An Embarrassment of Riches (13 page)

He stopped but did not turn toward her. “I would be burned at the stake,” he said, aware that it would be his True Death.

“Yes, you would,” she said, her words like a closing trap. “Your name would be utterly disgraced, Konig Bela would claim your lands, your dishonor would be complete when your ashes were scattered to the winds, never to rest in hallowed ground.”

“Would it please you to see me burn?” he asked, showing little emotion.

“If you hadn’t given me what I ask, it would. It would delight me to describe the depravity you unleashed upon me, and to renounce the world because of how you had used me.” She approached him, fury in her smile.

“Tell me then,” he said levelly, “what you want of me.”

“You know already—the rapture sung in the heroic tales. I want to be Blanchefleur, Ysolte, and Messeuline. I want to have what they had for myself.” She reached for him, pulling herself to him, rubbing her body against his. “You know the way to ignite my flesh, don’t you, Comes?” With a sudden effort, she put her hands around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth, and when she was done, she laughed breathlessly. “Tell me, Comes, am I not sweeter than flames?”

The heat of her body seemed to brand him through his clothes. “How can you ask?” he told her, all the while puzzling out how he would deal with her if he acquiesced to her demands.

“Then show me,” she said before she kissed him again.

*   *   *

Text of a letter from Balint of Santu-Germaniu, steward at Santu-Germaniu in the Carpathian Mountains, to Rakoczy Ferancsi, Comes Santu-Germaniu, at Mansion Belcrady in Praha, dictated to Frater Lorand, written on vellum and carried by personal courier; never delivered.

To the most puissant Comes Santu-Germaniu, Rakoczy Ferancsi, currently living at Mansion Belcrady in the city of Praha in Bohemia, the greetings of his faithful steward Balint of Santu-Germaniu at Santu-Germaniu on this, the first Sunday in July, the 1269
^th
Year of Salvation,

Good Comes:

In fulfillment of the charge you gave me upon your departure, I send you this report to inform you of the current state of your fief, and all that pertains to it, in the hope that you will find what I have done satisfactory and appropriate.

The orchards within the walls of your principal seat bloomed lavishly this year despite the late snow at the end of March, of which I have already informed you, and I am confident that the harvest of apples and plums will be the best in the last eight years, barring summer misfortunes. I have ordered more grape-vines planted on the south slope below the orchards, and in time they will yield good red wine. The oats and rye are ripening in the fields and again, the wheat is flourishing but not as abundantly as the other grains. Yet even with that consideration, the assumption is that the harvest will be bountiful unless there are more heavy rainstorms.

The drainage ditches you ordered be dug are finished, and they have done much to keep the fields from being inundated with water during the rainstorms of May. The weather has remained hot, which has been beneficial to the crops, including those of the kitchen gardens, for we have a great crop of beans and onions already flourishing. The berries on the vines behind the kitchen garden are so plentiful that we have had to post men to drive off the deer and bear that come down from the peaks and out of the forest to raid them.

Konig Bela’s men have come here twice since the middle of May, and they are warning of high taxes that will be levied on the crops we harvest and the livestock we may breed. To that end, they have already requisitioned three grown hogs, ten lambs, and a yearling calf, with promises that more will be required. After their selection, we have now thirty-four hogs, sixteen shoats, eighty-four sheep, twenty-three lambs, fifteen goats, six kids, twenty-nine head of cattle, thirteen calves, seventeen horses, eight foals, and fifty-eight various fowl. I have, in accordance with your instructions, refrained from disputing with them on any of these demands, and when they return in August, I will do what I can to supply their wants without cavil.

However, I have made a protest to Konig Bela on behalf of Erno the Blacksmith, whose daughter Ildiko was carried off by the Konig’s men to be their maid and whore; they paid no price for her, and they boasted that they would share her among them. Ildiko is almost fifteen, and she was pledged to Vida the game-keeper, who is now demanding payment for her loss. If the Konig is unwilling to pay the price Vida is asking, then there will be bad blood between him and Erno for a long time, I fear, and more anger at Konig Bela for allowing the debt to remain unpaid. I ask your permission to send an official petition of redress to Konig Bela.

The Konig has also not stopped the robbers who prey on those traveling into Santu-Germaniu; his men said that because of his war, the Konig cannot spare any fighting men to patrol the roads to rid them of the outlaws. I know you cannot hire men to do it, for then Konig Bela would seize all of Santu-Germaniu and conscript or enslave all those living as your vassals, but surely there must be some way to stop the attacks, which grow bolder every month that passes. If you have some means of dealing with the robbers, tell me and I will attend to it at once. Something must be done, or no one will be safe on our roads.

We have heard that there has been some trouble for the river merchants on the Moltava, and for that reason, I have not yet dispatched to you the two boats you have requested, unless you would like me to load them on a lumber-wagon and hitch ten mules to pull it. It may be wiser for you to go to the Boatwrights’ Guild and have the craft built there, little as Konig Bela might approve. He would not like you to have boats brought to you as loads of wood, either.

This in all devotion, by the hand of Frater Lorand, who continues to serve as scribe to Santu-Germaniu, and clerk to

Balint, steward of Santu-Germaniu (his mark)

6

An hour after the sliver of moon had gone down in the west and all the world seemed sunken in darkness, Rakoczy slipped a black-wool French cotehardie over his dark-red silk chainse, and added a cowled liripipe of dark-gray wool, with the hood raised; he eased open the shutters in his own rooms, climbed out onto the broad sill, and carefully lowered himself as far as he could from the sill, then dropped to the flagstones beneath, all without making a sound any louder than the fall of a cushion. The stable courtyard was deserted but for a pair of cats on their first hunting sallies of the night, and no one raised an alarm. Quickly he made his way to the stable, going through it to the rear paddocks, then climbed the wooden wall at the back of Mansion Belcrady, into the narrow alley that ran behind the mansion’s walls and up the shoulder of the hill to Vaclav Castle. Rakoczy went along to the first back-street that led down toward the heart of Praha, out of sight of the Guards on the castle’s battlements and the city’s walls.

The heat of the day had dissipated, and a slow, cool breeze slid through streets that were mostly dark and empty in this quarter of the city. Rakoczy made a point of avoiding the few taverns, which were filled with roistering soldiers, tired merchants, gamblers, cutpurses, and loose women; he went along the minor routes where beggars slept in doorways and scrawny boys moved in the shadows, hatchets and hammers clutched in their hands, alert for solitary travelers or strangers to Praha gone in drink. At one point three of the youths began to follow Rakoczy, but fell back when he swung toward them, one hand on the hilt of his Luccan short-sword, the other on the empty wallet that depended from his belt.

Reaching the old Church of the Apostles, Rakoczy paused at the front of the round, squat, thick-walled stone building with its pointed hat of a roof, to listen for the chants of monks; when he was certain that the nightly Hours were being strictly kept, he moved toward the rear of the church to the walled graveyard where the Redemptionist priests and monks buried beggars, madmen, lepers, and pox victims to show their humility and faith. As if the church were a jewel set in a high stone ring, the walls of the compound rose on either side of the church, enclosing a dormitory, a refectory, the new hospice, and, at the farthest end of the compound, the half-finished leprosarium waiting for the patients it would soon house. The enclosing wall beyond was as old as the church—more than four hundred years old—and enclosed the original graveyard and the abandoned charnel house. A single gate gave access to the graveyard; it was not locked, for few people entered the cemetery willingly. He made his way through the wooden headstones toward the charnel house at the rear of the graves; it was an ancient, dilapidated, six-sided building of stone with a sagging wooden roof and windows that were no more than slits. No light came from within it; the only door was buckled so that the crucifix nailed to it hung at a precarious angle. Taking great care to pull the door clear of weeds, Rakoczy stepped into the charnel house, his night-seeing eyes observing the abandoned structure with a mixture of sadness and consternation. Of all the places Rozsa had ordered him to meet her, this was by far the worst and most reckless. He picked his way through the disintegrating pallets where the monks had once treated their patients; his footsteps disturbed mice and other scuttling things. At last he came to an examination table made from sturdy slabs of oak. He leaned against it and felt it hold firm. “That’s something,” he murmured to the emptiness in his native tongue. Rozsa would like it, for it would let her expose her body to him without the disadvantage of having him lie beside her; she had told him from their first meeting that she disliked closeness, and had insisted upon minimal contact once her clothes were off.

An unmelodious bell struck the end of Vigil; at this signal Rakoczy moved into the deepest shadows in the dark building, for the monks would be leaving their church to return to their dormitory, and he had no wish to give them any reason to suspect that he was in their old charnel house. He chided himself on this extreme precaution, but kept in mind the consequences of being discovered, and remained in place.

Chanting the
88
^th
Psalm,
the monks moved in a double line away from the graveyard and toward their dormitory on the far side of the compound, the echoes of their voices following them like disconsolate spirits. From where Rakoczy waited, the echoes became a faint, fading harmony as they met and mixed, the dire words of the chant lost. Gradually the sounds died, and only the faint whisper of the night breeze remained.

It was some time later that there was a rustle in the graveyard, with the hushed tread of solered feet. Rakoczy, who had tossed aside his liripipe, and had been spending his time casting back over his last few centuries of travel and debating when and where he might go next—if he could go anywhere without endangering his fief—now gave his full attention to the approaching footsteps, marking their progress with great care; his left hand curled around the hilt of his short-sword.

“Comes?” The word was so soft it might have been his imagination that he heard it. The door moaned as Rozsa leaned on it. “Are you here, Comes?” she called, adding in an undervoice, “You had better be.”

“I am,” he responded, starting toward her to help ease the door open, giving no sign that he had overheard her last remark.

She came up to him as he swung the door back. “Ah, Comes. I’m so glad to see you. You will make me very happy, I believe.” She flung herself into his arms, reaching to press herself against him. Her elegant bleihaut of muted-purple silk scrooped against him; her rose-and-sandalwood perfume wreathed around him. “Here before me, and in such a place. You are eager. Are you overjoyed I’ve come?”

“Keep your voice down,” he warned sharply.

“Why? Do you think the monks would notice? Everyone knows the place is haunted. No one will come searching, not at this hour, for fear of ghosts.”

“You are not afraid of ghosts?” Rakoczy asked.

“Why should I be? God gave me audacity of spirit and a taste for things of the flesh. How can ghosts be proof against that?” She caught her lower lip in her teeth and offered him a languid smile. “We could light torches and no one would disturb us. We may disport ourselves without worry.” She locked her hands behind his head, looking at him with undisguised satisfaction. “You hate this, don’t you?”

“Hate is the wrong word,” he said, trying not to resist her as she tugged at his head so she could kiss him. He could feel her teeth through her closed lips, and was aware she intended that he should.

“What is the word, then? if not hate?” she asked as she released him.

He shrugged. “Despair, perhaps?”

Her laughter was an excited ripple in the air. “Truly? I cause you to despair?”

“Yes.”

“Despair.” She grinned and tossed her veil at him, her grin widening as the filmy fabric wrapped around him before slithering to the floor. “How delightful, to have such a hold on you. I have never achieved that before.” Seeing the shock in his face, she licked her lips provocatively. “Yes. It’s delightful. To have a man of your position, your wealth, your power, at my beck and call without obtaining even so little a thing as expiation from our dalliance is delicious.” She twirled away from him, going between the old pallets toward the examination table. “I may have to accommodate my husband according to his pleasure, but you, Comes, you will enjoy me according to mine.” There was mockery in her voice as well as seduction, and as she held out her hands to him, she said, “You will pleasure me, Comes.”