Chapter Five
Raw pain gripped Suzana’s throat and nose, and a throbbing echoed along her skull. Soft murmurs reached her ears, along with the pops and cracks of a fire. Where was she? She forced her eyes open and recognized her bedchamber. Only it wasn’t her bedchamber any longer, was it? She was leaving for Rivak any moment, so why was she lying in her room, and why did the angle of the sun show late afternoon?
“Dama Suzana?” She turned as Dama Isidora knelt beside her. “How do you feel?”
“Not . . . not well.” She hadn’t woken up ill that morning, but now she felt as if she were recovering from a long sickness. Weakness gripped her, leaving her thoughts jumbled and slow.
Dama Isidora’s hand pressed lightly on her forehead. “Are you warm enough?”
Suzana nodded, but that made the ache in her head worse. She was overly warm. The hearth in her bedchamber wasn’t normally lit in summer, and a blanket cocooned her. “Why am I back in my bedchamber?” She pulled at the blanket, trying to take it off, only to discover a new pain at her waist.
Dama Isidora helped with the blanket. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Preparing to leave this morning.” She pulled the blanket aside and saw the blue sleeve of her dalmatica. She twisted her arm as if that might somehow change the color. “I thought I was wearing my red dalmatica. What happened?”
Her father strode into view. “That is precisely what you need to tell us. How did you end up in the river this morning?”
In the river? She hadn’t played in the river for years, not since her father had told her she was too old for that sort of thing and then had beaten her when she’d gone one last time. “What do you mean?”
“You disappeared this morning. No one could find you until a watchman saw your body floating down the river.” Some sort of emotion—anger, most likely—rolled off his stern jaw and tense shoulders.
Fear made Suzana tremble. She didn’t remember floating in the river, couldn’t even remember what she had eaten to break her fast that morning.
Dama Isidora’s voice carried far more gentleness than her father’s. “It seems someone knocked you on the back of the head, tied you to a log, and dropped you in the river. We had hoped you would remember who.”
“Why would someone put me in the river?” The story seemed farfetched, but her body had been through something awful, she felt the truth in that. She hadn’t felt so sore and abused since that incident in the stables when she was twelve.
“Who did it, Suzana? I’ll make sure he’s punished.” Her father folded his arms.
She pushed herself to a sitting position, but the change did nothing to help her memory. She tried to grab hold of anything from that morning, but she remembered only her dalmatica’s red fabric, and she wasn’t sure if she remembered putting the clothing on or simply that one of the servants had laid it out the night before. “I can’t remember.”
Her father scowled. “Now is not the time to be stupid.”
Dama Isidora gave her father a glare. “It’s not uncommon for someone who has been through an ordeal like hers to have trouble remembering it. Give her time. She barely woke.”
“Some of the servants are suggesting you jumped in yourself.” Her father’s eyes, brown like hers, glared down at her. “Did you do something so shameful?”
Someone thought she’d tried to kill herself? She was wary of her husband-to-be, but he didn’t frighten her any more than her father did. If she had wanted to escape misery, she would have tossed herself into the river years ago, not now, not when things were on the brink of changing and might become better. Yet she couldn’t remember for sure. “I don’t think I did.”
“You don’t think you did?” Her father huffed. “Are you sure you’re thinking?”
Dama Isidora cleared her throat as she rose to sit in a nearby chair. “Perhaps it would be best to allow Dama Suzana to rest a while more before you interrogate her further.”
Her father’s hands tightened and released several times, as if he refrained from striking her only with a surfeit of willpower.
Fear hung round her. Someone had tried to kill her, or she had tried to kill herself. And had Dama Isidora not been in the room, she was certain her father would have tried to improve her memory with a few strikes from his fists. “If I was in the river, how did I get out?”
“Konstantin pulled you out.” Dama Isidora picked up a partially embroidered cloth and resumed her work on it. “Almost went under himself, what with his armor still on and that log whipping you out of his grasp.”
“There wasn’t time to remove my armor,” a voice said from the doorway.
Konstantin hadn’t been there a few moments ago, the last time her father had spoken. Suzana felt his gaze, intent on her. He wore no armor now, just a simple tunic of wool with a sword belted around his waist. After studying her for a moment, he glanced at her father, then stepped toward her and knelt beside the mattress she lay on. “I am glad to see you somewhat recovered,” he said. “How is your head?” He tilted his own head to better stare at a spot below her left ear. His own face was bruised, and there were scratches on his hands that hadn’t been there the day before when he placed the ring on her finger.
She felt a flash of embarrassment at his scrutiny; she wasn’t even wearing a hair veil. But she needed to answer him. “It is . . .” Her head pounded and ached and made it difficult to concentrate. Should she be brave or honest? “It is tender, lord.”
“And your waist?”
She’d felt pain flare around her waist when she’d sat, but how would he know about that? “It is also tender, though I don’t know why.”
“One end of a rope was tied round your torso. The other end was tied to a log. Do you remember any of it?”
She shook her head. Dama Isidora had mentioned a log, but Suzana had assumed she’d been tied directly to the wood, not strung along like the shackles on the end of a chain. “I don’t remember anything of this morning, but I offer you my gratitude for rescuing me.”
She watched his face carefully, trying to detect disappointment or anger at her inability to remember. His face revealed nothing, but her forgetfulness was certain to affect his opinion of her.
“What may I do to help your recovery?” he asked.
She wanted everyone to leave so she could rest in silence, but she didn’t dare say that aloud. And if everyone left, would her attacker return? Maybe she didn’t want everyone to leave. She just wanted them to stop asking her questions.
Konstantin glanced at the fire. “Are you warm enough? I could make the fire larger.”
“I am warm enough, thank you.”
He surveyed the room. Her father, his steward, and two of Konstantin’s men all stood about, along with Dama Isidora. “Then perhaps we should let you rest. I or one of my men will be outside your door. You’ve only to call if you need anything.”
Her father did not look as if he wished to go, but something about the way Konstantin stood and gestured all the men from the room demanded obedience.
Konstantin was the last to leave, and he turned back. “Please send word if you think of anything you need or if you remember something from this morning.” He gently pulled the door shut behind him.
“He’ll listen, you know, if you tell him what you need or what you want.” Dama Isidora kept her eyes on her embroidery as she spoke.
“Why would he listen to a woman?”
“Because he is a different sort of man from your father.”
Konstantin had somehow sensed she needed the men to leave, even without her saying anything aloud. She hadn’t expected insight like that from a man, so maybe Dama Isidora was right, and he was different.
“His mother was a dear friend,” Dama Isidora continued. “She came to Rivak as Miroslav’s bride when she was about your age. Konstantin was born a year later. My youngest son was only a little older. They grew up together, trained together as boys, almost went off to war together, but Konstantin was a bit too young for Maritsa. I didn’t want Stefan to go either, but he insisted he was ready, so he followed his brothers. None of them came back.” Dama Isidora’s voice held, but there was sadness in her eyes.
“How many sons did you have?”
“Three, and I lost them all to the Turks at Maritsa.”
Suzana had no siblings, and she’d felt no affection from her father for years, but most women loved their children. She’d seen that in the servants, and she sensed Dama Isidora had loved her sons. “I am sorry for their deaths.”
Dama Isidora nodded, accepting Suzana’s sympathy. “Doubtless Dragomir would have fallen, too, but he was recovering from a hunting accident and did not join the campaign. Or perhaps he would have gone, and the battle would have turned out differently. When he couldn’t lead his men, he sent his brother in his place, and Radomir betrayed the army to the Turks.”
“Betrayal?” Rumors had flown after the battle of Maritsa, but her father had dismissed them as unfounded.
“Yes. It’s a heavy burden our family bears, knowing we trusted someone who caused so much damage. For us. For all of Serbia.” Dama Isidora squinted at her embroidery. “Konstantin also lost much at Maritsa. He was too young to go to war, but when his father and his uncle were killed, he became župan. He has listened to his aunt in the years since. He will listen to you, too, if you will speak to him.”
“I have seen few men who will really listen to a woman.” Konstantin had saved her life, but only because he was desperate for her dowry. If she died before their marriage, he would lose the money he needed to save his župa.
“Konstantin will. Tragedy has hit his family hard, but they’ve cared for each other. Kindness and concern are natural to him because he’s grown up surrounded by them.”
Suzana turned Dama Isidora’s words over in her head again and again. She wanted Konstantin to be kind, but did she trust Dama Isidora’s assertion that he would be? The day before, he had asked her opinion about the timing of the wedding and their departure for Rivak. And he probably wanted to know who had tried to kill her as much as everyone else did, but he’d sent the other men away instead of pestering her, even when she hadn’t spoken that need aloud.
She fell asleep with those thoughts on her mind and woke later, when the sun had set and the hearth and a pair of oil lamps offered the only light.
Dama Isidora still sat nearby. Suzana couldn’t remember her mother, but she imagined that if her mother had lived, she would have sat beside Suzana on a day like this one. Since she couldn’t have her mother, Suzana was grateful to have Dama Isidora.
The kind woman looked up and noticed Suzana was awake. “I’ll send someone for your supper. I think it best that you eat.”
“I don’t feel hungry.”
“All the same, you need your strength.” Dama Isidora stood and crossed the room, her footsteps full of grace and purpose. Suzana couldn’t see whom she spoke with, but she heard her words. “Dama Suzana is awake. Please have someone bring food.”
Suzana stood, too, then quickly sat on the nearest trunk when dizziness crawled from her chest to her head.
“Are you all right, dear?” Dama Isidora asked.
“I stood too quickly.”
Dama Isidora studied Suzana’s countenance. “Food ought to help with that.”
“Have you eaten?”
“Yes. I went to the hall for supper, but several of the servants sat with you, and Konstantin left Miladin and Grigorii outside your room when your father insisted he leave your doorway and join the main group for supper.”
“He was standing watch?”
“Yes. I daresay he’s been worried about you.” Dama Isidora offered Suzana the veil that matched her dalmatica, and Suzana arranged it over her hair as a knock sounded at the door.
“Come in.” Suzana’s throat still ached, but the person who had knocked must have heard, because the door opened.
Konstantin. She’d expected a servant to bring her food, not a župan. What was more, he actually smiled when he saw her perched on the trunk. It wasn’t a full smile, the type she’d seen on Dama Isidora’s face or the faces of her servants, but it was different from his normal expression. He lifted the cup of wine he held in one hand and the dish piled with fowl, bread, and olives that he held in the other hand. “Where would you like it?”
Suzana slid to one side of the trunk so there would be room for the dish beside her. “Here, please.”
He set the dish down and handed her the wine.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Are you feeling any better?”
She took a sip of watered wine before answering. “My head does not hurt as much as it did before. Nor do the bruises around my waist.”
Dama Isidora busied herself with the fire, leaving the two of them to converse in near private. Konstantin glanced at her and lowered his voice slightly. “Do you remember anything else of what happened?”
She shook her head and nibbled on a bit of seasoned pigeon.
“I, um . . .” He watched her for a moment, then looked away. “If you are unhappy with the betrothal, desperately unhappy about it, I want you to know I wouldn’t force you to marry me if you felt that leaving your home and becoming my wife would bring you misery. I am pleased to be betrothed to you, but if your wishes are otherwise, I will respect them.”
Canceling a betrothal was difficult. The church would view it as a marriage, and it would affect future prospects for both of them. Suzana could think of only two ways to avoid marriage to a man of her father’s choosing: death or holy vows. Perhaps becoming a nun would be agreeable. Her father wouldn’t be able to beat her if she went to live in a nunnery. But curiosity about what might happen when she married Konstantin was growing. If Dama Isidora was right, Rivak held the possibility of something better, and she wanted to see if that hope would come to fruition.
“I don’t remember what happened this morning, but I am quite certain I did not throw myself into the river.” She wouldn’t have risked something so widely condemned, especially not when change and potential hope lay on the horizon.
The tension in his face and shoulders eased. “I’d like your opinion on when we should leave. I don’t want to take you on a long journey before you’ve recovered. But someone here tried to kill you, and they could try again. Rivak might be safer for you.”
A chill slithered across the back of her neck. Danger had always lurked in the villa in the form of her father’s temper. Now threat of murder made it more potent. Dama Isidora had told Suzana that Konstantin would listen to her. She grasped that hope and gave him her opinion. “We should leave tomorrow.”
Konstantin’s mouth parted in surprise. “That soon?”
“Sitting in a carriage sounds less demanding than fending off another murder attempt.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “Indeed. We can split the journey into two days to make it less taxing.”
Suzana picked at a piece of bread. Maybe she and Konstantin really would find happiness together, if she could keep from getting killed long enough to see it through.