Red Magic (36 page)

The back of the cave was slimy and green.
From above there came a whispery squeaking. Glancing up, Caterina saw a black
moving mass. It was, she realized, an untold number of bats clinging to the
ceiling.

"Quickly now, or you'll need to
bathe," Rossmann said as he followed her gaze.

His candle moved ahead. After a brief climb
through a maze of wet, oddly rounded rocks, his light illuminated another low,
narrow tunnel.

"Rossmann, where are you going?"
Cat cried. "Come back."

"You'll have to crawl," he
replied over his shoulder, "but it is important that you see the back
door."

His tone was encouraging and his light was
receding, so, having no other choice, Caterina dropped to her knees and
followed. After a few twists and turns of scuffling, claustrophobic crawling
after his outline, she saw him get to his feet. When she reached the same spot,
he extended a hand to help her.

The candle in his hand flickered. Caterina
saw that they were in the bottom of a dripping, and—except for the
light—utterly black hole. Rossmann was turning, shining the candle on the
walls, seeking and finally finding the mouth of yet another opening.

"Inside of this next one is what the
old ones painted. It's just as I told you the night Star dropped her foal. You,
of all people, Lady—must see."

"What? I thought you were showing me a
way out."

"It's through here." On hands and
knees, neatly balancing the light, Rossmann disappeared again. His enthusiasm
for the tour they were making seemed crazy. Cat swallowed her fear, got down on
her knees and again followed.

After a blessedly short crawl, she found
Rossmann. He was standing, holding the candle high.

As soon as Cat looked about, she forgot her
fear. The walls of this tiny space were covered with paintings, paintings of
animals. The colors were bright and fresh, the execution spirited. She
recognized cattle, elk, deer and horses, but besides these more ordinary
creatures, there were animals she'd never seen before. One was large, furry,
and sported a trunk.

"
An—
an—elephant?"
She'd had to make a brief mental search to find the name. "Here?"

"Yes. So it seems. It must have been
much wetter in those times. Elephants are very big, you know, eat much."

"Have you seen elephants, Herr
Rossmann?"

"Yes, I have. They are wise, perhaps
the wisest of creatures, but they are very dangerous to their keepers."

"Where did you see them?"

His bright eyes turned thoughtfully upon
her.
"In Africa."

"I thought these lands were your home
place."

"They are, but I have traveled."

The mystery of Rossmann seemed never
ending. Cat returned to studying the beauty and energy of the drawings, pushed
away the persistent unsettled sense of-something-not-right she'd felt from the
moment they'd entered this dank place.

Among, and sometimes atop, the gamboling
animals were hand prints, spirals and squiggly lines. In spite of the fresh,
bright colors, Cat instinctively knew that these creatures had been painted a
very long time ago.

"This is the Cave of the Red Horse.
It's a place a woman with your gift should see."

He raised his candle and threw light high
up, upon a painting Cat hadn't yet noticed. Almost directly overhead, a fat red
horse galloped. A long legged foal was in full stretch, close by her mother's
side.

"Oh! She's beautiful!"

"Yes. She's the guardian of the cave.
Long ago a witch lived here. It was said that if a man took her, he'd be a Lord
upon this plain, that he would have many sons, many cattle and horses. If her
magic resisted him, though, he must die."

He told her this in a sing song tone, like
someone reciting a fairy tale. As he spoke, the exhaustion that hummed in her
every limb intensified. Caterina felt unspeakably weary, drained…

"I am dizzy, Herr Rossmann. Let's go
out."

"Of course.
In fact, here is the exit, just behind this rock."

He walked to a pale stone pillar dripping
with water, and abruptly vanished behind it. Following, Cat confronted a deeper
darkness than the one they'd just come from, a passage as small as the first.

"Watch your head."

Sucking in a breath, Caterina followed.
After a far-too-long spell of weary crawling, bumping her knees and her head
painfully in that pitch black shaft, Cat again caught sight of his back-lit,
scuffling form.

"It's brushy," he called,
"but you should have no trouble getting through."

There was a loud rustling and crackling
ahead. Although the sudden light was blinding, she hastened towards it. Anxiety
at a fever pitch, she pushed through a mass of vines around the opening.
Blinking, scrambling to her feet, Caterina found herself facing the sunset on
the gently slumping backside of Witches' Head. The slope was dotted with
grotesquely bent trees and boulders like a set of worn teeth. At her back, the
bald rose in a pale, smooth dome. Cat turned this way and that, brushing
herself
off while squinting into the low light. Rossmann was
nowhere to be seen. A horse whinnied; a horse that Caterina knew wasn't Star.

Chapter Twenty

One pair of rough hands seized her braid,
while a second pair wrenched her arms painfully behind her back. A cruel dark
face closed on hers.

"Lady von Hagen," the man said,
carefully enunciating German. "I am Pasha Selim." From out of the
thicket below, armed men appeared. Rossmann tied her wrists with an
all-too-familiar fine, silken cord.

She struggled, but after the tightened
knots bit into her wrists, she gave up. Exhaustion and defeat fell upon her
like two huge stones.

"Exactly as you desired, Great
Lord," Rossmann said, in an obsequious tone. His tough hand caught
Caterina by the back of the neck and roughly pushed her to her knees.

"Uninjured, I trust?"

"Yes, Great Lord and Cousin."

"And Graf von Hagen will be here at
dawn," the Pasha smiled slightly. His eyes were black, fiercely
intelligent, like Rossmann's eyes, but Cat thought his smile joyless as a
serpent's.

"Yes, Great Lord."

"And I shall have my revenge. I shall
steal his wife, I shall kill his men and then my torturer shall have him. He
shall pay for what he did on the field of Isvestia."

The Pasha turned to his soldiers, said
something bombastic in his own language. Perhaps it was the same speech, for
they cheered and waved their swords.

The sun was dropping like a bloody ball
below the plain, dying the bald, the men and their weapons in scarlet. Cat
swayed, nearly fell.

Blood.
More blood.
Tomorrow she'd see another
battle, more death—perhaps that of her husband. She would use the Protector and
take one of them with her…"

"Rossmann!
You devil!"

He had not let go of her hair, and now he
jerked her back.

"I am Nijaz, a Ban, as great a Lord as
your husband. From now on this is how you will address me. My Cousin Selim
promises me many things for bringing your husband into his power—and you are
the first of them." The smile that grew across his face became enormous,
almost boyish. "You are nothing but an infidel and my slave, but if you
give me sons, Caterina, I shall make you my wife."

There may have been more to the speech, but
it came to an abrupt end when she spat. Rossmann returned the favor with an
open handed slap which rang like a shot and sent her to her knees. Tears rushed
into her eyes and she nearly fainted.

"Your husband comes," the Pasha
sneered, "like a lovesick fool, right into our trap. Imagine risking one's
life for a woman! He drew close and murmured, "Tomorrow he shall be on his
knees before me. Before his torture begins, he shall know that you are a
slave." Steely fingers on her neck, Rossmann directed Caterina down the
slope to the mouth of the cave. Once there, he pushed her to the ground and
then gracefully sat cross legged beside her. The yashmak that she'd left behind
he fastened upon her again, now with a strangely gentle hand.

Armed men, swords tucked through their
bright sashes, came to squat nearby. No fires were lit. Food was brought out of
pouches, more dried fruit, dried meat and hard biscuit.

* * *

As the light died, the men ate; their
language grated in her ears. The Pasha and Rossmann sat together, the Pasha
sharing his food with
Rossmann,
a thing Ayhan had
taught was a high mark of honor. After the men had eaten, Cat was fed, although
her hands remained bound.

Rossmann himself put small pieces of fruit
and biscuit into her mouth. When she spat out the first piece, the Pasha
shouted, "It's the last time he'll be serving you, woman, so enjoy it.
After tomorrow, you will serve him or you will die."

Rossmann, however, took her resistance
calmly. "You had better eat. You will need strength for what is to come,
Caterina."

How she hated him! His betrayal was a
knife, but this time she opened her mouth and took the dried apricot he
offered. She chewed it thoroughly and then swallowed.

He was right. She must be strong. She must
be ready, ready to seize any opening. Tomorrow it was escape or death—there
would be no second chances.

"Our ways are strange to you, but you
will learn. If you obey me, I shall not pen you inside the harem. We will live
in tents upon the plain. We will follow herds, those of my family. You will
wear the yashmak, but you will ride, Caterina, ride with me."

Solicitously, he raised a dipper of water
to her lips. She drank, but answered not a word.

"Tomorrow I shall take your
magic," he said. "I shall lie with you beneath the Red Horse, in the
heart of the cave. It is Kismet. From the moment I saw your beautiful mare and
your power over horses, I knew you were the woman linked by magic with this
place, the woman a Ban of my lineage must possess."

Cat tried to keep her face expressionless,
to show no fear, but a shudder shook her, one which seemed to rise straight
from some ancient, unremembered past.

"This is your destiny. Every step away
from Heldenberg has been one towards me." He leaned close. Desire,
intelligence—madness—shone in his pale, intense face.

She wanted to scream denial. Horrible to
think that she'd been fooled into thinking he was a friend—a companion!
Shameful to think that she had been weakened so much by need, by a stranger's
flattery, that she had allowed herself to risk so many lives.

Rossmann hands traveled slowly, caressing
her arms. The comfort he was intent upon sending came, despite her hatred.

Whatever he willed was always strong…

"There are many ways to give even a
reluctant woman pleasure." He whispered close to her ear.

"I'd rather die."

"Silence, slave!" said the Pasha.
"If you don't please Ban Nijaz, there are soldiers here who would—"

"Ah, Honored Sir, I beg you not to
threaten her. It's not my way with either horses or women. She will obey me,
just as they do."

"And your horses are always
magnificently trained," the Pasha conceded. "Well, have your way. If
she were mine, I'd flog
her,
teach her once and for
all who is master."

"If I must, Caterina," Rossmann
said, putting a hand beneath the yashmak to touch her chin, "I'll force
you. Soon, beneath the red horse, you will give me your magic."

It was a long night, but somehow there was
sleep. Exhaustion finally dragged her into blessed non-existence.

She awoke abruptly, jerked into
consciousness by the awareness of his face close to hers. Pain made her gasp,
every muscle aching from the bound tension in which she'd slept. "Come
now," he whispered. Caterina drew her long legs close to her body, shook
her head. "We'll go through the cave." He'd bent close and now he
whispered against her ear. "Your husband and his men are behind the
bald." As he spoke, Rossmann cut the silken bonds that held her hands, her
ankles.

Once again he had set her free!

Cat was half asleep, limbs tingling numb,
but she rose and walked. Rossmann's arm tightened as he guided her into the
dark opening of the crawl space.

As before, the air was cold and foul. The
distant gleam of a candle illuminated the way ahead.

"Is someone there?"

"No," Rossmann said.
"Hurry!"

A knee-bruising traverse later, they
reached the first candle. It was wavering on the floor of that apparently
topless fissure.

As he moved unerringly towards the next
passage, he said, "There are Croats and Hungarians outside. Your husband
is with them. We all have scores to settle with Selim Pasha. "Now,"
he commanded, "crawl through here..."