Spun (7 page)

Anja saw in his expression that Tillz was reliving the encounter, and she regretted forcing him to talk about it. But he was deep into the retelling, and she would not stop him until he had unburdened himself with the story.

“My father became angry. He pushed the man away from Mother.” Tillz cleared his throat. “And then it was as if a powder keg had been detonated. There was shouting, my mother crying, punches were thrown. One of the men grabbed my father and held him while the aggressor beat him. I tried to intervene, to stop the violence. I don’t remember exactly what happened next—so much of that day seems cloudy in my mind. Only that when it was over, my father lay dead at my feet, my mother bleeding, and I had been cut. The men fled but not before the ringleader wiped my blood from his knife on my father’s coat.”Anja knew Tillz was editing his story, leaving out the most gruesome details, and for that she was thankful. The bits he did tell her brought a knot to her stomach and tears to her eyes.

“I half-carried, half-dragged my mother home. I tried to nurse her back to health but, despite everything I knew to do in my limited experience, she died several days later.”

“That happened here? Outside the village?”

Tillz nodded. “I was afraid to leave our property after that. I was afraid not just of seeing those men again—my innocence had been shattered. I became terrified of a thousand untold horrors. Who knew what waited to befall me outside my cottage walls? Eventually, though I had outgrown my terror, I had become used to solitude.”

“So that is why you keep to yourself and stay away from the villagers.”

Tillz nodded again.

“Oh, Tillz!” Anja cried. “I am so sorry! For you and your mother … to have lived through that…” She brought her hand to his face again. He took it, brought it to his mouth, kissed her fingers.

They sat in silence for several minutes. Finally, Tillz cleared his throat and turned back to Anja.

“Tell me more about you,” Tillz said, wanting to change the subject. For that, Anja could not blame him.

“What shall I say? There is nothing about me worth noting.”

“There is plenty about you I wish to know,” Tillz said. He probed her with questions, wanting to know about not just her current situation but every detail of her past. He told her he wanted to know the dramatic and the mundane. He wanted to know why she shouldered so much of the responsibility at the mill, and Anja was torn between wanting to confide everything to him, and wanting to shield her wayward father from any censure. In attempting to explain her father, she found herself talking about her mother, a subject she was usually desperate to keep private.

“She was so beautiful, so kind, and … something … so much
more
,” Anja said. “She was the person everyone else seemed to orbit. It seemed as if she could right every wrong, soothe every hurt, make every naughty child instantly fall in line.” Anja laughed softly. “I know it sounds like the ramblings of a wide-eyed child worshiping at the feet of her mother, but it was true. My father often told me my mother saved his life, that before he met her he was wild and ungoverned and on a path to self-destruction. She tamed him, he always said, made him want to be a better man. And you could see it in his face, how it lit up every time he saw her, how her presence provided him a mooring he lacked without her.”

Anja’s heart felt heavy. “But it was as though all the strength she had, she gave to others, leaving nothing for herself.” She shivered, and Tillz wrapped his arms tight around her. “She never had a very strong constitution, and I … there was difficulty when I was born. She never fully recovered, could never risk any more children.” Anja hastily wiped away the tear falling down her cheek, embarrassed. “I was twelve when she sickened for the last time. I watched as she weakened, as she slowly and painfully faded away. And my father seemed to fade along with her.” Anja struggled to contain a sob. “He was never the same after she was gone, and that is when he began drinking and gambling.” Her tears were flowing freely now, and Tillz reached up a hand to gently brush away the wetness staining her cheeks. “I am so sorry to be carrying on so,” she said quietly. “It’s so foolish, after the story you have just told me, how much worse things were for you.”

Tillz drew Anja against him. “There is nothing foolish about your sadness,” he said. “You cannot compare one person’s grief with another’s. I know what it is to lose a mother, yes, but it cannot be said that my loss is more tragic than yours. Your heart breaks for your mother as my heart does for mine, and it is a pain we both share in equal measures.”

“I miss her so much,” Anja said, her words muffled against his chest.

“I know,” Tillz said simply, and Anja felt his quiet understanding wrap around her like a warm cloak.

Tillz held Anja silently, and she found comfort in his strength. For once, Anja allowed herself to be vulnerable, to let someone else know the burden she carried. Anja had always been strong for her father, because he wasn’t, and if she let her façade of stoic competence waiver or crack, there would be no one left to hold together the pieces of their lives. With Tillz, though, she could stop pretending, and she could grieve, and she let it swell up and overtake her.

He stroked her back as she cried into his chest, and when she was done and her tears were dried, still he held her. Finally, her grief shrank back to its usual place locked within her heart, and she looked up to find Tillz studying her. He kissed her forehead, shifted her gently in his arms, and smoothed her hair. He asked her questions again, as if he knew she wanted the distraction, and she began to talk.

Anja found herself completely opening up to him, telling him things she barely admitted to herself. She told him every childhood fantasy and every adolescent folly. She cringed from embarrassment at some of the stories, and laughed along with him as he teased her. She never noticed that he deftly deflected any further questions she asked of him.

The hours passed until the first gray light of the morning peaked through the window. Tillz stood, picking Anja up and setting her on her feet.

“Come,” he said, “straighten your clothing. It is time for us to go.”

“Us?” she asked.

“Yes, us,” Tillz said, reaching out to stroke her hair. He couldn’t help himself. “You do not think I would leave you here, do you?”

“I cannot leave with you.”

Tillz didn’t know whether to scowl or laugh. “Of course you can leave with me. You cannot stay here, not after Werner has shown his unwillingness to release you.”

“You said yourself, if Werner finds me gone, he would just hunt me down—or my father. I cannot risk it.”

“You cannot risk staying here. Werner has proven himself unpredictable, there is no telling what he will do. No,” Tillz shook his head, “I am taking you with me.”

“He has also shown that he is not inclined to hurt me.”
Much,
Anja appended to herself, rubbing her arm where he had grabbed her. “He just wants his gold, and I think he will let me go tomorrow morning as he said he would.”

Tillz snorted.

“He will!” Anja said defensively. “After he believes my father has paid off his debts, after I have shown I am willing to provide him with gold if necessary, he will release me.”

“You are assuming you
can
provide him with the gold,” Tillz said.

Anja blanched. “You
have
brought it, haven’t you?” she asked. “You will leave me with more gold, won’t you?”

Tillz studied her face, as if deciding. “Fine,” he said. “I will leave you here—with more gold—only because I think you are right. Werner will not harm you so long as you continue to provide him with it. If he does not release you tomorrow, however, I am taking you out of here. No arguments.” When Anja did not respond immediately, Tillz put a finger under her chin, lifting her head until she met his gaze. “You
will
leave with me.”

“Yes,” Anja agreed. “If he does not release me tomorrow, I will let you take me out of here.”

Tillz dropped his hand. “Then it is settled. Now I best get out of here before Werner appears.” He withdrew more gold nuggets from his pocket, set them on the table, grabbed copper from the jar, and left the cottage.

* * * *

Werner turned up the wick of his kerosene lamp, his inky fingers leaving black smudges on the brass knob. He sat at his thickly carved oak desk, his ledgers open in front of him. He kept meticulous track of his accounts, knew precisely how much wealth he had, down to every last
roten Heller
. He knew who was behind on their rents and by exactly how much. He knew who owed him money for favors done, money lent, and bets lost. He kept a close eye on the money going out as well. He was stingy with his servants, and woe to whoever thought they could steal or cheat him.

His lips curled in a malevolent smile at the memory of the young
stellmacher
Werner had employed last year. The boy had been an artisan with the carriages, able to repair any problem and design ingenious improvements to his fleet. He was also cocky, impudent. He bullied the stable boys, took liberties with the servant girls, and made an elaborate show of not being intimidated by Werner. Werner tolerated it for a short time, only because it made the
stellmacher’s
comeuppance that much more enjoyable.

Werner had suspected the boy of thievery. He had been relatively certain the boy had been pilfering a random assortment of small objects from the
rittergut
—wood scraps from the
bötcher
, a pouch of oats from the stables, possibly a rusty awl or other tools. Nothing particularly valuable, nothing that was even really missed.

Werner had beat him so severely he had lost the use of his right arm and the sight in his left eye.

Or rather, Werner had had Roulf beat him. It wasn’t that Werner had a problem doing it himself, no moral compunction or constitutional qualms about the actual physical act. He just hated the mess it created, the cuts and scratches it left across his knuckles, the drops of blood he could never get out of the linen of his trousers or the silk of his shirts. Much easier to have that stupid brute of a henchman he kept around do those bits of unpleasantness.

Werner would have been more bothered by the unmitigated gall of the boy and the inconvenience of finding another
stellmacher
, but he found such episodes were actually quite useful in running the
rittergut
. The servants had a tendency to become lazy and complacent if they weren’t given periodic reminders of the level of service and respect he required, and exactly what would happen if they failed to give it to him. Indeed, after the boy had been removed from his property and dumped in a bloody heap on his mother’s doorstep, the
rittergut
had run so efficiently, the servants so timid and reverent, he had considered making a monthly accusation of theft and meting out a like punishment.

A heavy knock at the door brought Werner back to the present. He rubbed his eyes, leaned back over his ledgers.

“Come in,” he barked.

Roulf appeared in the doorway, looking thick, stupid, and disheveled. His
lederhosen
were scuffed and cracking. The felt of his Tyrolean hat was stained and crumpled, the feather stuffed in the corded hatband drooping ridiculously. He looked like a yodeling, alpine idiot. He stood gaping at Werner, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and Werner suspected he was either already drunk or well on his way.

“What?” Werner snapped, letting Roulf see his irritated impatience.

“I sent some boys out, like ye said, to get more copper. Tol’ ’em to get whatever they could find, like ye asked.”

“And did I also ask for you to stop by the tavern on the way back?”

Roulf reddened and took a step back. “I didn’t—I mean—maybe jus’ for one, but I—”

Werner raised a hand, and Roulf immediately stopped his stammering. Werner waved him away, and Roulf nearly tripped over his feet as he scrambled back out of the door. Werner was not in the mood to deal with Roulf tonight, let him drown himself in cheap beer. Werner was far more interested in knowing he would soon have more copper—copper that the little
madchen
he had locked up in one of the old servant cottages would then make into gold.

Werner had been skeptical at first of Gregor’s claims that his daughter had discovered the secrets of alchemy. He wouldn’t put it past the old sot to fabricate stories in an attempt to wriggle out from under his debts. But then Werner had entered the cottage this morning and seen the gold nuggets on the table, and Werner knew Gregor had been telling the truth. The girl had done it. She had taken his iron and copper and turned it into gold. And as long as he had possession of the girl, he would have possession of all the wealth he could ever desire. And possess her, he would. He had told her he would let her go after two more nights, but he had no intention of keeping that promise. Her talents were simply too valuable. The fact that she was so tempting was just an added bonus.

Werner stirred at the thought of her. He remembered the carriage ride up to the
rittergut
on the night he had taken her. How she had sat across from him, cold and shivering. How the wet cotton of her
dirndl
had clung to her body, accentuating every young, firm, plump curve of her. How her breasts had quivered as she trembled from fear and anger. She was feisty, but Werner didn’t see that as a problem. On the contrary, he would thoroughly enjoy taming her.

He imagined what it would be like when he finally tasted her. He planned to let the anticipation build before he did so, as it always made his conquests that much sweeter. He pictured her beneath him, her long, white limbs pinned to the bed, laid bare in all her unspoiled, virginal beauty. Would she fight him? Or would she whimper and beg? Werner hoped it would be a little bit of both.

He licked his lips and adjusted the front of his trousers. Yes, he was very much going to enjoy taming her.

Chapter 5

Tillz spent most of the day skulking around the grounds of the manor, trying to keep an eye on Anja while avoiding detection. He watched from behind a disused carriage as Werner entered the cottage, Roulf trailing behind him, carrying jars of metal. Tillz was anxious as he waited for the men to leave once again. Every fiber of every muscle was poised to run inside and rescue Anja should it appear that Werner meant her the slightest harm. Thankfully, Werner and Roulf spent no more than ten minutes in the cottage, and Tillz did not have to reveal his presence.