Red Magic (16 page)

Christoph cut his apple into sections
crowning the slice with cheese. Another servant appeared, carrying a bottle of Moselle, which he poured into fresh glasses.

"It's hard to manage," her
husband went on, "when the two servants I most rely upon want nothing more
than to stick a knife into the other's heart. I've learned to take what one
says about the other with a good deal more than a pinch of salt. And," he
concluded, "it doesn't matter to me whether Rossmann goes to Mass or not,
as long as he takes good care of my horses. Frankly, the fellow could have
horns and a tail and wander around in a cloud of brimstone and I wouldn't
dismiss him."

He smiled, but Cat had a last question.

"But why doesn't Rossmann go to
Mass?"

"Because Serbs are
Christians of the Eastern Rite, like the Russians.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a sin for him to attend our Mass."

* * *

After supper, Cat and Elsa continued with
unpacking. Cat was startled when, without a knock, Josefa swept into the room.

"I'm to help you, m'Lady. Frau Walter
sent me."

"That's not necessary." Cat
straightened and tossed a braid over her shoulder. She didn't want this saucy
creature butting in.

Josefa stood uncertainly by the door,
surprised. Caterina was very tall and could project aristocratic command when
she had to.

"Shall I go?"

"Yes, but thank you for coming and
thank Frau Walter for her thoughtfulness." Caterina used a cool tone which
would have done her mother proud, but in the next moment it was all undone.

As Josefa turned and put her hand on the
latch, Caterina added, "Josefa, I suppose I ought to go down and speak to
Frau Walter about the house." Belatedly, she'd remembered that a
conference with the housekeeper was how her mother began every morning.

"What on earth for?" Cat was left
staring at a whirl of skirts extinguished by the closing door. That's what I
get, she thought, for showing weakness.

"Impertinent." She raised her voice,
but the footsteps continued away along the corridor. "She's going to have
to learn manners. Either that or she won't be here much longer."

"Oh, but Mistress," Elsa
whispered. "She's Frau Walter's sister."

Cat shook her head. "I don't care if
she's the Queen of Sheba. She's not going to talk like that to me. I shall
speak to my—husband."

Some day, she thought, I will not stumble
over that word.

It didn't take too long to finish the work.
Elsa oohed at the sight of Cat's leather-seated riding trousers and her jackets
and hats, at the high leather riding boots, at the gloves and cloaks. There was
more of that than dresses, although Cat had been made, in the weeks before her
wedding, to stand still for fittings. There were three new dresses, but more
shifts, shirts and stockings in the trousseau than anything else.

"I pray to God," her mother had
sighed one day, "that there is someone on Heldenberg who can sew for you,
Caterina. In the meantime," she'd held up a shirt which she'd been
embroidering white-on-white, "we'll work at getting you at least a year's
worth of under things. Then we'll pray..."

When the last shirts were put away, they
went into Elsa's room. Her maid had been sleeping with the housemaids before
Caterina's arrival, so she too was just moving in. A nicked and battered chest
of drawers, a chair, and a washbasin were all the furniture. There were marks
on the walls and on the clean but badly scuffed floors.

"This is exactly like a nursery
room." The thought was spoken aloud. Cat's mother had always slept in a
middle room too, accessible on one side to daughter and her nurse and on the
other to her husband.

Elsa began taking clothing from the small
trunk, kneeling to put them away in the chest. Suddenly she recoiled.

Something, Cat saw, was already inside.
Elsa, alarmed, made a move to shove the drawer closed. Cat couldn't imagine
what might be inside, but she realized she ought to see.

"Open the drawer, Elsa."

When Elsa, looking as if the end of the
world had come, opened the drawer again, she saw a set of toy soldiers. There
were foot soldiers with pikes, a cannon, artillery men and a set of cavalrymen
mounted on a prancing horses.

Joining Elsa on the floor, Cat picked up a
horseman and turned it round in her fingers. It was beautifully carved and
painted, very much like the toys with which her father, over her mother's
objections, had indulged her.

Her heart leapt into her throat. She was
thinking of a thousand things, but chiefly of the night at the Black Swan,
where she had stood naked before her husband, had asked him with her eyes to
make love to her.

Oh, what if he had? What would she be
feeling now?

"Elsa," she said, "Elsa,
where is the child that these belong to?"

"I am sorry, Mistress. You must ask
the Herr Graf."

Cat dashed down the stairs, passing
housemaids with arms full of linen, on their way up. Skirt in hand she
continued down the corridor, past the open door of the kitchen, bustling with
the labor of autumn. Her haste, she knew, occasioned comment, but she didn't
care.

When she reached the bailiff's quarters at
the back of the house, she threw open the door without knocking. It proved to
be a spare parlor. The men at the cluttered desk turned, surprised in the
middle of looking over accounts.

Goran had been sitting near the door. He
pushed himself warily upright with the stout cane he always carried.

Cat managed to drop a curtsy to the others,
all the while fighting with fear and temper. "Herr Graf, Amtmann
Walter," she said. "Excuse me, but I must speak to the Graf.
This minute."

Christoph raised an eyebrow, but he stood,
while indicating that Walter should leave. "I will send for you again,
Herr Amtmann."

"As you wish, Herr
Graf."
Walter, with a look in Cat's
direction, bowed. He began to gather up the papers.

"Leave it." The Graf's tone left
no doubt in anyone's mind that an exit should be immediate. Helpfully, Goran
opened the door.

"Of course," Walter muttered. As
soon as he had gone through it, Goran started to follow.

"Herr Goran, please see that we aren't
disturbed."

The Croat's balding head inclined as he
closed the door.

Christoph waved her to a chair, but Cat
strode forward and thumped the little cavalryman down upon the accounts. Her
husband regarded it sadly. Then his long fingers came to take it up.

"Thank you for your restraint,
Caterina."

"Where has the child gone?"

"Children, Cat.
My
two boys, fine fellows of eight and nine, who went this spring to boarding
school."

"Did Wili know?" Caterina linked
her fingers and squeezed, damning herself for every dot of emotion she showed.

"I had no secrets from Wili."

"But you kept secrets from Mama and
Papa—and from me."

"Your father knew. As for you, we have
enough to unravel, Caterina. I thought it best to take one at a time."

Cat gritted her teeth. Every response he
made prompted more questions. It was hard to stay calm.

"Did Wili know you'd sent your boys
away?"

"They are at the good Piarist's school
in Perchtoldsdorf. I'm afraid that like you they prefer larking about on
horseback to studying." A smile came to his face, a proud paternal look
Cat recognized.

"What kind of father would I be if I
did not see to their education? They went to school this spring not only
because I would soon bring your sister here, but because it was time for them
to start taking their place in the world. I will not slight the obligation of
having fathered them." He looked straight at her. "The older is to go
to the army. The younger, who has a gentle
nature,
I
will help to civil service, perhaps."

"And Elsa's room was their nursery?
And their mother slept in the middle room?"

"For the time she was my
mistress."

The ferocious swing Cat launched was
intercepted by a strong hand.

"How dare you put me in your
mistress's room? How dare you?"

"Hush!" Christoph backed her to a
seat in his chair.

After the attempted slap, his hands had
fastened upon her wrists like manacles, so she struggled no further. Equally
constraining was a sudden awareness that half the household probably had put an
ear to the adjoining wall.

"None of your
cowardly running before I'm done talking to you."

"I'm never a coward. Damn your black
heart."

She glared. Finally, humiliating tears
welling, Caterina nodded angrily, indicating that he could go on.

"Four years ago, during one of my long
absences Barbara fell in love with a Hauptmann, a captain of my guard I'd sent
up here to recover from an illness. Three years ago, just before their daughter
was born, she and Hauptmann Ermler were married in Heldenruhe, with my
blessing."

Cat stared. Somehow, this wasn't the
narrative she'd been expecting.

"When I first found out about their
affair, I was hurt, but I had to admit it was more my pride than my heart. I
could never marry Barbara, so why shouldn't she fall in love with someone who
could?"

"But she didn't leave Heldenberg until
this spring?"

"No. She and her husband have been
living here."

"Convenient."

"Caterina," her husband replied,
"Hauptmann Ermler is attached to my body guard. Do you know how easy it is
to kill the man by your side under cover of battle? As a matter of fact, he
could have left me for the Turks last year, but he risked his neck to drag me
to safety."

"Christoph, I'm not a fool. You are
his patron. Papa says that poor men can't afford honor."

"Your father has many forcefully
expressed opinions, but, as you know yourself, Caterina, he is not always
right."

The chair into which he'd pushed her into
was more than normally high. Cat considered, swinging one foot restlessly and
staring at the squares of the slate floor. Only beneath Herr Walter's desk was
the cold gray stone covered with a Turkey carpet.

"Caterina, I'm not a monster. I wish
you had not found this," he said, turning his gaze back to the little
horseman. "I had planned to tell you about the boys as soon as you had
settled in a little. Wili and I talked over a lot of things that you and I
haven't had time to go into."

He released her hands, and began to pace in
front of the empty maw of the fireplace. Cat had no sense of this as a
performance. Christoph looked like exactly what he was, a man of action who had
been trapped by a tangle of circumstance that he couldn't cut his way out of
with a sword.

"I swear to you, just as I swore to
your sister, that Barbara and I haven't been lovers for a long time. Barbara
stayed at Heldenberg because that was what she wanted. She helped her sister,
Frau Walter, manage the house," Christoph said. "But, even if she
hadn't made herself useful, there were the boys, my sons, Caterina. There is
nowhere so healthy for young children as the country. Wili understood why it
was right for them to stay here with their mother."

"Wili would have believed the sky was
red if you'd told her so."

"Wili said she could let the past go
if I promised to be faithful. She also promised that if anything ever happened
to me during their minority, she would see that their education was completed
and suitable positions found for them."

A muscle in his strong jaw twitched,
perhaps at the memory he was conjuring. Then he said, "This spring I told
your sister that I was hers till death parted us."

Were those tears in his eyes? He cleared
his throat and continued.

"When I put the ring on your finger,
Caterina, I promised you fidelity before God and in the presence of our
families. I shall honor my promise."

Caterina's head swam. There was a rising
lump in her throat.

"If you were—were—honest with Wili,
why haven't you been so with me?"

"I've explained. What kind of Blue
Beard do you think I am?"

Caterina silently stared at her swinging
foot.

"I'm sorry that this has upset you,
Cat. I never intended for you to find out like this."

"You had six weeks before we were
married. You never visited me once."

"Your father was absolutely against
it. Frankly, I believe he thought you'd put me off and I'd refuse to go through
with the marriage."

"And if you took another wife, his
precious land would pass away from his blood."

"Yes."

Cat bit her lip. High handed, but just like
her father…