***
“Menders, could you show me some exercises and ways to build myself up?” Katrin asked once Borsen and Stevahn had left. She was already feeling their absence, and was loath to become depressed over it. She loved being with Borsen and had rapidly come to love Stevahn. But they would be back in the spring and there were always letters. Hopefully this year she would manage to go to Erdahn and see Borsen’s.
“Of course,” Menders smiled, looking up at her across the partner’s desk in his study. “I think that’s an excellent idea. Franz can help us with that too.”
“May I use the Men’s gym?”
“I don’t see why not. That would help you build up very quickly, now that you’re good and steady on your feet and able to walk so much.”
Franz was called in on the matter and gave it his blessing. Katrin insisted that her exercising in the Men’s gym be done at a certain time, so that they would know she was there. This was not because she wanted them to keep out but so they would not be embarrassed by walking in nearly stripped down, as some of them were prone to do.
For a while Katrin carried out her exercising alone or with Kaymar, who helped her learn to use the equipment and pace herself, but in time, the Men became used to her being there. Many of them would come in and exercise alongside, though she would never be able to go through the contortions some of them did. Kaymar, in particular, kept his body in a condition that was awe inspiring.
Every day she could feel improvement. She moved more easily, she weighed more. She could walk farther, her skin looked tighter. It kept her going back, even though she sometimes felt more exhausted by the exercise than otherwise.
When Borsen and Stevahn came back in the spring, Borsen took one look at her and applauded.
“Yes!” he said, giving her a kiss. “Now you’re starting to look like my Katrin again!”
“You look different yourself,” she laughed. He did, far less haggard, with much of the weight he’d lost regained
“Ah, because of a very clever thing I was coerced into doing,” he grinned, obviously teasing Stevahn, who just looked at the ceiling and hummed The Smile I Love.
“Which was?” Menders asked, coming up behind them.
“I only hand stitch thirty suits a year now, no more,” Borsen answered as Menders put an arm around his shoulders. “They’re numbered and if you miss out, you have to wait or settle for machine stitched.”
“Good for you!” Katrin said to Stevahn. “However did you get him to do that?”
“He flung me down on the floor, sat on me and crabbed at me until I gave in,” Borsen said sunnily.
“I took him in my arms and lowered him onto the floor after he tried to thump my head and threatened to beat me up when tried to reason with him,” Stevahn said calmly to the ceiling.
Menders burst out laughing along with Katrin.
“Good thing too. I never got out of my workroom. I may as well have been running a little tailor shop somewhere because I never got to design anything but suits. Now I’m almost through the backlog and people have been told it will be a while, whether they like it or not. I’ve had a chance to get my hands on a few other things I was interested in. So I’m glad the big grundar wouldn’t let me get up off the floor until I agreed to limit the hand stitched work.”
“I’d think it would make the hand stitched suits much more in demand,” Katrin said.
“Oh, it has. I have three years’ worth of orders already in line, but I will not make more than thirty a year. And now that my hand stitched suits are much more difficult to get, people are ponying up fifteen thousand florins for one.” Borsen delivered this bombshell and stood there, grinning at Menders’ and Katrin’s goggling at him in amazement.
“Fifteen thousand,” Menders said reverently.
“I told him to go to twenty thousand, but he got shy about it,” Stevahn said. “I’ll get him to twenty thousand yet. And now he has time to design other things. If you don’t give her that present, Borsen, I’ll take it and give it to her myself.”
“All right, Brother Impatience, don’t hurl me to the floor again,” Borsen smiled. He reached into his pocket, took out a jewelry box and handed it to Katrin. She was surprised, because he would have been likely to snap at that sort of prodding when he and Stevahn were there during the winter.
She opened the box and gasped.
“It’s my first jewelry design,” Borsen said, putting an arm around her waist.
It was a necklace of beaten gold, set with a stone that shaded from a deep black to sparkling gold. It was crowned with three brilliant diamonds.
“Alahno was furious when he saw that stone. A gemstone trader did the bait and switch on him. He was ready to fling it on the scrap heap, but I told him I could design a piece for it and make it worth a great deal. And I did so,” Borsen smiled, taking the necklace from the box and fastening it around Katrin’s neck. “When I looked at how that stone moved from flat darkness to all that dazzling light, I thought of you – and designed this.” He kissed her.
“It’s absolutely stunning,” Menders said quietly. “Scrap heap?”
“It’s typical of Alahno. He expects perfection in stones and dismisses the ones that aren’t,” Borsen smiled. “But I find the less perfect ones far more interesting and worth thinking over. I’ll be doing a lot more of this. Of course, he has the difficult part because he’s the one who has to work out how to make my design up, but he enjoyed it and was mournful when I wouldn’t put this one in the showcase to sell, and wouldn’t let him duplicate it.”
“You must duplicate it!” Katrin gasped.
“There’s only one stone like that on all of Eirdon, and it’s yours,” Borsen laughed. “I have plenty of other inspiration.”
In her room, Katrin looked at the necklace in the mirror, and then focused on her own reflection. She was pleasantly surprised.
She’d formed a habit of not looking at herself, only checking her clothing to be sure it was neat, or her wig to be sure it was straight and arranged properly. She’d avoided looking at the reflection of her face because it had been hollow-eyed and sallow for so long.
Now she had a trace of pink in her cheeks and the gauntness was gone. The necklace complimented her face and drew out her eyes. Borsen was so clever! No wonder people flocked to pay him fifteen thousand florins to make them a suit!
She took out a gold colored dress she’d worn for festive dinners before she was hurt. It had been a particular favorite of Hemmett’s. Though it was not quite as form fitting as it had been, it looked well once she drew the sash tight and used a couple of pins to take up a bit of slack. She switched her simply styled wig for one she had done in a more elaborate style, settled it into place and added a pair of gold earrings. A splash of perfume – and Katrin smiled at herself in the mirror.
She wasn’t as good as new, but she certainly wasn’t a pallid invalid either.
Katrin walked out of her room with a light heart, coming face to face with Hemmett, who was there to take her down to dinner. When he saw her, his face lit up.
“Now there’s my Princess,” he said, bowing and then taking her hands. “Look at you! Is that the sparkly Borsen had made? He wrote me about it, all in darkest secrecy of course. Isn’t it something! Out of Darkness Into Light was what he told me and he was right. Clever little bastard!”
“Hemmett!”
“All true. He’s clever, he’s little and he’s a bastard and you know I love him like life, so don’t lecture, schoolteacher,” Hemmett laughed. “And now, take my arm and I will escort you in all dignity and pomp down to table.”
“Let us descend to the dining room, Baronet Bumpy,” Katrin laughed, taking his arm.
“By the way, there’s a new Menders’ Man tonight too. The poor fellows always seem to turn up on family dinner night and undergo the trial by fire,” Hemmett said as he squired her down the hallway.
“I didn’t know Menders had hired another one,” Katrin mused.
Eiren looked up from where she was showing the new Menders’ Man his place. Eiren smiled as she saw Katrin, excused herself to the Man and came around the table.
“You look so beautiful,” Eiren said, kissing her cheek. “That necklace is perfect!”
Other people were complimenting Katrin too. She felt her cheeks flushing pinker with happiness. It had been a long time since she’d had a compliment that wasn’t forced or a comparison of how she looked less ill than she had looked formerly.
Menders came in, obviously rushed, but stopped when he saw Katrin. Like Hemmett, his face lit up.
“My dear little princess,” was all he whispered as he took his place at the head of the table, but she could see his eyes behind his dark glasses and knew he was very pleased.
Borsen gave her a wink from his place next to Eiren, and she touched the necklace in response and mouthed “It’s magic” toward him.
“No Cuz, you’re the magic,” he replied aloud, causing some laughter from the people around.
Hemmett seated Katrin and dinner began, the usual companionable and somewhat noisy meal that resulted from over fifty people sitting down and eating at once.
Katrin felt someone looking at her and casually glanced around to see who it was. She was startled when she saw it was the new Menders’ Man. He was seated halfway down the table next to Haakel, who was holding forth at length. The new Man wasn’t paying much attention, but was watching her instead. He was embarrassed to be caught out and turned his attention to Haakel, giving Katrin a chance to observe him.
He’d been quite tall when he’d been standing with Eiren, so he would be a spy, not an assassin. Assassins were usually quite small statured – their work required it. He was red-haired and quite handsome, probably a little older than she was.
Suddenly he looked over at her again, starting when he caught her perusing him. Then he smiled.
Katrin thought that it was very nice to be looked at by a man in that way again.
***
“Want company?” Borsen asked from the door of the gymnasium, as Katrin slowly worked her arms with one of the weight machines.
“Of course,” she smiled. He came in, stripped off his shirt, and immediately jumped up on the most horrifying equipment in the place, a device that allowed one to hang from the ankles and do the equivalent of sit-ups. Borsen delighted in the contraption and threatened to get one for his house in Erdahn, to Stevahn’s dismay.
“How you can do that I don’t know,” Katrin said, continuing with her own exercise.
“If I don’t do it, I lose my nice small waist,” Borsen grinned, easing himself off the platform used to buckle into the thing and swinging from his ankles. “And I lose my strength, which I have to really work to keep up. Being starved didn’t do me any favours. I have to work to keep my muscles.” He began to flex into a sitting position while hanging upside down, more easily than most people would sit up while lying on a floor.
“Now you’re successful, perhaps you could do with a bit of a paunch,” Katrin teased.
“Oh, ha! I happen to like my wasp waist and pretty body, thank you,” Borsen grinned.
“Just watching you makes me hurt,” Katrin said.
“Avert your gaze then. Build your arms up and don’t mind me. I’ll be finished here in a minute and then I’ll do something less daunting.”
“Why don’t you work up to doing that instead of always doing it first?”
“Swallow a felschat first thing in the morning and nothing worse is likely to happen to you all day,” Borsen replied. The exercise was telling on his steely stomach muscles and he was grunting with exertion. “I must get something like this at home, I can hardly manage,” he groused.
“Stevahn would never let you.”
“He’d not like it if I got fat and round,” Borsen groaned, forcing himself into yet another flexion. “He’s convinced I’ll hurt myself, as if I haven’t been working my body since I was thirteen. I tried to get him to hold my legs while I did sit-ups off the side of the bed. He got all panicky and let go and I fell on my head.”
Katrin laughed, and stopped working her arms.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Oh, acted like I was all injured so he would spoil me,” Borsen said wickedly, hauling himself back onto the platform and releasing his ankles. He lay there panting.
“Naughty. And I’m fairly confident that he would like you just fine if you got fat and round.”
“Yes, of course he would but I wouldn’t,” Borsen agreed. “I wouldn’t want him if he wouldn’t love me whatever way I might be, just as I would love him no matter how he might look. But I like to look my best. I have to stay strong too.”
“Why?”
“Cuz, small men are targets. Small nancy men are bigger targets. Wealthy, small, nancy men are enormous targets. Why do you think Kaymar stays so fit? It’s your only hope in a fight with someone bigger.” Borsen sat up, lowered himself down from the platform carefully and came over to her.
“That’s good sense,” Katrin agreed. “I’m going to work legs now.”
“Good, I’ll use the arm machine then,” Borsen smiled as she got up.
She was halfway through her leg strengthening exercise when Borsen spoke.
“So what do you think of the new Menders’ Man?” he asked. Katrin felt herself flushing and was glad he was turned away from her.
“I haven’t talked to him much. He’s been busy getting to know the place. You know how they have extra patrols at first to get to know where everything is,” she obfuscated.
“I was just wondering. He seemed quite taken with you at dinner the other night.”
“Maybe he was interested in the necklace,” Katrin replied, making Borsen giggle to himself.
“All right, we’ll leave it then,” he said, hauling away at the arm machine, much faster than she had. “I just thought he seemed very interested.”
In the silence that followed, Katrin concentrated very hard on her leg exercise, until she looked to see Borsen grinning over at her like a monkey.
“Do be quiet!” she ordered.
“Why Your Highest of the Highnesses, this poor boy didn’t say a word,” Borsen laughed.
***
“I never intended for him to fall for Katrin,” Menders said with considerable irritation to Franz and Eiren. They were sitting around the table in Eiren’s room after a late lunch. Katrin was at the school and was going to go along to the village, escorted by Kaymar, to deliver some of her rose soap after giving her infant school class their music lesson.
“He’s a nice enough fellow,” Franz said calmly. “She seems to like him too. She is twenty-three, Menders. If things were otherwise, it’s very likely she would have been married by now. I consider her interest in this likely and pleasant young man a very healthy sign after what she’s been through.”
Menders sighed. He knew it. He was tormented by an urgent compulsion to keep Katrin safe, to keep her from ever being hurt again.
“I just don’t want her to be – disappointed,” he said.
“You can’t protect her from everything,” Franz replied.
“As far as I know, nothing serious has happened,” Eiren added, putting a hand on Menders’ arm. He smiled and patted it.
“Yes, it’s probably all a tempest in a teacup,” he answered, trying to put it away from him. “And if it isn’t, Franz is right. She’s all grown up. I only wish the Queen would allow her to marry or arrange a marriage for her. I’d feel she was safer if she was married and I think she would be happier. What I don’t want is the Queen naming her the Heiress.”
“She won’t, not with the reports I keep sending,” Franz said. “I still say Katrin’s an invalid. That’s keeping the interest in naming her the Heiress to a minimum. I’m surprised the Queen has succeeded in tr
ying to stay somewhat sober for so long.”
Menders said nothing He could hardly mention the Queen without becoming furious, remembering how her drunkenness had nearly destroyed Katrin.
“Perhaps if something comes of this interest in Karlen Grevchev, she would be given permission to marry him, since he’s nobility,” Eiren said softly. “If the Queen continues to think she’s an invalid and she has no value as the Heiress, what matter who she marries?”
Menders sat there silently.
“It might not be a bad thing at that, if anything develops,” he finally said. “I would truly be happy to see her safe. Being married and removed from the Line of Succession would give her added security from being ordered to Court.”
Franz looked at Menders, his expression troubled.
“You weren’t concerned by her involvement with Willem – that was off and on for almost two years,” he said.
“That was before her sister nearly succeeded in killing her,” he said. “I can’t feel easy about anything that might draw attention to Katrin.”
***
Dear Borsen,
I have made seventeen florins this month selling our famous cheese and was wondering if you wish me to send your portion of this profit along. I know your desperate need for this money is great and wish to keep you from utter poverty.
How are you, Stev and Varnia? It’s hard to believe you were only here a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was some fast way to get from here to Erdahn, so that you could all live at The Shadows and travel back and forth to work?
That’s selfish of me, isn’t it? I know you love your house and you so deserve it. I’ve gotten very insulated here, I think. I’m trying to work up the courage to come to see everything you’ve done. I’ve talked to Menders about it several times. Though he’s understandably nervous about my being that close to the Palace, he thinks it would be good for me. I believe it would be good for him as well. He’s still blaming himself for what happened. That’s ridiculous, as there is nothing he could have done to prevent it.
Love and Sacrifice: Book Two of the Prophecy Series Page 53