Cybele's Secret (42 page)

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, imagining how awful that had been for him and wishing he had told me straightaway. “It makes sense now—what the old woman said about three rewards. The diadem and the gold it brought was the first. Finding Taidjut was the long-sought second. And…”

“And you are the deeply desired third,” Stoyan said. He was blushing. “I know how proud you are, Paula. I know you will not ask your father for funds to realize your own dream. I hope you will take this from me, for we earned it together, you and I, and together we can make that dream reality. Paula, will you marry me? I cannot read very well yet, but I am learning, and you can teach me more. Booksellers need guards; they need folk who can load and unload carts, carry heavy boxes, protect expensive cargoes….”

“Yes,” I said.

“I studied as well as I could,” Stoyan went on. “It was not easy; there were few books in the village—”

“Stoyan, I said yes, I will marry you. I’d marry you if you couldn’t read a word. I would if you hadn’t a single copper coin to your name.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, spilling the coins into the grass. We let go of each other and gathered them as, at last, Stela could be seen coming up from the castle, face flushed from her cooking activities and from excitement. “I’m sure we can find a place for our business close to a town, but with enough room for dogs. And near Piscul Dracului, of course. I want to be able to visit Father and Stela and Jena and Costi…. But, Stoyan, what about your family? The farm, your mother…?”

“Paula!” Stela had arrived. She clambered over the stile, then was unaccountably stricken by shyness as she examined the large and somewhat intimidating figure of Stoyan. It was clear to me that he was not at all what she had expected.

“This is Stoyan,” I said in Greek. “Stoyan, this is my youngest sister, Stela. Stela, you’ll need to use your Greek; that’s the only language the two of you have in common. It will be good practice for you.”

After a couple of false starts, Stela asked Stoyan, “Is it true you fought off twenty armed men single-handed? And walked into a Turkish bath when Paula was only wearing a sort of sheet?”

I felt my cheeks grow hot. I had forgotten the night I had told my sister this particular story.

“Entirely true,” Stoyan said gravely. “Indeed, I was about to tell Paula that the occurrence at the hamam is one of the matters on which Senhor Duarte quizzed me when I met him not long ago. It had been mentioned in passing and had been exercising his imagination. I am happy to make your acquaintance, Kyria Stela.”

Stela grinned, captivated by his courtesy as indeed I had been the very first time I met him. Then she remembered something. “Paula, there’s a lady down at the castle. In the kitchen. She doesn’t seem to speak any language we know, so I think you need to come.”

“A lady?” I looked at Stoyan.

He seemed a little abashed. “My mother,” he said. “I was going to explain. It is true, she has no Greek. She sent me to find you. She insisted she did not need my help.”

I began to feel quite worried. “We’d best go down right away,” I said. “You’re saying your mother has traveled all the way from Bulgaria with you?”

“That is correct, Paula.” He helped me over the stile, then extended his hand to Stela. The dog went over the wall in a leap. “A cousin is looking after our farm. Depending on what is decided, my mother may remain in Transylvania with us. She wishes to…” The words trailed away awkwardly.

“She wants to inspect you,” Stela said. “To see if you’re suitable for her son. I’m right, aren’t I?” she added, glancing at Stoyan in a way that if she had been slightly older, would have been flirtatious.

“She knows that Taidjut will never come home,” Stoyan said. “It is natural that she wishes me to be happy. You should not worry about this, Paula. The decision is not hers, but ours, and is already made. Besides, she cannot do anything but love you on first sight, as I did.”

Stela grinned with pure delight. I was glad she decided not to comment.

“On first sight?” I queried. “When I was trying to be a real merchant and putting on my sternest manner?”

“The moment I saw you, Paula,” he said, putting his arm around my waist. “The first instant. Later, I will tell you all the reasons. For now, I think we must face the challenge of this family visit. There is nothing to fear. You have your dog, you have your sister, and you have me. Even the most alarming of mothers cannot prevail against such a show of strength.”

It must have been a daunting journey for Stoyan’s mother—all the way from Bulgaria by cart or on horseback, with not a word of our language or of any other that was common currency in this northern land. She was surely not equipped for such an adventure at her age. I made a picture of her in my mind as we walked down to the castle and indoors; I imagined her as frail, weary, and lost. It would be hard to make her feel at home when we had no common tongue. Holding Stoyan’s hand tightly, I opened the kitchen door.

The kettle was steaming on the stove, and the room was full of a tempting smell of baking. Several pieces of Florica’s best weaving were spread out across the well-scrubbed table. Our housekeeper was explaining that the flower border was based on a pattern her mother had taught her and that she had invented the dye for the gentian blue herself. As she spoke, her hands were busy illustrating her meaning.

Seated at the table admiring the weaving was an extremely imposing woman. She was younger than I had expected—a good ten years my father’s junior, I thought. Her hair was as dark as Stoyan’s, the braids pinned in a no-nonsense style atop her head. She was a big woman, tall and solidly built, and she sat bolt upright. I felt she was the kind of person who would tap me on the shoulder and correct me if I did not hold myself well. Her jacket was of black felt covered with multicolored embroidery, an intricate pattern of flower and leaf, vine and fruit. Under it she was clad in a linen blouse, a practical riding skirt with a slit up the side, and good though mud-spattered boots.

As we came in, she turned, then rose to her feet, looking me up and down. Her gaze was not unfriendly, but she was definitely assessing me. Perhaps she was deciding my hips were too narrow for childbearing. Perhaps she was thinking that if Stoyan was going to drag her all the way to Transylvania, he could at least have chosen a beauty. I swallowed nervously, then said in Greek, so that Stoyan, at least, could understand, “Welcome. I am very happy to meet you.”

Stoyan said something with
Paula
in it, a translation, an introduction, and I stepped forward nervously to kiss my future mother-in-law on either cheek. She took my hands in hers, looked me in the eye, and said something to Stoyan in Bulgarian.

“For pity’s sake, Paula, let the poor lady sit down,” Florica said. “Stela, will you run and call your father again? And get that dog out of here. I’m not putting my pastries on the table while he’s within range.”

We sat. Stoyan’s mother spoke again, nodding in my direction.

“My mother says she did not expect me to choose such a slight girl,” Stoyan said apologetically. “She is a farmer, you understand; the women in our part of the world are of robust build. She says you remind her of the mountain flowers, small and pale but strong. She bids you welcome to our family.” A flush rose to his cheeks. “She adds, she hopes you are aware of what a fine man you are getting. I think mothers are fond of making such remarks.”

“Please tell your mother I know I’m getting the best man in the world,” I said. “She must be very proud of you. Now perhaps I’d better make the tea, just to show reading and writing are not my only skills.”

After that, the kitchen filled up with folk. First was my father, who threw his arms around Stoyan and was embraced in return. He engaged Stoyan’s mother in conversation, with her son as interpreter, while I brewed tea and Florica set out the walnut pastries, cheese, little spiced sausages, and bread rolls, as well as a jug of fresh milk from our cow. Then Petru came in, taciturn as ever in company but clearly unable to curb his curiosity. The smell of Florica’s baking drew in Dorin as well and then Father’s secretary, Gabriel. Stoyan and his mother, whose name was Nadezhda, did not seem at all overwhelmed by this crowd, despite the constant need for everything to be rendered into Greek and then into Bulgarian and back again.

At a certain point, when fresh tea was being prepared and the pastries were almost finished, Stoyan spoke quietly to Father and the two of them went out together. They were gone awhile; long enough for me to begin to worry. Not that I believed it likely Father would refuse Stoyan permission to marry me, but I thought he might set conditions. He might want us to wait awhile so we would be sure we were making the right decision. Or perhaps he would think we should find our house and land first. My stomach churned. We’d waited a whole year already, a year in which both of us had been lonely and miserable. Now that Stoyan was here, I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.

The door opened. Not Stoyan, not Father, but Jena and Costi with little Nicolae.

“We’re on our way down to the village—” Jena began, then saw we had an unusual visitor. “Oh, I didn’t realize—Paula, will you introduce us?”

I did my best without language. Stoyan’s mother stood, bowed, kissed Jena and Costi on both cheeks. Then, her strong features softened by a smile, she crouched down to Nicolae’s level and spoke to him quietly, asking him about the toy he was carrying, a little wooden cart. Not much later, she had him sitting on her knee and was sharing her pastry with him. And I had a flash of foresight, or something similar. I saw her with a different child in her arms, a child who would be not my nephew as Nicolae was but my son, mine and Stoyan’s. I could not see him clearly, only that he was big and strong with a fine head of dark hair and that his grandmother held him with a fierce pride. In my vision of the future, there had not been much room for children, but I saw in this moment that we owed her that. And I found, to my surprise, that I quite warmed to the idea myself. With this formidable lady as part of our family, Stoyan and I would juggle running a book business and breeding dogs and raising children quite capably. For we were a perfect team. I had known that in the caves of Cybele. I was even more sure of it now.

“He’s a fine big man, your Stoyan,” murmured Florica in my ear as I went to the stove for more hot water.

“I know,” I said.

“You look after him, now,” she added. “He’ll need good feeding and plenty of love. Don’t get so caught up in your books that you forget that.”

“I love him, Florica,” I said. “I won’t forget.”

At that moment, Stoyan and Father came into the kitchen, Stoyan looking as if he might laugh or cry at any moment, Father smiling broadly.

“A celebration is in order,” Father said in Greek. “I’m gaining another son-in-law. It just goes to show my theory is correct, Paula. A man of true mettle is not deterred by a single refusal. I always believed Stoyan would come back eventually.”

“He didn’t get a refusal,” I felt obliged to point out, as the rest of the household stood about listening with great interest. Stela was providing a running translation for Florica, Petru, and Dorin, none of whom understood Greek; I was proud of her. “Until today, he never asked.”

“All the same, a refusal was what he sensed,” Father said. “I am happy the two of you have sorted things out at last. It’s been a little like having a brooding storm cloud in the house. Stoyan, we must explain all this to your mother.”

Nadezhda appeared delighted with the news. When it was suggested she might come and stay at Piscul Dracului awhile, she was quick to accept. The hostelry where she and Stoyan were lodged was at some distance down the valley. Since he had talked of nothing but me since the day she prized the reason for his unhappiness out of him, she imagined that now he had found me, he would not wish to be too far away. She seemed quite taken by Father, who did indeed have a charming manner developed over years of dealing with fellow merchants and their wives.

Stoyan translated busily. I brought him tea, then sat beside him so I could lean against his shoulder and hold his hand, letting the talk flow around me.

The afternoon passed and faded into evening, and although Dorin, Gabriel, and Petru went back to their work, the rest of us sat on together talking. It had become easier for Stoyan with the arrival of Costi, who was fluent in Greek, and Jena, who knew enough to get by. As for Nadezhda, she did not say much, but her eyes were often on her son and on me, and I saw a quiet contentment in her face that warmed my heart.

Everyone would have to stay the night. Costi and Jena would not walk home in the dark with Nicolae, who was falling asleep on Jena’s knee. Stoyan and his mother had come on horseback. Petru had settled the horses in the barn already, and it was too dark to ride down the valley safely anyway. We sisters offered to prepare bedchambers for our guests and went off upstairs while Florica made a start on supper. Nadezhda had rolled up her sleeves, donned a borrowed apron, and begun to chop vegetables with the casual assurance of a woman who is confident even in another’s kitchen. I had a feeling I might not be called upon very often to prepare those large meals Florica thought Stoyan needed.