Written in the Blood (4 page)

She looked up and met dead eyes.

Tell him.

She was no longer sure this was a good idea.

Tell him.

‘Because you have something I want.’

‘And that is?’

‘How much do you know, Ágoston?’

‘This will take far longer if you answer every question with one of your own. Tell me what you want.’

‘I want an introduction.’

‘To whom?’

‘To whom do you think?’

‘I’m at a loss.’

‘Then you’re losing your touch.’ She cringed as the words rolled off her tongue, but knew that if she capitulated too easily she would lose his respect. And if she lost that, she would find herself in even greater danger.

‘How many others know where you are tonight, Leah?’

‘Enough.’

‘Do you know that when you lie, your pupils dilate? Ever so slightly. And those gorgeous blue eyes grow a little darker.’

‘I want you to pass on a message.’

‘To whom?’

‘To the rest of the
kirekesztett
,’ she said. ‘Specifically, the
kirekesztett
women.’

He blinked. ‘And why would I do that?’

‘Because I have an invitation for them. An offer.’

‘I can’t think of any offer you could make that would interest any of the women I know.’

‘Why don’t we let them decide that?’

‘What is your offer?’

Leah picked up her glass. She drained it, placing it back on the table. ‘A child.’

Ágoston stared. He took a long sip from his wine and leaned back in his chair. Somewhere in the room, she heard a clock ticking.

‘Well?’ she asked.

His face was a reptilian mask: unreadable. He blinked, eyes crawling once more over her body. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You said you thought you’d watched the last generation grow. That you’d never see another
hosszú élet
child. Or the hope of one.’ She took a breath. ‘Well, there
was
hope, for a while, but it’s trailing away from us now. Obviously you have a grasp of our history. Of the cull, back in 1880, that led us to where we are today.’

‘The
Éjszakai Sikolyok
wasn’t a cull, Leah. It was a massacre.’

She hadn’t witnessed the genocide, ordered by the old Crown of Hungary, that the
hosszú életek
had named The Night of Screams. She suspected A Kutya Herceg probably had.

‘You also know,’ she continued, ‘the reason
why
it decimated us. Despite our longevity, we’re fertile for only a short period in our lives, and once it’s passed . . .’ Leah opened her fingers, as if scattering dust. ‘What do you know of my mother?’

‘I know she’s not a true
hosszú élet
. I know that the pair of you are a bastard mix.’

Leah hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Accurate, if a little vulgar.’

His eyes glittered.

‘We found a way, you see. A chance to offer us hope of a future. It wasn’t easy – and that’s an understatement that trivialises the sacrifices made by a group of women far braver than I could ever hope to be. We asked for volunteers,
hosszú élet
women past the natural age of childbirth, and we tested them. And after years of wrong turns, red herrings, failures, we found a way – together – to help them to become mothers.’

Leah watched Ágoston’s Adam’s apple as it moved in his throat.

‘How?’ he asked, and his voice cracked, as dry as straw.

‘I can’t tell you that. Not yet.’

His eyes narrowed. He gripped the sides of his chair, trembling now, barely holding himself together. ‘Oh, I think you will.’

Dismayed, she realised that his reaction was due neither to surprise, nor wonder, but rage. She pressed ahead, sensing that she had little time. ‘The chance of a future, Ágoston. A new generation. But the tragedy is, that despite everything we’ve achieved, we’re just not getting there fast enough. This chance; it’s been reduced to the basest of calculations. Simple maths, if you like. We know the numbers we need to turn this around. We know our ratio of successful pregnancies. And we know how many volunteers we have. The maths just doesn’t work. We’re so damned close and yet, despite everything, we’re not going to succeed. Not without help.’

Leah raised her eyes back to his and saw they had darkened to black. He was furious, and she could not tell why. She knew she stood on a precipice here, knew the stories she’d heard of A Kutya Herceg were more than mere cautionary tales.

But she had come all this way –
they
had come all this way – and if she risked his wrath, and her life, with what she needed to ask, if that was the gamble she had to take, then take it she would. Because someone had to. Someone had to ensure that the sacrifices made by her mother, Gabriel, and all the women who had given their lives back in Calw did not amount to nothing.

After all the
hosszú életek
had bequeathed to the world, someone had to prevent them from fading into oblivion. She might be the only one left who could.

A Kutya Herceg’s jaw was shaking. ‘What are you asking, Leah?’

‘I’m asking . . .’ She swallowed, clasping her hands together, growing angry at her fear, her lack of resolve. ‘I’m asking you to talk to them. I’m asking you to pass on my offer. We can give them children, if that’s something they want. With their help, we might just build a new generation. We might just offer ourselves hope.’

The moisture had fled from her mouth. She could feel her heart knocking against her ribs. Just glancing at the expression on this shrunken old man’s face terrified her in ways she had never anticipated.

Clutching the table with whitening fingers, blood draining from his face, A Kutya Herceg, self-proclaimed leader of the
kirekesztett
, rose to his feet. ‘You come into this house,’ he whispered, lips curled back from his teeth, ‘and you think you can sweep away a thousand years of blood with this
bastard
offering?’

Leah stared, mouth clenched tight. She knew that to interrupt him, to reply in any way, would be the worst mistake she could make.

He raised his voice. ‘You walk in here, knowing nothing at all of who we are, of the outrages we have suffered, of the lives ruined –
desecrated
– and you ask us to become your guinea pigs in an
experiment
? In a laboratory trial designed to save the very society that ostracised us in the first place? Is that what you’re asking? Is that the proposition you’ve dared to walk in here brandishing?’

The room’s double doors banged open and the man who had driven her to this mountain hideaway strode in. His face was pale, and his eyes had lost the last of their violet streaks. They shone, twin black spheres.

In his hand he held her snub-nosed Ruger. ‘
Após! Állj
!
’

The old man saw him and raised a finger, jabbing it towards her. A stream of Hungarian poured from his lips.

When Leah translated his words, she discovered just how terribly she had miscalculated.

C
HAPTER
4

Budapest, Hungary

1873

T
he boy, crouching in a windblown corner of the Citadella, had not known that his father intended to speak before he died.

If he had, perhaps he would have stayed away. Perhaps he would have sought the shelter of Szilárd’s wine cellar where he had spent most of the last four days, tucked away among the dust-caked bottles of Szekszárd Kadarka and Tokaj Muscat, throwing his
Jövendőmondás
cards at the brick wall and trying to read his fate in the light cast from a hurricane lamp. Perhaps.

For each of the last four nights he had lain beneath the covers of the canopy bed in the guest room Szilárd had donated, staring out of the window at the slices of moon bobbing on the Danube’s waters, thinking about his father, his two brothers, wishing he could remember his mother.

He was told nothing of his new circumstances. On the first day, Szilárd summoned him and explained the rules that would govern his time here. He could wander freely within the confines of the house. But he must not venture outside and he must not speak to anyone who visited.

He ate his meals in the kitchen by the fire, watching the cook prepare Szilárd’s favourite dishes: fiery paprika-laced
halászlé
– chunks of catfish and sturgeon floating in a soup as brown as river mud – and chimney-shaped
Kürtőskalács
she baked from a cinnamon-flavoured pastry wound around a tapered spit that hung above the grate. Occasionally one would slide into the fire and, cursing, she would tear off the ruined part and hand the rest to him. The caramelised sugar crunched in his mouth, but all the boy could taste was ashes.

The rest of the servants ignored him, or snatched glances with eyes impossible to read. On the fourth evening, his uncle summoned him to his study a second time.

The boy had always thought of Révész Oszkár Szilárd as a shambling bear of a man, a grizzled creature of the wilds forced against his nature to fold himself into the lifestyle demanded by the
hosszú életek
elite. Szilárd’s enormous belly hung over his belt like a round of cheese; it made him look slovenly however fine the tailoring of his clothes. The backs of his hands were carpeted with coarse black hair and his voice, when he spoke, hummed from the depths of his chest like notes teased from a double bass.

Sometimes a yellow-toothed grin lurked inside his nicotine-stained beard. But not tonight. Tonight his mouth was closed, pinched. His eyes looked bloodshot and old, and the skin beneath them sagged, revealing two defeated crescents of wet red flesh. The sight of them made the boy’s throat ache. How changed his uncle had become these last few days; how changed they’d all become.

Despite his pain, he held himself at attention and waited in silence. If his father could show strength in the face of what had befallen them, if his uncle could, then so would he.

It was summer still, so no fire crackled in the study’s hearth. The room’s light came from a pair of gilt girandoles, dripping with crystal, at the edges of Szilárd’s desk. Beside one of them stood a bottle of pálinka and a glass. The bottle was half empty. Beads of the spirit glistened on the hairs of the man’s moustache.

‘How old are you, Izsák?’ his uncle asked.

‘Eleven, sir.’

‘Eleven. Still a boy.
Kicsikém
. I’m so sorry for you.’

On the wall, the pendulum of a regulator clock rocked left, right. Izsák felt himself falling through the silence between its beats.

Szilárd lurched forward, clearing his throat. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and removed a pipe. Tamping tobacco into its bowl, he clenched the stem between his teeth, struck a match and sucked.

Brown leaf crackled and he breathed a fragrant cloud, heavy with the scent of leather and dried fruit. ‘Never had a son myself. Nor a daughter.’ Fingers of smoke crept through the air. The boy’s uncle shook his head. ‘What am I saying? As if you didn’t know that.’ He grunted. ‘No heirs. No noses to wipe. Never in my life met the right woman for that. Met plenty of wrong ones. An army of them, I can tell you. Long time ago now. You’re a boy still, Izsák. But you’re going to have to become a man.’

‘Sir?’

‘You’ve heard what your brother did?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on.’

‘He hurt a woman.’

‘You know how he hurt her?’

The boy felt his cheeks reddening. He nodded miserably.

Szilárd sighed. He sucked on his pipe. Blew out smoke. The clock ticked, lengthening the seconds between them. ‘He raped her, Izsák. No point tiptoeing around the word. Doesn’t soften it any if we don’t speak it aloud. I went over to Buda and saw her with my own eyes. She didn’t deserve that, and your father didn’t deserve it either. Nor Jani. Nor you.’

‘What will happen?’

‘It’s already decided. All eight members of the
tanács
voted in favour, and the
Főnök
– despite whatever reservations our leader may have had personally – ratified it. I don’t know how much pressure those councilmen were facing, but the result was unanimous. He’s been cast out. A
kirekesztett
now, and a part of us no longer. I won’t speak his name. Neither will you.’

‘I didn’t mean him.’

His uncle nodded. ‘Jani, then. They’ve blocked your oldest brother’s courtship of the Zsinka girl until this is done, revoking his right of
végzet
. And not just his . . .’ Szilárd stopped, frowned. He poured himself a shot of pálinka and threw it down his throat. ‘They’ve sent Jani to find the
kirekesztett
. I wouldn’t have believed them capable of that. But they’re panicking. Desperate to find an end to this. Your brother will bring him back to Budapest and he’ll face trial. It’ll be swift justice. Bloody.’

‘Sir, I know about Jani. You told me before. I was asking—’

Szilárd cut him off with a raised hand, and suddenly Izsák knew that his uncle had been leading up to this, had been feeling his way towards the news he needed to deliver.

When finally he began to speak, it seemed as if the man addressed himself rather than the boy. ‘It would be easy to blame the
tanács
for their actions,’ he said. ‘And in fact I do. But the council’s convinced it has no choice.’

Izsák opened his mouth to speak, but again his uncle waved his words away.

‘The palace is involved now. You’ve been sheltered from this – tucked away in Gödöllö with your father – and rightly so. But we enjoy little goodwill in this city these days. The temperature here has plummeted.’ He poured himself another drink. ‘Some of us counselled that to live so openly among the populace would one day invite disaster. Too often has our presence here encouraged envy, distrust. Something like this happens and all that resentment boils over. They’ve demanded that an example is made.’

‘Of my father?’

‘You know that he saw . . . you know he saw the
kirekesztett
afterwards.’

‘They had a fight.’

Szilárd nodded. ‘The
Fő
nök
had instructed your father. A direct command. He requested that József bring the
kirekesztett
to face trial.’

‘But he let him go.’

‘Your father knew how serious the situation was, and despite everything, he allowed the boy to walk out of there. Jani is on the
kirekesztett
’s trail, but the damage has been done.’

‘What will happen?’

‘I’m sorry. I really am.’ Szilárd stared into Izsák’s eyes. He picked up his glass, swirled the Pálinka into a whirlpool. ‘His blood will be laid to rest.’

The boy blinked. He frowned at his uncle, deciding that he hadn’t understood. ‘My brother’s blood?’

‘Your father’s, Izsák. József’s.’

‘Surely—’

Szilárd’s eyes were dark. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. I’ve loved your father like a brother since the day your mother introduced us. He’s a fine man. A fine man. Whatever you hear in the coming days, always remember that. He made a mistake, that’s all. A moment of weakness, yes, but still one brought about by love. At any other time, perhaps the
Fő
nök
could have shown leniency. But with the Crown involved, with the attention that’s been focused on this, with our own
tanács
clamouring for a show of steel, his hand’s been forced. The
Fő
nök
has no choice, Izsák. No choice.’

The boy’s throat was so tight he could barely give breath to his question. ‘When?’

‘Tomorrow.’

He nodded, a stiff jerk of the head. ‘Where will it happen?’

‘It’s best you don’t know that.’

‘Are you going?’

‘I must. For József, I must.’

‘Can’t I come with you? Stand by you?’

‘Oh, lad.’ Szilárd rested his elbows on the desk and planted his face in his palms. He stayed in that position for a full minute. The boy saw his shoulders shake once, twice. Finally the old bear smeared tears into his hair and scratched at his beard, blowing out his cheeks. ‘It’s a brave thing you ask. József would be proud.
Is
proud. But it’s no place for a boy; no place for a son. Something bad happens to a crowd when its blood is up. You would not be safe.’

‘Can I see him? Before?’

‘I’m afraid not,
kicsikém
.’

The boy dropped his eyes to the floor. His throat felt like a fist clenched it, choking off his words.

He hated himself for the question that clawed to the front of his mind just then, disgusted that he should think it even as he digested the horror of his uncle’s news.

What will happen to me?

After their meeting, Izsák wandered the house alone, touring its floors, searching for something – anything – to block out that monstrously selfish thought. In Szilárd’s library he pulled books from the shelves and stacked them in the middle of the floor, creating a tower that reached far above his head before it finally toppled. In another room he discovered, hidden in a drawer and wrapped in rags, a bundle of oiled
déjnin
knives, testing their sharpness by drawing the blades across his skin. In the wine cellar, he trailed his fingers over the necks of bottles at random until he found one with a pleasing shape and smashed it against the wall. Staring at the broken glass and the scarlet splashes on the brickwork, his stomach twisted with shame; he picked up all the pieces and hid them in an empty sack.

Izsák encountered the servant on the staircase as he was seeking his room at the top of the house.

The man was running a cloth over the dark wood of the banisters. ‘Orphan in the morning,’ he muttered.

Breath catching in his throat, Izsák stopped on the stair and turned. He saw the servant bend closer to the wood, as if examining it for blemishes. The question spilled out of him before he had a chance to think. ‘What did you say?’

When the servant lifted his head, Izsák saw that no
hosszú élet
eyes confronted him; these were unremarkable, a dusty blue.

The man’s face was hard and bitter – sharp angles, thin lips, pocked skin. His body seemed twisted somehow, as if his spine had warped as it had grown. One of his legs bowed out at the knee, longer than its twin.

‘
Some
people sayin’ this is how the end starts,’ he said. The words were thick in his mouth, as if forced past a swollen tongue. ‘
Some
people sayin’ you goin’ a be rounded up, driven out. All of you.
Some
people sayin’ they’ve had enough of Long Lives and their ways. That you can’t be trusted no more.’

‘Who’s saying that?’

Wary, the servant’s eyes flicked up and down the stairs. ‘Not me, of course.
I
wouldn’t say nothin’ like that.
I
seen how dangerous you are. That girl, the one your brother took,
she
seen it, too. Not much help to her, though, was it?’

‘What do you want?’

The man straightened as best he could. ‘What do
I
want? I don’t want nothin’ much. But some people do.
Some
people want to know that what they’re looking at is what it is. That it won’t do them no harm.
Some
people sayin’ your time has come.’ The servant glanced over his shoulder again, before drawing closer. ‘
Some
people sayin’ you’re all goin’ to
burn
.’

His face cracked into a grin, flashing brown teeth.

Izsák flinched, tripped against a step. Scrambling up the last few stairs on hands and knees, he ran along the hall, hearing the man’s wheezing laugh bounce off the walls. Wrenching open his guestroom door, he dived inside and slammed it behind him. He glanced around: canopy bed; wardrobe; writing desk. A single high-backed chair. Two leaded windows, looking down on to the Danube’s waters. On the floor, an empty bedpan.

Why had he trapped himself? He was alone here, marooned at the top of the house, far away from Szilárd and the servants two floors below. From this room there was no escape should his tormentor decide to follow. No key sat in the door’s lock. If only he had kept one of the
déjnin
knives. If only he had pocketed one of the glass shards from the cellar.

And what would you have done with them?

From the hallway came a creak as the servant arrived at the top of the staircase.

Izsák hiccupped. The back of his throat burned with bile. He pressed his spine against the door, braced the tips of his boots against the floorboards.