House of Bathory(13)

“No one rides him, sir,” said the leader. “He cannot be handled. He was bred as Count Nadasdy’s mount, but the noble gentleman died before the dam foaled.”

Janos slowly worked his hand up the horse’s neck, toward his head. The horse lifted his head slightly, his skin quivering spasmodically as if covered with flies. The beast’s nostrils flared, showing red, and his eyes remained ringed in white.

But he allowed Szilvasi to touch his broad chest.

Szilvasi turned toward the guard. “Please tell the Countess that the horsewhip will not be necessary,” said Janos, his hand moving toward the horse’s withers.

Keeping a wary eye on the stallion, the guard approached Janos and whispered in his ear. “The whip is not for the horses. It is to be used on the stable boys.”

Janos dropped his hand from the horse’s withers and the stallion jumped back, dragging the boys with him.

Janos looked the guard in the eye. Then he turned toward the window where he had seen movement a few minutes before. He stared at the castle and lifted his chin in the cold air.

“Send back the whip to the Countess,” Janos said, his words steady and calm. “Tell her I shall have no need of it for boy or beast.”





Chapter 5

CARBONDALE, COLORADO

NOVEMBER 28, 2010





And you might want to be a little more professional about your office,” Jane had said again, picking Daisy up from yesterday’s session.

“Get yourself a good maid. Maybe one of those Mexican women next door? Pick up all the clutter. When was the last time you dusted?”

Betsy sighed.

Jane was right. I am the world’s worst housekeeper.

Betsy cast her eye about the little Victorian house, hands on her hips. The small of her back ached just thinking about cleaning up.

Periodicals—Quadrant, Jung Journal, The Journal of Analytical Psychology—lay scattered across every horizontal space in the house. Towers of Jungian textbooks teetered, their balance precarious, especially when Ringo wagged his tail.

Betsy spent a day organizing, occasionally looking out at the fat snowflakes that fell outside her window, obscuring the view of Mount Sopris. A heavy dump, she thought. Big wet packing snow, perfect for an early base on the ski mountains.

The bookshelves were already jammed tight. She could at least split the book towers and stow half of them behind the couch where they weren’t so obvious. Betsy dusted the fronts of the leather-bound books on the shelves, not daring to pull them out—she might not be able to wedge them back in again.

She cleaned out the old mahogany bar, one of her father’s favorite possessions. She wiped down the bottles of slivovica, the potent plum brandy her father always served his guests.

And she remembered the first Christmas after her father died. That awful holiday her mother spent with her, getting totally smashed on Slovakian plum brandy.

It had been snowing hard on Christmas Eve. Snow crystals rattled against the windows, the harbinger of an approaching blizzard, the kind that kids prayed for—the schools closed for a snow day.

Grace had arrived the day before. Her face was haggard, carved to the bone with grief. When they hugged, Betsy felt her mother’s ribs sharp against her arms.

“Take a semester off, Mom,” she said. “Come home and take care of yourself. Let me take care of you—”

Grace had pulled back, rigid, lifting her chin.

“I am fine, Betsy. Work is the best therapy for me.”

Grace poured herself a glass of slivovica. She stood glaring at the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. “Your father always loved Christmas,” she said.

“Mom, sit down. Let’s talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” muttered Grace. She knocked back a gulp of the brandy, grimacing as the alcohol burned its way down her throat.

Oh, shit! Betsy thought. Here it comes.

Betsy knew the look on her mother’s face—a harbinger of a coming storm. Grace’s eyes squinted belligerently as she peered over her glasses, studying Betsy as if she were a curious antiquity in a museum.

“You are too much like your father,” her mother said finally, slurring her words. She slumped back against the wing chair.

Grace had never been fond of slivovica. She took another gulp.

“What do you mean, too much like Dad?” said Betsy.

“Why did you go into psychotherapy? Such a sloppy field. No boundaries, not a proper science. And why did you divorce that great guy you had?”

“Mom! You were livid when you found out we had gotten married. Don’t you remember?” Maybe she’d been right, but Betsy wasn’t going to mention that now.

“John Stonework would have shaped you into something, given you some limits, a clear focus. Not living in this backwater little town—”