The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) Page 20

  I quickly seal the letter and tuck it beneath my sleeve.

  I venture the narrow, unknown corridors of Castle Bitsch. The darkness and damp form an unwelcome embrace along the windowless path. It isn’t the fastest route, but I am less likely to be seen, and even less likely to be stopped. I utter a curse when I find the chapel empty, and then say a quick prayer of contrition for my wicked tongue. Where is he? I think, slipping through a doorway behind the altar. Light spills in long, thin strands at the end of this hallway.

  “You shouldn’t be behind the altar,” Father Hannes says, startling me.

  I whirl around. “I know. I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t know where to find you,” I say, and his forgiveness is given with a nod. “Do you know how to get a letter out at great haste?”

  His brow furrows. “I can find out. Is everything all right?”

  “I need to get a letter to Cologne—soon.”

  He pauses, pursing his lips. “That shouldn’t be so difficult. In sending this letter, you are not forcing me into sin, are you, Lady Adelaide?”

  “No, Father,” I lie, banishing thoughts of all the sin I shall commit if I get Ivo alone.

  He sighs. “It shall take coin.”

  “I have none, but Galadriel won’t want me looking the pauper in Nancy. She’s sure to give me an allowance.”

  “Pay the chapel treasury if you can upon your return.”

  I jump into his arms, hugging him tightly. “Thank you, Father Hannes.”

  He laughs and pats my back. “It is a pleasure to see you in such happiness, milady.”

  “I don’t know that anyone has made me this happy in all my time here.”

  He nods and smiles fatherly at me. I hand him the letter, and we head in separate directions.

  Johanna dips her bread into the lamb stew, the suggestion of a smirk rising on her face. “Are you looking forward to your travels?” She places the morsel into her mouth.

  “I am a little nervous, Lady Johanna.”

  Father gulps his wine audibly, and Galadriel’s nose crinkles a little at his less–than–perfect manners.

  “That is good,” Johanna says. “Better to be nervous than too confident. You are going to the home of a duchess. The other maids shall surely come from the best houses in the empire.”

  Marianna, spoon perched before her mouth, huffs and her utensil dings as she angrily sets it on her charger. “Oh, Johanna why must you scare her?” Marianna chides before turning to me. “Be quiet and watch what the other girls do. Find a friendly girl who shall help you and someone to teach you French.”

  “Scaring her was not my intent,” Johanna excuses. “I only mean to prepare her for what is coming.”

  “I did not even think to have her learn French!” Galadriel cries.

  “It is too late now,” Johanna adds.

  Father masks his lips with a hand as Galadriel has instructed him to do if he is going to speak with a mouthful of food. “Why? When does she leave?”

  Galadriel utters an inaudible reply.

  “When?” Father gives a hard swallow and leans in close to her. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Tomorrow, husband.” Galadriel’s voice falters.

  “Tomorrow?” Fathers says with surprise. “Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”

  “Usually a girl’s mother arranges such things,” Johanna intercepts. “It isn’t customary for a girl’s father to be involved in such decisions.”

  “You should have told me,” Father’s says to Galadriel, his face coloring with anger.

  “It isn’t customary for a father to be so concerned, milord,” Johanna reiterates.

  Father shoots her a look as hard and sharp as steel. “I am speaking to my wife, not you. Leave us. All of you. And close the door behind you.”

  I rise with everyone else. With a point of his finger, Father orders me to stay. The room empties quickly.

  “And what of our lives is customary, Galadriel? Why did you keep this from me?”

  “Johanna said—”

  Father slams his hand down on the table. “I do not care what Johanna says! I won’t have things kept from me within my house.”

  Tears pool upon her lids, and she places her hand to her stomach as a reminder of her delicate condition. “I am sorry, husband.” The anger in his gaze melts away. I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “I told you of the letter and the dresses I had made,” she adds. “I did not know the date mattered so. It is an opportunity that no girl like her has ever had.”

  “The letter came only a few days ago,” he reasons more gently. “I only thought I might have her for another week.”

  “It takes days to get to Nancy from here. The duchess demands that Adelaide arrive before May Day. I should have sent her as soon as her dresses were made, but you wanted her here for our wedding feast. If we make the duchess wait, she is likely to send Adelaide back, and no one else has replied to my letters. I thought I was doing as you wished. It pains me to see you so…so… displeased.”

  “You do not displease me.” He rises and kisses her on the forehead. Her gaze meets his, and he kisses her gently on the lips.

  I avert my gaze so I do not vomit stew all over the table.

  “But since I expected another week with Adelaide, I shall get it,” he says firmly. “I’ll take her to Lorraine myself.”

  “Is that wise, husband?”

  “It would not be wise to send her unprotected.”

  “I have four men–at–arms going with her. More than I had for my own protection when I left for Cologne.”

  “My mind is made.”

  She rests her hand on her stomach, but she’s overplayed the gesture, and it doesn’t have the same effect. “Then who shall oversee Bitsch?”

  “The same people who oversee it still,” Father quips. “Your father and Johanna.”

  Galadriel purses her lips. “Then go, husband. I cannot stop you.”

  25 April 1248

  As the crow flies, Nancy is not far from Bitsch, but with a carriage, we are stuck to the roads. A trip that may have taken two days, shall now take four. Father has ridden his horse, Stilt, with the guards and still does. Storyteller had to be tethered to a number of horses until they found a mare she wouldn’t bite. The men force me to stay in the carriage, claiming the roads too dangerous for a maid to ride. Yet, we haven’t crossed a single wolf, boar, or brigand.

  The road follows the mountains. The constant ups and downs slow us even more. Tonight we shall stay at an inn in Trier, a welcome change from the monastery where we sought refuge last night. The bites from their flea–ridden beds still plague me. Hopefully tonight’s tavern hasn’t an aversion to flea bane.

  The bench is hard, and my back aches, so I lay on the floor of the carriage and tell Mama’s stories to the roof. While in the midst of my own tale, I notice that the once blinding slices of light that filter through the shutters have faded to a burnished gold. I pop up and throw open the shutters. The air is musky and sweet as the scent of warm earth and new blossoms stir in the wind. I don’t smell hearth fire, not yet.

  Still, the shadows of trees grow longer and their trunks darken. We must be nearing Trier, for Father would never have us travel after dark.

  The Vesper bells of myriad churches chime a distant chorus as we crest a large hill. I stick my head out the carriage window, looking down upon Trier like a bird in flight.

  Fishermen lower wind–whipped sails and drag their vessels onto the Moselle River shore. Waves lick at the weathered, wooden boats. The scent of the day’s catch and refuge, too long in the sun, corrupts the perfume of hearth fire and spring. Had Galadriel been in the carriage, she’d surely have retched.

  Banners striped with gold and scarlet snap in the wind from atop the towers, beckoning the city’s serfs and villeins from their labors. They walk alongside our carriage, disinterested. Through the slits in the shutters, I watch them. Children, don little more than threadbare tunics, as they follow their elders on bare feet.
Their faces are gaunt, and their blank, ghostly stares send a chill through me.

  The wind stills, and the banners go limp. Upon the gold and scarlet, a saint carries a large key. I would wager Trier is a Church see. This city is more like Cologne than any other I’d seen. The thought sinks in my stomach like stones—and I briskly shake it from my head.

  Cologne is Mama telling stories and cobbling. It is summer nights and Ivo and eating pastries at the Christmas Market. Was, my thoughts say. Cologne was those things—and without them, Cologne is Trier—a filthy city filled with misery, stink, corruption, and fever.

  My gaze catches on a russet–haired young man with ropey muscles like Ivo. I shiver and wonder if Father Hannes found someone who could see my letter to Ivo. Perhaps he is on the road already. But more than likely, he is not.

  A brightly painted wooden sign hangs above the tavern entrance: The Three Swords. This is either a tavern for the armorer and sword–making guilds or a tavern for the men who can afford such weapons.

  The door to the tavern opens, and the hum of voices within grows to a dull roar. For a heartbeat, one man’s raucous laughter drowns out the conversations. He slaps a large hand on the table, his belly pulsing with his cackling. The smell of roasting meat overpowers that of hearth smoke. My stomach rumbles.

  “Are you hungry?” Father asks.

  I nod.

  He takes my fingers and tucks them into the crook of his elbow—a demonstrative gesture I’m not used to. Not ever since I truly became his apprentice. Since that day an invisible door rose between us, one we rarely cross.

  Why today? I look up into his face, searching for the answer to my question. His lips fold inward. Fear and pride flicker in his eyes. I read him—a man who, unless drunk or angered, is emotionally mute when it comes to his daughter. He’s worried for me, proud of me, and saddened that soon I shall leave him. I pat his arm, and he escorts me into the tavern.

  We find a long table in the corner. Within a half–hour our rooms are secured, and we sup.

  “How far are we from Cologne?” Father asks, popping a hunk of mutton into his mouth.

  I nearly choke on my stew.

  “Tis far, milord,” says one of the men–at–arms. “The safest route is three days of hard riding.”

  A disappointed oh is all Father replies. Any effort on my part to urge him to go and take me with him shan’t be tolerate, especially not in front of a crowd. I change the subject instead.

  “Have any of you been to Trier before?” I ask.

  Most of the men nod.

  “What is it like?”

  “It’s like any city, milady,” one of the men–at–arms replies.

  “Not like Bitsch though,” I prod. “It looks like Cologne. Don’t you think, Lord Father?”

  Father shrugs.

  “Does it have an archbishop like Cologne, too?”

  “Oh, yes,” an older man–at–arms says. “Trier’s archbishop is a kingmaker just like the archbishop of Cologne.”

  “So Trier is a See of the church, then. Not a Free Imperial City?”

  The man opens his mouth, and then snaps it shut. One of his eyes squints, and he looks to the men around him. “What is a Free Imperial City?” he chortles. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

  I open my mouth, ready to educate them all, but the heat of an angry gaze silences me. I turn my head and look to Father. His chewing slows to a stop.

  “I thought being away from Bitsch might mean a break from such topics.” He raises his mug to his lips and empties it in three gulps. “No more of it, Adelaide. Tell us that story that you told me in Oppenheim.”

  “The Three Army Surgeons?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  I get polite applause once I finish the tale. After that, it is strangely silent. I’m sure the men long to speak freely and cannot do that with a maid around.

  I feign a yawn.

  “Are you tired, Lady Adelaide?” one of the men–at–arms asks—a bit too eagerly.

  I say that I am and ask to be excused to my rooms. Father rises, so do I, and everyone else at the table, for that is what is expected of them. I am a lady now. When I stand, so must they.

  I request a flagon of wine for my room, and I am told it will be sent. Father escorts me up the stairs.

  “No one will have me, Father,” I say as he sticks the key in the lock. “This is folly, and I think you know it.”

  The lock clicks. He says nothing. He won’t even look at me.

  “You could summon Ivo to Bitsch when he finishes his apprenticeship, and we can all live there together.”

  I know what he’s thinking, What will Galadriel say? She’s in a delicate condition. He cannot lose another child, another wife.

  “He’ll be an armorer by spring,” I add. “ You can make him a knight. Or we can just say he’s a knight. Who in Bitsch would know any different? Galadriel shall have the baby next winter, and you can tell her then. You are her husband. You are the count. You give the orders, not her.”

  “Just as you are my daughter, and I am your father.” He sighs and crosses his arms. “I give the orders, not you.”

  “I am not giving orders, merely offering suggestions,” I reply with a wry smile.

  Father laughs. “Tell me, Adelaide, is that how it shall be when you are married? Will you expect from yourself what you expect of Galadriel? You’ll bend to your husband’s will with a smile on your face?”

  “I’m not Galadriel.”

  “Yet you both are very good at pouting and sowing misery when you do not get your way.”

  I draw up at the insult. “Do you think so ill of me? Did I not stand by, biting my tongue as you both said your vows? Have I said an ill word against her to anyone since I discovered your betrothal?”

  Skepticism washes over his face. “Why did you stand by and say nothing? It isn’t like you.”

  “You said you would send me to a convent if I did not,” I lie.

  He narrows his eyes in disbelief.

  I shake my head. He hasn’t had enough wine to be reasonable. “Goodnight, Father.”

  “Goodnight.” He turns away and starts for the steps, but pauses, taking a heavy breath. “Someday when you have children, you’ll know what it’s like to break their hearts to do what’s best for them.”

  “No I won’t,” I call after him. “If you and Galadriel have it your way, I won’t even know my children. A nursemaid will raise them. They’ll be sent to a stranger’s household, and I to serve in another woman’s court. I won’t end up a countess like Galadriel. I’ll end up Lady Nobody, servant to Duchess Somebody, with children she never knows.”

  Father says nothing, and I slam the door.

  I brood, pacing a path into the floor as I contemplate bribing a groom to ready Storyteller so I can run off to Cologne. But it is dark, and the men have made sure to tell me of every unimaginably horrible thing that has ever happened to a maid unguarded on the roads.

  I flop onto the bed. Perhaps Ivo will meet me in Nancy, and I can leave with him from there. With the thought, my lips stretch into a smile. I close my eyes, conjuring sleep and, with it, dreams of Ivo and the Cologne that I used to know.

  But sleep doesn’t come, for Father’s insensibility runs through my mind.

  How can he think I might make some grand marriage out of the courts of Nancy? Who would want me? I am not a born and bred noblewoman. I do not speak French nor read Latin well. I do not curtsy like a noblewoman. I do not bat my eyelashes like a noblewoman. I haven’t the slightest idea on how to run a noble house.

  I am an only child to a mother who miscarried one child after another, so there is little hope that I shall be a brood mare. The best Father could hope for is a steward or lowly knight. But I shall try my hardest to make sure no one takes interest in courting me. I shall bide my time, trying to be unseen.

  A knock comes on the door. Perhaps, it’s Father. He’s seen sense and changed his mind. But as I open the door, it isn’t his
steely eyes that peer back at me—just the meek gaze of a kitchen maid.

  “Your wine, milady,” she says.

  I step aside, and she enters, placing the flagon and mug on the bedside table before skirting from the room. I plop onto the bed and fill the mug, gulping it down and filling it again. The heat stretches through my chest—in warm, delightful fingers—until my head swims and my joints unhinge.

  In three days, it will be a month since we left Cologne. And tomorrow, I will be in a place as foreign as Bitsch.

  So this is the middle of my tale. I am the fair maiden: a noble girl with a wicked stepmother and foolish father. I cringe. It sounds too much like Cinderella. I once thought myself like Gretel: the common girl who saves her kin. Though, for now, I am a Cinderella: a girl stuck grieving, praying, and waiting. I shake the thought from my head. Even Gretel was trapped, for a time, ensnared by the witch. She had to wait, too.

  But I’m not a Gretel, and I’m not a Cinderella. I yawn again. My lashes are like lead. I close my eyes, and see a baby born. She is black as night, red as blood, and white as snow, cradled in the arms of a storyteller who has high hopes for her child’s tale. I am a Snow White, whoever she will be.

  COMING SUMMER 2015

  THE BASEBORN LADY

  BOOK THREE IN THE FAIRYTALE KEEPER SERIES

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  Author’s Note

  Inventing The Fairytale Keeper

  The premise for The Fairytale Keeper series came to me during a children’s literature class. While we compared the fairytales of different nations, the professor noted that most cultures had their own versions of Cinderella.