CHAPTER XXXV
THE BETRAYER OF CARDS
But Romulus had already swung open the trapdoor and disappeared down the hatch, Evenova in tail. Viktor stared at the black square, at first meaning to follow, yet the weariness in his bones made him plop down in the cool grass instead. He'd had enough conflict to last a lifetime and was in no way eager for more. But while the overgrown hedges sparkled in the sunlight, that didn't change the fact that noise was stirring in the hideout below him. It didn't take long before the sound grew louder and closer.
R.E. Kamdrac's bushy white hair and eyebrows sprouted out of the trapdoor, and he grunted and hooted as he climbed. "Honestly—what's all this all about? Vanishing boy—dares to disturb an old man's peace—and insists on more secrecy."
"Privacy—not secrecy," Romulus snapped as he emerged after the card-maker. "And you should know it's for your own good."
"Humph," Kamdrac said.
Seeing that Feliks was climbing the rungs as well, Viktor scrambled to help the injured man up onto the grass. Romulus then kicked the trapdoor shut.
"Where's Evenova?" said Viktor.
"Oh, she's keeping an eye on a certain someone," Romulus said bitterly, "someone whose mental illness I suspect is little more than a sham."
Viktor groaned and shook his head. "What are you doing?"
"I'm doing what you already should have done. As usual, you're too weak to follow through," said Romulus. "Go on, Viktor, Kamdrac, why don't you let Feliks in on your little secret?"
The King of Diamonds turned toward the card-maker. "What is he talking about, Redé?"
R.E. Kamdrac shook his head. "I do not know."
"Fine, I'll say it if you won't." Romulus turned to Feliks. "Kamdrac's daughter, your lover, the woman you searched after for so long—is the one who betrayed the Cards. She thought you'd died, and she thought more would die, so she gave the three Kings' identities over to the Leopard instead. And how did the Leopard reward her? By killing Cards and children in droves, and then taking her prisoner forevermore."
Kamdrac's wrinkled eyes were wide and fearful, but it was Feliks' manner that caught Viktor off-guard. He'd expected the King of Diamonds to become furiously defensive; instead he simply looked disappointed.
"Who told you this yarn?" Feliks asked.
"It's not a yarn," Romulus replied. "Lady Nutrix was a friend of Florica. And she knew you too."
Feliks nodded. "Yes, and I knew Saga well enough to tell you that Kasta Way's fortune-teller is a batty fool, just like her mother was. I always said that she knew too much of the Cards, but Maksim wouldn't hear it, not with his sympathy for the Gypsy cause. Aye, for all we know, Saga could be wrapped up in the plot."
"It's possible," Kamdrac muttered, wiping his brow. "Indeed ... very poss—"
"What are you talking about?" Viktor snapped, suddenly as angry as Romulus. "I snuck into the dungeons months ago. I saw you, Mister Kamdrac, spoke to you. You said you knew who the Betrayer was, but you couldn't get the name out—because it was your own daughter! Admit that it was Florica!"
The card-maker shook his frail head, his white hair drifting in the wind. "Ho, no, boy, you have grossly mistaken my words. In that dark cell, when I said I knew of the Betrayer, it was only to imply that I knew a betrayer existed. As to their identity, I am lost. It certainly wasn't my daughter. You should be ashamed to assault her after all she has endured."
"This is exactly why Maksim used playing cards a system of secret ranking," said Feliks. "You see, no one but the Cards in each respective Suit knew who held the king and face cards. That way it was airtight. So even if, in some nightmare, my dear Florica had wanted to betray the Cards, she wouldn't have known who to turn in. She never even knew that I was one of the Kings. No outsider, not even Mister Kamdrac here, held that information. It only became known after the Leopard's assassins struck."
"Alright, but my father was supposed to be 'the Greatest,'" Romulus argued. "People called him that. They knew him. His war efforts made him famous long before the formation of the Cards."
"Yes, and it earned him many friends. Believe me, he rubbed shoulders with men of far higher esteem than Leonid or Vitaly or me," Feliks growled. His one eye squinted at Romulus. "You are not so unlike him, you know. Always at the center of talk."
In the quiet, the hedges of the Great Fairy Ring seemed to grow tall and blot out the sun. Finally Viktor understood why a betrayer had to come from the inside. It had to be someone close to Maksim, very close.
But who? Viktor wondered. I'll never guess it if Feliks can't. He's the one who knew all of the Cards. He's the one who saw the build up and the aftermath of the rebellion. He's the Last King, for crying out loud. He was the only one of his friends to survive ... the only leader to survive.
An old, disturbing notion floated to the surface of Viktor's memories as he reexamined the man before him. Yes, Feliks had been left gravely wounded by the enemy, but Viktor hadn't forgotten the words of his grandfather, the warning of what lengths the Leopard would take to infiltrate serf plans.
Feliks was absent during the rebellion, Viktor thought. He claimed to have been trapped in the Leopard's Gauntlet and barely escaped, but what happened during that time? His lover was captured, his friends slayed. And what did he do afterwards? He joined an enemy caravan as Molotov's ambassador.
Only seconds had passed, but when Viktor blinked again, he felt a pang of terror.
"You do look like him, but do you know how I knew you were Maksim's son? It happened onstage, during my performance," said Feliks, drawing a penknife and moving it toward an unfazed Romulus.
"Hey!" Viktor shouted.
Kamdrac's whole body flinched, but strangely enough, it was Feliks and Romulus who cast Viktor dull looks.
"Anyway, it was this," continued Feliks, slipping the blade into the neck of Romulus' shirt.
Viktor tensed to hurl himself at the King of Diamonds but caught himself just in time, for all Feliks had done was withdraw Romulus' medallion from its resting place against his chest, now letting it dangle from the penknife.
"This was your father's, you know. Saint Benedict—protection from evil, poison, and temptation." Feliks let the chain fall, and then pulled a similar medallion from under his shirt. "You see, we Kings all had one. Mine was Saint Dismas, the Good Thief. I have never taken it off, but say we exchange one another now? It'll be a mark of good faith."
Romulus hesitated, but then looked pleased and gave a nod.
Viktor, though, watched the exchange of silver with a strange feeling in his gut. "Hold on, Romulus, this isn't the first time you've been recognized by that chain. Last year, that miner Petya saw it in the alleyway and started spouting off about Maksim and the Leopard. That's what started all this. And then, Kamdrac, you noticed it when we visited you in Birstov last year. And you didn't want anything to do with the Cards."
"Ho, I was afraid of being found," rasped Kamdrac, clearly flustered.
"So what are you getting at?" said Romulus. "You think the Kings could be identified by the medals?"
"Feliks, were you the one who bought these?" Viktor said warily.
"You mean was I the Betrayer?" Feliks asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "For your information it was Maksim who gave them to us—as protection leading up to the rebellion. Now would you like to ask if he betrayed his own rebellion?"
Viktor flushed.
"My father was no betrayer." Romulus looked at Feliks. "Now how'd he come by the medals?"
"I know not," Feliks murmured. "I had never thought to ask ... But one would be hard-pressed to find other Catholic medals in these regions. No, the maker would be foreign and probably well-off—these are pure silver. It would take a master engraver to craft them, a skilled craftsman."
"I know one such man," Viktor whispered, all of his suspicion shifting along with slow gaze. "I've heard he used to make the most intricate engravings, but then he quit altogether ... Maybe because his guilt wouldn't let him make anything after those medallions ... Maybe he just wasted away—in his house—on a hill—in Birstov."
Feliks and Romulus stiffened as well, both of them turning to the fourth man in the clearing, the one who had kept as quiet as he could, the one who was now inching away. Beads of sweat dripped down R.E. Kamdrac's forehead, the card-maker's thick white eyebrows twitching uncontrollably.
"That's why you wouldn't speak the Betrayer's name in the dungeons," said Viktor. "It was you."
Kamdrac trembled. "No—please, Florica was in danger—the Leopard was going to—"
"Snake!" Feliks spat. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU'VE KILLED? WE WOULD HAVE HAD VICTORY!"
"It wasn't done in spite!" Kamdrac squawked, beginning to backpedal as Romulus marched toward him with a mad look in his eye. "Please, no, boy—I loved your father—loved the Cards! Ho, good men—stop—please—what are you—"
Something in Romulus broke, and Viktor saw him seize the old card-maker by his ragged suit, ready to crack his skull with a head-butt. It took all of Romulus' power to refrain, but his cry ripped at the heavens as he shook Kamdrac once and shoved him away. Romulus was already holding his hands over his eyes, clawing at his own face, but Viktor looked past him and sucked in a breath.
"Romulus," Viktor whispered.
The boy of the forest moved his hands to see what Viktor and Feliks were staring at: R.E. Kamdrac lay on his back in the middle of a ring of toadstools, his neck cocked at an unnatural angle in the grass, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
"What happened?" gasped Viktor, diving forward on his knees. "Feliks, help!"
"Don't touch him!" Feliks said. "His neck is ... is broken."
Romulus stood rooted to the spot, aghast.
"What? No—we can fix this!" Viktor shouted, his head spinning. "Viridis—the Botany Master—the inside man—he can heal this! I'll call on him! He'll—"
"Viridis," Kamdrac huffed, his breathing slowing. "I met him—in dungeons. Something—you must know."
"What? About Viridis?" Viktor cried.
"He is not—not—"
"Not what?" Viktor shouted.
"Not—a man," Kamdrac gasped, his eyes like moons. And then he didn't take another breath. He was still.
Viktor stared at the greying card-maker for long minutes before he dared to turn and look back. Feliks' head was bowed, but Romulus was staring straight ahead, his face darker than Viktor had ever seen, as if a part of him had died along with Redé Efeil Kamdrac, the last of the great French card-makers.
"It was an accident," Romulus blurted out.
Viktor saw Feliks nod.
"They can't know about this," Romulus pleaded. "No one can know."
Feliks nodded again.
Romulus pulled at his shirt neck, licking his teeth and staring at his surroundings like a caged animal. "I can't be here. I can't. I have to go."
"We'll go to the Wolf Den," Viktor said in a monotone pitch.
"No, I mean Aryk," Romulus gasped. "I have get away from here. Feliks ... Feliks, let me go north with you."
The King of Diamonds nodded once more.
**
The following days were among the strangest of Viktor's life. They passed in the blink of an eye, and yet every moment in them felt never-ending. He hardly remembered the endless tasks that Feliks gave him to busy his hands, and his head was empty, lonely, and dazed. What he did remember was Kamdrac's burial, by far the worst part of the blur.
To save both Romulus and Kamdrac's honor, Feliks had declared the death an accident, refusing to state specifics, though it left his standing with the circus youths and the old Cards to spiral downward. Viktor felt like a coward and fraud as he stood through the ceremony. Kamdrac may have betrayed the serfs, but Viktor hadn't wished death upon him. He hadn't even wished death upon Fredek Spektor, though it had come to him all the same. As the songs were sung and prayers prayed, Viktor's gaze continued to gravitate back to a perplexed Florica, and sometimes he looked for Romulus as well, but he was nowhere to be found.
In fact, Viktor saw Romulus very little in those long, short days, and never did his blood brother meet his eye. Whatever had really happened in that clearing—Viktor had replayed the events in his mind to such a degree that even he had become unsure—it had left Romulus changed, perhaps permanently. What that would mean in the future, Viktor couldn't say; nor could he tell Evenova, though she clung to him for hours, always pressing him for answers, voicing her woes over Feliks' tale, Kamdrac's death, Florica's newfound innocence, and Romulus' decision to take a leave of absence from Aryk.
But if nothing else was good, at least Romulus' journey with Feliks had gained a purpose. The two talked alone for hours at a time, and eventually they decided that after establishing a rough camp in Kholmogory, they would break off from the group and head southwest to St. Petersburg. There lay the Paul and Peter Fortress, the final prison the Leopard had been held in—and the one that the man had broken out of. If all went well, they could offer the prison guards information on the Leopard's whereabouts and his activity, and at the bare minimum Romulus would return to Aryk with new understanding.
Viktor didn't cry and argue with Romulus like Evenova did, though inside he wanted to. The summer would already be long and perilous; the prospect of having to survive it without his blood brother made it all the more bleak. What did his own future hold? If he just knew what was ahead, things would be so much easier. But the clouded abyss he faced bred nothing but depression and paranoia. The day he was dreading approached like a dark horse.