by Ted Dekker
“Enough!” Alek blurted. He threw his serviette down and stood. “I won’t sit here for this!”
“Should I sew my eyes shut for you?” Simion said.
“Or let me gouge them out!”
“Stop this!” Natasha cried. “Alek, your jealousy is unbecoming. Let him look at me, for goodness’ sake. It’s harmless and I find it charming.”
“He’s undressing you over there! I won’t stand by while he rapes you with his eyes.”
“Alek—”
“Stay out of this, Toma!” he snapped.
“You misunderstand,” Simion said. “It’s true we love beauty, and the Cantemir women have a reputation for—”
“I don’t care. Keep your eyes off this one or you answer to me here and now.”
“Then it’s true?”
“No more words!”
“You are afraid. Does a woman love a man who’s afraid?”
I expected Vlad van Valerik to settle his man again, but he didn’t. He was leaning back in his chair, glass in hand, eyes on Lucine. I had no idea how long he’d been staring, but the look alarmed me once again.
“Afraid of a man like you? Don’t you realize that I’ve killed a hundred men like you?”
“Like Toma killed Stefan? Without a fair fight?”
“Choose your weapon now and let’s be done with it!” Alek thundered.
The dining room rang with the challenge. No one moved. Simion looked completely at ease.
Look at me, Toma. I will show you pleasures that you could never know with her.
Sofia’s voice whispered in my head and this time without my looking into her eyes. I was indeed losing my mind.
“That will do, Simion.” Valerik’s voice rumbled from the head of the table. “I think we have done things backward here. It isn’t right for us to impose our own passions on you in your own home. Forgive me, Lady Cantemir.”
“Nonsense. I should be the one begging your forgiveness. Please, Alek, sit.”
“But now we must leave.” Valerik stood and bowed. “It’s been a delightful meal.”
“But—”
“No, madam. We will go.” He glanced at Simion and Sofia, who stood.
Toma . . . beautiful Toma . . .
I felt my pulse quicken.
Kesia stood, as did we all. “Sir, my apologies. I am mortified.”
“Nonsense. It was perfectly delightful.”
“If there’s anything I can do.”
“There is,” he said.
She blinked. “There is?”
“Tomorrow night we shall have a ball. A private affair, but you are welcome. All of you. At sundown.”
“That will be impossible,” I said. And then for Kesia’s sake, “But thank you for the invitation.”
“It’s a wonderful idea,” Natasha said. “Why not?”
“I am here for your safety, madam,” I said. “I do not consider taking leave of this estate to be wise.”
“But that’s . . .”
“Please don’t make a scene, Natasha,” Lucine whispered harshly.
Vlad van Valerik took Kesia’s hand. Kissed it gently. “I hope you reconsider, my dear. Good evening.”
They left, Vlad first. Simion and Sofia both slowed at the dining room door and twisted their heads for one last stare.
Be careful, my darling . . .
Then they were gone.
SEVEN
The dinner with the Russians haunted Lucine’s sleep that night. Not the dinner itself, but the eyes.
More specifically, Vlad van Valerik’s eyes, watching her, demanding of her, undressing her.
She’d found the man’s gaze so unnerving at one point that she’d reached for Toma’s hand. A warm hand that felt strong under her fingers. The same hand, in fact, that hadn’t hesitated to draw a weapon and shoot one of the Russians dead only three nights earlier.
Touching Toma had washed away her fears. She had no interest in the master of the Castle Castile or any of his comrades. Though she had to admit, they were alluring—those eyes! Dark with gray circles rimming the black moons at the center. Like a lunar eclipse. It frightened her, and if not for Toma’s reassuring hand, she might have left the table.
Lucine spent the night tossing. Images she couldn’t later remember ran circles around her sleep. She almost got up in the middle of the night to find Toma because she felt unsafe. But the idea of running to him again, finding him in his room without a shirt, bothered her. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.
She did like the man. Who wouldn’t? But she didn’t want to send him mixed signals. He was a stallion. A lion among wolves. Still, he was a warrior who killed men for a living, not a lover who could be a father to her children.
Natasha and Mother both said that he was struck by her, and that might be. Though really, Natasha and Mother saw love in the slightest of movements. It was no wonder the Cantemir women had such a reputation throughout Europe.
So then, all the more reason for caution. She didn’t want to encourage Toma or hurt him.
Lucine woke late the next morning. Far too late, well past breakfast, she thought. Natasha had locked her door and didn’t respond to any amount of pounding.
She went to fetch Toma, but he was already out, for a ride likely. She hurried to find Alek, still groggy, in his room. When they returned to Natasha’s room, they found the door unlocked. The bed had been stripped and her sister was in a bath.
A soapy red bath.
“More blood?”
“Please, Lucine! Stop all the fuss with the blood. I feel positively divine. Would you like to check for cuts? You won’t find any.”
The soap hardly covered her nakedness, and she bathed with no shame as Alek watched from the door. “Come, dear, give me a kiss and tell me we had a blissful night. Because I don’t recall a moment of it.”
He came in, leaned over the bath, and kissed her. “It’s your loss, then.”
“Was it? Blissful, I mean?”
“You’ll never know now, will you?”
She flicked bubbles at him and laughed. “Naughty boy.”
Alek winked. “Naughty, naughty girl. Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“Your proposal last night?”
“For marriage?” She gasped and covered her mouth with a soapy hand. “No!”
“Well, no.” He smiled and winked again. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t show all the world how to love.”
Lucine rolled her eyes and turned to leave. “Please, before I throw up.”
Alek and Natasha spent most of the day planning for and then taking a picnic on the property’s north side. As long as she remained with Alek, no other protection was needed. They were a sight, those two, walking about with as much grace as they could manage, but in reality they were two lovebirds, chasing each other with twirls of laughter.
Lucine’s heart ached to watch. To be loved and to love like that—why couldn’t she abandon herself to love like Natasha? It did not matter that Natasha would likely be dead in ten years as a result of her extravagant passions; that she would likely never be the proper mother of many children; that she was likely bound for hell itself.
Natasha wrung pleasure from every cord, every fiber, every man, every moment, and if she died in ten years from a broken heart, she would be buried with eyes etched with crow’s-feet from all her laughter.
But even all that was nonsense, Lucine thought, the temptations of wickedness. Still, she longed to be loved so.
Toma was gone to the nearest real town, Crysk, to meet with the church—that Russian Orthodox bishop Julian Petrov. The Russian army had an arrangement with the church to provide intelligence when needed, and introductions were overdue. Perhaps Toma wanted to know more about the residents at the Castle Castile.
“But the bishop will know nothing of them,” Lucine explained in the kitchen as Alek and Natasha placed fruits and breads into a small satchel. “The Russians are far too secretive.”
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Alek’s brow arched. “Which Russians? Toma and me? The priests? Or those hyenas in the Castle Castile?”
“The last. They’ve been here only a short time. No one seems to know much about them.”
Natasha gazed out the window, to the west. “If Father Petrov knew, he’d be up to burn the witches already. He turns a blind eye to Mother’s doings only under threat of reappointment.”
Toma returned and joined them for a lovely dinner, just the five of them, with Mother at the head, Alek and Toma on one side, and the twins on the other. They’d laughed at Natasha’s jokes about the boar’s head, which Kesia had put on salt and set at the far end.
“There he is, the dead pig who seduces the dead.”
Why it was so funny, Lucine wasn’t sure, but they could not stop after that.
It felt good to have Toma back. He’d learned nothing at the church, he said. The man he’d met with was a stuffed turkey. This coming from Toma was also hilarious. It was a perfect evening that would have led to a perfect night if Alek hadn’t been such a man.
He burst into her room an hour after she’d retired. “Lucine! She’s gone! We have to find her!”
Lucine bolted up, fully awake in body but still dead in her mind. “What?”
“Natasha!” He rushed to the side of her bed. “Have you seen her? I’ve looked everywhere. Her bed is tossed and the doors to her balcony are open.”
“What?” Lucine threw her covers off and ran from the room, up the hall, into Natasha’s bedroom.
The sheets were on the floor with the bed cover. And the doors leading out to the balcony were open to the wind, which lifted the billowing curtains.
“She’s gone!”
“You weren’t here?”
“No. I left her two hours ago.”
“Then how did you discover that she was gone?”
“I couldn’t sleep. What does it matter?” He paced, frantic. “Heaven help us, if she’s gone up there . . .”
“What?”
He placed his hand on his forehead. “She said it. She said she would go, but she was drunk and we were laughing and I thought she was only toying.”
“Up where?”
“To the Castle Castile. To that cursed ball!”
Lucine was too shocked to reply. By herself? At night?
“We have to tell Toma!”
“No! This isn’t his mess. I’ll go.”
“We don’t know for sure that she’s gone!”
“I’ll find out. The stables, the tracks—I’ll know. And I’ll take care of this.” He brushed past her, now intent on his course. “We’ll tell Toma in the morning.”
“But—”
“If I’m not back by then, tell him to come for us.”
And then he was off, leaving Lucine standing in Natasha’s bedroom with a parted mouth and a hammering heart.
She paced and eventually returned to her room, and then, hearing nothing but the wind and her own turning under the sheets, managed to find some sleep.
Lucine woke with the sun in her eyes, late again, for the second day in a row. She pushed herself up and was halfway out of bed before she remembered the night’s fear.
“Natasha!” She tore from her room, nightgown flying behind her.
Natasha’s room was empty. The bed was as she remembered it, unmade and sheet on the floor. Her sister hadn’t returned!
“Natasha!” She flew out into the living room and pulled up sharply.
They were all there, Natasha, Alek, Mother, and Toma. Lucine rushed to Natasha, who sat smiling with pale lips, hair a nest for spiders, and eyes dark for lack of sleep.
“Thank God you’ve returned!” She hugged her sister. “What happened?”
Natasha offered a short chuckle and shrugged.
Lucine turned to Alek. “Well?”
“She went. All the way up there, if you can believe it.”
“And?” Mother asked.
“As I told you,” Alek said. “Nothing. It’s a large place and I was greeted at the door. They showed her to me and then we left.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Nothing else?” Toma asked. “She came willingly?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she said.
“And why did you go, Natasha? When I had prohibited it?”
“I wasn’t aware that you governed my life.” All this while she maintained a contented smile. But she looked as though she hadn’t slept a wink.
“I don’t. But I thought we’d agreed.”
“Yes. We did. But I changed my mind. Isn’t that a woman’s choice here? Mother?”
Her mother sighed. “Only if you tell me what kind of delicious experience you had. And it was foolish to go alone. Anything could have happened.”
“Please, I can ride as well as most men. And to be honest, I don’t really know what happened. I was only there an hour before I was rescued.” Her voiced dripped with sarcasm.
“You saw no danger, Alek?” Toma pressed.
He thought a moment. “Not that I saw, no.”
Natasha stood slowly. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m tired. Could you help me, Lucine?”
“Of course.”
They left under the others’ watchful eyes. The moment Natasha shut her bedroom door, she spun around. “Oh, Lucine! It was wonderful, so wonderful!” She spread her arms wide and whirled, the picture of bliss.
“What on earth do you mean?”
Natasha grabbed her hand and dragged her to the bed, eyes fiery now. Gone were the shadows of exhaustion, the pallor of death. She was beaming and flushed.
“I mean the Castle Castile. The Russians.”
Lucine blinked at this. “I thought . . .”
“Because . . .” She eyed the door. “Of course you thought, but it’s not true. It was the most intoxicating time of my life.”
“How is that possible? You were hardly there.”
Natasha jumped up and walked around the bed to the open balcony doors and let the breeze flow over her face.
“But I could swear I was there for an eternity, Sister.” She twisted back. “And let me tell you, that one, Simion . . . He’s a stallion.”
“You didn’t!”
“I have no idea. No, no, I must not have. But I would, Lucine.”
“What about Alek?”
“What about him? He’s my lover already. I can have only one?”
Lucine stood, not sure what she should do. “This is . . . Natasha, this isn’t right!”
“What isn’t right? Hmm, Sister? Why don’t you tell me?”
“It’s dangerous.”
“How so?”
And here Lucine fell flat, because it wasn’t really dangerous, not by Cantemir standards anyway. She sat down and let out a long breath.
“Tell me about it.”
Natasha did, in halting detail: the grand ballroom, the men and women in black, the wine, the music. But all of it came back to Simion, this man who’d intoxicated her.
All of this was strangely troubling to Lucine. Something didn’t sit right, and anything with this kind of alluring power could not be good. Could it?
“Don’t tell me he bit your lip,” Lucine said.
Natasha laughed. “I don’t know, but I will tell you I would let him.”
Lucine saw it then, the mark on the inside of her sister’s lip when she pulled it out in jest. Lucine grabbed the lip and pulled it lower.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ve been bitten!”
Natasha jerked away and slapped her sister’s hand. “Stop yanking my lip. It’s only a sore, silly.”
But it looked like a gash to Lucine. And she wondered if it was connected to the bloody sheets.
“Promise me one thing, Natasha.”
“And then I have to sleep.”
“Promise me you won’t return by yourself.”
Natasha looked into Lucine’s eyes thoughtfully. “But of course, Lucine. I
’ve had my fun. I can’t do this all alone.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about your safety.”
Natasha sighed and dropped onto her bed. “Yes, dear Sister. Yes. Now be a good girl and pull my boots off, will you?”
That was the beginning.
EIGHT
Where is she?” I demanded. But I knew. The flame on the candle in my hand bent with the wind as I moved across Natasha Cantemir’s bedroom.
It was midnight.
Kesia and Lucine stood behind me near the door, silent. “Do you have no control of your daughter, madam?”
“She’s not a child,” Kesia said.
“But does she live under no rule? What is it with this family that throws order into the corner?”
Nothing from them.
“If you did not make it clear, then I did,” I said, turning back to face her. “Now we have a pattern, and that is the beginning of anarchy.”
“What on earth do you mean, setting the order of my house?”
I am here to order you, madam, I wanted to say. And now you’re fighting me and that will make you my enemy! But I couldn’t say that, of course.
I would bow to her authority. The last thing I could afford here was an enemy. Particularly not Lucine’s mother.
“Forgive me, then. But I think we should take this seriously.”
I gave the room a last look—the strewn bedsheets, the tossed pillows, the empty bottles of wine—and I strode past the women into the hall.
“But what now?” Lucine asked, following me toward the living room.
“Now I’ll send Alek after her. Again.”
“Alek? But isn’t he gone too?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me. I stopped so suddenly that she bumped into me.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said, spinning. “What are you basing this on?”
“My intuition,” she said.
“Wait for me in the main room. Please.”
I ran through the house toward the west tower, and with each step I cursed myself for not seeing this earlier. She was right, of course. Alek’s affection for Natasha, not any call to duty, was driving him. He’d practically worn his loyalty to her on his sleeve.