Red Magic (14 page)

Supper was served in the cold gray great
room. After a perfunctory speech to her about the fine hunting and riding, Herr
Walter involved Christoph in a long discussion about a stand of trees he wished
to cut and how the unreasonable, superstitious peasants were resisting the
idea. Frau Walter studied Cat, but didn't speak to her, except to coldly offer
food. That woman, Cat thought, dislikes me, sight unseen. She would give, she
thought, a great deal to know why.

Usually confident and outspoken, Cat felt
herself sink. Every reply to her attempts at conversation came back framed in
as few cool words as possible.

The food, two large pies, one of green
apples, the other of pork, a tray of bread and country cheese, and a big,
savory bowl of greens, was soon consumed.

A spare table indeed, Cat thought.

"Why don't you go up now, my
Lady?" Christoph suggested. "Walter and I have talked for an hour
before dinner and all the way through, boring you and Frau Walter to death and
still have not managed to come to the end of Heldenberg's troubles." His
tone was light, but she could see weary lines on his face.

Embarrassed, Caterina put down her napkin
and rose. Everyone at the table followed suit.

"Ah, Herr Graf," she hesitantly
ventured, "I would like to go to the stables to see Star."

"Not tonight, Grafin." His
counter formality, the feminine of his title, rang oddly in her ears.
"Star is in excellent hands. Believe it or not, probably the best
horsemaster in the empire serves in my humble and remote stable. I shall
introduce you tomorrow." The Walters obediently nodded. The gesture was
emphatic, but some disapproval of this mysterious horsemaster, was observable
in their pale eyes.

"But, sir," Cat persisted,
"My Star is so temperamental, as you well know..."

Before she could finish, Christoph put his
arm around her, began to walk her away from the table. "Go up, Cat. Do me
the courtesy of not arguing in front of the servants. You may go to Star as
soon as you wish tomorrow and you will see that she is well and that everything
is just as I say." His tone was weary, parental.

Cat swallowed hard and inclined her head.
At once Frau Walter clapped her hands and a maid standing by the door stepped
forward.

"Light Lady von Hagen upstairs,
Josefa. I'll just go and see if the Heerbrand girl has a ghost of a notion
about what she ought to do."

Cat didn't like to hear Elsa spoken of like
this, but she held her tongue. This place was exactly as strange and
uncomfortable as her mother had predicted.

As they started up the stairs, Josefa said,
"Watch your step, m'Lady."

Cat, more to hear her own
voice than in expectation of conversation, said that she was "sure footed
as a goat."
When this homely simile drew a
slight smile, the first she'd seen on any of the servants besides Elsa, she
ventured, "It's been awhile since this house has seen any company, I'll
warrant."

"Not really so
long."
The smug tone of the reply set
Caterina aback so much—not the words, but the 'I've got a secret' tone—that she
didn't venture another word until the door to her room was opened.

What a relief to see Elsa already there!
She was just getting up from lighting a fire in the fat white wall stove which
straddled the wall between Caterina's and whatever room lay next to it.

"Frau Walter is wondering where you
are right this moment, Miss," Josefa said.

This too, Cat understood, was meant to
intimidate, but before she could intercede, Elsa flashed back, "Herr Goran
told me to come directly up and get ready for the Grafin."

Josefa sniffed. "Frau Walter is in
charge of the household staff, not that old cripple. You'll pay attention to
her if you know what's good for you."

Cat stared. Not only the insult to
Christoph's valet but the fact that Josefa was daring to scold Elsa just as if
Caterina weren't there. Before she could think of what to say, Josefa, without
even a curtsy, had sailed out the door.

Worn out with growing uncertainty and a
large portion of homesickness, Caterina at once began to think longingly of
bed. She was not usually one to hide in sleep, but tonight it seemed the best
refuge. Perhaps tomorrow after she'd seen Star and the stables she would feel
better.

"Who does she think she is?" Cat
gestured at the closed door.

"Oh, she's Frau Walter's little
sister," came the answer. "She grew up here. She was the one who
should have had my place."

"She's rude, whoever's sister she
is."

Elsa nodded.

"Don't pay any attention to what she
says. The plain fact is that I'm the only one you have to mind."

"That's what the Graf told me—and Herr
Goran too."

Cat sighed. Perhaps this explained some of
the chill she was experiencing. Still, she was already glad that Christoph had
chosen Elsa.

"Do you want me to sit with you?"
Elsa asked, as she worked at unbuttoning Cat's back stays. "The fire's
well started and we could sew or read or whatever you would like to do."

"I think I'm ready to sleep. I've been
riding astride for the last four days and I was badly out of practice, so
everything hurts."

Elsa carried the stays away, folding them
before laying them away into a mostly empty drawer.

"Where do you sleep, Elsa?" Cat
suddenly asked.

"Well, I have been sleeping downstairs
with the other maids, but the Herr Graf has ordered that I sleep there now,
right beside you." The girl pointed thin fingers at a door opposite the
one which led to Christoph's bedroom.

Curiously Cat went to lift the latch and
peer in. Elsa's room was long and narrow, dominated by a bay window and the
bulging backside of her own wall stove. It looked, she thought, with a sudden
quiver, like her own nursery, with the communicating door and stove shared by
the larger bedroom of her mother. Now, except for a pallet bed with a prettily
pieced quilt and a battered trunk and one old chest of drawers topped with a
pitcher and basin, it was quite empty.

"Of course," Elsa said, peeping
in behind, "it's too fine and big for me, but it is the Graf's
orders."

"Why do you say it's too fine?"
Cat closed the door and asked. "It is proper for a lady's maid to be near
her mistress."

"Um.
Ah—"

"Who says it is not proper?" Cat
insisted.

"Frau Walter. She, ah, she—well, it
makes her angry that I should sleep alone in this fine large room, Mistress.
A room with a window—and a stove."

"And what business is it of hers? If
the Graf orders you sleep there, that should be enough for her."

"Yes,
Mistress."

Cat took a seat at the dressing table in
front of the mirror, tossed a heavy red handful over her shoulders.

"Come and brush my hair, Elsa."
At once she wished she hadn't sounded so imperious, for the girl ran to her
side like a rabbit. "I'm glad to see that you'll be so close," she
said by way of atonement as the girl picked up the brush. Then she wondered if
she were violating the rules her mother had given her, but she felt that if she
didn't confide in someone she would burst. "Don't tell," she
whispered, leaning her head back into the strokes of the brush, "but I was
a little afraid of sleeping up here all alone."

Elsa paused in her work. Two pale girlish
faces gazed at each other in the mirror.

"I would never tell, Lady Caterina.
The Herr Graf told me that everything you and I talk about is always a secret,
especially from the other servants. He says that is the most important rule for
a lady's maid."

Cat experienced a warm rush of gratitude
toward her husband.

"I think he's right, Elsa."

"Oh, he must be always right. He seems
very kind and he is so very tall and very handsome, too." The girl's
impressions all spilled out in a rush. "But Mistress," Elsa said,
after a few more strokes at her mistress’s hair, "why should you be
afraid? You will not be alone."

The pale eyes in the mirror looked down
although Cat could see the flush making its way up Elsa's neck.

"He is such a great soldier, the Herr
Graf," Elsa murmured. "Um, won't you, ah, won't you be with, with him
in his room?"

The only response Cat could manage was a
nod and a blush of her own.

Chapter Nine

The next morning when Elsa came in carrying
the breakfast tray she found Caterina alone in the maidenly bed, her red braids
trailing out from under a demure lace nightcap, sniffling into one of her new
linen handkerchiefs. Putting the tray down, she hesitated. Unsure, but wanting
to help, she climbed onto the featherbed to join her mistress.

"Oh, Lady Caterina, please don't cry.
Graf von Hagen says that if you are sad, I am to comfort you. And you know
what? Even that mean old Ute didn't give me any trouble about breakfast this
morning."

When Cat didn't speak right away, Elsa
asked in a tiny little voice, "Are you crying because the Graf did not ask
you to his bed?"

"No!" Cat jerked upright and
glared. Then, catching herself she added, "We were, um, together, but,
but—he, ah, got up early and I came back."

Elsa gave her a grave look,
then
whispered. "Is he angry with you?"

"Neither of us is angry today. I
think."

"Oh, um, then," Elsa persisted
after a short anxious pause, "are you missing your girl friends?"

"No," said Cat. "I didn't
have any girl friends. Girls are mostly stupid."

"No girl friends at all?" Elsa,
it appeared, hadn't taken the remark personally and proceeded to settle, with
an incredulous expression, cross-legged in the bed. "I have a girl friend
down in the village.
Maria, the miller's daughter.
I
miss her a lot. We told each other everything."

"I guess my sister Wili was my
friend," said Cat, wiping her eyes fiercely. "But now that she—she's
dead—I guess my best girlfriend came with me."

"She did?"

"Yes.
My mare,
Star."

"But—um—you can't talk to a
horse."

"I can and I do, too. I tell her all
my secrets."

Elsa pondered that for a moment,
then
replied gravely, "But, Mistress Caterina, she
can't answer."

Caterina sighed. It was, sadly, true.

"Elsa, can you ride?"

"I've never ever been on horseback in
my life."

"Oh." Disappointing, but more or
less expected. Riding was for aristocrats. Commoners might travel in horse
drawn vehicles, but were just as likely to go on foot anywhere they had to go.
"That's too bad. Perhaps I could teach you."

"Oh, I'd be too frightened. But I saw
you yesterday. I swear I've never seen a woman sit a horse like that!"

After Caterina had collected herself and
risen, Elsa brought her the morning gown and then busied herself laying out
breakfast upon a sturdy small table. There seemed to be a lot of
breakfast—heaps!

"The Graf says you are to be fed like
a plowboy, so Ute gave me a lot," she explained.

"Really?"
Cat had never thought of herself as having a large appetite.
"That's more than I can eat, I'm sure."

"Well, m'Lady, he says you aren't done
growing." Elsa went on, her voice dropping so that Cat could barely hear
her, "And, my Lady, I put on extra so that—maybe—I could have some too.
Here in your room, where they won't see."

Cat studied the girl's earnest face. She
certainly didn't seem to be the kind of person her mother, during all those
housekeeping lectures, had characterized as "greedy".

"Don't they feed you enough?"

"No, Mistress," Elsa said
plaintively. "They give two pieces of bread and some tea for breakfast. At
dinner I am given cabbage and potato. Supper is tea and bread again. I've been
here for a month and I'm always hungry. As poor as uncle is, we always had a
little meat and fruit every week."

At once Caterina was boiling mad. "Who
ordered such meanness?"

"Frau Walter said that was what I was
to have."

"Did you tell your uncle?"

"Yes, once I got a note to the
village, but he wrote back and said that they were trying to make me to go home,
that they wanted Josefa to have the job, and that I should bear it until Graf
von Hagen came and then ask for his help. He's so important and so busy,
though, and he trusts the Walters so much, I don't dare. You seem so kind,
Mistress, that I thought that perhaps this way I could have more food and not
make trouble."

"Those miserable
bastards."
Caterina swore as vehemently as
her father. Elsa gave an inadvertent start of surprise.