"And you say they've kept this in the dark?"
"Not deliberately. They were just looking for an opportunity to bring it up."
"With Tomaselli in charge, that won't happen," said Falkenberg. "Not that it isn't a good idea. Might be, at least. Take me down for a look in sometime, Benito."
* * *
Count Mindaug was scowling fiercely. Given the slight distortion always present in the summoned image above the blood-bowl, the expression made him look even uglier than ever.
"I hadn't thought he'd be this cautious, Elizabeth," Mindaug admitted. "By now, I'd expected Jagiellon to have intervened directly."
The countess decided that her silvery laugh would irritate Mindaug too much, at the moment. So she kept her expression simply serene. "Keep in mind, Kazimierz, that Chernobog is ancient, even if the shell he inhabits—that thing that used to be the prince Jagiellon—is still a relatively young man. For demons, 'ancient' and 'prudent' are almost synonyms. Even for a demon with a savage temper like his."
"True enough. Still—"
"Give it time. Which we have, by the way. Months yet, probably. The attempted treason failed, and my agent in the fortress informs me that any further attempts will take considerable time to organize. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately, given Chernobog's hesitancy—the woman who is running the Citadel's counterespionage work is extremely astute."
Mindaug's eyebrows rose. "A woman? Since when do Venetians—"
"She's not Venetian. She's one of the Imperials. Prince Manfred's leman, to boot, so she has plenty of influence. Her name is Francesca de Chevreuse. The name she goes by, I should say, since I doubt very much it's her real one."
Now, the Count was shaking his head. For a moment, the tips of his sharp-filed teeth showed. "What is the world coming to? In the old days—yourself excepted, of course—women handled the gossip, not the statecraft."
Since Mindaug's mood seemed to be improving, Elizabeth issued her silvery laugh. "Don't be silly. Even in Lithuania, that's not true. Or have you already forgotten Grand Duchess Imenilda?"
"That was almost a century ago. Besides, she was Ruthenian. The Ruthenians have always been a peculiar lot. Meaning no offense." Elizabeth Bartholdy had quite a bit of Ruthenian blood in her own ancestry.
"None taken, I assure you. To get back to the point, Kazimierz, I really think you're worrying too much."
Count Mindaug studied her for a moment. Then said abruptly: "That may be, Elizabeth. But the fact remains that I now need to consider, seriously, the consequences of failure. If this trap of yours doesn't work—even if only because Jagiellon avoids it—I will be the one to face the immediate repercussions. Not you." He raised his hand and eyed it. "Granted, it's not the finest skin in the world, but it's the only one I've got. I'd just as soon avoid having it served up for one of the monster's meals."
He lowered the hand and brought his eyes back to hers. "I'll need to run, Elizabeth—which means I'll need a place to run to."
The countess ran a delicate fingertip across her lower lip, thinking. She was not surprised, of course, that the issue had finally come up. She'd already given it quite a bit of thought herself, in fact.
"You understand that I do not share your interest in territorial and material matters?"
Mindaug's pointed teeth showed again. "You're not that indifferent to them, Elizabeth. Or do you really think you'd be able to pursue your own interests—if you were a peasant woman?"
She laughed. "Point taken. Nevertheless—"
He was shaking his head. "I'm well aware that your ambitions and mine are different. All the more reason, it seems to me, that there needn't be any clash between us. Even if . . . how to say it? Even if—"
"Even if you were residing in the Carpathians instead of Vilna—and trying to subvert my great-great-nephew and assume the throne of Hungary, instead of Jagiellon's."
"That's putting it bluntly. But . . . yes."
He waited, his face impassive.
Elizabeth thought a moment further, then shrugged. "I can't say I have any particular attachment to Emeric. He's easier to manipulate than you would be, but on the other hand . . ."
Mindaug finished the thought for her. "I'm smarter than he is. Which means I'd cause fewer messes for you to have to manipulate me out of." He left unspoken the obvious final clause: assuming you could.
But Elizabeth was not worried about that. And the more she thought about it, the more she could see a number of advantages to having Mindaug—if necessary, which she still didn't think it would be—taking asylum and refuge with her.
"Done, then. That assumes, of course, that our plans fail."
"Needless to say. I assure you, Elizabeth, that I'd much prefer to remain in Vilna, if at all possible. If nothing else, I'm too old to take any pleasure at the thought of a frantic race to get out of Lithuania ahead of Jagiellon's wrath."
"Chernobog's wrath, Kazimierz. Don't ever forget who you're really dealing with."
For the first time, he laughed himself. "No chance of that, Elizabeth! It's why I approached you in the first place. A mere Grand Duke, even one as capable and vicious as Jagiellon, I would have been confident of handling on my own."
He glanced aside, as if looking over his shoulder. "I simply prefer to avoid the name, that's all. The Black Brain is near to me, and it never pays to do anything to tingle its attention. Speaking of which . . ." His hands began moving. "I think it's time to end this discussion."
Within seconds, his image had faded away.
PART XI
Diego sighed. "It is fairly certain that whoever the Satanist is—whoever they are, I should say, since there's certainly more than one—he or she is aware that we are hunting for them. This is the third place where we have found their foul traces, but never anything more. And they've been very cautious never to leave material we can trace to a physical place or person."
Francis nodded. "And venturing beyond the physical, here, where we are denied the protection of one of the wards, is nearly impossible."
Eneko Lopez went to a cupboard in the back of the chapel. "So. I think we should investigate this." He produced the dried-out bundle of herbs and other unpleasantness that someone had once tried to use as a curse on Maria Verrier.
"But it is a fake," protested Diego.
"I know," said Eneko. "But let us consider the very nature of Satan-worship. Its essence is to recruit more souls. Unlike demons who are content to devour, devils accumulate—and use their acolytes to accumulate. And whoever did this is ripe for accumulation. They—or parts of their coven—may already be drawn into this." He held up the bundle, a bit gingerly. "Here, we have physical traces. With some risks, we can use these to divine where they came from. And once we have that, we may catch some trace of our other tormentor. Or tormentors."
* * *
By the time that the afternoon sun was sinking, the priests knew more about the "curse." One of the things they knew was that the maker knew absolutely nothing about how to stop themselves being traced by magic. The priests, patiently, set a watch on the suspected house. Curfew or no curfew.