Deanna Raybourn - The Dead Travel Fast

She waved me to the chair opposite and I took it, rather surprised that she even bothered with the gesture of welcome. I nodded towards the tapestry. “How lovely,” I told her, and she fixed me with her cold grey eyes and gave a sharp little cough.

“The sacrifice of Iphigenia. Surely you know the story, Miss Lestrange. The eldest daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sacrificed by her father for a good wind to launch the effort to retrieve Helen of Troy.”

I realised then that her needle was laden with scarlet thread and she was setting tiny, precise stitches just at the throat of the graceful figure stretched upon a plinth.

“Yes, I recall it,” I told her, finding the scene distasteful now and unpleasant. “I have come to bid you farewell and to thank you for your hospitality.”

She pushed the needle into the fabric, setting another tiny stitch into Iphigenia’s throat. “Of course, Miss Lestrange. You have been a most welcome and entertaining guest.” The words were the purest politesse , but there was no warmth in them.

Another stitch, this time a drop of blood staining the sand crimson. I looked away, fixing my attention upon the painting of the countess and her sister, the beautiful Tatiana.

“I am sorry about your sister,” I said impulsively. “Dr. Frankopan explained what became of her. That must have been very difficult for you. I have a sister myself, and I understand the bonds of sisterly affection,” I finished, rather pathetically. The grey eyes lifted to mine and I saw resentment and scorn there. She did not want my pity, and it was presumptuous of me to offer it.

I rose and turned to leave, but even as I did so, something tugged at my memory.

“Her inheritance,” I said quietly. I subsided back into my chair, conscious of the countess watching me closely even as she worked. “Tatiana was the elder and it was she who inherited the fortune. It was to have passed to Cosmina upon her marriage or her majority, her twenty-fifth birthday, I suspect. That was why you were so eager to marry her to your son. I could not imagine why any mother would willingly unite her son to a girl who carried the taint of madness in the blood, but I see it now. You have had the control of her money all these years, and if she married your son, you would still have a claim upon it, would you not? But if she inherited in her own right, the entire fortune would be at her disposal. She could do as she pleased, even to taking the money from here and establishing a household elsewhere. And you did not want that.”

The hand that held the needle stilled, and I realised she was watching me with a predatory amusement.

“You are enjoying yourself, Miss Lestrange, go on.”

My mind was working feverishly, dredging up all the bits of gossip I had heard, recollecting the odd looks and the unexplained discrepancies I had noted.

“Cosmina stole my rosary and the letter, I believe that. And I think it likely she killed Aurelia as well. But the carving fork, her look of surprise when I revealed where it had been found. The imploring glances she sent your way. You conspired with her, didn’t you? You had a greater reason to wish for Aurelia’s death. You were an insulted wife, outraged and betrayed. And she carried the proof of that betrayal in her womb, a proof that might well cost your son a portion of his own inheritance.”

It fitted together, so neatly I was astonished I had not seen it before. “I do not know how you persuaded her to do it, what promises or threats, by what tricks or cajolery, but she did. And you took the carving fork, did you not? For yours was the only other key to the silver. Cosmina cleaned it and returned it, but you took it away, and meant to keep it, for it gave you a hold over her to keep the instrument of Aurelia’s destruction. What then? Did you fail to give her what you promised? I suspect you convinced her you could persuade Andrei to marry her, and you failed again. Is that why she attacked your son? To be revenged upon you both? And how cleverly it was done. If she had succeeded, she would have killed him and I would have borne the blame of it. She would have inherited her fortune and could have secured the castle itself as her own, with no one the wiser to her crimes. Only you would know she had destroyed Aurelia, and you would never reveal it. But she attempted the life of your son, the one act you could not forgive, and even as she stood in his room, imploring you to save her, you turned your cheek and offered her no succour. And now she has ended as her mother did, with no one to whom she can confess the truth and even if she did, who would believe her? For the Dragulescus are masters of all they survey,” I finished, sickened by the tidy menace of it all.

I rose. The countess coughed again, more deeply this time, and when finished her colour was high.

“Do you think you will tell this to Andrei?” she asked pleasantly. She took up a dainty pair of scissors and snipped off the scarlet thread, putting her work aside.

“He has a right to know the truth,” I said stoutly.

She laughed, an unpleasant and unwholesome sound. I thought of the madness that ran like a broken thread through the women of their family and I wondered to what extent the countess herself was damaged.

“My dear, my son will never believe you. He knows what Cosmina is. She is a creature flawed from birth. She has told lies and engaged in malicious and petty acts from the time she came to live with us. It is no great stretch to think she has merely expanded her repertoire to include the trick of murder. It is what he chooses to believe because it is logical and neat, and my son has a logical mind. It comforts him to fit things into tidy categories and fix them with a label, as an entymologist will label his specimens. He feels he understands Cosmina, and if you go to him, you will ask him to create a new understanding, a place where I am a greater evil than she and where you are to be believed above his own mother. What man is capable of that?”

And whatever villainy the countess was guilty of, none was greater than the piece of sophistry she had just constructed. Of course she was entirely correct. There was no proof she had ever coaxed Cosmina to become the instrument of her revenge-only the carving fork under the pillow and Cosmina’s look of surprise had betrayed her. The structure of my argument had nothing sturdier than sand for a foundation, and I saw the whole of it blow away upon the winds of her scorn.

She rose and rang the bell. “Would you care for some tea, Miss Lestrange? I feel the need for some refreshment.”

My hands fisted at my sides. “No. I will leave this place and I will not speak of this. But I see you for what you are. You are a monster,” I said, my voice low and harsh.

Just then the door opened and the countess smiled over my shoulder, baring sharp white teeth. “Tereza, Miss Lestrange was just leaving. Will you-” But whatever she meant to ask was lost, for she broke off, putting her hands to her mouth, as if to stifle a scream. Suddenly she opened her mouth, and as we watched in horror, a river of blood began to flow, over her lips and onto the floor.

“Strigoi!” Tereza cried, pointing with a shaking finger.

Her scream brought Frau Amsel who ran to her mistress, taking up a basin to catch the blood. She turned to me, her eyes wide in her pale face. “Fetch the count! Go now! And take the girl!”

I turned and put an arm around the white and shivering Tereza, urging her to leave. As we quitted the room, I glanced over my shoulder one last time at the gruesome scene. The countess was covered in her own blood, for it had spilled from the basin, staining her hands and skirt and puddling upon the floor. Frau Amsel fretted and fussed and held the basin closer, but even as she did so, the countess raised her eyes over Clara’s shoulder and met mine, her gaze calm and inscrutable. I hurried out with Tereza and found the count.