He reached into his coat to take out his wallet, intending to give the Father a hundred dollars for his troubles. But before he could produce the note, the Father's expression changed to one of profound seriousness.

"Wait," he said. "Before you dismiss me let me say this: I believe we understand one another. You are looking to buy something you could find in no other place. Something that's one of a kind, yes? And I am looking to make a sale."

"So is there something here you haven't shown me?" Zeffer said. "Something special?"

Sandru nodded. "There are some parts of the Fortress I have not shared with you," he said. "And with good reason, let me say. You see there are people who should not see what I have to show. But I think I understand you now, Mister Zeffer. You are a man of the world."

"You make it all sound very mysterious," Zeffer said.

"I don't know if it's mysterious," the priest said. "It is sad, I think, and human. You see, Duke Goga the man who built this Fortress -- was not a good soul. The stories your Katya said she had been told as a child -- "

"Were true?"

"In a manner of speaking. Goga was a great hunter. But he did not always limit his quarry to animals."

"Good God. So she was right to be afraid."

"The truth is, we are all a little afraid of what happened here," Sandru replied, "Because we are none of us certain of the truth. All we can do, young and old, is say our prayers, and put our souls into God's care when we're in this place."

Zeffer was intrigued now.

"Tell me then," he said to Sandru. "I want to know what went on in this place."

"Believe me please when I tell you I would not know where to begin," the good man replied. "I do not have the words."

"Truly?"

"Truly."

Zeffer studied him with new eyes; with a kind of envy. Surely it was a blessed state, to be unable to find words for the terribleness of certain deeds. To be mute when it came to atrocity, instead of gabbily familiar with it. He found his curiosity similarly muted. It seemed distasteful -- not to mention pointless -- to press the man to say more than he expressed himself capable of saying.

"Let's change the subject. Show me something utterly out of the ordinary," Zeffer said. "Then I'll be satisfied."

Sandru put on a smile, but it wasn't convincing. "It isn't much," he said.

"Oh sometimes you find beauty in the strangest places," Zeffer said, and as he spoke the little face of Katya Lupescu came into his mind's eye; pale in a blue twilight.

TWO

Sandru led the way down the passageway to another door, this one rather smaller than the oak door they'd come through to get to this level. Out came his keys. He unlocked the door, and to Zeffer's surprise he and the priest were presented with another flight of steps, taking them yet deeper into the Fortress.

"Are you ready?" the Father asked.

"Absolutely," Zeffer said.

Down they went. The stairs were steep, the air becoming noticeably more frigid as they descended. Father Sandru said nothing as they went; he glanced back over his shoulder two or three times, to be sure that he still had Zeffer on his heels, but the expression on his face was far from happy, as though he rather regretted making the decision to bring Zeffer here, and would have turned on his heel and headed back up to the relative comfort of the floor above at the least invitation.

At the bottom of the stairs he stopped, and rubbed his hands together vigorously.

"I think before we proceed any further we should take a glass of something to warm us," he said. "What do you say?"

"I wouldn't say no," Zeffer said.

The Father went to a small cubby-hole in the wall a few yards from the bottom of the stairs, from which he brought a bottle of spirits and two glasses. Zeffer didn't remark on the liquor's proximity; nor could he blame the brothers for needing a glass of brandy to fortify them when they came down here. Though the lower level was supplied with electricity (there were 19 lengths of electric lamps looped along the walls of the corridor) the light did nothing to warm the air nor comfort the spirit.

Father Sandru handed Zeffer a glass, and took the cork out of the bottle. The pop echoed off the naked stone of walls and floor. He poured Zeffer a healthy measure of the liquor, and then an even healthier measure for himself, which he had downed before Zeffer had got his own glass to his lips.

"When I first came here," the Father said, refilling his glass, "we used to brew our own brandy, from plums we grew on our own trees."

"But not now?"

"No," the Father said, plainly saddened at the fact that they were no longer producers of liquor. "The earth is not good any longer, so the plums never ripen properly. They remain small and sour. The brandy made from such fruit is bitter, and nobody wants to drink it. Even I will not drink it, so you can judge for yourself how bad it must be!" He laughed at his self-deprecation, and used the laughter as a cue to fill his glass up again. "Drink," he said to Zeffer, tapping his glass against Zeffer's glass as though this was the first he'd had.

Zeffer drank. The brandy was stronger than the stuff he'd had at the hotel in Brascov. It went down smoothly, warming his belly when it arrived.

"Good, yes?" the Father said, having downed his second glass.

"Very."

"You should have another before we go on." And he filled Zeffer's glass without waiting for a reply. "We're a long way below ground here, and it gets hellishly cold ... " Glasses were filled, and emptied. The Father's mood was noticeably better now, and his tone chattier. He put the glasses and the bottle back in the hole in the wall, and then led the way down the narrow corridor, talking as he went. "When the Order first came to the Fortress, there were plans to found a hospital here. You see, there are no hospitals within a hundred and twenty miles of here. It would be very practical. But this is not a place for the sick. And certainly not the dying."

"So, no hospital?"

"Well, we made preparations. You saw yesterday one of the wards -- "

Zeffer remembered. He'd glanced through an open door and there'd been two rows of iron beds, with bare mattresses. "I thought it was a dormitory for the brothers."

"No. We each have our own cells. There are only eleven of us, so we can each have a place in which to meditate and pray ... " He offered Zeffer a glance, accompanied by a small smile. "And drink."

"I can't imagine it's a very satisfying life," Zeffer said.

"Satisfying?" The idea was obviously a little confounding to Sandru. "Meaning what?"

"Oh, just that you don't get to work in the community. You can't help people."

They had come to the end of the passageway, and Sandru sorted through his collection of keys in order to open the third and final door.

"Who can truly be helped?" he said, his face turned down to the labor of sorting. "I suppose perhaps children can be comforted, sometimes, if it's dark and they're afraid. You can tell them you're with them; and that will sometimes stop them crying. But for the rest of us? Are there really any words that help? I don't know of any." He had found the right key, and now slipped it noisily into the antiquated lock. As he did so, he glanced up at Zeffer. "I think there's more comfort to be had from seeing beautiful women on the cinema screen than in any prayer I know. Well, perhaps not comfort. Distraction." He turned the key in the lock. "And if that sounds like heresy, well so be it."

Sandru pushed the door open. The room was in darkness, but despite that fact there was a warmth in the air; at least in contrast to the chilly air of the passageway. Perhaps the difference was no more than two or three degrees, but it felt significant.