Elizabeth of Vindobona (The Colplatschki Chronicles Book 3)

by Alma Boykin

“The pommel caught me.” She whispered, “My lord, I’m pregnant.” Her reputation meant nothing any more; saving the child meant everything.

  “I’ll tell the churigon. Just stay still.” As Quill took her hand, Elizabeth heard Prince Alois cursing, then sending Aranka for help. Soon, but not soon enough, it seemed to her, Elizabeth was back at Donatello House. Mina helped her into bed and sent for an herb-wife.

  “You need a churigon,” Quill insisted.

  “No,” she panted, sweating and gasping as a wave of fire rippled down her body. “Need herb-wife. Thank you, your grace.”

  He hung his head. “This is my fault.”

  “No. Not yours, my lord. Accident,” and another ripple of pain struck. She clenched her teeth and tried not to cry out. No, little one, you’re too small. Please, St. Sabrina, help me, help us save the little one.

  Mina returned with two women who shooed Duke Starland out of the room. “Sally is a herb-wife, and Lois is a midwife,” Mina said.

  “I’m just past four— aaaagh.” Mina grabbed her icy hand and squeezed as the pain made her cry. “Four months.”

  The midwife looked at Elizabeth, then consulted with the herbalist. A few minutes later the herbalist held up a cup and two maids stuffed pillows behind Elizabeth so she could drink. “My lady, this will ease the contractions and help you relax.”

  “Will that save the child?”

  “It will start the process,” Sally assured her.

  Elizabeth, with Sally’s help, drank the sweet brew. She felt herself floating. And cold. She felt terribly cold. “Mina,” she whispered. “Cold.”

  The woman bit her lip, nodding, and took Elizabeth’s hand again. “You’re bleeding inside, my lady. The saddle hit your belt buckle and drove it into your womb.”

  “No!” The room started fading and she whispered, “Destefani. Need Colonel Destefani.”

  She heard faint whispers, and Mina’s voice, from a far distance, said, “He’s coming, my lady.” Then the cold and black won.

  Elizabeth woke again as a man said, “His highness Prince Alois sent me. I’m his churigon and he asked me to come look at Lady Elizabeth.”

  An older woman replied, “She’s not stopped bleeding, and the not-born is dead in her womb. We need to restart the labor, but her muscles seem damaged.”

  “Ah. His highness said that he feared there might be internal injuries. May I examine her?”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth drifted away again, returning to consciousness as someone waved hartshorn under her nose.

  She coughed, shaking her head weakly. The world spun, then steadied. “Wha? Lazlo?”

  Hands lifted her head and shoulders. A man, the one she’d heard earlier, told her, “I apologize for waking you, my lady, but we must restart your labor. You need to drink this. It will taste sour at first, then sweet.”

  “Th’ child?”

  “Drink, please.” She swallowed the warm, thick liquid, trying not to choke. The effort exhausted her and as she finished, the hands let her lay back down. She grew cold again, and she shivered. She felt her belly move. Or did she? The room seemed to swirl and spin, changing into a sun-dappled forest glade as she watched. She smelled violets and something dead. The duff felt soft under her feet and Elizabeth began walking, enjoying the cool of the day.

  All at once the forest floor lifted, heaving and boiling. She put her hands to her mouth as the bitter stench of death and rot surged over her. The dirt churned and rose up to become a man and a horse, both long dead, with flaming eyes and hair made of the worms of corruption. Terrified, she tried to run, screaming. The forest turned into black ice and her feet slipped. She scrambled, regained her balance, and slipped again to plunge into freezing water.

  The nightmares surged and faded until they blurred together into one long terror. She’d almost wake, hearing voices and tasting something safe, only to find another monster, or demon, or flood, or fire waiting for her. Once she saw Snowy, and Lazlo with a child in his arms. But when she reached for them, man and mule turned their backs on her and walked away. She raced to catch them, to stop them from abandoning her, but the figures grew smaller and smaller until she ran alone in featureless, clinging grey mist that stung her skin and burned her eyes and lungs. When silent blackness finely enwrapped her, she surrendered with a feeling of pure relief.

  At long last, a fire crackled and a log popped open. Someone held her hand, rubbing it along with a bunch of hard and round things. Beads. The hand held beads. Prayer beads? The strand moved and she heard a man’s voice murmuring. Prayer beads, then. She touched the next bead and began reciting, “Godown, Lord of life, hear my prayer. Godown, lord of living, hear my prayer.” The other hand tightened its grip and she felt a rider’s callouses on the fingers and warm, dry palm.

  “You’re alive,” a rough, harsh voice whispered. “Oh holy Godown, you’re alive.”

  Her lips felt like cracked wood, and she could hardly speak for her dry and aching throat. Eyes too sore and dry to open, she begged, “Lazlo?”

  “Yes.” He released her, then returned. “I’m going to lift you. Mina will help. It will hurt but not for long.” She felt hands behind her, and a stabbing pain in her guts. She whimpered. Then the pain stopped. “Your muscles are still weak, my lady.” She smelled bitter herbs and meat. “This is shahma broth, my lady. I’ve already had some, so we know it’s sound.” She trusted him, and she drank. He gave her thin tea after first sipping from the cup himself, and she drank that as well. A warm, damp bit of cloth rubbed over her eyelids, removing the tight crust from the edges. At last she opened her eyes, barely able to focus on the fireplace wall and on the posts holding the bed curtains.

  “The child?”

  The bed shifted as he sat where she could see him. He’d lost weight and his eyes were red. His hair looked oily and lank. She heard Mina sniffing. Lazlo took her hand in his again and shook his head, his face terribly sad. “He died. The blow from the pommel killed him. It wasn’t your fault, my lady.”

  “They couldn’t save..?”

  “No. The midwife,” his voice caught. “He likely died instantly. No pain, my lady.”

  She closed her eyes again. A few tears burned down her face and she felt his rough finger wiping them away. “How long?”

  “If you mean how long ago did you lose the child, two, almost three weeks.”

  Something in his voice made her nervous and she looked up at him. “Love, what’s wrong?”

  Mina hissed and Lazlo shook his head again. “I’ll tell you after you rest.” She fell asleep not long after, her hand still in his.

  She woke again to the smell of roasting meat. “Food?”

  Three serving women moved into her view, and the herbwife replied, “Yes, my lady, but first,” and strong hands helped her sit, then move to a chair. Two women stripped and cleaned the bed, replacing the sheets. Two more cleaned Elizabeth and helped her into a fresh nightgown. She wanted to protest but couldn’t find the energy.

  Only once she was back in bed, and fed with more very thick broth and a bit of soft bread, did she ask, “Col. Destefani?”

  The herbwife sighed. She adjusted her cap, tucking away stray threads of grey hair. “He is bathing at last, after wearing himself out with work and finally getting some sleep. I’ll tell him you are awake.” She sighed again. “We assured him that you are fine, but men never listen.”

  Lazlo came in as she drank more broth. He vibrated with pent-up nervous energy. “Please leave us,” Elizabeth told Mina.

  “My lady, your reputation,” she protested.

  “I have none, not now. Go, please, and I’ll send Col. Destefani when you may return.” Once the door shut, she lifted her arms, or tried to. Lazlo grabbed her, holding her as tightly as he could. Her broken ribs burned and stabbed like fire but she made no sound, not wanting him to let go ever again.

  “Oh, love, oh, Godown be praised, we thought we’d lost you,” he whispered into her ear. “You were so sick for so long.”<
br />
  “The miscarriage. Child bed fever.” That explained the hideous fever dreams.

  He released her and sat back, still holding her hand. “Worse. Do you remember a strange man coming, while you were in labor?”

  “Um, I think so,” she answered slowly. The whole period from returning to Donatello House until her first waking seemed a blur of pain and nightmares, interspersed with bits of voices.

  Lazlo got up and poured two cups of tea. He drank part of one cup and set it down, then helped her drink the other. “He told the midwife and servants that he was a churigon, sent by Prince Alois. He lied.” Lazlo set her now-empty cup aside and took Elizabeth’s hand again. Bitter hatred snarled through his voice and burned in his eyes. “He was the Frankonian ambassador’s servant. Oh, he was a churigon, but not one of ours.”

  She stared at him, mouth open. “Laurence?”

  “We don’t know. The ambassador swears he knows nothing, or he so swore before he was sent home with Duke Starland’s boot print on his ass and Archduke Gerald Kazmer’s curses ringing in his ears.”

  “Wish I could have seen that.” But she could imagine it, and she smiled a little. Then she remembered Lazlo’s words. “You said worse?”

  “The bastard claimed that he only gave you something to induce labor. At the time the midwife assumed it was rippleroot.” His eyes brimmed with tears. “It was golden horn smut. When Archduke Gerald Kazmer’s men searched the chruigon’s belongings, they found the rest of the vial.”

  Her free hand went to her stomach and she felt pain like an icy dagger piercing her heart. “No.” She shook her head, trying to deny the words. “No, please, no.”

  “I’m sorry love. Your guards didn’t think to check him against the palace records, and the midwife deferred to him, since Prince Alois sent him, and because she agreed with his diagnosis. Even a real churigon would not have tried to repair or stop the bleeding until after,” he caught himself and said, “after your womb was empty. By the time you started hallucinating, all they could do was wrap you in wet sheets and snow to try and slow the bleeding and cool the fever.”

  She reached for him and he moved so he sat beside her, cradling her as she wept. His tears mixed with hers. “You only survived because you were too weak to fight the hallucinations. And because you’d lost so much of your womb when you miscarried, the drug had almost nothing to work with. Or so the midwife and herbwife believe.” He laughed, a harsh cawing sound. “In a warped way, he may have saved your life despite himself.”

  “But I’m barren,” she whispered.

  He stroked her head, rocking her. “You are alive, thanks to Godown and your women. That’s what matters most.”

  She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t, not then, and not in the long, slow days that followed. It was another week before Elizabeth could get out of bed on her own, and then she sat in her chair panting, drenched with sweat. After a second week she could, just barely and with a great deal of assistance, walk down to the solar. At Lazlo’s orders, her staff moved her entire office, aside from the heaviest books, to the solar. She began answering correspondence and returned to the seeming-endless task of writing up her account of the campaign season, from the first call to go west to her return to Vindobona. The work distracted her from the pain in her heart and body, allowing both to heal and rest.

  Three weeks to the day after she woke from her sickness, she ventured out into the courtyard. Mina fussed, protested, wailed, and finally wrapped Elizabeth in as many clothes as she could tolerate. Feeling horribly much like a toddler in a bumper vest, Elizabeth picked her way across the cobbles, intending to go to the stables. “Hee haw! Hee Haw!” Hoofbeats rang out as shouts of “Get him! Grab his rope,” arose. Elizabeth stopped beside the mounting block and braced as Snowy muscled out of the grooms’ grasp and trotted up to her, snorting and slobbering.

  “That’s my Snowy,” she told him, hugging his neck and scratching his crest. He insisted on sniffing her from cap to boot-toe before letting her scratch him some more.

  “My lady,” Lazlo said, appearing at her shoulder and presenting her with two apples.

  “He really does not need any more treats,” she reminded him as she took both pieces of fruit and presented them to the mule. He sniffed once and then crunched away at the fruit, leaving little crumbs on her gloved palm that he then licked up.

  “Perhaps not, my lady.” Lazlo stepped back and walked around the white mule, giving his hindquarters a very respectful berth. “He does need exercise, if I might be so bold.”

  She studied Snowy’s hay-belly with a critical eye. “That he does.” She gave the mounting block a wistful glance and started turning back to speak to Lazlo, when she felt strong hands boosting her up. “What? What are you doing?” She squeaked. All at once she found herself sitting on Snowy’s back. The two grooms who’d lifted her beat a hasty retreat, leaving Lazlo to bear their mistress’s wrath. He took Snowy’s rope and led the mule around the courtyard several times, making slow circles. They stopped beside the mounting block.

  “I believe that is enough exercise for the day, my lady,” Lazlo informed her. “His grace Duke Starland’s orders, with his Highness Prince Alois’s agreement.”

  Mina fussed at Elizabeth and scolded Lazlo, until he repeated that the orders came from Prince Alois and showed her Aquila Starland’s message.

  One afternoon not long after, Mina tapped on the solar door. “My lady, Duchess Starland.”

  Elizabeth got to her feet as Marie Starland came in, hesitant and nervous. Elizabeth curtsied, “Welcome, your grace.”

  Before she could say anything more, Marie rushed forward and hugged Elizabeth, bursting into tears and babbling, “Elizabeth, I am so, so, sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, I had no idea Ember would cause such horrible trouble. Please forgive me,” she begged. “I just wanted you to see what a wonderful mare I’d persuaded Aquila to get for me. I didn’t want you to be hurt.”

  Elizabeth held the smaller woman. “I know, my lady. It was an accident and accidents happen. Master Moreland’s servant knew never to toss slops after the first bell, and he’s been disciplined. Ember fell, Marie, it was an accident.”

  “But your child,” Marie sniffed.

  Swallowing hard, Elizabeth fingered the prayer beads hanging from her belt. “Godown took him. And accidents happen. How many women have lost children from riding accidents, or carriage accidents?”

  “Too many.” Marie calmed down and a servant brought tea for them. Marie asked about the solar and Elizabeth showed her how the panels slid down over the top of the glass to keep out the worst weather and late summer’s sun. Duchess Starland left after half an hour. They would never be friends, but the two women had reached a peace accord, at least.

  When a royal invitation came for Elizabeth to accompany Prince Alois on a ride, Mina sulked, fretting over Elizabeth’s health until Elizabeth threatened to replace her. “Mina, I am not made of spun glass or sucre. I am going riding and that is that.”

  “On Snowy, my lady?” the older woman ventured after helping Elizabeth finish dressing in her warmest riding habit.

  “Yes, with Col. Destefani, his grace Duke Starland, and his highness.”

  Mina’s shoulders lost their tightness and she relaxed. “Very good, my lady,” and she handed Elizabeth her new winter riding hat, curtsied, and bustled off.

  Well that’s a relief, Elizabeth thought as she walked down to the courtyard. Especially considering that half of the staff seem to think that the accident was Quill’s fault, and the rumor’s going around that he wanted me hurt because he’s jealous of me. She’d never realized how protective some of her servants could be. She’d mentioned it to Lazlo, who’d pointed out that she did not scream or throw things at them, she made very few extraordinary demands, she did not try to micro-manage Donatello House, and she usually paid their wages on time and in full. Given the still high price of food and the shortage of habitable space in Vindobona due to the Turk
owi bombardments, along with the number of nobles who had yet to return to the city, having a steady position that paid on time was the dream of many servants.

  As always, she found Lazlo inspecting his horse. Braun needed to get out, so Lazlo would be riding the brown gelding while Elizabeth exercised Snowy. The chilly air made both equines impatient but the riders took their time. Elizabeth mounted without help, adjusting her skirts carefully after making certain that she was well settled in her sidesaddle. Lazlo swung onto Braun’s back and waited as the horse got used to his greater mass. Despite her cook’s best efforts, Elizabeth had yet to regain all the weight she’d lost during her illness and recovery. “My lady?” Lazlo bowed in the saddle and she led the way out of the courtyard.

  They rode out the same direction she’d gone before. This time she stayed well clear of the edge of the road. Her hands shook and she concentrated on staying relaxed. You’re on Snowy. Trust Snowy, he won’t surprise you, she chanted to herself. You’re on Snowy. Snowy is safe. They passed the scene of her accident and nothing happened—no flying water, no spooks, nothing. All the tension flowed out of her like water and she slumped for a moment, as much as her corseting and healing ribs would allow.

  She and Lazlo rode out of the western gate, past the snow-covered bastions, and found Duke Starland and Prince Alois waiting, along with a third horseman. Layers of scarves concealed the man’s identity. After watching him move, Elizabeth decided that he was probably a guard, assigned to keep an eye on Prince Alois.

  “Good,” the prince declared, his breath steaming in the cold, sunny morning air. “This way.” The tall rider followed him, and Elizabeth held Snowy back to allow Duke Starland to ride ahead of her.

  “No, beside me, please,” Aquila ordered. She shrugged and let Snowy catch up. Lazlo rode behind. “And you on my other side,” Starland called back. “To still the slanderous tongues,” he explained after a moment.

  Elizabeth nodded. They rode across empty fields, picking a route that paralleled the Turkowi trench lines. Although a great deal of work had been done filling in the trenches and removing every last bit of scrap, timber, tool, and treasure, the shallow depressions remained visible in the snow, warning of the dangers. The slanting blue shadows kept the riders alert for holes and for the few low walls hiding under the knee-deep snow. It would be gone in a few days, but for now the white blanket hid the remains of the summer and fall’s fear and destruction. They group rode in silence for several kilometers, enjoying the peace and stillness outside the city walls. The winter fair had been delayed until the next full moon, which suited Elizabeth just fine. She wanted to be healthy for the nighttime masked festivities, when she and Lazlo could go out without anyone commenting.