Fearless Read online

  Eaumbre’s face stayed as inscrutable as ever. Only his eyes hinted at what he felt on the inside: six eyes, filled to the rim with boredom and injured pride. Louis had let everybody in Vena know that his Waterman was nothing but an annoying babysitter his father had forced on him. There could be no doubt that Eaumbre despised his princely charge, but that didn’t mean he liked anyone else. And he was strong. Very strong. He could easily break every bone, even in a Goyl body, with one hand. Probably not a pleasant experience.

  ‘And? What should we do, in your opinion?’ The whispers filled Nerron’s ears like pond muck.

  Through the door came a sigh that made even the portraits on the walls blush.

  ‘Bring Louis to the library in one hour. I’ll talk to him.’ Hopefully that sounded harmless enough. ‘And tell him to bring the hand.’

  ‘Why?’

  Careful, Nerron.

  ‘I want to see whether it can point us to the heart.’

  Six eyes. They were saying, You’re lying, Goyl. And I know it.

  ‘The library,’ the Waterman repeated. ‘In one hour.’

  The Snow-White method had severe side effects – so severe that in Albion you got hanged for using it. Crookback probably had an even more painful method of execution in store, should he ever learn that it had been used on his son. But Nerron counted on the fact that its effects were easily confused with those of an overdose of elven dust.

  One of the kitchen hands boiled the Witch tongue for him in the palace kitchen. The fool thought it was a calf’s tongue. Nerron prepared the apple himself. The fruit was the reason the formula was named after Snow-White, even though her apple had been prepared with a different kind of potion. Nerron cut out the stalk and the core and poured the tongue-broth into it. Black magic was a rather unappetising craft. He sealed the opening with dark chocolate to sweeten the deal. Louis could never resist chocolate.

  The shelves were lined with rows of books as neat as those found only in libraries that were never used. Louis’s cousin loved to give himself the appearance of an educated man.

  One hour. The Waterman delivered on time. The crown prince of Lotharaine did, of course, not knock.

  ‘The Waterman says we have something to discuss?’ As usual, he reeked of elven dust and the disgusting eau de toilette he applied as liberally as water. ‘Stay outside!’ he ordered Eaumbre as the Waterman tried to follow him. ‘You stink of fish again. Go and find my cousin. I want to go out.’

  Eaumbre’s eyes brushed Nerron with a bland glance before he closed the door. Lelou obviously hadn’t taught Louis anything about the pride of Watermen. Quite a dangerous knowledge gap.

  ‘Did you bring the hand?’

  Louis held up the sack.

  ‘I hope you kept it well away from yourself?’

  ‘Why?’ Louis frowned. The elven dust made thinking even more difficult than it usually was for him.

  ‘What is Lelou teaching you? Black magic is not particularly healthy. And it’ll be me who’ll have to answer to your father for any side effects!’ Nerron offered him the apple. ‘Here. The antidote tastes disgusting, but I asked the cook to make it a little more palatable.’

  ‘An apple?’ Louis flinched. ‘I never touch apples. Two of my aunts were poisoned that way.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Nerron put the apple on a lectern, next to a book on the family history of Louis’s Austrian relatives, which was gathering dust. ‘Go see a doctor if you don’t believe me. And keep an eye on your fingernails. Once they turn black, it may be too late already.’

  Louis stared at his fingers.

  ‘I’m sick of treasure hunting!’ he burst out. ‘All that magical nonsense. I’m so over it.’

  He took the apple and eyed it so warily that Nerron nearly gave up hope. ‘Is that chocolate?’

  One bite and he slumped over. Nerron caught him before he hit the marble floor. Not so easy, considering Louis’s weight.

  He leant over him and blew into his sleeping face. ‘Where is the heart of Guismond the Witch Slayer?’

  ‘What?’ Louis mumbled.

  Nerron cursed so loudly he had to press his hand over his own mouth. Compared to the princeling, the vagrant on whom he’d tried the formula six years earlier had turned into a veritable font of wisdom.

  ‘Guis-mond the Witch Slay-er,’ Nerron whispered into the royal ear.

  Louis wanted to roll on his side, but Nerron held him; he had to apply quite a lot of force against the princely weight.

  ‘Lotharaine,’ Louis mumbled.

  ‘Where in Lotharaine?’

  Louis shuddered. ‘Champlitte,’ he whispered. ‘White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold.’

  Then he began to snore.

  He’d be doing little else for the next ten years. Clairvoyance had its price.

  Nerron got up. Champlitte. White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold. What the devil? He sprinkled Louis’s clothes and hands with elven dust and tucked a few more sachets into his pockets. Then he dropped the apple into the swindlesack with the hand, and stuffed that into the saddlebag that already held the sack with the head. He opened the door – and found himself staring at the Waterman’s uniformed chest.

  Eaumbre looked over Nerron’s shoulder.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ His voice grated on Nerron’s skin like a wet rasp.

  ‘He overdid the elven dust.’ Nerron surreptitiously put his hand on his pistol.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ the Waterman whispered. ‘Where are you going? You think Crookback will get any joy from his crossbow if he gets his son back as Snow-White?’ The scaly face stretched into a grim smile. ‘But Crookback was never supposed to get the crossbow, was he? You want to sell it to the highest bidder.’

  Well, at least he hadn’t guessed the whole truth.

  ‘And what if I do?’ Nerron’s fingers closed around the grip of his pistol.

  ‘I want a share. I’m tired of the bodyguarding business. Treasure hunting is so much more profitable.’

  And Watermen came with plenty of experience, in their very own way. The girls they dragged to their ponds could vouch for that. The scale-faces showered them with gold and silver to make their slimy kisses more bearable.

  Three birds . . . Seems like you’re going to be holding on to one, Nerron. The fattest and scaliest of the three.

  A quiet cough.

  Bug-quiet.

  ‘Can any one of those present tell me where I might find the crown prince?’ Lelou was standing at the end of the corridor, his notebook under his arm. What would he be writing at the end of that day? And the prince slept for ten years, his snores echoing through his father’s palace. . . .

  Nerron pointed at the library door. ‘Eaumbre just found him. I think you should take a look at him. We were already wondering what he’s doing in the library without a girl.’

  They were out on the street before Lelou’s cries alerted the guard by the entrance.

  Crookback would find a particularly gruesome way to dispatch the Bug. But Nerron wasn’t going to miss Arsene Lelou.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  FRIEND AND FOE

  The devil-horses lived up to their name. On the second night, one of them snuck up to Jacob with bared teeth; and Donnersmarck scalded his hands as he tried to feed the horses rabbit meat. But they were fast.

  Border posts, icy passes. Lakes, forests, villages, towns. Jacob felt his fear for Fox eating through his body like a poison. The thought of finding her dead was unbearable, and so he tried to lock it away, just as he’d done with his longing for his father when he was a child. But he failed. With every day that passed, every mile they travelled, the images became more gruesome, and his dreams became so vivid that he’d wake up and search his hands for her blood.

  To distract himself, he asked Donnersmarck about the Empress and her daughter, about the child that should not be, and about the Dark Fairy . . . But Donnersmarck’s voice kept turning into Fox’s: You will find the
heart. I know it.

  All he wanted to find now was her.

  When finally they crossed the border into Lotharaine, more than six days had passed since he’d watched Troisclerq help her into that cab. They crossed rivers, passed white castles, rode through villages with unpaved roads, and heard flowers sing in the dark like nightingales . . . The heart of Lotharaine still beat to the old rhythm while the engineers in Albion were already building the new, mechanical one.

  Then Donnersmarck reined in his horse. A meadow. White flowers dotted the short grass. Forgetyourself. The livestock avoided the flowers, which gave off the narcotic oil Bluebeards put on the flowers they pinned to their victims’ clothes or hair. They also rubbed it into their clean-shaven cheeks.

  A little later they came to a signpost. Three miles to Champlitte. They looked at each other, the same images in their heads. But in Jacob’s memory, even Donnersmarck’s dead sister now had Fox’s face.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  THE GOLDEN TRAP

  Wake up, Fox! She thought she could feel the vixen’s pointy snout prodding her forehead.Fox! Wake up! But when she opened her eyes, she found herself alone in her human body.

  Above her she saw a canopy, blue like the evening sky, and the dress she was wearing was as strange to her as the bed she was lying on. Her head ached and her limbs were heavy, as though she’d slept too long. Images flooded her head. A cab. A train. A carriage with golden cushions. A servant at a gate with iron flowers and –

  Troisclerq.

  She felt dizzy as she sat up. High walls covered with golden silk. Hanging from a wreath of white stucco flowers on the ceiling was a red crystal chandelier. As a child she’d fantasised about rooms like this. But the windows were barred. She pushed her hand beneath her pearl-embroidered décolletage. She wasn’t wearing her fur dress any more.

  Calm, Fox.

  But her heart wouldn’t listen.

  Try to remember, Fox. A labyrinth. Troisclerq had led her through it. To a house with ivy-covered walls of grey stone. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember any more than that.

  Had he put something in the water he’d offered her in the cab? Elven dust? A Witch’s love potion? But she felt no love. Just anger at herself.

  Where had he taken her? And where was her fur dress?

  Jacob . . .

  What would he think? That she’d abandoned him for a flower on her dress and a smile from Troisclerq?

  She gathered up the far-too-wide skirt. The dress was sumptuous enough to be worn to a royal ball. Who put it on you, Fox? She shuddered. She’d also never before seen the shoes she was wearing. She pulled them off and walked barefoot across the wooden flower patterns in the waxed parquet floor.

  The door was unlocked.

  Outside it, a corridor with a dozen doors. Which direction had she come from? Remember, Fox!

  No. First she had to find the fur dress.

  She could still feel Troisclerq’s hand on her arm. So gentle. So warm. What had he been thinking? That he could seduce her with a big house and a new dress? Had she returned his smile too readily, laughed at his jokes too often? Laughing had been so easy with him. His glance had let her know how beautiful she was. Did he try to kiss her? Yes. The images were coming back to her like the memories of a stranger. He had kissed her. On the train. In the carriage. What have you done, Fox?

  So many doors.

  She tried to open them, but they were all locked. The portraits hanging between the doors all showed women.

  The corridor led to a staircase. Fox thought she could remember it. She was just about to go down, when a servant came up the white steps towards her. It was the same one who’d opened the iron gate. He was so tall that he kept his head bowed between his broad shoulders.

  The room she’d woken up in . . . the dress . . . the portraits . . . the servant in his black velvet coat. It was as though she was lost in one of the games she’d played for hours as a child in the woods.

  ‘Where is your master?’

  The servant just silently took her arm. His hands were covered in dull brown fur. Lotharaine was full of stories of noblemen who kept enchanted animals as servants, for they were more loyal than any human.

  The house was huge, but they met no one. The door at which the servant finally stopped was made from dark wood; the same wood lined the walls of the dining room the servant waved Fox into. Red lace curtains caught the evening light coming through the windows.

  ‘Welcome to my home.’ Troisclerq was sitting at the end of a long table. It was the first time Fox had seen him unshaven. The skin around mouth and chin had a bluish hue.

  Breathe, Fox. In and out. As the vixen does when death is staring at her.

  Bluebeard.

  There were ten plates on the table. They always laid their table for the number of their victims.

  Troisclerq smiled at her. He was wearing an immaculate white shirt, as usual. Even during their endless coach journey, he’d always been dressed as though he travelled with a manservant.

  ‘Do sit down.’ He waved at a chair to his left. ‘The dress looks nice on you.’

  The servant pulled out the chair for Fox. As she sat down in front of her empty plate, she thought she could sense the presence of all the dead girls who’d sat before her on these black velvet chairs. She tried to remember the faces that had looked at her from the portraits.

  Breathe, Fox. In and out.

  She had to find her fur dress. She couldn’t leave without the dress. Troisclerq took her hand. He kissed her fingers gently, as though his lips had never touched anything more beautiful.

  ‘I usually give my female guests the keys to all the doors in my house, and I ask them not to use one particular key. It’s an old tradition in my clan. You may have heard about it?’ He put the key ring on the table. All the keys were all silver-plated except one. That one was somewhat smaller than the others, and its head was golden and shaped like a flower.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox. ‘Yes, I’ve heard about it.’

  ‘Good.’ Troisclerq pushed the bunch of keys next to her plate. ‘Not that you’d need the keys to find out what’s behind each door. The vixen would smell it anyway.’

  Of course. He’d seen the fur dress. Fox tried not to wonder whether it was he who’d taken it off her. She closed her hand around the key ring as if that could prove she wasn’t afraid. The servant poured her a glass of wine. The wine was so red, it looked as though he was filling her glass with blood.

  ‘This time you caught the wrong girl.’

  She sensed the strange dress on her skin. Done up for the portrait on his wall, Fox.

  ‘Really? And why is that?’

  The servant filled her plate. Duck. Baked potatoes. She realised how hungry she was.

  ‘I’ve never been afraid of death.’ Fox looked Troisclerq straight in the eyes so he could see she was telling the truth. Those dark eyes with the shadows that should have warned her. But you liked how he looked at you, Fox. You liked how he kept reaching for your arm or touching your shoulder as if by accident. All the things Jacob was avoiding more carefully these days. She carried her longing for him like a secret beneath her skin, but maybe Troisclerq had sensed it, as he’d sensed the dress beneath her clothes, like a trail of blood in the woods, though his hunger was of a different kind. So what? Whatever it was that had attracted him to her, she would know how to die. The vixen had taught her. She lived with death, both as the hunter and the hunted.

  ‘The wrong girl? Oh no.’ Troisclerq was as soft as moss in the woods. ‘Don’t fret. I always select my prey carefully. It’s what has kept me alive for nearly three hundred years.’ He nodded at his servant. ‘You will give me what I want. Like all the others. And even more so.’

  The servant placed a pitcher on the table. The evening light glistened through the crystal like splinters of a dying day.

  Troisclerq got up and stroked Fox’s naked shoulder. ‘Fear has many colours, did you know that? White is the most
nourishing kind, the fear of death. For most, it is their own death they fear more than anything. But I knew right away that you are different. And that made the hunt even more enticing.’ Troisclerq scattered a handful of withered flowers on the table. ‘I left a very clear trail. I’m sure he’s already on his way. Wouldn’t you think so?’

  Jacob.

  No. Fox would forget his name, so Troisclerq could never find it in her heart. She felt her fear choking her.

  A few white drops materialised at the bottom of the pitcher.

  Troisclerq gently stroked her cheek. ‘The labyrinth that surrounds my house,’ he whispered, ‘will let only me pass. Everybody else gets hopelessly lost. They forget who they are, forget why they came, and they just wander aimlessly between the hedges until they starve to death. They end up eating poisonous leaves and licking dew off the gravel.’

  Fox splashed her wine into his face. She gripped the glass so tightly that it shattered in her hand. The wine turned Troisclerq’s shirt red, as red as the blood that now trickled down Fox’s fingers. Troisclerq offered her his napkin.

  ‘He loves you, too, you know. Even though he tries hard not to notice it.’ No voice could have sounded more tender. He pushed back his chair. ‘From here you have a good view of the labyrinth. If a swarm of pigeons rises from it, that means he’s caught in it. I’m not expecting any other guests apart from Jacob.’

  The floor of the carafe was now covered with a milky white puddle.

  Troisclerq walked down the long table. Past the empty plates. Before he closed the door, he said to her, ‘It may be a consolation to you that the fear will kill you as well. Love is a deadly affair.’

  She wanted to bite his throat. Choke his velveteen voice with blood. But the vixen was as lost as Celeste.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  THE HUNTER’S TERRITORY

  As soon as they entered Champlitte, Jacob knew they’d found the right place. Many of the houses were freshly painted, and the evening streets were glowing under gaslights – a luxury usually found only in the largest cities behind the mirror. Bluebeards made good neighbours. They never hunted where they lived, and they gave money for roads, churches and schools. The silence thus purchased was their best protection. Jacob was sure many eyes were following him and Donnersmarck from behind the curtains of Champlitte.