Vlad and his sister looked… different. Erik could not quite put his finger on how, but they both seemed more confident after the two days that they'd been away with the gypsies.
Both he and Manfred tried asking what had happened, but got polite variants of: "I really can't say. Please don't ask me. But it was good and it was important."
They returned to Elizabeth's castle, by Vlad's request.
"I think," he said to Dana, "that it should be destroyed."
She nodded. "Utterly."
They walked up to the building. Put their hands on it. And turned and walked away… quite fast.
"I think… we should gallop."
Glancing back, Erik saw that the castle was on fire. And then an earth tremor nearly shook them off their horses.
"God has fix bad place," said the Szekely Primore in poor Mongol, looking back.
"You might say that," agreed Erik. But privately he suspected the cause was nearer at hand. Whatever Vlad and his sister had done-and in his precise bodyguard's way, he noted bandages on their wrists-he suspected that foes really didn't want to invade their territory.
It was interesting how Vlad had made his younger sister a de facto co-ruler. They did almost nothing without discussion. Or at least an exchange of glances.
They rode southwest for the meeting that was scheduled with the master of Irongate.
Erik noticed that they had wolves scouting for them now, as well as a small gypsy contingent, riding along. The little deception amused him. Being in Venice, and then around Benito and Maria… had changed him too. Really there was only good and evil, and the forms it took mattered not at all so long as you knew which was which.