Red Magic (21 page)

Saint Anne's... For a moment she lingered,
not doing anything, although she ought to be hiding the sealing wax and putting
the charred reed into the fire. Instead she was counting back nine months,
remembering that Christoph had been in Vienna briefly just before that last,
nearly fatal battle. She remembered Wili's chagrin that he had not asked her to
meet him there and how her sister had grieved when the terrible news had
reached them that Christoph was wounded, hovering between life and death.

Now here was the fruit of his selfishness!
The baby had been born this year, not seven weeks after he should have married
Wili. Cat could feel her skin
tightening,
feel all her
blooming affection for him wither like flowers in frost.

Still, she thought, I must give no sign,
for he will read the letter tonight. If I seem angry or upset, he will suspect
I have opened it. Forcing herself to get up, she tossed the reed into the fire
and pocketed the sealing wax. For one mad moment she imagined burning the
letter, but instantly rejected the notion. Cat felt sudden pity toward this
mysterious Konstanze with her round girlish handwriting, pity that another fly
had fallen into the spider's web.

As Cat leaned there, feeling the heat sting
her face, listening to the delicate crinkling of cinders, she was surprised by
tears. They fell one by one, hissing as they struck the searing lip of the
hearth. What would Wili have done? Would she have wept and then expressed that
innate charity that had been her definition? Cat had always thought it
weakness, Wili's enduring love, but now, today, she felt uncertain.

Whirling about, she ran to the tea table.
Picking up the pretty little teapot in both hands, she smashed it onto the
slates. There was an instant of relief as it shattered, but it didn't last.
When Elsa came in a few minutes later, Caterina was still standing by the
table, staring down at the wreckage, at the tea which, because she hadn't
bothered to move away, had splattered all over her dress.

* * *

Christoph did not come back until almost
dark. He had gone off and closeted himself with Walter as soon as supper, a
meal for which Cat found no appetite, was over. She went up to her room, tried
to read and failed, while Elsa sat nearby, sewing. Finally, wishing that it was
morning so that she could ease her misery with a long ride, Cat got into bed.

Here she tossed and turned, thinking of the
letter, wondering if it meant what it seemed. She thought about Wili and shed a
few tears which she prayed didn't have anything to do with her own feelings for
Christoph. Finally, hoping she could sleep, she did her exercise with the
protector and lay down.

Listening to her husband prepare for bed
was another distraction. How she wanted to run through the door to confront
him, but knowledge of how angry he would be at her spying kept her from it. Cat
thought she'd never be able to get to sleep. Still, somehow or other,
eventually she wandered off into that strange realm.

* * *

There was Wili, sitting in the window seat.
Her sister, blonde braids demurely crowning her head, was deep in embroidery, a
piece stretched on a frame.

Cat ran to her, the letter in her hand,
the
letter from Konstanze. Wili gazed up at her with a
serene expression.

"Wili!
Read this!"

With deft fingers her sister ran the needle
into the cloth. She took what Cat offered and studied it. Her skin, always
pale, had a kind of shine beneath the surface. She looked up, shook her golden
head, and without comment, handed the letter to
Cat
.

"I don't cry anymore." The soft
gray eyes that Cat remembered so well were full of nothing but a profound calm.
"It's your turn to cry."

Coolly picking up the needle, Wili
continued embroidering.

* * *

Someone was inside the bed curtains,
someone with gentle hands, whispering. Strong arms picked her up and Cat's wet
face came to rest upon a freshly laundered nightshirt which covered a hard
shoulder.

"There, there," a male voice
comforted. "Wake up, Red. Wake up."

"Christoph," she gasped,
understanding at last. Her body tensed

"You were having a bad dream."

To push against him would bring nothing but
frustration, so she didn't, simply accepted his tender embrace.

Why hadn't Wili advised her? Why had she
been so cold? Was it because she knew Cat was in love …?

Her husband continued to hold her. One hand
soothed, while the other cradled. She let her tears drench his nightshirt. His
lips brushed her cheek on one side, tenderly.

"Wili."
Cat whispered, telling the only part she dared. "I dreamed of
Wili."

Christoph heaved a sigh. "She was on
my mind tonight too."

How easy it was to cry
herself
out against his strength, to feel his hand on her back, upon her hair! His
chest moved against hers as breath went in and out. She could hear his heart,
an even drumbeat.

"Are you better now?" He sounded
supremely weary.

When she murmured, "Yes," he
released her and got out of the bed.

"Elsa. Elsa! Come at once."

Cat sat still, trembling with all the
warring emotion she felt. A tall skinny figure joined his by the bedside,
illuminated in the rippling light that came from the open door of his room.
"Elsa, dear, you must sleep with the Grafin tonight. She's having bad
dreams."

"It's not necessary," Cat said,
but she had to move back, for Elsa was already joining her.

"I think that it is." Christoph
began a retreat towards his own room. "Please stay, Elsa, no matter what."

"Yes, Herr Graf," whispered Elsa.

"Thank you," he said. "Good
night, ladies." Gently, he shut the door behind him.

* * *

Silently Cat lay back. She felt beyond
strange. "I don't want to talk," she said softly. "I'm upset but
I think I just ought to try and go to sleep again."

"As you wish, Mistress, but you
know," Elsa spoke after a pause, "you can trust me."

"Yes, of course." It was pitch
black and Cat couldn't see a thing, but she knew that her maid was bursting
with questions.

Suddenly, she ached to confide.
Maybe not everything, but something.

Finally she reached out, took Elsa's hand
and whispered, "The Graf never takes me to his bed."

"I know," was the whispered
reply. "You are always so angry and sad."

"We are both angry and sad."

"It is because of your lady sister, is
it not, Grafin?"

"Yes." Elsa's thin fingers
pressed hers, but Cat was grateful when she didn't speak again. Christoph, she
thought, had clearly been disturbed by the letter, maybe as much as she had
been. The last thing she heard was him adding more wood to the fire.

Chapter Twelve

As Christoph prepared for his journey to Vienna, Cat was inspired
to ask to come. She didn't like the idea of him traveling with the wildly
enamored Josefa, who was, in fact, being sent into service at the Mason's home.

She didn't like the idea of him being
easily able to visit the woman who'd written the cryptic letter. There was also
the anticipated discomfort of being left alone on Heldenberg. These things
loomed larger than any desire to see the great capital city.

However, the suspicion-evoking reply she
was given was that he had too much business to attend to and that she'd be
better right where she was.

"Besides," he'd added unkindly,
"as soon as you opened your mouth in front of my Viennese friends, I'd be
teased about having become a nursemaid, not a husband."

"You will be alone with Josefa and
then you will visit Frau Ermler." The words came blurting out. "And,
even if you are telling me the truth about them, there is—" and here she
almost blurted out "Konstanze", but managed to change it to
"those other Viennese women of yours."

"Cat!
I warn you; I'm nearly dead from this unhealthy abstinence, but I
shall keep my promise to you, although there are times, like now, when I wonder
why I bother."

"Well, go on then! Tell all the
heifers I say they can have you. Start with Josefa. I don't care! Why should
I?"

"Your mouth, little
girl!
Get out of here before I take you over my
knee. I'm done talking. Scat! Scat!" Scowling and looking purposeful, he strode
towards her, raising a hand as if she were Furst and he intended to cuff her
for the high crime of scratching the chairs.

Cat took off, beating a hasty retreat to
the stables. Star, as always, welcomed with a soft whicker and the moist touch
of her velvet nose.

Burying her face against the warm smell of
the sorrel's neck, Cat cried a little. For the thousandth time she asked
herself: Why did Wili die? Her sister would have unreservedly loved this
man—this wicked man—who was probably going to Vienna to see a whole crew of mistresses.

For comfort, Cat did what she always did.
She saddled up and rode into the forest, cantering along a trail that led up
the mountain. As she rode ever higher, the trees shrank and shriveled, as if
they'd come under an evil spell. Soon, she knew, they'd disappear, and she
would be on the rock-strewn high meadows. She would ride straight across to the
western cattle path. Then, in waning light, she'd follow that back down to the
manor.

* * *

After a glorious gallop in the cold bright
sun, Cat felt better, although still melancholy. Was it, after all, entirely
reasonable to expect a man to remain faithful to a wife who wasn't really a
wife? I know exactly what Papa would say!

She felt a little hungry, for it was close
to supper, but she was unwilling to go back to her troubles just yet. It was a
beautiful warm afternoon, a mingling of gold, brown and rust in the forests
that spread out below. The sky over her head was blue. The view of Great
Heldenberg and her companions was spectacular, even if the peaks were obscured.

There'd been clouds up on the mountain all
day, a gray mass which moved as if it were alive, expanding and contracting
across the strange lifeless zone of rock and castle-sized boulder that
shouldered the beige, late fall meadows. She'd often seen the peaks hidden in
this strange shroud.

In the stables, Cat had heard tales about
these clouds. They said they sometimes came down to blanket the upper pastures
for days, leaving the herders and their animals in a situation where they
hardly dared take a step. Hidden within it, wolves, trusting to their noses,
came from the forest and carried off unlucky strays, or, sometimes, dogs or
small children. After a time, Cat slowed Star to a trot. The sun was low and
she didn't want to miss the cattle path. It was dangerous to do so because of
the ravine which lay about a half kilometer beyond. She had turned slightly
south and had just entered one of those depressions with which the mountain
side was pitted, when she felt a cold wet breath on the back of her neck

In an eye blink, the world she'd been
moving through, the world of valley and mountain, of brilliant colors and rosy,
waning
sun,
disappeared. Star snorted, half-reared and
then stood stock still.

They were enveloped in fog. The air inside
was cold and wet and queer smelling, like the exhalation of the ancient bog
they'd been skirting. Stifling a shudder, Caterina dismounted. "Come on,
girl," she said to the mare, rubbing her sweaty neck. "Maybe it will
go back up the mountain again. In the meantime, we'll walk."

Holding the reins, she began to move in a
direction that felt like down. Surely, if they just kept going as they had
been, they'd soon hit the cattle path. "If not," she whispered,
"You and I will be spending a miserable night together."

Of course, being out in the weather was the
least of her worries. Cat racked her brains, trying to orient herself, trying
to remember the location of the huts shared by the local herders. She walked
on, staring at the ground and praying not to miss the worn manured path the
cattle made.

Fog poured around them like a river.
Sometimes she could see a few yards
ahead,
sometimes
she couldn't even see her feet. She hoped to keep the high meadows on her left,
but the grass, when she could see it, seemed sparser.

Was she actually going back up the
mountain? It was impossible to tell. Worse, she kept hearing strange sounds, a
smothered wailing.

Shepherds?
Or—a scouting wolf?

Fear gnawed at her. Without the sun, her
sense of time seemed lost as well, and it soon seemed they'd been in the fog
forever.

* * *