Red Magic (15 page)

"Well, then," she said,
"that's exactly what we'll do. You'll eat your meals with me—um," she
amended, "whenever my husband isn't present. But when he is, we shall find
another way to get you plenty."

"Oh, thank you, Mistress." Elsa
had grateful tears in her eyes. "Downstairs they are all saying that you
are so wild and spoiled that no one wanted to come with you, that at your home
they were all glad to be rid of you, but it certainly can't be true."

With her mother's words sounding in her
head, Caterina asked Elsa to sit down beside her and handed her a boiled egg.
As she watched the girl eagerly peeling it, she said quietly, "Go on as
you've been doing and be a mouse around them, dear Elsa, but, please, from now
on, you are tell me everything you hear."

* * *

After eating, Cat dressed. Soon, good as
his word, her husband came to take her to the barn to see how Star was managing
in her new home. Here she was introduced to yet another intimidating servant,
the horsemaster, Herr Rossmann, who walked them over to Star's stall.

The mare was discovered shiny and at ease.
Cat was thoroughly surprised that the usually fractious animal had allowed Herr
Rossmann, a perfect stranger, to groom her. Although she saw Rossmann's thin,
intense face light up while they were discussing the blood lines of her
beautiful mare, she found his taciturn manner and hard, pocked-marked face
dismaying.

Herr Rossmann was of medium height, wiry,
and quick in movement. His skin was so pale that at first Cat wondered if he
might be consumptive. His eyes were black and penetrating and he wore long
black moustaches in the same style as Hauptmann Goran's blonde ones. His
clothing, blousy shirts and breeches, long jacket and sash, resembled Goran's
too.

On the way to the barn, Christoph told Cat
that like Goran, Rossmann had been born in the lands beyond the eastern border
of their Hapsburg emperor's land. His name was a German alias for something
unpronounceable and foreign. It was soon apparent that her husband had given a
great deal of thought to how much time Cat and Rossmann would be together.

"My wife, Herr Rossmann," he
said, making a formal introduction, "is a lady who, despite her sex and
tender years, is very knowledgeable about horses. When she is not attending to
her duties in the house," and here he flashed a rude wink at Cat, "you
will see her about the barns. Allow her anything you would allow a skillful
horseman, except when you are concerned for her safety."

As her husband spoke, Rossmann's black eyes
flicked towards the tall, slim figure of his new mistress, away and then back
again, like the flicker of a snake's tongue. This odd behavior was repeated
many times in the course of the interview.

* * *

"Herr Rossman scares me," Cat
said later, as they sat alone at dinner. "He's got a hard face, like a
felon. And why does he move his eyes like that? Whenever he thought I wasn't
watching, he stared like he's never seen anything like me before."

"I'll warrant he hasn't, Red
Caterina." Her husband beamed and raised his glass in her direction.

"But, really,
why?"
The admiration in her husband's
beautiful eyes was, as always, unsettling.

"Well, you have to understand that
he's different. It's hard for those easterners to look directly at a woman. Of
course, in his land you would never raise your eyes in
his,
or any other man's, presence. As perhaps you know, the Muslims veil their women
and the rich ones who can afford to do so lock them up. Their neighbors, the
Russians and the Serbs—Rossman is a Serb—are Christians of the Eastern Rite,
but they have caught some Turkish habits. They keep their women wrapped from
head to toe in black dresses, more like sacks than anything else. And there you
stand, in a dress that
fits,
your face bare. Even with
a shawl and a cap to cover your hair, to him you're practically naked." He
paused and smiled at her obvious discomfort. "Therefore, little wife, as I
know you will often be playing in the barn, I have decided you are to go
dressed in this."

Christoph summoned Elsa and then sent her
out after something. When the girl returned again, she had a loose one piece
garment, like a black tent, draped over one arm. "Ugly, but, I'm told,
comfortable. Just be sure to always cover your hair. Rossmann probably finds a
woman's hair as stimulating as a bare breast."

"Is this eastern dress?" Cat
stared at the strange garment.

"Yes, as near as I could explain it to
the women who sewed
it.
As you can see, everything is
left to the imagination. Wear breeches under if you wish to ride, belt it with
a scarf and Herr Rossmann will know, beyond a shadow of a doubt in his savage
mind, that you are a chaste, modest woman." Christoph's grin turned
wicked. "And all things considered, it would be ironic if he made any
mistakes about
that,
wouldn't it?"

When her green eyes widened, he grabbed her
hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. "I'm rotten to scare you, Kitty
Cat. Rossmann is quite trustworthy, but I do want to make the point about the
dress."

Cat nodded. She didn't care much about
clothes and the sackish thing did look as if it would be comfortable to work
and ride in, at least, once it was belted. Besides, Rossman's cold eyes gave
her the horrors. She wouldn't, she thought, put much past him.

"Did you know that Muslims believe
that only men have souls?" Her husband continued. "To them, it's
entirely possible that a good dog or horse might have more value than a
woman."

The events of the last few months had
brought her status as chattel sharply home to Caterina. To her proud mind it
hardly seemed possible that there could be a lower state than the one in which
she was expected to live.

"The grooms are afraid of Herr
Rossmann." Uneasily she stirred the remaining noodles on her plate with a
fork. She had only been in the stables for a short time, but that was obvious.

"And so they should be, the way they
talk behind his back. But let me tell you a story about Rossmann," said
Christoph, "that I think will begin your conversion. A few years ago, the
campaign before last, my Brandy went lame. I, and everyone else I talked to,
thought he'd never be fit to ride again."

"Brandy?"

"Yes, but Rossmann looked at him. He
said I was not to worry and began brewing things up. Some were for Brandy to
drink and others he used to bathe the leg. Every day he led him down to our
stock pond, tied him to a row boat and then made him swim. Swim, by God! And in
two months Brandy was fit again. Good as new, although I've never seen
a horse recover
from such an injury. I thought he was bound
for stud and pasture, but he's quite well now, and strong as before. Frankly,
after that, Rossmann will have to murder someone before I dismiss him."

"Well, he is awfully strange. Papa
says that old soldiers often do terrible things because they have got used to
doing them during wars. And Rossmann—well, the way he looks at me—or doesn't
look at me—whichever it is—"

"You haven't been listening. Maybe
you'll listen better from here." A strong hand seized her arm.

"Don't!"

Caterina twisted out of his grasp and began
to run, but Christoph was on his feet even faster. In her father's house flight
usually terminated unwanted conversations, but her husband seemed intent upon
teaching her that this would not work here. His interception sent them spinning
around wildly,
a dark
god intent upon the capture of a
tall, half grown nymph.

"Whoa, runaway
filly!"

Cat resisted, but her husband was more than
a match for her. In an instant, he'd picked her up. Carrying her back to the
table he took his seat again, Caterina firmly in his arms

"Let go. I'm not a baby." His
hand passed up and down her back, messaging affectionately. Although she was
embarrassed, it felt annoyingly good.

"Schone Jungfrau, don't quarrel. You
are my baby. Humor your poor husband in just a few small things. You're so
pretty to look at and you smell so good," he whispered, nuzzling against
the tender back of her neck.

"Christoph," she protested,
squirming as a tingle ran through. "What if a servant comes?"

"This will support our tale of wedded
bliss." Nevertheless, he stopped. "Now, little one," he said
shifting so he could look straight into her green eyes, "just remember to
comport yourself modestly around Herr Rossmann, as befits a lady and my
wife."

"I am both." Cat was emphatic. It
was hard to feel any dignity in his lap.

"The first, sweet Red," said
Christoph, catching her chin and tilting it up, "is true by breeding, if
not quite yet by manner, but I'm confident that blood will tell. A little
schooling and I believe you shall certainly achieve it.

His mouth grazed her forehead. Cat closed
her eyes and endured both kiss and reproof.

"The last," her husband ended
with a sigh, "is a fiction we maintain for the sake of our papas."

"I know how to behave."

"I rely upon it. Now, don't believe
everything you hear the grooms saying and especially don't listen to dear
Goran. Rossmann is poison to him."

After a last warm pass of his hand down her
back, he released her. Caterina then discovered that some shameful traitor
inside didn't really want to get up. Instead, this renegade self was longing to
stay, to lean against his big chest, to accept his petting and relax into his
strength and affection just the way black cat Furst did when Christoph picked
him up and laid him across his shoulder.

"But aren't Rossmann and Goran both
Slavs?" she asked. With as much dignity as she could muster, she got off
his lap and slipped back into her own chair. "They even look alike. At
least their huge moustaches and their clothes do."

"You better hadn't say that to either
of them. What you need, I think, is a short lesson on the different, warring
peoples who live on the eastern borders of Emperor Joseph's land." He
settled back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully. "And I believe I
better begin at the beginning. Do you know anything about the Romans,
Caterina?"

When she nodded, he smiled.
"Very good.
Did you allow your poor governess a moment
of peace in which to bring them up? Those few times she wasn't smacking your
palm with a ruler or hunting you out of the barn?"

Caterina stuck out her tongue. "Frau
Plunke couldn't ever catch me to hit me," she declared. "And of
course I know all about the Romans. They are after the Greeks but sort of like
them, except fiercer. They conquered everyone, even us, and they made roads
everywhere and all the hot springs
into spas."

Christoph
laughed,
a cheerful sound in that cold room. "A most learned summation, my Kitty
Cat. Now attend and hear a little more. The Roman Empire
fell when wild men rode in on horses from the east, out of where the
Bylorussians and the Ukrainians live today. Some of those wild riders were
Hungarians and Magyars, some were Slavs."

"I know about Huns," Caterina
said. "They traveled with herds of horses and cattle and their leader was
Attila."

"Yes. Rossmann and Goran are from a
land where many different tribes of Slavs settled. These days their land is
divided between the empire of the Ottoman Turks and our Hapsburg Emperor. Their
homeland has been overrun so many times, for the last several hundred years by
Turks, that things are always troubled. They fight each other, too, those
tribes. There are Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians and a whole crowd who
have
become Muslim. Some Muslims, you see, are as white as
you and me, although others are brown, like the people of North
Africa."

There was a brief interruption while a
servant came in bearing a bowl of brown speckled pippins. Plates were removed and
a rough cutting board upon which sat a soft cheese in solitary state was placed
between them. Cat picked up a knife and began to cut
a
up the fruit. She loved apples and cheese.

"So," Christoph continued,
reaching for an apple, "Goran's village and all his family were killed by
Serbs. No one can blame him for hating Serbs where ever and whenever he finds
them. When I first took Rossmann on, I worried about one murdering the other.
Lately, Goran's taken to putting it about that Rossmann's a Muslim, which
certainly brings everyone to his side who wasn't there already. I'd never dare
to leave the two of them alone at Heldenberg."

"But wouldn't your Hauptmann Goran
know a Muslim when he saw one?"

"It is a fact of life that Goran is a
Croat and Croats hate Serbs as much as they hate Turks. When I was fighting out
there, they were killing each other constantly, even when they were supposed to
be fighting on the same side. There is just too much bad blood over too many
years. Some Serbs side with us, others with the Russians, with whom they share
a religion, but many live on lands which pay tribute to the Grand
Turk."