seven behind, guarding lest she attempt to flee. The villagers noted the strangeness of the doctor’s carriage, for it was a curious thing, with barred windows and heavy leather shades. And when Cosmina and her escort reached the carriage, he instructed his driver to lock them in together until they reached Hermannstadt.

The villagers had other things to spice the meat of their gossip, for Dr. Frankopan had not been found, but Teodor Popa had returned home, wearing a bright red coat that looked familiar to many. It had been badly slashed, and there were stains upon it that were dark and rusty, but Madame Popa was an excellent housekeeper, and it was not long before the fabric was clean and the rents mended and the brass buttons polished, and when Teodor Popa wore his coat in the village, no one dared to ask him where he had found it. The cottage in the woods remained shuttered and dark, and Madame Popa found employment with the innkeeper, whose wife was carrying again and could no longer manage her duties.

I saw little of the countess, for she did not seem willing to relent in her opinion of me, and every glance she threw my way carried condemnation for Cosmina’s departure. She bore no such ill will towards her son, but I was not surprised. A mother’s indulgence is a powerful thing, and she would not blame the count for his resolution to the situation, but rather I must bear the burden of guilt for bringing Cosmina’s crimes to light.

For his part, Florian’s sadness seemed permanently etched upon his face, and when he sought me out the afternoon before Charles and I planned to leave, I did not know what I should say to him.

We walked to the piggery together, for I craved fresh air and in spite of the cold of the drawing in of autumn, it was bracing and exhilarating. We did not speak until we reached the piggery, and even then Florian seemed to struggle for his words.

“I must ask forgiveness, for this is the Christian thing to do, and I have seen too much of the Devil in this place,” he said suddenly, his face flushing painfully.

“Yes, there is too much of the Devil here,” I agreed. “But what have I to forgive you for?”

He hesitated a long moment, watching a fat porker root in the ground for something tasty. When he spoke, he did not look at me. “I liked you, very much, when first you came here. But then Miss Cosmina says things, terrible things, and I began to hate you. She says them to my mother as well, and my mother, she tells me I must not speak with you. I told her I would speak with you, for you were a kindly person. My mother was angry with you because of this, and soon I believe the things that Miss Cosmina said of you.”