Red Magic Page 2

  Ordinarily, Christoph enjoyed the rural pleasures of his Donau valley home, but as he rode up the hill with the others he felt something interfering with his usual relaxed anticipation of a few weeks of ease and more or less chaste amusement. Before him floated a vision, one that glowed with what he, with his experience of life and love, uncomfortably recognized as the compulsion of a new divinity.

  Those astonishing emerald eyes, that thin girlish face, the lines as straight and pure as a sculpted angel's! The thick red braid, which he suddenly imagined loosened, cascading across a pillow; the tiny freckles, a golden dust scattered across even the most intimate, satin places. Most provocative was the remembered sensation of a strong, lithe body wrestling angrily and competently against his, a body which belonged—alarmingly—to skinny Red Caterina.

  * * *

  Wilhelm von Velsen, a man with an aspect of forbidding dignity, was Chief Magistrate of the valley, the Landrat. He was by birth an aristocrat, a man unaccustomed to submitting humbly to lectures. His continued silence now was ample acknowledgement that he'd earned what his wife was dishing out.

  "This is your fault, sir. Ever since you saw how well she could ride, you have indulged her, spoiled her. This is where it leads! Rolling on the ground with Christoph von Hagen as if they were school boys! Theo says Christoph wasn't about to discourage her, either. Engaged to Wili, and now the scoundrel's putting his hands all over our Caterina."

  "Gottesblut! That young dog!" The square face of the Landrat was quite red. A huge ham fist landed on the table, making the delicate blue and white china jump.

  Caterina's father had been in a temper from the moment he'd heard that the wagers he'd made on his fox had been lost, but now an eruption was pending. Lady Albertine pressed her advantage, although she knew it had to be done with care. She wanted her husband to pull the reins in on Caterina, pull them in hard, but she didn't want the house party spoiled by a rampage. It would be, she knew, a near thing.

  "I told you how Caterina treats good Frau Pluncke. The brat just throws down her sewing and climbs out the school room window, right down the ivy, saddles that mare of hers and rides away. It's a regular thing now, whenever she's set a task she doesn't fancy."

  Lady von Velsen was determined, for once, to get it all said. She herself was an able horsewoman, but she also boasted a fine hand with a needle. More than that, she was an active and able overseer of her husband's large household, from kitchen to laundry.

  "She's fifteen, Wilhelm. Fifteen! Quite old enough to marry. Didn't I tell you she shouldn't be allowed to play fox? Theo said that if it had been anyone but von Hagen who'd put his hands on Caterina like that, he'd have called him out."

  "Your Theo's a damned trouble maker," the Landrat grumbled. He knew what Theo, his wife's son by her first marriage, thought about his little sister. "But the lawless young dog—Christoph! Where is he?" The Landrat gripped the table, preparatory to heaving his barrel body from the chair.

  "Very dutifully and lovingly sitting in an upstairs window seat," said Lady von Velsen, beginning to rub her husband's massive shoulders, "being most attentive to your Wili. I don't think we want to interrupt that."

  "No," growled the Landrat, subsiding beneath her hands. "Damn him. He has a hell of an eye for strategy."

  "Indeed. All the more reason to press for a wedding."

  "He has to go back to his regiment in three weeks. He's only got a short leave and then it's off to the Turkish wars."

  "Isn't it always the same story?"

  Lady Albertine took a seat beside her husband. The conversation was getting away from her, moving in the direction of the other looming family problem, the long promised and long delayed marriage of Christoph von Hagen to the Landrat's daughter by his first marriage, Wilhelmina.

  "At his winter leave then," muttered her husband. "I'll insist upon it."

  "Make him promise, Wilhelm, have a talk with his father. Cousin Rupert is just as sick of it as we are. You know, Wili will be twenty-three in October."

  "Yes, her best breeding years already gone by. Gottesblut! You'd think that land down by the river would be incentive enough for him to take her. He could marry, get us a grandson and still run off to play soldier to his heart's content. These young people nowadays—"

  "And Caterina?" Lady von Velsen interrupted. "You'll speak to Caterina? It has to stop, Wilhelm. She's just too old to go parading around in trousers." Lady von Velsen leaned forward anxiously, one arm still around her husband. She didn't want to lose this opportunity to make him see how serious the problem was. "The child can barely thread a needle, but that's nothing compared to the rest. She hasn't a ghost of a notion about anything a woman should, about cookery or about managing a house. Why, when she marries, her servants will waste, steal, commit riot."

  "Mmmmraaah," growled the Landrat.

  "Of course," his wife said soothingly, "I know how disappointing it's been, my giving you only that girl."

  She was patting her husband's back firmly and rhythmically as if she were burping an enormous baby. Perhaps the entire message could be delivered without causing an explosion. "She's really a good child, but she knows you wish she had been a boy and so she plays the son's part, following you and Herr Longenecker around, messing endlessly with that horse of hers, but it's plain cruelty to let her go on this way. And, oh, Wilhelm, just think. What if she refuses to marry and gets, gets—" Lady von Velsen's voice dropped to a whisper, as if just saying the words aloud might make them come true. "What if she gets like Aunt Teresina? You know how she fascinated Caterina. And Grandpapa Tanucci always blamed himself, said that her—oddities, were the result of his indulgence."

  Just audibly, the Landrat groaned. A case horribly in point. For lack of a son he'd raised a tomboy instead of a proper daughter. The awful consequences were just now coming home.

  Chapter Two

  Almost a year later, when Christoph returned to the valley, he arrived not dashingly on horseback, but reclining in a chaise. Wili wept to see him, for her handsome darling was worn, gaunt and pale. When he walked, it was frowning with effort and leaning heavily upon a cane. Pain from the terrible wound he had taken fighting the Turks had aged him, scoured deep lines around his eyes and mouth.

  With tears in his eyes, Christoph took Wili into his big arms. When he called her "my darling wife," hearts in both families soared. Now, at last, after this near tragedy, the knot was to be tied! The pair were allowed a long time alone together in the study.

  "He says he's sorry," Wili said tearfully to Lady von Velsen. "He says that all these years he's been fond of me, but that he just couldn't imagine being married. Now he says that he's come to understand that a caring, tender friend is the best kind of wife there is. He says he's ashamed and sorry. He swears to make it all up to me."

  "Oh, my darling," Lady von Velsen exclaimed, embracing her step-daughter, "I'm so glad! Your papa and I want you to be happy so much."

  Cat nodded, smiled, but said nothing. Of course she was happy that Wili was to get her wish and be married to Christoph at last. Nevertheless, there was a queer aching sadness whose source was a mystery, a mystery which was hidden behind a dark forbidding door, one she neither cared nor dared to open. A wedding date was set. Cat's sixteenth birthday, just after the spring equinox, passed almost unnoticed in the whirl of activity and planning.

  The bridegroom-to-be came to stay at the von Velsen Schloss while completing his recovery. Wili spent her days with him. She tirelessly prepared delicacies to nurture him. Soon, with so much care and comfort, the beloved invalid began to regain color and strength. His limp lessened. The cane was discarded.

  No one could quite believe how changed Christoph was. He was always unceremoniously gathering Wili up to hug and kiss her. Suddenly all Wili's tears were ones of joy.

  As the wedding day drew closer, Christoph took his bride-to-be for long, lonely drives from which Wili returned looking rosy and tousled. This alarmed Lady von Velsen, but when the Landrat
only smiled.

  "Never mind, lady wife. All it means is that we may have a head start on a grandson. If I understand that boy, and I think I do by this time, this means he's in earnest at last."

  With his elders Christoph was solemn and respectful. He spent his evenings having long serious talks with the Landrat about land, law, tenants and farming. In every way he seemed much older. With Caterina he was formal and proper, suddenly more a distant older relative than playful cousin.

  As weeks passed Wili floated deliriously around the Schloss, babbling endlessly about her sweetheart, about her wedding. While Cat was truly happy to see her so elated, at the same time she felt increasingly sad, as if she'd lost something precious, although she didn't know quite what. In the hustle and bustle of preparations, strict discipline relaxed and Cat spent a lot of time out of the house, riding Star aimlessly around and trying not to think too much.

  * * *

  One afternoon about a month before the wedding, everyone went out for a ride. The physician had just given Christoph permission to do so and he couldn't wait.

  In the party was Oncle Rupert, Christoph and Wili, Landrat Wilhelm and Caterina. Wili wasn't as bold a rider as Cat, but like most country gentry, she knew what she was about on horseback.

  As they cantered through a lush riverside meadow, the bride-to-be laughed gaily, urged her little gelding on. Christoph, delighted at being up on his Prussian again, kept daring everyone to ride faster. The pace rose to a gallop.

  Wili's mount stumbled. Letting out a sound like a human scream, the horse pitched forward.

  Wili's astonished cry mingled with that of her mount. Swiveling out of the saddle in a classic side saddle fall, she crashed straight onto her back among the flowers.

  When Cat reached the spot, she leapt down beside her sister. Wili's body was quivering all over in an ugly, spasmodic shudder and her neck was oddly twisted. Heavy golden hair spilled from beneath her loosened cap onto the green.

  Nearby her poor horse staggered and moaned, holding up a front leg from which bone protruded and blood bubbled. Cat crouched in the grass beside Wili, too stunned to make a sound. Her sister's gray eyes, usually benignly alight, were empty. There was not even a spark left to which Caterina could bid farewell.

  * * *

  One by one, the other riders joined her. Christoph, far ahead, was the last to arrive. He threw the reins over his horse's head and dismounted in a single bound. Only too well did the soldier know the face of death!

  "No!" He went to his knees beside Cat and seized her limp body in his arms. "No! Wili! No! This can't be!"

  An explosion split the air. Cat looked up to see Wili's little horse tumble to the ground. Oncle Rupert had discharged a hunting piece point blank into his head, ending the poor creature's agony. At this crowning desolation, Cat began to sob.

  * * *

  A few days later, in the first hot days of June, they laid Wili beside her mother, the Landrat's gentle first wife. Kinfolk and neighbors, as well as a crowd of servants, all stood together, faces pinched and eyes red. When it was over, the terrible last words said, the coffin delivered into the crypt, Lady von Velsen and Caterina, breathless with crying, walked wordlessly out into the bright sunlight.

  It was the Landrat who had something to say. He went straight up to Oncle Rupert on the church steps and loudly declared, "In the name of God, Rupert von Hagen, promise me here and now that your son will marry Caterina."

  Everyone froze. Rupert's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. When not even a croak came out, Wilhem von Velsen declared, "By God, we'll still have a wedding. On the sixth Monday hence."

  Rupert stammered, his round cheeks pale, "'Pon my honor, Wilhelm von Velsen—it shall be as you say."

  Like everyone in hearing, Rupert was shocked, but he understood his kinsman's now desperate need to arrange the matter. Upon the Landrat's death, the bulk of the von Velsen lands would revert to Christoph as the nearest male heir. The grafting of the two family branches by marriage was the only way Wilhem von Velsen had to pass his beloved land on to his grandchildren.

  "Marry him?" Caterina turned to stare at Christoph, who, white faced, was just emerging from the dark passage that led to the crypt. "No! I won't!" She caught her heavy black skirts, prepared to run somewhere, anywhere, but her portly father anticipated. One great hand, moving with astonishing alacrity, took immediate, rough possession of her arm.

  "If you disgrace me now, I shall beat you black and blue right here in the street."

  He never let go, not during the carriage ride home, not until he had dragged Cat all the way up the long, curving staircase toward her bedroom.

  "There will be no nonsense. You will do as I say, Caterina. In six weeks you'll be married. While we wait, you will remain in your room. It will give you time to prepare."

  "But Papa," Cat cried, "I don't want to be married. Not to him. Not now. Please don't make me. Please!"

  "Husband," Lady von Velsen seemed equally alarmed by turn things had taken, "This may be right in a few months, but do you really think—"

  "Not another word from either of you! A wedding is planned and a wedding there shall be. The idea came to me in church, and as nothing much ever comes to me there except sleep, I believe it is a sign from God."

  "You act as if Wili and I are of no more importance to you than one of your mares," Cat shouted. "One is dead, so another takes her place in the breeding barn."

  "This defiance is the punishment I deserve for indulging you, for not teaching you a woman's place and duty. Heaven knows, your mother has warned me a thousand times."

  Instead of the expected fury, the Landrat's face was grave. Cat thought she'd never seen her father look so cold.

  "The law, Caterina, says that you are mine and just exactly like those mares. You know that our lands will revert to my cousin's family when I die, as it seems I am fated to do, without sons. By God, girl, my name may vanish, but that good black earth down by the river shall not pass away from my blood!"

  The Landrat was like a mountain peak in a storm, scowling, intractable. It took all Cat's strength to speak again.

  "But Papa—Christoph is a rake, and—oh, I despise him."

  "Enough, Caterina. Our cousin was unkind to Wili, unkind and thoughtless. I know you grieve for your sister. We all do, but see what ruin delay has brought us! If I'd forced them to it last summer, why, my heart near cracks when I remember..."

  "But, but—I'm not ready to be married. Mama will tell you." In the face of his stony resolve, Caterina was prepared to humble herself

  "I know, Caterina, but it can't be helped. Now just remember that I am your father. Yes, if you like, your master, and I say you shall marry him."

  "I won't! I can't!"

  "Too late I see," her father roared, "you are nothing but an ungrateful brat! By Christ and all his Saints, you shall do as I say!" The Landrat's head spun. The death of one beloved child, the defiance of the other! One huge hand came flying, but Cat was so furious that the head-rattling slap didn't stop her.

  "Hit me! Go on!" Cornered, she feared nothing, not even her father's towering rage. "I shan't marry that lying rake. I shan't!"

  Her father, who had hold of her arm, slapped again. Cat's head rang.

  "Wilhelm! Have you lost your mind? You wouldn't treat a serving girl—or even a dog this way." Lady von Hagen flung herself upon her husband's thick arm.

  "A serving girl wouldn't act the way this hussy does! Not a creature on two legs or four acts—she thinks she's master here!" The Landrat panted, his square face was purple.

  "I won't marry him! I won't!" Cat repeated, still struggling with all her might and main to escape.

  "Shame! Shame on you both!" Her mother cried. "Caterina! How dare you defy your father?"

  "Damn her! She has driven me mad!"

  "Leave this room at once, sir," Lady von Hagen exclaimed, "and let me speak to my daughter alone."

  "Your daughter? Entirely yours, I think!
The red-headed she-devil!"

  "Wilhelm! How dare you?" Lady von Velsen gave her own red head an imperious, wild horse toss.

  Faced by two outraged and exceedingly tall women, the Landrat prudently retreated. The bedroom door crashed shut behind him and then the key ground with awful finality in the large, square lock.

  * * *

  "Oh, Mama! Please don't let him make me marry Christoph." Caterina threw herself into her mother's arms. It wasn't unusual for girls of sixteen to be married, but up till this moment Cat had considered marriage only the remotest possibility. Now it was rushing in with all the finality of a death sentence.

  Lady von Velsen soothed her daughter, stroked the flaming hair and reflected with melancholy upon how long it had been since she'd had the pleasure of holding this fiercely independent child in her arms. Finally, she took Cat's chin in her hand, tipped it up to gaze into her eyes, so exactly like her own.

  "If you're ready now, Caterina Maria Brigitte, we'll talk. And I will talk first, because I'm your mama."

  She drew her daughter towards the window seat, the place where Cat had endured so many maternal lectures. When Caterina's red head nestled against her shoulder, Lady von Velsen began.

  "You're going to have to grow up now, grow up faster and harder than I'd choose, but there's nothing else to be done. This is a terrible thing for us all, for your papa, too, you must believe it, to think of a wedding when we should all be grieving. Duty will carry us through. Duty, Caterina! Everyone's duty—yours, mine, Papa's, and young von Hagen's too, for at last he seems understand his."