“I understand.”
“But your position makes you the most trustworthy outsider capable of this task. You represent two great houses, neither of which would own you if you were not a man of your word.”
“Thank you.” He examined Radu’s expression. “Why not find this yourself?”
“I have tried for many years. I have narrowed the search, but I am at an impasse and need an outside perspective.”
“I’m also guessing that you don’t want your brother and sister to know that you lost whatever it is that was stolen.”
Radu raised an eyebrow. “My sister knows something was stolen—she’s the one who helped me test you—but she does not know all the details. My brother knows nothing, and it must remain that way.”
Ben had a feeling there was no love lost between Radu and his brother. He poured another glass of wine from the bottle. “Okay, I’m intrigued. What is it you need to find?”
“It’s a goblet,” Radu said. “Carved in the ninth century from a single giant emerald.”
Ben set his glass down and sighed.
Dammit. An emerald goblet? There was no way he could fly away now. That was just too cool and unique.
“Okay. Tell me the rest.”
They hovered over a picturesque clearing in the middle of a dense forest. The landscape was made of empty hills for as far as the human eye could see. Dirt roads snaked through the countryside along with the occasional mobile phone tower.
Twenty state-of-the-art luxury campers and trailers circled the clearing in the forest. There were trucks and vans. A large fire was burning in the center of the circle, smaller ones in the outer loop, and in the distance, Ben saw a dozen air vampires hovering over the encampment.
“This is the Dawn Caravan?” Ben kept his voice low. “Where are we?”
“Don’t ask questions I cannot answer. The location of the caravan is known only to the head of the darigan. It is the humans who decide where we go every day, not the vampires. The caravan moves every night from the spring to the fall. It ends when the snow starts to fall and we retreat to our winter camps.”
“And anyone who has been sheltering with you—?”
“The longest any immortal is permitted to stay is a season,” Radu said. “We will not take responsibility for them during the winter, and the location of our winter camps remains a secret for the Eastern Poshani alone.”
“There are different clans?”
“Three clans, but we cooperate and travel in each other’s territory.”
“Okay.”
“The Eastern Poshani, my people, run the kamvasa. We have not lost a guest in over five hundred years.”
“Impressive.” Ben scanned the camp. “So a vampire pays you a set amount—”
“Payment depends on the vampire,” Radu said. “Sometimes payment is in treasure, sometimes in favors. It depends on the individual.”
“But you make a contract. A set period of time and a set amount. Total protection during that time?”
“We provide a comfortable caravan” —Radu pointed to the silver-grey vehicles in the distance— “protection, blood, and a level of entertainment.”
“What kind of entertainment?”
“Stories, dancing, music.” Radu shrugged. “The normal amusements.”
“What about modern electronics?” Ben was already thinking about how he was going to communicate with Chloe so she didn’t completely freak out when he wasn’t there in Rome.
“Patrick Murphy in Ireland isn’t one of us,” Radu said. “But he comes from Travellers. He understood our unique needs and created a mobile network with security.”
Probably some kind of virtual private network users could access that wouldn’t reveal location. It was ingenious really. If guests didn’t know where they were, they couldn’t inadvertently reveal it to anyone, even someone they trusted.
“I’ll need access to the internet,” Ben said. “I don’t work alone. The icon? I had help finding it.” From Beatrice and from Tenzin.
Tenzin.
Of all the times for her to take off, this one was not ideal.
“Of course,” Radu said. “I expected that you had research assistance from your uncle’s clan. That will not be a problem, though I need the exact nature of the theft to remain confidential.”
“I should be able to manage that.”
“The nature of this mystery will be a bit different.”
Ben was really wishing Tenzin hadn’t taken off. From a work perspective, her insight would be invaluable. Plus he had a feeling that Radu’s friendly demeanor masked a ruthless leader if a threat emerged against his people.
Note to self: don’t become a threat to the Poshani.
“When was the goblet stolen?”
“Between eighty to ninety years ago.”
Ben blinked. “You can’t narrow it down more?”
“It stays in my personal treasury.” Radu pointed to the traditional vardo being pulled to the edge of the clearing by a pickup truck. “I’m not a greedy gadjo who spends his nights counting my treasure. I had no reason to examine it when I assumed it was secure.”
“Not even a glance?”
“There was a replica put in its place. Good enough that a glance wasn’t enough to register a forgery.”
“I see. Do you still have the forgery?”
“Yes.”
Ben was already narrowing down his options. A forgery meant this wasn’t a crime of opportunity. Someone hadn’t stumbled across an emerald goblet and not been able to help themselves. This was planned, deliberate, and familiar.
“You said you’d narrowed it down,” Ben said. “How?”
“I have pursued every guest we had during that window of time. Most were easy to eliminate, but there were five who stood out. Five who would know the value of the item they stole and the significance.”
“And what is the significance?”
For the first time, Ben saw Radu’s anger simmering behind his dark brown eyes.
“The emerald goblet is one of three that were given to the oldest of our people, a chief who was turned into a vampire by an ancient immortal king. The goblets were a gift from a Persian ruler to our chief, and they passed to his three immortal children. One made of emerald, one of citrine, and one of ruby.”
“Three terrin. Three goblets. I’m getting the idea.”
“My sister is the keeper of the citrine, and my brother is the keeper of the ruby. The Poshani will host the Vashana festival in three weeks’ time, but this year is the Vashana Zata, which only happens every hundred years. The current terrin must present their goblets to the Poshaniya, and if they choose a successor—as I have considered doing this year—they must pass their goblet to them as a sign of leadership passing from one power to the next.”
Oh shit. “Did you say three weeks?”
Radu nodded slowly. “As I mentioned earlier, Benjamin Vecchio, I am running out of options.”
21
Ben and Radu strolled through the camp, the Poshani leader nodding to groups as he passed. In the background, a band of musicians played traditional music nearly to the point of being too loud.