Borne in Blood (17 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Occult & Supernatural, #Guardian and Ward, #Vampires, #Nobility, #blood, #Paramours, #Switzerland
“Well, if you
will
drive gray horses …” she said. “They show every speck of dust and grime.”
will
drive gray horses …” she said. “They show every speck of dust and grime.”
“That they do,” he said. “I’ll want to clean my pistols and charge them again.”
“Will you trust your team to your grooms?” she asked.
“If they were the liver sorrels, I would probably brush them down myself. But these Kladrubers are not so attached to their people as the liver sorrels are.” He watched a cat with a mouse in its jaws sneak past the trough and into an alley between two closed buildings. “The horses will need three days of rest after such work as they have had.”
“Will you bring the liver sorrels back from Liège any time soon?” Hero asked. “I do so like them.”
“I may do. They’ll be at Château Ragoczy before winter, that much I can assure you.” He patted the shoulder of the on-side leader as he made his way around toward the door. He began to wonder how much longer Gutesohnes would take for a quick meal; they should be under way soon, he told himself as he checked the horses’ mouths, hoping the escape from the highwaymen had not damaged them. He had examined the Kladruber’s legs and feet by the time Gutesohnes sauntered back, a sly smile beginning to spread over his face, a bottle of cherry cider in his hand.
“The highwaymen we encountered live in the village up the hill, or so the locals claim. There are nine of them, seven of them were soldiers in Napoleon’s army, and have found no way to earn a living but banditry.” He handed the bottle to Ragoczy, then grabbed the rail and pulled himself up into the driving-box. “They claim they have tried to get the authorities to remove them from this region, that the bandits are all strangers in the region. The landlord of the tavern offered to buy them passage to America.” He laughed—and the sound revealed that he was still shaken from their get-away—and occupied himself with pulling the reins into his hands. “Best get inside, or I may go without you, Comte.” He winked broadly to indicate he was joking, not insubordinate.
“You’ve had a tankard or two of beer, I assume, and will be calmer shortly,” said Ragoczy as he climbed up the steps, pulled them up, and closed the door. After he gave the cider to Hero, he tapped the ceiling of the coach to signal that he was ready to depart.
“Is he capable of driving safely?” Hero asked as Ragoczy settled across from her. She began to pry the wax-sealed lid from the bottle, using her pen-knife in her reticule to do it. Settling back against the squabs, she reached for a travel cup in the holder next to the hand-strap, and poured out about a third of the contents of the bottle.
“Oh, yes. This wildness is much more nerves than drink. He is still half-expecting the robbers to resume their chase, and to be forced to risk the team in out-running them.” He felt the coach begin to move off at a decorous pace. “You see? There is no reason to worry: the horses will keep him honest. They came through the chase well enough, but the off-side wheeler has a cut on his leg that I suspect is from a bit of flying rock from the roadway. It will need dressing tonight, and perhaps again tomorrow night.”
“When we will be back at your château,” she said quietly.
“So I imagine we will be, if that one stretch of road is still holding its repairs,” said Ragoczy as the coach moved on into the lovely early afternoon. Above them seraphic clouds drifted, serene as plainsong, impervious to the crags of rock and ice below, and too exalted to dally over the orchards and field farther down the flanks of the mountains. Orchards and vineyards hung with fruit and the fields were shaggy with grain or filled with grazing cattle, goats, and sheep. The worst of the summer heat had passed, and although the day was warm, it was not stifling.
“When do you expect to come to Lausanne?” Hero yawned, nearly dropping the travel cup as she attempted to block her open mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry. All the excitement is catching up with me.”
“Do you want to rest?” he asked, reaching for the concealed lever that would transform the two seats into a bed.
“Yes, but in Lausanne,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “If the day starts to close in and we are still on the road, then I might change my mind, but not just now. Now I want to doze. I wish it could be like this when I travel to visit my children, but it will be rainy or snowing by the time I depart for Austria.”
“At least you will finally spend time with your children,” said Ragoczy, aware that the Graf von Scharffensee had hoped to discourage Hero’s visit by choosing the most inclement part of the year for it.
She smiled wistfully. “I know I have done the right thing, putting them in their grandfather’s hands, but I cannot help but miss them.” She drank nervously, clearing her throat between sips.
“Perhaps he will relent when he sees how much good your visit does them.” He doubted that would be the case, but he was prepared to encourage her as much as possible.
“Do you think they’ll be glad to see me—my children?” she asked, and very nearly held her breath as she waited for him to answer.
“I cannot see why they shouldn’t,” he answered. “You haven’t been cruel to them.”
“They might think so, I have been away so long.” She bit her lower lip and poured out more cider.
“You children probably understand why, in their own way: children comprehend so much more than we assume they do.” He stroked her hand. “Do not fear that you have been supplanted in their hearts by their grandfather. They must long for you, as all children long for their parents.”
“Are you certain of that?” She had intended to snap at him, but this was a cry of hopelessness.
“Children may deny their longing, and they may claim to have forgotten it, but very few of them actually do,” he said. “I’ve observed that for myself, down the centuries. Yours cannot be so different, can they.”
“I try to anticipate a good reception, but I don’t expect one.” She looked out at the distant spire of a church. “What village is that, do you know?”
“I regret to say I do not,” he answered, recognizing her desire to say nothing more about her coming visit to Scharffensee. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “We have cheese and water and wine still, and a few of those Viennese rolls left.” He indicated the small door behind her head that held the food he mentioned.
“No. I will in a while, but just now I’m not ready to eat. The cider will suffice.” She put the tips of her fingers together. “We are going along at a good speed, considering. I think your grays could trot forever. For now, I want to look out the window and see nothing but the mountains and the river and the sky.”
“Very well,” he told her, and kissed her gently before moving back in his seat, where he remained, silent and a bit preoccupied for nearly twenty minutes while she finished her cider and returned the cup to its holder.
“It saddens me to see the seasons change,” she remarked as she handed the empty cider-bottle to him.
“Everything changes, soon or late,” he said, and was still for another quarter hour. Then he began to speak again, as if continuing a conversation. “There was a time, many centuries ago, shortly after I first came to Egypt,” said Ragoczy distantly, “when I often wondered, when I wakened from sleep, if I had died the True Death in my stupor but did not know it. I began to think that perhaps everything I did was the imagining of the dead, that I had not survived but would not admit I had not survived, and so repeated everything I had done in life, but only in my un-dead mind. It took a girl bitten by a rabid dog to jolt me out of that cocoon of delusion.”
Hero looked up, mildly startled. “What?”
“It was a long time ago, of course, and I am certain that I was still recovering from the many decades I had spent as a demon in a Babylonian oubliette.” He stared off at the mountains beyond the coach. “I had nothing but my own loneliness and the fear of the sacrifices I was regularly provided to sustain me. Being taken to Egypt was the first step in my awakening.” He considered the past in silence.
“When did you arrive in Egypt?” She was intrigued and wary at once, not prepared to hear anything she disliked.
“A very long time ago. They took me to Memphis first.”
“Who was Pharaoh?” she asked. “Do you remember? Do you recall anything from so long ago?”
“Many of those things would be better forgotten,” he said bluntly. “Yet I recall so much of that time.”
“Then you do remember?” She looked surprised at this admission. “Truly?”
He nodded slowly. “It was fifteen hundred years before the Christian calendar, and Pharaoh was Hatshepsut.” He tried to think of something to say that would reassure Hero; he laughed once, softly. “Hatshepsut was a woman, very imposing and capable, as she had to be to be Pharaoh. She came aboard the ship on which I traveled and I was presented to her as a captive. I had never seen anyone like her.”
“Did you love her?” Hero asked, then put her hand to her mouth, shamefaced. “I didn’t mean that. It was spiteful of me to speak so.”
“No. I did not love anyone then. At my best, I was indifferent.” He leaned back as much as the seat of the coach would allow. “Not that a foreign slave would be allowed anywhere near Pharaoh without all her guards around her, and the priests. No, they had better uses for me than as an oddity to entertain Pharaoh: I was made a slave of the Temple of Imhotep, and assigned to care for the dying.”
“How awful,” said Hero with distaste, for she had seen field hospitals and knew what they were. “How did you manage?”
“Indifferently, at first, both in skill and in attitude. I cared only that the priests were satisfied with my work, nothing more.” He felt the road begin to dip again, and said, “Lausanne is about two hours ahead, I think.”
“If all goes well,” she said.
“If all goes well,” he agreed. “I doubt we’ll have any trouble on this stretch of road. It is well-traveled once the crossroad is reached, in about half a league.” He put his hands together, fingertips touching lightly. “And if there are no more difficulties, we should be at Château Ragoczy before dark tomorrow. We will depart early and travel as far as Saint-Gingolph before resting. If we arrive late in the day, we will not continue, but spend the night there. If we have made good speed, we will go on. The horses will suffer otherwise.” He looked over at her. “I hope you will not be too disappointed if we have to wait an extra day to return.”
“No. No, but I am weary of travel.”
“As am I,” he said, and fell to watching the sky and the lengthening shadows. “The Kladrubers are wearier still, and Gutesohnes along with them.”
The coach passed the crossroad at Renens-en-Haut and continued on toward the lake. There were more houses now, and the promise of a town ahead—Renens—and the road to Lausanne. Gutesohnes pulled the team to a jog-trot and steadied them through increasing traffic. At one point he halted them completely to permit six mounted dragoons to go past them, then set the team moving again.
“I could see the other coach, about a league behind us, while we waited for the dragoons,” Gutesohnes called down to Ragoczy.
“Very good. They’ve closed the gap. I am sure they made an easier passage through the mountains than we did.” Ragoczy saw Hero shudder miserably; he softened his voice. “It is over. The highwaymen are gone. We need only concern ourselves with pickpockets and sneak-thieves.”
“What a consoling thought,” she said, too brightly.
“You understand the risks all travelers take in strange towns,” he said, so levelly that she managed to gesture agreement without any sharp words. “It is wise to keep in mind that travelers’ inns often cater to those who prey upon them as well as the travelers.”
“Why should I fear, since I am with you?” Her banter fooled neither of them, for it was clear from her demeanor that the threat of being robbed frightened her.
“And you will stay in the private parlor I engage for your use. As soon as Rogier is with us, I will task him with ensuring you are not exposed to the unmannerly fellows who are bound to be in the taproom.”
The coach lurched to a stop, and Gutesohnes called down, “Sorry. There are pigs loose on the road.”
This simple announcement set Hero to giggling, the first indication of her release of tension. “Pigs.”
“Probably being driven home from market,” said Ragoczy calmly.
Her giggling continued. “I sound so … missish. I don’t … You’d think I’d never traveled before.”
“You are trying to reassure yourself,” he said. “That escape this morning was very frightening.”
“Even for you?” Her spurt of laughter made her look about in chagrin. “I don’t mean anything … wrong.”
The coach began to move again, and Gutesohnes called down, “Which inn?”
“Le Corbeau et Hibou,” answered Ragoczy.
“I know the place,” Gutesohnes assured him, adding, “The team is very tired.”
“They have had a hard day,” Ragoczy agreed.
Hero had brought her unmirthful laughter under control, and now she said, “You’re very understanding, Comte. But I am appalled to think such a minor disruption could work such a change in me.”
He took her hands in his own. “I know you have been about the world, and seen many things, but that does not mean that you are immune from fright. The chase this morning was fairly brief, but it well and truly rattled me. I expect it did much the same for you.”
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