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

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 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 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.”

      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 taken her by the throat. “Have you been listening to me, woman? I want to know that what I say is understood.” My voice was still not loud; I have never been one for shouting much.

      Helen gasped and leaned forward, easing the pressure on her forearm. “Yes, my lord Vlad—I have heard and will obey. I meant my wedding vows—every bit as seriously as you meant yours.” When I released her arm she sighed, and closed her eyes, and rubbed it gently.

      “Then I will gladly proceed to answer your question. I believe our hosts will be happy to entertain us here for a day or two. Meanwhile some other arrangements will doubtless be made. It will be suggested that we might like to travel, leaving the region of Florence, at least for a tune, lest our presence here become known and be an embarrassment. The news of our wedding is doubtless already on its way to your royal brother—our royal brother, now. Perhaps we will go to Pisa, or Genoa, and wait there for a while to know his pleasure.”

      “But I thought … you mean it is possible that we will not soon go back to Hungary?”

      “It would please you to remain in Italy?”

      She hesitated. “Yes. Yes, it would.”

      “I would say that it is more than possible.” And Helen appeared relieved to hear this news.

      As I had predicted, the two of us spent the remainder of that day and all the next as honored guests at the Medici villa. We rested, and did what newlyweds in all times and places are supposed to do. Our hosts called upon me to demonstrate some tricks of fencing, for which they offered appreciative applause. We joined them in conversation, the skills of which I believe I first began to appreciate when in that household; and in games, and music, and in listening to the poetry of Lorenzo and others. On our first evening at Careggi I had the pleasure of meeting the beautiful Lucrezia, Piero’s devoted and intelligent wife, who looked much too young to be the mother of grim-faced, beard-stubbled Lorenzo. You