The man who entered was familiar – he was one of the baron’s business partners. I had dined with him the previous night. For reasons unknown to me, he had an onion in one of his pockets, freshly sliced in half.
“Oh, no,” he said in an even tone. “What do I see here? Is this the daughter of my dear second cousin? Let me see.” He tugged on the sheet.
I tugged back, preferring not to be exposed suddenly.
“Ah, I see blood! You have robbed her of her virtue!” He tugged at the sheet harder. “I said, let me see!”
I was impressed with his persistence as well as his ability to see the lower sheet spotted with sheep’s blood in spite of the fact that the upper sheet still had not been tugged free of my grasp. I reassured him that however she had come to be in the same bed with me, it was merely sheep’s blood daubed on the sheets, and that her virtue ought therefore to be intact.
He reached into his pocket, rubbing the onion with his fingers, and then rubbed his eyes. Tears welled in his eyes as he wailed. “Carmen is ruined! She will never be able to find a good marriage now! What man will take what you have stolen, you thief?” He paused, choking back a sob that was very short and sharp, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards momentarily. “You … um … thief of virtue?”
Carmen stirred, then rolled onto her back and resumed snoring.
“I swear to you, her maidenhead is untouched!” I sat up, and immediately remembered how many bottles of wine I had seen the previous night. Sudden motion was regrettable in an intense fashion. “I clearly remember passing out. I must have been carried here. I have no idea how she ended up here.”
When I said “untouched,” the man bit his tongue, lips pursing as he choked back a short sharp snort of a sob. After I had finished speaking, he took a deep breath before energetically shouting. “I do not care that you claim you do not remember anything! It is enough that you are here with her in the same bed! You are responsible for what you have done!”
“I have done nothing to her!” I shouted back, instantly regretting my decision. “Nor would I want to,” I added at a less-painful volume, rubbing my aching temples. “She’s unkind to her friends and doesn’t take good care with horses.”
At this, the man seemed genuinely insulted. “She has a fine seat, taught by my wife. You couldn’t wish for a woman better schooled in a side-saddle!” He paused. “Now, where was I?”
“Responsible for what you have done,” I said. “Except I didn’t do the deed.”
He nodded, taking a deep breath. “You are responsible for what you have done! And you must marry her at once!”
“Except I haven’t done anything,” I said. “I don’t think anyone did the deed you’re suggesting. I’m telling you it’s sheep’s blood spotting that sheet, and Carmen is just as much of a maiden as she was when she arrived in this bed. However that happened.” Feeling disadvantaged in the argument by my lack of trousers, I stood and began putting them on.
“Aha!” he said, yanking back the sheet. “I see blood! You have robbed her of her virtue!”
“You said that before,” I said. “And as I said before, that is clearly sheep’s blood. Taste it if you like.”
“Of course not! That would be disgusting.” He shook his head, then paused, his eyes lifting upwards as he counted on his onion-stained fingers for a moment. “Where was I?”
“You said I had to marry her at once,” I supplied helpfully. “And I said no.”
He advanced his count by another finger, then rubbed his eye, a tear welling up. “What? And now you demand a dowry for despoiling the daughter of a lord? Sir, you will not only dishonor me, but beggar me in the process.”
I tossed on my tunic. “I didn’t say a thing about dowries,” I said. My head hurt and I was beginning to get angry. “I haven’t laid a finger on your kinswoman. Yet.” A cold wind swirled around the room. “Now collect her and be on your way. Save your anger for whoever gave her too much medication.”
The man stared up at me, mouth opening and closing. “But … don’t you want her? She’s quite comely. And her lineage is impeccable. You would be marrying up into landed nobility. I’ve seen your table manners, you’re country gentry by birth at best.”
I stared down at him for an angry moment. Then, with my right hand, I took hold of Carmen’s ankles, pulling her off the bed and upwards in one swift motion. While she was considerably heavier than a sack of vegetables, I was angry and had been doing a great deal of ditch-digging recently. Her hair trailed on the floor as she swung like a pendulum towards her kinsman, who staggered backwards as he caught her around the waist. She yelped, waving her arms, her eyes flickering open in surprise and confusion.
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“Take her,” I said, letting go of Carmen’s ankles; the nobleman wobbled, struggling with the awkward burden. “Take her and go.”
As the nobleman staggered out of the room, I could hear a confused Carmen put a sleepy voice to some of the questions I wished I had answers to. How had Carmen ended up in my room? Had she walked there on her own, or had she been carried? Her drugged stupor suggested the latter. There weren’t so many people who could have put Carmen in my bed, but I couldn’t think of a single good reason why anyone would do that. My head was pounding and my emotions were inflamed, and I lacked answers. After I had taken care of morning necessities and drunk several cups of tea to ease my headache, it occurred to me that my reaction had been hasty and perhaps unwise.
Marrying Carmen would have brought wealth and prestige. What reason did I have for turning her down? That she was reckless with horses and played petty childish games with other young noblewomen? Surely, such vices were the sorts that the young grow out of as they grow older. And whatever claim Katya may have had on my heart, we weren’t married, nor even engaged; in fact, she had refused to take my apologies and fled. I might not have stolen Carmen’s maidenhood, but rationally, the marriage seemed beneficial in very pragmatic ways. There are worse reasons to marry than money and social status, or at least that’s what my mother had told me; for my part, I had seen that few married without attending to the issues of money and social status.
Try as I might, I couldn’t argue myself into wanting to marry Carmen. If someone had told a sixteen-year-old me that I would turn down an offer of marriage to a beautiful noblewoman from a wealthy and well-connected family, I would have laughed in their face. Awkward gangly young Mikolai would have walked through fire just to get the blacksmith’s daughter to dance with him. (Then she giggled and said that the smoky smell reminded her of her father, which I took badly. Looking back on that now, that was likely meant as a compliment given how daughters usually feel about their fathers, but at the time I only thought of the fact that the man had a face that looked like a horse had sat on it while it was forming.)
The manner in which I had issued my rejection of the proposal was also unwise, I decided. A blunt rejection that turned Carmen’s exit into a spectacle visible to whatever servants were walking the halls had been undiplomatic. I should have left Carmen in the bed and exited the scene myself, directing the nobleman’s attention to his drugged cousin, deferring and delaying the heated discussion until after she had woken up and provided her account of what had (and more importantly, had not) happened.
Next time I found myself waking in bed with a drugged noblewoman and bloodstains on the sheets, I told myself, I would try to resolve the situation more amicably. Then there was a scratch at the door.
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Yuri’s arrival was welcome, though when I asked him where he had been, he hunched his head, curling his tail between his legs. He had, he admitted, been distracted from guarding my room by the application of sausages. After two of the baron’s servants had carried me into bed, ignoring his growled questions, one of them had returned with a sausage, taunting him from outside the door.
There was, of course, nothing to be done but chase after the sausage at that point, catching up to the manservant and said sausage near the kitchen. In the kitchen, there had been bread, and several playful children, and the cook’s dog, and it was fun. Recounting this, Yuri’s tail wagged cheerfully.
“But why didn’t you come back?” I asked.
His tail curled back down between his legs, and he said once he had finished, I hadn’t let him in when he scratched at the door. The hallway was very uncomfortable for sleeping in, so he had gone looking and found a door that was cracked open. The room had been just visited by the same people he smelled on my door – Carmen, her older cousin, and a couple of the baron’s servants – but the bed was empty and comfortable, and nobody had shooed him out until morning when Carmen staggered in, smelling like onions.
She had sat on his tail, Yuri added, which was not comfortable. His tail curled between his legs as he added that Carmen had a loud and piercing voice when she was angry.
I reassured Yuri, telling him that I was not angry with him, and asked him to sniff about the room. After searching the room, he informed me that Carmen had been in the bed, and sheep’s blood. The sheep’s blood smelled nice, but was dry enough that it was hard to lick up. It was nice to hear what I already knew confirmed, but I had hoped for more – some insight, some clue that would make sense of a terrifically confusing episode.
Someone had decided that it was to their advantage to make it appear as though I had deflowered Carmen. Who? How? And why?
My headache was beginning to subside, but I was out of tea and hadn’t any breakfast; I decided that the most prudent course of events was to make my way to the kitchen and finish taking care of my hangover before trying to discuss the situation with the baron. The problem with this plan was that the baron had drunk far less wine than I had, and suffered from less of a hangover. Thus, while I was still recovering my equilibrium, the baron was acting and reacting. I was halfway through a plate of eggs and toast when a footman arrived.
“Colonel Marcus Raven, sir, the baron wants you in his study,” he said.
“Just a minute,” I said, holding up a finger.
“Immediately, sir. The baron is most insistent, and most annoyed.” The footman crossed his arms.
I sighed, stuffing one last forkful in my mouth before standing up.
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The baron’s study was occupied by the baron, his new accountant, his daughter, Carmen, and Carmen’s second cousin once removed. I took a seat and sent Yuri off to the stables.
The baron cleared his throat. “My business partner informs me that you have insulted his family honor, that he proposed a remedy, and you have refused his proposal. Is that true?”
“I refused his proposal because this has all been a terrible misunderstanding,” I said, trying to rush my words out.
The baron shook his head. “I am afraid that it is paramount that I maintain good relations with Carmen’s family. You leave me no choice but to dismiss you from my service.”