Barbara Hambly - 02 TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD

He led her down the gilt and marble staircase and through the bossed bronze of the inconspicuous door to the pavement outside.

"You saw the Master of Vienna, then?"

"Count Batthyany Nikolai Alessandro August-and his wives. He has ruled Vienna, and indeed the greater part of the Danube Valley, since the days when men still fought the Turks on the banks of the river. As well that he and I are both conversant in the old French of the courts, for German I know only from books. It was not, you understand, a language spoken by anyone of breeding in my day; one reason that I made a point of being elsewhere until the Kings of England learned a more civilized tongue."

Lydia hid her smile. She'd heard him speak German to the Slovak and to the cook. One thing she had learned about Ysidro in the past few days was the depth of his snobbery.

Around them, Vienna slept, a drowned Atlantis at the bottom of a lightless sea. Shutters of wood and glass accordioned over the bright cafes, and even the dormers of the servants, high at the tops of the canyon walls, were closed eyes sealed in dreaming.

"Your husband injured Batthyany's youngest wife," Ysidro went on as they walked.

"He did well to leave Vienna. He was seen at the train station boarding the Orient Express for Constantinople..."

"Constantinople?" Lydia said, startled.

"Even so. A most curious choice."

"But who... who saw him? If it was one of this Batthyany's vampires..."

"Another wife," Ysidro said smoothly. "Who perhaps had reasons of her own for wishing ill to the fair German beauty who had-until James evidently burned her face with a handful of silver-been the count's fancy. The German beauty-Grete, her name is-slew at least two of the groundsmen at Fruhlingzeit in the hopes that their blood would speed the healing of her wound, but it will be some time before she is anything but hideous. Indeed, for some time to come Batthyany's coterie must hunt with the greatest of care, for fear of attracting notice by the police-another reason it is as well that your husband left Vienna when he did. Count Batthyany spoke of revenge, but his eldest wife-Hungarian, as he is- seemed pleased."

They turned a corner, coming clear of the tall walls to a cobbled expanse where the cathedral rose suddenly before them, like a black and white fish skeleton in the wintry moonlight. Mist lay thin about its feet, stirring with their stride; the air stung the inside of her nose when she breathed.

"Was it the vampires who killed Professor Fairport, then?"

"Of course." Ysidro's head turned at some small sound across the pavement. A young girl emerged from the cathedral's porch and hastened across the square to the concealing dark of the lanes beyond, drawing her shawl over her head as she went. The Spaniard watched her, speculatively, out of sight.

"Batthyany was enraged, you understand, at any other's fledgling entering his domain," he said, turning back to Lydia. "And doubly, that any would ally himself with mortal governments, and so bring such governments into knowledge of the vampires. He considered the burning of Fruhlingzeit-and the death of the men involved- sufficient warning. His intent was that Ernchester die too in the conflagration, but says that the earl has departed also from Vienna. According to his eldest wife, your husband was accompanied on the train by a female vampire whom they found upon the premises, who claimed that she had been kidnapped and held prisoner by Fairport. Indeed, Batthyany and his countess helped this woman take horses from the stable and load into the wagon her traveling coffin, by the light of the burning house. With horse and wagon she would have easily returned to Vienna in time to be on the train."

"Anthea?"

"It would seem. And my guess is that your husband lay alive in that coffin. He could not have escaped, else."

Lydia kept her face from showing the inner shudder she felt at the thought, but even as it went through her, another part of her mind was busy piecing together implications. Around her in the blanched moonlight the whole city seemed to lie in a drugged dream of mist and shadow, still with a stillness like death. Ysidro's world, she thought. The fag end of nighttime. The sense of being the only one left alive.

"That means-it must mean-Ernchester has gone to Constantinople."

"Even so," Ysidro agreed. "According to Batthyany's countess, Anthea claimed that she had been used as hostage to force Ernchester to the will of Karolyi and Fairport. It implies, of course, that Ernchester did not come to Vienna of his own accord, and so they hunted him no further."

"But James saw him get on the train with Karolyi of his own accord," Lydia said, puzzled. "After Karolyi was dead and Ernchester freed, why would he flee?"

"The fact that Charles got on the train of his own accord," Ysidro said softly, "does not mean that he did so of free will. And it would explain what has troubled me from the start. Ernchester is not a politician's choice-that slut Grippen has lately got in St. John's Wood is stronger to the hunt and the kill than Charles. But someone knew enough about him to know that he could be ruled. That a threat against Anthea would bring him. That to hold her would be to guarantee his conduct."

"Would Karolyi know that?"

"Evidently."

They had reached the house in the Bakkersgasse again. Unwilling, perhaps, to give up possession of those dark streets that were their sole dominion, Lydia and Ysidro sat as if by unspoken agreement side by side on the marble rim of the small fountain before the house. The gaslight wavered on the surface, made watching pits of the eyes of the bronze emperor above the water and touched the lower half of Ysidro's face, giving the effect of a carnival mask through which fulvous eyes gleamed like marsh fire as he spoke.

"Will you return to London, mistress? The trap here is sprung."

Lydia hesitated, feeling for one minute the overwhelming desire for the comfort of the things she knew, the world of research circumscribed by the university's walls. But she knew perfectly well, as the thought of it formed in her mind, that only a trap had been sprung.

"It isn't... it isn't over yet, is it? Whatever started this. Not anywhere near it."

"No."

Frightening as it had appeared in the beginning, Vienna hadn't been so bad.

"Would it be of help to you for me to go on to Constantinople? Because that's what I would prefer to do," she added, seeing the swift thought behind the Spaniard's eyes.

"It would be of help in finding Ernchester, yes." He frowned, as at some unexpected thought. "I would not have you undertake unnecessary risk-yet you know your husband's thought, and the legitimacy of your inquiries will help in the search for the heart of this matter."

He paused again, considering, and there was, Lydia thought, just the smallest trace of surprise in the enigmatic eyes.

"Curiously enough," he went on, "Charles has been in Constantinople. This was many years ago, but there might be some there who knew him when he-and possibly they- were living men."

"But it doesn't make sense-" Lydia pulled her collar closer about her face. "-if vampires are all as-as jealous of interlopers as the Count Batthyany is. That is... are they?"

"Mostly," said Ysidro. "Burning Fruhlingzeit as a warning was one of the milder expressions of displeasure I have encountered. Master vampires are not to be jested with when they conceive their territories in threat. Yet only a vampire could have summoned Ernchester to Constantinople. Only a vampire would know the threat that would bring him. Only a vampire would know that, of all the vampires I have met, Ernchester is one of the few capable of love."

"Do vampires not love?"

Ysidro looked up from tallying his points. Lydia had scored sixteen for eight through king in hearts, with the nine making up a quart; Ysidro, by not declaring a sequence in diamonds, had managed to win most of the tricks, including the last. It hadn't saved him.