I had no idea why the king should put such a question to me, but I could see that he was very serious. And of course it was not a question to be answered lightly. But after giving it some thought, I nodded my assent. "If that were how I might best serve my king—it would not be impossible."
Matthias gripped my arm. "Drakulya, it rejoices our heart to see your loyalty! Those intercepted messages, that sowed such enmity between us, and caused your imprisonment—I can see now that they were, as you said, a vile trick of your enemies. And now we will unfold to you our wishes, regarding your own immediate future."
Here the king paused, eyes fixed on mine. With my own heart rejoicing perhaps even more than his, I waited to hear his plan.
When he went on, he was obviously choosing his words with great deliberation. "The service we have in mind requires a man well born, utterly loyal, and of the most solid judgement. He must be able to—how shall we put it?—inspire respect. He must also be able to follow orders. And to hold his tongue. To be utterly ruthless when the need arises. And he should have skill in arms—yes, that may prove to be of importance."
"I am honored that Your Majesty thinks I—"
"But not in this so-called Crusade. That is a great folly. You hear garbled rumors about it from your guards. But we are informed by shrewd observers everywhere. No one is going to follow the Pope. What we have in mind for you, Drakulya, is something altogether different. It is not only an important matter of state, it also concerns our own family very closely."
The king, gesturing for me to keep up with him, began to walk, as he was wont to do when weighty matters were to be decided. I remained in close attendance. His voice fell to a whisper now, so that I had to bend my head to hear.
"Drakulya, do you know how many sisters I have?" Of course everyone knows such things, and more, about his reigning monarch. But before I could fall to naming siblings, Matthias silenced me with a raised finger. Suddenly he was not so much a ruler as simply the young, worried head of a family.
"I have a younger sister, Helen, whose name has not been mentioned in my family for two years. Her age is now seventeen. At fifteen she was betrothed to a Sforza. That would have made a valuable alliance. But she behaved with great folly, so that the engagement had to be broken off. She ran away with an artisan, if you can believe it, rather than marry into one of the great houses of Italy. When she was found, we had her put into an Italian convent, until we could decide what to do next. But it was the wrong convent, as it proved, so gentle a place that she had no trouble getting out of it and running away again.
"A few months ago some Medici traders brought me the latest news of her. Quite unpleasant news, and they were too diplomatic to tell it to me directly, realizing that I must not be put in the position of having to take notice publicly of her scandalous affairs. But their report placed her in Venice . . . you can and must hear the sordid details later, and I will give them to you myself, if you agree that you are the man I need. As I think you are. I need one who will restore the honor of my crown and of my family—in one way or another—"
Chapter Three
"Because he's a bloody murderer, and I want the world to know him for what he is. That's why I did it. I waited till they brought the painting out so all the guards would be concentrating on it. I knew he wouldn't press charges against me, he doesn't want any more publicity."
Outrage and enjoyment made a heady mixture in Mary Rogers's voice, and she talked as if she were familiar with their blended taste. At the moment she was seated in an awkward armchair in Mr. Thorn's expensive Phoenix hotel suite, sipping from time to time at a can of beer. Her sturdy legs were crossed in their tight blue jeans.
It was evening again, almost exactly twenty-four hours after Mary's dye-throwing outrage. Over in Scottsdale, just a few miles away, the auction should be getting started just about now, doubtless under a heavily reinforced guard. Mr. Thorn was going to miss the bidding, which was all right with him. He had seen the painting, and he was virtually certain who was going to buy it. And even if by some chance the Magdalen should be bought by someone else, he could easily find out whom. It was not going to get away from him again.
So he felt that he could afford the time to indulge his curiosity regarding Mary and her motives. He had the habit of thinking, whenever anything bizarre happened nearby, that it was somehow meant for him. Quite often he was right.
Lounging near the window now, he glanced out through his new polarizing sunglasses at the last fading tinges of a gory sunset. Clouds were hung theatrically above a distant reach of desert, studded with a few Hollywood mountains. From the twentieth floor, a lot of distant scenery was visible beyond the smoky metropolitan sprawl.
"You can bet I didn't know what she was going to do." This was the voice of Robinson Miller, Mary's young man from the auction room, who had turned out to be her lawyer also. He and Mary, Thorn understood, had encountered each other on some pathway of the legal jungle into which she had been parachuted by her accidental connection with the infamous Seabright murder-kidnapping; and they had been getting better acquainted ever since.
"Completely irrational behavior," Miller added now, drilling Mary with a stern look that she did not seem to feel at all. From what Thorn had seen of her lifestyle so far, it was hard to estimate whether she needed friend or lawyer most.
Last night as Mary was giving the police her name, address, and phone number, Thorn had been nearby, although she had not seen him. Today Thorn had called her up—Miller answering the phone—and had invited her up to his suite for this evening chat, saying there were matters of mutual advantage to be discussed. Yes, certainly, she was welcome to bring a friend along to the hotel lair of the mysterious stranger; and so it was that her legal adviser and probable lover sat beside her now in another chair constructed like hers at disabling angles, sipping a glass of ginger ale and ice and puffing at a large-bowled pipe.
"What I really wanted," Mary announced now, "was to get hold of some blood."
Mr. Thorn, who had been paying only desultory attention, forgot about the scenery and took off his glasses long enough to give her an intense look. It took him a moment to realize what she had meant.
"At first I thought maybe I'd use beef blood. But then I realized that it wouldn't be appropriate to throw anything real on him. Except maybe some real acid." Mary gave a bright giggle. "So it was just that stuff they use in movies, harmless. A friend of mine who works in a studio got hold of some for me."
"The dry cleaner found it interesting," commented Mr. Thorn. "A type of stain with which he had never had to deal before. But it came out of my suit quite easily."
"Your—?" In a second Mary's mood changed to regret and horror. "Oh, I'm sorry! I hadn't realized that any of the glop hit you. Is that why you wanted me to come up here? No, of course not. Look, I really am sorry."
"Your apology is accepted. Think no more of the matter, I was not harmed. And it is fortunate that the painting sustained no damage either."
"Yes, fortunate," concurred the lawyer. Taking his pipe from his mouth, he made fencing motions in the air with the curved stem. "Ah, you mentioned some matters of mutual advantage?"
"I did." Thorn smiled at them both, then addressed himself mainly to Mary. "It is to my advantage to learn more about Mr. Ellison Seabright. It may be to your advantage to help me do so."
"Whom do you represent?" Miller asked quickly, before Mary could respond.