“I don’t tell anecdotes about famous and historical individuals,” Arina snapped. “I was brought up better than that. I could tell you about a certain count, without giving you his name—what a joker he was! He once came to visit me in a carriage, absolutely naked and carrying an absolutely immense bouquet of white roses. Well, he wasn’t shy of his own driver, naturally enough, and I lived in a secluded spot. He walked straight in without being announced—and his wife was sitting there with me: she’d come to complain about her husband’s debauchery . . .”

“I’m certain that could not have been a pure coincidence,” I remarked in a quiet voice.

“Well then, what did the joker come up with, once he grasped just how embarrassing the situation was?” Arina went on. “He threw the bouquet down at his wife’s feet and, without so much as a glance at me, flung himself on her like some wild beast. And he shouted: ‘What have you done to me? You have bewitched me! At the mere thought of you, I tore my clothes off in the carriage!’ And the stupid fool believed him. She pulled a ring with a magnificent ruby off her finger, put it in my hand, and whispered: ‘Thank you, enchantress!’ Then she bundled her husband up in the tablecloth and dragged him off home. And wouldn’t you know, the next day he sent me a matching bracelet to go with the ring . . . he didn’t show up himself, the great stud.”

Arina stopped talking, pleased with her story.

“You’ve convinced me yet again that Witches view the world from a highly original perspective,” I said.

“Not Witches, but women, and not the world, but men,” Arina laughed. “All right, let’s go. I won’t try to seduce you, especially since you have a spell on you that your wife put there . . .”

“You already admitted that was a lie,” I remarked.

“I did? I’m really getting old,” Arina sighed.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

WHEN I FOUND MY SWIMMING TRUNKS IN AMONG THE CLEAN underclothes in the suitcase, I examined them thoughtfully for a while.

I’d never really thought of Taiwan as a seaside resort. But it was an island, after all. And it was in the south.

Could Sveta really have sensed that I would end up by the sea? I wondered what it was called here—Yellow Sea, Sea of China, Sea of Japan . . . So far the only ones I had swum in were the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

But somehow I doubted that fate would hand me such a pleasant surprise. The only amusements for me would be the hotel and the museum . . .

The hotel! But of course. It was a five-star hotel, and that meant—