Bound in Skin: Two Dark Romances

Notes

These two stories are reworked versions of my publications in now-out-of-print collections.

Bound in Skin first appeared in the anthology Bound in Skin: a Collection of Gothic Romances, published by Catscratch Books.

The Grief of the Bond-Maid first appeared in Cast the Cards, a tarot-themed LGBT anthology published by Storm Moon Press (and its tarot card was the Hanged Man, in case you wondered).

Bound in Skin

Not one more , I vowed. Not one more attempt at requesting a room in a language I barely spoke, eliciting doubtful glares from the innkeeper and mocking laughter from the inevitable hangers-on. Not another evening of dragging furniture across to block my chamber door, of listening to men clomping up and down the corridor and trying the latch, calling out in wheedling tones to the strange foreign woman who travelled alone. Not another night of the reek of mutton-fat and tobacco from the rooms below, or of suffering gnawing pangs of hunger because I wasn’t prepared to brave the public rooms. I was exhausted both of money and of emotional resilience, and desperate to reach my journey’s end.

Respectable Englishwomen do not travel abroad alone. They don’t book into rustic inns alone. Everyone knows that.

Which is why I didn’t wait overnight for a coach at Mrkonjić but left my luggage at the inn and set out to walk. After all, Dvorac Vuk, home of the Margraf of this area and the ultimate goal of my journey, was visible right up at the head of the valley that cradled the village. It was certainly some hours distant on foot but, I told myself, no further than one of Father’s long Sunday rambles. The castle, typical of those that litter the landscape in this part of Eastern Europe, looked like a village that had been squeezed by a giant hand until all the roofs were clustered together in a breathless knot. I could discern a round tower and red tiles. I made sure that it was the right place by asking the curiosity-seekers who’d gathered about as soon as I arrived in the village. Two old women had already been bold enough to finger the black bombazine of my dress and shake their heads at what I assumed to be the inferior quality of the lace trim.

The men with their proud moustaches and the market-women in their patterned aprons certainly recognised the name of my destination and my sponsor, though they muttered in disapproval and harsh eyes were cast upon me. The word ‘vlkoslak’, which meant nothing to me, was repeated several times and I could feel myself growing pink. My linguistic dexterity is not inconsiderable when it comes to the written word but I have no great ear for accents, and as the discussion among my onlookers grew more heated and yet more unintelligible, I decided that it was time to depart.

Children and dogs trailed me out of the village, but fell back when I started up the track to the valley-head. Someone actually threw a small stone that bounced wide, but when I turned around in dismay they all fled, squabbling and shrieking. For the first time on this journey I found myself absolutely alone.

I’d started out a little after noon, without having stopped for food; I could have hardly afforded to buy even a loaf of rye bread by this time anyway. It was fortunate that I had some hours in hand before nightfall, because the route was longer than I’d judged and the mountain walls plunged the land into shadow long before sunset was nominally due. The track was wide enough for a carriage but was overgrown with grass, as if not often used. I had plenty of time to take in the dark swathes of forest and the ramshackle wooden farms, the little fields bright with ripening crops and the patchy meadows cut under rugged hillsides. Most of the ground seemed uncultivated and after England’s tidy acres it looked wild and desperately impoverished. In this corner of the Balkans two or three ordinary mountain ranges seemed to have crashed into one another, creating a maze of rifts and cliff-faces and valleys that ran in every direction. The vistas were extraordinarily beautiful but I was too tired to appreciate such scenery. I put my head down and trudged.

The first spots of rain gave me pause. I’d left Father’s umbrella and my cape in the trunk back at the inn, but when I turned to look behind me the distance I’d already travelled seemed utterly daunting. Gritting my teeth, I strode on through the deepening gloom. Almost the last thing I’d bought before leaving England had been a stout pair of ladies’ boots suitable for rambling so I tried to imagine that I was walking in the Lake District, as we had done on holidays in previous years. A little rain would not kill me, I told myself.

But the weather was determined to humble my pride. It came down like the Deluge, hissing on the needles of the firs, and soon drenched me to the bone. Night fell without easing the assault of the rain. The cold ate into my raw skin. I do not like to dwell, even in retrospect, on the final stage of that journey. I was glad when the way crossed a stone bridge, took a bend and began to ascend sharply toward a crag. But it was hard, hard work on such a slope; my sodden skirts felt like sheet-lead and my hands grew numb with chill even as my legs ached from the labour. When all of a sudden a high wall and an arched gate blocked my way I nearly sobbed in relief. Yet tears would have gone unnoticed in that rain.

There were, unusually, no dogs at the gate nor in the courtyard within, though the gate stood unlocked. A lamp hung by a door and, ascending the worn steps in boots that squelched, I pulled upon the iron bell chain. Leaning against the wall I tried vainly to wring the wet from my skirt, telling myself that someone would have heard. It seemed a very long time before the door swung open and an elderly man looked out.

‘Miss Cassandra Otley, of Oxford, England,’ I said brightly, trying to sound like I might have strolled over a damp field to call upon a close neighbour. ‘Margraf Goran has been expecting ... us.’ My voice wavered at the last syllable.

The servant gave no sign of understanding my words but I was too exhausted to recall the correct Serbo-Croat. Fortunately, after staring hard, he motioned me within. I followed dumbly into a stone-flagged hall. The heavy front door shut upon the miserable night and I sagged with relief. There was a fire burning in a grate and I longed to tear off my gloves and warm my hands.

The old man looked me carefully up and down once more while I tried to appear alert and dignified. Then he ushered me from the hallway into a further room. This was, it was immediately apparent, a gentleman’s study, and one comfortably furnished. I looked about me, picking out details in the light cast by two oil lamps and a low fire: the hubble-bubble pipe on a table, the huge writing-desk with racks of pigeon-holes for correspondence, the dark oil-painting of a nobleman in armour.

With a few opaque words the man ducked his head and left.

Oh, how I longed to sink onto one of those couches and rest my aching feet. But I was so wet that I was dripping onto the fine Turkish rug, so I restricted myself to simply approaching the big stone fireplace and getting as close to the flames as I dared. Steam began to rise from my dress. I opened my purse to check that the papers within were all safe; the letters written to my father by the Margraf, the citations and references. I glanced in the mirror over the mantle and was mortified to see that my hat was a sagging disaster and water was dripping from the drooping feathers. I pulled at the ribbon under my chin and swept the bonnet off, and I was still trying to shake it dry over the fire when the study door opened again and a tall man walked in on me.

‘Margraf Goran?’

He wasn’t how I’d pictured him from his dry, formal correspondence and I tried not to look dismayed. No English gentleman would have approached such a meeting clad so carelessly — his waistcoat unfastened, his cravat dangling loose. But then this man, no matter how impeccably dressed, would never have passed for an Englishman; his hair was too long, too thick and too black, his cheekbones too Slavonic, his nose too hawkish. But it was his eyes that most strikingly informed one that his bloodline would be more at home on some wild steppe than in an English drawing room; they were so pale that only