THE SEC MEN WERE TACITURN, all seeming to be in their late twenties and early thirties. They were dressed in spotlessly clean casual clothes, well armed with matching chromed Ruger Redhawks, the .44 Magnum with a seven-and-a-half-inch barrel. The impression was of extreme alertness and a calm, self-contained efficiency. They were all very polite but never came anywhere close to being friendly. And that was something Ryan could admire.
The six companions were left alone in a large room, well-appointed in a classic predark country-house style lots of padded furniture with flowered-print draperies and covers; polished bronze bowls of scented flowers on polished tables; an upright piano in the corner of the suite allocated to Ryan and Krysty; four-poster bed with heavy tapestry curtains around it; a bright fire blazing in the hearth and small silver and brass ornaments on the mantel. The walls were hung with a number of dark oil paintings, some showing stately galleons, others portraying old-fashioned men in ruffs solemnly skating on frozen polders.
“Tasteful,” Mildred said. “Kind of thing you’d see in a National Geographic article on stately living in the country shires in England.”
“Best-dressed ville I ever saw,” J.B. agreed, sitting on a large sofa, sinking into the upholstery.
“How about Straub?” Ryan was looking out of the barred windows, across a neat herb garden, divided with a patterned box hedge.
“Man’s mind’s fucked,” Jak said. “Lost it. Whole suit short of a deck. Only one round left in the chamber. One-way ticket to madsville.”
Doc nodded. “I can only agree with our young friend. The Countess Katya Beausoleil has broken him in mind and spirit. He is totally in thrall to her.”
There was general agreement that the evil mesmerist was a spent force. Ryan reluctantly went along with that. “I just wonder whether a snake can change its rattle. He was such a brilliant, swift and evil bastard. Is he playing a deep game?”
“Gaia, lover! You saw the way she’s mutilated and castrated him. He’s a broken man. I almost feel sorry for the poor devil.”
There was a discreet knock on the door. “The countess would be obliged by your company,” the sec man said in a muted Tennessee accent.
THE FOOD WENT with the houseexcellent quality, yet bland and strangely oppressive.
They were served brown soup with beef to start, followed by broiled trout with a side salad that had been washed in a bland mayonnaise. Roast pork was next, with perfect carrots, baked potatoes and a tasteless gravy. Dessert was a steamed vanilla pudding with raisins, and sliced apple with a custard sauce. There was the faint hint of cinnamon with the apples, but that was almost the strongest flavor of the whole rich meal.
The countess served wines that had been imported from far-off France in the past ten years. The white was too sharp on the palate, and the red was as bland as the salad dressing.
They dined with the countess seated at the head of the long oak refectory table, Straub perched like a pet ape at the far end, keeping up a flow of fulsome praise for every course of the meal until he was silenced.
“Enough, Straub,” Katya ordered, her voice cracking like a buggy whip, actually making Straub wince. He sat with head bowed, toying with his food, one hand playing with his retrieved silver disk around his throat.
“I must tell you a little about myself and about this ville,” she said, turning to stare at Ryan, fixing him with her deep green eyes, largely ignoring the rest of the company.
“I inherited it from my father, Count Ricard Beausoleil. He had, in his turn, taken it over from his father, Count Emilion, and he from the first baron here, Count Fortdur Beausoleil. He built it in the bloody days after the long winters and made it largely what it is now.”
She paused and Ryan felt that some comment was called for. “You aren’t married?”
“I’ll come to that, Ryan. My father had three sons and me, his weak ninny of a daughter.” She gave a thin, contemptuous smile. “They’re dead and I live and rule.”
“Sickness, ma’am, or in battle?” Doc asked, helping himself from a silver tureen to more of the pudding and custard sauce.