Elizabeth Peters - Vicky Bliss 1 Borrower of the Night

ELIZABETH

PETERS

BORROWER of the NIGHT

THE FIRST VICKY BLISS MYSTERY

For Betty and George

who dont believe

in ghosts either

Contents

FOREWORD

ONE

When I was ten years old, I knew I was

TWO

The view from the bus window couldnt have been more

THREE

It would have been fun to think I had been

FOUR

May I ask what you are doing at my nieces

FIVE

I had forgotten about Irma. She attracted my

SIX

The countess Konstanze was definitely not in the crypt. Tony

SEVEN

A rationalist is at a disadvantage when events are irrational.

EIGHT

I held the piece of wood in both cupped hands.

NINE

There was no one in the armor now. It was

TEN

My sleepless nights were beginning to catch up with me.

ELEVEN

I had not expected to find an open door with

TWELVE

I had not recognized Irma. I wouldnt have known my

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PRAISE

BOOKS BY ELIZABETH PETERS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Foreword

As all lovers of Rothenburg will realize, I have had the temerity to add Schloss Drachenstein to the genuine attractions of the town. Like all the characters in this book, the Counts and Countesses of Drachenstein are wholly fictitious and bear no resemblance to any persons living or dead. Equally fictitious, sad to say, is the legend of the Riemenschneider shrine.

Apart from this single aberration, the sculptors life and works were as I have described them.

One

WHENIWAS TEN YEARS OLD , IKNEW IWAS never going to get married. Not only was I six inches taller than any boy in the fifth gradeexcept Matthew Finch, who was five ten and weighed ninety-eight poundsbut my IQ was as formidable as my height. It was sixty points higher than that of any of the boysexcept the aforesaid Matthew Finch. I topped him by only thirty points.

I knowthis isnt the right way to start a narrative, if I hope to command the sympathy of the reader. A narrator should at leasttry to sound modest. But believe me, Im not bragging. The facts are as stated, and they are a handicap, not a cause for conceit. If there is anything worse than being a tall girl, it is being a tallsmart girl.

For several years my decision didnt give me much pain. I wasnt thinking seriously of marriage in the fifth grade. Then I reached adolescence, and the trouble began. I kept growing up, but I grew in another dimension besides height. The results were appalling. I wont quote my final proportions; they call to mind one of those revolting Bunnies inPlayboy . I dieted strenuously, but that only made matters worse. I got thin in all the right places and I was still broad where, as the old classic says, a broad should be broad.

Mind you, I am still not bragging. I am not beautiful. I admire people who are slender and fine-boned and aesthetic-looking. The heroine of my adolescent daydreams had a heart-shaped face framed in clouds of smoky black hair. She was a tiny creature with an ivory complexion and a rosebud mouth. When she was enfolded in the heros brawny arms, her head only reached as high as his heart.

All my genes come from my fathers Scandinavian ancestorsbig blond men with rosy cheeks and blazing blue eyes. They were about as aesthetic-looking as oxen. Thats what I felt likea big, blond, blue-eyed cow.

The result of this was to make me painfully shy. I suppose that seems funny. Nobody expects a bouncing Brunhild to be self-conscious. But I was. The intelligent, sensitive, poetic boys were terrified of me; and the ones that werent terrified didnt want to talk about poetry or Prescott. They didnt want to talk at all. Rubbing my bruises, I became a confirmed misandrist. That attitude left me lots of time in which to study. I collected degrees the way some girls collect engagement rings. Then I got a job as a history instructor at a small Mid-western college which, in view of what is to follow, had better be nameless. It was there I met Tony. Tony teaches history too. Hes bright; very bright. He is also six feet five inches tall, and, except for his height, he rather resembles Keats in the later stages of consumption.

I met Tony on the occasion of the first departmental faculty meeting. I was late. Being late was a mistake; I hate walking the gauntlet of all those male eyes. There was one other woman present. She looked the way I wanted to lookthin, dark, and intellectual. I smiled hopefully at her and received a fishy stare in return. Most women take an instant dislike to me. I cant say I dont know why.

I spotted Tony amid the crowd because of his height. There were other things worth noticing

big brown eyes, broad shoulders, and black hair that flopped over his forehead and curled around his ears. His face was fine-boned and aesthetic-looking. At that moment, however, it had the same expression that was on all the other male faces, except that of Dr. Bronson, the head of the department. He had interviewed me and had hired me in spite of my measurements. Im not kidding; it is a common delusion, unshaken by rsums and grades, that a woman with my proportions cannot have anything in her head but air.

I sat down with an awkward thump in the nearest chair, and several men gulped audibly.

Dear old Dr. Bronson smiled his weary smile, brushed his silvery hair back from his intellectual forehead, and started the meeting.

It was the usual sort of meeting, with discussions of schedules and committees and so on.

After it was over I headed for the door. Tony was there ahead of me.

I dont remember how he got me out of the building and into the Campus Coffee Shoppe, but I have never denied he is a fairly smooth talker. I remember some of our conversation. I hadnt encountered a technique quite like his before.

The first thing he said was,

Will you marry me?

No, I said. Are you crazy?

Havent you ever heard of love at first sight?

Ive heard of it. I dont believe in it. And if I did, love and marriage dont necessarily go together.Au contraire .

So beautiful and so cynical, said Tony sadly. Doesnt my honorable proposal restore your faith in my sex?

It merely reinforces my impression that you are crazy.

Look at it this way. Tony put his elbows on the table. The table wasnt very clean, but neither were Tonys elbows; I deduced that this pose was characteristic. All my life Ive been looking for my ideal woman. Im pushing thirty, you know; Ive had time to think about it.

Beauty, brains, and a sense of humor, thats what I want. Now I know youre intelligent or old Bronson wouldnt have hired you. Hes above the sins of the flesh, or thinks he is. You are obviously beautiful. Your sense of humor

Ha, I said. You deduced that from the twinkle in my eye, I suppose.

Tony cocked his head and considered me seriously. A lock of black hair fell over his left eyebrow.

Is that a twinkle? It looks more like a cold, steely glint. No, Im willing to take the sense of humor on trust.

Youd be making a mistake. I am not amused. And even if I were amused, I wouldnt marry you. Im not going to marry anyone. Ever.

If you prefer that arrangement, said Tony, with a shrug.

So it went, for most of the winter. The demoralizing thing about Tony was that he wasnt kidding. He really did want to get married. That didnt surprise me; any man with a grain of sense knows that marriage is the only way, these days, to acquire a full-time maid who works twenty-five hours a day, with no time off and no pay except room and board.