Chapter Thirteen
She didn't tell Elsa what had happened on the mountain. She hardly knew what to make of it herself. Her body was engaged; she wanted more of that—yes! But, in her mind, well, she had expected some great change from losing her virginity, but here she was, exactly the same as before. There hadn't been pain or show as she'd been told. It was all very curious.
She fretted sometimes and then was actually glad he had gone. What was it about the thing they'd done that made a part of her so weak, so vulnerable? Cat wished that she had someone older she could talk to—
Even my mother!
* * *
While Christoph was away in Vienna, Caterina had planned to spend as much time as possible on her horse, but this strategy was ruined by an early blizzard. Glumly, she sat with Elsa and stared at a blowing, a whiteout storm that lasted for days. About 6 hours in, it became very cold inside the manor, despite the great fires. Then the curtains had to be closed, just to barely keep warm. Candles were lit to see and the downstairs became a cavern. Caterina retreated to her room.
Mountain life had reached the shut in time, and the days were still shortening. It was hard just to wade to the barn. Thrown back on herself, there wasn't much to do but brood about what Christoph might, or might not, be doing in Vienna. She tried not to think of it, and her mood flew back and forth
Cold kept its grip on Heldenberg, but at last there was no more wind and snow. Cat rejoiced when a track to Heldenruhe was reopened by the long slow work of sleighs and ox plows. Daily she took a hard ride in that direction, though if she'd gone so far as to reach the hamlet, she wouldn't have been able to return until the next day. Most years, they didn't bother working so hard to clear the big drifts, but this year their master return.
* * *
It was just before Christmas, during the daily lesson with Lieutenant Heidelburg, that Cat dropped her guard. He treated her as he would one of his cadets and put a long, fine slash through her shirt into her forearm. It bled a torrent. Heidelburg was brusquely apologetic, but the wound looked deep enough to end the lessons for some time.
Cat, crossly suspecting that he'd struck her in order to get a Christmas holiday, was on her way upstairs. Her arm ached and the dressing they'd applied was swiftly reddening. Behind her, she heard the now familiar tap of a leg. Turning, she saw Goran.
"The Graf is home, Grafin. He wants you to come to him in his study. He's brought a gentleman back to meet you."
Desire leapt like a pup on a leash, although prudence tugged her back. She'd put a lid on all this emotion by returning to her original stance—that what had happened had been only the first close engagement of what might be a long war. Losing a battle did not mean she was utterly defeated.
"Am I expected to change?" Thinking of the visitor, Cat gestured at the men's clothes she'd been wearing. Cat was slender, but these days, even in trousers, there wasn't much doubt about her sex.
"The gentleman won't mind and neither will the master," Goran had a twinkle in his pale eye. "Oh, what a brave fellow is that Lieutenant! Here, my Lady, let me see this."
Cat extended her arm. "It's not bad." Before him, she wanted to be brave, even though the wound was throbbing miserably.
Goran took her arm in his calloused hands and examined the bandage.
"He may be a master duelist, but he's a bad surgeon. Let me retie this before you go up to the Graf."
Another length of bandage was brought and they sat in the long hall. There in the cold and candlelight, Goran quickly redressed Cat's arm.
"And that's how it should be done," He tied the last knot. "And, Lady Grafin, you should know, though it sticks in his craw, Heidelburg says you're one of the quickest pupils he's ever taught."
Caterina beamed, pleased to her soul. Just as she'd always imagined, she enjoyed fencing—even after this.
"Who is the new gentleman?" Cat asked as Elsa helped her on with the morning gown she'd come carrying.
"You'll pardon me, Lady, but that's for the Graf to say."
Damn! Cat had learned to fear this prelude.
In the study she found her husband still in his dusty traveling clothes, but already eating one of those gambler's repasts of bread and meat. He had a companion sharing his meal, a short, blocky man, modestly dressed in a black suit and stockings. A thin bit of white lace at his throat made the only contrast.
"Ah, here you are." Christoph and the gentleman stood. "Lady von Hagen," this is my friend, Herr Stocke. He has agreed to spend a few years at Heldenberg."
The man bowed. Caterina, because she was still in breeches, bowed in return. There was not so much as a flicker of amusement in the strange gentleman's gray eyes.
"Herr Stocke is a learned man, one who didn't hesitate to give me some excellent advice when I was a boy. He was even so kind as to spend the last couple of winters up here trying to teach my thick-headed sons."
Caterina felt her heart sink. Was this dour man a school master?
"Yes." Her husband nodded in solemn answer to the unspoken question.
"Herr Stocke is your new tutor, Madame. Heldenberg steers a straight course without a wife's hand on the tiller, or so all my servants are busy assuring me, and as you can't spend all your life in the saddle or foil in hand, I have hit upon this to fill your days. As your good parents were so apologetic about the gaps in your education, I have devised a remedy. Herr Stocke will be able to devote full time to instructing you in accounts, French, history and geography."
During this speech, Cat experienced a burst of rage.
"What is the use of bringing this gentleman? I don't need a tutor. I can learn all I need to know by going about the place with you and Walter, just as I did with Papa and Herr Longenecker."
"Herr Stocke," Christoph said evenly, "would you leave us for a moment?"
Before the door had finished closing behind the upright black figure, Christoph said, "Didn't your mama teach you not to sauce your husband in front of learned professors?"
Caterina winced, for in catching her arm his hand had gripped the wound.
"Ow!"
"What's this?" Christoph, holding her wrist in one hand, pushed back the loose sleeve with the other and revealed the bloody bandage.
"Ah, poor Cat! I see that Heidelburg's been teaching you not to drop your guard and that dear old Goran's been bandaging you."
Cat tried to disengage him, but her husband had got an arm around her waist and was steering her towards his chair.
"Don't. I'm not a child. Especially now."
"Yes, angel, but you will listen best right here." He sat and pulled her onto his knee. "Now, haven't I said that I shall be gone most of next year?"
"But why should I have a schoolmaster?"
"My brave and beautiful Valkyrie, there are lady's maids who are better educated. If you cooked or sewed or knew anything about housekeeping, your lack of French and everything else might be overlooked by a gentleman, but you're ignorant as a yearling colt."
"That's not fair. I know all sorts of things."
"You do, but most of those things are about horses. You need more than one string to your fiddle. So, Caterina, its lunge rope and saddle for you. You will learn about keeping accounts, about where you live on this round world and a little French conversation, or by God above I'll leave orders that you aren't to ride until I come home."
"No one can keep me away from Star." This was certainly not the way Cat had imagined his home coming. "Why are you doing this? I don't need a tutor, I need time to ride the manor. I know how farm things should be. And," she ended, meeting his eyes, "haven't I—done my duty?"
"Splendidly." He touched his lips to her shoulder. "But tutoring is not punishment. Learning should not be confined to childhood."
He was so close, a bit whiskery and dusty from the road, but the smell of him, the touch of his hand, rekindled all kinds of memories, not only of the mountain, but of some tenderness between them on the morning he'd gone away. She felt a thrill
at the touch of his mouth.
"There, there, my cat woman, please stop scratching. I was thinking about your sweet backside every other minute I was away."
"You must excuse me, Herr Graf," Cat muttered, head close against his great chest, "but I'm really getting cold and my arm hurts."
"My poor Caterina," he said, shifting to a warm rubbing of her long back. "Damn Heidelburg. Is it deep?"
"Herr Goran says I'll live."
"Well, then, you will. He kept telling me that last year when I thought I was dying, swelled up and covered with pus and leeches and attacked every other hour by surgeons with sharp knives." He pushed back the sleeve of the morning gown to look at her bandage again. "We'll undo this before you go to bed and I'll look at it again. I've grown to be a pretty fair surgeon myself."
With as much dignity as she could muster, Cat started to rise. "I would like another kiss before you go," Christoph said.
"You shouldn't have got the first. You did—what you did—before you left and then you come back and treat me like a child! Why do you want to waste my days so that I won't be able to ride and watch over your land as I should?" Frustration built with every word until she shouted: "I hate this dreary snow pile and I hate you."
He did not let go. Because the hand he held was attached to her throbbing arm, she couldn't bring herself to jerk that away, either.
"I think I'm right about bringing Stocke here and I hope that in time you will understand why. Come on, dear little Cat. Just for a minute pull in those claws."
She found herself against his chest again, cradled in his arms, her mouth repeatedly and softly kissed.
"I've been on fire for more of those sweets I stole on the mountain. Why can't you believe I'm in love with you?"
"Because you say it too easily." Nevertheless in the next instant she was kissing him back with answering warmth.
Not only did it feel good, but Cat was beginning to understand that his wanting bestowed upon her a kind of power...
"Our marriage is in its seventh month. Must we go into the New Year quarreling?"
"Yes." In spite of his words, in spite of the warm excitement she experienced in his arms, she still felt cross with him.
"By God," he chuckled softly, "the next time we see your papa I'm going to tell him this is no red filly he's married me to, but a tough little red mule instead."
Chapter Fourteen
That night, although she was partly apprehensive and partly desirous, her husband did not enter her room. Cat had not been able to make up her mind what she would do if he did -although the glowing embers of the pleasure shared on the mountain was an inducement to her body, she was still afraid that he only made love to get the better of her.
She was surprised the next day at how cross she felt, deprived of the stimulation of either love making or a quarrel. While they were breakfasting together, Christoph suddenly winked and said, "Were you disappointed last night?"
"About what?"
He laughed then returned to buttering his rye bread. "Never mind, then."
Cat, upset and unsettled, had wanted to find release in a ride, but starting that day, she was, as she put to herself, "imprisoned" in the school room.
Herr Stocke was a much more intimidating teacher than Frau Pluncke. As a courtesy, Elsa was set to studying, too, but Stocke rarely took his eyes off Caterina, so she had no recourse other than to work. Initially, the teacher spent a lot of time patiently trying to find out exactly what she did know.
Days passed, with Stocke continually sighing and shaking his head, as if her case were hopeless. After a week, he set Caterina to work at accounts problems, all of which, the teacher explained, he'd derived from the books of the estate. The columns of numbers, the many entries, swam before Cat's eyes. Besides this, there were histories to read, geography to study, lists of French verbs to memorize. Dutifully, Caterina worked, swallowing her pride whenever she had to ask for help, trying bravely to ignore thoughts of the barn.
When she was dismissed, she rushed to change her clothes and go to exercise Star, or if new snow had fallen, just brush her. Then she'd return to the manor, half frozen in the winter darkness. After awhile, Stocke delighted her by suggesting that she tend to her horse in the morning and come to school when she was done.
"You're working hard, my Lady, and besides," he said with a twinkle in his pale eyes, "a restless pupil never learns much of anything. I've taught long enough to know that."
Needless to say, Caterina liked him far better after that. No matter how tired the barn work made her, she tried to do her best in the schoolroom. As time passed, she found she actually enjoyed the things Herr Stocke taught, especially history. Christoph was more than once pleased to find her sitting by the fire with a book open in her lap in the evenings after supper.
Winter held the land in a death grip. The peak of the Heldenberg was lost for days in howling storms. Ice underlay the snow, so that even with cleated shoes, the horses couldn't be safely ridden. The barns grew dirty and were full of the sounds of restive animals, kicking and picking fights with their neighbors. Some of the horses cribbed, groaning unnaturally as they tore U shaped holes in the stalls. Whenever there was a thaw and Cat could get out, she rode lanky, tall Jack, a Wurttemberg from her father's house. Star's belly was growing and Cat didn't want to take any risks with her.
She also spent time with the Andalusian stallion, grooming him. It was slow, even for her, to make friends, for the gray was truly dangerous during winter confinement. If Brandy started kicking and trumpeting in similar frustration, the gray was sure to join in. The barn would echo with the screams and drum beats of the two studs as they punished their stalls. At first the ever alert Rossmann was anxious when Cat went in with the Andalusian, but after awhile he changed his mind, deciding that her "touch" made it safe.
The Graf watched his young wife's involvement with the horses with a combination of amusement and admiration.
* * *
Christmas came; the least splendid in Cat's memory, for her father's house was always been crammed full of neighbors and family. At Heldenberg, they celebrated in snow bound isolation.
Bed time usually found mistress and maid sitting cross-legged in Caterina's bed talking over the day, the green curtains drawn back to get the benefit of the fire. After they had washed, standing on towels before the hearth, sponging their tall slim bodies, they'd put on their nightdresses and then take turns brushing and braiding each other's long hair. Sometimes Elsa played her mandolin and the girls sang softly together. Since the nights of Christmas had begun, they'd changed their usual late night cups of chamomile tea with bread and butter for the less digestible indulgence of wine and sweet kuchen.
Since summer, Elsa had become the perfect spy, for among the kitchen workers was a brawny-armed farm boy, Ekkehard, who had fallen in love with her. While they hid and held hands in some dark corner of the house, in delicious closeness, he'd tell what he'd heard below stairs. At first, however, Elsa had accepted the young man's courtship only at her mistress' urging.
"But, my Lady! I may be poor, but I'm a gentlewoman. Ekkehard was born in a stone hut up on Heldenberg."
"Oh, but he's a pretty fellow, Elsa, so blonde and strong! His papa is not a serf, he's a free farmer, and a good one, too."
Now, several months later, Elsa had forgotten that she'd ever disdained the handsome youth. Just before Christmas, Ute had been ill and Ekkehard had been among those set to cooking. He'd risen to his chance with surprising skill. Cabbage and noodles, roast meat, glazed turnips and potatoes, all well prepared, arrived in a timely fashion at the master's table. Elsa and her sweetheart had begun building castles in the air about the day he'd be head cook in a big kitchen in a big house -maybe in Passau, or maybe, even, in Vienna!
New Year's Eve found the young women tête-à-tête in bed, long legs crossed beneath night gowns, whispering about love. Cat was still keeping her secret, so in both cases their tales of romance were almost done as soon a
s they started.
Happiness, combined with a glass of the delicious sparkling wine, had tonight made Elsa so bold that she'd just told her mistress that, in her opinion, she should forget all these sins and sorrows past and become, "for true and all," the Graf's wife. The wine had worked on Cat, too, rendered her incapable of reprimand. She felt loose, free, and confident.
"Sometimes," she sighed, shivering, remembering the hard feel of her husband's body upon hers, remembering the irresistible rush of his kisses, "I want to do exactly that."
That was when the door between her husband's room and hers—the door that was never locked, the door that was never opened—did just that. There stood Christoph, dark locks over his shoulders, wearing his brocaded burgundy gown. After gazing at the two surprised young women intently for an instant, he smiled.
"A pretty sight indeed. I'm sorry to interrupt you, young ladies, but I'm afraid that for the last few nights I've been sitting on the other side of that door, hearing you sing and whisper and feeling left out. Tonight it occurred to me that this is an odd way for a husband to feel..." Eyes big, Elsa belted her loose gown tightly. Then, mandolin in hand, she crawled backwards out of the bed.
"Yes, I think that tonight, the eve of the New Year, my wife and I will be alone. You may go to your own room tonight, Elsa, but first come here to me." The tall girl obeyed, clearly nervous. Now, in such alarming undress, the master seemed very deliberate.
"Stop looking as if I were about to eat you!" Impatiently he caught Elsa by the hand and pulled her lanky and now visibly trembling form closer. "You have been good to my wife, and so I've decided that you should have a fine present at the New Year."
"Oh, sir!" Elsa blushed, lowering her eyes. She, like most women, found Christoph attractive. Proximity combined with the touch of his hands was heady!
"A certain young fellow from the kitchen has been so bold as to come to me and ask for my help- -and I have agreed."
Elsa's big eyes started.
Red Magic Page 16