Red Magic (29 page)

Star's elegant head began to angle back and
forth, nervously scenting a freshening wind. Her fine ears swiveled,
then
pricked. The night had been dead still, but now a cold
blew down from the heights.

A strange sound, a kind of wailing, came
with it. The forest shook and sighed. Caterina had felt quite brave, even alone
in the thin moonlight, but at this eerie noise every hair on the back of her
neck stood up.

"Ready the gun!"

"No need, Mistress." Rossmann
added something under his breath, something not in German. "Star will
catch your fear. It's not wolves. See?"

He lifted an arm, pointed up the dark flank
of the mountain. Cat, following his gesture, saw a slim rising tongue of fire.

"They won't bother us. It is hexerei.
Witches."

Cat's jaw dropped, but Rossmann was matter-of-fact.

"On May Eve they dance. They sing and
drink." Contemptuously, he spat. Cat couldn't tell whether it was witches
who elicited his disgust or the notion of drinking alcohol. His abstinence made
another strong argument for those who believed him to be Muslim.

"Real witches?"
Caterina felt her knees tremble. "My father said there was no
such thing."

"They are real and they are
everywhere.
In my country too."
The mare was
pushing the foal with her nose, trying to get it onto its spindly legs.

"Where is your country,
Rossmann?" Cat had always wanted to ask. She'd heard so many tall tales,
and now, alone, it seemed the moment to dare it.

"Far away east.
Through the forests and then to where they disappear.
By the Tisza
River where the great
Hungarian plains lie beneath the sky."

"Plains?
All flat? All pasture?"

"Yes, but wider and drier than you,
Mistress, have ever seen. The sky comes down to meet the waving grass. Horses
and cattle roam there."

"Is that where you learned so much
about animals?"

"Yes, Mistress.
My family owned great herds."

Above them on the mountain, a strongly
rhythmic, robust chant began. Rossmann looked away.

"On the mountain—they—sound
happy," Cat hesitantly suggested.

"Well, magic is sometimes good."

"But the priests say they are
bad."

"Pardon me, Mistress, but your priests
are ignorant men. Hexerei pray for things peasant and noble alike need—for good
harvests, for many lambs and calves, for strong children."

He was staring at her now, staring as if he
had cat's eyes, could pierce the darkness to see straight down to the depths of
her soul. Cat's skin prickled. She could almost feel his mind reaching to touch
hers, just as he did with the horses. Suddenly she was not only nervous about
wolves and witches, but about the mysterious Herr Rossmann too.

"When I was a boy," Rossmann said
softly, "my grandfather took me to see a hexe. She lived in a cave in the
one high place I'd ever seen. She did good sometimes and evil sometimes, but on
that day she gave me a present."

"A present?"
His confidential, whispery tone sent shivers along Cat's spine.

"The power over
horses."

Curiosity instantly overcame her alarm.

"Is that why Star was so quick to let
you handle her?"

"In the Cave of the Red Horse, the
power was given to me."

"The Cave of the Red
Horse?"

"A very powerful
place, Mistress.
The ancient ones painted many
animals on the walls, many cattle and horses, many creatures that have gone
away to far lands, many animals that no longer live on those plains, or
anywhere else, I think."

The foal was up now, tottering on those
long legs and nosing for a teat. Star, despite her skittishness with humans,
was a surprisingly calm mother. She gently nudged the baby close.

"And where did you meet your hexe,
Mistress?"

"What?" Caterina couldn't quite
believe her ears.

"The one who gave
you your power."

Her tongue became immovable, but Caterina
felt the compulsion of his eyes. It was as if she were a horse he was talking
into standing still for something that would hurt. Reflexively, her hand flew
to the Protector.

"I've—I've—never met a hexe. My Aunt
Tanucci taught me about animals, but it wasn't magic, it was just learning to
understand their ways—" Her voice trailed away as she recalled, with a chill,
the sacrifice her Aunt's peasants had made.

"My hexe gave me a mark," said
Rossmann in a voice filled with soft persuasion. "It was a blue spiral. Do
you have one?"

Cat knew this was wildly impertinent, but
she could not control the surge of panic that followed. It was all she could do
to keep from running away across the pasture.

"No!" she cried. Her hand gripped
the locket. "What do you mean?"

"I apologize if I have upset you,
Mistress." Rossmann's gaze shifted away, as if his question had never been
asked. "It is a thing of my people. Ah, look! The foal suckles."

It was a welcome distraction, the sight of
that delicate head tucked under her mother's belly. Cat rejoiced to see it, for
this meant they could soon go back to the barn. There they'd be out of the
darkness, away from the wolves, witches, Rossmann's weird conversation and
whatever other mysteries lurked tonight on the shoulders of Heldenberg.

That was when a movement by that nearby
outcropping attracted her eye. This time, instead of anger, she felt an
enormous wave of relief. In spite of the lure of May Day festivities, she and
Rossmann were not alone.

* * *

Not much later she was able to slip a lead
on Star's halter. The mare was fidgety, but with her mistress' soothing, she
allowed herself to be led, allowed Rossmann to pick up the long-legged
baby and put her across the pony's back. Caterina, who had already mounted
steadied the damp, wondering creature in her arms.

"I've worried you." Rossmann
spoke again as they set off for the barn.

Caterina didn't reply.

"I am sorry, Mistress. Sometimes I
forget that I am not on the plains, that this is more—ah—civilized." Cat
caught the tone. She had come to realize that he often spoke ironically.
"That, up there…" She indicated the still visible flare of orange,
"is not what I would call civilized."

"Perhaps, but many folk share it. Best
you say nothing about what you saw. Many of your best peasants are on the
mountain tonight and your priests still burn witches. And after the hunting of
witches starts, no one—neither high nor low—is safe."

Cat nodded, only too vividly remembering
the cruelties that had followed the burial of her aunt.

"They are mistaken about the nature of
God, Mistress, but hexerei know many useful things. Where they are all destroyed,
much wisdom is lost."

In this speech Caterina heard an echo of
the rationalist professor Herr Stocke waxing philosophical, saying that the
search for knowledge was the one eternal and unchanging goal of mankind.

"Some thought my Aunt Teresina was a
hexe," Cat admitted as they slowly walked along. "After she died, the
rumor brought suffering to her peasants. Believe me, Herr
Rossmann,
I know how to keep silent."

* * *

By the time they made their slow way back
to the barn, pink fingers were tracing the east. Only a thin trail of smoke
remained visible upon the mountain.

A couple of men were approaching, emerging
from the cover of the eastern forest. Cat wasn't particularly surprised to see
that it was Goran and one of the younger grooms. As they drew closer, she saw
how tired they looked. Obviously they had spent the night keeping watch over
her.

Goran played his part well, jesting about
"staying to watch the pretty country
girls
dance
at Heldenruhe". Then he solemnly congratulated Caterina on the safe delivery
of her new "baby". She accepted his congratulations with pleasure.

After lifting the foal down, Rossmann and
Cat led the horses to a box stall which had been prepared with fresh straw, a
good feed of oats and a bucket of water. Star swiveled her ears and her dark
eyes rolled.

She was rather nervous about all the people
who came to look, but she let Cat lead her. The baby, already stronger, walked
along beside her, whisking a stubby little tail.

Soon there was a small crowd as servants
and the milkmaids came to admire Star's foal. Everyone looked tired, much the
worse for wear. Wherever they'd been celebrating, down in Heldenruhe, or up on
the mountain, they seemed cheerful, in spite of the fact that they still had a
day's work to get through.

"I hoped the foal would be a white,
like the beautiful Papa," said a young milkmaid. How pretty she looked
with that wilted wreath of spring flowers in her hair! "But she's exactly
like her mother."

"Exactly," A tall, lanky groom
agreed.

They watched as the foal, her blonde tail
waggling, began to feed. Star stood still, her elegant head turning from side
to side, regarding her well wishers solemnly.

"She looks so proud."

"Just as any mother of a fine babe
ought to be," said Herr Goran.

Caterina felt an edge to this. It seemed to
her that everyone, from Elsa to the grooms, had lately been keeping up a
constant stream of praise for motherhood. Suddenly, Caterina wished with all
her heart that Christoph were here, standing beside her. She knew he too would
be delighted to see this new, beautiful creature.

"What will you call her, Grafin von
Hagen?"

"I think Mai would be perfect."

Everyone present smiled and nodded
agreement, while Caterina fingered her locket and pondered all the queer
happenings of the night just passed.

* * *

"My Dear Christoph," Caterina
slowly wrote. "Star dropped her foal on the first day of May before dawn.
Rossmann and I were ready for she seemed restless and insisted upon staying way
up in the north pasture. Rossmann got his gun, but no wolves came down, thank
heaven, and thank Saint Brigitte—and some others—who watched over us. We didn't
get back until sunrise because the pasture is so steep and the pony he'd
brought had to go slowly. I named the foal Mai for the day and she is so much like
her dam. She grows more nimble and frisky every hour. I am down in the barn
every day with them but Herr Stocke will tell you that I do not neglect my
studies or attending to the business of your house."

Caterina hoped that was right. She was
certain Christoph would be delighted to hear about Star's foal. Suddenly, she
wondered if Christoph knew about the May Day fires on the Heldenberg, but
decided that as Rossmann advised, the less said the better.

Now, she thought, for the hard part, the
part she'd tried to write over and over again. From a pigeon hole in the desk
she withdrew a paper, one covered with many blots and scratchings out, and
slowly began to copy from it.

"I know that I am not a good
housekeeper as Wili would have been but I am following the housekeeper although
she does not like it and I am learning. Widow Lotz is nicer than Ute ever was
and a good teacher too."

Cat sighed and studied this last part. Did
it need commas? Then, unbidden, intruding upon her grammatical meditations, the
terrible image of Wili's limp body appeared, the light gone forever from her
kind eyes.

"Oh, dear Wili," Cat sighed the
words aloud. "I know you forgave him. You always did. Now I must learn to
do that and to trust him too. That woman in Vienna fell in love with him and I know
exactly how it happened. Just like you always said, dear Wili, cruelty is easy.
It's love that's hard."

Cat bent over the paper again, dipped the
quill and tapped it on the edge of the well, praying she wouldn't blot the so
far perfect letter.

"I shall trust to your honor and to
your judgment and also hope you were able to help the lady through her trouble
to whom you are obligated."

She paused and nibbled on the feather,
wanting to get the words just right. Finally she copied from her practice
sheet:

"If it is your wish that I remain at
Heldenberg, I shall and endeavor to do my duty as your wife because it is the
will of my parents and of my Oncle Rupert and also..."

Cat paused, consulted her heart and then
wrote in a swift scrawl, "
because
it is my
greatest and most carefully considered desire.
Your wife, who
prays every day for your safety and for your speedy return.
Caterina,
Grafin von Hagen."

Chapter Seventeen