Red Magic (35 page)

A thousand questions raced through her
mind.

Was it a trap? Whose trap?

The Lady Mother had called her a witch. Was
this an excuse to have her killed? Or was Rossmann actually taking her to that
friend of the Pasha's, that Ban Nijaz?

Her stomach hurt against Rossmann's
shoulder. Sweat trickled down her back. Their joggling passage went on, through
terror after terror. Once Rossmann stopped and bantered in their harsh
language—at least, so she guessed, for there was laughter. As each gate was
passed, certain words were spoken, a kind of formula. Then, at last, Caterina
heard the loud creaking of the same wooden portcullis she'd passed beneath on
that awful first day.

A little further on, when she thought blood
was going to run out her ears, she was suddenly, unceremoniously unloaded. Her
landing was hard, but the pain in her middle was relieved and a welcome gust of
air blew inside the rug.

With an audible slap of the reins, the
vehicle moved off. After they had bumped along for what seemed an endless time,
one in which he'd periodically stopped and spoken again—while her heart
threatened to burst through the walls of her chest—at last Rossmann called, "Come
out now."

She struggled free of the carpet. Taking a
huge breath, her first in freedom, she peeped over the jolting side of the cart
and saw the torch lit walls of the town rising behind them. Over her head
was
night, a windy rushing darkness, and thousands of stars.

* * *

In a grove Rossmann stopped, leapt out and
began to unhitch the horse. Caterina climbed stiffly out of the back to help
him.

"Oh, Rossmann!
It's Star! How ever did you find her?"

The mare was pleased to see her too. She
whinnied and pressed her nose wetly against Cat's hand.

"Coins in the right hand always work.
All as we ride, Mistress."
He unbuckled the harness.
"The Graf will meet us at a place we both know. I've brought some rations
and we'll use a twitch to guide her. Now," he said, pulling something from
the
cart,
"Put this on. In case anyone sees us,
they will think I am a Bogomil trader with his wife."

It was a yashmak, which thanks to Ayhan's
lessons, she knew how to wrap.

"Here, you get up first, then she'll
let me get up, won't you, Star?"

"We can't go fast," said
Caterina, laying the saddle bags he was handing over the mare's withers. Her
own language felt unexpectedly stiff on her tongue.

Rossmann armed himself with a brace of
pistols,
then
belted on a curving sword. "Yes, she's
going to have to carry us a long way."

What exultation Cat felt as she swung upon
her mare! Even here, in this terrible danger, to have Star beneath her was as
thrilling as any imagined flight upon the winged Pegasi…

"Why does she look so dark, feel so
greasy?" Cat asked as they rode along the moon-yellowed track Rossmann
indicated.

"I've covered her, head to toe, with
soot mixed with oil. As far as anyone saw, a black horse went out tonight with
me."

"How did you get her out of the
Pasha's stables?"

"She wasn't in the stables tonight,
but loose in a paddock with a fine Arab stallion." Caterina started.

"Yes." Rossmann chuckled.
"If we are lucky, we will have stolen a fine colt as well as a woman from
the Great Pasha Selim."

For some time they rode in silence.
Finally, Caterina asked, "Why have you done this, Herr Rossmann? You
seemed happy to be back among your own people."

"I am, but this is for my sake as well
as yours. Trust me. Soon it will all make sense."

Nothing he said was logical. Still, she was
outside the walled city of the Turks. Despite the fact she did not trust the
man behind her, she blessed the strange fortune that had brought her here, and
stroked the dull wooden case of the Protector.

* * *

Morning came. Villages where there might be
soldiers they carefully skirted. Rossmann often walked beside her, leading the
horse. They avoided other travelers. By a well, as they drank and rested,
Rossmann produced a bag of oats for the mare and dried fruit and hard traveling
bread for Caterina.

As the day passed and she felt safer, she
began to ask questions. Rossmann, the cheerful smiling Rossmann that she had
known during the summer past, seemed ready enough to answer.

"There was no chance to get you away
after we'd been captured. I talked to the captain, told him you were a
noblewoman, a rich man's wife,
convinced
him not to
harm you. Selim Pasha is a generous purchaser, but he has a fear of disease. He
won't touch a woman whom the soldiers have had. I knew the safest place for
you, for a short time, anyway, would be in his harem."

"They told me no one ever escapes,
that no whole man ever enters the seraglio. How did you manage?"

"Lies!
Men do get in. Actually removing an odalisque is not that
difficult. It's simply a matter of money and, of course, Kismet."

Through all those locks and gates, past the
eunuchs and reptiles like Ayhan! Still, Cat thought: Here I am. The sun shone
on her face, the breeze blew through her yashmak.

"Did he ever summon you to his
couch?" The words were soft, but his interest in the answer was far too
strong to be concealed.

"No," Cat replied. "Ayhan
said the Lady Mother thought me a hexe. She said I was to be a gift to one of
the Pasha's friends, someone called Ban Nijaz."

Over her shoulder, she could almost feel
Rossmann's smile.

"Lucky she thought so. Perhaps the
eunuchs will pretend that you summoned your red horse by magic and the two of
you flew away together." He emitted a short, harsh bark of laughter.
"You know, it is widely believed that the Pasha's mother is herself a
witch."

By late afternoon they reached
a golden
grassland, apparently endless. At the bed of a
shallow stream, they let Star drink, filled a skin Rossmann had brought along,
and then forded the water. This time, they took a sharp turn north.

"
Every water
we cross will help us hide our tracks."

* * *

Slowly the empty miles passed. Cat kept
looking back, but although occasionally she'd see a herd of sheep, or a lone
rider, no one seemed to be following them. Sun beat down relentlessly. After
her month of shadows and a life inside, it made her feel almost sick.

By twilight, Cat's head was aching, her
belly calling for
food,
her feet were bruised and sore
from long periods of walking. After the hours of emptiness, there were suddenly
all sorts of unique features popping up on every side, upright boulders and
curiously bent trees. In the far distance, bathed in the last long rays of the
setting sun, Cat spied a bald outcropping. The bare rock shone like the top of
a freshly exhumed skull.

Star, who had been plodding head down,
suddenly pricked up her ears. Swiveling them forward eagerly, she began to pick
her way down a sloping, narrow dirt path, well marked by cattle.

"She's scented the water," said
Rossmann. "This is where we'll rest until moonrise. Then we'll move
again."

At the bottom of a rock-strewn incline,
from a cleft in the ground, sweet water rose, a pool of wonderful refreshment
for the weary travelers. Star dropped her head and began to take deep draughts
even before Cat slid off her back. In the places where legs had rubbed against
her sides, sorrel appeared. Cat's clothing and Rossmann's too, were streaked
with greasy black.

There was food in the bags and two
blankets. Cat unfastened her veil and began to eat hungrily. Rossmann,
squatting nearby, watched her.

"Wrap up," he said, tossing her a
blanket. "The nights are bitter now, but I don't dare make a fire."

In the last light they found a grassy patch
and got the mare to lie down on it. Then, together, Cat in her blanket and
Rossmann in his, they huddled against the horse's back. In the darkness Cat
could see Rossmann's white teeth. He was smiling to himself, that same cheerful
smile that had begun after their capture. It seemed so out of place, both there
and here.

"My family slept like this sometimes,
against the horses for warmth," he said. "How safe one feels as a
child!
All an illusion, of course."

When the old moon began to climb, Rossmann
roused Cat from the exhausted sleep into which she'd fallen. They set off on
foot, leading Star. Only at dawn did they begin to ride again, setting their
course straight for the great rock Caterina had seen the night before.

That day it grew very hot, the land
shimmering around them, the scent of the water starved grasses, a dusty perfume
that dried their throats and made them cough. All day the distant bald grew
larger and larger.

It was tall, due west, the stone white.
After noon, Caterina saw that there were caves in it, too, like an oddly
matching pair of black eyes.

"It looks like a skull," said Cat,
uneasily studying the strange feature before them.

"It is called Witches' Head,"
Rossmann replied. "And that is where your husband will come."

* * *

It was late afternoon when they reached
their destination. A thin stream emerged from a fissure at the shadowy base and
created a long, shallow pool. Here, once again, they drank beside the horse and
washed their sweaty faces.

Within the fissure, the entrance to a cave
was visible. When Cat went to curiously peer inside, she saw narrow shafts of
light coming from somewhere above, illuminating a damp, mossy floor.

"Where have all the people gone?"
Cat turned to ask. The lands they'd ridden through were fine pasture. Even
though water hadn't been much in evidence on the surface, it could apparently
be got by digging.

"War has driven the people away. There
were herders here, many tribes of them, some Christian and some Muslim."

Cat rolled up the legs of her harem pants
and began to wade in the pool, splashing Star, intent upon washing the last of
the soot away. The mare tossed her head and whinnied, but seemed to be enjoying
it. Rossmann sat on the bank and chewed on a biscuit, taking obvious pleasure
in the sight of the long bare legs of his mistress.

"Your husband will be here at
dawn."

When Caterina led Star out of the pool,
Rossmann slit open a bag and offered the contents to Star, who happily thrust
her nose inside.

"What have you there?"

"I cooked a special mash for her and
sewed it up in this bag. She's been working far harder than we have and she'll
need extra strength to get you home. After your husband comes, we'll ride for
the Tisza. It's still a hard three day's
journey to anything close to safety."

"Herr Rossmann, you've thought of
everything."

 
Rossmann smiled. "Yes, the plan was made
carefully. Here," he added, handing her a pouch which proved to contain a
mixture of shelled nuts and dried apple. "Here's something to keep your
spirits up, too."

Crouched by the water, gratefully eating,
Caterina felt a growing uneasiness. She noticed that Star kept lifting her
head, scenting the air.

"Someone's coming. Look at Star."

"It may be a herder out there, looking
for a lost animal." Rossmann seemed disinterested, but Cat stood and
shaded her eyes, surveying, once more, the grassy plain. Ever since the ambush,
Rossmann had seemed different. She had imagined so many things about him in the
two years she'd known him. He'd seemed, by turns, foreign and dangerous, proud
and mysterious, handsome and courtly, but now there was a new quality,
something slippery. When Cat thought about it—the escape, all of it—it seemed
improbable, like one of those romances Wili used to read and weep over.

"Let me show you a back door entrance,
so that you know how to escape. You never know when you might need it. Bandits
are the only other people who regularly come here, but I happen to know that
the Pasha sent an expedition out just a month ago to clean them out. Still,
bandits are like rats. There are always more and they always come back."

Had he sensed the drift of her thoughts?
Cat felt a stab of anxiety as she followed him into the darkness, but in the
last two days he had offered no gesture or word that was less than proper. Last
night they had slept close together for warmth, but he had not taken advantage.

* * *

To enter, they had to stoop, but once under
the lip of trickling water, they found themselves in a high vaulted room, lit
by slanting rays from above. As they moved deeper into the damp twilight,
Rossmann paused to use a pocket tinder box.

"Here, Grafin." After lighting a
candle, he held out the other hand.