The Red Book as sinister? she thought.
She heard her father’s voice.
A knife in the hands of a good man can cut bread to feed his family. A knife in the hands of malevolent man is a weapon. Anything can be good or evil, Betsy. Everything is neutral, assigned a value only in the hands of the holder.
Betsy stared at the book as her father’s words continued in her head:
Even the best analysis can fail. You must understand this, Betsy. Along the tortured journey through a man’s or woman’s mind, there are those who are lost forever. You must learn to protect yourself from tumbling into their abyss.
For ultimately we are connected.
The sound of footsteps sent Betsy scrambling back behind the tapestry.
Betsy peered out beyond the edge of the weaving. Her position was steeped in shadows, for the torches were in the far corner of the room. Only when a flame leapt was her wall illuminated for brief seconds.
A young woman in an antique silk gown entered slowly, escorted by an elegant white-haired man with a walking stick. Something in his exaggerated paleness, the grace of his posture, reminded Betsy of someone she once knew.
Betsy saw the glint of the silver-tipped walking stick. And she remembered.
She had been a very young girl, bored with adults talking about Austro-Hungarian history, dates, papers and books they had published. He had called her to him, away from the crowd. He sat in the shadows of a room filled with paintings of Ottoman-Hungarian battles.
He showed her his carved walking stick, with a silver dragon with ruby eyes. She sat on his knee. He shifted her weight.
That left knee hurts me, he had said. That is why I walk with a stick.
He whispered he was a distant cousin and glad to make her acquaintance. He let her play with the dragon.
The bright rubies glared at her.
Betsy remembered the shocked look on her mother’s face when she came rushing to sweep her child off the man’s lap. The scent of fear on her skin. Betsy had never forgotten the stranger, but her mother and father refused to speak about him.
Don’t talk to strangers, was all her father had said. And never, ever talk to that man again.
Betsy looked again at the woman in the silk gown, a huge white lace collar extending under her chin, a stiff square panel.
The woman’s skin was pallid, her eyes made up in an elaborate fashion. She walked in a wooden gait. Perhaps she was drugged.
Her hair was a shining auburn.
The woman stopped, gazing at a portrait of Erzsebet Bathory, one Betsy had seen over and over on the internet.
The young woman’s hand drifted up to her cheek. The Count watched her intently. He smiled, reaching for her hand.
Betsy stared. She recognized the red-haired woman.
Chapter 111
ČACHTICE CASTLE
DECEMBER 29, 1610
Janos buried the ledger deep in the straw, in the corner where the white stallion was stabled. He knew that no one would dare enter. The horse was tamed to his hands alone; even Aloyz stayed away from this corner of the stable.
“What did she give you?” demanded a voice in the shadows.
Janos recognized the voice immediately. “Who?”
Guard Kovach stepped toward him. He had a dagger in his hand.
“We stopped her at the gate,” he said. “I saw you.”
“She is innocent, Kovach. Let her go.”
“It is out of my hands, Horsemaster. The Countess will determine her fate. Or perhaps she will leave it to the Dark One in Transylvania.”
Janos swallowed hard.
Kovach smiled. “Now give it to me.”
Janos stared at him through the darkness. The captain’s silhouette appeared enormous against the lime-washed wall, a giant exaggerated by the torchlight beyond Janos. Dagger in hand.
“Give it to me!”
Janos thought of the girls’ murders. He thought of Vida, risking her life. Then he remembered Zuzana, who should, even now, be bringing Thurzo to Čachtice.
“No.”
“You Hungarian fool!”
Kovach lunged. Janos leapt aside, looking around desperately for a weapon. There was nothing.
“You betray the Countess!” growled Kovach.
“And you betray God!”
Kovach slashed at Janos, catching his upper arm. Blood soaked the linen tunic, but he dodged the second thrust. There was no escape—Kovach positioned himself at the stable door.
He closed on Janos, walking quietly, slowly.
The dagger glinted in the torchlight.
Janos ran to the far side of the horse. He touched the stallion’s neck, his lips moving silently. The skin on the horse’s flank quivered, his ears flattened.
Kovach crept closer, his fist tightening around the knife. He had worked Janos into a corner of the box stall. There was no escape.
“In the name of the Countess—” said Kovach.
A shrill whinny rang through the night air. The horse whirled his head around. He seized the guard’s arm with his long teeth, his powerful jaws crushing the bone.