Fred Saberhagen Vlad Tepes 04 Thorn

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snuggled backward till her soft flank touched me under the light cover. I
forgot the painting, and moved to accomplish the one thing still necessary to
seal our marriage completely in the eyes of God and man. Helen, only half
awake at first, resisted me mechanically but then, as she awoke fully, she
relaxed, and even
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gave some evidence of enjoyment.
As soon as the first dance was over, I pulled some pillows into better
position for both of us, and we lay there side by side, regarding each other
and the world from a nest of greater physical comfort than either of us had
lately been accustomed to.
"My bride," I meditated aloud. There was a grave expression in those dark
young eyes now fixed on mine, and I was trying to fathom what might be going
on behind them.
"Yes." The one-word answer somehow conveyed, I thought, her willingness to
accept bride-ship as a starting point and to see where it might lead. And I
was cheered by the fact that she did not seem to be a heavy talker. Reticence
by day and a lack of snoring by night would count for much.
A light warm breeze was stirring the fine gauze curtains at our open window. I
could hear gardeners at work not far outside. They were digging, snipping
branches, scraping at the earth. A good male voice rose lightly in Italian
song.
We were a floor above ground level, secure against casual observation from
outside, but from where we lay much greenery was visible. The grounds at
Careggi were quite as impressive as the house. When I sat up fully in our bed
and pulled its curtains farther open I could glimpse graveled walks, distant
lawns being smoothed by grazing sheep, and beds of massed flowers. There was a
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fountain, studded with statuary and rimmed by concentric rings of masterly
stonework. All shimmered in late summer's warmth.
"Ah," said Helen, in a new tone. I looked and saw that she had just discovered
the painting. Next moment, without pretense of modesty, she had slipped out of
bed and gone to inspect it at close range.
"I wish my face was truly so," she said at last.
"But I think the artist has accurately caught your beauty." I was an
experienced husband, you will recall.
"But no, this is really a marvel. I never had the chance to take such a good
look at
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it before I was always on the other side of it, you know, when I was posing."
"I agree, a marvel. Too bad it is unfinished."
Without turning, Helen gently waved one hand in my direction, dismissing that
objection; and, certainly, the painting was essentially complete. "I think,"
she said in Italian, "that boy has been touched by the good God."
But my mind was turning elsewhere. The two of us had important matters to talk
about, and I judged the time had come. "Helen."
A hand on one bare hip like Donatello's David, she turned her head at the new
sound in my voice, and probed me with her eyes. Then slowly she returned to
stand beside our bed. She took the hand that I extended to her, then paused,
fingering its ring. The circlet was then still fat with gold. Helen looked at
it, and at the untanned groove worn by it into my finger underneath. "You have
been married before, my lord," she said.
"It will please me for my wife to call me Vlad. Particularly on such private
occasions as this. Yes, I have been married. My first wife is now two years
dead."
"I will pray for her soul."
"Thank you." Sooner or later, I supposed, I
would be called on by Helen for some explanation of her predecessor's leap
from the parapet; she would learn something of that tragedy from others even
if I never brought it up. But right now I was not going to mention it.
"And you have children?"
"They are staying with relatives at present." I sighed; another subject that
could wait. But Helen's question had brought back to me my grief for the son I
had loved most. He was a love-child indeed, born to a favorite concubine. He
had been riding with me, before my saddle, when I began that last ill-fated
retreat
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from the Turks, the withdrawal that had degenerated into a desperate flight,
and had ended for me only with my personal surrender to Matthias. During that
fiasco my son had been lost, and when I spoke to Helen on that morning at
Careggi, I
thought him dead.
"Helen. There is a matter between us that I wish to dispose of now. I intend
to speak of it this once, and then never again. Nay, let me put it this way in
future
I will not even have this subject mentioned in my presence."
Of course she knew what I was bringing up; she must have known that it was
coming sooner or later. Her eyes were withdrawing from me as I spoke, though
they still looked in my direction. Her royal chin was lifting.
I went on in a businesslike tone: "I mean of course these shameful escapades
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of yours during the past few years, since you broke off your betrothal to the
Sforza.
The whoring and debauchery."
"You say whoring?" Some sparks flared up; she pulled her hand free with a
jerk.
I let her break my grip. "If 'whoring' is the wrong word," I answered coldly,
"then pray instruct me
, what should the right one be?"
With that I expected for a moment that she might try to strike me. But then
her body sagged in weariness, and she sat down on the edge of the bed, not
touching me. Curls of dark hair hid her face.
Finally she spoke. "Men, as you know, have taken me by force. And, yes, at
times I have sold myself, for food, for survival. And yes, I have known lust
for men." Helen paused, still looking away from me. "That is all I care to
say."
"It is enough. More than enough, indeed. Understand that I demand no
apologies, confessions, explanations, for anything that you have done up to
now. All that is over, finished, wiped away completely, and I shall never
reproach you with it." I
drew breath. "What I do demand concerns your conduct from this moment forward.
It must be that of a model wife of exalted birth: virtuous, modest, obedient.
In every detail beyond reproach."
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Helen had lifted her face enough for me to see her eyes under the dark hair;
but I
could not read them. She gave me an inspection that went on for what seemed a
long time, and still I could not guess what she was thinking. When she spoke
it was only to ask a question that seemed to me insultingly irrelevant. "How
long do you mean for us to stay here, in this house?"
My hand seized her wrist; if she had not been Matthias's sister, it would have [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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