Red Magic (26 page)

Then he drew her up, out of the chair. Cat
knew what he wanted, could see it in his eyes, could feel it in the way his
arms came around her waist.

How far we've come, she thought, as his
mouth descended to hers. I've heard the whole story now, from these very lips
so warmly kissing. And I believe him, love him…

* * *

 
Cat
tried her best to stay out of Josefa's way. At first desire to avoid trouble
seemed to be mutual. The day of departure, both for the worrisome servant and
for Christoph drew closer.

Then, late one afternoon as Cat was
returning from riding, a curvaceous figure stepped from among the shadows just
as she crossed the chilly, fireless hall.

"Something has come for you,
Grafin," said Josefa, "but it's in the hall." Without waiting
for Caterina to say anything, she turned and went through the door into the
great room.

Cat, feeling a prickle of unease, followed.
For an instant, she entertained a fantasy that Josefa was going to plunge a
knife into her heart as soon as she followed. In deference to the notion, Cat
passed through the great room door warily, but no one was waiting in ambush.
There was Josefa, pale, plump and pretty, standing beside at the dinner table.
The seven arm candelabrum was lit and her antagonist stood in the golden glow.
The cold empty maw of the hearth opened shadowy behind her.

"Here it is.
Something
for you, Grafin."
Josefa thrust a letter toward her. She did not
walk to her mistress and offer it as was proper, but stayed where she was in
the light.

The proffered letter seemed to glow, to
swim inexorably in Cat's direction. She stepped forward and took it, feeling as
if she were suddenly on the edge of that all devouring ravine on the mountain.

"Why, it's a letter from the
Graf!" Caterina exclaimed, studying the cover "How did you get
it?" Next she saw that the seal had been lifted. "And how dare you
open the Graf's letter?" She lifted eyes of green fire to Josefa, but her
anger was fearlessly ignored.

"It's a letter a wife ought to read
before it goes to Vienna,"
Josefa said by way of explanation. She took another step back and favored Caterina
with a malevolent grin.

As if trapped in a bad dream, Cat opened
the letter and read:

* * *

My dear Konstanze:

This of necessity is to be brief, but I
hope it puts to rest all the concerns in your last to me, the receipt of which
was long delayed by mishandling. I will soon be leaving here, and should arrive
at your door just after this arrives. Unwilling to let you go unanswered, I
send a captain of my guard posthaste with this. You may take this letter
directly to Herr Fassbender, the banker who is first floor at Unter Tuchlaben
on the Judenplatz, and he will release immediately to you two hundred gulden,
which should relieve the cruel importunity of your late husband's creditors.
"

“My sister says this woman had four hundred
gulden from him last spring.
As much as any musiker can earn
in a year."
Josefa said it contemptuously.

"Herr Walter says the Graf is crazy
about this woman.
More than any of his others.
She is
always crying poverty and he's always running, purse in hand." Keeping a
safe distance as she spoke, Josefa
smiled,
a smile of
mad triumph.

And this triumph, Cat thought with a
dreadful pang, is over me.

Lowering her head to escape her foe's awful
pleasure, she numbly scanned the last paragraph.

* * *

Dear Konstanze, never feel shame or fear to
ask a favor of me. Did I not swear to continue as protector? You have suffered
much; now take heart and look for my arrival. Christoph von Hagen, Graf
Heldenberg

* * *

"You needed your eyes opened."
Josefa shouted. "When he took up with this woman it drove my sister crazy
and sent her straight into the arms of that low captain! And now our noble Herr
Graf makes love to his wife, but once you've dropped the son you've got in your
belly, he'll forget all about you. Of course, he'll take care of you, exactly
as he does my sister and all the others. He can't find you a new man to warm
your bed, but I'm sure he'll see that you have plenty of pretty horses to play
with. Perhaps that will provide sufficient consolation." Josefa's dark
eyes blazed into
Caterina's,
filled with the
exultation of hatred.

Cat, frozen by the words, didn't move, even
when the Josefa suddenly darted forward and snatched the letter away. She
simply stood motionless, her world crumbling around her.

It seemed as if a knife, one with a blade
of pure ice, had been shoved into her heart.

Josefa letter in hand, went away, left her
standing there, and a chilling vision came, one she'd not had since the hot joy
of the New Year. It was a memory of Wili, pitifully weeping, prone on her bed.

"I always believe him. Always! Why am
I such a fool? All he has to do is put his arms around me and I
believe..."

* * *

"Grafin!
Grafin!"
Elsa was white-faced.
"What has happened?"

"Oh, Elsa!
Grosse Gott! I'm a fool!"

"A fool?
Why—"

"Just like my sister and all the
others! I'm leaving and I'm doing it right now."

"Leave? You can't! You mustn't!"

"Hush and help me," Caterina
exclaimed, seeing the stricken look on the girl's face.

"Ach, Himmel! Where will you go? How
will you get there? The roads are still so bad; a storm could come. What if
robbers caught you? And the baby! Oh, Mistress, you must not go!"

Pushing past the frightened young woman,
Cat flung herself upon her jewelry box. Yanking out the gold chains her mother
had given, she dropped them over her head. As needed, she'd break them apart
and exchange them for whatever was needed on her journey home...

"I saw a letter that he wrote to his
mistress in Vienna.
Josefa showed me."

"Josefa?
Don't believe her, my Lady! She hates you!"

"Yes, she does. But this letter was in
my husband's handwriting.
Oh, Elsa!"

Choking back tears, Cat gave her maid a
huge, heartfelt hug. "Elsa, you must be brave. As soon as I can, I'll send
for you, I swear it. Now you must promise not to tell I've gone."

"Oh, Mistress—"

Another objection was about to be made, but
Caterina didn't wait. Tearing out of Elsa's arms she flew down the stairs,
across the great room and out towards the barn. Knowing that because it was
near twilight, Rossmann wouldn't allow her to saddle up, Caterina dodged and
ducked through the shadows, collecting saddle, blanket and bridle.

There was mad elation in hide and seek. It
was just like the old days of disobeying her father…

When she had what she needed, she slipped
between the fence poles into a small, muddy barn side enclosure. A ride would
surely assuage the awful thunder of her heart!

And here was deliverance. The Andalusian
raised his sculpted silver head to stare.

"Come to me, my beauty." She
focused upon her desire to the exclusion of all else. As she concentrated, she
emptied her mind of everything but him.
Calm,
and the
much needed control came, and so did the Andalusian, bobbing his head, in his
customary dance of retreat and advance.

The instant he was within reach, Caterina
caught his halter. In the next five busy minutes, she'd snapped on a lead, tied
him to the fence and bridled and saddled him.

Usually he was difficult to tack up, but
now he seemed to sense her urgency. All the hours she'd spent gaining his
confidence this winter, Cat thought, were about to pay off.

In the next moment, she was up. There was a
wonderful rush of excitement as she reined him away.

The Spanish stud obeyed her commands,
rising straight to a rocking canter. It was ecstasy, the wind in her face, the
drum beat of hooves resounding as the silver stallion took high tailed flight
across the snow-patched, soggy pasture.

She rode a white whirlwind flying away from
all her grief and trouble. She would escape! She would ride, ride, ride, until
the pain, the shameful needing love, was hammered from her heart, her mind. She
would hide at Aunt Teresina's ruined farm. Some of her Aunt's peasants were
still on that land. They knew about keeping secrets…

"Caterina!
Caterina!"

Alarmed, she looked over her shoulder. Behind,
coming hell for leather, was a big dark man on a dark horse.

Christoph and Brandy! Once again, for the
highest stakes, she was the fox!

As soon as she eased her grip on the reins,
the Andalusian began a gallop, fairly flying toward the bottom of the pasture.
There was a fence, of course, but Cat knew a place where the two top poles were
down. Heading toward this, she urged him on with her heels and voice.

As he obediently gathered himself to make
the jump, something darted, bolted, crashed away into the bracken on the edge
of her vision. It was the headlong flight of a pair of deer who had been boldly
mingling with the cattle, sharing their hay.

In this situation, her human eyes saw
better
than those of the horse. Although she, with all her
skill, tried to signal confidence through her hands and legs, the Andalusian's
attention was lost. His jump began off lead. There was a crash, then
splintering, as the Andalusian's chest and legs hit wood.

"Gottverdammte!"

Snow and mud rushed toward her. From the
bottom of her heart she was furious, furious at being caught, furious with
herself for taking such a stupid risk with the horse. It was the last thought
she had before her head slammed into the ground.

* * *

When she came to, there were lights
swirling. She raised a hand to shield her eyes,
then
groaned at the pain. There was pain in her shoulder, in her back, in her neck,
in her knees, in her head.

Everything outside felt skinned.
Everything inside felt broken.

"She's coming around."

"Are those idiots ever going to get
here with the wagon?"

The arm that supported her could have
belonged to no other man, the oak tree feel belonging unmistakably to her
Christoph. He was looming over her, studying her face with fearfully.

"Christoph!"
She caught at his jacket, "The Andalusian?"

"He's got a long gash at the point of
shoulder, but Rossmann says it's not deep. There doesn't seem to be any leg
damage, though why, the way he hit that fence, I don't know."

"Thank God and all the saints."

"Yes. Now we've only got you to worry
about." He was angry, but there was also fear in his eyes, which she'd
never seen there before.

"Damn it, Caterina! What in
hell were
you were doing?"

"I have to get away from you,"
she said, despite the shattering headache.

"To where?"

"To where you'd
never find me again."

"We thought you were going to get
there, too, when the Andalusian failed the jump.
Straight to
heaven—a place where you certainly won't be bothered by me."

There was a wagon ride back to Heldenberg,
then, cradled in her husband's great arms, a painful journey to bed. A drop of
laudanum was administered by the Graf himself.

The next day was miserable, passed between
pain and sleep. In the afternoon she was poked and prodded by the doctor who
had ridden posthaste from far down in the valley. Like the Andalusian she was
eventually pronounced "bruised, but essentially sound." Because she
had hit her head and was enduring a relentless headache, she was ordered to
stay flat in bed.

Elsa ran back and forth to the kitchen,
carrying potions and broths from the hand of Ekkehard, clucking over her
mistress like a hen. Christoph sat by her side too. He never left, not even
while she slept.

“Elsa says you saw a letter I had
written."

"Yes."

"And that was why you were running
away?"

Cat, her face swollen and bruised, was
lying flat as the doctor had ordered. Tears that she couldn't seem to stop were
steadily coursing down her cheeks.

"Why, Caterina? Don't you think I can
visit Widow Gottlieb, help her in her trouble and not make love to her?"

"That was a love letter. You said you
were done with mistresses. You swore. To Wili!
To me!"