"Bring me the key to this room at once," he ordered.
As the butler made his way through the crowd, the Landrat turned his attention back to Caterina.
"Now, vixen, will you continue to make a fool of yourself and disgrace your family?"
For a moment they glared at each other. Cat had been entertaining some second thoughts, thoughts that had nothing to do with shame or fear. Once she had the dress and panniers off, she'd be more agile, far more able to defend herself.
The room was on the second floor but there was neither any of the useful ivy nor a tree close to the window. Papa had already thought of those earlier and, to Cat's utter chagrin, had not only the ivy, but the pretty little plum tree cut down.
Still, she'd gauged the height. Perhaps, if worse came to worse, she'd jump anyway and hope she didn't break a leg—or her neck.
"No, Father," she said, demurely lowering her eyes. She extended her free hand, the one on which Papa didn't have a death grip, and spoke to her mother. "Help me undress," she said, giving the gesture all the dignity that was possible while surrounded by her male relatives.
So, behind the lacquered screen, encompassed her kinswomen, all of whom were soothing and clucking encouragement, Cat was relieved of her beautiful dress, of the clumsy impediment of panniers, of the pinching stays. Her thick hair was uncoiled and brushed until it fell down her back in a scarlet mantle. The chamber pot was set out, the windows opened to the cool, pleasant June night.
Mama insisted that Caterina get into bed, and there she sat, kneeling in the plump new featherbed, ready to leap as soon as that awful man made a move towards her.
Her husband was, she knew, far from sober. All the time his valet and the others had been helping him undress, he'd seemed unsteady. Cat had seen him boisterous during the hard drinking times of Carnival and Christmas, but never before as drunk as this.
Papa had noticed too. Before going out, he'd taken Christoph by the arm and advised in an undertone, "Listen, my boy, I'll be locking you in. There is nothing outside she can climb down and I think it's high enough that even our bold Cat won't try to jump. Just sleep a little and tend to her when you're able."
From Max and his friends there had been some disbelieving chuckles when Christoph, with an expression of relief, had nodded, apparently ready to take his father-in-law's advice.
The door locked behind the revelers with a smart snap, leaving the bride and groom alone. In the light of a few discreetly placed lamps, the new husband and his young wife regarded each other. From the other side of the closed door came the sounds of people jostling and joking.
"Well..." von Hagen began, moving towards the bed with the same apologetic expression he'd had on all evening.
"Don't you dare!" Cat cried, heart in her throat.
At once she wished she hadn't been so loud. From outside came the echo of the cousins repeating her words and laughing.
"Gottesblut!" This was her father, his shout obliterating every other sound. "Don't you fellows know a thing about breeding a nervous filly? Get downstairs and stay there—the lot of you!"
"Your papa is a pithy speaker." Christoph winked at her. Once again he began an unsteady approach.
"You better leave me alone." Bounding out of bed, Cat began to back towards the window. "I promise you, no matter what Papa says, I'll jump."
"That won't be necessary," von Hagen replied. He had reached the bedpost now and was leaning on it, regarding her with a bemused expression. "You don't have to break your neck to avoid me. It's clear I'm not wanted. I don't know what stories you've heard about me, but rest assured I've always believed finesse to be infinitely more challenging than rape."
Unsteadily he let himself down onto the thick featherbed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, cousin, I'm going to go to sleep."
From where she stood in the dimly lit room, Cat watched the upheaval under the covers.
"And if you're sensible," he continued calmly, "you'll join me and do the same. I imagine you're pretty worn out after this hell we've just been through. I promise you, little cousin, no matter what your papa and mine may want, there is no immediate prospect of any—breeding." And with that, the new bridegroom pulled the covers around his ears. Not five minutes later his steady, even breathing told Cat that, somehow or other, the cool villain had gone straight to sleep.
Caterina went to sit on the sofa in front of the fire place. Because the house was officially in mourning, there could be no dancing, but the sounds of cheerful, drunken conversation continued to float up from below.
Time passed, and a night chill flowed into the room. After awhile Caterina grew cold. As quietly as possible, she stood, crept across the room and found a blanket that had fallen from the foot of the bridal bed in which to wrap herself.
"Caterina?"
Thoroughly startled, she jumped back, blanket clutched against her bosom.
"You don't have to stay out there. I'm sorry I fell asleep on you, but sleeping when you can is a soldier's trick. Come on, Cat, get in with me. Then you can tell me all about why you're so upset."
"My sister is dead. Isn't that enough?"
"Oh, Caterina."
He sat up. Prudently she stepped back again.
"Do you really think I'm not grieving for Wili?" he asked.
"You can't feel like I do." Cat felt tears prick. "You were horrible to her."
"Yes, I was horrible and unkind and stupid to boot. She'd forgiven me, though, and I—"
"Where you were concerned, Christoph, Wili was soft-headed. What were you going to do, anyway? Get her belly full and then run back to your mistress? Or is it mistresses?"
"Absolutely not, Caterina. I'm done with that. The promise I made before the priest will be kept. As it's turned out, you are the one I made the promise to."
There followed the rustle of bedclothes being invitingly lifted.
"Come on, Red, get in," he coaxed. "It seems we both could use some comforting."
When she didn't reply, simply retreated to the sofa with her blanket, he observed, "You're going to have to get used to sleeping with me sometime. And all I want is to hold you. I give you my word nothing else will happen."
"The worth of your word is well known, Herr Graf," Caterina snapped, using the baronial title the Emperor had just conferred. "Especially if it is given to a woman."
"Suit yourself, Lady von Hagen," came his reply. His voice was always compelling, but now, coming out of the darkness, it seemed particularly gentle, full of compassion. "We shall talk it all out in the morning. Both our heads will be clearer then."
"I have nothing to say to you," she retorted, trying to ward off the confusion she felt. Why was he being like this?
"Well, Caterina, you may have nothing to say to me, but I have some important things to say to you. Right now though, I think we are both too upset. Tomorrow will be soon enough. So," he concluded in that same gentle tone of voice, "good night, little cousin."
Chapter Four
In the woods on the ridge, an owl hooted. The night dragged on as Cat sat on the sofa, wide awake. She drew up her knees and let her thoughts wander, considered and rejected a host of desperate plans. The whole time she fingered the locket she always wore, the one with the picture of Saint Brigitte.
Aunt Teresina Tanucci, the one the rest of the family spoke of with such aversion, had given it to her. This lady, a great aunt on her mother's side, was a strange old creature who had lived without a husband on what should have been her dower portion for some fifty years. In spite of the disapproval the Landrat felt for her spinister's life, he always said Teresina Tanucci was "an expert farmer, and a damned lucky one, too."
Still, she lived close to the bone, with little more refinement than her peasants. Too much was spent in taking care of strays of all kind, human and four legged. She took in, without preference, foundlings, cats, dogs, monkeys, hawks, and horses. Some of the babies who appeared at her doorstep in baskets, if they survived the precarious time of infancy, w
ere taken in by the Sisters of Saint Hildegard, but many, those obviously from overflowing peasant families, were raised to work upon the land. Teresina took an abiding interest in all of them.
The Landrat sometimes referred to Aunt Teresina as "that smelly old badger." In fact, Auntie T was rather like that, fat and shuffling. Leaves or straw, somehow or other, was always stuck on her voluminous, out of fashion skirts, or in her gray and yellow hair.
"Dirt isn't healthy," she'd say fastidiously. The pronouncement had become a kind of family joke at von Velsen's. Although her rugs were regularly beaten and the servants always seemed to be scrubbing the walls and floors, the place still smelled strongly of the many animals she kept.
Her barn was filled by dairy cattle and oxen as well as old and lamed horses. From the latter, she had, over time, managed to breed some fleet, beautiful ones. In fact, she drove everyone who liked to bet crazy, because every few years she'd appear with one of her young studs at the St. Anne's Day races down in Passau and sweep all before her.
Occasionally she'd sell one of these champions, but she would never sell to anyone she suspected of treating animals badly. Many a young hell-for-leather, pockets full of gold, rode all the way out to her farm only to have to ride away again without making the expected purchase.
In fact, many years ago, someone had stolen a stallion he'd been refused. The following day, the horse had returned by himself, badly marked by spurs, mouth bloody from the use of a cruel bit. The thief, however, was worse off. His body was discovered in a ditch beside the Passau road, trampled and broken.
The peasants whispered that Auntie T had simply called the horse back. A lot of queer stories about Fraulein Tanucci's power over animals had always floated around the valley.
As soon as Caterina got her first pony, she'd wheedle Papa for a servant to ride with her to see Auntie and her menagerie. Sometimes both Wili and Caterina were allowed to ride by themselves to visit the squat little house whose acres cut a corner out of the hectare of their mother's dower land. Auntie was always glad to see them, although the girls sensed that neither of their parents was entirely pleased by these visits.
Still, it was always fun. There were always interesting things to see and do. Sometimes there were hawks with broken wings that needed mending. There were generations of cats, sitting in every window, scampering under the house or into the barn. Sometimes they'd find Auntie doctoring the cats for worms, forcing a mixture down their throats with a squirt. Sometimes she'd be with her peasants in the stables, running gnarled hands over the sleek sides of her cattle or her favorite mares.
Aunt Teresina was respected by the peasants as a healer. Doctors never went to her farm, for she knew all about herbs and surgery, too. If an arm or leg was broken, Aunt Teresina could set it. If a child or a newly birthed mother had a fever, she treated them with decoctions of plants and roots she found in the fields and forests of her own land. Peasants from all over made pilgrimages to her for cures.
The von Velsen girls learned much by following Auntie as she went through her day in the barn or as she slowly, leaning on her cane, traversed the woods or meadows. She showed the girls where to find special plants, told them what illnesses they cured. Later, in her kitchen she'd teach how each was prepared.
One spring, while Wili was visiting her von Hagen cousins, Cat was given permission to spend a week with Auntie T. She'd been excited to go, not to have to study regular schoolroom things, just be all day with her interesting and fond old aunt and all the animals.
It had been fun, just as much as she'd imagined, until the third night when she'd suffered from a horrible nightmare. She'd dreamed that a group of creatures with animal heads were all around her. It had been particularly terrifying because, unlike most bad dreams, she had been unable to make herself wake up. The monsters had held her next to a roaring pine fire in the woods and pricked her underarm with a needle while she'd screamed.
The next day she'd awoken feeling quite sick. Her underarm, the part to which the creatures had been so attentive, was sore and swollen. There was a queer nausea, almost the same as if she'd stolen too much wine, a thing she'd done with her sister at a Carnival party in Passau. The headache and nausea she felt seemed very much the same.
Aunt Teresina was the first thing Cat saw when she woke up, for she'd been sitting by her bedside. She had a basin in hand, had seemed to know that Cat would wake up and vomit. Then, utterly nonplussed, she'd taken the basin and gone out, leaving orders with her maids that Caterina was to be confined to her bed. One of her foundlings, an oversized lumpy adolescent called Trudchen, was set to nursing Caterina.
Trudchen, although only a few years older than her charge, was an excellent nurse. She carried broth and teas from the kitchen and coaxed Cat to swallow them, she brushed her long, red hair, helped her to wash and even, to Cat's utter astonishment, read aloud to her. Caterina's father would have been amazed, as he held the opinion that a peasant could never, under any circumstances, be taught to read.
"That sore place under your arm, Lady Cat, is from a brown spider. My mistress says that's why you had all those awful bad dreams and why you're sick."
Bandages dipped in a herbal tincture were applied by Trudchen every hour. These proved to have a wonderfully numbing effect. On the third day, the perpetual stinging had subsided to an itch and the swelling had gone.
"Here, love," Auntie T said, when Cat's arm had healed, "tomorrow your mama wants you home, so here's a going away present. Promise me you'll always wear it." The square, mannish hands deposited a carved wooden locket on a chain around Cat's neck. The locket was large, the kind that usually contained a portrait of a husband or lover.
"Open it," her Aunt urged.
Cat did as she was told. There was a painting inside, but it proved to be of a lovely young woman whose tumbling brown curls were crowned with flowers. A dappled fawn was curled at her feet.
"Her friend is just like the little darling we saw when we went looking for mushrooms among the birches," Aunt Teresina reminded.
"Yes," said Cat, thinking of the beautiful rock-still baby they'd spied on their first morning's foray into the woods. The fawn had been almost invisible in its hiding place beneath a flowering spray of wild apple.
"Who is the pretty lady, Auntie?"
"Who? Why, imagine a Tanucci woman not knowing! Especially you, Caterina Maria Brigitte!" An arm slipped around the girl's shoulders. Drawing her close, Auntie whispered, "She is our special guardian, Saint Brigitte."
"Why, I've never seen her pictured like that."
"Well, this is how she is known to the mountain folk."
"It was her Saint's Day the morning I woke up sick."
"Indeed it was," her aunt replied with a curious smile. "'Tis a late name day present for you. Now," she added, "I'm going to show you a secret. Pay close attention, Caterina Brigitte!"
Those old, rough fingers pressed one of the wooden rosettes that ornamented the case. Cat was surprised when the locket popped open again, this time in back.
"See how it opens? See the secret?"
Cat examined the newly revealed compartment. Inside was something that gleamed.
"It's a Protector for you now that you are growing to be a woman. Take it out, but be very careful."
It took Cat a moment to extract the object. It turned out to be an extremely thin blade, almost a needle, set on a small section of horn.
"If anyone ever tries to harm you, just fetch it out. Keep it in your hand like this," Auntie T demonstrated, palming the blade so that it disappeared. "Then take it like so," she said, her fingers moving deftly, "and do this!"
In a flash the gleaming point was against Cat's neck. Her eyes widened and she sat very still, hoping that Auntie T would be very, very careful!
"There, where the big vein swells! Don't hesitate, just push it in. If you cut that vein, whoever it is won't trouble you for long."
Cat's eyes remained wide as the old woman returned the blade to her.
"Now," Teresina Tanucci said crisply, "you show me that you know what to do."
Feeling very queer, Caterina did as she was told. She was surprised at how easy it seemed, almost as if she'd practiced already.
"Very good," said her aunt after a few minutes. "Now put it back and keep it a secret. No one should know! Not ever! Not your mama, not your papa, not dear Wili, not your favorite servant! Not any one! Show them the pretty saint, but not the secret! And practice taking the little protector out every night, so that you can do it easily. Practice holding it, imagine sticking it in."
"But, ah—why, Auntie?"
"So you won't be afraid to use it if you have to. You are pretty, Caterina, and men are evil! Now promise me that you'll always wear it, even when you sleep, and that you'll practice, exactly as I showed you, every night!"
It seemed awfully strange, but with Aunt Teresina's watery green eyes fixed upon her, Cat made the promise solemnly.
* * *
Even after she was at home again, Cat felt a queer compulsion to do as her Aunt had instructed. After the light had been blown out and she was hidden inside the bed curtains, she'd click open the locket, take out the needle-like blade and then thrust it into the neck of an imaginary attacker.
She soon learned that there was punishment for neglecting the exercise. It came in the form of nightmares, nightmares filled with the same terrifying creatures she'd seen in the horrible dream.
Even stranger, when once she tried to tell Wili about the secret in the locket, her tongue had gone so thick she couldn't move it. Next, her throat closed and she began to choke. As she fought to get her breath, she felt utterly terrified. It was, all in all, such an alarming experience that Caterina never even considered telling anyone again.
* * *
After she received the protector, Auntie Teresina died. One of the peasants came to give the news to Landrat von Velsen.
Red Magic Page 4