Written in the Blood Page 4

  He waited with fingers steepled together, watching her with lifeless grey eyes that stared out of a shrunken, hairless head.

  Guarding a darkened archway behind him, held upright by supporting brackets and a tall iron bar, stood the fossilised skeleton of a creature Leah could not identify, but knew must be long extinct. It reared up on hind legs, measuring perhaps nine feet to the top of its broad skull. Four huge canines curved out of its jaws. It reached out with claws like polished granite.

  ‘Ursus spelaeus,’ the old man said, breaking the silence. His voice was a rich baritone, lengthening to a sibilant hiss. ‘Although I prefer to call him Johann, after Johann Christian Rosenmüller, the anatomist who named his species. He’s a cave bear, Leah. Around sixty thousand years old. He was found in the caves at Drachenloch, not so far away from here. Magnificent, isn’t he? We think the Neanderthals may have worshipped Ursus spelaeus. If it’s true, you can certainly see why.’

  His mouth widened, tightening his lips. The smile – if you could call it that – revealed two rows of pointed yellow teeth. ‘They weren’t exaggerating when they said you were young. I trust your journey was uneventful?’

  Those flat grey eyes scraped over her skin and she shivered, speared by their intensity.

  ‘Your driver showed me nothing but courtesy.’

  The skin around his mouth crinkled like tissue paper. ‘Did he? I’m pleased to hear it. Come,’ he said, indicating the empty place setting. ‘Sit. I have so few guests these days. And rarely any as infamous as you. I’m keen to make your acquaintance.’

  Leah walked towards him, the heels of her shoes echoing like hammer strikes on the hardwood floor. She pulled out the chair he had indicated and sat. ‘Infamous?’

  ‘Well, of course. We thought we’d watched our last generation grow. We believed – fervently so – we would never see another hosszú élet child. Nor, for that matter, the hope of one.’

  He clapped his hands, opened them. ‘And then, from nowhere, your mother appeared, throwing everything we knew into disarray, closely followed by yourself. And just look at you. Baby-soft skin. Tight flesh. Innocent eyes.’

  He inhaled through his nose, and Leah realised he was savouring her scent. The old man breathed out, chest rattling like birch twigs. ‘Something irresistible about the smell of young blood pumped by a strong heart. I do hope we’ll get along, you and I. It was unwise of you to come, but you know that. A young woman, fiery and fresh. There are those amongst us who haven’t experienced such delights for far too long. I’m afraid the sight could stir up old emotions, old . . . appetites.’

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  He laughed, a dog-like bark. ‘I doubt it.’

  Leah glanced down at her place setting. The silver cutlery was engraved with vine leaves and grapes. Each piece bore an ivory handle carved into the shape of tulip petals.

  She noticed that one of her three forks was slightly askew. Frowning, she reached out and rearranged it. As she did so, she saw that a dessert spoon was similarly out of alignment. She nudged it back into position. Realising what she was doing, she flinched and sat upright, giving the old man an apologetic smile.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘I . . . have this thing,’ she said. She laced her fingers together and thrust them into her lap. ‘I like things to be in order. In their right place.’

  His eyebrows rose. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to adjust?’

  Leah opened her mouth, hesitated. ‘Actually, there is. Your sculptures of the Olympians behind me. They’re all facing the window. Except for Aphrodite, that is, who, for whatever reason, is facing the door.’ She paused. ‘It’s killing me.’

  The old man blinked. He lifted a hand. ‘Please.’

  Leah crossed the room to the statue and rotated its base until the goddess’s eyes stared out of the window.

  Returning to her seat, she blew out a breath. ‘Thanks. I can concentrate again now.’

  ‘How curious. Is it a mental disorder?’

  ‘You could call it that.’

  ‘Indeed. Shall we dine?’

  ‘Let’s.’

  He inclined his head, and a pair of doors opposite her swung open. A man and woman entered, dressed in black. Parking a metal trolley near the table, the woman removed two entrees, placing them before Leah and her host. The man opened a bottle of wine and filled their glasses. Taking a book of matches from his pocket, he lit eight white candles in a candelabra.

  Leah picked up her wineglass. A Kutya Herceg picked up his.

  ‘To unanticipated pleasures,’ he announced, raising his glass towards her. It rang when it touched her own. Again Leah felt his eyes roving over her skin; an unwelcome skittering, like the dry flicker of a lizard’s tongue.

  ‘You haven’t told me your name,’ she said. ‘I presume you don’t want me to call you Kutya.’

  He barked another laugh. ‘You can call me Ágoston.’

  ‘Well, Ágoston, I guess I should start by thanking you. For seeing me, I mean. I know you were sceptical.’

  ‘I’ll listen, as I agreed. Just don’t give me any reason to regret my decision.’

  She picked up her fork. ‘I’ll try to avoid that.’

  The two servants wheeled the trolley out of the room, closing the doors behind them.

  ‘You may dispense with the small talk,’ he told her. ‘I’d like to know why you’ve been trying so hard to find me.’

  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 o
ur 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.

  CHAPTER 4

  Budapest, Hungary

  1873

  The 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 crackle
d 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.’