"Real witches?" Caterina felt her knees tremble. "My father said there was no such thing."
"They are real and they are everywhere. In my country too." The mare was pushing the foal with her nose, trying to get it onto its spindly legs.
"Where is your country, Rossmann?" Cat had always wanted to ask. She'd heard so many tall tales, and now, alone, it seemed the moment to dare it.
"Far away east. Through the forests and then to where they disappear. By the Tisza River where the great Hungarian plains lie beneath the sky."
"Plains? All flat? All pasture?"
"Yes, but wider and drier than you, Mistress, have ever seen. The sky comes down to meet the waving grass. Horses and cattle roam there."
"Is that where you learned so much about animals?"
"Yes, Mistress. My family owned great herds."
Above them on the mountain, a strongly rhythmic, robust chant began. Rossmann looked away.
"On the mountain—they—sound happy," Cat hesitantly suggested.
"Well, magic is sometimes good."
"But the priests say they are bad."
"Pardon me, Mistress, but your priests are ignorant men. Hexerei pray for things peasant and noble alike need—for good harvests, for many lambs and calves, for strong children."
He was staring at her now, staring as if he had cat's eyes, could pierce the darkness to see straight down to the depths of her soul. Cat's skin prickled. She could almost feel his mind reaching to touch hers, just as he did with the horses. Suddenly she was not only nervous about wolves and witches, but about the mysterious Herr Rossmann too.
"When I was a boy," Rossmann said softly, "my grandfather took me to see a hexe. She lived in a cave in the one high place I'd ever seen. She did good sometimes and evil sometimes, but on that day she gave me a present."
"A present?" His confidential, whispery tone sent shivers along Cat's spine.
"The power over horses."
Curiosity instantly overcame her alarm.
"Is that why Star was so quick to let you handle her?"
"In the Cave of the Red Horse, the power was given to me."
"The Cave of the Red Horse?"
"A very powerful place, Mistress. The ancient ones painted many animals on the walls, many cattle and horses, many creatures that have gone away to far lands, many animals that no longer live on those plains, or anywhere else, I think."
The foal was up now, tottering on those long legs and nosing for a teat. Star, despite her skittishness with humans, was a surprisingly calm mother. She gently nudged the baby close.
"And where did you meet your hexe, Mistress?"
"What?" Caterina couldn't quite believe her ears.
"The one who gave you your power."
Her tongue became immovable, but Caterina felt the compulsion of his eyes. It was as if she were a horse he was talking into standing still for something that would hurt. Reflexively, her hand flew to the Protector.
"I've—I've—never met a hexe. My Aunt Tanucci taught me about animals, but it wasn't magic, it was just learning to understand their ways—" Her voice trailed away as she recalled, with a chill, the sacrifice her Aunt's peasants had made.
"My hexe gave me a mark," said Rossmann in a voice filled with soft persuasion. "It was a blue spiral. Do you have one?"
Cat knew this was wildly impertinent, but she could not control the surge of panic that followed. It was all she could do to keep from running away across the pasture.
"No!" she cried. Her hand gripped the locket. "What do you mean?"
"I apologize if I have upset you, Mistress." Rossmann's gaze shifted away, as if his question had never been asked. "It is a thing of my people. Ah, look! The foal suckles."
It was a welcome distraction, the sight of that delicate head tucked under her mother's belly. Cat rejoiced to see it, for this meant they could soon go back to the barn. There they'd be out of the darkness, away from the wolves, witches, Rossmann's weird conversation and whatever other mysteries lurked tonight on the shoulders of Heldenberg.
That was when a movement by that nearby outcropping attracted her eye. This time, instead of anger, she felt an enormous wave of relief. In spite of the lure of May Day festivities, she and Rossmann were not alone.
* * *
Not much later she was able to slip a lead on Star's halter. The mare was fidgety, but with her mistress' soothing, she allowed herself to be led, allowed Rossmann to pick up the long-legged baby and put her across the pony's back. Caterina, who had already mounted steadied the damp, wondering creature in her arms.
"I've worried you." Rossmann spoke again as they set off for the barn.
Caterina didn't reply.
"I am sorry, Mistress. Sometimes I forget that I am not on the plains, that this is more—ah—civilized." Cat caught the tone. She had come to realize that he often spoke ironically. "That, up there…" She indicated the still visible flare of orange, "is not what I would call civilized."
"Perhaps, but many folk share it. Best you say nothing about what you saw. Many of your best peasants are on the mountain tonight and your priests still burn witches. And after the hunting of witches starts, no one—neither high nor low—is safe."
Cat nodded, only too vividly remembering the cruelties that had followed the burial of her aunt.
"They are mistaken about the nature of God, Mistress, but hexerei know many useful things. Where they are all destroyed, much wisdom is lost."
In this speech Caterina heard an echo of the rationalist professor Herr Stocke waxing philosophical, saying that the search for knowledge was the one eternal and unchanging goal of mankind.
"Some thought my Aunt Teresina was a hexe," Cat admitted as they slowly walked along. "After she died, the rumor brought suffering to her peasants. Believe me, Herr Rossmann, I know how to keep silent."
* * *
By the time they made their slow way back to the barn, pink fingers were tracing the east. Only a thin trail of smoke remained visible upon the mountain.
A couple of men were approaching, emerging from the cover of the eastern forest. Cat wasn't particularly surprised to see that it was Goran and one of the younger grooms. As they drew closer, she saw how tired they looked. Obviously they had spent the night keeping watch over her.
Goran played his part well, jesting about "staying to watch the pretty country girls dance at Heldenruhe". Then he solemnly congratulated Caterina on the safe delivery of her new "baby". She accepted his congratulations with pleasure.
After lifting the foal down, Rossmann and Cat led the horses to a box stall which had been prepared with fresh straw, a good feed of oats and a bucket of water. Star swiveled her ears and her dark eyes rolled.
She was rather nervous about all the people who came to look, but she let Cat lead her. The baby, already stronger, walked along beside her, whisking a stubby little tail.
Soon there was a small crowd as servants and the milkmaids came to admire Star's foal. Everyone looked tired, much the worse for wear. Wherever they'd been celebrating, down in Heldenruhe, or up on the mountain, they seemed cheerful, in spite of the fact that they still had a day's work to get through.
"I hoped the foal would be a white, like the beautiful Papa," said a young milkmaid. How pretty she looked with that wilted wreath of spring flowers in her hair! "But she's exactly like her mother."
"Exactly," A tall, lanky groom agreed.
They watched as the foal, her blonde tail waggling, began to feed. Star stood still, her elegant head turning from side to side, regarding her well wishers solemnly.
"She looks so proud."
"Just as any mother of a fine babe ought to be," said Herr Goran.
Caterina felt an edge to this. It seemed to her that everyone, from Elsa to the grooms, had lately been keeping up a constant stream of praise for motherhood. Suddenly, Caterina wished with all her heart that Christoph were here, standing beside her. She knew he too would be delighted to see this new, beautiful creat
ure.
"What will you call her, Grafin von Hagen?"
"I think Mai would be perfect."
Everyone present smiled and nodded agreement, while Caterina fingered her locket and pondered all the queer happenings of the night just passed.
* * *
"My Dear Christoph," Caterina slowly wrote. "Star dropped her foal on the first day of May before dawn. Rossmann and I were ready for she seemed restless and insisted upon staying way up in the north pasture. Rossmann got his gun, but no wolves came down, thank heaven, and thank Saint Brigitte—and some others—who watched over us. We didn't get back until sunrise because the pasture is so steep and the pony he'd brought had to go slowly. I named the foal Mai for the day and she is so much like her dam. She grows more nimble and frisky every hour. I am down in the barn every day with them but Herr Stocke will tell you that I do not neglect my studies or attending to the business of your house."
Caterina hoped that was right. She was certain Christoph would be delighted to hear about Star's foal. Suddenly, she wondered if Christoph knew about the May Day fires on the Heldenberg, but decided that as Rossmann advised, the less said the better.
Now, she thought, for the hard part, the part she'd tried to write over and over again. From a pigeon hole in the desk she withdrew a paper, one covered with many blots and scratchings out, and slowly began to copy from it.
"I know that I am not a good housekeeper as Wili would have been but I am following the housekeeper although she does not like it and I am learning. Widow Lotz is nicer than Ute ever was and a good teacher too."
Cat sighed and studied this last part. Did it need commas? Then, unbidden, intruding upon her grammatical meditations, the terrible image of Wili's limp body appeared, the light gone forever from her kind eyes.
"Oh, dear Wili," Cat sighed the words aloud. "I know you forgave him. You always did. Now I must learn to do that and to trust him too. That woman in Vienna fell in love with him and I know exactly how it happened. Just like you always said, dear Wili, cruelty is easy. It's love that's hard."
Cat bent over the paper again, dipped the quill and tapped it on the edge of the well, praying she wouldn't blot the so far perfect letter.
"I shall trust to your honor and to your judgment and also hope you were able to help the lady through her trouble to whom you are obligated."
She paused and nibbled on the feather, wanting to get the words just right. Finally she copied from her practice sheet:
"If it is your wish that I remain at Heldenberg, I shall and endeavor to do my duty as your wife because it is the will of my parents and of my Oncle Rupert and also..."
Cat paused, consulted her heart and then wrote in a swift scrawl, "because it is my greatest and most carefully considered desire. Your wife, who prays every day for your safety and for your speedy return. Caterina, Grafin von Hagen."
Chapter Seventeen
She still couldn't believe what she saw when she opened her eyes. There was the same morning light, the same sun that shone on her at home, shining through the bars of a room that had become her cage.
Her past, the wild Heldenberg, her freedom—all of it gone! Lost to a chimera of wanting, a dream that she would ride to find her man, that this would prove her true, true love, this facing danger for him…and what had it brought? Nothing but death and destruction to those who had bent to the folly of her desire and will…
And Rossmann—that traitor! Everything Goran had said and more—who had encouraged her, who had ridden with her knee to knee, who had smiled and taught her from his store of knowledge, who had so completely gained her trust all through that lonely, fatal summer…
* * *
Images from the past weeks flooded her mind as soon as she came to consciousness. She'd traveled the long road to Passau, boarding the ship. Then down the Danube, the glitter of Vienna, where she'd left Elsa in the house of those Wagensperg cousins in whose kitchen Ekkehard labored, all of this passing like a dream.
No time to wait!
She must reach her husband—must have the joy of his arms around her! Days were spent watching the glittering water, nights almost too excited to sleep. They left the river and rode into Hungary, which had been nearly swallowed by the Turks at the time of their last incursion half a century ago. Over the last eighty years some parts had won free again. With armed men, with Rossmann and faithful Goran, they set a course for the camp where the last letter had come from Christoph.
Caterina was something beyond happy. She rejoiced in the freedom of traveling, in the strength in her young body, in her purpose. She headed east with all the determination of a migrating bird.
Rossmann, who had spent the summer encouraging her to make this journey, seemed to share her delight; he seemed almost giddy. Goran was anxious, angry that his advice had not been listened to and clearly worried about the danger into which they were going.
Graf von Hagen's main company was found at the camp when they arrived, but he and his cavalry were away on a raiding mission. A week passed of restless waiting. Caterina, encouraged by Rossmann, pursued the idea of riding out to find him. Everyone else she'd brought from home—and the commander of the camp—had flatly said it was a bad idea.
"You are in danger here, Grafin. Outside this camp the roads in every direction are filled with bandits and enemy soldiers. You should wait here for your husband to return." Goran heartily agreed. "Best we wait as the commander says. Be patient. The Herr Graf will return. Besides, we don't know where he'll come from. You could ride out and miss him, putting yourself in danger for nothing. Staying here is safer than a wild goose chase." But Caterina, feeling so near to her husband, had been on fire to push on. Rossmann was reassuring, saying that he knew the land here like the back of his hand.
"Of course Goran is cautious. He is a brave man, but he is from the mountains to the south, not so familiar with this territory as I am. But," he'd ended, his dark eyes sparkling, "what better way to show the Graf the strength of your devotion?"
After a few more days, over the objections of the commander, but accompanied by men he'd provided, Cat, Goran and Rossmann had ridden east. She'd been scared but sure all would go well, that she would find her husband quickly. On the second day out, just as Goran had begun to insist they turn back, they'd been caught by a large Turkish raiding party. It had burst upon them out of dense thicket which lay on the north side of the road.
The soldiers fought like tigers, but there were simply too many. All around her men fell. Her escort, Major von Hoffmann, urged her to turn and ride, ride for her life, but then blood spurted from his mouth, spilling down his buff waistcoat. Looking surprised, he'd pitched forward onto the ground.
She had turned Star and ridden as fast as she could, calling for Goran. Together they made a run for it, but were cut off. There were so many! A crowd of them seized Goran's horse and forced him off it. He disappeared from view, a wounded boar disappearing beneath a host of dogs. The air was rent with shouting, and swords flashed and fell upon the fallen man.
When the Turks tried to catch Star's bridle, the mare reared and kicked. It took several men and foot ropes to hold her. From somewhere, Rossmann, the only one of her entourage left alive, appeared. Now he stood beside Caterina, waving and shouting something in a language the enemy understood.
"Don't do anything, Grafin. I'll keep you safe."
And he somehow had. As his talk was all in that strange language, Caterina didn't know why. Slipping to the ground and bowing, slave-fashion before his captors, Rossmann had apparently explained that the horse would only go with them willingly if they left the red haired girl on her back.
Caterina was trapped. She was sick with fear, rage—and guilt. Surrounded by barbarian soldiers, laughing and crowing to each other in their raucous tongue, a long march of days began. Curiously, neither of she nor Rossmann was tied and he was allowed to ride beside her.
"Their Ban, their head man, wants Star," he explained, "and I think he may want you too,
but the Pasha will be the one to decide."
Caterina tried to hold back her tears, but, during the long days of travel, many fell. She wept for brave Captain Hoffmann and the men who had died trying to save her. She also feared for her husband, for Rossmann said that he'd overheard their captors boast of destroying an Austrian raiding party.
The greatest pain came with the realization that it was her fault. Despite what the soldiers—what the faithful Goran—had advised, she had been head-strong, had brought this disaster about.
Now, as they rode away, she saw that the Turks had taken fresh territory. There were gruesome burned villages, signaled long before they were seen by a stench that rose to heaven and a sky darkened by whirling carrion birds. Caterina hid her eyes from the heaps of splayed and bloated things that had once been men and women.
By night she could see the stars, see they were heading due east. Through forest and over a mountain pass they traveled, at last descending into a river valley. "The Tisza", said Rossmann. "It flows through those plains I told you about, past the place where I was born."
They had taken all her jewelry, the golden chains her mother had given her, the pearl earrings that had been a birthday present from Christoph, her wedding band. After she'd carefully opened the wooden locket and showed the picture inside, they had, to Cat's great relief, lost interest in that. Rossmann gave her a scarf to wrap around the lower part of her face and head which kept out the dust and also moderated the eternal gawking of the men. At first, she was simply glad for Rossmann's protection, but as they rode on, suspicion swelled into fear.
How relaxed he seemed, and on what easy terms with their captors!
Indeed, Rossmann had said he knew the country well, but as one day and then another passed, he never said a word about escape. When she put it to him, he said, "It's not wise to even talk about, Grafin."
"Why?"
"Because if we tried, I can tell you exactly what would happen. To start," Rossmann said simply, "They'd kill me and then they'd all make use of you. If you didn't die of their ill treatment, they'd sell you. There are, truly, fates worse than death."
Red Magic Page 20