“If you say so,” snapped Elöise.
“It will not help to get angry.”
“If I am angry it is because—because all of this—my mind and my body—”
She was breathing quickly, her face flushed, one hand in the air and the other protectively touching the bandage below her breasts.
“Listen to me.” The Doctor's sharp tone brought her eyes to his. “I am here—in this wood—because I am trying to recover my sense of duty. This woman we chase—the man in the train—the dead Ministry man at Karthe—”
“Who?”
He waved her question away. “If the Contessa escapes, other people will die—we will die. I am not thinking of myself, or of us, it is the last of my concerns—whatever I once thought, or hoped, I have put it away.”
“Abelard—”
“There is a hole in your mind you cannot help. That is a fact. And yet there are other facts you have not shared. Perhaps you have your reasons—but thus, you must see, comes my own dilemma. With some distress I must admit that we do not truly know each other at all. For example, I know that you met Caroline Stearne in a private room of the St. Royale Hotel, in the company of Charlotte Trapping.”
He waited for her to respond. She did not.
“You did not mention it,” he said.
Elöise looked away to the trees. After another hopeless silence Svenson indicated the way before them.
IT TOOK ten minutes of thrashing through a dew-soaked thicket of young beech trees before their way broke into a band of taller oaks, beneath whose broad canopies the ground was more bare and easy to cross. More than once Svenson caught Elöise's arm as she stumbled. After each stumble she thanked him quietly and he released her, stepping ahead and doing his best to clear the branches from her path. Aside from this they did not speak, though once the Doctor risked an observation on the majesty of the mighty oak in general and, with a nod to a darting red squirrel, how each tree functioned within the forest as a sort of miniature city, supporting inhabitants of all stations, from grubs to squirrels, from songbirds to even hawks in its heights. It would have been possible for him to continue—the relation of oak to oak being certainly comparable to the various tiny duchies that together formed a sort of German nation—yet at her silence he did not, allowing the last sentence to dissipate flatly in the empty woods.
Beyond the oaks they met a path, wide enough for a horse and wagon, but so covered with leaves that it was clear traffic was rare.
“You recognize nothing?” he asked.
She shook her head, and then gestured to their left. “There is perhaps a better chance if we continue west.”
“As you wish,” said Svenson, and they began to walk.
They walked in an unbearable silence. Doctor Svenson tried to distract himself with the birdsong and the rustles of invisible wind. When he could stand it no more, yet upon opening his mouth found nothing to say, he indicated their leaf-strewn path.
“Our way is as thickly padded as a Turkish carpet—I find it impossible to tell if the Contessa has preceded us.”
Elöise turned to face him quickly. “Do you think she has?”
“She has gone someplace.”
“But why here?”
“We are walking west. Is not west more toward the city?”
“If she sought the city, she would have remained on the train— you said so yourself.”
“I did.” Such stupidity was exactly what came of making conversation to no purpose. “Still, the park is large. We can only hope.”
“Hope?”
“To catch her, of course. To stop her.”
“Of course,” nodded Elöise, with a sigh.
“You would prefer her free?” asked Svenson, somewhat tartly.
“I would prefer her vanished from my life.”
Doctor Svenson could not stop himself. “And what life is that? Your master is dead, your mistress in turmoil, your enemies everywhere. And yet what life was it before, Elöise? Can you even remember what you embrace with such determination—or why?”
“One might say the same,” she answered, her voice swift and low, “to a man whose Prince is dead, whose Prince was a fool, whose wasted efforts on an idiot's behalf have left only bitterness and shame.”
Svenson barked with disgust, looking to the trees for any retort, but nothing came. Her words were exact as a scalpel.
“You are of course correct—” he began, but stopped at her exasperated sigh.
“I am an idiot whose life has been saved countless times by your precise foolishness. I have no right to say one word.”
Before he could disagree, Elöise stopped walking. He stopped with her. She turned to look behind them.
“What is it?” he asked.
Elöise pointed off the path. Through the new green trees Svenson saw a grey stone wall, perhaps the height of his shoulder.
“We have passed something,” said Elöise. “Perhaps it is a house.”
ON THE far side of the wall they found the ruins of what might have been an abbey, the stones draped with vines, the windows empty holes through which he could see trees that had grown up inside, nurtured on the decayed beams of the ceiling. Svenson recognized several fruit trees, gnarled and unkempt, the remnants of some abbot's orchard or lady's garden, and then as they neared pointed out an even thinner line of wide step-stones that led beyond the ruin.
“Do you know what this place is?” Svenson asked.
Elöise shook her head. She had stopped, staring ahead into the trees. Svenson nodded to the new flagstone path.
“Shall we not see where it goes?”
“It is a ruin,” she said.
“I find ruins stirring,” he replied. “Each holds its own secret tale. And besides, these stones seem quite well kept.”
He stepped forward and she followed without answer. Ruins of any kind, but most particularly those overcome by nature, spoke to Svenson's heart deeply—and he glanced at Elöise with an encouraging smile. She did her best to smile in return, and he reached to take her hand, which she allowed with a defeated look that left him wishing he could, without even sharper embarrassment, let it go again.
The path of stones wound to a wooden gate, set with an iron latch.
The square flagstone below the gate showed a fading wet mark… a small footprint… a woman's boot… or a man's that had evaporated to a smaller size. Svenson slipped the pistol into his hand. He motioned that Elöise should keep behind him and reached for the iron latch.
BEYOND THE gate, the flagstone walk threaded a pair of well-tended flower beds (pruned rosebushes to the left and new budding tulips— red and yellow—to the right) and ended at a low stone house with a thatched roof whose edges hung far enough to cast the walls of the house, its two rounded windows, and its wooden door into shadow. The green turf that lined the walkway was wet with dew, the stones ahead marked with more footprints. The air was silent save for the birds.