Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [146]
Beyond the Palace fences stood crowds, as usual. Sullen sightseers peered through the bars, awaiting the Changing of the Guard. Near the gates, Geneviève saw a familiar face, the Chinese girl from the Old Jago. She stood with a tall, old oriental man whose aspect was somehow sinister. Behind them, in shadow, was a taller, older oriental form, and she had a flash of a past terror, returning. Looking again, the Chinese party was gone, but her heart still beat too fast. Charles had still not told her the full story behind his bargain with the elder assassin.
The footman, a vampire youth with a gold-painted face, led them up the broad stairs, and struck the doors with his tall stick. They opened as if by some unheard mechanism, disclosing the marbled length of a vaulted reception hall.
With her single decent dress ruined, she had been forced to commission a replacement. Now she wore it for the first time, a simple ball-gown free of bustles, frills and flounces. She doubted Vlad Tepes thought much of formality but supposed she should make an effort for the Queen. She could remember the family as electors of Hanover. Her only unusual ornament was a small gold crucifix on the latest of innumerable replacement chains. It was all she had from her warm life. Her real father had given it to her, claiming it blessed by Jeanne d’Arc. She doubted that but somehow had contrived to keep it through the ages. Many times, she had walked away from entire lives – houses, possessions, wardrobes, estates, fortunes – keeping only the cross the Maid of Orleans had probably never touched.
Thirty-foot diaphanous silk curtains parted in the draught, and they passed through. The effect was of a giant cobweb, billowing open to entice the unwary fly. Servants appeared, under the direction of a vampire lady-in-waiting, and Charles and Geneviève were relieved of their cloaks. A Carpathian, his face a mask of stiff hair, stood by to watch Charles hand over his cane. Silver was frowned on at the Court. She had no weapons to yield...
... he had tried everything to dissuade her from accompanying him, short of disclosing to her the duty he must perform. Beauregard knew he would die. His death would have purpose, and he was prepared for it. But his heart sickened at what might become of Geneviève. This was not her crusade. If it were possible, he would help her escape even at the cost of his own life. But his duty was more important than either of them.
When they were together, warmed by their communion, he told her what he had told no other woman since Pamela.
‘Gené, I love you.’
‘And I you, Charles. I you.’
‘I you what?’
‘Love, Charles. I love you.’
Her mouth was on him again and they rolled together, getting comfortable...
* * *
... an armadillo wriggled by her feet, its rear-parts clogged with its own dirt. Vlad Tepes had raided Regent’s Park Zoo and had exotic species roaming loose in the Palace. This poor edentate was merely one of his more harmless pets.
The lady-in-waiting who guided them through the cathedral-like space of the reception hall wore black velvet livery, the Royal Crest upon her bosom. With tight trews and gold-buckled knee-boots, she looked like the principal boy. Although handsome, her face had lost any feminine softness it might have possessed when its wearer was warm.
‘Mr Beauregard, you have forgotten me,’ she said.
Charles, involved in his own thoughts, was almost shocked. He looked closely at the lady-in-waiting.
‘We met at the Stokers’,’ she explained. ‘Some years ago. Before the changes.’
‘Miss Murray?’
‘The widow Harker now. Wilhelmina. Mina.’
Geneviève knew who the woman was: one of Vlad Tepes’s get. After Jack Seward’s Lucy, the first of the Prince Consort’s conquests in Britain. Like Jack and Godalming, she had been in with Van Helsing’s group.
‘So that fearful murderer was Dr Seward,’ Mina Harker mused. ‘He was spared only to suffer, and to make others suffer.