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.Fringed with almost unnaturally long lashes, the irises were a deep purplish blue.His daughters.Twins.So utterly identical that no one would have been able to tell them apart but for the tragedy that made the physical similarities almost a parody.The tragedy that was, perhaps, his judgment from God for the violence of his youth.Etta, for all her shining loveliness, had no besotted youths trailing in her wake.She rarely went abroad.She never spoke to anyone except Rica, who swore that Etta was not simple-minded, only deeply wounded somewhere in the darkest heart of her.Without a smile or any acknowledgment, she lowered her gaze back to the tapestry on her lap.A familiar pluck of grief touched his heart.To have lost his beloved and beautiful wife so violently ten years before was sorrow enough.That his six-year-old daughter had been so brutalized was beyond his imagination.The dark thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a vassal at the door of his chamber."Ah, Rudolf," Charles said in greeting."Come in.Tell me what you have learned."The young man settled on a bench nearby the wall and rubbed his hands to warm them by the fire."The pestilence is widespread, my lord.They say there has never been such as this."Charles grunted, chewing his hard crust of bread."They say that India is gone, so littered with bodies the stench travels for a hundred miles.Italy has suffered the same fate for nearly a year.France is in chaos.now the pestilence moves north.""And what, pray tell, have the famed doctors and astrologers to say?""A demon in the air and an alignment of planets," Rudolf said in disgust."It should be plainly obvious it is a punishment from—"Charles raised a weary hand and pressed with the heel of his palm to his chest, trying to ease the ache there.Thin rumors had wound through the countryside for many months, telling of the disease.With the rumors came grim prophecies of death for all mankind."Heard you a tale of its look?""Yes, the sufferers—""I need no more gruesome stories.Tell the guards to watch for it in travelers along the river.We will admit no such victims here.""Yes, my lord." Rudolf stood, and he cleared his throat.His nerves were betrayed by the clutch of his fists at his side."Have you given thought to my suit?""I have." Settling himself upon a stool, Charles waved toward a bench and Rudolf sat, back straight.Against the sunlight, his hair took on a glorious blaze of yellow, the ends curled at his shoulders, his handsome face earnest.Rudolf had served him well.The link to his powerful family would help erase the less noble blood running through Charles's own veins.Beyond that, Rudolf was the most besotted of the field of Rica's admirers.He would make a good husband to her."I will agree to the betrothal—"Rudolf jumped to his feet in exuberance."Oh, thank you, my lord!"Charles forestalled any further display."There is a condition.""Anything.""She is headstrong," he warned.Rudolf gave him a rueful smile."Of that, my lord, I am all too aware."Charles walked to the embrasure.Rica stood now in the gardens, conversing with a servant.He gestured to Rudolf, who joined him."She is also a romantic girl," Charles said slowly."Her head is filled with the tragic poems written by the ladies and knights of the courts." He paused."I want you to take the summer to woo her, so I am not forced to wed her against her will.""And if I cannot capture that wild heart?""I think I know a little of the romantic dreams of young girls." Charles inclined his head."You are not without your gifts.I watch the eyes of the women here."Rudolf flushed darkly."Foolish wenches with only coupling to fill their brains.""Seemed a lovely pastime when I was a youth," Charles said mildly, but raised a hand once again to forestall Rudolf's protestations.This was the only flaw of the young man—a certain grim piety that manifested itself at odd times."Speak not to Rica of religion and God," he cautioned."She is not concerned with matters of the spirit at this point in her life.Women grow more serious when their bellies swell.""She is all I wish as she is," Rudolf murmured, leaning out to watch her, his eyes glowing."Whatever I must do to win her—" He straightened and clasped his hands behind his back."You need not worry.For the summer I will be a model of courtly love.""Good." Charles turned away."If summer's end finds her still reluctant, I will tell her of the betrothal and you will be wed.By All Saint's Day, you will have a wife—willing or no."From the corner, the ordinarily silent Etta cried out, and Charles started.Both men stared at her, but she ignored them, her gaze fixed on a cut on her palm.She whimpered in terror as blood trickled over her hand and began to run down her arm.Charles sprang forward, for once not annoyed with the girl.Her aversion to blood was well known and understandable given the trauma of her childhood."There, my sweet," he murmured, taking her arm.He plucked a length of fabric from the basket beside her and twisted it around her hand."Your scissors slipped, that's all."But as the blood soaked through the cloth, Charles felt a tremor of foreboding pass through his belly.As Etta fixed terrified eyes on his face, he felt as if there were something he should be seeing, something just beyond his reach.He dismissed it."Rudolf, fetch Olga." To Etta, he added, "She will attend you quickly.All will be well."OneRica knelt in the confessional, smelling the sour, sharp scent of beeswax that had been rubbed into the wood.Stone flags met her knees.Beyond the screen, blocked with sheer white linen, the old priest wheezed, as he always did in the spring.She clasped her hands together."Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," she murmured."It has been six days since my last confession."Pursing her lips, she tried to remember the pockets of wickedness that riddled those six days.She had nearly forgotten to be shriven at all, and now, breathless with the run across the courtyard, she found her mind a blank."I borrowed my sister's scarf without telling her, the good one she embroidered for Assumption.""Mmmm." The priest coughed, the sound shallow but wheezing.Beginning was difficult, but once reminded, she seemed to recall an avalanche of transgressions to confess each time—there were so many ways to err! "I spoke sharply to Cook this morning and disobeyed my father's order to wear my hat when I leave the castle grounds.It was too hot."A murmur came through the screen.Rica shifted on the flags, uncomfortable with the need to confess the next sin.It had been told and repented a hundred times—and would be told a hundred more, for she could not overcome it.Her voice dropped."I dreamed I slew my mother's murderer."A short pause marked the air.He was supposed to be anonymous, a figure of shadowy authority, although he was the chapel priest and everyone knew it."Is there nothing else you would tell me?" the priest prodded.Obviously, he had some concern she might have omitted something.Swallowing a smile, Rica realized what it would be.She did not help him.The priest had been in her father's chapel for most of her life.He had given her instruction in the catechism and taught her to read Latin.It was the gentle old priest who supplied Rica with her beloved texts, and although he disapproved of the path her thoughts took at times, she knew he was fond of her.Now he was worried that the poems of the courts, those passionate avowals of tragic love, would corrupt her completely.More worried, she thought with a frown, about her reading those stories of illicit love than he was about her repeated dreams of revenge.Bloody dreams they were, in which she was armed with only a dagger and her hatred.In light of such, the romances in which she so delighted carried little weight
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