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It was a bitterly cold night when the young couple arrived at the inn.
They were handsome enough, the innkeeper thought, though neither of them looked particularly healthy. Perhaps a wealthy couple from one of those smoky, dirty cities, who had come east to take the mountain air. Much good would that do them on a night like this! And arriving so late, when he himself was almost ready to douse the lights and head to bed!
At first he had thought they were a brother and sister, though they did not look much alike. The young man was so short and lithe when he removed his greatcloak, his face clean-shaven and almost as pretty as a girl's, that it seemed impossible to believe he was more than a mere boy. Not a man old enough to be married. But the stranger introduced himself as Marciall Steinark, and the lady as his wife, and he offered the innkeeper good heavy coin to house them for an evening — perhaps as long as a week — and, well. The innkeeper's profession was providing shelter to weary travelers, not prying into their private affairs. What concern of it was his if the couple was too young to be married? If they traveled without servants or coachman? If they asked to be let alone the next day, without even having the fire tended or the chamber-pots emptied? Strange folk, but it was none of his business. He could always say they had given false names, after all. As long as their money was good.
And yes, he was happy to store their wagon behind his stable, though the horses already there didn't seem to care for it much.
The best room the inn had to offer was meager indeed compared with the bedrooms at the schloss. It was not much larger than the bed and lacked any rich furnishings or stately paintings. But it was clean and tidy and smelled only of the crackling fire. Laura drew off her gloves and cast her eyes about the room, trying to decide where to put anything down. There was little enough space.
"Let me be your maid," Carmilla said, unwinding the cravat from her neck. How fortunate that it hid her lack of an Adam's apple! Laura looked at her with shining eyes -- no, not shining, glimmering with a hint of tears.
"And I may not repay you with that same service!" Laura said, seeming to aim for humor but landing instead in something close to a sob. "Oh, Carmilla, it still seems so awful that you had to cut your hair. It was so beautiful, so magnificently thick…"
"My dearest," returned the other woman with a tender smile. "If you carry on like this I shall begin to think you only loved me for my hair."
"No! Oh, no!" cried Laura. "I would rather be with you, shorn like a penitent, than parted from you forever. But attending to your hair let me grow close to you, in our early days. And you do look rather strange without it."
"Strange! Indeed, I should think so," Carmilla said with a laugh, gesturing at her suit of clothes. "But you know I should look even more strange with it in this guise. A man with a woman's masses of hair should be quite a freak. Especially nowadays, when the men wear their hair cropped so closely " Carmilla gave a rueful shake of her head, then drew Laura to sit with her on the edge of the bed. "And it was really your idea to go in disguise when we left Styria."
That drew a laugh from Laura, and a shake of the head. "No, that was all your genius, Carmilla. I only mentioned thinking once that you might have been a boy, and that was only a passing fancy."
"But that was what inspired me so!" Carmilla said, pressing Laura's hand. "Besides, it gives us a perfect excuse. Two young women traveling alone would be far too strange — it always was too dangerous for me to travel by myself. But this way we may travel without attracting notice, or at least nothing that shall follow us on our journey."
"Oh, Carmilla!" Laura said, clasping Carmilla's hand in both her own. "Do you really think we shall manage it?"
"I do." Carmilla stroked Laura's hair, tucking a fine strand of gold back into the twist from whence it had escaped. "Once we make it out of Styria. And when we get to England we may go into seclusion and I will let my hair grow, and then we should merely be two ladies, living in peace. Or a lady and her companion. Her bosom friend…"
She put her arms around Laura, and Laura let herself be drawn in. How many times had Carmilla rested her head upon Laura's breast, kissing her cheek and throat before indulging in that far more dangerous embrace! And now, Laura let her head rest upon her beloved's breast in turn. Her fingers pulled aside the collar and loosened the shirt placket so that she could press her cheek to Carmilla's skin, smooth as cream. Knowing what she knew, she wondered now that her dearest was not cold as the — as cold as the night outside. But Carmilla was warm, glowing with the life she sipped from another's throat.
"Now, now," Carmilla said, stroking Laura's back. "There will be time for that later. But we must have our dinner, before we sleep."
"It's so cold out there," Laura murmured, her lips brushing Carmilla's tender skin. "Must we? Can't we wait in here and find something another night?"
"No, my dearest. You are not yet strong enough for that. But you're right that no one will be abroad on a night such as this." Carmilla smiled, the firelight dancing in her eyes. "Still, we are not the only two travelers at this inn. And we know none of them." No familiar faces like the servants of Laura's childhood home, or the governesses who were like mothers to her. Only strangers, to whom Laura felt no particular attachment. The young lady was still too close to her former life in every way. She did not yet understand the exquisite raptures of cruelty, of drowning oneself in life and death at once in the bosom of someone loved tenderly and terribly.
Carmilla would teach her all that. But they had time. If only they could make it out of Styria they would have all the time in the world.
Laura sighed, pressing one last kiss to Carmilla's throat before sitting up. "Very well. But we must both be cautious — and you must teach me caution, as you have promised. Caution and restraint. We cannot have the whole place tumbled out while we yet rest."
"We cannot and we will not," Carmilla promised, stroking Laura's cheek. "I will make sure of it. But first we must wait for the rest of them to fall asleep. Now, I can think of one excellent way to pass the time…" And she pounced on Laura, with a feline grace and vitality so unlike her normal languid mannerisms that Laura laughed. A laughter that was soon cut off, buried in Carmilla's sweet mouth, drowned out by a kiss that burned like the embers of the fire that glowed in the hearth.
That bitterly cold wind seemed to have blown right through every chink in the inn's windows and walls. Or perhaps some illness had come through with one of the travelers. The little scullery maid was shivering and pale, unable to rise from her bed even when roused by the cook. One of the guests even claimed she had seen some terrible spirit in the night, something black that crept over the foot of her bed. Far more uproar than the innkeeper liked to have in his respectable establishment.
But the young couple rose in the afternoon, mounted their wagon, and drove away, and were never seen again.