"And his challenger won't have the capital base yet."
"I doubt it. Most fledglings do not realize the need for such invisible redoubts. They think immortality sufficient."
As he reached to take the cloak from Margaret's hand, Lydia saw that the gold ring he wore had slipped around his finger, turning so that the bezel faced inward to his palm, as rings do when the flesh shrinks away from them with cold, or age, or death.
"As for me, I shall pursue Anthea and Charles as the Undead pursue, listening in the streets where the poor dwell and seeking those places where the living do not walk. If James is yet alive, as this Karolyi has said, it is because the Bey needs something of him, and at a guess it is as bait, either for Charles or for Anthea. Karolyi is still bargaining, offering what he has to sell-the support and alliance of his government in these uncertain times- while feeling for other advantages."
"But why- " Lydia began helplessly, and Ysidro shook his head.
"We move in a miasma, and not entirely that of the Bey's making," he said softly. "There is some other matter afoot here, beyond a possible challenger or interloper. Treason among the Bey's fledglings, perhaps, or an interloper not of the common run. We must each search as we can. It may be that as a physician you will recognize something concerning cold as it has to do with the Undead state, which even the Undead do not know. Later, like the knights of the grail meeting upon the road, we can exchange information and see if we can read, one for the other, what each vision signifies. Do not lose hope."
"No," Lydia said, consciously steadying herself. "No. At least I know James is alive- if Karolyi was telling the truth. Though I did notice he was very careful not to say when he'd seen James. It might have been-well-days ago. But really, we can only do what we can do."
"An observation worthy of the sages of Athens," the vampire said gravely and, holding out his hand, took her fingers in his. "A word in your ear."
Conscious of Margaret's glare at her back, Lydia followed him out of the dining room, to the head of the stair.
He stood with his back to the vigil light, so that only its reflection touched the points of cheeks and chin and made a spidery halo of his hair. In his enveloping cloak he looked like Death on its way to the opera; his hands were, she thought, not quite steady as he pulled on his gloves.
"You have fathomed my secret," he said, the soft voice emerging from the dark, and upon it, like the trace of his antique inflection, Lydia detected the echo of a smile. "The blood of animals gives some nourishment, though it does not warm, and their deaths are useless to feed the hunger and the need of the mind. But it would not do to shock Margaret with the information that the dark hero of her Byronic fancies is currently living on the blood of dogs-and such dogs! As a physician, however, I knew the matter would consume you until you knew." Lydia laughed, the fear and tension she had felt since that morning in the bazaar loosening its hold. "I think you're just too vain to own to it." She smiled, and Ysidro paused, his hand on the rail of the stair.
"Of course I am vain," he said. "All of the Undead are vain- too vain to admit that, like common men, we must die."
He made a move to go, then turned back and took her hand again-carefully, so as not to come near the silver on her wrist- and raised it to his lips.
As he vanished into the shadows of the stair, she said, "Be careful..."
She didn't know whether he heard or not.
Margaret shoved the papers she was reading quickly into her workbasket and returned to her chair as Lydia reentered the dining room. She kept her eyes downcast, but Lydia felt the sullenness of her silence, the resentment in the set of her narrow back in its ill-fitting cotton shirtwaist. She drew a pile of gray Deutsches Bank ledgers to her, but left pencil and foolscap to one side untouched.
Determined not to have another argument with her, Lydia only asked, "You know what we're looking for?"
"New corporations in July or August paid for in gold or by transfer of lands, sums transferred to another corporation or another bank monthly or quarterly." She recited Lydia's instructions like a schoolchild regurgitating some hated-and barely comprehended-lesson.
"Look for a transfer to the second corporation, or to a new corporation, in the first week of October of ten thousand marks, or twelve thousand five hundred francs, and if you see either the Zwanzigstejahrhundert Abkuhlunggeselleschaft, or any of these names-" She pushed across to her the slip of paper she'd gotten from Razumovsky that afternoon, listing the four or five names under which the Sultan's chamberlain took bribes or laundered money. "-please flag it for me." "I understand," Margaret said with gruff impatience, and pulled the paper to her, but didn't even turn it right side up. Lydia half opened her mouth to remonstrate, then let it go. She guessed she'd have to go through whatever Margaret did again anyway, but if these ledgers had to be back in the morning, there was no time for either discussion or for Margaret to slam into the bedroom in a tantrum. She couldn't work through all of this alone.
And what could she say in any case?
The dream returned to her, of Margaret waiting in the castle ruins for a horseman who never came. Was Ysidro unable even to project the dream memories of passion to her now, the melodramatic romances that held her to him? Was he, she wondered suddenly, unable to appear in them because in them he would be the skeletal, almost insectile creature who had spoken to her with his back to the light?
If that was what vampires saw in mirrors, no wonder they avoided them, veiled them, kept them closed behind doors. If that was what the living eyes would perceive, no wonder the vampires caused the living to see-or remember seeing- nothing at all.
All of the Undead are vain...
"Kiria..." Stefania Potoneros appeared, hesitating, in the doorway and held out two stiff cream-colored envelopes.
The first contained a note on the letterhead of the Zwanzigstejahrhundert
Abkuhlunggeselleschaft-Berlin, London, and Constantinople-typed neatly in English and signed by a secretary.
Mrs. Asher:
We regret to inform you that Hen Jacob Zeittelstein is unable to make an appointment with you for this week, due to the fact that he is in Berlin at this time. When he returns to Constantinople on Wednesday next, he will of course be delighted to get in touch with you regarding a meeting.
Sincerely,
Avram Kostner
Private secretary to Herr Zeittelstein
Wednesday! thought Lydia, aghast. Two days from now until he was even in Constantinople, let alone when he'd have time to see her, answer her questions.
Jamie could be dead by then...
Jamie could be dead now.
My dearest Madame , the other letter read, in an elaborately indecipherable French hand.
It appears we have located the storyteller your husband sought. With your permission, my carriage shall arrive for you at ten tomorrow morning, though it would be well to be prepared to do some walking.
Your most humble servant, Razumovsky
"If I may be permitted to ask a question, effendi?" Asher turned his cheek to the slab where he lay, blinking the sweat from his eyes. In the still, dense heat of the tiny hararet-the chamber of the baths that the Romans would have called the calderium, or hot room-the shape of the Master of Constantinople, white as the marble that entirely formed the walls, seemed to emerge from and blend into the steam in a disconcerting fashion, so that half the time Asher was not entirely certain he could see him at all.