“Herr Blomberg,” she repeated, giving Grey a hard look. “He will call a witch to cast the runes. Then we will discover the truth of everything!”

He will do what?” Sir Peter squinted at Grey in disbelief. “Witches?”

“Only one, I believe, sir,” Grey assured Sir Peter. According to Frau Hьckel, matters had been escalating in Gundwitz. The rumor that Herr Blomberg’s mother was custodian to the succubus was rampant in the town, and public opinion was in danger of overwhelming the little bьrgermeister.

Herr Blomberg, however, was a stubborn man, and most devoted to his mother’s memory. He refused entirely to allow her coffin to be dug up and her body desecrated.

The only solution, which Herr Blomberg had declared out of desperation, seemed to be to discover the true identity and hiding place of the succubus. To this end, the bьrgermeister had summoned a witch, who would cast runes—

“What are those?” Sir Peter asked, puzzled.

“I am not entirely sure, sir,” Grey admitted. “Some object for divination, I suppose.”

“Really?” Sir Peter rubbed his knuckles dubiously beneath a long, thin nose. “Sounds very fishy, what? This witch could say anything, couldn’t she?”

“I suppose Herr Blomberg expects that if he is paying for the…er…ceremony, the lady is perhaps more likely to say something favorable to his situation,” Grey suggested.

“Hmm. Still don’t like it,” Sir Peter said. “Don’t like it at all. Could be trouble, Grey, surely you see that?”

“I do not believe you can stop him, sir.”

“Perhaps not, perhaps not.” Sir Peter ruminated fiercely, brow crinkled under his wig. “Ah! Well, how’s this, then—you go round and fix it up, Grey. Tell Herr Blomberg he can have his mumbo jumbo, but he must do it here, at the Schloss. That way we can keep a lid on it, what, see there’s no untoward excitement?”

“Yes, sir,” Grey said, manfully suppressing a sigh, and went off to execute his orders.

By the time he reached his room to change for dinner, Grey felt dirty, irritable, and thoroughly out of sorts. It had taken most of the afternoon to track down Herr Blomberg and convince him to hold his—Christ, what was it? His rune-casting?—at the Schloss. Then he had run across the pest Helwig, and before he was able to escape, had been embroiled in an enormous controversy with a gang of mule drovers who claimed not to have been paid by the army.

This in turn had entailed a visit to two army camps, an inspection of thirty-four mules, trying interviews with both Sir Peter’s paymaster and von Namtzen’s—and involved a further cold interview with Stephan, who had behaved as though Grey were personally responsible for the entire affair, then turned his back, dismissing Grey in mid-sentence, as though unable to bear the sight of him.

He flung off his coat, sent Tom to fetch hot water, and irritably tugged off his stock, wishing he could hit someone.

A knock sounded on the door, and he froze, irritation vanishing upon the moment. What to do? Pretend he wasn’t in was the obvious course, in case it was Louisa in her sheer lawn shift or something worse. But if it were Stephan, come either to apologize or to demand further explanation?

The knock sounded again. It was a good, solid knock. Not what one would expect of a female—particularly not of a female intent on dalliance. Surely the princess would be more inclined to a discreet scratching?

The knock came again, peremptory, demanding. Taking an enormous breath and trying to still the thumping of his heart, Grey jerked the door open.

“I wish to speak to you,” said the dowager, and sailed into the room, not waiting for invitation.

“Oh,” said Grey, having lost all grasp of German on the spot. He closed the door, and turned to the old lady, instinctively tightening the sash of his banyan.

She ignored his mute gesture toward the chair, but stood in front of the fire, fixing him with a steely gaze. She was completely dressed, he saw, with a faint sense of relief. He really could not have borne the sight of the dowager en dishabille.

“I have come to ask you,” she said without preamble, “if you have intentions to marry Louisa.”

“I have not,” he said, his German returning with miraculous promptitude. “Nein.”

One sketchy gray brow twitched upward.

“ Ja?That is not what she thinks.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, groping for some diplomatic reply—and found it, in the feel of the stubble on his own jaw.

“I admire Princess Louisa greatly,” he said. “There are few women who are her equal”— And thank God for that,he added to himself—“but I regret that I am not free to undertake any obligation. I have…an understanding. In England.” His understanding with James Fraser was that if he were ever to lay a hand on the man or speak his heart, Fraser would break his neck instantly. It was, however, certainly an understanding, and clear as Waterford crystal.

The dowager looked at him with a narrow gaze of such penetrance that he wanted to tighten his sash further—and take several steps backward. He stood his ground, though, returning the look with one of patent sincerity.

“Hmph!” she said at last. “Well, then. That is good.” Without another word, she turned on her heel. Before she could close the door behind her, he reached out and grasped her arm.

She swung round to him, surprised and outraged at his presumption. He ignored this, though, absorbed in what he had seen as she lifted her hand to the doorframe.

“Pardon, Your Highness,” he said. He touched the medal pinned to the bodice of her gown. He had seen it a hundred times, and assumed it always to contain the image of some saint—which, he supposed, it did, but certainly not in the traditional manner.

“St. Orgevald?” he inquired. The image was crudely embossed, and could easily be taken for something else—if one hadn’t seen the larger version on the lid of the reliquary.

“Certainly.” The old lady fixed him with a glittering eye, shook her head, and went out, closing the door firmly behind her.

For the first time, it occurred to Grey that whoever Orgevald had been, it was entirely possible that he had not originally been a saint. Some rather earthier ancient Germanic deity, perhaps? Pondering this interesting notion, he went to bed.

Chapter 7

Ambush

The next day dawned cold and windy. Grey saw pheasants huddling under the cover of shrubs as he rode, crows hugging the ground in the stubbled fields, and slate roofs thick with shuffling doves, feathered bodies packed together in the quest for heat. In spite of their reputed brainlessness, he had to think that the birds were more sensible than he.

Birds had no duty—but it wasn’t quite duty that propelled him on this ragged, chilly morning. It was in part simple curiosity, in part official suspicion. He wished to find the gypsies; in particular, he wished to find onegypsy: the woman who had quarreled with Private Bodger soon before his death.

If he were quite honest—and he felt that he could afford to be, so long as it was within the privacy of his own mind—he had another motive for the journey. It would be entirely natural for him to pause at the bridge for a cordial word with the artillerymen, and perhaps see for himself how the boy with the red lips was faring.

While all these motives were undoubtedly sound, though, the real reason for his expedition was simply that it would remove him from the Schloss. He did not feel safe in a house containing the princess Louisa, let alone her mother-in-law. Neither could he go to his usual office in the town, for fear of encountering Stephan.