‘What of it?’
Giresci shrugged. ‘I only ever came across it on one other occasion: a ninth-century White Khorvaty prince ling. His surname was pretty close, too: Ferrenzig.’
Ferenczy, Ferrenzig, thought Dragosani. One and the same. And then he checked himself. Why on earth should he jump to a conclusion like that? And yet at the same time he knew that he had not merely ‘jumped to a conclusion’ but that he had known the duality of the Wamphyri identity for a fact. Dual identity? But surely that too was a conclusion drawn in haste. He had meant that the names were the same, not the men, or man, who had borne the names. Or had he in fact meant more than that? If so it was an insane conclusion – that those two Faethors, one a ninth-century Khorvatian prince and the other a modern Romanian landowner, should be one and the same man – or should be insane, except that Dragosani knew from the old Thing in the ground that the concept of vampiric and undead longevity was far from insane.
‘What else did you learn of him?1 he finally broke the silence. ‘What about his family? Surviving members, I mean. And his history, other than this tenuous Khorvaty link?’
Giresci frowned and scratched his head. ‘Talking to you’ he growled, ‘is an unrewarding, even frustrating game. I keep getting this feeling that you already know most of the answers. That perhaps you know even more than I do. It’s as if you merely use me to confirm your own well-established beliefs . . .’ He paused for a moment, and when Dragosani offered no reply, continued: ‘Anyway, as far as I’m aware Faethor Ferenczy was the last of his line. None survive him.’
Then you’re mistaken!’ Dragosani snapped. He at once bit his lip and lowered his voice. ‘I mean . . . you can’t be sure of that.’
Giresci was taken aback. ‘Again you know better than me, eh?’ He had been drinking Dragosani’s whisky steadily but seemed little affected. Again he poured shots before suggesting: ‘Let me tell you just exactly what I found out about this Ferenczy, yes?
The war was over by the time I got started. As for making a living: I couldn’t complain. I had my own place, right here, and was “compensated” for my lost leg. This plus a small disability pension rounded things off; I would get by. Nothing luxurious, but I wouldn’t starve or go in need of a roof over my head. My wife – well, she had been another victim of the war. We had no family and I never remarried.
‘As to how I became engrossed with the vampire legend: I suppose it was mainly that I had nothing else to do. Or nothing else that I wanted to do. But this drew me like some monstrous magnet. . .
‘All right, I won’t bore you; I explain all of this simply to put you in the picture. And as you know, my investigations started with Faethor Ferenczy. I went back to where it had happened, talked to people who might have known him. Most of that neighbourhood had been reduced to rubble but a few houses still stood. The actual Ferenczy house was just a shell, blackened inside and out, with nothing at all to show who or what had lived there.
‘Anyway, I had his name from various sources: postal services, Lands and Property Registry, missing-believed-dead list, war casualty register, etc. But other than this handful of responsible authorities, no one seemed to know him personally. Then I found an old woman still living in the district, a Widow Luorni. Some fifteen years before the war she’d worked for Ferenczy, had been his cleaner lady. She went in twice weekly and kept his place in good order. She’d done that for ten years or more, until she’d grown disenchanted with the work. She wouldn’t say why specifically, but it was obvious to me that the trouble was Ferenczy himself, something about him. Something that had gradually grown on her until she couldn’t take any more of it. At any rate, she never once mentioned his name without crossing herself. Yes, but still she managed to tell me some interesting things about him . . . I’ll try to cut it short for you: