Her voice had flattened to calm and matter-of-fact, the way a teacher strives to remain neutral before the classroom, especially when introducing a potentially hot topic. I wondered for the first time if she felt about me the way I did about her: wary, not sure about trust.
I wondered if we both felt the same way about Alec. And what about draska mea?
I said, “Do you think I was conspiring with Alec to kill Ruli?”
“You? Alec?” She shot me another look, her brows up. “Killing Ruli? Impossible.”
“You seem angry.”
“I am angry. But with someone else. Not with you.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Last night, my cousin Anijka came to see Honoré, while the rest of us were at Ruli’s vigil. He saw her out. He insisted on using my great-grandfather’s old cane to walk her out. On the way back, he reached that turn at the top of the stair . . .” She closed her mouth tight. “He fell. He got one hand on a banister, and so he only crashed to the steps, while the cane tumbled all the way down.”
“Did he trip over the cane?”
“That’s what we thought, except for three things. First, his impression that something got between his foot and the cane.”
“You mean like a trip wire?”
“Or something stuck between the two, from between the banister posts. The second thing, Shurisko was in his room not ten meters away, barking in madness. That’s what we came home to, actually. And third, the door to the garden was unlocked, and my mother distinctly remembered locking it herself.”
“So . . . you think someone did it on purpose? Tony thought the fire was on purpose. He came over to accuse me last night.”
“So I understand.” She looked down, her lips compressed.
“It sounds to me like the vigil meant to honor Ruli wasn’t all that healing?”
“It was horrible, so full of traditional words, so meaningless when spoken with smothered anger. So many are angry with one another. Angry with Alec. Yet there are so many questions one cannot ask outright.” She flicked the fingers of her hand upward, rattling her bracelet as if waving goodbye to an unhappy topic. “It was very formal, very stiff, and very, very short. Let us talk about something else.”
“Is there a Dobreni history book?”
“Both the city and the palace libraries were destroyed by the Soviets. Although some books were secreted, they are seriously out of date. We’re in the process of doing something about that.”
“When Honoré told me about his project, he mentioned what happened to the library.”
“We’re still recovering from those years, in many ways.” She paused as she negotiated through the snarl of traffic around the enormous traffic circle where Prinz Karl-Rafael street ended. In the center was the shepherdess fountain. The figures were not moving. I watched as we threaded through people, carts, horses, autos ranging from the forties on, and the streetcar. “I hate driving the Xanpia roundabout,” she commented, “but it’s the quickest way to Ladislas, and we don’t have a lot of time. So. Even if you know nothing about us, what do you think ‘Dsaret’ means?”
“Oh.” Never saw that coming! “‘ Tzar’ or ‘Caesar’ is at the root?”
“Yes. The oldest legends have it that the Dsaret family were custodians of the oldest mine. What was in that mine . . . has been debated.” Her tone was odd.
As she turned again and slowed in search of a parking place, I considered her words. “You don’t just mean the usual things you find in mines. You mean something to do with the legends about Vrajhus and the Nasdrafus?”
“It might. Or it could be that this oldest mine that no one seems to be able to point to just means Dobrenica.”
We’d arrived in a neighborhood where the buildings had grand Edwardian fronts. This had to be the Rodeo Drive of Riev. She pulled up in front of a marble-fronted shop with fine lace curtains in the windows and discreet lettering in old-fashioned script: Été. Summer—a lovely thought.
There was barely enough space in front. Beka put the car into park and put her hands in her lap with a faint rattle of her bracelets. She was frowning at the steering wheel as if it was speaking a language she almost remembered.
Then she said abruptly, “You didn’t tell us that you also saved Honoré’s work. As well as the cats.”
“Sure I told you.”
Beka’s smile was brief. “Perhaps we did not comprehend. Honoré certainly did not until this morning.”
I looked out at the shop, trying to deal with a weird mix of gratification and intense embarrassment.
“I would like to tell you how much that means to us all, but we really don’t have the time,” Beka said, now brisk. She glanced at her watch, then sprung the car door, exclaiming, “Come.”
“Lead on.”
We went inside the shop, which was completely different from shopping experiences I was used to. There might be places like this in LA, too, but in areas where I couldn’t even afford to park. We sat down, and the sales women showed us examples of all kinds of dresses. I picked out ones I liked. Then they took my measurements, and we talked about colors and fabrics.
Beka suggested a subdued silvery mauve shirt dress of soft wool for the funeral. It was very simple, few seams in the whole thing.
The sales woman promised it would be delivered before I finished my shopping. When I gave the address, she blinked once or twice, but made no comment. Her only expression was a minute smile, mostly a relaxing of the skin around her eyes, as I piled up the orders. I’ve always preferred one stop shopping, and if I like something, I grab it and go.
The woman thanked me, everything in French, as discreet as could be. The only reminder that I was still in Dobrenica was the greeting on leaving, an elided version of some kind of blessing, somewhat like the Austrian “Grüß Gott.”
After that, we rounded a corner and went up narrow stairs to a shop that didn’t even have a sign. One glance at the swatches of fabric on display, and I suspected I was in one of those super exclusive places where the clothes are not only bespoke, but in some greater sense designed for the wearer.
As we mounted the stairs, Beka said casually, “I am assuming you shall attend the gala on New Year’s Eve.”
“What gala? Oh yes, you mentioned it before. At the Opera House? I haven’t been invited to that, either.”
“They’ve thrown the celebration open to the entire city, as so many have been working to get the opera house ready. Though Ruli was not particularly fond of life in Riev, one thing she loved was the Black and White Ball on New Year’s Eve. It’s a tradition here. Everyone wears black and white, in celebration of the old year ending and the beginning of the new,” she said. “This year the von Mecklundburgs were to host it—we trade off—and they had intended to combine it with the opening of the opera house. Even though construction isn’t finished, they are holding it there anyway, to show the progress. Perhaps to inspire contributions. Anyway,” she said as we entered, “you need a ball gown. But getting one made in a few days, especially with everyone wanting one, is . . .” She glanced at the shopkeeper, a small, stout woman with a broad face who reminded me of some Russians I’d seen. The two exchanged gazes, a heartbeat too long. A signal.
Beka asked, “Madam Celine, is it too late to make a gown?”
It was like she was giving a cue, and on cue the woman replied, “We might be able to achieve something.” Her French was decidedly Russian accented.
I said, “I’ll take any old thing off the rack—I don’t really care.”
Beka was trying not to laugh. “There is no rack here. Ball gowns are made for the wearer, works of art.”
Madame Celine said, “If we might measure . . . ?”
Beka’s lips pursed. Then she flicked a look at me.
I said, “What’s going on? I’m not being set up for something nasty am I? No, wait—is this a place Ruli used to come to?” I was completely squicked out by the idea of them hauling out some fancy gown of
Ruli’s.
“She hadn’t even come in for the first fitting. It was made up on her pattern. The gown is based on something Ginger Rogers wore in a film,” Beka said.
I stopped in my tracks. “Which film?”
“Swing Time, I think it was called. I know I’ve seen the film, but I don’t remember it very well. It was a favorite of hers.”
“Not the gown from ‘Never Gonna Dance’?”
“That’s the one.”
Okay, I had to have that dress. Ruli, if you don’t want me in it, now’s the time to speak up, I thought.
The silvery-white gown was deceptively simple in design but made up of many thin strips exquisitely stitched together, broadening out from the hips into a filmy skirt. The fabric was a marvelously supple, floaty, silk on silk, brocaded in the pattern of a stylized flower. Where had I seen that flower? Oh, yeah. Woven into the pattern on the Amaranth rug where Honoré had lain. And it was the same one carved into the hinges of that wonderful fake door I’d seen on my first day. A long chiffony black scarf draped in a scoop across the neckline to fall over my shoulders in two streamers to the hem.
I postured and twirled before the mirror. The skirt had the necessary swoosh for waltzing, but it wasn’t poofed out with miles of petticoats, the way my eighteenth century ball gown had been for the summer masquerade. I wouldn’t feel like a ship under sail when trying to walk.
So I agreed to everything and promised to return for a second fitting.
As we left Beka insisted on elbow length black silk gloves, so on we went to the anticlimax of underthings and accessories. We made our way down the street until we reached a shoe store. Beka said, “You won’t find anything adventurous here, but the shoes are comfortable and classic in design.”
“Since my interest in footwear has been pretty much confined to sandals, ballet slippers, and fencing shoes for competitions, this is not a big disappointment.”
She laughed. “I wish I could take you to Italy. You would discover the beauty of good shoes.” It was the first genuine expression I’d heard from her.
The shoemaker measured my feet. I picked out one pair of high heeled pumps, which the earnest young man promised would be ready in time for the ball, and several pairs of satin covered flats that could be delivered later. A shawl, two coats—one a full length, incredibly soft thing and one short and practical—a couple of hats (a fuzzy one like Phaedra’s), and a couple of new suitcases. I wondered what Madam Waleska was going to make of this stream of deliveries.
After the suitcases, Beka looked at her watch. “We have forty minutes.”
Back to the car we tramped. She maneuvered us into the thin but steady stream of sleigh, auto, foot, and occasional shaggy-horse traffic. We drove down a street parallel to the cathedral and the temple, pulling up in a tiny cul-de-sac with shops so small the doors and windows were about the same size. One was a café.
Inside, it smelled like fresh-ground coffee and onion-braised meats and steamed cabbage. Beka led the way between tiny tables where people sat eating, talking, or reading. No cell phones, no computers. The late Victorian décor had Corinthian pillars and flourishes against the ceiling. A wave of giddiness rippled through me, as if I’d slipped back in time. I had a sense that this café was very old.
So I focused on Beka’s curly head directly in front of me as we passed the customers in the narrow shop, even though there were two tables free. We went through the back door into a corridor barely wide enough for us in single file. I caught a brief glimpse of a kitchen and of someone taking rolls out of a brick oven. Beka led us down a narrow hall to a small parlor with a single window overlooking a small courtyard. Central was a tiny garden, snow-mounded, except for a bare tree that reminded me of the one around the shepherdess fountain; only this tree didn’t look withered and dead. Snow covered the rest of the court, drifted right up against the window.
Our private little parlor had two chairs with iron legs, and on the little round table a coffee service had been set minutes before, judging from the stream rising from the pot.
“If you would like something to eat, I will open the door. Otherwise, we can talk here without being overheard,” she said.
“I had a huge breakfast two hours ago.”
She poured out coffee for us, and I looked down at it, wishing it was tea. Enough cream and some sugar made it palatable.
She cradled her cup, brow slightly furrowed, then said, “Will you please tell me exactly what happened at Honoré’s house?”
This time I went into detail, from Honoré’s pulling into his garage to the moment when his car slid down the hill as we tried to reach Ridotski House. She did not interrupt, nor did her gaze waver from my face.
At the end, she leaned forward, hands clasped. “You didn’t mention lighter fluid yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t smell it. Maybe I smelled something else that reminded me of lighter fluid. But that’s what got me downstairs. For what it’s worth, I did not set that fire, and I did not drop that bust on his head.”
“I believe you. It makes no sense whatever to hit a man, set his house on fire, drag him to safety, then plunge back in to save his cats and his papers.” Her gaze shifted to the backs of my hands, then away as her fingers tapped lightly against the handle of her cup. Finally she said, “But somebody did those first two things. Natalie came to check him last night, since they couldn’t reach Dr. Kandras. He has left the city again. After she examined him, she asked us how a bust could fall on his head, then bounce high and hard enough to fracture his kneecap. Because she thinks that’s what happened to his knee.”
“I don’t know. The closest I get to detective work is watching NCIS. Does Honoré remember anything?”
“Yes. Here is where things get difficult.” She squared her shoulders. “When he woke up this morning, he said he remembers bending down to pick up the bust.”
I stared at her. “Then . . . it wasn’t the bust at all? Falling on his head, I mean.”
“Tony thinks that while he was stooping down to pick up the bust, someone brained him with the fireplace iron, then took out his knee on the back stroke.” Her cheeks colored at the mention of Tony’s name, but her voice was smooth as always.
I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, Tony’s ability to assess that kind of injury, or the fact that Honoré had been hit on purpose. “But not hard enough to kill him outright.”
“That’s the puzzling part. I mean, aside from the motivation. Either someone was not strong enough to smash in his skull, or else the attacker wanted him to be alive when he burned.”
“Ugh!” I gasped. “And so Tony accused me.”
“He doesn’t believe it any more. No one knows what to believe.”
“Okay, so next question, why would anyone want to kill Honoré?”
Her fingers played with the bracelet on her wrist. It was made up of tiny, beautifully faceted diamonds on a chain of thinly braided gold hung with polished wood pendants in the shape of a stylized flower—it was those that made the rattling noise. It was the same flower woven into the fabric of the Ginger Rodgers gown, and Honoré’s Amaranth rug. Hmm. Coincidence or significance?
“All right,” Beka said, breaking through my distraction, and leaning forward, her gaze intent. “Here is what is important. Honoré asked me to tell you something that he seldom shares. And that is: he sees what you might call auras.”
“Like New Age-y auras? You know, green if you’re into peace and love, and that sort of thing?”
“Not as . . . defined as that. He perceives scintillations in color around people. The colors coruscate in hue with emotional alterations. He thought everyone saw them until he and his twin discovered that Honoré perceived such things and Gilles didn’t. By the time he was ten or twelve, it became clear that he could tell when people were lying. You can imagine how unpopular he became in our small circle, for a while.” Her smile was mordant. “Then Honoré’s and Gilles’ parents vanished—word came of a c
ar wreck in Greece—and they were adopted by the duke and duchess. Gilles pretty much lived at his French boarding school, but Honoré became more reclusive. The von Mecklundburgs hired tutors for him. He never talked about the auras outside the family.”
“So that’s why everyone keeps looking at him, when they ask nosy questions?”
“He hates that, being used as a lie detector. He hates the necessity.” She tipped her head, then added quickly, “I believe this is why he has a habit of hiding his own truth behind obscure quotes and the like.”
“Whoa.” I thought back over the summer, and my lying from the first moment he saw me. No wonder he disliked me. And would his “emotional spectrum” also have revealed how I was falling for Alec, who was supposed to marry Ruli? “Oh.” I fought past the tide of embarrassment and said, “But if that’s true, last summer, how could he have not known about Ruli being kept up at the Eyrie? The duchess lied about that from the get-go.”
“You say ‘the duchess’ and not ‘Tante Sisi,’ I notice.”
“Any woman who tried to off me, I’m not going to call ‘aunt.’ No matter how many ways we’re related.”
Beka’s smile widened to a brief, impish grin, then she sobered. “This is another thing that is seldom known, but I think it might be time. The protections?” She touched the discreet diamonds at her ears. “One of the ways they work is to mask auras. They are intended to ward off inimasang.”
“Spirits of the blood?”
“The more common term is Shadow Ones, or sometimes Wild Folk—but the latter term is inexact, because it can mean others who are said to live in the Nasdrafus, the were-creatures, the fae. Anyway, when people wear the charmed diamonds or crystals, Honoré cannot perceive their auras, except vaguely.”