Dragon’s Empire – 3. Countess and Dragon

I barely kept myself from telling him «Thank you» for the foresight. I allowed him to be located like at home, in the mansion, which was returned a luxurious look in so a short time, and I myself headed to bring the next night visit my charming neighbor.

As usual I did not knock at the gate. The habit of sneaking in the window and secretly observed the events was for me unchanged. Easy to calculate, in which hall there is a countess, I discovered there and one guest. It was Vincent. Despite the cold evening, he refused a hot tea, but willingly drank a glass of wine and began to spread about the latest news.

«This event is a real event,» he almost joyfully said, pretending that he did not notice the fatigue of the countess. «For the first time, I managed to learn something intriguing. The rebels accused the rich feudal in witchcraft, they drove him to the roof of the mill and threatened with fire, and suddenly he turned into a dragon. So the accusations are not so unfounded.

Vincent finished his monologue in the tone of the investigator and did not even notice that his only listener was silent and didn’t even nod to him.

«This story is worthy of getting to the pages of one of your books,» Vincent nodded towards the bookcases.

«No, you can hardly convey all the horror that eyewitnesses experienced,» she objected. Today you caught me scared and depressed, but this fright will not last long. Tomorrow you will return here, preferably in the late afternoon and take your cards with you. I need to ask you many things.»

«How do you order, Milady,» Vincent agreed. He drank, looking at the dark corners, where the candelabra’s light fell. It seemed to him that someone watches him, but he could not understand: the truth was it or an unpleasant feeling.

«See you tomorrow, dear countess,» he said softly and with a grin, crossing the threshold, but Francesca no longer heard him.

I did not want to show me at servants and maids, which, noticing such an invasion, could raise a cry. Penetrating into the bedroom, I began to wait until the countess remain alone. Soon, holding a candlestick in her hand, she crossed the threshold, closed the door. The peaceful radiance of one candle was illuminated the room. Francesca pulled the latch, turned around and noticing me was frozen without movements like an ice statue. How she was pale! It seemed that the scarlet dress with the waves of black lace, was on the mannequin, and not on a living woman.

I also sat down in a deep chair and stared in her eyes. Must be, Francesca thought that I was a ghost haunting her.

She backed up, but the back came across the door, which he just locked. A painful meeting with a wooden barrier led her to feelings.

«You didn’t have the right to appear here,» she finally spoke quickly and desperately. «You could not cross the threshold without invitation! You are an evil spirit!»

«So read the prayer to expel me!» I proposed indifferently, but the steel was ranked in the voice. It means that she herself invited me once, believed that no evil spirit had the right to enter the house without an invitation of the owner. An old one, having nothing with the reality of superstition, but the blonde countess believed everything that she read in the books. She knew the words of prayers and began to pronounce them, quickly, uncertain, expecting that I was about to disappear, but I did not turn into a smoke, did not fly out as a black cloud through the window and Francesca was silent. She did not want to show her cowardice, she approached me. I stand up to meet her, the etiquette did not allow to sit in the presence of the lady. A hand with a candle rose to my face. A tiny light almost rushed my cheeks, giving Francesca an opportunity to consider and remember every line.

As if observing some kind of gloomy ritual, the countess touched with her fingertips first to my cold skin, and then to the velvet binding of the book lying on the table. Feeling the ice fatal touch, she breathed quietly:

«Not alive!» Francesca dropped the candle and repeated again. «You’re not like all the living people, you had to die many years ago, but something happened and thanks to this you live, moving, breathing, charming naive people.

«You are far from naive!» I pointed to the book, where she had read about me me. The book, lying on the table, revealed the lines of the ancient, forgotten language. «Do you know some letters or the whole alphabet and can you read it?»

Francesca did not answer, but only pressed the palm to the neck, then to the heart. It beat often and strongly, like a bird in a cage.

«You are still alive,» she said. «When I read about you for the first time, you wandered somewhere nearby. But it is impossible, such simply can not be.»

She was amazed of acquired knowledge.

«Yes, I live, you yourself touched me to make sure that my heart, Francesca, it doesn’t beat, the first flight turned it into a stone.»

I waved the cloak. The wind rose from the light wave pulled out the pages from the book and they rushed to the floor with the rustle.

«From the very beginning I understood that you exposed me.»

– This predictor of fate, asking for a visit, is for sure your spy, otherwise you could…

I immediately understood who she had in mind, and hastily objected:

«Vincent is not my hound. He is an enemy and he is very dangerous, remember it. If it were not for his dexterity, he would also have been an ash for a long time.

«And who would you be now, if the sorcerer did not pull you out of the burning castle to make his student?»

«An ash!» I calmly and honestly replied, and from this answer she frown. «In the same rush, what sooner or later you will become, my beautiful countess, while in front of me is an eternity.»

«Eternity without joy, without a friend, without a companion. Eternity in the darkness,» Francesca tried to blame, but the voice fell into tears.

«What’s so bad in this,» I objected. «Your fortress will rot, your books will turn into dust, and my people will exist in teasing proximity to your dilapidated world, subject to disease and old age. Recently, you sought forbidden: feasts, treasures and secrets of my possessions. Is not it?»

I was silent, the wind picked up the torn pages, circled them under the ceiling and removed in the opened window. They disappeared forever together with the confession of the prince’s prisoner. Disappeared a distorted story about my atrocities. Francesca did not know what to answer how to call for help all her braveness to continue to throw charges. She wanted to raise the candle from the floor and again to light it, but did not dare.

«Clear pretense!» Francesca whispered, with despair, but so quiet that it was almost impossible to hear it, but I heard and unexpectedly felt irritation.

«And what did you expected, that even the devil will like your sophisticated manners, right, but false speech and the talent of the ingenious tracker?» The question was malicious and painfully cut a hearing. «No, Francesca. In fact, everything is much more prosaic. I came here to pick up my property. That is, almost mine,» I immediately corrected. «Anyway, a picture, according to a pure chance, that fell into your collection is written by one of the masters of my world, and therefore should return in the empire. The sooner, the better,» and if you can immediately, I added to myself, remembering that I was too late. You can never postpone tomorrow, otherwise you will never fulfill the conceived. I just wanted to play a day or two in a cat and a mouse with titled lady, and this couple of days dragged on more than a week.

«The painter!» Finally, exclaimed Francesca, as if this word was the key to all existing secrets. «He was the same as you.»

«Well, not quite like that,» I noticed with the knowledge of the case. «There are even in our world lords and servants. Camille was a conventional servant, even worse, almost a slave of his insidious Mr.»

«Yes, he accidentally mentioned that freedom was now very valuable for him,» Francesca nodded thoughtfully.

«Camille does nothing by chance, and he gave the picture exactly you, for sure, with a special intent.»

«He managed to run away from you. Well, I am glad for him,» Francesca has found strength to smile. «Now it’s clear to me why he wanted to destroy the picture.» Why do you need to keep an image of the owner, who probably very brutally addressed him. But he loved you very much, it feels in every stroke laid on canvas. Otherwise he could not draw with such inspiration.»

«This is a pretty ill manifestation of love – to create an eternal reminder about experienced sufferings,» I said and thought that this was really the most sophisticated torture – to capture the moment when several months have separated me from the carefree past, and the long road to the future was dark and thorny. How did Camille attracted the prince on the verge of dishonor? Why was it possible to transfer all mysticism with such an impression of reality, as on this, undoubtedly the best of his canvases? Cleanliness and innocence, the memories of which are still preserved in the picture, was already unattainable, and the dark satellite behind my back was just revealed his black wings.

«How did I not immediately guess who he was,» Francesca laughed at her naivety. «It was suspicious from the very beginning, well, he looked like a boy, and painted as a recognized talent. Then someone noticed his sharp ears, which sometimes peeking out from under the beret, the fiery shine in the eyes, the ability to move the items without touching them. And then these six ladies came, and Camille realized that it was time to run.

«Also and the spinners,» I said, thinking that for the count’s castle, the most worthy company was treated. Francesca, which naturally did not understand about the spinners, stared at me in amazement.

«All this does not have any relationship to you personally. They will no longer appear,» I comforted Francesca, although I myself was not sure about it. If the spinners will want to force their way somewhere in secret, then nobody will stop them. If one of them wants to kill this frightened amateur adventure, it is unlikely that the guards of the fortress can save her.

«Go away from here and do not appear here more!» Francesca shouted in the rage. «Take your picture and fly back to hell, where you came from. Surely, all these ballroom halls and statues were just an illusion. And in fact there is no castle, there is only a hell and there is the place for you, the fallen angel.»

I calmly waited when Francesca will keep silence. When the rage of the countess became dangerous, I slightly removed her, but she swayed with this light touch and almost fell.

«I’ll pick a portrait so that you could no longer touch it and thus call me out of my… hell,» before the last word, an expressive pause was made only because I didn’t dare to call my delicious castle as a hell. Then I boldly moved to the tower where the picture was kept, throwing on the move. «Perhaps I will return to pay.»

Absolutely innocent offer Francesca interpreted in her own way. On the same night, she began to collect her things and told to prepare the crew, but I never bothered to check where she was going to go.

Reaching my own castle, I did not decide to destroy the picture, but I didn’t want it to hang on the wall. Only after reliably hid it in the basement, and locked the door with the key, I unwittingly thought about Francesca. Was it worth to let her go. She knew now a strange unforgettable secret? And how long will her silence last?

Hypocritical Francesca

Hearing the noise in the estate, I decided that Selvin had a discussion with a lazy master. The first assumption did not justify itself. Near the ladder to the attic stood a viscount and a mant dressed in black. They argued about something. I managed to find out the excited voice of Vincent. He retained the hardly catchy emphasis – a reminder of that speech I heard on the streets of the native capital. No one, besides me, could not understand that clear dictations and some outdated words are just a tribute to the past.

«I tell you, Edwin is my friend. He himself invited me to spend the night here, «Vincent urged, while his eyes were furious. A little more and he would clutch the interlocutor in the face.

I watched him and barely kept laughter. Vincent always knew how to lie shamelessly, but this time he surpassed himself.