‘Meaning that your mother was not a Countess?’
‘Nothing of the sort; she’d even changed her surname and was a serf on her clod of earth in Voivodina. Once a slave, I only became a countess because Bellegarde prised me from Turkish hands, had me study and train at Vienna with the Habsburgs’ governors and introduced me to his friend, Count Laszlo Esterházy’.
‘But what problem is there now between us, given this isn’t about differences in class?’
‘The problem is your investigation, Marco. You’d be risking a lot if you were to be seen too involved with me’.
‘If you think Konrad’s or Saurau’s or Metternich’s opinions means something to me, you’re mistaken, I …’
‘Listen to me closely and look me in the eye. You are an exceptional man, a great soldier and an excellent policeman. You
