“You sent me to do your dirty work, and I did it well.”
There was a new defiance in the voice-or had it been there all along, buried, released now by the flames that had burned the body?
“Of course you did. Thieving and killing are in your blood. I gave you a purpose, and you betrayed me.”
“Maybe I was being loyal to my family.”
“A pig like your father cannot command loyalty. Loyalty! You bastard, why did you do that to Mikalis?”
“He caught us with the icon.”
“Your father was still in the church.”
“He had trouble with the false wall.”
“You told him where to find to it.”
“Yes.”
“Because you heard me give Muller the instructions.”
“Yes, but they weren’t easy to follow. Then it took him time just to make a small hole. He thought he heard the Germans coming, so he started the fire, in front. The whole place was burning before he got at the Holy Mother.”
“How did he get out?”
“He meant to go by the rear door, but you and I and the others were already outside it by then. He heard the priest making noise, or else he would have run right into us.”
“Why not use the crypt?”
The burned face seemed to size the captain up, weighing words.
“He tried. There was someone waiting there.”
“Germans?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Can’t you guess?” Shifting in his chair, Kosta grimaced painfully. Whatever relief the wine had provided was fading. There was no morphine or anything else within reach that would stem the hurt of such burns. Then a lifetime of disfigurement. I will be doing him a favor, thought Elias.
“Why did you have to kill him?”
“I didn’t want to. I nearly had him turned around when my father came out of the crypt, with the painting. Mikalis understood at once. He fought my father for the icon. I tried to drag him off, but he began to shout. You must have heard him.”
“We were shooting; we heard nothing. But that didn’t matter. He had seen what you were up to, so you had to kill him.”
“The first blow was only to silence him.”
“It is a vicious kind of wound, usually fatal.”
“I had no time to think. Even then, he kept fighting. The flames were all around us. I had to strike him again. He fell down the stairs to the crypt, still cursing us.” Kosta’s gaze was almost reverent with the memory. “I thought he might live.”
“He did not.”
Kosta nodded, his expression as sad as if his own brother had died. What strange animals we are, thought Elias.
“How did you get out?”
“The fire was mostly out in front by then. We made a run for it, through the burning.”
Images came to the captain, less like conjuration than memory. He saw the wall of flame, death on this side, survival on the other, but at a cost.
“I pulled the counterpane off the altar and wrapped it around me,” Kosta continued. “Then I went first, my father just behind. There was a charred timber, and I fell.” His voice cracked. “My father…”
“Left you.”
“No, he tried to help me.”
“He left you.” The scene unspooled in Elias’ mind, a vision, clear and absolute. “Worse. He ran over your fallen body to safety.”
“No.” But the young man was overcome, shaking in grief and pain.
“He is a dog, Kosta, who would kill his own child for gold.”
“He pulled me from the flames.”
“After. After he had placed the icon away from the fire.”
“You saw?”
“No. Who tended your burns?”
“My aunt. She is a poor nurse, I think. The balm does no good. My flesh is fire.”
“She had no time. Your father sent you away, so that he might stay behind and bargain. But he miscalculated.”
“How is my father?”
“Such burns take long to heal, Kosta. May never heal. Have you seen yourself?”
“I have not tried to. I must be hideous. Ioannes will not look at me.”
The boy groaned at the mention of his name, tried to sit up, bent, and vomited. Only then did Elias snatch up the heavy pistol by the child’s side. He was growing forgetful; he would soon make a serious mistake.
“Look, my friend, your brother lives. For how long, I wonder?”
“That is in your hands, Captain. I know how you and your master like to play God.”
“What is between Dragoumis and your father?”
Kosta only smiled, a lopsided leer with no heart in it.
“Come now,” scoffed Elias. “Your father, at least, I understand. You have no reason to protect Dragoumis. Every reason to tell me the truth.”
“That is so, I suppose. Except for the pleasure of seeing you struggle in the dark. You two spend more time keeping secrets from one another than fighting. You are feeble men.”
“You want to watch the boy die before you?”
The burned man rocked in his chair, the agony of his dead flesh relentless now.
“You will not kill him, I know you.”
Elias looked at the child, who looked back with a stunned incomprehension. He would not kill Ioannes, though he had not been certain of that until Kosta spoke.
“How is my father?”
“Why should you care?”
“He is still my father.”
Perhaps this was the way. Kosta should have known that his father was dead by now, but every man had his blind spot. Elias looked for a place to sit, but there was no place.
“The Snake has him. He will die, unless I intervene. Which I will not do unless you tell me precisely what happened back there.”
“You know what happened. What do the details matter?”
“What part did Dragoumis play?”
“And how will that help my father? You would believe anything I told
