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will keep me apprised, Michel. I demand it.”
    Though the old
man’s instruction had been merely stern, Beheim could have
sworn he detected desperation and a hint of pleading in the set of
his face, and that perplexed him—never before had he seen
Agenor so unsteady, even when under personal attack.
    “If there
is more to this than you have told me,” Beheim said, “it
is my right to hear it now.”
    Agenor’s
patrician features tightened with anger, but only for an instant;
then his flesh seemed to sag away from his skull, the long years of
his unnatural life becoming suddenly apparent. He stared hollow-eyed
at Beheim as if confused by what had been asked of him. At last he
said once again, “I have done something.”
    Beheim waited
for a disclosure, but none was forthcoming.
    “Yes?”
he said. “You have done something?”
    Agenor’s
head twitched, he blinked at Beheim, as if just awakened to his
presence. “The alliance I spoke of . . . I felt
I had to make it in order to give you some advantage, yet I cannot be
sure whether it will in the end help or hinder you.” He let out
an exhausted sigh. “We will have to wait and see.”
    “And the
nature of this alliance?”
    “I would
rather not reveal it at this time.”
    Beheim knew the
hopelessness of pressing the issue. “I would ask that a number
of servants be put at my personal disposal,” he said after a
bit. “I will, of course, employ Giselle as my agent, but
because of the scope of the investigation, I’ll need more help
than she can supply.”
    “Whatever
you wish.”
    Beheim came to
his feet, still a bit weak in the knees, but beginning to feel
something of the old eagerness for the chase that he had known during
his days in Paris.
    “Remember
what is at stake,” Agenor said. “No matter what you find,
no matter how highly connected you discover the culprits to be, you
must not falter in your resolve to bring the truth before the
Patriarch.”
    “I’ll
do everything in my power not to fail you.”
    “You
cannot fail me ,” said Agenor, clasping Beheim’s
right hand with both of his and fixing him with a searching look. “I
have already failed, I have lost the Patriarch’s ear. He
considers me an old fool, a scribe with the delusions of a Cassandra.
But you can compensate for my failures, Michel. It’s in your
grasp to kindle victory from the ashes of my defeat. Do not fail
yourself. That is my charge to you.”
    Chapter
Four
    T he body of the Golden lay naked and pitiful atop the eastern turret
of Castle Banat. The girl’s eyes were iced shut, and a cracked
red glaze covered the blackish stones beside her. Mutilated, Agenor
had said, but that word had not prepared Beheim for the savagery of
the wounds. There was a ragged hole in the side of her neck large
enough in which to insert a fist, and there was a similar wound in
her belly. Lesser yet no less grievous wounds marred her face,
breasts, and thighs. Though the body was frozen, Beheim could detect
signs of lividity and rigor, which meant that she must have been
killed during the waning hours of the previous night, a time during
which it had been sufficiently warm to permit the inception of decay.
Still, he was surprised that these processes were not further
advanced. There must, he concluded, have been a cold snap during the
day that had retarded them. Yet even if this was the case, it did not
seem sufficient to explain the relative lack of decomposition.
Perhaps there had only been a brief warming period just before dawn,
and then the freezing cold had set in at first light. That would pass
for a theory, but it likely could not be proved, as it was probable
that none of the servants had ventured outside in daylight, all
keeping close watch over their masters, guarding against treachery.
    The girl’s
waxen hands were posed in clawlike attitudes, her mouth open in a
silent scream. No hint of her freshness and beauty remained, apart
from the sheen of her blond hair and the faint