He didn’t feel so mischievous when he saw her frowning. She looked deep in thought. “Your threat revolved in my mind for this full eight months since,” she told him. He watched her long, black lashes flutter on her smooth cheeks. “When do we go to Vienna?”
He closed his eyes, then hugged her closer. He didn’t want to talk about Vienna. He didn’t want to leave this moment! He sighed and begged, “Let’s not talk about Vienna now. That’s the future. Let’s enjoy what we have right now.”
He held her close, stroking his fingers through her hair as he felt her breathing against his neck. He enjoyed her warmth, even the sound of her breathing.
After a moment, she asked, “So why did you have Rennio guard me of all people?”
He gave a laugh so hard that he pulled out of her, then rolled onto his back. As he pulled her into a nook between his chest and his shoulder, he answered, “Let’s not talk about the bishop, either.”
“He’s an odd sort of man, is he not?” she asked, glancing up at him.
“Yes, but he’s also a man I trust. That’s why I had him guard you. He might be a horrible conversationalist and he’s got the manners of a goat, but he would never seek to have his way with you.” He grinned. “I’m the only one who can do that.”
She giggled slightly under him, then blinked at him with innocent round eyes. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you have a family and a home?”
He shrugged and rubbed his hands together idly. “I own a sizable amount of land in Bavaria which I’ve purchased over the years.”
“Purchased with your spoils from sacking castles like mine?” she asked pointedly.
He smiled, not letting her ruffle him. “Yes, some of it, but most of it with money I’ve been paid to defend one castle or another so that one lord can prevent some other lord from acquiring spoils at his expense.”
“But you don’t actually have a home, then, just lands you own?” she pressed him.
“I’ve had a modest estate constructed on my lands, and I pay a steward to manage it for me, at least until I’m ready to retire and live there myself.”
“And your wife?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
He shook his head and smirked at her. “No wife. Which is too bad because my steward is ten years my junior and already has five children. Every time I stop by the estate, he has a new addition.”
She gave a small, though very real laugh. His stomach twisted at the sound, and his eyes followed the way her perfect, pink lips opened and curved with delight at his description. “He’s younger but wiser, then?” she asked teasingly, her eyes twinkling at him.
He gave a laugh. “Oh yes. Most surely he is the wiser of us. He chose a peaceful life, while I chose this.” He motioned to the pavilion surrounding him. “I nearly freeze to death every winter. I’m paid well, but money only goes so far out here. Sometimes I think that I’d trade my every last coin for a warmer blanket.”
She smiled up at him. It was a beautiful smile, though her teeth weren’t perfectly straight and her front teeth were larger than others. Her smile seemed almost childlike, he thought, which might have been why she didn’t use it often. Her mother had probably trained smiling out of her. She snuggled back into him, saying thoughtfully, “I think I was at my wisest when I was ten years old. I ran away for a full five days before I was found,” she told him, and he knew she was smiling against his chest. “Those were the happiest five days of my life. I did nothing but get dirty, run around, and eat berries in the forest.” She laughed. “When my father’s men found me, I was covered head to toe in mud and the berry stains stayed on my mouth for three weeks!”
“They didn’t serve you berries at the castle?” he asked her, chuckling.
She shook her head. “Yes, they did of course… but they’re not the same as grabbing them right off of the bush. My wet nurse used to take me on walks on a forest trail and she had me far too spoiled on exercise and fresh air for my parents’ tastes.” She twisted her mouth slightly as if remembering something distasteful. “After that they gave me a tutor so strict I was lucky to be allowed to look out the windows until my father died.”
The thought of her as a little girl who just wanted to go out and play, to be anything other than a princess, was an image that was quickly melting his heart.
“I’m glad I got this time with you,” Susanna said to him sleepily.
“Me as well, sweeting,” he told her, looking up at the ceiling as the closest lantern flickered its last, and died, leaving them both in darkness. He reached over and pulled a couple of large furs over their bodies, taking care to make sure it covered all of her, including her feet.
“I’m glad it was you who took my castle,” she told him dreamily.
He petted her until he heard her breathing heavily against him, sleeping. Every now and then, he felt the tickling of her eyelashes as her eyes moved behind closed lids. He envied that she could sleep so well despite everything that rested on her shoulders.
He feared she was right about Vienna. He was supposed to send her off to the emperor, and he didn’t know how he could possibly do that. He would never feel whole again, that he knew. Once she was gone, he would just be left empty, with a memory of what it was like to be full. He’d go through the rest of his days feeling like his heart was dying of hunger.
It was impossible to imagine a worse torture than that. But how could one deny an emperor and live to tell about it?
* * *
“Rennio, get up,” he hissed, tapping what looked like a giant, furry rock with his foot. “Rennio!”
Rennio didn’t move even a hair, and Gerhard was just about to give him another shove with his boot when the furry rock replied, “Do I look like a dog to you?”
“Actually…” he muttered in reply.
“If you wanted me to wake up in the middle of the night to sing you a lullaby, then you shouldn’t have kicked me out onto your doorstep to surely do several things that would not have pleased the Lord.”
Whenever Rennio spoke like he remembered that he was a bishop, Gerhard’s eyes would reflexively roll. He was the least orthodox man in the world, of that he was absolutely certain. He had claimed himself that he had only become a bishop because his uncle was very wealthy and Rennio wanted the free books that tended to come with the position.
“Come on, Rennio. I need to speak with you,” he begged, nudging him with his toe again.
“Speak.”
“In private,” Gerhard specified, looking around at the other sleeping, snoring men in blankets around the campfire.
“You’re going to have to wait until dawn then,” Rennio informed him, rolling onto his other side.
“I have a proposition for you that, if it goes well, will include a casket of wine as large as an ox,” he promised.
Rennio grumbled. “A small ox?”
“A very big one. Biggest ox you could find,” he promised, whispering with enthusiasm now. He crouched over Rennio and put out his hand. “Come on.”
Rennio, apparently more awake now that future wine was on the table, got up and wrapped his cloak around him. They marched out to where no soldiers were around anywhere to be seen in the pale moonlight.
“Alright, now we’re alone. What is this about?” Rennio grumped.
Gerhard frowned and then took a deep breath. “You’ve always been my closest friend, Rennio,” he began.
“Out with it. Stop trying to butter me up. It’s making me nervous.”
“I need you to help me fake a death,” Rennio stated clearly. “And make it so the fault could never be traced back to me.”
He could make out Rennio raising one bushy eyebrow dubiously. “Is that all?” he asked cynically. “Your death?”
“No. Not mine… hers.” Gerhard rubbed at his arm, feeling suddenly very cold and very nervous. “I can’t let her die, Rennio.”
Rennio snorted. “Of course you can’t. Don’t you think I’ve seen all those silly sketches in your trunk?
Did you think I wouldn’t put together who they were of?” He heaved a groan. “But what about the emperor? Are you just going to lie to him?”
“I think if she dresses below her current station she could walk straight up to the emperor and he’d not notice her. He knows I mean to retire into the country this year, anyway, Rennio. He’s been telling me to get married for years.”
“Yes,” Rennio agreed. “But I assure you he didn’t mean for you to marry the Princess of Hohenzollern!”
Paranoid, Gerhard looked around, shushing Rennio, and then he crossed his arms across his chest. “Rennio, she’s an innocent. She was born under an unlucky star, that is all. I won’t have her die for it.”
“You just want to bed her,” he doubted with a grumble.
“I have bedded her,” he snapped. “I want more than that. I want to marry the girl. Give her a life.” He could feel Rennio looking at him skeptically in the darkness. “I want her,” he added flatly.
“I have no doubts that you do, but it’s very difficult to go from ruler of that,” he gestured toward the steep hill that was topped with the great fortress of Hohenzollern, looking intimidating and immense in the moonlight, “to being the wife of a man with no title or birthright.”
“I think she’d surprise you,” he replied, firm in his resolve. If she could look back fondly to a week of her childhood where she was running around in the forest eating berries, then he couldn’t fathom that it would take the girl very long to assimilate to being his wife.
“She’d better, Gerhard!” Rennio snapped. “What you’re asking is dangerous. If someone was to find out that you made off with the princess, the emperor would hunt you down. He wouldn’t care at all that you were playmates as children or even that you saved his life at least once. He can’t let his enemies go unpunished.”
“He has Hohenzollern,” he replied defensively. “I am not taking anything that he needs. I am not betraying him. If we are able to fake her death, then he wouldn’t know any better.”
There was a long silence during which the bishop began to pace back and forth. After a few minutes, Rennio finally stopped and turned toward him. “We cannot be conservative about this. We need to make sure that witnesses are convinced she has died, but of course we won’t have a body to bring back. Not to mention we have to appear as though we couldn’t possibly be involved. It will be risky for us and for her.”
Gerhard perked up, recognizing Rennio’s tone. Rennio had a plan, he knew it. “What’s your idea?” he asked, leaning toward him.
Rennio shook his head. “You’re not going to like it.”
He put his hands on his hips and stood straight and confident. He already began to feel a little better. “Try me.”
Chapter Four
“Wake up, you whore!”
Susanna woke up with a start, finding herself in the middle of her cushioned pallet with naught covering her but a fur. She had barely spent longer than a moment nude in years, and it took her awhile to remember what she’d done the night before, then she felt the pinch of discomfort between her legs. She was no longer a virgin.
She looked up and saw Rennio hovering over her. He threw her clothes down on her. “Get dressed!” he growled.
“What—”
“Shut up, or I’ll drag you out there naked!” he snapped, and Susanna, her heart suddenly feeling like it was controlled by a hummingbird, quickly began to pull her underclothes on. She hadn’t dressed herself since she was an unruly child who wanted to be up and about before her nursemaid was ready to dress her. Since then, her clothing had become more complicated.
She moved quickly, her body flushed as she looked up and saw Rennio still leering at her. “Turn yourself away,” she demanded.
He suddenly stepped forward, then leaned down and grabbed her hair, snapping so loudly that anyone outside of the pavilion was sure to have heard him, “You don’t order me around, you bitch! You’re nothing! You have no power over anything! Now get yourself dressed so you can get out of Gerhard’s sight! He wants you to stop stinking up his tent!”
The gravity of his words only set in as she was trying to tie her underskirt onto her waist. For a moment she paused and let them slam against her soul.
Nobody had talked as sweetly to her as Gerhard had the night before. Despite the cold winter that was approaching outside, Gerhard’s words had been able to warm her down to her toes. He was handsome, sweet smelling, and had large, gorgeous hands and a chiseled jaw. He was the type of man she had never known she always wanted. Last night, after being so caring and sympathetic after her run in with the brute soldier, Gerhard had been able to awaken something deep inside her, and her body had reacted as if he had cast a spell on her.
It had been glorious and fulfilling. She’d felt closer to Gerhard in those few short hours than she had felt with anyone in her whole life.
And now he wanted her out of his sight? How were they at one second two halves of the same whole and by the morning she was something that needed to be disposed of? She had gone from being in the height of bliss into the deepest pit of hell.
“Hurry up!” he growled.
Rennio was an enigma, too. He had been unpleasant yesterday, but he hadn’t been wicked or cruel. He hadn’t even been aggressive. “Wh-why are you being so terrible?” she begged, finally able to pull on her dress.
“Because of all the goddamned trouble you’ve caused! We’ve fought a war over your incompetence! Damn women—you can’t even take control of a cake without fucking it up!”
Her eyes widened and she turned away, hoping he wouldn’t see that her lip had now begun to quiver. She had known yesterday that her enemies were sure to be less-than-kind with her, but she had at least thought they’re be horrible right away, and not all of the sudden after she’d given one of them her maidenhead!
At that mere thought, she felt as though she had swallowed a stone. Her throat tensed and she could barely breathe.
She fumbled with her braids, her fingers feeling numb and not dexterous at all. Her handmaiden was the one who used to fix her hair, and although she had spent time playing around with the hair of her sister and cousins for fun and leisure, she hadn’t attempted to fix her own hair in ages. She clumsily tried to arrange her hair into buns and then tried her best to pin on her crispinettes, knowing it would look horrible if she had a looking glass to inspect it all.
She turned and said as clearly as she could beyond the lump in her throat, “If you could be so kind… I need help tying up the back of my dress.”
Rennio rolled his eyes dramatically and then marched behind her where he none-too-gently began to lace the back of her velvet gown. “As if I care if your tits are hanging out!” he replied then, loudly. She blushed, wondering why he had to say everything so loud that it even hurt her ears. He wasn’t on a stage, for God’s sake.
He handed her cloak to her then, although she was surprised that he would bother. She was nearly about to forget about it, feeling rushed and jittery, but was relieved when it was in her hands and she threw it around her shoulders and closed the clasp at the neck. She was sure she looked like the very devil, but at least she would be warm.
“Come on, you move slow as the grave,” he claimed, suddenly grabbing her arm and thrusting her out the door.
As soon as she was outside, she was seized on either side by two guards who gripped her upper arms. There were soldiers all around her, crowded in tightly, as she was dragged through the camp. The atmosphere around her seemed even tenser than it had been the day before when she came through the castle gate to surrender.
She felt completely winded; yesterday she had been emotionally prepared for the worst, but sometime during the night she had begun to gain the smallest sliver of hope. She had been made happy by her enemy, after all, at least for a brief time. Perhaps that is why now she felt like there was a ball of ice in her stomach, one which only felt larger after the crowd began to shower her with rotting vegetables.
She had no
idea where they were leading her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Rennio, but nowhere she looked could she see Gerhard. Did he know that she was being treated this way? Rennio had said that he did, but Rennio seemed like the type of man who might speak an untruth just to get under her skin.
She cried out when she was suddenly hit on her shoulder by something hard. With fury, she turned and realized that someone had thrown a small rock at her. When she turned, she saw a boy of ten covered in mud who made a face at her. She was just swallowing down her fury when she was hit in the cheek with something else.
Cold horse dung.
Never had she felt so insulted before in her life, and she didn’t even have the time to stand still and digest her emotions as they continued to drag her through the field of enemy soldiers. She took a deep breath, trying to ignore what was being thrown at her, keeping her head high and proud like the princess she had been. She wouldn’t allow them the satisfaction of seeing her upset.
That was until she finally caught sight of Gerhard, who was holding open the door of a cart that had been turned into a small cage. It looked like it had once carried goats or chickens. Now, it looked like it would carry a princess. Gerhard merely looked at her with a dark, disconnected look that was so unlike the man she had made love to the night before that she wondered if it was the same man at all at first.
“Princess Susanna!” Gerhard greeted with a cruel tilt of his lips. His words were loud enough to be heard throughout the crowd, or at least fifteen men deep. “May I introduce you to your new kingdom?” The guards propelled her toward him, and although she pin wheeled her arms, she fell down into the cold mud. Sputtering from the cold, she was grabbed by the scruff of her robe and lifted from the ground. Gerhard’s strong hold freed her of the mud but then he thrust her into the open cage, which she quickly realized wasn’t empty after all. There was a baby pig in there with her.
“Hail Susanna! The princess of the pigs!” he cried out to the crowd as he slammed the door of her cage shut behind her. There was a loud roar of “Hooah!” from the whole army, who laughed and then continued to throw rotting food into the cage at her. The baby pig squealed with delight and immediately began to munch on a cabbage leaf.
The Conquered Brides Collection Page 6
