returned to the castle, but before I could speak, Frau Amsel swept the fabric into her arms.
“I will take this,” she said, fixing me with a challenging stare.
The pedlar, whose sharp eyes I suspected missed very little, put his thumbs into his braces and rocked back upon his heels with the air of a man who intended to make the most of an opportunity.
“I have only the one dress-length, and I have carried it the length of Hungary. Which of you will give me the best price?”
Frau Amsel thrust her hand into her pocket and withdrew a faded, washed-leather purse. She sorted through the coins and produced a handful.
“Here, this is what I will give you,” she told him, flicking me a triumphant glance. She seemed certain of victory, and well she ought, I mused, for I had no coin to counter the offer and no desire to brawl with Frau Amsel, although she had clearly decided to dislike me.
“I think this lady wants it more,” I said softly. The pedlar looked disappointed; doubtless he had anticipated a better price, but there was none on offer, and he accepted with an unctuous smile. He wrapped the fabric into a paper parcel and tied it with a bit of grubby string. Frau Amsel scarcely waited for the knot to be secured before she left without a word. I turned to Cosmina, lifting my brows.
She had seen the exchange, but merely waved a hand. “She is an odd creature. She was doubtless afraid you would carry off what she fancied. Although it was rather stupid of her, for she is frightful in purple. It would have suited you much better.”
I shrugged. “No matter. I am in mourning in any event. Let me see the beads you have there. What a pretty shade of blue. They quite match your eyes.”
She beamed happily and chose a few more things, counting out her coins happily while the pedlar wrapped her purchases in paper bundles, pleating the paper to make tidy little packages in the shape of animals.
“How clever,” I said, admiring the little monkey he had just fashioned.
With a few quick movements of his fingers he created another, this one a dog with rather familiar features. He presented it to me with a flourish.
“I thought you might like a little tribute to your dog,” he said.
“My dog? I have no dog,” I told him, but even as I said the words, I felt a familiar weight press against my leg. “Tycho!” I rubbed at his silken ears. “You curious thing, did you follow me here?”
“He must have,” Cosmina said. “He seldom leaves the count. It seems you have made a conquest,” she said. Her tone was light, but her colour had faded and she looked a little breathless.
“We have walked too far,” I chided her. “You are only just out of bed after that nasty cold. I ought not to have let you come.”
She gave me a gentle smile. “You could not have prevented me. He comes only four times a year, and it is always a wonderful treat. I will be fine. I am a little tired, that is all. A short rest and I will be good as new.”
“Perhaps something to drink at the inn,” I urged, and she complied, letting me carry her basket full of parcels and guide her to the familiar iron gate with the horse’s skull.
The innkeeper’s wife hurried out and motioned for us to sit at a pretty little iron table in the shade of a great elm. We settled there, and she hurried back with a tray of cold plum wine and a plate of small sweet biscuits. We drank and ate slowly, Tycho at our feet, and after half an hour or so, Cosmina seemed restored. She sat with her back to the tree, lifting her face to the dappled shade. She was so pale I could see the blood moving in her veins, and I thought of the countess, lying wan and feeble in her magnificent bed. I thought too of Cosmina’s mother, lost so young, and I wondered what weakness ran in the blood that the women of their family proved so frail.
As if sensing my scrutiny, Cosmina opened her eyes and smiled. “You needn’t worry so. I am not as fragile as all that.”
“Of course not,” I said stoutly. “A little rest and you will be right as rain.” I hated the sound of my voice, jovial and hearty, as if I could promise her restored health, when the truth-if I could bear to own it to myself-was that I feared for her. She tired herself on behalf of the villagers and her aunt, and I wondered if she could be persuaded to temper her efforts before they took too sharp a toll upon her.
She peered into the basket and picked among the parcels until she came to a tiny one in the shape of a mouse.
“This is for you,” she said almost shyly, pressing the little mouse into my hands.
“How thoughtful of you!” I tugged at its tail, unfolding the clever paper to reveal the strand of polished blue beads, each scarcely larger than an apple seed.
“I chose them for you, not for me,” she told me. She motioned me forward and I knelt before her to let her clasp the necklace about my throat. “How pretty they look!”
I turned, running a finger over the beads.
“That is just how you used to worry the rosary of your mother’s, do you remember?” she asked suddenly.
“Oh! I had quite forgot. Fancy your remembering that,” I murmured, feeling the unpleasant tug of memory.
“I remember how upset you were to have lost it that day. We were on a picnic, I remember. With Fraulein Moller. She took us to the little waterfall in the woods. We were meant to be sketching birds, I think. But we ate a picnic in the meadow and told stories and ate too much of the marzipan she had brought for a treat. I made daisy chains and you gathered the flowers for me. And the afternoon was so warm, we dozed off in the sunlight, with the bees and the butterflies dancing about us. And when we woke to leave, you found you had lost your rosary. You were so unhappy, I remember the day was quite spoilt.”
“I did make a terrible fuss,” I admitted ruefully. “I remember we were very late back to the school because you and Fraulein Moller helped me to search and we were all lectured quite sternly by the headmistress on punctuality.”
“I did not mind,” Cosmina said loyally. “I only minded because we could not find it, and I knew it hurt you to lose it.”
“It was the only thing I had of Mama’s,” I recalled.
“And it was blue, I remember that,” Cosmina said with a fond look at the necklace she had bought me.
“Yes, it was. The colour of the Madonna’s robe.” I touched the necklace again. “How like you to remember it, and to give me this. Thank you, Cosmina.”
She bent swiftly to press her cheek to mine. “I am so happy you are here,” she said in an odd, choked voice. “I want you to be happy here as well.”
“I am,” I told her truthfully.
Just then a voice hailed us and we looked to the gate to find we were not alone. Florian stood there, muddy to his waist, but looking rather happier than I had seen him.
“Florian, whatever have you been doing? Playing in the piggery?” Cosmina asked, her tone touched with coolness. Perhaps she resented the intrusion upon our private moment, but there was no call to be rude to poor Florian. He flushed deeply.
“No, Miss Cosmina. I have been seeing to the digging of the new well.”
I looked up sharply. “The new well?”
He nodded. “Yes, miss. The count, he gives orders for a new well. There is digging for many days now, and today the water comes.”
I realised then that a commotion had been rising outside the peaceful garden. I rose and went to the gate. On the street, folk were scurrying to and fro, bearing pitchers and pails, and over and again I heard the word apa.
“Water,” Florian explained with a smile. “They are still wary, but happier.” I canted my head at him, but he did not elaborate. He looked at Cosmina and an anxious frown settled between his brows. “Are you ready to be going to the castle? I will leave now to take you.”
“Escorted by you, muddy as a dog? I hardly think so,” Cosmina said with a sharp laugh.
He flushed again, a deep, angry red and turned on his heel to leave us.
I resumed my seat beneath the elm. “It is not like you to be unkind,” I said mildly.
Cosmina’s pretty features wore a pained expression. “It is a greater unkindness to encourage him. In Vienna he might well have been someone. Here he is no one. Like me.”
A thread of bitterness stitched her words together, and I sipped at my wine, choosing my phrases carefully. “If
