Red Magic (7 page)

"No, sir.
She didn't want any doctors. She used her own remedies."

"And much good it's done her!"

"Well, time gets us all in the end,
sir. Ah—that's what Lady Tanucci said, sir," the peasant added hastily,
hoping not to annoy the Landrat.

"True enough." The Landrat's mind
was beginning to work upon the family matters this death would precipitate.
"Well, I'll send a wagon over to bring her to her family's burying
place."

"Ah, sir, if it
please
you, your honor, we've already buried her, as she wished, up on the hill."

"Without a
priest?"
Cat's mother exclaimed.

"She didn't want a priest, Lady,"
the peasant mumbled, staring at his ragged foot wrappings.
"Begging
your pardon."

The Landrat sat silently, his broad
forehead crumpled in thought. He was still pondering the property. As the
magistrate of the district and the husband of a Tanucci heiress, it was
occurring to him that he really didn't know how the land was to be disposed.

"Lady Tanucci said I was to bring you
these papers, honored sir, and that you'd know what to do. That you'd be
merciful and not put us off the land."

Out of his pocket, the man produced an
ancient package of papers. It turned out to be several wills, the earliest
dating from the days Aunt Teresina had first taken up residence at the farm.

The nearest living relative was Caterina's
mother. The newer papers, witnessed by an attorney from Passau, expressed the wish that land would
not go to the von Ployer half-brothers, but would pass to Caterina. Of course,
it would end up being a matter for men of the two families to decide.

* * *

Here Caterina's musings ended, returning
her to the present, to that darkened bedroom into which she was locked with a
man she despised. Absently, she clicked open the locket, removed the blade and
performed the exercise just as she had for years now.

Get a good grasp! Then thrust!

She tried, while doing the exercise, to
make the attacker into Christoph, but her heart wasn't in it. After all, he
hadn't yet offered to do her any harm. He was her playmate of old, dear Wili's
beloved, and now, Blessed Saint Brigitte, her very own husband!

Returning the blade to its hiding place,
Cat heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe she could sleep now; there hadn't been a
private moment in which to accomplish the task all day and she knew for a fact
that punishment for the sin of omission would have certainly come as soon as
she'd fallen asleep.

Dragging the blanket over her head, Cat
tried to relax, but memories of Aunt Teresina continued to pursue her. She
began to think of how it had been, the day she'd ridden with Wili, Herr
Longenecker, and a few servants to the farm after her Aunt's death.

The girls had been intending to put a knot
of dried flowers on her grave and to bring some of her pet’s home. The Landrat
had wanted Herr Longenecker to count the livestock and put a stick into the
grain bins to measure what was there.

At the farm, people were going about their
tasks as usual, but the scene seemed different, somehow diminished.

"Where are all the animals?" Both
Wili and Cat had burst out with the same question at once.

While there were still a few cats and dogs
roaming the yard, the favorites were nowhere to be seen. Their Aunt's personal
servant looked somewhat abashed. "The mistress said that they were to go
with her," he finally admitted.

Then he said that they'd dug a very large
grave and killed cats and dogs, all the crippled birds, even one of the horses,
and had laid them down with her.

"Disgusting!
Crazy! Like some pagan!" Lady von Velsen made no bones about
what she thought. "And to think I let Caterina stay with her last
spring!"

"Exactly what I thought at the
time," her father replied.

This last eccentric act left a bad taste in
everyone's mouth. It was a long time before the girls would talk about her
again. Wili turned quite against her, especially after talking to the priest.
Father Partsch, always jealous of Auntie T's influence with the peasants, had
said that, gentlewoman or not, she must have been in league with "dark
powers". The way she had wanted to be buried was certain proof!

A nasty stir in the ecclesiastical courts
followed and some priestly witch hunters arrived. In order to forestall the
burgeoning trouble, Papa ordered all the peasants on Auntie T's land to undergo
baptism. Most did, but some disappeared and were not seen in those parts again.
Two old women who flatly refused and who were found to have "witch
marks" were taken to Passau
and hanged. It might have been worse, except for the fact that the nobility and
the local bishop (whose mother was a Tanucci) closed ranks. In the end, the
outsiders were silenced and the matter was quashed.

"Was Auntie really a witch?" Cat
whispered the question to her father one evening while the family was sitting
solemnly after supper. "Father Partsch told Wili she was."

Lady Albertine shot an alarmed look at her
husband. Her anxiety during the last few months had been palpable.

"Father Partsch better mind his own
business," said the Landrat, gazing severely at his daughters. "Your
aunt was mad, not bewitched. Imagine bringing all this trouble upon her family
through the public exercise of that kind of eccentricity! She must have known
what would happen, that the news would get around. We of noble blood, Caterina,
have more than just our own skins to look after. We not only have our families,
we have lands, servants and peasants in our care. Be sure that you always
remember that!"

Trying to block out this last, ugly memory,
Caterina rolled over for the thousandth time and threw her arm across her eyes,
hoping to somehow quiet her mind.

Outside, June was rampant. Cool breezes
swayed the moonlit trees. A nightingale filled the darkness with his poignant,
silver-throated note spinning. It occurred to her that the last bird Wili had
mended and freed, not two months ago, had been a nightingale.

In the darkness the man who should have
belonged to her sister sighed and rolled over. Maybe, Cat thought, focusing
upon the moonlit patch on the floor, maybe in the morning this whole thing
would turn out to be nothing more than a terrible dream, a dream with the same
awful reality as the dream she'd had all those years ago at Auntie T's.

Chapter Five

Caterina, stretching her long self out in
the sunlight on the sofa, realized first that she had overslept enormously and
second that morning had not exorcised the man in the bed. She could hear his
regular breathing.

The soft squeal of a key in lock announced
an opening door. Cat sat up to see Mama, accompanied by a servant who was
carrying a tray of breakfast. She saw rolls, butter, cheese and slices of cold
meat, eggs sitting staunchly erect in cups and a large red and white china pot
steaming with tea. It looked most inviting after no dinner.

Then she saw a little frown begin to pucker
her mother's forehead. Lady van Velsen had noticed they were sleeping
apart.
 

"Madame Mama, you shouldn't be
here," said Christoph. While she'd been thinking of breakfast, he'd suddenly
sat up. The shirt in which he'd gone to bed was open, revealing a broad expanse
of chest. "We're not really ready for congratulations yet."

Cat sprang off the sofa and dashed toward
her mother. "Mama!" she cried.
"Mama!"

Wine might have incapacitated her husband
the night before, but not this morning.

"No running to Mama yet." Leaping
from the bed, strong bare legs flashing, he caught Caterina by the arm.

"Let go!" Cat began at once to
pummel his chest, but she might as well have been hitting the wall.

"Please go out and lock the door
again," Christoph directed, over Cat's head. "We don't want to be
disturbed. Tell Herr Goran to get a chair and sit where he can hear if I
shout." For a man who was holding a strong and frightened young woman by
the wrists, his tone was remarkably relaxed.

"Don't go!" Cat pleaded, but Mama
and the servant were already beating an
embarrassed
retreat.

As the key clicked once again, Caterina
exclaimed, "Why can't she stay?"

"Because, cousin Kitty Cat, we have
unfinished business."

Thinking she understood, she began to
struggle wildly, but he gave her a hard shake and said sharply, "No! It's
not what you think. I have a confession to make."

When she, surprised at his tone, quieted
and met his eyes, he went on, "I'd rather not say this, but something
tells me that if I am ever to gain your respect, I'm going to have to
completely lose it."

In the aching silence that followed, he
gazed deep into her eyes. Cat didn't think that she'd ever seen those usually
laughing hazel eyes so troubled.

"If you remember, I said last night
that there was no immediate prospect of any breeding."

Cat blushed, nodded. For the life of her,
she couldn't imagine what he was going to say.

"Your sister and I—made love."

Cat gasped. Her heart began to pound
wildly.

"Even if she and I were not married,
well—we both wanted it. I think you can see now why it wouldn't really be right
for you and me. Not for a time."

Caterina remained speechless. Her face had
gone as red as her hair.

"We both need time to grieve."

When he tried to stroke her cheek, Cat
jerked away.

"Don't touch me!"

The tears that had been welling spilled.
She was to be spared his unwanted and for the last six weeks so fearfully
anticipated attentions, but, the reason for her escape! Words burst from her
lips, words she had no sense of choosing.

"You didn't love her. What are you
anyway? A dog that jumps every bitch he gets near?"

"If that's true,
then why not you?"
Christoph retorted.
"Of course I loved Wili. We were promised to each other for half our
lives. It was the most natural thing in the world, and Wili had been kept
waiting far too long."

"You aren't talking about a mare. You
are talking about my dear, good sister!" Caterina didn't understand why,
but the idea that he'd made love to Wili was repellent, almost as much as if
he'd confessed that he'd been in bed with her mother. She stamped and then
blurted, "You're even
more wicked
than I
thought."

His reaction was surprising. Instead of
raging, he sat down on the sofa, strong bare knees sticking out beneath the
shirt. Resting his chin in his hand, Christoph stared at her steadily, as if
trying to fathom a deep mystery.

"The fact of the matter is, Caterina,
that making love to Wili was one of the few decent things I ever did for her.
Now, especially now, I'm glad we didn't wait." In the pause that followed,
Caterina felt a growing discomfort as she endured his gaze. Last night she had
been angry and frightened. Now her emotions were a runaway, plunging here and
there. It seemed impossible to identify exactly what she felt.

"Is it, perhaps—a touch of
jealousy?"

"How dare you assume that I'm like all
your others?" Cat felt as if she'd been struck by lightning. "I have
never—I have never been—I never could—" Stumbling wildly, she finally exclaimed,
"How could I be so wicked as to be in love with my sister's
betrothed?" Then, of course, thinking of things she'd sometimes imagined,
she flushed scarlet.

Christoph continued to look solemnly at
her. If anything, he looked miserable. His words had come out wearily, as if
arousing desire in yet another woman was more of a burden than he could, at the
moment, bear.

"Could you please stop pretending I'm
the enemy? I promised your mama and papa, and here I promise you. I'm going to
be a good husband. I knew telling you about Wili would hurt, but I didn't want
to start our marriage out with a lie. Don't look so sad, little cousin,"
he continued, his eyes suddenly brightening. "I'm sure that the duties we
owe each other will, some day, be performed with pleasure." One elegant
hand stretched out to her.
"Now, pax, Caterina.
Nothing will happen until we are ready. Come and give me a kiss to seal the
treaty."

Cat moved in his direction, but instead of
joining him on the sofa, she leaned over, grabbed the handle of the breakfast
tray and then dumped it, in a cascade of eggs and ham, bread, tea and fragile
china, in his direction.

"Conceited
monster!"

Christoph was astonishingly quick. He
jumped, vaulting over the sofa back. The teapot missed him. Instead, it broke
and emptied upon the floor.

"Damn!" he exclaimed breathlessly
from the other side.

"I'm not jealous," Cat shouted.
"I don't want you now and I will never want you!"