The Captive Maiden (32 page)

Gisela caught a glimpse of a small crowd of
people gathering around the bottom of the steps, watching her and Ruexner and the priest. The townspeople wore various styles and kinds of clothing, from peasant to middle-class burghers, and they stared at the strangers standing at the top of the massive cathedral steps.

Gisela couldn’t let Ruexner force her into marriage. She could not let anyone bully her again. Her stepmother and stepsisters had required her to do things she didn’t want to do, when Gisela could have run away or even refused. She had not stood up for herself. Now she would do whatever she had to do. If she had to fight to the point of losing her life, she would not let Ruexner force her to marry him.

“Someone, help me!” Gisela cried out, trying to stare down individual townspeople as they glanced up at her. “I am being forced to marry this man! Help me!” She yanked her arm, trying to break free from Ruexner, but he jerked her closer and clamped his hand over her mouth.

“Get on with it,” Ruexner growled at the priest.

“What are your names?” the priest asked, as though nothing seemed amiss.

“Friedric Ruexner and Gisela Mueller.” Ruexner removed
his hand from Gisela’s mouth and whispered harshly in her ear, “Stop it now, or I’ll break your neck.”

“And what are your parents’ names?”

Ruexner growled like an angry bear, then answered, “Baron Arnold Tockler Ruexner and Gisela Russdorffer Ruexner.”

Ruexner’s mother’s name was Gisela? How odd. Especially since her own mother’s maiden name was Russdorffer.

“And the lady? What are your parents’ names?”

“Christoff Theodemar Mueller and Fordola Russdorffer Mueller. My father was a knight —”

“Shut up.” Ruexner clamped his hand over her mouth again. He looked at the priest. “Go on.”

Gisela bit his hand and screamed. Ruexner clamped his hand over her mouth again and squeezed her face.

“Get on with it,” Ruexner said through clenched teeth. “Speak the marriage vows. Now.”

Where was Valten? She thought she saw him standing in the doorway, with three men holding him, a cloth gag tied around his mouth. She couldn’t let him see her married to Ruexner. But how could she stop him? She couldn’t get away from Ruexner. He was holding her so tightly she couldn’t even wriggle.

The priest said in a loud voice, speaking slowly and pausing every few words, “Does anyone here … know of any reason … why this man, Friedric Ruexner … and this woman, Gisela Mueller … should not be married? If so, speak now.”

Gisela could now only see a few people out of the corner of her eye, but she sensed there were many more behind her.

Someone cleared his throat. Then a woman shouted, “Their mothers were sisters!”

“They can’t marry then,” a man drawled somewhere behind her.

The townspeople were trying to help her!

“Who said that?” Ruexner roared, turning around and facing down the crowd. “It’s a lie!”

Of course it was a lie. None of these people knew her, but if she and Ruexner were cousins, the marriage could not take place. The church would forbid it.

In his rush to see who had spoken, Ruexner had removed his hand from her mouth again. Gisela yelled, “I won’t marry this man! I do not give my consent!”

Ruexner glared at Gisela, then at the priest. “On with it.”

“I’m afraid I cannot.” The priest gave him stare for stare. “Someone has declared the impediment of consanguinity, and this young maiden does not give her consent.” The people must have emboldened him.

Ruexner turned around to face the crowd, pulling Gisela around with him as if she were a rag doll. “If anyone says another word, my men will cut out their hearts and feed them to the vultures! I, Friedric Ruexner, take this woman, Gisela Mueller, to be my wife. And no one, not even the church, can stop me.”

Ruexner pushed the priest aside and pulled Gisela through the door of the church, his hand like a vise on her arm. Gisela caught a glimpse of Valten, being held by three men, as Ruexner shut the door behind him and started up the steps to one of the towers.

“Where are you taking me?”

“If we can’t be married, then you will be my prisoner.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Gisela said, trying to reason with him. “You can let me go. You and your men can —”

“You lied about your mother’s name being Fordola Russdorffer, didn’t you?”

“No. That was her name. She died when I was very young.” Perhaps their mothers really were sisters.

“I don’t want to hear anything else from you.” Ruexner
halted on the steps, blocking her escape, and pulled a piece of cloth from his pocket.

Gisela tried to run back down the steps, but he grabbed her arm. She fought him, tearing at his fingers and their grip on her arm until he wrapped his big arms around hers and pinned them to her sides. He pulled her hands around her back and tied her wrists together.

“You will be sorry for this.” Gisela was so angry she felt tears of pure fury in her eyes. “Duke Wilhelm will bring justice on you. You will not get away with it if you hurt me or Valten.”

Ruexner continued pulling her up the stairs of the tower by her arms.

“You’re hurting me.”

She heard a door open, and Ruexner dragged her inside. He sat her down on a wooden bench. Something went around her ankles. Ruexner was tying them together, just as he’d tied her hands together behind her back. Then he tied a cloth over her eyes, knotting it behind her head.

“Why are you doing this?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. “This is about Valten and me. He has to pay for what he did to me.”

“What do you plan to do to him? Haven’t you hurt him enough? Just please let us go,” she whispered out of desperation. Perhaps the man possessed a shred of goodness.

“Almost.” Ruexner’s voice was low and gentle. “Almost you persuade me. But Valten and I must end our fight now, once and for all. I will take him to my castle in Bruchen, and there we shall have our final duel.”

She heard him turn and start to walk away. “Please, don’t hurt him. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to fight Valten. You can let us go and never have to see us again.”

“I don’t expect you to understand.” He seemed to hesitate
at the door. For long moments she didn’t hear anything. Had he left?

The door squeaked open, then closed with a bang.

“O God, please help Valten. Please protect him. Please.”

Ruexner’s grimy henchmen held on to Valten and surrounded him, his hands tied behind his back, when Ruexner came back down the stairs without Gisela.

“Where is she?” Valten demanded, looking straight at Ruexner.

“She is safe,” Ruexner said, his eyes flashing with malice.

“Will you kill an unarmed man, inside a church?”

“I’m trying to decide if I want to take her with us when I bring you to Bruchen.”

“I’m ready to fight you. Give me a sword now and let’s fight. Even with a broken hand and broken ribs, I can still defeat you.”

Ruexner seemed to be savoring the moment, based on his evil grin. “No, I don’t think so.”

Ruexner went to speak to his men, leaving two in charge of Valten. When he came back, he told the priest, “We’re taking over this place tonight. My men are tired and need sleep. Now get out.”

“You can’t do that. This is a church.” The priest seemed genuinely upset, unlike how he had reacted when Ruexner had almost forced Gisela to marry him against her will. Although he had delayed the marriage, speaking slowly, as if hoping someone would come to their aid. He’d also refused to go on once someone had declared an impediment.

“Get out, or my men will throw you out,” Ruexner growled in the priest’s face.

“Bishop Fulco will hear about this.”

Ruexner ignored the priest as one of his men escorted him out the back door.

Ruexner wrapped a piece of cloth around Valten’s eyes, blindfolding him. “I shall keep you upstairs. Perhaps we will bring you some supper in a few hours, if you are quiet.” Ruexner then pulled him forward.

“Why blindfold me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I want you to feel helpless. If you can’t see where you are, you might not be able to escape.”

“You’re a sick and deviant brute.” Valten’s rage was beginning to get the better of him. Lack of sleep was making it difficult to think. He needed to try to reason with him and project confidence. “You know the king will not approve of what you are doing. He will strip you of your knighthood, and possibly worse.”

Rough hands forced him to climb some stairs. Undoubtedly they were the stairs leading up inside the church tower. Gisela had been taken up the same stairs.

“I don’t worry about the king. He will reprimand me, but if I give him a few valuable trinkets for his coffers, I suspect he will forgive me. And instead of killing you, perhaps I will demand a ransom from Duke Wilhelm when I defeat you in a few days.” Still guiding him up the stairs, Ruexner added nonchalantly, “As it turns out, Gisela is the daughter of my mother’s sister. Strange, but it is apparently true. Therefore I shall marry her off to one of my knights. Who do you think she would better suit — Malbert or Lew?”

A door creaked opened, then Valten was pushed into a room of some sort. Hands on his shoulders forced him to sit, then they tied his ankles together.

The men shuffled away, Ruexner laughed, and the door shut.

He was already working his feet, trying to take off his boots. If he could get one of his boots off, the rope might slip off with it.

All was quiet, then he heard a sniff, and a woman’s voice from several feet away said, “Who is there?”

“Gisela? Is that you?” His heart tripped at her being in the same room.

“Valten!” She sounded like she was crying.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” Her voice cracked and she sniffed again. “Are you?”

“No.” He managed to hold one boot down with the other and pull his foot out. Then he was able to shake off the rope binding his ankles. Then, after fumbling for several moments with his boot, he gradually worked it back onto his foot.

Now he could walk. He stood up and took a step forward, his hands still tied behind his back. But with his vision completely obscured by the blindfold, he wasn’t sure where to go, and he could easily lose his balance if he ran into something.

“Valten,” Gisela was saying, “I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”

“You didn’t cause this trouble, Gisela. Ruexner did. And it’s more my fault than yours.”

“But you risked your life to save me.”

“Of course. You were in danger.” He moved slowly toward her voice.

She sniffed again. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

His shin bumped into something, another bench or stool, maybe, and something slid to the floor with a thump. He hoped Ruexner didn’t hear it below them and come to check on them.

“Keep talking.” He needed to hear her voice to find her.

“I pretended I didn’t know you because I knew you didn’t remember me.”

Remember her? What was she talking about?

“I was there when you bought Sieger. You bought him from my father.”

“I did?”

“You were fourteen years old, and I was seven.”

She must have been the little blonde girl who’d looked so
upset that he was taking her horse. “So Sieger did know you.” No wonder his horse had acted so happy to see her that day at the stables. He had thought she had placed a magic spell on his horse, but instead, they had known each other from when Sieger had been only a foal.

“The truth is —” Her words were interrupted by a sob.

It tore at his heart to hear her crying, she who had been so brave and fierce in the face of so much danger. If only he could get to her. If only he could comfort her, but he couldn’t see her, couldn’t even put his arms around her, since his hands were tied behind his back. But at least he had thought of a way to get their blindfolds off. If he could just get to her.

“The truth is,” she went on, “I pretended I didn’t care about anything. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care about you. But I do care. The truth is, I love you.”

She loved him. The words made him stumble and pause to restore his balance.

“You are brave and strong and good, noble and kind. I love you and I think you’re …”

His knee bumped into the bench she was sitting on, and he sat down beside her, so close their shoulders and knees were touching.

He leaned down until his cheek touched her soft hair. She caught her breath but didn’t pull away. He lowered his face until he felt her breath on his chin.

“You think I’m … what?”

Chapter
28