The Golden by Lucius Shepard Page A

of hostile
significance. The only one whose behavior might be characterized as
in any way responsive was Ernst Kostolec, a political ally of
Agenor’s, though scarcely his friend, and an elusive sort whose
wizardly reputation caused even the most powerful of the Family to
tread lightly around him. They located him in the Patriarch’s
library, less a room than a great circular stair sunk through the
center of the castle, more than a mile in depth, its walls lined with
books, many so ancient that to open any one of them would be to
transform it into hundreds of scraps of yellow paper that would then
flutter down into that dark well like the brittle ghosts of a swarm
of butterflies. It was one of the few rooms in the castle, at least
of those in common use, where lanterns, not torches, provided the
illumination—it seemed the Patriarch cared more for his books
than he did for the safety of his children.
    Kostolec, a man
of Agenor’s apparent age, but far more decrepit in aspect,
stooped and wrinkled and vulpine, with tufted eyebrows and a few
strands of fine white hair floating above his mottled scalp like
wispy clouds above the surface of a dead planet, was standing on one
of the landings, an octagonal space some twenty-five feet wide,
hunched over a lectern, peering through a magnifying glass at a large
leatherbound book open to a page covered in florid script. Rays of
orange light sprayed out into the center of the well from a lantern
with five panes suspended above the lectern, but they did not
illumine the opposite wall. A look of annoyance crossed his face when
he saw them on the landing directly above him, and he slammed his
book shut, expelling a puff of dust from between the covers; the gilt
inscription on the front of the volume was in Portuguese and beneath
that lay the ornament of a gilt palm surmounted by a crescent, and on
the spine was the symbol of a crown and a leaf. Beheim noticed that
the front of Kostolec’s gray silk shirt was thick with dust,
evidence—perhaps—that he had slammed shut other books not
so long before. A sign of frustration, possibly. But as they
approached he smiled in a pleasant manner. Pleasant, at least, in
contrast to the general run of smiles with which Beheim had met. And
so, for all his anxiety over questioning so formidable a figure,
Beheim was put somewhat at his ease.
    “Ah,
excellent! Our little policeman,” said Kostolec, wiping his
hands on his trousers, which were also gray; the emptiness around
them caused his voice to carry a slight reverberation, and his words
seemed to stir a little something in the central darkness of the
well. “How droll! I feel I’ve been transported into the
midst of a traveling theatrical company.” He cast an arch
glance toward Alexandra. “And what part are you playing this
day, my dear? Not the fluttering ingénue, I trust.”
    “For
purposes of this scene,” she said dryly, “you’d do
best to consider me a spear carrier.”
    “Such nice
menace. I approve.” Then, to Beheim, who was shuffling through
the loose pieces of paper on which he had made his notes: “Be
wary of her, Mister Policeman. She has a talent for self-delusion
which serves all the better to obscure her actual motives.”
    Beheim ignored
this. “Your servant Jules,” he said, “has stated
that he was with you in the library on the night of the murder. You
were both here the entire night?”
    “Did not
Jules so state?”
    “Yes, but
I—”
    “Then I
would not doubt him. He is a gentleman of exceptional character.”
Kostolec leaned against the lectern, not the stiff movement of an old
man, but giving an impression of supple strength. “He hunts
books for me. It saves time to have him run them down.”
    “And why
is he not assisting you now?”
    Kostolec
laughed. “Something more important has come up. He is at
present scurrying about Banat, asking questions and running fool’s
errands. On behalf of some policeman, I believe.”
    “For that,
my