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Rosanna fought her captors spiritedly but to no avail as she
was dragged before the presence of the Dark Lady herself, eyes
cold above the glinting spectacles that had descended down her
nose. The excess of marabou teased Rosanna's nostrils, and she
sneezed ferociously, repeatedly, and it was through the watering
eyes of sinusitis and despair that she glared at her fated rival.
"Take her to . . . The Chamber," the Dark Lady intoned.
Before she could mount any resistance, Rosanna found herself
whisked into a vast, shadowy, dusty space. She combed aside
her attractively disheveled tresses, only to discern, as her
gaze grew acclimated to the somber light, the towering,
teetering piles of tomes, doubtless filled with the eldritch
lore of the ages which had enabled the Dark Lady to compose
her screeds of unendurable banality. "If you ever wish to be
held within the muscular arms of your swain again," the
villainess commanded, "you will organize all of these volumes
in alphabetical order upon those shelves! And then --" Rosanna
gasped in purest horror as the woman flung up her hand for it
was filled with small, rectangular sheets of parchment -- "you
will record, for each work, the particulars of its author,
title, and publication on these mystical cards and file them
by author, title, and subject," she pointed a well-manicured,
sharpened claw to a cabinet filled with narrow drawers,
"/there/."
"No," Rosanna cried out, her slender fingers clutched
before her generous bosom, "no!"


10.

Even though I'd successfully evaded her visit, I couldn't escape the rave reviews of the woman's latest work. They were being dinned in my ears nonstop from the moment I'd arrived back at the museum.

-- Anton Schmidt, Director of the National Museum: "She is sehr extraordinary, the bee's ankles!"
-- Gerda, Secretary to the Director: "Competent, organized" and "her handbag is more excellently equipped."
-- Karl Feder, Inspector, Munich police: "An admirable woman and most attractive indeed."

There was only one less enthusiastic review in the bunch.

-- Karl, Janitor of the National Museum: "A cat lover, I think."

"It's the 'bee's knees' Schmidt, and nobody says that anymore." I sighed. While I'd been off barreling around the country on the other side of Europe, the National Museum had been hit by a gang of crooks intent on nabbing a few of the most valuable, one-of-a-kind oddities from the Graf von und zu Gefenstein toy collection. As for who'd sponsor that kind of caper, working at this museum had educated me years ago that private toy collectors could be just as nuts as any other antiquities fanatic.

"It was our great fortune, Vicky, to have someone with such honed detective instincts! She knew that something was not right immediately," Schmidt burbled. "They have not all been apprehended, but none of the exhibits were lost in the end. Is this not /wunderbar/, as I have said?"

"Yeah, it's great Schmidt, great." I leafed through my now-autographed paperback of /Passion of the Dark/, and winced at the inscription. It said, simply, "Good luck" followed by an indecipherable scrawl.

"Yes yes, as you see, she also personally has signed your book," Schmidt said, beaming. "It is a charming thought, nicht?"

It was my book, too -- the ratty, penciled-over copy I keep locked in the lower drawer of my desk for cribbing from when I'm stuck for inspiration with Rosanna. I didn't have the heart to tell Schmidt that the sentiment was most likely intended as ironic. As it was, I was only putting up with Schmidt's hovering because it fended off Gerda, who'd been seized by a similar desire to share, only hers was a burning missionary zeal to reorganize the museum's entire reference library "for the enhancement of the productivity." No corner of our castle had been overlooked by the romance novelist's evil eye.

That night, at the time when Caesar usually takes me for my mad gallop through the neighborhood, I steeled myself against his pouting and pushed him into the backyard instead. So when the phone rang, I was standing by to pounce on it before the answering machine could take the call.

"What the hell were you thinking?" I yelled. "That I wouldn't find out?"

"'Hello' has already gone out of fashion," said the sneaky bastard. "I'm behind the times."

For the next several minutes I made it very, very clear to him why I was somewhat upset.

"Ah yes. The difficulty, from their perspective, is that you possess an uncanny instinct for stumbling over and spoiling others' best-laid plans. You've become rather well known for it in some circles. You might be surprised."

"Oh really? Gosh, I'm filled with remorse."

"Yes, I'm familiar with your caring spirit," he said. "In any event, they seemed convinced that you'd interfere in some unpredictable fashion with what ought to have been a fairly routine operation. That's why they approached me with the proposition of spiriting you off to parts . . . elsewhere."

I knew it. "You liar. You told me that you weren't --"

"I owed favors to a few past associates, that's the extent of it," he cut me off. "And I assure you that no laws were broken in the making of that trip, at least not by me."

"I think you're forgetting something here."

"Not at all. You have the receipt, don't you?"

While I was choking on my outraged response, he went on, "'Let fortune's wheel at random rin.' I made no promises or guarantees that you'd leave the museum. If you hadn't intercepted the postcard, if you hadn't interpreted it in the proper vein, if you hadn't accepted the implied offer, if you hadn't decided to stay . . . They found that an acceptable compromise and were willing to pay the expenses."

"So you think that absolves you of any responsibility?" That was a rhetorical question; of course he did. And only someone who knew me pretty damn well could have put it together. I didn't know whether to feel flattered or utterly betrayed. "So you saw no problem with letting them hit our museum. My god, do you know what could have happened?"

"I didn't 'let' them anywhere," he said. "They had already made plans to target that collection, and they were going to do so. In that respect, your presence made no difference."

"You could have told me about it, but you didn't." Now that I knew, I wished I hadn't known. His view of ethics seemed to be set at a permanent tilt off normal, but I suspected he'd take it as a compliment if I pointed it out. "So now what? They're going to want to find you and extract a few pounds of flesh? Somehow I'm not unhappy to hear it."

"What?" He laughed. "Not at all. 'The wheel is come full circle.' Worst sort of luck, really. Even they realize that they ought to have heeded my sage advice."

"Which was?"

"Like repels like."

I silently chewed on that a few moments. "Care to explain," I said slowly, "what you meant by that?"

"I warned them that only an imminent confrontation with another such creature as yourself could have driven you from your den with such precipitate haste," he said smugly. "Of course I was correct."

I expressed my feelings warmly and at great length and detail, and all the while he murmured infuriating, soothing "Yes, yes" noises that only encouraged me to yell louder. In the end, however, even I ran out of enthusiasm on that topic -- there was something else I wanted to talk about more.

"They had an excellent collection of furniture, didn't they?" he said. "At the Breton Departmental Museum in Quimper, that is. Where you brought up Trogabr with no one, I noticed."

"Thank you," I said. It wasn't grudging this time. I meant it.

"For what?" he said lightly. "All that I did was drive. I thought other sites for comparison might help in any decisions, and -- well, you do tend to become more observant of detail when you're suspecting me of nefarious doings." But then he muttered under his breath, "Although your interpretation of what you've observed often leaves something to be desired."

I decided to magnanimously overlook that. There aren't that many truly novel opportunities in the field for a specialist in medieval art; we pick over the existing corpus like starving crows and have been known to brawl over potential finds, like the tussle over the Riemenschneider reliquary. He'd dropped something that he'd silently held onto for years right in my lap; then he'd stepped back and given me plenty of space to think it over. In spite of everything, I couldn't help feeling scholarly warm and fuzzies.

"Assuming his brain will return from the Planet of Romance one of these days, I'm going to consult with Schmidt."

"I see."

"No, you don't," I said to that doubt in his voice. I rubbed my forehead, trying to think of the best way to explain. "Schmidt is a kook, but he knows everyone, he's got tons of experience with preservation and museum management, and he's got reputation to burn. He knows I can't run his errands until the stars burn out, and he'll see that this is an unheard of opportunity to apply a lot of what I've learned here."

That's why you gave it to me, isn't it? I thought, but I didn't say it.

"One of the only benefits of having everyone here so preoccupied," I told him. "I've had a little time to think this through. A lot of the initial planning and preparation involves research, and that's I what I do anyway. I'm willing to coordinate, and Schmidt and the museum here are ideal resources. I'd be an idiot not to use them. Beyond that, Trogabr will have to organized the lion's share of the work themselves -- which will given them an even larger stake in the outcome."

I sketched out a long-term strategy that included everything from locating a prehistory expert to evaluate what lay beyond that "other entrance" to getting a competent, honest appraiser to examine and catalog those stacks of furniture in the storage area.

"Once you start moving on this, it'll attract attention," he pointed out. "Not all of it will be the sort of scrutiny you'd like."

"I know, believe me." This took trust on my part; I thought I might be ready to start shuffling in that direction. "I wondered if you'd be interested in advising about security, since you know too much about circumventing it. And maybe even helping place some of the less valuable pieces, once the ownership questions are cleared up -- this is going to take money."

"Dear girl," he said, amused, which in John-speak was a yes. I still had qualms, but they were offset by relief: If you can't beat 'em, recruit 'em.

"It looked to me like they have more than enough room underground to house a small museum. If that other entrance were used, it wouldn't impact the church," I said. "But the primary problem here is image. Above all else, that church has to be rebuilt. The Natural Park's regulations on new buildings might be waived for that kind of restoration work. And the park itself is lovely. It has hiking trails in their vicinity and even menhirs."

"Right then. Now it's my turn to ask -- aren't you forgetting something?"

"No," I said, sighing to myself, "no, I'm not. It's going to be 'rediscovered' later, after everything has been sorted out. That is when the publicity will do them the most good." I made my voice sound firm about that. Yes, I'd regret giving the cylinder up, but it had to done. "And if anything else like it turns up, that'll be gilding the rose, won't it?"

"Well, then," he said. "I'll wish you the best of luck with the Herr Direktor Doktor Schmidt."

"Don't worry, I won't have any trouble. I'm making it absolutely clear that this one belongs to me. It's /mine/. With proper Schmidt management, I can keep him from running wild through the countryside."

"Because you've had so much success with that before," he pointed out.

But I was sure this time. "I'm going to get my way. I have a lot of experience with that."

"Truer words." He laughed. "Well, then I do look forward to seeing how you manage."

"Yes, you'll see," I said sweetly. "And next time, I'll be the one extending the invitation to you. I like to keep abreast of my darling's interests, too, you know."

Sentimental feelings only go so far. I hadn't properly rewarded him for poking me with medieval misogyny, and I had a ring to return -- with interest. So he'd wanted me paying attention on that trip? I had been. I'd seen more than enough to tell me what topic I'd slighted in my John Smythe studies, which was why my desk now sported a small but growing pile of books. I picked up the two from the top, weighing where to begin: Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur or the Lais of Marie de France? Next time, I'd be in charge of our itinerary.