Elizabeth Peters - Trojan Gold

I’ve had a crush on that King since I was sixteen. He is dressed in the height of fifteenth-century fashion, his full-flowing sleeves falling to mid-calf, his legs (a little thin, but not bad) encased in skintight hose. He has just swept off his cap to honor the Holy Family and his brown hair falls in wavy disarray over his forehead. If I ever saw a man who looked like that…

Suddenly I realized that I had seen a man who looked like that. No wonder the half-glimpsed profile of the man who (Gerda hoped) was following us had looked familiar. The same oblique shadows under the cheekbones, the same sharp angle of the jaw, the same indentation at the corner of the firm lips. What was more, I knew that man—or his double. A man I hadn’t seen for almost a year…

John had to jog my elbow before I noticed him. He begged my pardon in clipped idiomatic German and moved away, but not before I had seen his nostrils flare with annoyance. The conceited creature had expected to find me palpitating with girlish expectation, instead of intent on a work of art.

I followed him on a seemingly leisurely tour of the exhibits; actually it didn’t take more than ten minutes for him to reach the exit. Once on the street, he set a pace sufficiently brisk that I would have had to run to catch up with him, which, for a number of reasons, I was not about to do. Turning the next corner, he stopped at a parked car and unlocked the door. I arrived as he opened it; he stood back, motioning me in with a graceful bow. Perfect timing, as usual.

The car was a BMW, the latest model, black, sleek, and glossy. I got in. John got in. Neither of us spoke while he drove, with painstaking attention to the laws of the road, along Gabesbergs-trasse, past Königsplatz, with its museums and its pretentious pseudo-Greek gateway, and finally onto a quiet side street where he pulled in to the curb and stopped. He sat watching the rearview mirror until a Fiat that had been behind us went on by. Then he turned to face me.

His eyes were still hazel, but the mustache was no longer in evidence. His eyebrows were darker and bushier; you would be surprised how drastically a small change like that can alter a person’s appearance. There was a new scar on his face, perceptible only at close range—a thin white line running from the corner of one eye across his temple and under his hair.

I had thought of a number of things I wanted to say in that first private confrontation—some cutting, some subtly sarcastic, and all, of course, cool, calm, and detached. Now that the moment had come, I couldn’t speak or move. All I could see was that small pale scar, surely the memento of his encounter with my would-be killer. It had barely missed his eye. I wondered how many other new scars marked his body. I wondered why he had taken such a terrible risk…and, most of all, I wondered why he just sat there, staring dumbly, as I sat staring back at him.

Finally his eyes shifted; they scanned my face, with painstaking slowness, feature by feature. Then he raised his hand. One fingertip touched my cheek and glided lightly from the cheekbone to the corner of my mouth, along the curve of my jaw up to my ear, where his other fingers joined it to twine through my hair, cupping the back of my head. I was not conscious of other movement, his or mine, until our lips met.

He withdrew as delicately as he had advanced, settling himself behind the wheel as behind a barricade and presenting another barricade in the form of a bland, impassive profile.

“Cigarette?” he inquired politely.

“I don’t smoke. How trite of you, John.”

“I have become trite—commonplace—conventional. High time, wouldn’t you say?”

He was not as cool as he pretended. There was the slightest possible tremor of his hand as he reached for the lighter. I thought I was doing better until I realized I was still leaning toward him, lips parted and expectant, hands reaching. I sat up, smoothed my skirt, and folded my hands primly in my lap.

“So you’ve become respectable. What have you been doing since I saw you last?”

“As you say, I’ve become respectable. Nice little cottage in the country, nice honest job….”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it, any more than I could help asking the next question.

“Nice little wife?”

That shocked John out of his calm. “Good God, no. What a horrible thought.”

I didn’t say anything. After a moment, John inquired, “And you?”

“I don’t have a wife either.”

The curl of his lip showed what he thought of that cheap quip. I didn’t think much of it myself.

“It’s only been six months,” I said. “I’d have to be a fast worker to locate and capture a husband in that space of time.”

“You’re too modest. I assumed you always had a few candidates waiting in the wings.”

“And that I would be so devastated by your presumed demise that I would seek solace in the arms of the first personable male who made me an offer?”

John blew out a smoke ring. “You knew I wasn’t dead.”

“I was…almost sure.”

The catch in my voice was slight—and, I assure you, unpremeditated—but John caught it. I was afraid he’d laugh or make some mocking reply. Instead his bushy eyebrows drew together, and there was no amusement in his voice when he said, “I suppose you feel I ought to have sent you word.”

“Not at all. Neither of us is under any obligation to the other.”

“Neither? You ungrateful wench, I risked a horrible death for your sake.”

Just like old times, I thought, and sailed happily into the fray. “My sake, hell. I may have been first on the death list, but you were a close second. It was kill or be killed, buster.”

“That is a highly questionable assumption. I swim like an eel. I could easily have made my getaway while he was slaughtering you and the old gent.”

“The old gent raised a memorial to you.”

“I know. What a tasteless monstrosity,” John said disgustedly. “Honestly, Vicky, couldn’t you have exercised a little control? Those mourning cupids, with bums like cups of custard, weeping through their doughy fingers—”

“I designed those cupids, I’ll have you know.”

The muscles at the corner of his mouth quivered. I went on, “Unfortunately, I couldn’t persuade him to use the motto I favored.”

“Which was?”

“‘He hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows.’”

The muscles gave up the fight and stretched into a broad, appreciative grin. “Oh, lovely. Couldn’t have done better myself. Well, I appreciate the thought, darling. Shall we call it square? The absolute dreadfulness of that monument makes up for any neglect on my part.”

“Square,” I agreed. It was the only possible way of dealing with John, forgetting the past and letting bygones be bygones. If I started adding up all the aggravations he had caused me, I’d get mad, and I was about to ask his help.

“So what are you up to now?” John asked curiously. “I dare not hope it was for the sake of my beaux yeux that you framed that enticing advertisement.”

“You are right about that. It was eye-catching, wasn’t it?”

“Caught mine, certainly.”

“In which newspaper?”

I hadn’t really expected him to fall for it. He chuckled. “That would be telling. So what’s the scam, love?”

I told him.

The story sounded even more tenuous and fantastic than I had realized. John didn’t sneer or snicker, but he wasn’t enthusiastic either. Lips pursed, he shook his head. “Is that all you’ve got? It’s a picturesque scenario, my dear, but…”

“I can show you the photograph,” I said. “If the jewels are copies, they are damned good ones.”

“No need,” John said abstractedly. “You’re the expert; I accept your conclusions.”