Deanna Raybourn - The Dead Travel Fast

I put a hand to his face, touching the long line of silken black stitches. “It does you credit,” I told him.

He gave me a cynical smile. “You think so, but it is not merely for Cosmina’s sake that I will not give her over to the authorities. My mother maintains her innocence, and I am not certain enough of my own conviction to persuade her. I know what I believe, but there is no proof of it, and without such proof, the matter would drag through the courts and the newspapers and we would all of us be mired in the mud of it. No, tomorrow Florian will go to Hermannstadt. There is a private clinic there, an asylum. It is the only choice.”

“And they will simply accept your word for the fact that she is mad? They would lock her up on your recommendation alone?” I asked.

For a moment, the familiar hauteur settled over his features. “I am the Count Dragulescu. They will do as I say.”

“And must she be kept in the garderobe until she is taken away?” I asked. “It is so cold there, and it is where Aurelia died.”

The air of command did not alter. “She will remain there until she is taken. It is the scene of her crime, and it will not harm her to meditate upon her villainy.”

But as soon as the haughtiness descended, it fled and his tone was gentler. “There is nowhere else that I can keep her to ensure our safety. I have sent a mattress for her comfort, and she will be given hot food whenever she wishes. It is the only way.” He searched my face with tender and imploring eyes. “Will you forgive me?” he asked. “I could say I had no choice in how I brought the matter to light, but I did. I was ruthless, deliberately so. I used you to force a reaction from Cosmina, and I nearly destroyed you in the process.”

“You did what you must,” I said slowly. “But if you suspected her, why did you not confront her yourself?”

He paused a moment, as if searching for the proper words, and failing to find them, plunged on, taking honesty as his watchword. “Because I doubted you. I have known her tricks and lies and rages since she was a child. That is the truth of why I refused to marry her. Always there was something not quite human in her, although I never dared speak of it to anyone. But I did not know how deeply rooted the madness was. I too searched her room, when I left you in the garden. I found the letter and the carving fork and the rosary, and I saw how neatly it might all have been done.”

“You found them-and still you did not expose her?” I made to pull away, but he held me fast.

“Because I know her, I have always known her. She is capable of turning any circumstance, no matter how black, to her advantage. The objects alone were no proof, particularly since she would only say you had put them there yourself. And God help me, I doubted you. I had to know the truth.”

I opened my mouth to remonstrate with him, and snapped it closed. Had I not doubted him for the duration of our acquaintance? I owed him a just response.

“I suppose I understand,” I said slowly. “But my goading her into a rage has accomplished nothing. She confessed to theft, nothing more. She will never admit to killing Aurelia or to attempting to harm you. Even your own mother does not believe her guilty.”

“But I do,” he said with a grim note of satisfaction. “And I have the power to send her away.”

“What of the evidence itself? Dr. Frankopan took it from me. If only we can find him.” But even as I said the words, I realised the futility of it all. Dr. Frankopan would die sooner than see his only child swing from a hangman’s noose. Doubtless the evidence against Cosmina had been destroyed, dropped into the river perhaps, to be swept away to the sea.

“He is missing and no one knows where he is bound,” the count told me. “Without evidence, we cannot go to the authorities. It is for me to mete justice to Cosmina, regardless of what my mother believes.”

We both fell silent again, and the strong sturdy rhythm of his heartbeat under my cheek comforted me.

“How did you know to send them for me?” I asked. “How did you know what Dr. Frankopan meant to do?”

He gave me a rueful smile. “I knew nothing. At first, we only knew you had disappeared from your room, that the door was locked and still you had escaped. To me, this meant either you feared someone in the castle or you were fleeing to escape your own misdeeds. Dr. Frankopan was the only person you knew outside the castle and he too had been missed. And then I remembered that before the accident, I had sent word to Dr. Frankopan that I believed I knew who was behind the villainy in the castle. I wanted to consult him about whether Cosmina could have struck the precise blow that killed Aurelia. I knew they often discussed medical matters, and she often helped to nurse the folk in the village under his direction. He would have known if she were knowledgeable enough to effect such a murder.”

He touched the row of stitches in his face absently, and I wondered if they pained him. “But he never came. He sent word he was at a confinement, and that was the night I fell from the observatory.”

“Fell or were pushed?” I asked gently.

“I do not know. I saw no one and I remember nothing, only the sensation of falling and the desperate lunge to catch myself. But as I lay in bed, thinking about you and the possibility that you had done this to me, I thought of my doubts about Cosmina, and I realised Dr. Frankopan was far likelier to play the comrade to her than to you. He has always shown partiality to her, and it did not escape me that my accident happened just a few hours after I gave him reason to fear for Cosmina. And I began to think if I had been deliberately pushed, then perhaps you were in danger as well. I sent out Florian and Charles and told them to take a piece of your clothing and Tycho. He found you, thank God,” the count added fervently. “They carried you first to Frankopan’s cottage, where they discovered the empty bottle of sedative with the tea things and guessed at what he had done. From there they brought you to the castle, hoping that with time the sedative would run its course and you would waken. You must rest now,” he told me. “You have been through a terrible ordeal, and we will speak again later. There is much to discuss.”

I obeyed, but when he left me and I settled into bed, I found I could not sleep. I thought of Dr. Frankopan, so casually capable of leaving me to die, torn apart by wolves. And I thought of Cosmina, savaged by the rage she carried. And the countess, who even now believed that some monstrous revenant stalked her castle. I hated and pitied them all, and I do not know which emotion surprised me the more.

The next day a flurry of letters came and went, and I saw little of Charles or the count, for without the use of his writing arm, the count depended upon Charles as his amanuensis, and Charles spent long hours at the count’s side, penning the letters that would settle Cosmina’s fate. Messengers came and went, village lads who brought letters and gossip, and by the second day, everything had been settled. I had been given strict instructions to rest and saw no one, although my thoughts turned often to Cosmina, biding her time in the garderobe below me.

Early on the second morning, she was summoned to the great hall where the count stood, Tycho at his side, looking for all the world like a feudal prince. The rest of the household had gathered as well, and a quiet and tractable Cosmina was brought to the hall. The countess was pale, but resplendently dressed in a gown stiff with jet embroidery, her chin held very high as she stared directly ahead. A strange gentleman stood at the count’s side, and when Cosmina entered, he regarded her with a cool and professional curiosity. Her gown was creased where she had slept in it, and her hair was untidy, but she did not seem to notice, and her eyes darted strangely, as if the time she had spent in the garderobe had turned her wits entirely, as if the thin thread that had bound her to sanity had snapped once and for all.