The Dead Travel Fast

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “And I thought only in Transylvania was there such poetry.”

“It is a poetic place,” I agreed.

“I hope you will remember it with affection,” she said, her brow furrowing anxiously.

“Remember it? Shall I be permitted to leave then?” I asked her, a tinge of hysteria sharpening my tone.

She hastened to soothe me. “Of course! Oh, my dear, you must not believe this is anything other than the most fleeting of circumstances. Andrei began to stir this afternoon. It is only a matter of hours before he wakens and speaks the truth. Then you will be freed. It is simply that the countess is too fearful for his life to take any chances he might be attacked again.”

“And she thinks I am a threat to him?” I asked evenly.

“She does not know what to think. In fact,” Cosmina hesitated, biting at her lip, as if considering whether to share a confidence. “In fact, she fears it is Count Bogdan who has tried to destroy their son.”

“Then why keep me here, locked away like some villain?” I demanded.

Cosmina spread her hands. “She is ill and confused and afraid. She believes the strigoi has attacked Andrei, but she also realises the truth may be more mundane. She will take no risks with his life, and even though she fears the strigoi, she must listen to the Amsels filling her ears with poison against you. Pity her, my friend. She only wants to protect her beloved son. Surely you can understand such a thing.”

I relented a little. “Of course. But why should the Amsels have taken against me? And why do they say I would have done this terrible thing to the count?”

Her eyes slid away from mine and back to the view of the mountains. A single star shimmered low in the sky, and I knew it was Venus, shedding its benevolent light over lovers in the valley below.

“Frau Amsel says that you were driven to attack him when he spurned you after you enticed him to your bed.”

I caught my breath against the wave of pain that washed over me. Whatever became of us, I had thought to have at least the memory of that night to console me in my loneliness. And now Frau Amsel had spoiled it for me, twisting what had been natural and pleasurable into something sordid and indiscreet. I could guess well enough how she had pieced the story together. The matter of the pedlar’s fabric would have raised her suspicions. They could have been confirmed by a quick coin to Tereza, for the girl took away soiled linen and returned it clean. She was privy to all the secrets of the castle, I thought bitterly.

“It is true then?” Cosmina asked softly. She did not face me, perhaps to make it easier, or perhaps because she herself did not wish to see the truth of it writ upon my face.

“No,” I told her, for that shoddy version of the facts would never be true to me.

“But you said you love him,” she protested gently. “When he lay unconscious and bleeding. You said you loved him.”

“Did I? I hardly remember now. But it does not matter. My feelings are my own. I do not speak for him. I can only vow to you that I would never have harmed him.”

She turned to me then, her face half-shadowed and half-illuminated, a living silhouette. “I believe you, my friend.” Her voice was firm, stalwart even. “I will be your champion,” she vowed.

She embraced me again and gestured towards the food. “Eat. You must keep up your strength. I will come to you as soon as I have news of him.”

And with that she left me, turning the key in the lock behind her.

I sat, although nothing tempted my appetite. I thought of what she had told me of the countess’s fears, and I understood them perfectly. Had I too not wrestled with the question of whether something supernatural was afoot in the castle? Had I not swung wildly between the prosaic and the fantastic? I thought how much stronger my emotions would be were a beloved child at risk, and I forgave her then. I forgave her suspicions and her precautions; I forgave her my small prison and my large worries.

I even forgave her my dinner, I thought wryly as I picked over the meat. Frau Graben must have been distracted, for the joint was overcooked and leathery and bloodless. I pushed the food aside and closed my eyes, forcing myself to think calmly and logically. I returned to the beginning, to the death of Aurelia. I imagined the maid, lured to the room with the promise of what? An assignation? A bribe? Something had enticed her there; someone had preyed upon her avarice. Once there, had she known she was in danger? Had she attempted to flee? Or had she no sense of it, even to the moment when she was struck down? Had she been bled by a human hand or fed upon by a vampire’s monstrous need? I imagined her lying upon the cold, stone floor and someone bending to take her life.

And upon this point my imagination failed me. I could not see the figure looming over her to finish the deed. Was it the seemingly gentle Florian? The stout and malicious Frau Amsel? Was it the count?

The question came unbidden to my mind, but once there, I could not dismiss it. Charles had roused my doubts, and logic prevented me from brushing them aside. I must face the possibility of it squarely. I knew so little of him. I had believed in the goodness in him, buried and blunted as it was. I had been so certain that there was honour in him, and a sort of old-fashioned courage that was so seldom seen in our modern times. He was a throwback to an age of mystics and warrior kings, imperious and implacable. And yet I had credited him with goodness as well, with a tender heart that was capable of being moved. Had he not undertaken to improve the lot of his people once he had been made aware of their need?

And yet I could not silence the small voice that whispered, He only did so as a means to an end. The work would have cost him a few coins, a small enough price to woo a woman into his bed.

I pushed the food aside and dropped my head onto my folded arms. I was tormented by doubts and questions, and until I had answers, I would not be free. What if he did not rouse? And if he did waken, I wondered with a horrible, creeping doubt, what was to prevent him from casting the blame upon me? If Charles was correct and the count’s hands were stained with Aurelia’s blood, what would prevent him from affirming Frau Amsel’s tale that I had attempted his life? Perhaps it was a conspiracy amongst them all, I thought wildly. I was a stranger here, and a girl was dead. How much easier for them all if I were to shoulder the burden of blame.

This then was my darkest hour. The blue shadows of the gloaming had faded into the black and unforgiving night, and I sunk into a misery of the sort I had never felt before. It seemed hopeless in those dark hours, and I had no one to comfort me, not even Charles, for he did not come to me and I was alone with my fears. At length I gave way to tears, weeping into my arms, wetting the sleeves of my gown.

So bowed was I by my wretchedness, that I did not realise I was no longer alone until Tycho thrust a wet nose into my hands. I started, then began weeping afresh.

“Tycho, I do not know how you have come here, but I am glad to see you,” I murmured into his fur. He turned his head and licked the tears from my cheek, and as he did so, I began to think more clearly.

“How are you come here?” I demanded, and so strange and fantastical were the things that had happened in that castle, I would not have been surprised had he made me a reply. But he merely continued on, licking my cheeks.

I rose and took him by the collar. “Lead on,” I urged.

He turned and went directly to the tapestry stretched along one wall.

“No, I have not been so stupid as that!” I exclaimed, realising I had in fact been very blind indeed.

Tycho nudged at the tapestry and I pushed it aside, finding a doorway set into the stone. A tiny corridor led the way to a twisting stair carved from the rock-to the count’s room, I had no doubt.

“Of course,” I said, as much to Tycho as to myself. “The counts have always used the rooms above and would wish to visit their wives privately. A secret stair for the convenience of the master,” I added with a rueful shake of the head. But this was not the time to ponder the implications of why I had been placed in this room, or the strangeness of my nocturnal visits. A more important development had occurred-Tycho had just revealed to me the path to freedom.

18

With some difficulty, I herded him before me up the tiny stairs and back to his master’s side. I waited behind, ready to scurry back to my bolthole should anyone notice Tycho’s reappearance. I had noted the time, and the rest