expected him to whisk it aside like a conjurer’s cape, but he did not. He drew it back slowly, the linen folds retreating from the body like some pale sea leaving the shore. Slowly, inch by inch, the body was revealed to us. He was unveiled like a bride, but what lay underneath was no blooming virgin, and neither was it a proper corpse.
The count pulled the last fold of linen free and someone gasped. Someone else cried out, and at least one person invoked the mercy of God upon us.
Old Count Bogdan, twelve weeks dead and lying in a damp coffin, who ought to have been reduced to scraps of flesh clinging to ivory bone, was fully intact. His cheeks were plump and rosy, his belly round. And at his mouth were the fresh ruddy drops of blood just like those I had seen at the wounds upon Aurelia’s pale breast.
Cosmina had closed her eyes tightly, clutching at Florian’s hand, but I looked over the corpse carefully, taking in the gruesome details. His features were not unlike his son’s, strongly marked and with a certain symmetry that even Praxiteles would have admired. Even in death he was not entirely uncomely, although his condition was clearly degraded from the handsomeness he must have enjoyed in life. His cheeks, at one time apparently clean- shaven, were roughened with a fresh growth of whiskers, and his nails were long and sharp. The mouth was pulled into a horrible rictus of amusement.
Just then, the countess gave a wheezing gasp and I looked to where her glance fell, just below the count’s waist.
“Impossible,” I heard Clara Amsel whisper in horror. But the sign of arousal was unmistakable. The dead count bore all the traces of a man not only alive in some fashion, but subject to the baser passions.
Count Andrei’s complexion was flushed, the blood beating in his cheeks, and I realised he was deeply angry. “Let us proceed,” he commanded harshly.
Frau Graben stepped forward and gathered up an armful of basil, handing the branches round as Frau Amsel followed with a bowl of holy water. One by one we dipped our branches in the water, holding them for a sign from the count.
When Frau Graben and Frau Amsel had resumed their places, he raised his own branch high and we did the same, as if he were a priest presiding over his congregants. We shook the holy water onto the corpse, sacred rain to banish the evil.
Cosmina was weeping openly now, and Florian stood at her side, murmuring words of comfort as we continued to sprinkle the corpse with our makeshift aspergilla. Some of the water fell upon the brazier, and the room filled with hissing as if from a hundred snakes.
When the blessing was concluded, we each put our basil upon the little fire on the brazier, piling them up until the sweet-smelling smoke filled the chamber.
The count hesitated then, looking sharply at his mother. She gave him a slow, sober nod of assent and he took up a knife from the little table. I realised with a quickening of my pulses that the terrible thing he had alluded to in the library was upon us.
With a swift motion of the sharp blade he flicked aside his father’s clothes, cutting easily through waistcoat, shirt and undershirt. The belly of the revenant was taut and round as if he had just fed, the flesh pale but seemingly flushed with life.
The count put the tip of his knife to his father’s breastbone and began to cut. As soon as the blade pierced the flesh, Cosmina, overcome by the horror, crumpled to the floor.
At once, the solemnity of the ceremony was broken as she was attended to. Frau Amsel loosened her bodice, Florian fanned her with a handkerchief, and the doctor retrieved a flask of brandy from his coat pocket to revive her.
I looked to the count, his hand still poised atop his blade, his father’s flesh gaping in the small wound he had made.
“No more,” he said in disgust, flinging the knife down into the coffin. He retrieved the linen shroud and covered his father’s body. Cosmina had regained her senses and was sitting upon the floor, resting her head against Frau Amsel’s breast.
The countess started forward towards the count, brandishing her walking stick. “You cannot stop now. You must finish. The ceremony is not complete.”
The count put up a hand in a gesture as commanding as any warlord in battle. “I am done with this. It is barbaric and medieval and I will not do it.”
Her eyes were wide and piercing in the gloom of the crypt, her skin ghostly pale in the shifting shadows. “You must. If you do not finish it, he will kill us all. Is that what you want?”
The count fixed her with an anguished stare, imploring, and when he spoke it was as her son and not the
She took up the great wooden stake that had been prepared. “If you will not remove his heart, at least ensure he cannot rise again,” she begged. “It may save us yet, my son.”
The count hesitated, his reason clearly warring with his sense of obligation. His eyes dropped to the shrouded figure in the coffin. Perhaps the thought of the fresh blood at the lips convinced him. Perhaps it was nothing more than a desire to keep the peace. Whatever moved him, he said nothing.
He took the stake from her and the mallet from the table. Standing over his father’s corpse, he drew back the veil once more. He poised the point of the stake just where the knife had opened the flesh of the chest. With one great stroke, he penetrated the ribs, spreading them apart and puncturing the heart. As he did so, a deep, rattling groan sounded from the body, echoing through the crypt.
Cosmina screamed and Frau Graben averted her face. Clara crossed herself and began to chant the rosary. The countess gave a deep sigh of pained satisfaction, and Florian looked as if he were about to be sick. Only the doctor, who had doubtless seen worse in his labours, remained unmoved.
As the count struck again, forcing the stake further into the heart, a great well of dark blood bubbled forth, spewing from the wound and from the lips and nose of the corpse, bracketing his teeth in gore. The blood spilled down his chin, staining his collar and the pillow beneath him. After a moment, the flow was staunched and the corpse seemed to settle with one last shudder.
“It is done,” the count said with an air of terrible finality. He dropped the mallet upon the floor, and for a moment, the ringing of it against the stone was the only sound.
The count motioned for his candle and I passed it back to him. He blew it out and dropped it to the floor. The rest of us did likewise. We moved slowly out of the crypt.
I heard the countess murmur to Clara, “I only hope it is enough.”
And behind her, Florian supported Cosmina, helping her from the chamber. In her hands, she clutched one of the broken lilies from the coffin, pleating the withered petals in her fingers as she wept.
I followed behind, thinking of all I had seen and wondering if I could ever possibly understand it.
10
Upon quitting the crypt, the somber company parted ways in silence. Cosmina clung to me, moving from Florian’s ministrations to mine, and I saw her to her bedchamber, clucking under my breath when I realised the room had not been readied.
“Never mind,” I said brightly. “I will play the maidservant tonight. Let me just poke up the fire a little. There, is that not lovely? It’s blazing very high now. And here is a brick to warm your bed.” I bustled about the room, keeping up a continuous flow of chatter, as much to distract her as myself. I could not yet bear to think on what we had done that night.
Cosmina sat shivering in one of the low armchairs by the fire. I hung her nightdress by the hearth to warm it, and when the brick was hot, I wrapped it carefully in flannel and slid it between the sheets of her bed.
“Come,” I said gently. “It is time to change into your nightdress.”
She obeyed, quiescent as a child. She said nothing, but as I slipped the nightdress over her head, I saw tears falling to her cheeks. I took a handkerchief from my pocket.
“There now, it is all over, and you mustn’t weep. You will spot your nightdress,” I said in a teasing voice.
She did not smile, but she did blink away her tears with a great, shuddering breath.
