Magia Posthuma ✓

Twenty

Hermannstadt, Silvester 1769

As they slowly lowered the Duke's coffin into the ground, Irina felt Fiebe's fingers crawl across her knuckles like a comforting spider. The whole town had crammed itself into the snowy grounds of the cathedral to watch – the nobility in fine black satin and the poor in their rags – they all huddled around the grave like mournful crows shivering in the cold as yet another Governor was laid to rest far from home.

It had been barely a week since her father's death and despite Irina's pleas to the council to let her take his body back to Vienna – back home to be buried in the Brunswick crypt alongside her mother just as he'd always wanted – the town council had firmly refused. His body had still been warm – Folie and Scapino whimpering at his side – when the men came to take him away from the palace.

He'd failed to give his final confession, they warned.

His soul was in danger, they claimed.

It wasn't safe to let his body linger.

Irina had cursed Archbishop Sigismund when he swept into the room to perform the ritual for the dead, and she'd called Doctor Tarsus an animal and a monster when he came to prepare the body. She'd tried to fight him off; she threw herself over her father, and then kicked and screamed when the footmen dragged her away as the doctor hammered a silver stake through her father's heart and filled his mouth with cloves of garlic. It was a sensible precaution, the Doctor had insisted with bluster and thinly-veiled satisfaction, and Irina had sobbed in the corner with her arms limp around Folie's neck as they'd placed her father face down in his lead coffin and then nailed it shut.

She hadn't even been allowed to say goodbye.

She'd written furious letters to the Empress, knowing full well that they'd never make it in time. It was too late for an intervention now. Irina could only hope that when the letters did land on the Empress' imperial desk, she'd be equally as furious.

Irina scowled through her black, lace veil as the Archbishop commenced his final prayers. There were no more tears left to cry – they'd all but dried up, and her eyes felt stale and sore. She'd barely been able to dress that morning; she'd left her diamonds in her jewellery box and had swatted Fiebe's hands away when the poor girl had offered to arrange her hair. The only piece of jewellery she'd chosen were the black pearls – and that was only because she hadn't taken them off since getting them back. She'd always said that she wished she could wear black more, that it suited her better than any other shade. Still, having a piece of her mother with her offered her some comfort - even though when she brushed her fingers over them she found herself thinking more about Vlad.

"...Requiem æternam dona, Domine," Archbishop Sigismund chanted as he splashed holy water across the heavy coffin as the first grains of frosty earth were shovelled over the top. He crossed himself, "Requiescat in pace. Varde retro satana, sunt mala quae libas. Amen."

The crowd replied in unison; crossing themselves, clutching their prayer beads and muttering their own amen. They fixed their hostile gaze upon Irina as she stood there staring downwards as the earth swallowed up her father. They didn't care that he was dead – they barely knew him – and yet they somehow felt they knew her enough to blame her for his death. The mutterings around town were that she'd either murdered him herself – poisoning him in his sleep – or, that her scandalous behaviour had broken his heart and put him into his grave.

When Irina lifted her veil, Prince Lupesci met her gaze.

He was standing opposite her – at the other end of the grave – wrapped in a fur lined coat with one hunting boot propped up on the pile of the earth that would soon bury the coffin. He pulled his lips into a tight line and offered her a sympathetic nod. He'd tried to visit her several times since that night of his Christmas Eve Ball and she'd had the footmen turn him away every single time. She just didn't have the energy to tolerate him, and besides – Carmelia's words had chilled her. During those quiet moments of grief - when her mind wandered away - she wondered if anyone else knew the truth about Carmelia.