Red Magic (37 page)

It was pitch black, but finally, after
rounding a corner, Caterina saw another light. She prayed for escape, but
instead she felt the same rush of panic she'd had during her first hands and
knees journey to this place.

Emerging into the painted cave, she saw not
one, but three burning candles. Her arrival caused a draft, and the strange
animals appeared to prance wildly upon the walls.

"You will be safe here. When the
fighting starts, no one will find you."

"I'm not staying." She moved
toward the pillar and the exit she knew lay behind it.

"Not yet. It's not safe."

Cat pushed past him, but he caught her just
as she crouched to enter the dark shaft. The struggle happened in silence, for
they were both afraid of attracting the attention of the soldiers.

A month in the harem had taken its toll.
Although Rossmann lacked her husband's mass, he was extremely strong. It didn't
take him long to get her down and wrestle her hands above her head. "We
will be safe here while they kill each other. Some of Selim's men are mine.
When the real fighting starts, they'll hide. Then, when Selim Pasha's soldiers
are defeated by your husband's men, they will kill the infidels. Either way,
our escape will be easy. There will be plenty of loose horses."

Cat didn't move, hoping that he would be
lulled by her docility and not bring out those terrible silken cords again.

"You'll ride, be my wife, not my
slave." His lean, hard body forced itself against hers. "You will
give me your magic..."

As if talking to a horse he'd taken down
for a medical procedure he began a rhythmic murmur.

"Easy.
Easy now, my
beautiful Caterina."

From above came muffled alarms, rising
shouts. There was the clash of steel and crack of gunfire. Cat was terrified,
exhausted, mesmerized by the compulsion in his skillfully caressing hands.

"You know your fate." He brushed
her lips with his. "You know your new master." His hands released
hers, and moved inside her clothing. She trembled wildly, allowed him to touch,
for the moment hadn't come.

"You won't be locked away from the
sun. You will ride the wide plains, gallop with me on the finest horses. And
I'll give you pleasure—greater than you've ever known."

Every fiber of her mind concentrated. The
locket was in one hand, just as Aunt Teresina had taught her. Her fingers
touched the clasp.

"Good girl," he whispered, nuzzling
against the breast he had, without meeting any resistance, uncovered. She
gasped at the silken intensity of his touch, fought off the response which some
ancient mindless self was ready to make. Cold air raised goose flesh as his
lips moved across her nakedness.

"I won't hurt you, not now, not ever.
East and West shall breed up strong sons."

In knotted fingers Cat held it, sharp as
pain. Fiercely, she pulled her thoughts away. There must be no sign, not the
faintest
suggestion ...

Rossmann's gaze declined, prizing the
ultimate delicacy his fingers had begun to probe. That was when Caterina, in a
fluid motion perfected by years of practice, drove the gleaming steel straight
into his jugular.

* * *

Caterina's flaming red hair!

With no other thought, Christoph plunged
into the thickest part of the melee. No one and nothing must stand in his way;
death was
an impossibility
. Blood, severed limbs, and
heaving, spurting bodies marked his battle passage.

He saw her gasping with effort, in a caftan
drenched with blood. As he approached, his wife jerked a short Turkish sword
from the body of a man she'd just killed. On every side was the clash of steel,
gurgling of death.

"Cat!" he shouted, lifting his
sword, for she had lunged at him, bloody sword raised, eyes wild as
berserker's. There was deafening crash as he parried her thrust. His great
strength threw her back, but although she hit the wall and staggered, in the
blink of an eye she was on guard again.

"Caterina!
Hold!" Her upraised sword hesitated. For one of those split
seconds of battlefield eternity, Caterina stared. Suddenly, she cried:

"Rossmann's kin are waiting for you
and Selim Pasha to kill each other!"

Plunging forward, he seized her arm and
pulled her after him. "Come on!"

In a hurtling moment they were at the edge
of the now fouled pool, where their path was blocked by a sloe-eyed
enemy. Christoph parried the man's first blow; then struck like lightning,
splitting his opponent's round head like a pumpkin. His skill smashed a path
for them, and tall men roared and rallied to assist their escape.

* * *

On the plain she found Star, bucking in
wild, tail high kicks. She was saddled but that was askew, betraying that
someone had, without success, attempted to mount her.

Ignoring the danger Cat put her fingers in
her mouth, whistled and then ran forward.
"Star!
Star!
Komm!"

The
ring of steel on
steel, the flash fire of muskets, the shouts, were
behind her now. The
mare was standing about ten feet away, pawing and tossing her head, but not
making any move to run. Apparently, she'd recognized Caterina.

"Caterina!
Stop! Are you hurt?" Her husband caught her arm, spun her
around. She looked up into his eyes, knew at once what he was really asking,
all the layers of it, in and in and in, like an onion.

"It's not my blood." She gazed
down at what covered her.

She had been forced to submit to Rossmann's
hands. She was humiliated, sullied, as much as if he'd finished what he'd
started.

"This is Rossmann's blood." Her
knees shook as Christoph's arm came to enclose her. "The Pasha gave me to
him, but I killed him. Then," she ended in a tone of wonder, "I
killed those others."

The sword dropped from her hand. Raising
her eyes, she gazed into her husband's face where she saw a swarm of fears. Cat
felt sick to her soul.

"Rossmann said I had magic, said he
would get it. Oh, if it hadn't been for Teresina,
he would have."

She clung to her man, eyes spilling. She
knew she'd never forget Rossmann's face as his life pumped redly away.

Oh, but hadn't his betrayal upon betrayal
earned the deadly trick she'd played? His trap, of being her friend, her
teacher, had been such calculated bait!

"Take me home." Her words came in
a wail.

The next thing she remembered, she was on
Star, galloping away, in company with Christoph and a crowd of men, wild
Hungarians, fleeing from the
nightmare, that
bloodied
place upon the gold and endless plain.

Afterward

When her eyes opened, they met those of a
large, homely woman standing beside Christoph. Cat stared. Waking, since her
return, was always strange, a lengthy sorting through a flotsam of memory.

"Time to wake up
now, love."
He spoke gently. "It's
almost ten."

Since returning to Heldenberg, she'd found
herself capable of sleeping through whole days. He sat down on the edge of the
bed as Caterina righted herself and rubbed her eyes like fretful child waking
from a nap. He patted her back.

"This is Trudchen. I sent a messenger
to your father's and they have sent us this lady to replace our Elsa. Trudchen
tells me she was raised on your Aunt Teresina's farm, that your Aunt taught her
everything. She says she remembers you when you were just a child."

Trudchen.
Cat searched her memory. Had there been a Trudchen at Auntie T's?

"I am the one who nursed you after you
got the spider bite, Grafin. Or perhaps you remember 'Die Barin' better."

"Oh, Trudchen!
Of course, I'm sorry." Now Cat did remember, especially the
teasing nickname "She Bear." Even as a youngster, Trudchen had been a
square block of fat and muscle.

"Now, my love," said Christoph,
"here is a good woman to help you."

Herr Stocke, after the dismissal of the
Walters, had stepped easily into the bailiff's role, but without a chatelaine
in the house, even with Cat's best efforts, the housekeeping had been
haphazard.

"Trudchen says that devotion to the
Tannuci women is bred in her bones. Lucky your mama knew Trudchen could come to
us."

The passage of years had not made Trudchen
any more handsome. The plain face now had a moustache, yet high intelligence
shone in her brown eyes. Cat remembered that this taciturn female had been
among her Aunt's human favorites. Now she wondered if she had also been a
recipient of Aunt Teresina's special knowledge…

As Cat's memory worked on the subject of
Trudchen, she came across another reason for her mother's choice. She
remembered that Trudchen had studied midwifery with her aunt. Although Cat had
bled during their journey home, a future use for Trudchen's skills was not an
unreasonable supposition.

* * *

Winter had come and gone again and now the
spring moon grew round over Heldenberg. Beyond, in the misty paddock, she could
see the horses and cattle, some standing, some sleeping. Somewhere among them
was Star.

Caterina, waiting for her husband to come
for dinner, stood at the triple windows in his room and admired the light that
silvered the grounds. It seemed impossible that once she had looked through the
bars of the seraglio into an exquisite garden, one that had bloomed equally
with flowers and her despair.

She lit a candle, leaned against the window
and gazed at the distended moon, tonight rising south and low. In the west the
summer triangle was rising, blazing Altair and blue Vega, Dench in Cygnus the
Swan, those star names that Rossmann had taught her only a year ago. Suddenly,
Cat saw herself galloping upon a golden plain beside an upright, lithe man. She
wore black, a yashmak modestly covering all but her eyes, riding astride in
those loose pants. Rossmann would have had his other wives—but would she have
truly cared? She would have had Star; she would have had the strange beauty of
that endless sky. But Rossmann's bones moldered beneath the dancing red horses.
He'd played a great game, for his honor—and for Red Caterina—and he'd lost
everything.

And what, Cat thought, suddenly ashamed, of
her husband, who'd come through such peril to her rescue? A true rake would
have shrugged and left her to her fate, counted
himself
lucky to be relieved of trouble, made cheerful preparation to inherit the von
Velsen lands without his bothersome cousin.

Overcome, Cat put her head in her hands and
wept.

* * *

When the door opened and Christoph strode
through, she went straight into his arms. She wore a beautiful flowing undress
gown they'd purchased in Vienna, lavender silk embroidered with flowers, but instead
of having her hair piled and intertwined with scarves as a Viennese beauty
would, Cat's thick red hair was left flowing, an astonishing wealth which now
fell almost to her knees. Two fine braids made of the front tresses held back
the red torrent.

She raised her mouth and he kissed her
warmly.

"Exactly the sugar I was hoping
for."

Cat hugged him tight. There were no doubts
anymore about the depth of his devotion. In Vienna, he'd gone straight to the Emperor and
asked for permission to leave military service. At first the Emperor had been
angry, unwilling to let such a successful commander go, but after he heard the
young couple tell their story, he had relented.

"Sitting with just one candle?"
Christoph studied her face with an expression of concern. "And what are
these?" Long fingers touched her wet cheek.

"Don't worry. I, I was just
thinking—and I shouldn't do that, I guess."

He drew her into the moonlit window seat.
"You know you can tell me."

At first she was silent, turning to gaze at
the silver figures of the pastured horses. Christoph didn't pursue with
questions, just held her in that safest place, cradled against his chest. After
awhile he suggested, "It was about Rossmann, wasn't it?"

Caterina sighed, turned her face against
his waistcoat.

"I miss him too." He held her
close, so close she could hear his heart beating. "I often think of him
now that we're here. I miss his wit and his good advice. Rossmann had our
friendship, but that didn't stop him from plotting our destruction. He was a
being of pride and mind, not ruled by his heart like the two of us."
Tenderly Christoph kissed the top of her head. "He left you no choice but
to play the game exactly as he did."

In bed these days he was incredibly tender,
understanding of all her new fears and hesitations.

"There, there, Caterina. There, there,
my beautiful love."