Nicholas looked at Count Dragomir. “And you, my lord steward. For the good of our two countries and the happiness of your princess?” Nicholas said to him, holding out his hand. Dragomir nodded and reached out his own hand. “I shall not let you down, Highness. However, I should like to choose a couple of my most trusted servants to be in the know and ready to assist us, should the need arise.”

“That makes sense. Choose wisely and let us get to work.” Nicholas sighed. “The first thing to do is to get Pirin up to his room. That in itself will not be an easy task. He was a big man when alive. Now he’ll be a dead weight.”

“I will call in those two servants I suggested,” Dragomir said. “Both strong men and loyal to me and the crown. I will station one of them outside his door and I shall keep the key.”

“Thank you, Dragomir. Much appreciated,” Nicolas said.

“I don’t know what you hope to achieve with this, Your Highness,” Dragomir said. “It seems like a hopeless endeavor to me.”

“Not so hopeless,” Anton said. “I’ve been studying a bit of chemistry at Heidelberg. The longer you leave it, the more chance cyanide has to dissipate from the system. A heart attack will be tragic but nobody can be blamed for it but the man himself. My father needs time to think out his strategy. We are giving him time.”

I had been the silent onlooker until now but I took a deep breath. “It seems to me there is one thing you are all overlooking,” I said. “And that’s the murderer. Who wanted Pirin dead so strongly that he was prepared to take a risk and kill him in public?”

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Still Thursday, November 17
Still snowed in.

They all stared at me, as if I were putting a new thought into their heads.

Then Anton gave an uneasy chuckle. “As to that, the only two people who were glad to see the last of him were Nicholas and myself, and we are not stupid enough to risk our country’s future by bumping him off.”

“I can’t think of anyone else here who actually knew the man, let alone would have had a motive to want him dead,” Nicholas said.

“There are always ongoing feuds and hatreds seething in the Balkans,” Darcy said. “Who is to say that one of the servants here does not come from an area where they have a longtime feud with Macedonia, or whose family has not suffered at the hands of Pirin?”

Dragomir shook his head. “That is most unlikely,” he said. “These men belong to the castle, not the royal family. Local men. They live and work here year-round. Our men are Transylvanian through and through.”