The Bloodletter's Daughter (41 page)

L
UDMILLA

When word reached the convent of the Poor Clares that Barber Pichler had been arrested, the news was quickly brought to the dying mother superior. The aged Sister Agnes knelt by her bedside and whispered the news.

“My brother,” Ludmilla cried softly, her eyelids pressing closed. “I may be too late to help either of them.”

The old nun who had brought the news nodded her head, resigned to the will of God.

“It is in the hands of our Lord,” she said, fingering her rosary. Her face was set in hard lines, and she thrust her lower jaw forward. She was accustomed to the cruelty of the mortal world and comforted by others’ misfortunes. The fact that Ludmilla had sullied the convent’s sanctity with a male presence other than a priest made her despise the mother superior.

Ludmilla opened her eyes slowly and focused on the nun’s tight mouth, etched in lines of bitterness. There was no trace of kindness in that face. It was as harsh and barren as winter’s frozen ground.

The mother superior brought her hand to her own face and traced the contours with trembling fingers. Did she wear the same hard countenance as this pious but embittered sister?

“Send me the novice, the one who sings in the halls when she scrubs the floor.”

“I have punished her for this, Mother Ludmilla,” said the nun. “She will not do this again, I assure you.”

“Pity. Send her in at once.” She paused to regain her strength. “And thank you for bringing me news of my brother, Sister Agnes. Now I need you to promise me that you will follow my wishes for my death arrangement. Follow them exactly.”

At the mention of death, Sister Agnes’s face hardened even more and her chin tucked in obedience to the mother superior.

“I swear I shall do as you instruct, by God’s name.”

“And by the Holy Virgin’s?”

“By the Holy Virgin and the Holy Trinity. By God’s own blessed hand and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ludmilla swallowed. She winced, for swallowing now hurt her; she almost preferred to drown in the mounting waters of her mouth.

“I shall send my instructions then through the voice of the novice who sings in her loneliness. You shall carry out the plans I lay forth as you have sworn to do, by holy witness.”

The ancient sister’s face wrinkled in offense that a novice should hear the last requests of the mother superior. Her lips pursed in wrinkled protest.

“Send the girl in immediately,” whispered Ludmilla before Sister Agnes could say anything more. She turned her gaze away from the nun and up to the statue of the Holy Virgin.

Zigmund Pichler’s hands were bound tightly behind his back. He was shoved forward into Don Julius’s chamber and went sprawling on the floor.

“So! The barber-surgeon pays me a visit!” said Don Julius, kicking Pichler hard in the ribs. “Where are your leeches, my friend?”

“Why have you arrested me?” pleaded the barber, wincing. He struggled to roll on his side. “What crime have I committed?”

“You have deceived me and hidden your daughter. She did not die in the fall, for she is a witch! Any mortal would have perished falling from such a height! But she is indeed a witch, a witch who has possessed my soul!”

Pichler grunted with pain. “She is no witch. She is an innocent girl! I swear it!”

“Ha! Innocent? You lie, Barber! Do you think I have not heard her nickname? They call her Musle in the streets of Krumlov. She is the fat brewer’s whore and yet refuses to share my bed! I am a Hapsburg!” he thundered. “She will open her legs to a stinking beer monger but spurn me, the son of the king?!”

Pichler said nothing, but closed his eyes in misery.

“Send him to the dungeon!” roared Don Julius. “I shall have my Marketa back or you shall die, wretched barber!”

The novice Fiala smoothed her wimple before she entered the mother superior’s chamber. The old nun who had brought Fiala to the door was as angry as the young novice had ever seen her, even worse than when the old woman had caught Fiala singing as she scrubbed the floors. The young girl trembled as she pushed open the heavy door and approached Mother Ludmilla’s bed.

She curtsied and then bowed and curtsied and bowed again.

“Your grace,” she said, her eyebrows furrowing in consternation. “I am sorry! Pardon me for I have sinned.”

Ludmilla rolled her face slowly toward the girl. “Whatever for?”

Fiala’s brows relaxed and she began to stammer. “Sister Agnes—she was so cross—I thought—I thought I was—”

“No, no,” said Ludmilla, stretching out her weak hand to grasp the girl’s. “I called for you because I have heard you singing.”

“Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned—”

“What sin is singing while you work? No, the song is why I have summoned you. You still have the scent of humanity and joy about you. You have not lived so many years in the confines of this convent as to erase that pure zest of life, God’s own embrace. I have a favor to ask of you, and through you I ask that my last request on this earth be followed faithfully. Will you swear it?”

“Of course, Mother,” said the bewildered novice.

“I want you to go to the livery and have a carriage take me to the home of Annabella, the healer. I must reach her house before I die or all is lost.”

K
ATARINA’S
N
IGHTMARE

Katarina walked along the roaring Vltava and, remembering last summer’s thicket of wild leeks, took a turn into the woods, off the monastery path. She touched her face and neck where the skin was still flushed from her lover’s kisses. Those kisses had been so intense, she wondered if her complexion would bruise and her father would suspect that she had not spent the afternoon gathering ramps, bulbs, and roots.

She did not care. Katarina tossed her blonde hair defiantly in the rare winter sunshine. How could he punish her? She was already virtually a prisoner in her home.

Her mother had begun to worry. Just that morning she had begged, “Please, eat something, Daughter. You are growing too thin—look at how your dress sags on your bosom!”

“I do not want to eat, Mother. I have no appetite. No appetite for food...no appetite for life.”

Her daughter’s sadness consumed Eliska. She could think of little else.

That morning she had decided that things must change. The girl needed to walk beyond the confines of the millhouse. But her older brothers were working beside their father at the mill. There was only little Jiri to accompany her.

Eliska had relented, sending Katarina and Jiri out to cut roots for stews and soups along the path to the old monastery. Eliska had thought that the fresh air and the beauty of the frosty meadows and the sparkling ponds might cheer her sad daughter.

Katarina had set off in the early morning in a stiff winter cloak, carrying a straw basket. She had strict instructions to be home in time to help with the dinner chores. Jiri stepped beside her, thoroughly annoyed at having to accompany his older sister in such a boring chore.

Katarina had trudged through the streets though she felt her step lighten as she crossed the town square near the blacksmith’s shop.

“Oh, Jiri,” she said, looking down. “I have forgotten to bring the little spade to dig the roots. Run home fast to fetch it. I promise to stay here at the well until you return.”

Jiri cast a suspicious look at his sister.

“Run!” she commanded. “What harm is going to happen to me in the center of the town square?”

Jiri ran back to the mill down Panska and Soukenicka Streets, the soles of his worn shoes slapping against the cobblestone.

For the first time in months, Katarina drew a deep breath of freedom as she waited by the well.

From the smithy, Damek watched her every move as she bent to drink from the ladle in the bucket at the well. He pounded bits of iron from a red-hot horseshoe as she pressed the ladle to her lips to drink.

“Oh, that I were that ladle!” he moaned to himself.

He rubbed his eyes hard to see his beloved walk away from him, without uttering a word. His father chided him roughly when he saw the sadness in his son’s eyes.

“Be a man and forget the maiden,” he growled, passing the boy red-hot metal from the forge. “Pan Mylnar will find a rich man for her to marry.”

“It is only soot in my eye,” Damek answered defiantly and turned to pound the hot iron, until he could stand his torment no more.

He hurried across the square to her, not caring if anyone saw him or not.

“Where are you going?” he said in an urgent whisper. “I must see you!”

“You must leave me alone, Damek! Jiri will be back in a minute and will tell my father you approached me.”

“I do not give a damn about your father—where are you going?”

Katarina looked over his shoulder, down the road toward the mill. She still did not see Jiri returning.

“To the hills on the road to the monastery. To gather ramps and roots.”

“Find a way to wander away from Jiri,” he said. He darted a look toward the tavern, wondering who else was witnessing this meeting. “I will come and find you.”

With that he turned around, not waiting for her reply, and walked back to the smithy to finish his work.

A few minutes later a breathless Jiri ran down the street, a small spade in his hand.

It was not hard to slip away from Jiri once they began hunting roots. They agreed to stay in calling distance of each other and
reunite at the travelers’ shrine of the Madonna when they grew hungry for their packed meal of buttered bread and cheese.

Damek caught her on the path through the meadows and Katarina shrieked with pleasure and then with fear that someone might see them.

He pulled her into the frosty grass, behind a stand of trees. He took her into his arms, declaring his love and covering her face with kisses, marking her fair face with black smudges.

Damek acted honorably, and though their lovemaking was passionate to the very edge of fulfillment, he never fully compromised the woman he had sworn to make his wife.

They lay in each other’s arms, the frozen grass thawing with their heat. They planned their future together, in hot gasps and whispered promises. If need be, they would run off together to Budejovice and start life anew. Katarina could not imagine her life without her beloved parents, but she could not bear to marry another man.

Before long, Katarina heard Jiri calling her name.

“I must go at once!” she said, giving her lover a quick kiss.

She hurried to the travelers’ shrine, where Jiri had already begun to eat the buttered bread and cheese their mother had packed.

“You go ahead, Jiri. I am not hungry.”

“Not hungry?” he said, his mouth stuffed with food. “Can I eat yours then?”

“Yes, eat mine. I have not had much luck finding roots. I will wander a bit more and try another section of the woods.”

“Do not wander too far,” he warned.

She cast him an irritated look as she headed off.

She knew she must fill her basket quickly to make up for lost time. She knew a place deeper in the woods where leeks grew in the shade of the towering pines. It was near a little brook, and though it might be beyond calling distance from Jiri, she was sure she could fill her basket quickly.

Katarina walked in the brilliant winter sunshine, feeling her lover’s kisses still brushing her skin. She smiled as she knelt beside the tree trunks and dug with her fingers under the frosty canopy of fallen leaves. Every spring this area yielded scores of succulent wild leeks, and those that were not harvested during the spring and summer lay like hidden treasures for the lean winter months.

Her fingers ached in the cold, and she reached for the little spade to dig at the half-frozen ground. Lying under the earth like a white thumb was the elongated shape of a wild leek ramp. Beside it were several more, smaller and hidden under the mulch of twigs and leaves.

Katarina was digging up the bulbs when she felt vibration beneath her knees and heard the sound of horses galloping toward her along the wooded path. She looked up to see three riders on fine horses, dressed in rich-colored silks and velvet. One reined in his horse and stopped beside her. He was a blond and spoke in German. She gasped when she realized who it was.

“Are you on your knees praying for my arrival, fair maiden?” he chuckled. Katarina jumped to her feet and curtsied, tying her kerchief tight under her chin.

“I am gathering ramps for my family,” she stammered.

The two other riders had now caught up with Heinrich, and she recognized one as the Hapsburg prince. Her heart pounded.

“Harvesting ramps? And who harvests the harvester?” said Heinrich. He dismounted from his horse, throwing the reins to his companion. He approached her, his eyes narrowing with lust.

“Jiri!” she screamed, although she knew it would do no good. “Jiri!”

“Who do you call for, maiden? It seems no one answers.”

“Good sir, please, leave me in peace! I am the daughter of the miller, and my father will thank you to see that I am protected.”

“Thank me! What does a Viennese count need with the gratitude of a Bohemian peasant? But you are a beauty, despite your ill-breeding.”

“Stop!” shouted Don Julius, his horse prancing under him. “Do not lay a hand on her, Heinrich.”

Heinrich wrinkled his brow in irritation, but he halted all the same.

Don Julius dismounted as the third rider, Franz, took the reins of his horse. The bastard prince snapped at the air, muttering, as if he were arguing with an invisible being. He pulled his tangled hair, his hands trembling with rage.

He stared at Heinrich, standing next to the pleading girl.

“Take her!” urged Franz. “She will cure you of the demons, Don Julius.”

Don Julius stared at the girl, his eyes unfocused in the light that filtered through the pine trees. His haunted look terrified Katarina, who shivered uncontrollably.

Heinrich gritted his teeth and echoed his companion’s words.

“Take her! Take her!”

The voices surged inside his head. Don Julius clapped his hands over his ears and screamed, his roar echoing through the frost woods.

Take her! Take her!

“She is mine,” growled Don Julius at last, unlacing his breeches as he approached Katarina. His eyes had lost the faraway look and had focused in a glinting stare, savage and cold.

“Fair one, we meet again!”

Katarina’s virtue was taken brutally on the cold, leafscattered ground of the leek field, her head and neck pressed against the rough bark of a tree. The rape was witnessed by two cheering brutes, who felt sure that the taking of a maiden in such a lusty manner would cure the prince of any demons that haunted him.

A part of Katarina died that day. As she heard the hoofbeats retreat into the depths of the forest, she pulled her battered body from the mulch. Leaves and twigs clung to her damp skin where she had been crushed against the ground.

Her face had been pummeled, blood’s salty taste on her lips.

Gone was the sweetness of sugar that clung to her skin, her mouth. In its place was the foul smell of men’s sweat and seed.

She gathered the shreds of her torn blouse together, stumbling toward where she and Jiri had parted.

As Katarina licked her bloody lips, she feared she would never taste the sweetness of life ever again.