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reached the spot, she leapt down
beside her sister. Wili's body was quivering all over in an ugly, spasmodic
shudder and her neck was oddly twisted. Heavy golden hair spilled from beneath
her loosened cap onto the green.
    Nearby her poor horse staggered and moaned,
holding up a front leg from which bone protruded and blood bubbled. Cat
crouched in the grass beside Wili, too stunned to make a sound. Her sister's
gray eyes, usually benignly alight, were empty. There was not even a spark left
to which Caterina could bid farewell.

 
    * * *

 
    One by one, the other riders joined her.
Christoph, far ahead, was the last to arrive. He threw the reins over his
horse's head and dismounted in a single bound. Only too well did the soldier
know the face of death!
    "No!" He went to his knees beside
Cat and seized her limp body in his arms. "No! Wili! No! This can't
be!"
    An explosion split the air. Cat looked up
to see Wili's little horse tumble to the ground. Oncle Rupert had discharged a
hunting piece point blank into his head, ending the poor creature's agony. At
this crowning desolation, Cat began to sob.

 
    * * *

 
    A few days later, in the first hot days of
June, they laid Wili beside her mother, the Landrat's gentle first wife.
Kinfolk and neighbors, as well as a crowd of servants, all stood together,
faces pinched and eyes red. When it was over, the terrible last words said, the
coffin delivered into the crypt, Lady von Velsen and Caterina, breathless with
crying, walked wordlessly out into the bright sunlight.
    It was the Landrat who had something to
say. He went straight up to Oncle Rupert on the church steps and loudly
declared, "In the name of God, Rupert von Hagen, promise me here and now
that your son will marry Caterina."
    Everyone froze. Rupert's mouth opened and
closed like a fish out of water. When not even a croak came out, Wilhem von
Velsen declared, "By God, we'll still have a wedding. On
the sixth Monday hence."
    Rupert stammered, his round cheeks pale,
"'Pon my honor, Wilhelm von Velsen—it shall be as you say."
    Like everyone in hearing, Rupert was
shocked, but he understood his kinsman's now desperate need to arrange the
matter. Upon the Landrat's death, the bulk of the von Velsen lands would revert
to Christoph as the nearest male heir. The grafting of the two family branches
by marriage was the only way Wilhem von Velsen had to pass his beloved land on
to his grandchildren.
    "Marry him?" Caterina turned to
stare at Christoph, who, white faced, was just emerging from the dark passage
that led to the crypt. "No! I won't!" She caught her heavy black
skirts, prepared to run somewhere, anywhere, but her portly father anticipated.
One great hand, moving with astonishing alacrity, took immediate, rough
possession of her arm.
    "If you disgrace me now, I shall beat
you black and blue right here in the street."
    He never let go, not during the carriage
ride home, not until he had dragged Cat all the way up the long, curving
staircase toward her bedroom.
    "There will be no nonsense. You will
do as I say, Caterina. In six weeks you'll be married. While we wait, you will
remain in your room. It will give you time to prepare."
    "But Papa," Cat cried, "I
don't want to be married. Not to him. Not now. Please don't make me.
Please!"
    "Husband," Lady von Velsen seemed
equally alarmed by turn things had taken, "This may be right in a few
months, but do you really think—"
    "Not another word from either of you!
A wedding is planned and a wedding there shall be. The idea came to me in
church, and as nothing much ever comes to me there except sleep, I believe it
is a sign from God."
    "You act as if Wili and I are of no
more importance to you than one of your mares," Cat shouted. "One is
dead, so another takes her place in the breeding barn."
    "This defiance is the punishment I
deserve for indulging you, for not teaching you a woman's place and duty.
Heaven knows, your mother has warned me a thousand times."
    Instead of