A date for my father’s wedding had not been announced yet. At first Allura proposed December. Not only was this breathtakingly soon after their engagement, but she had not considered the difficulty of her friends and relations coming to the Kalzov Valley from Italy. Moreover, there was her formal conversion to complete. Not that she had any objection. “Catholic or Orthodox,” she said, “the husband is the head of the wife.”
So she and Papa had agreed on the following summer, probably July, and Allura had written to her favorite astrologer in Venice asking him to recommend an auspicious date.
Over the next month the Baron and I became a courting couple, much to my father’s delight. About the two hundredth time I called him “Your Excellency”, as is correct to a ruling baron, he asked me to call him Iglacias. Signora Campari would never have approved, but this was my home valley, not Venice, and I agreed on condition that he call me Dragana.
A number of times Iglacias came with me on my excursions to catalogue the fauna and flora of the Kalzov Valley, and the fossils and geology of its hills. Having baronial guards as our chaperones greatly simplified collecting specimens, and as autumn turned to winter they efficiently built little fires for us to warm ourselves at.
Iglacias’s ability to find things was sometimes uncanny. One week I would mention an interesting native species that I hoped to find or show him an engraving of one in a journal of natural science. The next week, Iglacias would announce, “I think I’ve found one of those” and we’d head off to a particular hillside or glen … and there indeed it would be!
Once Grigor showed up out of nowhere and joined us for a while. He briefly took Iglacias aside, then led us all to some fossilized bones in a narrow canyon nearby. “Dragon bones!” he announced jubilantly. They were so jumbled together, high on the cliff face, that it was impossible to tell what sort of creature they were from, so I gravely agreed that perhaps Grigor had indeed found a dragon.
“But how do you suppose they got turned into rock?” he asked, with a comically quizzical expression on his face. I was about to launch into a simplified explanation of the competing theories when Iglacias forestalled me: “Medusa stalked this land,” he declared in the rich tenor voice I found so attractive.
Apparently satisfied, Grigor wandered off again. The two of us stayed to look up at the fossil bones … and to steal a few minutes alone. Fortunately, his guards did not seem to feel that the proprieties required them to keep us under observation at every moment, so Iglacias was able to pin my arms behind me with one hand while with the other he caressed my hair and neck, as we pressed together in a passionate kiss—not for the first time. He called this “catching” me, but something inside me was so, so willing to be caught! I didn’t understand it then, but his touch gave me such a warm glow. I loved the strength of his arms and the way he looked at me with his deep-set gray-blue eyes.
Late that spring, my father announced that the Baron required his presence on a trip to Italy. Allura immediately tried to get herself and me invited.
“Oh, I miss Venice so! Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take me and Dragana along? I’m sure she misses her friends in Venice, too. Writing letters just isn’t the same.”
But my father said gruffly that this was business, and he and the Baron would be traveling lightly and swiftly.
“Well, you should at least let me send Guillaume along with you to keep you well fed.” Guillaume was the chef Allura had brought with her from Venice.
“You know how sensitive you are to strange foods these days,” she suggested, and my father just smiled at that. He had indeed proved sensitive to certain strange foods … prepared by Guillaume.
“If he came with me, who would feed you?” he countered. “And in the decades until I met you I did somehow survive without Guillaume. Who in any case would hardly be at his best cooking over a campfire.”
“Oh, dear … you’re right,” Allura pouted. Then she brightened. “I’ll have him fix you some travel food. When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
My father left, loaded down with Guillaume’s “travel food”. “Be sure to eat a little every day,” said Allura as we waved goodbye, sad to see him go.
As the days passed, Allura grew even sadder and became agitated. A week later, she couldn’t hold in whatever was bothering her. “We should go to Venice and meet them there as a surprise. Yes, whatever they are doing in Italy, wherever they go, they have to come back through Venice.” I suspected this was wishful thinking, but saw no point in argument. “We should meet them there. Come, Dragana, let us prepare for a trip!”
“A what? Who will keep the household?” I said.
“Oh, the servants can do that just fine. They always do. Your Jelena is an absolute treasure.” I felt my mouth fall open; for Allura to praise a servant she had not hired was unprecedented. “Hurry! Hurry! Let’s get underway!”
As I might have expected, “Hurry! Hurry!” meant that two days later she was ready to travel, with our luggage and all her servants from Venice distributed among a carriage and three wagons. This was traveling light and in a hurry? I didn’t think she’d left a shred of her possessions behind!
May is a pleasant time for traveling through the Kalzov Valley. The trees’ newly unfurled leaves are at their lightest green and the weather is cool enough to make exertion pleasant. I rode horseback, as did Giacomini, so as not to crowd the other servants. The huge footman apparently bore me no ill will, though I felt sure Allura had berated him long and loud for permitting me to escape from my bedroom that autumn. As our caravan climbed out of the valley, my heart climbed as well. When I glanced at Allura, she too seemed more contented.
A few minutes after the carriage crossed the summit and started down the far side into wild forest, Allura stopped the carriage and called, “Please come sit with me, Dragana.” And to her maid, “Gina, go sit up with the coachman to give the dear girl room.” After I climbed into the carriage and we got underway again, distress pinched Allura’s face. “Let me look at your hands, dear.”
She said it in the tone of a mother suspecting her child had not washed her hands before dinner. Confused, I held them out for her to inspect.
She gathered my hands to her, looked them over closely, and commanded, “Hold still.”
It was the complete unexpectedness of it as much as her speed: Before I could resist, Allura pulled out soft leather straps and tied my wrists together. Then she said quietly and without her usual affectation, “Our relationship has changed, Dragana. These bonds are to give you a concrete reminder of the fact.”
I tested the straps. I could not slip my hands out. I reached a finger for the knot.
Allura slapped at my hand, crying “Tut! tut! tut!” more in her usual style. I ignored her … and was surprised for a second time. From somewhere she pulled out a needle-thin stiletto and put it to my neck, with no suggestion of flutter or helplessness. “I do hope you won’t require a concrete reminder that is less comfortable, my dear.”
I settled down, leaned back—the stiletto followed effortlessly— and put my hands on my knees.
“Close your eyes for just a moment, dear,” she said. Uncomprehending, I did.
When I opened them, the knife was no longer in sight, but Allura was looking at me like a fox contemplating a mouse.
“I was saying that our relationship has changed. You are no longer my prospective stepdaughter; you are now my prisoner.”