"It was foolish of me to wheel myself over this morning," he said as if she had not spoken at all. "But I could not wait around for you to come and get me. I must be more careful. I want no suspicions raised about the true state of my health. I want no extra watch on me. So get behind me and push."
Magda did so, reluctantly and resentfully. For once, she was glad to leave him at the gate and walk back alone.
Matei Stephanescu was angry. Rage burned in his chest like a glowing coal. He did not know why. He sat tense and rigid in the front room of his tiny house at the southern end of the village, a cup of tea and a loaf of bread on the table before him. He thought of many things. And his rage grew steadily hotter.
He thought of Alexandra and his sons and how it wasn't right that they should get to work at the keep all their lives and earn gold while he had to chase a herd of goats up and down the pass until they grew big enough to sell or barter for his needs. He had never envied Alexandra before, but this morning it seemed that Alexandra and his sons were at the core of all his ills.
Matei thought about his own sons. He needed them here. He was forty-seven and already gray in the hair and knobby in the joints. But where were his sons? They had deserted him—gone to Bucharest two years ago to seek their fortunes, leaving their father and mother alone. They had not cared enough for their father to stay near him and help him as he grew older. He hadn't heard from either of them since they'd left. If he instead of Alexandra had had the work at the keep, Matei was sure his own sons would now be at his side and perhaps Alexandra's would have run off to Bucharest.
It was a rotten world and getting rottener. Even his own wife did not care enough about him to get out of bed for him this morning. Ioan had always been anxious to see that he got off with a good breakfast. But this morning was different. She wasn't sick. She had merely told him, "Go fix it yourself!" And so he had fixed his own tea, which now sat cold and untasted before him. He picked up the knife that lay next to the teacup and cut a thick slice of bread. But after his first bite he spit it out.
Stale!
Matei slammed his hand down on the table. He could not take much more of this. With the knife still in his hand he marched into the bedroom and stood over the prone form of his wife still bundled under the covers.
"The bread's stale," he said.
"Then bake some fresh for yourself," came the muffled reply.
"You're a miserable wife!" he cried in a hoarse voice. The handle of the knife was sweaty in his hand. His temper was reaching the breaking point.
Ioan threw the covers off and rose to her knees on the bed, hands on hips, her black hair in wild disarray, her face puffy with sleep and fired with a rage that mirrored his own.
"And you are a poor excuse for a man!"
Matei stood and stared at his wife in shock. For a heartbeat he seemed to step outside himself to view the scene. It was not like Ioan to say such a thing. She loved him. And he loved her. But right now he wanted to kill her.
What was happening? It was as if there were something in the air they breathed that brought out the worst in them.
And then he was back behind his own eyes, boiling with insensate rage, driving the knife toward his wife. He felt the impact rattle up his arm as the blade rammed into loan's flesh, heard her scream in fear and pain. And then he turned and walked out, never turning back to see where the knife had struck, or whether Ioan was still alive or dead.
As Captain Woermann tightened the collar on his tunic before going down to the mess for lunch, he glanced out his window and saw the professor and his daughter approaching the keep on the causeway. He studied the pair, taking a certain grim satisfaction in the knowledge that his decision to make the girl stay at the inn rather than at the keep, and to allow the two of them to meet freely and confer during the day, had been a good one. There had been greater harmony among the men with her out of sight, and she had not bolted despite the fact that she had been left unguarded. He had made the proper assessment of her: loyal and devoted. As he watched, he saw that they were embroiled in a considerably animated discussion.
Something about the scene struck Woermann as wrong. He scrutinized them until he noticed that the old man's gloves were off. He had yet to see the professor's hands uncovered since his arrival. And Cuza seemed to be helping the chair along by pushing against the wheels.
Woermann shrugged. Perhaps the professor was just having a good day. He trotted down the steps, strapping on his belt and holster as he went. The courtyard was a shambles, a confusion of jeeps, lorries, generators, and granite block torn from the walls. The men on the work detail were in the mess in the rear having lunch. They did not seem to be working so hard today as they had been yesterday; but then, there had been no death last night to spur them on.
He heard voices raised from the gate and turned to look. It was the professor and the girl, arguing as the sentry stood by impassively. Woermann did not have to understand Romanian to know that there was contention between them. The girl seemed to be on the defensive but was holding her ground. Good for her. The old man seemed too much of a tyrant to Woermann, using his illness as a weapon against the girl.
But he seemed less ill today. His usually frail voice sounded strong and vibrant. The professor must be having a very good day indeed.
Woermann turned and began walking toward the mess area. After a few firm steps, however, his pace faltered and slowed as his gaze was drawn to the right where an open arch sat dark and still, giving access via its stone gullet to the cellar and beyond.
Those boots... those damned muddy boots...
They haunted him, taunted him ... something nasty about them. He had to check them again. Just once.
He descended the steps quickly and hurried down the cellar hall. No need to prolong this. Just a quick look and then back up to the light. He snatched a lantern from the floor by the break in the wall, lit it, and then made his way down into the cold, silent night of the sub-cellar.
At the base of the steps were three large rats sniffing around in the slime and dirt. Grimacing with disgust, Woermann pawed for his Luger while the rats glared at him defiantly. By the time his weapon had been freed and a cartridge chambered, the rats had scurried away.
Keeping the pistol raised before him, Woermann hurried over to the row of sheeted cadavers. He saw no more rats on the way. The question of the muddy boots had been blotted from his mind. All he cared about now was the condition of the dead soldiers. If those rats had been at them he would never forgive himself for delaying shipment of the remains.
Nothing seemed amiss. The sheets were all in place. He lifted the covers one by one to inspect the dead faces, but there was no sign that the rats had been gnawing at them. He touched the flesh of one of the faces—cold ... icy cold and hard. Probably not at all appetizing to a rat.
Still, he could take no chances now that he had seen rats here. The bodies would be shipped out first thing tomorrow morning. He had waited long enough. As he straightened up and turned to leave, he noticed a hand of one of the corpses sticking out from under its sheet. He bent again to tuck it back under the cover but snatched his hand away as it came in contact with the dead fingertips.
They were shredded.
Cursing the rats, he held the lamp closer to see how much damage they had done. A crawling sensation ran down his spine as he inspected the hand. It was filthy. The nails were shattered and caked with dirt, the flesh of each fingertip torn and shredded almost to the bone.
Woermann felt sick. He had seen hands like this once before. They had belonged to a soldier in the last war who had received a head wound and mistakenly had been pronounced dead. He had been buried alive. After awakening in his coffin he had clawed his way through a pine box and five or six feet of dirt. Despite his superhuman efforts, the poor fellow never made it to the surface. But before his lungs gave out, his hands had broken through to the air.