Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (books to read romance .txt) 📗

understanding grew in Helen’s eyes they shifted from mine, to go staring past me at the wall. She raised a dirty hand and bit its thumbnail. Looking for the moment even younger than her years, she slowly began to weep, tears streaking down her cheeks.

      Now this was a reaction that I could scarcely take as complimentary. But it was obviously no calculated insult either, and somewhat to my own surprise I was not angry. I had understanding enough to realize that she wept for her whole ruined life, in which my portion was so far quite a minor one. So I only waited, silently, till she should be ready to talk to me again.

      At last the tears stopped, and in a little while the silent sobs. Helen’s eyes came back to me, and when she spoke again her voice was under good control. “Matthias allows me no alternative.” Though stated flatly, it was really a question.

      I shrugged. “Of course it is nearly always possible to kill oneself. But I think that if that path held any attraction for you, you would have taken it ere now.” My first wife had in fact traveled the route under discussion, in a fit of madness two years earlier, her point of departure being my castle roof. I thought that I had learned to recognize the signs; I saw them not in Helen.

      My blunt comment had made her look at me in a new way again. Now, you must understand that it was not my intention to be cruel. Cruelty I understood; I was, alas, already expert in inflicting pain, as well as undergoing it, and I could have been much more fiendish than that if I had tried. No, my apparent callousness was really intended to be helpful; and I still think it helped her more than if I had tried or pretended to be kind. For Helen I was a hard rock rearing up suddenly out of the treacherous bog of life, a rock that was not going to be put aside for her own purposes. But, on the other hand, this stony intrusion offered firmness and support; she could cling to it, for long enough to catch her breath at least, without fear that it was going to sink. Nor was it going to attack her treacherously; it would never turn harder and crueler than it looked.

      Helen’s eyes fell to the table, to the bread and wine that had come to her through me. She looked up at the rustic but sturdy roof-poles of the shelter that I had brought her to. She rubbed the chain-sores on her ankle, and pulled the worn and gaudy gown a little more closely round her body. “What has the king promised you, in return for marrying me?”

      “Nothing specific. That I will have an honorable position somewhere is implied, understood between us.” At least I hoped that the king agreed with my understanding on that point.

      “And what about me? Am I to be put back into the convent as soon as we are wed? Or what is the arrangement?”

      “No convent. And there is no arrangement, except that you are to be my wife.” I looked her over thoughtfully. “The ceremony will be here. Directly afterwards we will proceed, with some kind of protective escort, to a gracious house not far away. There you will have a bath.” (Bathing, contrary to popular belief in the twentieth century, was as well thought of in that day as in this, at least among the well-to-do.) “And I expect we will remain in that house for a day or two, being hospitably entertained, if I know anything of our hosts.”

      Helen was looking at me with a measure of disbelief. I went on: “After that—well, what comes after that has yet to be decided. But I can promise that as my wife you will be treated with respect. And I think I can promise that from now on you will be well fed.” There were a few more things, of great importance, that I meant to say to Helen; but I judged that the saying of them could wait till after the ceremony was over.

      It was my turn to be judged by her; a king’s daughter and a king’s sister looked through the grime. You are of good birth, then. Yes, I might have known that my brother would not marry me to a churl, whatever else … well, my lord Wladislaus the Romanian, or whatever I should name you … but that is not a Romanian name, is it? I hope you gain the reward that you are counting on for all these efforts and sacrifices to please my brother.”

      Her manner implied her doubt that I would gain much. And the king’s sister looked long and boldly into my eyes, trying to puzzle me out. I continued to study her, with the same object. For whatever reason, the feeling grew in me that my decision had been correct. When at last Verrocchio peeked into the room again, I signed to him that we no longer required privacy, and he hesitantly rejoined us.

      But before he could cough up any of the questions that must have been troubling him, horses were stamping in the street just outside his door. Presently another dagger-hilt came rapping on the wood. This time I answered the knock myself, and a moment later was joyfully letting in Lorenzo. Helen had been in Florence long enough to recognize the young tycoon on sight, and her eyes widened.

      Immediately young Lorenzo, smiling, fresh, and good-natured at an hour that would now be called three in the morning, took me aside and heard from me privately the full story of our escapade. He did not trouble to hide his glee when I came to describe the street fighting; that several of his rivals in business had been pricked with sharp weapons did not grieve him in the least. As soon as this brief confidential talk between the two of us