Red Magic (9 page)

"You are so
tall,
you should really be the one to have it." She attempted to sound off-hand.

"I really shouldn't accept your offer,
Red. It doesn't seem gentlemanly, but my choices are either the bed or the
floor. The damned sofa would leave me nowhere to put my legs from the knee
down. I'm surprised you fit."

"Well, I do if I curl up. So it's
decided."

"Of course, we could share the bed.
There is plenty of room and I am not bent upon ravishing you."

"I don't think it would be wise."

"Perhaps not, but I hope that it will
be the same with you as with all the other kitty cats I know. After we are at
Heldenberg and the really cold weather sets in, you'll find it more to your
liking to cuddle."

Then without any more ceremony than if he'd
been alone, he proceeded to toss off his dressing gown. The body revealed was
harmonious as a pagan statue. There was only one defect, but the fault wasn't
Nature's. One thigh was scarred and dimpled with three purple and white ragged
crescents, the remnants of last year's wound.

The first time she saw him undress it
almost took Cat's breath away, even though it was not the first time she'd seen
a naked man. Once after a hunt she'd come upon her male cousins swimming in the
river. Although her papa had hurried her away, yelling at the boys to
"mind their damned manners", they'd made sure that she'd got an
eyeful.

Now here was Christoph, exactly as naked
and only a few feet away. Cat knew she'd never seen this much man. Like any
male, whether a tail-flaunting, big shouldered tom or a head tossing
stallion, it was obvious that he enjoyed his body.

That first night when he'd so carelessly
disrobed, she'd turned away, gone to the sofa and rolled herself up tightly in
a blanket. She told herself that what everyone else wanted, she did not!

To assist her resolve, she conjured a
memory of dear, lost Wili. Of Wili sobbing on her bed, of Wili crying in Mama's
arms at a long ago Carnival in Passau, tears falling in room after room, in
spring and summer and winter, over and over again. So many promises made, every
one broken!

Cat asked herself how she could sensibly
have much faith in this most recent of Christoph's so often sworn-to conversions.

* * *

For several weeks the odd honeymoon went
on, as did the hunting and gaming. A wedding was always a fine excuse for
neighbors and relatives to do some extended visiting, and this time, right
before the summer haying, was one of the few times of year in which gentlemen
did not feel it necessary to be in daily attendance upon their lands.

Every morning the men breakfasted and then
went riding, racing their horses across the pastures and wagering on the
outcome. A field was dedicated to saber practice and the men made passes at a
target from horseback, a game at which her husband excelled.

One day though, Caterina came upon her
husband at the humblest sort of work. A section of stone wall had tumbled down
and it seemed that the huge peasant who usually did this had strained his back.
Christoph had come upon Jakab stretched out on the ground trying to relax a
spasm and had
good
naturedly offered to finish the job
for him. Now he, with jacket, shirt and stock discarded and the workman's
leather gloves on, the lean hard muscles of his back and arms pumped, was
lifting stones and fitting them into the wall.

"Peasant's labor, sir," scolded
the Landrat who'd just come upon the scene. Then he chuckled and shot a joking
smile at his daughter. "We never work a breeding bull."

Inwardly Caterina groaned. Her father's
steady
stream of earthy witticisms were
driving her
mad.

Christoph heaved a rock into place, wiped
the sweat from his eyes with his arm and grinned.

"I don't mind, Oncle. It's exercise
that a man who has been feasting for three weeks badly needs."

Indicating the servant prone on the ground,
he added, "I didn't want to stand by and see your Jakab pop a gut.
Besides, sometimes I do this on my own place. Heldenberg is so stony that we
raise all our fences this way. It's interesting, like putting a puzzle
together. Isn't that so, Jakab?" he called out.

A deferential answering grunt arose from
the prone giant. "Ja, mein Herr Graf..."

Heaving up another sizeable rock and
shifting it around in his hands close to his broad chest, Christoph paused for
a moment to study its placement in the wall. Sweat was just beginning to
trickle down his back.

"Well," said the Landrat, who had
been admiring his son-in-law's physique, "don't wear
yourself
out, dear boy." He squeezed Caterina's hand
and smiled at her fondly. "You've other important business to attend to,
haven't you?"

"Indeed, I have." Christoph
neatly fitted the rock and then turned to send the Landrat a broad wink.
"But I think there's little danger I'll ever be too tired for that kind of
work."

"Now didn't I say so, Kitty Cat?"
Her father beamed.
"The finest stallion in the
valley?"

"Papa!"

"Oh, come now. The time for maidenly
modesty is past, isn't it?"

There was no answer. Caterina, embarrassed,
had slipped her arm out of her father's, picked up her skirt and run. The
Landrat, well used to her flights, simply watched her go.

"Tail high and head
up, skittish as a two year old filly.
I hope for
your sake Son that breeding settles her down..."

* * *

During the weeks the visiting lasted,
Christoph studiously left Caterina alone during the day, spending his time with
the men. More often than not, he was the winner, although Max von Beiler, who
hunted with Cat's father regularly and knew the land like the back of his hand,
twice
carried away the honors of the hunt. Lady von
Velsen and the more accomplished female riders joined in the horseback sports,
and, of course, Cat would have dearly loved to have been among them.

Her father, however, absolutely forbade it.
"It's closing the door after the horse has been stolen, but I won't tempt
fate again."

Cat fretted, but von Hagen acquiesced in
her father's decision.

"Obey your papa, little wife. It's a
small thing to humor him."

So she was imprisoned (for that was the way
she thought of it) with the more sedentary ladies and old men. They, of course,
were on fire to tease tales of married intimacy from her, but after one morning
gathering at which Cat burst into tears, called them "a bunch of evil
minded gossips" and ran out of the room, they reverted to great formality
in her presence. She contrived to be with them as little as possible, saying
that she was going to her room, and then slipping away to visit Star.

If the mare was in the pasture, all Cat had
to do was whistle and she would come, bobbing her head in greeting. With a
gentle whicker, she'd lower a velvet nose to Caterina’s hand searching for the
green apple or whatever treat Caterina had thought to bring.

There was only one other person who had
Star's confidence besides Cat, and Herr Longnecker was kept so busy with the
extra animals of the guests that she often found her mare dusty and ungroomed.
One day, Caterina called Star from among the other mares in pasture and got her
haltered. Then she led her inside to do some grooming herself.

Here it was that Christoph, who had come in
early from his ride, found her, wearing a dirty brown dress and an apron. When
the bay stallion saw the mare, he gave a clarion call and pulled so hard that
he nearly pulled his master off his feet. The mare stamped and kicked, tried to
get her head around to face him.

At the ominous sound of a stallion
trumpeting, a groom came running to assist in getting Christoph's big bay into
one of the double walled stallion boxes.

"She shouldn't be inside, Lady,"
the groom said. "With all the stallions we've got at the moment, it'll
cause a riot. She's coming on again. While the company's here and the barn
is
full, Herr Longnecker said she was to stay out in the
little high pen or in the mare's box."

Embarrassed, Caterina patted her horse's
neck. The mare was quivering all over, nostrils flaring, slamming one slender
forefoot into the floor. The groom was right, of course. Cat had been so
preoccupied by all her own troubles that she hadn't been thinking about Star.

"I'm sorry, Karl. She just looked so
dirty and you know how she loves to be scratched."

"Well, my Lady," said the groom.
"No harm done." Peering over the box door, he whistled softly.
"Look at her shine! You've got a fine hand, Fraulein—ah, I beg your
Ladyship's pardon."

He paused, staring at this girl he'd
watched grow up. Married now to a handsome, rich nobleman and yet there she
still was, grubbing with her horse, red hair in a long braid down her back,
dirty hands, a smudge on her face. She might, he thought, and not for the first
time, have made a better farmer's wife. Were there any other great ladies who
understood so well all the earthy mysteries of horse craft?

"My Brandy fancies
your
Star," Christoph remarked. "Perhaps before we leave here on Thursday
we should arrange—a marriage."

"She doesn't like him. I can
tell."

She hadn't been told when she was to leave
her father's house, but now, suddenly, here it was, only a few days away. It
brought home the fact that she was Christoph's, just like the hilly eastern
parcel, the twenty heifers, the two plow broke oxen, the Wurttemberg mares and
several thousand gulden that comprised her dowry. She and Star belonged to
Christoph von Hagen now, to do with exactly as he pleased.

"We are talking about horses, aren't
we, my Lady?" Christoph raised an eyebrow, but the groom, humbly tugging a
forelock, came to Caterina's rescue.

"Indeed, Herr Graf, so far your Lady's
Star has only seen one stallion she's been willing to stand for, the von Melk's
Barb."

"It is just as Karl says, Herr
Graf." Cat was careful not to breach etiquette. She really felt a
desperate need to protect Star. "The Barb died last winter ago and Papa
and I and Herr Longenecker have been at our wit's end to find a stud ever since.
She won't have any here," she added, firmly meeting her husband's eyes.

"Well, let's put them near each other
for a while and see if his good looks change her mind." Her husband's
reply was relaxed and cheerful. "Of course, like his master, he's not a
particularly subtle fellow, but perhaps," he added, his hand coming to
engulf hers, "the lady will take pity on him."

"I don't know."

"But isn't she a
Barb?
I've always understood they're hot
blooded, that they go in and out of season until they're bred."

"Only half," Cat replied.
"Fortunately she's cold blooded like her mother. Once we get through July,
it usually stops."

"To begin again in January," said
the groom with a shake of his head aimed at the mare.

After Star was safely inside the
companionable safety of the mare's loose box, husband and wife began to walk
back arm in arm. For awhile Christoph was silent, clearly pondering something.
Then he said, "I didn't know you were so sentimental."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought Wili was the one who nursed
the runts, the one who felt that all creation had feelings just like people,
that the only difference between the beasts and us was tails. You know, in
breeding harness Star wouldn't run any risk of being injured. She's fast and
brave, but crossed with my Prussian or one of your papa's Hanoverians, you
might get more size and that speed of hers as well. Isn't that beauty of a
sorrel filly in the back pasture hers?"

"Yes," Cat replied. "She's
something, isn't she? But—I don't want her tied for breeding."

The kind of expression a parent puts on
when he's indulging a child was taking possession of her husband's face, so Cat
quickly added, "Besides, if she's carrying, I can't have the fun of riding
her." The real reason, the thing Cat couldn't say, had to do with
something that had happened with one of the horses during the spring of her
thirteenth year.

Black Lady had been a favorite, a big,
rangy horse, with the longest neck and the deepest chest anyone had ever seen
on a mare. In fact, for two years she'd made a fine showing against the
stallions at the races in Passau.

Usually the animals were put to pasture
together and breeding got accomplished in the course of things, but this mare,
fleet as a storm cloud, was possessed of a fury. She ran, she bit and fought
and finally she'd kicked her stallion in the head and blinded him in one eye.
To complete the disaster it soon became clear that she hadn't been successfully
bred.

"I knew what a devil she was."
The Landrat reproached himself endlessly. "You warned me, Longnecker. A
man's a fool who doesn't listen to his Horse Master." He damned himself.
He cursed the mare.