THE IMPALER'S WIFE

20

"More gifts?" Bernádett closes my chamber door after Aunt Erzsébet's ladies-in-waiting deliver yet another bolt of costly fabric. "Turkish rugs. Your favorite sweets. Does she think your loyalty is so easily got?"

I unfurl the embroidered fabric, the gold threads glittering in the gray light of a cloudy afternoon. "She must suspect I will not always be a princess without a fiefdom." I hold one end of the fabric to my bosom and splay the rest like a dress. "Prince Vlad will like this."

Bernádett holds up a length of complementary violet ribbon. "I will summon the dressmaker."

"If only you could summon Prince Vlad as easily." I crush the fabric in my fist with frustration. I see Vlad only during daily mass, which he attends as a condition of his conversion to Catholicism.

"Your aunts are protecting your virginity, my lady."

I fling my arm toward the door. "Is a guard necessary? Does Prince Vlad really believe a courtier is foolish enough to kidnap me before the wedding?"

It is a prank, a Wallachian custom.

Bernádett shivers. "God save the man who tries to steal Prince Vlad's bride."

My breath catches as I recall della Scala's fate.

#

My wedding day!

My trembling hand smooths the pear-colored wedding dress. The embroidery is flawless, from the snow-white lambs on the bodice to the red Easter eggs on the sleeves to the moss-hued dragon and black raven—signifying the merging of our two families—on the cuffs. Beneath the veil my hair is braided with white blooms, green buds, and tiny pearl strands. My lips are stained with beet juice, my breath sweetened with a compote of marjoram and mint.

Aunt Erzsébet enters my room and smiles approvingly. "It's time." She gestures to the open window where the ledge drips rain. "Even the weather heralds good luck."

I cross the crocus and lilac-strewn floor, each step crushing the flowers and releasing their fragrance. I cannot stop smiling, my emotions as taut as the hemp string on a bow, my body waiting to fly arrow-like to my new life with Vlad.

The ceremony rushes by in a dazzling blur of contract signing, hand clasping, and singing. The cardinal tells me to submit to my husband. Vlad slips a ring engraved with our merged family crests onto my finger.

After the feast, we listen to the Romanian țigani lăutari playing flutes, violins, cimbalom, and bagpipe. One melody is so fast the guests cannot keep pace, and I laugh with a spontaneous joy. Another melody has such a haunting beauty, tears well in my eyes.

I look to Vlad to see if he too is moved by the song but instead his brows are pulled straight with frustration. "What's wrong, my lord?"

"I am the happiest of men." The creases at the corner of his eyes say otherwise.

"You don't look happy."

"It has nothing to do with our nuptials." He smiles tightly, his mouth stretched into his public smile, not his private irrepressible grin that always warms my insides.

His aloofness unbalances me. I feel as wobbly as a ropedancer whose foot slipped.

I lean close. "Now that we are husband and wife you must share your burdens."

"Is that so?" Vlad picks up my hand and grazes his teeth across my fingertips.

The suggestive sensation mixes with my worry, quickening my pulse and confusing me. "Your problems are mine."