Part 8 (1/2)

”Hush,” said Mrs. Mad'r. ”Remember, you have to stay quiet so you can get well. Let me put this blanket in the tub to soak-and the napkin, while I'm at it. I'll be back in a moment.”

When she returned, Csilla was still sitting on the bed, staring out the window. ”I've brought you more water,” she said, handing Csilla the green cup. She paused, then added, ”We'll have to talk about what happened-soon. But for now, why don't I tell you another story?” She waited for a moment for Csilla to answer, but Csilla was silent. So she began, ”The Daughters of the Moon died, eventually. They had mortal blood in them, as well as the blood of the Moon, and they were not eternal. But their children, the Tunde'r, lived peacefully among the farms and villages of Hungary, until the church decided that they were children of the Devil . . .”

Reluctantly, Csilla wiped her eyes with her hands and settled back against the pillows to listen.

Erzsebet's Story ”Erzsike!”

”Shhh,” said Erzse'bet, putting one finger to her lips. She leaned closer to the chapel door, which was open just enough to let a sliver of torchlight fall on the stones of the courtyard. ”I think it's the landgravine.”

”You're supposed to be in bed already,” said M'rta, but her voice was low, and she too leaned closer to hear what the landgravine was saying.

”I have sent for Ludwig. He would prefer to stay at the university, but I've told him it's time he a.s.sumed his father's position. How peaceful the landgrave looks, as though he were sleeping. A pity if, as you tell me, his soul is suffering the torments of h.e.l.lfire.”

”That, I'm afraid, is the penalty for excommunication.”

Poor old landgrave. Erzse'bet had seen him earlier that day lying in the chapel beneath a pall of crimson velvet, looking more peaceful than he had ever looked while alive. How could the landgravine speak that way about him? And who was that other voice?

”I don't know who the landgravine's talking to,” she whispered. ”It doesn't sound like anyone in the castle.”

”For his science, as he called it, he risked his immortal soul,” said the landgravine. ”I think you will find me quite different from my husband, Father Conrad. I have no interest in old women who gather weeds by moonlight, and I value an alliance with the church.”

”Then I take it the Inquisition can resume its activities in Thuringia?”

”I don't think it's in either of our interests to have Thuringia isolated from the Empire.”

”No,” whispered Ma'rta, ”he hasn't come to the Wartburg for many years. But I'll remember the sound of his voice until the day I die. That's the Inquisitor.”

Erzs'bet remembered the landgrave muttering, over his pots of agrimony and rue, about ”that d.a.m.ned superst.i.tious nonsense, the Inquisition.” Then he would finish watering his pots, make notes on a sheet of vellum, and sit with her in the sunlight of the herbarium. ”Someday,” he would say, ”we will understand the properties of plants and draw out their essences. And then, my dear, we will cure the illnesses that have bedeviled mankind since we were banished from Eden.” Finally she would read to him from his Aristotle, while he fell asleep on a bench.

”And when will you celebrate the marriage between Ludwig and Princess Elizabeth?” asked the Inquisitor.

”Perhaps you could marry them yourself, Father Conrad? It would lighten our grief, following the landgrave's funeral with a wedding. My husband was foolish, delaying her marriage to Herman until he thought she was old enough. We almost lost her dowry, until the king agreed to an engagement with Ludwig. Well, she's certainly old enough now, older than when I married. And no time should be lost, now that the king has left for Palestine. If he dies, Ludwig will have as good a claim to the throne as anyone else, I think. Oh, my poor Herman! Such a fine boy, Father. You should have seen him riding across the fields, whipping his pony into a lather. What a king of Hungary he would have made!”

”We must never regret the will of G.o.d, Landgravine. I remember hearing that the landgrave had some excellent Tokay?”

”They're coming this way!” said Erzs'bet.

”Hush,” said M'rta, pulling her back by her sleeve, into the shadows beyond the torchlight.

The landgravine emerged from the chapel, followed by a man in a Franciscan habit. She stood in the courtyard, the torchlight from the open door flickering over her yellow hair, which was coiled in elaborate braids on either side of a cap sewn with pearls that had come all the way from Paris. ”I'm glad we've had this little talk, Father. I think we will be useful to one another.” She smiled as sweetly as the Virgin in the chapel window.

”I hate her!” said Erzs'bet when the landgravine, followed by the Inquisitor, had disappeared across the courtyard. ”I've always hated her. I looked out the window and saw her walking across the courtyard, so I thought she was going into the chapel. And I came down to ask her if I could go back to Hungary. She never liked me anyway, and I thought she would send me home, now that the landgrave is dead. But she wants me to marry that stupid son of hers, that Ludwig.” She hit the chapel wall with her hand and felt a cold pain run through her arm. ”M'rta, I haven't even seen him since I was a child! All I remember is that he used to collect bugs. He once put a caterpillar in my hair.”

”Erzsike!” said M'rta, catching her hand and examining it with care. ”Erzsike, you're speaking too loudly.”

”You know, I bet he'll be just like Herman. Did you know that Herman used to call me a witch? He said my face was as white as the moon, and people with moon faces should be burned. M'rta, do you think I'm ugly?”

”Erzsike, remember the windows.”

”I don't care.” Then, looking up at the shuttered windows, darker patches on the dark walls of the castle, Erzs'bet said, ”Yes, I do care. M'rta, I'm going to run away, tonight. Don't tell me not to, because I won't listen. If I can reach Erfurt, perhaps I can stay at the Abbey and send a letter to the king-” she hesitated, then said, ”-I mean, to Papa.” She looked down at the stones of the courtyard. ”It's been so long since he sent me away. Do you think he will recognize me, after all these years?”

M'rta said, ”I won't try to stop you, Erzsike, because I'm going with you. Do you really think you can run away from the strongest castle in Germany by yourself? Now go to your room and fetch your cloak and your bottle of ointment.”

”My ointment? Funny M'rta, to care about my complexion at a time like this!” Erzs'bet almost laughed, but she remembered the windows.

”I'll pack some food. Meet me in the scullery.” M'rta sighed. ”Oh, that I should see this time come again!” Then, more briskly and in her ordinary voice, she said, ”Tell me, child, do you have any money?”

”I know this story,” said Csilla. ”My grandmother told it to me. King Andr's sent Princess Erzs'bet to Thuringia. She was supposed to marry the landgrave's oldest son, Herman.” She remembered listening, in the kitchen of their apartment in Budapest, while her grandmother rolled the gingerbread dough.

”Remember this story, Csillike,” her grandmother had said. ”It's one of the most important stories to remember, almost as important as the Daughters of the Moon. That's why I tell it to you again and again, so you will remember it when you need it most.”

When the gingerbread was in the oven, her grandmother had said, ”Now you tell it back to me.” Csilla had repeated it, again and again. She had named one of the gingerbread men Herman, and while her grandmother had sat by the stove, listening and correcting her if she made any mistakes, she had slowly eaten Herman, starting with the feet.

”The king thought she would be safer there, especially after what had happened to the queen. But Herman died, so she couldn't marry him any more. And then . . .”

”Yes?” said Mrs. Mad'r. ”What happened to Princess Erzs'bet?”

Moonlight glimmered through the branches. Erzs'bet tried to avoid tripping over shadows on the path: rocks, or perhaps roots. In summer, the landgravine would go with her ladies to the forest. They would sit by a stream, gossiping and listening to one of the traveling minstrels that came to the Wartburg during the summer months, strumming his lute and singing about the landgravine's hair. The landgravine, dressed rather implausibly as Flora, would lean back against her cus.h.i.+ons with the satisfied smile that Erzs'bet always found so unsettling. She remembered the forest as a series of sunlit glades. This was not the same forest. There was a constant rustling and scurrying in the bushes around her. She smelled fallen leaves, and mushrooms and the cold smell that meant winter was coming.

She clutched M'rta's cloak. ”Are you sure this is the right way to Erfurt?”

The rustling and scurrying stopped, and the forest waited, unaccustomed to this new sound.

”We can ask the travelers ahead. I see a fire through the trees. Come on, Erszike.”

”I thought we were trying to avoid other travelers . . .” But M'rta was already ahead of her, walking toward the fire.

Hurrying to catch up, Erzs'bet stumbled over a shadow that turned out to be a rock. When she found her footing again and looked around her, she was standing in a clearing. The travelers were sitting around a fire at its center.

Once, Erzs'bet had gone to Erfurt with the landgravine, to a fair celebrating the new windows of the Abbey, which showed the Virgin and Saint Anne. On the road through the forest she had seen merchants, their wagons filled with gla.s.s vessels from Venice, brocades and damasks from the weavers of Flanders, holy relics from Rome. As the landgravine's procession had drawn closer to the town, it had pa.s.sed farmers carrying dried meat and heads of cabbage in nets. She had seen their wives and daughters walking beside them, their baskets filled with goose eggs, honeycombs dripping with brown honey, walnuts. Often the road ahead of the procession was blocked by travelers and sheep, who must be moved aside to let the landgravine pa.s.s.

These travelers were not like those she had seen going to the fair. On one side of the fire crouched a woman with white hair like a bird's nest, whose legs were so twisted that she could scarcely have walked along the forest road. Yet surely Erzs'bet had seen her begging in front of the Abbey. And wasn't that the scullery girl from the castle, still in her ap.r.o.n? Beside the scullery girl sat a man surrounded by children, from a baby to a girl almost as old as Erzs'bet who was holding the baby in her arms. They were dressed in rags, and the baby's mouth was surrounded by sores. She had seen the man before as well; he had been the Devil in the play at the fair. She had seen him afterward juggling colored b.a.l.l.s, while the boy who sat beside him, with the dirty cap on his head, had walked on his hands. The landgravine had forbidden her to watch such a vulgar spectacle.

”h.e.l.lo, sister,” said M'rta.

”h.e.l.lo yourself,” said a woman who was standing in the shadows beyond the firelight. ”I see you've brought the girl.”

Beside the children sat a peddler, who grinned at her without teeth. Out of his sack spilled bottles of ointment and what looked like a mandrake root. And then she noticed that the baby's curls, which at first had seemed yellow, were the color of spring leaves.

”Is that the way to talk to a princess? Where are your manners?” M'rta turned to Erzs'bet. ”You'll have to forgive her, Erszike. My sister is a queen in her own right, although her nation does not belong to the Holy Roman Empire.”