The Dead Travel Fast by DEANNA RAYBOURN

Author:DEANNA RAYBOURN
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

That evening we were a smaller company at table, for the countess had kept to her room and Frau Amsel dined with her. The count was distracted, eating nothing but pouring out several glasses of amber Tokay. Cosmina bravely attempted to keep the conversation light and engaging, but although the count replied to her pleasantly enough, the conversation eventually faltered, and when the meal was at last concluded, she excused herself and went directly to bed. Florian followed soon after, and I made a motion to withdraw, but the count intervened.

“I have something to show you in my workroom,” he said, and although his tone was conversational, there was no mistaking the note of command.

Wordlessly I followed him up to the workroom. The candles had been lit and Tycho slumbered peacefully on the hearth.

“Come and see what I have found,” the count said eagerly. I went to the worktable where he had taken up a pretty box of pale wood inlaid with darker wood in an intricate pattern. The front of it was set with a series of knobs, half a dozen, and when he raised the lid I could see they were attached to corresponding rods carved with symbols. A table of similar symbols had been incised on the lid of the box.

I put out a tentative finger. “It is very curious. I’ve never seen the like. Is this ivory?” I asked, touching one of the rods.

“It is. It is a device for making astronomical calculations. The rods are fashioned of bone or ivory, and the whole of it is known as Napier’s bones after the astronomer who designed it.”

“A macabre name,” I observed.

He slanted me a knowing look. “It is the fatal flaw of Transylvanians that we have a fondness for the macabre. Surely you discovered that last night.”

“I cannot begin to understand what happened last night,” I said slowly.

He waved to the sofa by the fire. “Sit. I will try to make sense of it for you.”

I had intended to make my excuses, plead a headache or some other trifling indisposition and effect an escape. But as always, the power of his personality persuaded me to something I had not intended.

But I was determined to preserve some vestige of formality, and as I perched upon the edge of the sofa, spreading my skirts wide between us, I saw his lips twitch in amusement.

He settled himself as far from me as the narrow sofa would permit.

“You think us barbaric,” he began.

“I do,” I acknowledged. “But it is a barbarism I would know better. I do not come from a modern city. Edinburgh is a place where ideas are exchanged and philosophies are born, but no one looks to us for the latest fashions or the most modern conveniences. The Highlands are more backwards still, with folk content to live as they have for a thousand years. And yet Transylvania is a place apart. It is nothing so simple as manner of dress or speech or whether a railway has been put through a valley.

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