face, and he was fine, until the music stopped. Just like his mother. He was always a disaster waiting to happen. Could have told you that years ago.”
“No,” Narraway said succinctly. “It’s not about Rudolf at all, so far as I know.”
“Then what? You said Austria-Hungary.”
“Going back thirty years, or more maybe, to uprisings, planned or actual,” Narraway said.
“Plenty of them.” Herbert nodded. “Autocratic old sod, Franz Josef. Relaxed his hold a bit recently, I’m told, but back then he ruled with a rod of iron. He and Rudolf never saw eye to eye. Chalk and cheese. What about it?” He frowned, leaning forward a little and peering at Narraway. “Why do you care? Why now?”
“Thought you weren’t going to ask me,” Narraway said pointedly.
Herbert grunted. “Of course there were uprisings. You know that as well as any of us. Stop beating around the bush and tell me what it is you’re really asking.”
“A major revolt, drawing in other countries as well. Possibly a Hungarian uprising?”
A look of contempt flickered across Herbert’s gaunt face. “You can do better than that, Narraway. You know as well as I do-or you ought to-that the Hungarians are content to be a safe, second-rate power, ruled by Vienna while having a very comfortable life, if not quite cock of the walk. If they rose up against the Austrians they’d lose a great deal, and gain nothing. They are quite clever enough to know that.”
“The Croatians?” Narraway suggested.
“Different kettle of fish altogether,” Herbert agreed. “Erratic, unstable. Always plots and counterplots, but nothing has ever come of them, at least not yet. That’s not what all this is about, is it? Foreign Office thinks there’s going to be another Croatian problem of some sort, do they?”
“Not so far as I know,” Narraway said truthfully.
“Blantyre’s your chap,” Herbert observed. “Evan Blantyre. Knows the Croatians as well as anyone. Lived there for a while. Wife’s Croatian. Beautiful woman, but unstable, so I hear. Delicate health, always sick as a child. Not surprising, family caught up in rebellions and things.”
Narraway leaned back in his chair. “I’ll ask him, if things look like they’re heading that way. What about the Italians? They still haven’t got some of their northern cities back. Trieste and that region, for example.”
Herbert thought about it for a few moments. “Italian nationalists,” he said thoughtfully. “Could be trouble there. Disorganized, though, in spite of Cavour and Garibaldi and all the unification stuff. Still quarrel like cats in a bag. Thought they’d quieted down a bit.”
“Perhaps,” Narraway said dubiously. “Do you remember in the past an Italian woman by the name of Montserrat?” He watched Herbert’s face for even the slightest flicker of recognition.
Herbert smiled a long, slow curl of amusement, his eyes bright. “Well, well,” he said with a sigh. “Serafina Montserrat. Why on earth are you asking about her? She must be seventy-five at least, if she’s still alive at all. I remember when she was thirty. Rode a horse better than any man I knew, and fought with a sword. Used to be quite good myself, but I was never in her class. Knew better than to try. Saved me from making a fool of myself.”
“Italian nationalist.” Narraway made it more a statement than a question.
“Oh, yes.” Herbert was still smiling. “But not averse to lending a hand to anyone who was against Austria, wherever they were from.”
“Openly?” Narraway asked.
Herbert looked shocked. “Good God, no! Secretive as a priest, and devious as a Jesuit too.”
“You make her sound religious.”
Herbert laughed. It was a purely happy sound, bringing to his face for a moment the shadow of the young man he had once been. “She was as far from a nun as a woman can get. Although I didn’t know most of that at the time.”
“How did you learn?” Narraway asked. “Perhaps more important to me, when did you learn and from whom?”
“From many people, and over several years,” Herbert replied. “She worked very discreetly.”
“That’s not what you implied,” Narraway pointed out.
Herbert laughed again, although this time it ended in a fit of coughing. “Sometimes, Narraway, you are not nearly as clever as you imagine,” he said after several moments, still gasping for breath. “You should have taken more notice of women. A little self-indulgence would have helped you learn a great deal, not only about women in general, but about yourself as well, and therefore about most men.” His eyes narrowed. “Too much brain and not enough heart, that’s your trouble. I think secretly you’re an idealist! It’s not pleasure you want-it’s love! Good God, man, you’re a total anachronism!”
“Serafina Montserrat,” Narraway reminded him sharply. “Was she a wild woman, riding and fighting beside the men, and sleeping with a good few of them, or was she discreet? I’m not here simply because I have nothing to do and need somebody else’s business to meddle in. This could be important.”
“Of course you need something to meddle in!” Herbert said without losing his smile. “We all do. I’d have died of boredom if I didn’t meddle in everything I could. The locals all loathe me, or pretend they do, but they all come to see me now and then because they think I know everybody’s secrets.”
“And do you?” Narraway inquired.
“Yes, mostly.”
“Serafina,” he prompted.
“Yes, she was as tough and skilled as most of the men, better than many,” Herbert responded. “Not really a beauty, but she had so much vitality that you forgot that. She was …” He seemed to be staring back into memory. “Elemental,” he finished.
Narraway could not help wondering how well Herbert had known her himself. That was a possibility he had not considered before. Was he asking for information about a past lover of Herbert’s? Or was that merely imagination, and a little wishful thinking?
“You have not so far touched on anything remotely discreet about her,” he pointed out.
“No,” Herbert agreed. “She seemed to be so obvious in her support of Italian freedom fighters that most people assumed she was as open about everything else. She wasn’t. I deduced, completely without proof, that she knew a great deal about Bulgarian and Croatian plans as well, and even had connections with early socialist movements in Austria itself. That last I am convinced of, but I couldn’t produce an iota of evidence to support it.”
“A clever woman,” Narraway said ruefully. “Bluff and double bluff.”
“Exactly,” Herbert agreed. He leaned forward in his chair, wrinkling his jacket. “Narraway, tell me why you want to know. It’s all water under the bridge now. You can’t and shouldn’t prosecute her for anything. And if you ask me officially, I shall deny it.”
Narraway smiled, meeting the other man’s eyes. Herbert’s thin cheeks colored very slightly.
“She is ill and vulnerable,” Narraway answered, wondering, even as he said it, if he was wise to do so. “I want to make sure she is protected. To do that, I need to know from what directions attacks might come.”
Herbert’s face lost all its good humor. “Attacks?” he snapped.
“The threat may be more imagined than real. That is why I need to know.”
Herbert sat still without answering for several moments, staring past Narraway to the rainswept garden, with its sharply pruned roses and budding leaves fattening on the trees. When at last he returned his gaze to the present, his eyes were clouded.
“I’ve realized how little I actually knew about her,” he said quietly. “She was a creature of intense passion. Everything done with a whole heart. I assumed I knew why, and what her loyalties were, but since what you need now is far deeper than that, I have only observations and beliefs to offer you-for what they are worth.”
“It will be more than the little I know now,” Narraway replied immediately. “First, is she image or substance, in your belief?”
“At first, I thought image,” Herbert said with an honesty that clearly pained him. “Then I came to believe there was substance. I am still of that opinion.”
“What changed your mind?”
“A betrayal,” Herbert said very quietly. “There is no point in asking me the full story of it because I don’t know. At the time I only knew of the execution, and that it was for plotting an assassination …”
Narraway felt a sudden chill. “An assassination?”
