The River of No Return (41 page)

It was the Russian, back from Devon. He was searching for her. He must already know
that she was the Talisman. He was coming for her.

He was trying doors. They were locked—but in a second he would see that the drawing room door was open and that the Falcott sisters stood like waxworks at the windows, Clare’s fingers curled to grasp a hand that was no longer there.

And there was no key in the lock to the staircase door.

Julia stood up, took a deep breath, and began descending the stairs as quickly and silently as possible. She had no coat, no hat, no money—but she knew she must flee this house. Disappear. Her heart was pounding in her throat and she felt as if she might be sick. Pretend. You shall be Ofan after all. Pretend.

Reaching the floor below, she allowed herself to speed up, and by the time she reached the basement she was flying down the stairs. She wrenched open the door to the stables and saw four horses still hitched to a mud-spattered carriage. The horses were steaming, their mouths frothy, their backs black with sweat. The Russian must have driven them to within an inch of their lives. Julia squeezed past the horses and the shocked grooms. “Please. Don’t tell him you saw me!” She darted out of the stable door, down the mews, and toward the river of men and women streaming into the square. She ducked into the crowd and let it carry her along.

T
he crowd was waiting for the lords outside the Houses of Parliament. Nick, who was in the center of the pack of blustering aristocrats, watched as those who went before him were accosted. “How did you vote, m’lord?” Refusal to answer or the wrong answer was met with boos and hisses, but the lords were allowed to pass through the gauntlet of disapproval unharmed. Then the Duke of Kirklaw made the mistake of answering angrily: “I voted for the Corn Laws and you are a pack of savages!” The crowd simply picked the duke up and passed him hand to hand over the mob. In his black and gray and white clothing, with his outraged mouth open and shouting, the duke looked like nothing so much as a mackerel, flip-flopping on the top of a heaving pile of fish. He was dumped in a mound of horseshit in the street and had to pick himself up. There was a moment of silence, and then there sailed over the heads of the multitude a great, broad laugh, issuing from the mouth of an enormous innkeeper who towered above everyone, his apron stretched across his chest like a flag. Other laughs made a chord with his, and the contagion was spreading among the crowd; then, all at once, it seized upon Nick, and he sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the street. He looked around him and saw that the lords themselves were having difficulty containing their mirth, and even the moon, rising in the still-light evening sky, was tilted at a jocular angle.

When it was Nick’s turn to answer for himself, he said, “I voted against the bill.” His answer was met with a cheer and he was passed through the press of bodies as quickly and as lightly as a hot potato. When he tumbled out on the other side, his clothes disheveled and his hat missing, he cut left off Whitehall into smaller streets and made his way up toward Pall Mall. There were chalk drawings of Castlereagh and Robinson hung in effigy all over the blank walls, and pictures of Robinson’s head on a platter; he recalled that Robinson, the man who had introduced the Corn Bill into Parliament, lived in Berkeley Square, and he stepped out more quickly. But he found another arm of the crowd again in Pall Mall. These men and women weren’t happy; they were streaming away from Mayfair, their faces gray.

“What happened?” Nick asked an old man.

“Two dead in Berkeley Square,” he said, eyeing Nick’s rumpled but fine attire. “You a nob?”

“Yes, but I voted against the bill. Who is dead? Please, tell me what happened.”

“A young man and a widow woman. Shot by those damned tin soldiers from John Robinson’s parlor windows.”

“A woman?”

The man stared at him, the crowd pouring past them. “You voted against the bill you say? And I suppose you think that makes you a hero. Well, answer me this: What if you knew her, and found her dead on the ground?” He turned and began to walk away.

“Wait!” Nick grabbed his arm. “I—”

The man jerked his hand away. “Oh, no, my fine lord. There is nothing you can say. Two lie dead in Berkeley Square, and the only good that can come of it is that the tide will turn now against you and your kind. Now scuttle off home to your wife and children. They are probably cowering like frighened mice under your mahogany dining table.”

Nick pushed, in an agony of fear, against the tide of humanity. When Berkeley Square finally came into view he could see that his house was untouched. The square was almost entirely empty now. The iron paling around Robinson’s house was bent and broken, and pales were scattered across his steps. The door hung open on its hinges and there was broken furniture in the street. A clutch of people stood beneath the parlor window, bending over two poor, huddled forms; Nick could see a woman’s arm extending from beneath the greatcoat that had been tossed over her.

Nick bowed his head. But the gesture of respect was empty; all he could think was, Thank God Julia is safe at home.

* * *

Smedley was waiting to receive his lordship’s hat and coat, but there was no hat, which elicited concern; had the rabble been violent? Smedley was relieved to hear it; his lordship had perhaps divined that Berkeley Square had not been so lucky? The revolting peasants had ignored the house, but there was some unpleasantness. Happily Miss Percy was already abed by the time the shootings occurred, and by the grace of God their ladyships had not been able to see the violence; the young plane trees might have been planted by good angels to preserve the women from having a clear view. Their ladyships were exhausted from the evening’s excitements and had followed Miss Percy’s lead; all the females of the house were abed. But his lordship will wish to know: Count Lebedev returned in the midst of the troubles and awaits his lordship in the library.

Nick escaped the butler and opened the library door to a cloud of smoke. The Russian was sitting in one of the chairs by the fire, a black cigarette with a gold filter dangling from his lips. He didn’t stand, and he neither looked at Nick nor answered his greeting. He merely raised a languid hand and let it fall again. Nick shrugged and headed to the sideboard for a brandy.

Solvig ambled into the library and sniffed the smoky air, her eyebrows twitching. Then she lumbered past Arkady without a glance and collapsed in front of the fire.

After a long moment, Arkady mumbled around his cigarette. “That’s a large dog. Yours?”

“Mm.” Nick poured a splash of golden brandy into a balloon. “I acquired her recently. Don’t ask how.”

“We had such dogs in Russia.” Arkady drew on his cigarette. “For fighting the bears. Their strength is something incredible. Their endurance and loyalty . . . once I knew one in Turkey; he tracked down and killed a wolf that had been devouring the sheep.” Arkady subsided into smoky silence.

Nick leaned against the sideboard, enjoying the smell of brandy and cigarettes. It reminded him . . . of what? The past or the future? He sniffed again. Something about it wasn’t right. Arkady’s cigarette—it didn’t smell quite . . . clean. Black with a gold filter. “That kind of cigarette has definitely not been invented yet, Arkady,” Nick said. “Just in case you hadn’t realized it.”

Arkady held the cigarette aloft and eyed it like it was a precious jewel. “This is a Sobranie Black Russian. I smoke them when I am angry. They are perfect in any century. Do you want one?” From his pocket he produced the box and gestured at Nick with it, though he still didn’t meet Nick’s eyes.

“No thanks. I don’t want to know what your anger tastes like.”

Arkady kept staring at the fire. He twirled the cigarette between thumb and forefinger and seemed to disappear into his thoughts.

For his part, Nick swirled the brandy in his glass. He wasn’t happy to see Arkady again so soon. He’d hoped to have more time to learn from Alva before having to deal with the Guild again. He and Alva had spent the last several nights publicly establishing their so-called relationship, going to parties, being seen all over town. The one hour they had had to talk had been spent by Nick telling Alva his story. She had been especially interested in Mr. Mibbs, just as the Guild had been. Nick had told her more, including what Mibbs had said to Leo, and how Leo had warned Nick away. Alva was fascinated. Had Mibbs really pressed into Nick’s emotions? Had he really used despair? Why did Nick think he had asked Leo about stolen children? Alva had even wondered if there was a connection between those questions posed in Chile and the incident outside the Foundling Hospital. Nick had shrugged, and said that he thought the Ofan and the Guild should know more about Mibbs and his obsessions than Nick himself did. After all, Mibbs clearly had the talent in spades, while Nick only knew how to hold on to his present moment by thinking about an acorn.

And now Arkady was back, and Nick hadn’t learned anything more. Did Arkady know, somehow, that Nick had turned firmly against the Guild?

Arkady smoked. Nick might as well not have been in the room.

Nick took a sip.

Arkady exhaled, slowly, a series of smoke rings.

Nick took another sip.

Arkady drew again on his cigarette.

Nick sighed. So he was going to have to push the issue. Fine. “Are you going to tell me why you’re angry?”

The Russian said nothing at first, and Nick noticed that his white hair was lank, his clothing less than crisp. Then he turned, and Nick saw that his eyes were bloodshot. “Give,” he said, and reached out a hand imperiously for Nick’s glass. Nick handed it over. The Russian tipped his head back and drank the brandy down in one gulp. “I have learned a great deal in Devon,” he said. “A very great deal. About your little mouse, Julia Percy. About her cousin, the imbecile earl. And about her grandfather. Her precious grandfather, Ignatius Percy, who is so recently and conveniently deceased.” Arkady hurled the brandy balloon into the fire and watched impassively as it shattered.

Nick stiffened, shocked by Arkady’s dramatics. He didn’t like this new, splintering mood of the Russian’s. “What did you learn?”

“The question is more material than that, my priest. What did I
find
?”

Nick shrugged, impatient. “I have no idea.”

“Look.” Arkady pointed to Nick’s desk. “I’ve left them there for you to see.”

Nick walked over to his desk. There, cluttered together, were some papers he had been working through, a photograph, a quill and inkwell, a Rubik’s Cube . . . it took a moment for his time-addled eyes to be shocked by the mix of old and new. “What the hell?” He picked up the photo. It was a somewhat battered snapshot of a beautiful young woman’s laughing face. Her blue eyes were Arkady’s. “Is this . . . ?” He turned to look at the Russian, to find him sitting with his eyes closed. “Is this Eréndira?”

The clock on the mantel ticked. Finally Arkady opened his eyes and slowly focused on Nick. “Is that my daughter? No. My Eréndira was a living human being, a brilliant and passionate woman. That slip of paper you hold there? That is a photograph. A trick of the light. It pretends to capture a moment in time.”

Nick looked at the photo. So this was Arkady’s daughter, Arkady’s lost, dead child. “Where did you find this?”

Instead of answering the question, Arkady flung his hand toward the Rubik’s Cube on the desk. “Have you ever played with one of those?”

“Not recently.”

“Try. You’ll find you can solve it in under a minute.”

“Yes. I remember doing it once or twice before, in the future.” Nick picked it up. He had not touched anything plastic in many days. Its particular slickness, its strange lightness, set his teeth on edge. Nick put it down beside the photo. “You found these things in Devon? In 1815? What do they have to do with each other? What do they have to do with Castle Dar?”

“Ignatz Vogelstein.” There was pungent loathing in Arkady’s voice.

Nick took a shallow breath. So Arkady now knew that old Lord Percy had been that famous Ofan.

“I went to Castle Dar,” Arkady said, “expecting to find a crazy Ofan. This Eamon, this new earl—he is crazy, yes. As crazy as that water bird, you know, the one that laughs.”

“A loon.”

“Yes. He is crazy like that. But he is not the Ofan I thought I was going to find. Instead I found another Ofan. Very powerful. But . . . dead. Ignatz Vogelstein. The leader of the Ofan investigations in Brazil. The killer of my daughter. The man I have waited so many years to strangle with these, my bare hands!” Arkady held up his long white fingers, his cigarette clamped between his teeth. “Always I have hoped to find him, so I could kill him. But he is dead. He has escaped me.”

“Darchester killed your daughter? I don’t believe it. I knew the old earl my whole life. He was a harmless old windbag.”

“Oh, you think so?” Arkady pointed his cigarette at Nick. “Before he went into hiding after the death of my daughter, your harmless old windbag was a man of middle age. A powerful man. A leader of men, a teacher, a prophet. She was young, and brilliant, and he? He seduced her. Not as a lover, no. But he seduced her as a teacher. He had in Brazil an Ofan think tank to try to pierce the Pale and learn its secrets. He stole the very best young minds from the Guild and Ofan alike. They experimented with the power. And my daughter, she was the strongest. One day she crossed the Pale. They were all working together, but Eréndira, she was the one, she went across. Vogelstein was holding her hand, and he let go. How could he let go? My daughter was lost. . . .” Arkady stopped. He could not go on.

“She died,” Nick said gently.

“Yes,” Arkady whispered. “She reappeared across the world and in another century. In her fear and pain she found Vogelstein, not me!” Arkady flicked his cigarette into the fire and pressed his palms to his eyes. “But he had this much of the humanity. He told me where to find her. She spent her final moments in my arms.” Tears seeped out from under Arkady’s hands. “She could not even speak! When she was dead I went to find him, to kill him. But he was gone. Never to be seen or heard from again.” Arkady lowered his hands and his tear-washed eyes shone electric blue. “The coward disappeared, my priest, poof! Like a puff of smoke.”

“And he came to Devon.”

“Yes. Now I know that he came to Devon. All along he had been this Georgian earl, this Lord Ignatius Percy. Ignatz Vogelstein, that was his Ofan name. After he fled Brazil he stepped back into his aristocratic life. He grew old in hiding, as the earl. Then he died.”

“Why is that important now?”

“Because Ignatz, of course, he didn’t just go to ground. All those years he continued with his research. He knew there was a talisman, and he searched for it. Perhaps he even found it. The crazy Eamon, even he knew there was such a thing. He thought it was that stupid cube! But Ignatz
was
up to something in Castle Dar, and he was not alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think?” The Russian stood, unfolding up out of his chair until he loomed over Nick. “Where do you suppose your little Julia Percy is this evening, Nick?”

“In her room. She went early to bed,” Nick said.

“No, no.” The Russian smiled down at him. “She is not in her room. This is why I am so glad you have the other woman. You will not be too heartbroken when I tell you.”

Nick found himself on his feet. “Arkady . . . do not play with me.”