Just then Frau Graben appeared with a mug of hot, spiced milk and her apologies.
“There has been much to do,” she said, flapping about like a farmyard goose.
“Do not trouble yourself, Frau Graben,” I replied. “I am happy to attend to Cosmina.”
“I will leave your milk in your room, Fraulein,” she said, bobbing both of us a swift ungainly curtsey.
I brushed Cosmina’s hair and began to plait it. “Drink your milk,” I urged. “You will feel better. Perhaps Frau Graben has been thoughtful enough to add a little something to help you sleep.”
“Brandy,” she said, wrinkling her nose a little after the first sip.
“Then you must finish it all,” I instructed.
Cosmina leaned her head against my arm. “You are so good to take care of me. I am your hostess. It is I who should be attending you.”
I took up a bit of pretty ribbon and tied a bow at the bottom of the plait. “You suffered a great shock.”
“I never swoon,” she said, almost angrily. “Why were you able to keep your composure? You looked so very cool and unruffled.”
“Did I? I was trembling like a leaf,” I confessed. “I suppose it is easier for me because I am an outsider. I did not know Count Bogdan.”
“Perhaps it is because I remember the last time only too well,” she said. She took another sip of her milk, but this time she did not pull a face.
“The last time?”
She nodded. “After Count Mircea, the present count’s grandfather, died. Stories of strigoi spread through the valley, and Count Bogdan insisted it was his father, roaming the countryside as one undead. He demanded we perform the same ceremony upon Count Mircea.”
I slipped to my knees beside her. “You were there? Cosmina, you must have been a child.”
“Thirteen,” she said soberly. “I had nightmares for more than a year after. That was the night Andrei left this place, vowing never to return. To watch his father despoil his beloved grandfather was too much for him. For all his sins, Andrei is not so vicious as his father,” she added with an odd, blank look.
“Count Bogdan finished the ceremony.”
“And you watched it all?” I was outraged, appalled. Cosmina had always been a sensitive soul. I could not imagine the cruelty of a man who would force a child to witness such a thing.
“Watch it? No, I was part of it. We all were.” Her eyes took on a faraway look and she began to tell the tale in a flat, emotionless voice. “We began at midnight, just as we did tonight. Dr. Frankopan was there, and the Amsels. Even Frau Graben. Count Bogdan presided, and you could see from the gleam in his eye that he relished every moment of it. We did not circle widdershins thrice as we did tonight. Count Bogdan made us circle for hours, chanting all the while. I thought I should collapse from the exhaustion of it, but he prodded me to keep going. The countess and I clung to each other to stay on our feet. At last he ordered us to stop and gave us basil to dip into holy water. When we had shaken it over the corpse of poor Count Mircea, Count Bogdan stripped him to the waist and took up his knife. And then he cut out his father’s heart. He lifted it into the air, watching as it splashed crimson drops onto the body. Then he dropped it into the fire. When it was burned to ash, he mixed the ash with what was left of the holy water. And one by one we drank of it.”
I covered my face with my hands.
“Only Andrei refused. He threw the glass to the floor and cursed his father. He left, and it was only afterwards, when we had washed the taste of ashes from our mouths, that we realised he had gone from the castle forever.”
I dropped my hands and Cosmina seemed to recollect herself to the present. “It is a terrible thing that Count Bogdan made us do. But it is more terrible that Andrei did not finish it. Bogdan will kill us all if he is not stopped.”
I took her hands in mine, not surprised to find that hers were cold as death. “He was a cruel and vicious man, but you must know he is dead and gone and cannot harm you now.”
She smiled then, a pitying smile, as a mother might give a child. “You do not understand such things, Theodora. We are not like other folk. There are terrors here you cannot imagine.”
She bent to embrace me. “I will not let harm come to you. You must believe me.”
I returned her embrace, then rose to help her into bed. She settled into the pillows, sighing at the warmth of the brick at her feet.
“You have been so kind to me. The sister I never had,” she murmured drowsily.
I thought of the terrible deeds she had witnessed in the crypt, of the odd upbringing she must have had at the hands of such a monstrous man, and I felt a rush of affection and pity for her.
Impulsively, I pressed a kiss to her cool white brow.
“I do not think I can sleep just yet. Would you read to me, Theodora?”
“Of course,” I told her. I moved to the little bookshelf that stood against the wall and paused, studying the titles. Charles would have approved, I thought wryly. The shelf was neatly organised and stocked with appropriate volumes, including the entire canon of Jane Austen. I started to reach for Northanger Abbey, but in the end I decided against it on the grounds it was too atmospheric and chose
But as I approached the bed, Cosmina drew a slender volume from beneath her pillow. “This one, I think,” she told me, her voice a whisper. She looked like a guilty child caught conspiring to steal a sweet, and I turned the book over in my hand.
“But this is a translation of Gautier’s
“You know it?”
“Of course. Vampires were a pet theme of my grandfather’s researches.”
She darted me a furtive look. “I know I should not read such things. They are sensational and unfeminine. But I find it comforting to know that others believe.”
I started to remonstrate with her, then fell silent. I could not imagine the horrors she had suffered at growing up in such a place, nor could I appreciate where comfort might be found for a person who had. If she wanted to read sensational stories, it was no affair of mine.
Reluctantly, I opened the book.
“‘Brother, you ask me if I have ever loved,’” I began. I had not passed three lines when Cosmina gave a sigh and settled deeper into the pillows.
I read on, detailing the misadventures of the poor priest Romauld and his tragic love for the revenant courtesan Clarimonda. The room grew darker as the candles began to gutter, extinguishing themselves one by one. At length, only the fire and a single candle remained. Cosmina closed her eyes and began to sink deeper still. I dropped my voice and read more slowly, pausing at the words of the priest Serapion as he counsels the doomed Romauld.
“‘I am bound to warn you that you have one foot over the abyss. Beware lest you fall in. Satan has a long arm, and tombs are not always faithful.’”
I paused, and realised Cosmina was slumbering deeply. I used a bit of ribbon to mark the page and left the book beside her bed. I had no desire to read it on my own. The last candle was burning low as I took it up to light my way to my room. I crept from her chamber, cupping a hand over the feeble light. The passage was dark and chill, for there were no windows here to admit the light of the moon. There were odd gusts of cold wind in the castle corridors, doubtless the result of ancient stone walls in need of repointing, I told myself firmly. Still, my hands trembled upon the brave little flame, and I murmured under my breath, coaxing it to stay alight.
Suddenly, a malignant draught gusted, blowing out my candle and plunging the passage into darkness. My heart slammed painfully against my ribs and I could scarcely breathe in the stifling darkness. What had seemed chilly a moment before was now airless and dank, a suffocating blanket of blackness.
Without thinking, I began to recite an “Ave Maria” under my breath, marking off each syllable with a tentative step towards my room. So long as the prayer held out, so did my courage. I had not thought myself religious, and yet the words sprang instantly to my lips when I was in the grip of terror.
I had just formed the words “
