“Dashed annoying,” she muttered. “It seems that none of the drivers are prepared to drive us back over the pass yet. They say that it was bad on the way here and they’re not going to risk it again yet, with the promise of more snow. So it looks as if we’re still stuck. But at least we can be useful in your investigation into that man’s death. When do we have our first council of war?”

“I’m going to find Prince Nicholas this very minute,” Darcy said. “I’ll let you know later.” We left them and walked up the stairs to the main floor. “Those women are going to be trouble,” Darcy muttered to me. “Poking their noses in and saying the wrong thing at the wrong minute. Can’t you do something to distract them? Or better yet find a suitable dungeon and lock them in it?”

“Darcy.” I laughed.

“I’m sure a castle like this must have an oubliette,” he went on, chuckling now.

“You are terrible. And I don’t see what I can do to distract them. I don’t even know my own way around.”

“They’re going to ruin everything if they are left loose,” Darcy said. “For God’s sake try to keep an eye on them.”

“I will,” I said.

“Oh, and Georgie,” he said, reaching out his hand to me as I turned away. “Take care of yourself. Someone in this castle has already been killed.”

I considered that statement as I went slowly down the hall to my room. Someone in this castle was a ruthless killer. Not that the killing affected me in any way. It had to be of a political nature, carried out by someone who either wished to cause trouble between Balkan states or was a communist or anarchist. Maybe our own government suspected that trouble was likely and that was why they had sent Darcy—one never knew with him. But such a killer wouldn’t pose any threat to someone like me, who was only thirty-fourth in line to a distant throne. But I had been threatened in a different way, hadn’t I? The vampire bending over my bed. The strange man in Queenie’s room. I didn’t see how the two could be related. If vampires had wanted to kill Field Marshal Pirin, I imagined they would have done a far more impressive job of it—hurled him from the battlements or sent a great statue crashing onto his head, or even bitten his neck and turned him into one of them. Poisoning with cyanide was all too human a crime. . . .

I was startled from my thoughts by the figure with the raised arm until I realized it was just the suit of armor that had frightened Queenie. Really it was almost as if someone had arranged this castle to provide the maximum amount of shocks to visitors!