Mollyscope

ROMANIA-- SUMMER OF 1972399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJNG7foyZLt

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Vladimir Dragan looked very trendy in a washed-out blue open-necked shirt, flared grey trousers cut in Western style, shiny black shoes with sharply pointed toes (unlike the customary square-cut imported Russian footwear in the local shops) and a fawn-checkered jacked with large patch pockets. In the hot Romanian noon, especially at this farm on the outskirts of a tiny village some way off the Corabia-Calinesti highway, he stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. Leaning on his car and scanning the huddled rooftops and snail-shell cupolas of the village, which stood a little way down the gently sloping fields to the south, he could only be one of three things: a rich tourist from the West, one from Turkey, or one from Greece.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4svjGF53qs

But on the other hand his car was a Volga and black as his shoes, which suggested something else. Also, he didn't wear the wide-eyed, wary/innocent look of the tourist but a self-satisfied air of familiarity, of belonging. Approaching him from the farmhouse yard where he'd been feeding chickens, Zobor Rudolf, the "proprietor," couldn't make up his mind. He was expecting tourists later in the week, but this one had got him beat. He sniffed suspiciously. An official, maybe, from the Ministry of Lands and Properties? Some snotty lackey for those stone-faced Bolshevik industrialists across the border? He'd have to watch his step here, obviously. At least until he knew who or what the newcomer was.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzAUxOnqgae

"Rudolf?" the young man inquired, eyeing him up and down. "Zobor Rudolf? They told me in Ionestasi that you have rooms. I take it that place---" (a nod towards a tottering three-storied stone-built house by the cobbled village road) "----is your guesthouse?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkUyWzkaseE

Rudolf deliberately looked blank, faked a look of understanding, frowned as he stared at Dragan. He didn't always declare his earnings from tourism---not all of them, at least. Finally, he said: "I am Rudolf, yes, and I do have rooms. But...."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6wtFvLA2ki

"Can I stay here or can't I?" the other seemed tired now, and impatient. Nastase noted that his clothes, at first glance smart and modern, actually looked crumpled, much-traveled. "I know I'm early by a month, but surely you can't have that many guests."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1TtoRXHcYt

Early by a month! Now Rudolf remembered.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtNaMNHyhRk

"Ah! You must be the Herr from Moscow? The one who made inquiry in April? The one who booked lodgings----but sent no money in advance! Is it you, then, that Herr Dragan who has the name of the town down the highway? But you are indeed early---though welcome for all that! I shall have to prepare a room for you. Or maybe I can put you in the English room, for a night or two anyway. How long will you stay?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ZX37QPXgx

"At least ten days," Dragan answered. "If the sheets are clean and the food is at all bearable---and if your Romanian beer is not too bitter!" His glance seemed unnecessarily severe; there was that in his attitude that got Nastase's back up.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUDn25sMFIQ

"Mein Herr," he began with a growl, "my rooms are so clean you could eat off the floor. My wife is an excellent cook. My beer is the best under all the Carpatii Meridoionali! What's more, our manners are good up here---which seems to be more than can be said of you Muscovites! Now, do you want a room or not?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkT3imDSld9

Dragan grinned and held out his hand. "I was pulling your leg," he said. "I like to find out what people are made of. And I like a fighting spirit! You are typical of this region, Zobor Rudolf: you wear a farmer's clothes, but you are a warrior at heart. But me, a Muscovite? With a name like mine? Why, there are some who'd say that you're the foreigner here, 'Zobor Rudolf! It's in your name, your accent, too. And what of your use of 'Mein Herr?' Hungarian, aren't you?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkBM2nt1EDW

Rudolf briefly studied the other's face, looking him up and down, decided he liked him. The man had a sense of humor, anyway, which in itself made a welcome change. "My grandfather's grandfather was from Hungary," he said, taking Dragan's hand and giving it a firm shake, "but my grandmother's grandmother was a Wallach. 399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6WZmmVi5QO

As for the accent, it's local. We've absorbed a good many Hungarians over the decades, and a good many settled here. Now?---I'm a Romanian no less than you. Only I'm not as rich as you!" He laughed, showing yellow, worn-down teeth in a face of creased leather. "I guess you'd say I'm a peasant. Well, I'm what I am. As for 'Mein Herr'---would you prefer me to call you 'Comrade'?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrIKipA1Z9Y

"Heavens, no! Not that!" Dragan answered immediately.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnfPaIHKIhl

" 'Mein Herr' will do nicely, thanks." He too laughed. "Come on, show me this English room of yours."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMrlnZRy9Pm

Rudolf led the way from the big Volga to the tall, high-peaked guesthouse. "Rooms?" he grumbled. "Oh, I've plenty of rooms, all right! Four to each floor. You can have a whole suite of rooms, if you wish."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmNDFPE6qsV

"One will do nicely, thank you," Dragan answered, "as long as it has its own bath and toilet."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡygzGKF9VBt

"Ah--en suite, is it? Well, then, that's the top floor. A room with its own loo and bath up under the roof. Very modern."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCVQYX9CXH8

"Of course," said Dragan, not too dryly.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF5E9Zm50hM

He saw that the ground floor of the house had been rendered and pebble-dashed on top of the sand-colored cement. Rising damp, no doubt. But the upper levels showed their original stone construction. The house must be three hundred years old if it's a day. Very suitable. It took him back in time---back to his roots and beyond them.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw3TH3870dQ

"How long have you been away?" Rudolf asked, letting him in and showing him to a room on the ground floor. "You'll have to stay here for now," he explained, "until I can get the upstairs room ready. One hour, perhaps two, that's all."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ90hFU4Tg8T

Dragan kicked off his shoes, hung his jacket over a wooden chair, dropped onto a bed in a square of sunlight where it came through an oval window. "I've been away half of my life," he said. "But it's always good to come back. I've been back for the last three summers now, and four more to go."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuw21DAqKiO

"Oh? Got your future all figured out, have you? Four more to go? That sounds sort of final. What do you mean by it?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMJJSH1P8QI

Dragan lay back, put his hands behind his head, looked at the other through eyes slitted against the glancing sunlight. "Research," he finally said. "Local history. At only two weeks per year, it should take me another four years."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfNpi7VMTvJ

"History? This country is rich in it! But it's not your job, then? I mean, you don't do it for a living?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVwNwD4pOGt

"Oh, no," the man on the bed shook his head. "In Moscow I'm---a mortician." Well, that was close enough.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJrD4g5wMQx

"Huh!" Rudolf snorted. "It takes all kinds to make the world what it is. Right, I'm off now to sort out your room. And I'll make arrangements for a meal. If you want the loo, it's just out here in the corridor. Just take it easy...."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6d3uiORax3

When there was no answer he glanced again and Dragan, saw that his eyes were shut---the warm sunshine and the silence of the room. Rudolf picked up his guest's car keys from where he'd tossed them down at the foot of the bed, quietly left the room and eased the door shut behind him. One final glance as he went; the rise and fall of Dragan's chest had taken on the slow rhythm of sleep. That was good. Rudolf nodded to himself and smiled. Obviously he felt at home here.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe0Kqwajp0k

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Dragan chose new lodgings each time he came here. Always in the vicinity of the town he called home---within spitting distance---but not so close to the last place that he'd remembered from the previous year. He'd thought of using a pseudonym, a false name, but had thrown out the idea untried. He was proud of his name, probably in defiance of its origin. Not in defiance of Dragan the town, his geographical origin, but the fact that he'd been found there. As for his parents: his father was that almost impregnable mountain range to the north, the Transylvanian Alps, and his mother the rich dark earth itself.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMNnuMGNTl4

Oh, he had his own theories about his real parents; what they'd done had likely been for the best. The way he imagined them, they had been Szgany, "Romany," "Gypsies; young lovers out of feuding camps, their love had not the power to reconcile old slights and spites. But they had loved. Dragan had been born, and he had been left. As to actually tracking them down, those unknown parents: he had thought to do that three years ago and had come here for just that reason. But---it had been utterly hopeless. A task enormous, impossible. There were as many gypsies in Romania now as ever there had been in the old days. Despite their "satellite" designation, old Wallachia, Transylvania, Moldavia and all the lands around had retained something of autonomy, of self-determination. Gypsies had as much right to be here as the mountains themselves.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Jyc12lQ8L

These had been the thoughts in Dragan's mind as he drifted into sleep, but the dream he dreamed then was not of his parents at all but of scenes from his childhood, before he'd been sent out of Romania to complete his education. He had been a loner even then, had kept to himself, and sometimes he'd wandered where others feared to go. Or where they had been forbidden to go....399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0n8wUbYS4d

The woods were deep and dark on hillsides steep and winding as fairground roller-coasters. Vladimir had only ever seen a roller-coaster once, three days ago on his seventh birthday (his seventh "found-day", as his foster father would have it) when his treat had been to go into Dragan and visit the little cinema there. A short Russian film had been shot entirely from fairground rides, and the roller-coaster had been so real that Vladimir had actually suffered from vertigo, so that he'd nearly fallen out of his seat. It'd been very frightening, but exciting, too; so much so that he'd devised his own game to simulate the thrill of the ride. It wasn't as good and it was hard work, but it was better than nothing. And you could do it right here, on the slopes of the wooded hills not a mile from the estate.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKZc510LVSM

This was a place where no wise man dared to go, a completely lonely place. No wonder Vladimir liked it so much. The woods had not been cut here for almost five hundred years; no gamekeeper had ever penetrated the pine-grown slopes, where only the rarest sunbeams ever cut through to lighten up the dusty gloom; only the muted cooing and occasional flapping of wood pigeons disturbed the deep silence, and the rustle of small, creeping creatures; it was a place of dancing dust motes, of pinecones and needles, of fungi and a few swift, strangely silent squirrels.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjxWiaGSpsY

The hills were on the ancient Wallachian plain, sloping down from the foothills of the Alps 45 miles away. They were shaped like a crucifix, with the central spine almost two miles long from north to south and the crossbar a mile long east to west. Around them were fields, divided by walls, hedges, and fences, and occasionally narrow avenues of trees; but the fields in the immediate vicinity of the hills which formed the cross were untilled, where wild grasses grew long and thistles stood tall and gleamed green and lush. Now and then Vladimir's foster-father would let horses or cattle graze there, but not often. Even the animals shunned the place; they shied a lot for no reason and sometimes broke down fences or jumped hedgerows to be away from those wild, too-silent fields.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBgtk0UZC33
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But for little Vladimir Dragan the place was something else entirely. He could hunt big game there, penetrated to the unexplored interior of the Amazon, search for the lost cities of the Incas. He could do all of those things and more---provided that he never told his foster-family about his games. Or rather, where he played them. But for all that they were forbidden, the woods fascinated him. There was that in them that drew him like a magnet.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxy5yXTalj9

It was there now as he clambered up the steep slope near the middle of the cross, clawing his way upward from close-grown tree to tree, puffing, panting, dragging behind him the big cardboard box which was his conveyance, his roller-coaster car without wheels. A long climb, yes, but well worth it. He would have one final ride, this time from the very top, before setting off for home. The sun was low in the sky now and it seemed likely that he was in trouble already for being late, so one more ride couldn't hurt.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡddu3W09ScY

At the top he paused to draw breath, sat for a moment swatting at midges in the pale beams of sunlight lancing down through tall, dark pines, then dragged the box along the crest of the ridge to a place where he could see a track running clear to the bottom. In some forgotten yesteryear, a fire-break had been cut here before the lumbermen had remembered or been told about the nature of the place; since then saplings had sprung up once more to almost (but not quite) obscure the scar. Now that scar was about to become the track of Vladimir's daredevil ride.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy8tSv0p6w3

And balancing his "car" on the rim, he jumped aboard and clutched the sides, tilting the box forward until it started to ride.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpemHESGVz9

The box rode smoothly and well at first, slipping easily over a bed of pine needles and coarse grasses, between low bushes and slender saplings, following the old scar of the fire-break. But----Vladimir was a child. He'd seen no danger, hadn't reckoned on the steepness of the slope or rate of acceleration.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiM49Tr3Yzu

Now the box picked up speed, and now his ride more closely approximated the terrifying, dizzy rush of the car on the roller-coaster. He hit a hummock of grass and the box jumped clear of the slope. It came down, struck a glancing blow at a sapling, shot off sideways into the denser pines where they marched breakneck down the almost sheer hillside alongside the scar. 399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9aKgmg4jnR

There was no controlling the careening of his "car" now. Vladimir had neither brakes nor guidance system. He could only go where the box took him.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCRQr5UzmMO

With many a jolting crash and sideways slide, more bruised and shaken with every passing second, he was rattled in his box like a cork in the water. And now, away from the scar of the fire-break, the failing light was shut out almost totally; so that Vladimir ducked his head, a precaution against unseen, whipping branches, as his nightmare descent continued. But with the trees grown so close, it could only go on for a little while longer. 399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN3AvZy7IHp

At least, in a place where the ground beneath the trees was of sliding shale and scree, where their humped roots stuck up above the surface like thick-bodied sea serpents, suddenly the ride (such as it was) came to a stop. With a jarring crash the bottom of the box was ripped out from beneath Vladimir and the sides quite literally disintegrated in his clutching, horrified fingers. He was thrown not quite head-on into the bole of a tree and sent spinning. Tumbling head over heels, bouncing and sliding, Vladimir hardly felt the many brittle branches flying into shards as he plunged through them; he was aware only of glimpses of a whirling sky scanned through the tops of frowning pines, of a sick plunging and jolting that seemed to go on forever, and finally of shooting over a lip or ledge of rock and hurtling into dark, dusty space.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSHK6Avd99F

Then the impact and after that----nothing. Nothing for a time, at least....399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡemMMfj9OtL

Vladimir might've been out for one minute, for five, or fifty. Or he might not have been out at all. But he was shaken up, and badly. If he hadn't been, then what happened next could easily have killed him. He might have died of fright!399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY1T51BewAn

"Who are you?" asked a voice in his reeling head. "Why have you come here? Are you---offering yourself to me?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9aK3n02URQ

It was evil voice that spoke to him, utterly evil. In it were elements of everything horrific. Vladimir was only a boy; he did not understand words like bestial, sadistic, diabolic, or the meaning of phrases like "the Powers of Darkness," or the Acts by which such Powers are invoked. To him there was fear in a creaking tread on a dark landing; there was terror in the trapping of a twig on his bedroom window, when all the house was asleep; there was horror in the sudden squirm or hop of a toad, or the startled freezing of a cockroach when the light is switched on, and especially in its scurrying when knows it is discovered!399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTkmZTIEQ1

Once, in the deepest cellar under the far, where his foster-father kept wines in racks and cheeses wrapped in muslin on cool shelves, Vladimir had heard the rustling cheep of crickets. In the beam of a tiny torch he'd seen one, leprous gray from the lightlessness of its habitation. As he moved closer, to step on it, the insect jumped and disappeared. He found another and the same thing happened. And another, and so on. He saw a dozen, but he stepped on none of them. They had all disappeared. Climbing the steps out of the place, as daylight filtered down from on high, a cricket had jumped into Vladimir's shorts. They were on him! They had jumped onto him! That way he couldn't step on them. And oh how Vladimir had danced then!399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaP1spjTnM2

That was his idea of a nightmare: the knowledge of sly intelligence where none had any business being. Just as it had no business being here.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1u6k84tAyC

"Ah-ha!" said the voice, stronger now. "Ah-ha! So you are one of mine! And because you are one of mine, you came here. Because you knew where to find me...."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqlUbwSp2LJ

It was then that Vladimir knew he was conscious and that the voice in his head was real! And its evil was the slimy touch of a toad, the leaping of crickets in darkness, the slow tick of a hated clock, which seems to speak to you in the night and laugh at your fears and your insomnia. Oh, and it was much worse than that, he was sure---except he didn't have the words or knowledge or experience to describe it.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUzgppaj46x
But he could picture the mouth which spoke those guttural, clotted, sly and insinuating words in his head. And he knew why it was clotted and gurgling. In his mind's eye the picture was vivid, monstrous: the mouth dripped blood like liquid rubies, and its gleaming incisors were pointed as those of a great dog!399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDR0Ddn2F0B

"What is your name, boy?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUOw0yPCOM7

"Uh---Vladimir Dragan----sir."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy149NUvLry

"Ahhhhh! Dragan!" The voice was a hoarse sigh now, like autumn leaves skittering on cobbles. A sigh of dawning realization, of understanding and satisfaction. "Then that indeed makes you one of mine. But all, you are too small! Too small! You have not the strength, boy. A child, a sniveling child. What can you do for me? Nothing! Your blood runs like ice water in your veins. It has no iron...."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRNXbsIujCp

Vladimir sat up, started frightenedly about in the gloom, his eyes darting, his head reeling. He was more than halfway down the hillside on a sort of flat ledge of rock beneath the trees. He had never been here before, never guessed the place existed. Then, as his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom and his senses came back to him more fully, he saw that in fact he sat upon lichen-clad stone flags before what could only be----a mausoleum!399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcuzewr4AiK

Vladimir had seen its like before: his uncle (at least, his foster-father's brother) had died a month ago and had been interred in just such a place; but that had been in sacred ground, in the churchyard in Slatina. This place, in contrast---this was not sacred ground. No, not by any stretch of the imagination....399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmJo144s4g9

Unseen presences moved here, stirring in the musty air without stirring the festoons of cobwebs and fingers of dead twigs that hung down from on high. Here it was cold---clammy cold---where the sun had not broken through for five hundred years.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUFLJ6aSAOq
Behind Vladimir, hewn from a great outcrop of rock, the tomb itself had long since caved in, its roof of massive slabs lying in a heap of masonry. In his hurtling rush from above, Vladimir must've flown over the jumble of stone, or doubtless he'd have brained himself. Maybe he had anyway, for surely he was feeling and hearing things where there was nothing to be felt or heard. Or where there shouldn't be anything.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWYJLLXRuv4
He pricked up his ears and squinted his eyes in the dark of this enclosed place, but---there was nothing.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0PjYirggJG

Vladimir had tried to stand up, managed it on his third attempt. He leaned his trembling weight on a sloping slab which had once formed the front lintel of the tomb's door. Then he listened and looked again, straining ears and eyes in the gloom. But no voice now, no mouth dripping blood in the mirror of his mind. He sighed his relief, his breath rasping in his throat.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoOPyJQffBW

A thickly matted crust of dirt, lichens and pine needles fell away from the slab beneath his hands, partly revealing a motif or coat of arms. Vladimir cleared away more of the grime of centuries and....399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW923Kt5I1c

He snatched his hands at once, reeled back, tripped and sat down again, gasping. The arms had consisted of a shield bearing in bas-relief a dragon, one forepaw raised in threat; and riding upon its back, a bat with triangular eyes of carnelian; and surmounting both of these figures, the leering horned head of Satan himself, forked tongue protruding and dripping gouts of carnelian blood!399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3ZXNvWHKBM

All three symbols---dragon, bat, Satan---now came together in Vladimir's mind. They became amalgamated as the author of the voice in his head, a voice which chose that exact moment in time to speak to him yet again.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWk3qrnbjDs

"Run, little one, run----be away from here. You are too small, too young, too innocent, and I am far too week and oh so very old...."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVNcCCT7iNX

On legs that trembled so fearfully he was sure he would fall, Vladimir stood up and backed away. Then he turned and fled the place full tilt---away from the pine-needle-strewn flagstones, which the gnarled roots of centuries were pushing upward; away from the tumbled tomb and whatever buried secrets it contained; away from the gloom of the place, so menacing as to seem to have physical substance.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn0RrwMOWBq

And as he went---under the dark, uncut trees and down the steep hillside, torn by whipping branches and bruised from fall after fall, so the voice chuckled in his mind like a file on glass or chalk on a blackboard, obscene in its ancient knowledge. 399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVCEMsetFqP

"Aye! Run---run! But never forget me, Dragan. And know that I shall never forget you. No, for I shall wait for you while you grow strong. And when your blood has iron in it and you know what you do---for it must be of your own free will, Dragan---then we shall see. And now I must sleep....."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9BnsTZxOeA

Bursting from the trees at the foot of the hill, bounding a low fence where the top bar was broken down, Vladimir flew forward into long grass and thistles, and blessed, blessed light! But even then he didn't pause, but scrambled to his feet and ran for home. Only the middle of the field, with no breath remaining in him to carry him on, did he stop, collapse to the earth, turn his face and look back at the looming hills. Away in the west the sun was setting, its final lances of fire turning the topmost pines to gold; but Vladimir knew that in the secret place, the tree-shrouded glade of the tomb, all was clammy and crawly and dark with dread. And only then did he dare ask:399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPLXFts2SaU

"What---who---who are you?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnJ0riYiQzB

And as if from a million miles away---carried on the evening breeze, which has blown over the hills and fields of Transylvania since the beginning of time----the answer came to him in the back of his mind.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeM8mjSazLy

"Ahhhhhh!---but you know that, Vladimir Dragan. You know that. Ask now who I am, but who you are. Then again, what does it matter? The answer is the same. I am your past, Dragan. And you----are---my----fuuuuutuuuuure!"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnF4UU1ldXz

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"Herr Dragan?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF51t8agwEE

"What---who----are you?" Repeating his question from the dream, Dragan came awake. Eyes gazed at him, almost triangular, unblinking, searing in the unexpected gloom of the room; so that for a moment, a single second, he almost fancied himself back in the glade of the tomb. But they were green eyes, like a cat's. Dragan stared at them and they stared back, unabashed. They were framed by a white face in an oval of raven-black hair. A female face.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWRFHix4WqQ

He sat up, stretched, swung his feet down to the floor. The owner of the eyes curtsied peasant fashion---inelegantly, Dragan thought. He sneered at her. Rising from sleep, he was always testy; waking before his time, as by an intrusion, just like now, he was especially so.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX3ouhHUb90

"Are you deaf?" he stretched again, pointed directly at her nose. "I asked you who you are. Also, why have I been permitted to sleep so late?" (He could also be contrary.)399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUmec9jpTVX

His rigidly pointing finger didn't seem to impress her at all. She smiled, one eyebrow arching delicately, almost insolently. "I'm Zsa-Zsa, Herr Dragan. Zsa-Zsa Rudolf. You've been asleep for three hours. Since you were obviously very tired, my father said I should leave you sleeping and prepare your room in the garret. That's been done."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMvyx0QRUGk

"Oh? So? And what do you wish of me now?" Dragan refused to be polite. And this wasn't the same game he'd played with her father; no, for there was that about her which generally annoyed him. She was far too self-assured, too knowing, for one thing. And for another she was pretty. She must be, oh---twenty? It was odd that she wasn't married, but there was no ring on her finger.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmNnpoDw0nL

Dragan shivered, his metabolism adjusting, not yet fully awake. She saw it and said, "It's warmer upstairs. The sun is still on top of the house. Climbing the stairs will get your blood going, trust me."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ErMykqaE8

Dragan looked about the room, used his delicate fingertips to brush the crusts of sleep from the corners of his eyes. He stood up, patted the pocket of his jacket where it hung over the back of the chair. "Where are my keys? And---my cases?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBmLWTpXhGe

"Yes," she nodded, smiling again, "my father has taken your cases up for you. Here are your keys." W hen her hand touched his it was cool, his was suddenly feverish. And this time when he shivered she laughed. "Ah-ha! A virgin!"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxxKBtxFUY0

"What?" Dragan hissed, probably giving himself away completely. "What---did---you---say?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡviECeP0AhA

She turned toward the door, walked into the hall and towards the stairs. Dragan, furious, snatched up his coat and followed her. At the foot of the wooden stairs, she looked back. "It's a saying hereabouts. It's just a saying...."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwQWrK8MkGm

"What is?" he snapped, following her up the stairs.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM0j5u7KcHc

"Why, that when a boy shivers when he's hot, it's because he's a virgin. A reluctant virgin!"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV5XnF3A5vO

"A bloody stupid saying!" Dragan scowled.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp7Kwu4izWF

She looked back and smiled. "With you it doesn't apply, Herr Dragan," she said. "You are not a boy, and you don't look at all shy or virginal to me. And anyway, it's just a saying."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQPGqc70uMF

"And you are too familiar with your guests!" he grumbled, feeling that he'd been let off the hook, as if she'd taken pity on him.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxJNALMNpYj

On the first landing she waited for him, laughed and said: "I was being friendly. It's a cold greeting when people don't talk to each other. My father told me to ask you: will you eat with us tonight, since you're the only one here, or will you have a meal in your room?"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuJrU5a56KS

"I'll eat in my room," he growled immediately. "If we ever get to it!"399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkG3k2nsGZo

She shrugged, turned and started up the second flight. Here the stairs climbed more steeply.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOeUOElafn

Zsa-Zsa Rudolf was dressed in a fashion quite out of date in the towns but still affected in the smaller villages and farming communities. She wore a slightly longer than knee-length pleated cotton dress, gathered in tightly at the waist, a short-sleeved black bodice buttoned down the front, with puffs at the shoulders and elbows, and (absurdly, as Dragan thought) calf-boots of rubber; but doubtless they were fine in the farmyard. In winter she would also wear stockings to the tops of her thighs. But it wasn't winter.....399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5HmT5QBr2o

He tried to avert his eyes but there was nowhere else to look. And, dammit, she flounced! A narrow black "V" separated the swiveling white globes of her ass.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3go7JMPk9d
At the second landing she paused, deliberately turned to wait for him at the top of the stairs. Dragan stopped dead in his tracks, held his breath. Looking down at him---and looking as cool as ever---she leaned her weight on one foot more than the other, rubbed at the inside of her thigh with her knee, flashed her green eyes at him. "I'm sure you'll like it---here," she said, and slowly shifted her weight to the other foot.399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxRAIIXAf0Q

Dragan looked away. "Yes, yes---I'm sure I....I...."399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmXe5Qxyh0a

Zsa-Zsa took note of the fine film of sweat on his brow. She turned her face away and sniffed. Perhaps she had been right about him in the first place. What a pity!399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcwgTKcUt23
399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFLStbhHgM8
399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUGaGsh5VId
399Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSG8M5kILAd

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