Danica,” he turns to face me fully. “Only assess his levels of obsession in regard to this issue. Don’t push him farther. As we said, this is a sensational case, and I don’t blame you for being intrigued by it. But we must remember our roles, stick to form. We don’t want to undo any progress he’s made here.”
“I agree completely,” I say, while thinking about how I can talk Kelly into scheduling me for more than a half-hour slot.
He pats my shoulder. “Very good, Danica.”
He walks into the room and sits beside Jana, across from the patient. Bill shuts the door.
I try to keep my footsteps at an even pace, but I feel as exhilarated as the first time I spoke to Foster, and again I want to run, to skip down the hall. I’m half nervous, half excited that I’ll get to see Foster again. What does he mean when he says there were many people to speak to about Báthory? I almost want to thank Sloane for what her lecture has prodded me to think about further.
Back in my office, I start my report on Foster, but I can’t focus. All I can think of is Báthory, Foster’s obsession, his possible cohorts. Maria would salivate over this possibility, this information. I daydream about the book she’s proposing. What if we combined her discovery of the diaries with chapters of mine about Foster? It could never happen, of course. It would be almost impossible to write about Foster, as I know him now, without breaking confidentiality regulations. Though, if he agreed, I could interview him not as a clinician, but with the intent of researching the book. He might agree to it. He knows he’s a celebrity. He ripped out my article from the journal. Maybe he’d want me to write about him.
I stop my thoughts there, chastise myself for even fantasizing about promoting the fame of a murderer. For my personal, vain, purposes. If Maria knew I entertained these sort of thoughts...I think she would be intrigued. I consider teasing her, dropping hints that I would never follow up on, batting her hopes about like she’s done mine.
I haven’t checked my email since this morning; I open my inbox, hope to see her there. Maybe she’s heard more about the new lawyer. She did say she’d be in touch.
I breathe deeply. A message.
Dani,
These few pages may catch your eye. Do let me know what you think.
x, M.
P.S. The opening is next Thursday, in case you have forgotten.
Maybe it’s serendipity. The attachment is titled “Elizabeth.”
Chapter Ten
Sárvár, January 14, 1601
I do hope he did not suffer long. If it was the same disease he wrote of in his letter to me last spring, he would not have known much. When at his worst, he told me, he could not remember what he was like; the doctors reported that he was cold yet sweating, unable to walk, unconscious most of the day; and later they told him that in those brief times when he had been awake, his eyeballs had rolled to and fro in their sockets and he could not form any words, only mumblings. I know he wished to die on the battlefield, but there he was always victorious. It was the unseen, this illness, that broke the body of my Black Knight.
At last now I can move from this puny estate, and away from Ursula. She should be long dead, but still she lives, feeble and useless. Though she manages to bark out her commands, her insipid requests. “Where is my grandson? He must spend more time with me.” As if I would poison him, as if I don’t pay for a tutor to tend to him all day. At night, her decrepit hacking rings through the halls and echoes in the drawing room, so if I wish to escape her invalid’s clamour, I must sit in the library, with the books she has bound all in the same plain brown leather, in the ragged chairs she refuses to replace. She has deemed it sufficient for there to be just a braided rug on the floor, the kind the chambermaids make out of rags. I believe she thinks if she flaunts the Nadaskys’ poverty and simplicity, it will make their nobility seem
“I agree completely,” I say, while thinking about how I can talk Kelly into scheduling me for more than a half-hour slot.
He pats my shoulder. “Very good, Danica.”
He walks into the room and sits beside Jana, across from the patient. Bill shuts the door.
I try to keep my footsteps at an even pace, but I feel as exhilarated as the first time I spoke to Foster, and again I want to run, to skip down the hall. I’m half nervous, half excited that I’ll get to see Foster again. What does he mean when he says there were many people to speak to about Báthory? I almost want to thank Sloane for what her lecture has prodded me to think about further.
Back in my office, I start my report on Foster, but I can’t focus. All I can think of is Báthory, Foster’s obsession, his possible cohorts. Maria would salivate over this possibility, this information. I daydream about the book she’s proposing. What if we combined her discovery of the diaries with chapters of mine about Foster? It could never happen, of course. It would be almost impossible to write about Foster, as I know him now, without breaking confidentiality regulations. Though, if he agreed, I could interview him not as a clinician, but with the intent of researching the book. He might agree to it. He knows he’s a celebrity. He ripped out my article from the journal. Maybe he’d want me to write about him.
I stop my thoughts there, chastise myself for even fantasizing about promoting the fame of a murderer. For my personal, vain, purposes. If Maria knew I entertained these sort of thoughts...I think she would be intrigued. I consider teasing her, dropping hints that I would never follow up on, batting her hopes about like she’s done mine.
I haven’t checked my email since this morning; I open my inbox, hope to see her there. Maybe she’s heard more about the new lawyer. She did say she’d be in touch.
I breathe deeply. A message.
Dani,
These few pages may catch your eye. Do let me know what you think.
x, M.
P.S. The opening is next Thursday, in case you have forgotten.
Maybe it’s serendipity. The attachment is titled “Elizabeth.”
Chapter Ten
Sárvár, January 14, 1601
I do hope he did not suffer long. If it was the same disease he wrote of in his letter to me last spring, he would not have known much. When at his worst, he told me, he could not remember what he was like; the doctors reported that he was cold yet sweating, unable to walk, unconscious most of the day; and later they told him that in those brief times when he had been awake, his eyeballs had rolled to and fro in their sockets and he could not form any words, only mumblings. I know he wished to die on the battlefield, but there he was always victorious. It was the unseen, this illness, that broke the body of my Black Knight.
At last now I can move from this puny estate, and away from Ursula. She should be long dead, but still she lives, feeble and useless. Though she manages to bark out her commands, her insipid requests. “Where is my grandson? He must spend more time with me.” As if I would poison him, as if I don’t pay for a tutor to tend to him all day. At night, her decrepit hacking rings through the halls and echoes in the drawing room, so if I wish to escape her invalid’s clamour, I must sit in the library, with the books she has bound all in the same plain brown leather, in the ragged chairs she refuses to replace. She has deemed it sufficient for there to be just a braided rug on the floor, the kind the chambermaids make out of rags. I believe she thinks if she flaunts the Nadaskys’ poverty and simplicity, it will make their nobility seem
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