The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2)

Book two in The Fairytale Keeper series

Andrea Cefalo

Copyright © 2014 Andrea Cefalo

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted to [email protected]

Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data Cefalo,Andrea

Scarlet Primrose Press/Andrea Cefalo

“A…resonant tale set late in the 13th century… with unexpected plot twists. An engaging story of revenge and redemption… An opener to a future series.”

–
Publisher’s Weekly

“Really great story. The author’s style reminds me of many great historical fiction pieces that I’ve read. Strong emotion injected into almost every page.”

–
Amazon Vine Reviewer

“…a unique twist on the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Part fairy tale retelling, part historical fiction…. The Fairy Tale Keeper is a story of corruption, devotion, and tough decisions.”

–
Copperfield Review

“The story that Cefalo weaves is intriguing and leaves you hanging on, wanting more.”

–
Hooked to Books Book Review Blog

“…it doesn’t feel like any retelling. Because it’s not.
The Fairytale Keeper
is its own unique story…very entertaining, containing a strong female role, a sweet romance, and much more.”

–
Lulu The Bookworm Book Review Blog

Passing clouds of smoke roll through Hay Market. By now, the flames smolder, lapping at the blackened, brittle skeleton of Cologne’s famous cathedral. Soon, nothing but cinders will be left of her. May the flakes of ash roll past the glass windows of our overreaching archbishop’s palace, so he can see them for what I hope they are: the remnants of his power flitting away like snowflakes on a frigid gust.

Father and I wait in his harlot’s halted carriage in front of the White Stag, only a few blocks from the cathedral’s remains. I hold my sleeve to my nose to keep the ashes from my throat and close the shutters to keep the smoke from slithering in, but that confines the noxious cloud. Father shoves open the shutters, his deep–set eyes narrow at me.

How long will it take him to forgive me?

Truly, it is he who should seek forgiveness, not I.

Sneaking out of my room worried him, and finding me in Ivo’s arms enraged him. But I did not betray him. Not like he betrayed Mama and me. The way I found Father and Galadriel, my mother’s cousin, ten days ago is etched on the back of my eyelids.
Her head on his bare shoulders. The silhouette of their unclothed bodies beneath the blankets. The stupid grin on her harlot face.

Another cloud of smoke rolls in, and I cough. “Must we sit here and wait?” I ask.

The smoky breeze jostles Father’s black hair. He says nothing and peers through a slit in the shutters, inhaling the smoke as though he isn’t bothered. The set in his jaw tells me otherwise.

“This smoke will be the death of us. We should head to the fields,” I argue. “The air will be clearer there.

And I might see Ivo. My Ivo. One last time before we go.

My thoughts shift to last night, our first night alone. I breathe in, embracing the scent of smoke filling our carriage, for that aroma was so heavy in his white–blond hair.

I close my eyes tightly, summoning memories.
His lips arc into a boyish grin, pushing up his cheeks so lines fan his blue eyes, deep–set and large. A curtain of hair falls into his gaze, and with a toss of his head, the silvery strands flit away. With it comes that Ivo look: so mischievous and playful.

”One horse is not enough to pull four people, a carriage, and our trunks.” Galadriel’s impatient explanation jolts me into the present. “We need another. The beast should have been here before Prime.”

The fire has everyone out of sorts. Who knows if this horseman will even show? “Are you sure this horseman hasn’t run off with your guilder?” I droll.

“I retained the horse with a groschen. The rest of his payment shall come when the horse is delivered. Really, Adelaide,” she sighs. “It is only a little smoke.”

I hope he has run off with your groschen, I think. Hatred surges through my veins, a river of molten iron.

Another cloud of smoke rolls in. Father coughs, and my breath catches—like it does now anytime anyone coughs. A cough: that is the first sign of the fever. The fear passes as the haze rolls by, and Father’s cough subsides. My anxieties shift back to anger.

He bedded her, too,
I think
.
The thought is far more painful. I expected better from Father. I hardly know Galadriel.

It is easier to hate her. He’s the only parent I have left, and a part of me fears that ill–thoughts of him are as poisonous as ill–wishes. No matter how angered I am with Father, I love him and couldn’t bare for the fever to claim him like it did Mama—and thousands of others in Cologne.

An eerie quiet encompasses the market. The clomping of hooves against hardened earth breaks the silence, growing louder with each step. A horse whinnies, and two men exchange greetings. The door flies open, and the carriage driver peeks in. “The horse arrives, milady. Is this the one you want?” He brushes his wiry, black and silver hair from his sooty forehead.

Galadriel peers through the opened shutter. “Yes. Give the man his coin, strap up the beast, and let us go.”

The man nods and shuts the door. The tug of the horses surges the carriage forward.

My stomach clenches as we turn onto Filzengraben, passing what was once my home. The door hangs crookedly from a single hinge. A charred circle marks the spot where our every possession was burned. I swallow hard, and my gaze averts to Father, hoping for a wince, a flicker of pain in his iron eyes, any reaction rather than an empty stare.

A torrent of memories race through my mind: Mama slipping next to me between the blankets of my bed ready with a myriad of stories to lull me into dreams. Father hunching over a table littered with leather scraps and half–made turn shoes, chiding my sloppy stitching. The flitting of fireflies in glass jars, which mysteriously managed to find their way to my bedside table on hot summer nights.

Father snaps the shutters closed, jarring me into the present.

The carriage turns onto Severin Strasse, mere blocks from the gate. Over the crunching of carriage wheels onto stone and hooves against dirt, I hear voices shout in the distance. One familiar and one not.

“What’d I do? Nothin’! That’s what I done,” Gregor defends. His cries cut sharply through our silence. My breath catches.

Oh God, please let this be nothing. Please let this be two worthless drunkards pestering Gregor and nothing else. Please let this have nothing to do with last night.

“Look, gatekeeper, there. There is a divot in the cutters,” a deep voice notes with authority. “How did it get there?”

I bite my lip to keep from cursing.

This has everything to do with last night, everything to do with me.

“You’re arrestin me for havin’ a divot in my cutters!” Gregor exclaims.

The breath escapes me. Gregor shall surely be thrown in the North Tower for this, for me, for my carelessness. Lunging forward, I stick my head out the window. Father yanks me by the surcote, and I fall onto the seat. His unforgiving glare burns, and I look away.

I am no longer in the carriage, but kneeling on the cold, puddled stone floor of the North Tower. Shrieks of tortured men pierce my ears, and I try not to imagine what horrors they endure, but I cannot help it no matter how tightly I close my eyes, how tightly I cover my ears. I envision Gregor upon the wrack, the shrieks coming from him. His face contorts with confusion and terror as he gapes upon a masked man and a table of tools designed by the devil himself, constructed for one purpose: torture.

What must I do? How can I fix this? Do I confess and save him?

I can’t go back to the stocks! I can’t.

But if the archbishop finds out what I did, I can forget the stocks. Last night I freed a heretic. The archbishop hangs and burns heretics. What will he do to someone who frees them? I imagine the punishment for heretics and their liberators is the same.

On the stake, flames engulf the flesh, crawling up the legs like a thousand thrashing leather whips. Suffocating, by noose or smoke, would be the best for which I could hope.

The arguments from the gate grow louder.

“That’s Gregor.” Father peeks through the open shutters. “What would the guards want with him?”

I swallow hard. Each roll of the carriage wheel is another moment lost. Gregor may not have many left.

But would my confession serve enough to save him? The archbishop might still torture him for a false confession and burn him anyway. My fingers grip the edge of the seat like the ledge of a tall building, letting go will likely lead to a horrible death.

What is the sense in us both suffering such a fate?

resolve withers at the thought, but I shake this coward’s rationale from my head, take a deep breath, and pounce for the door.

Someone grabs me by the arm and reels me back. I fall hard on the carriage floor. “What do you know of this?” Father looms above me.

I avert my gaze. Should I tell him?

“Adelaide!”

“I freed Elias last night…and I used Gregor’s cutters to do it.”

“Stop the carriage!” Father barks.

The carriage halts abruptly, rocking Galadriel and Father forward.

“How am I to fix this, Adelaide?” Silence lingers between us, for I haven’t an answer he’ll accept. He snatches me up by the collar. “Answer me, girl.” His scream scalds the side of my face, and I brace for his strike.

It doesn’t come.

I peel one eye open and then the other. Galadriel’s hand rests lightly upon Father’s arm, the arm that holds me in a steel grip.

Her voice, thin as a whisper, says, “I know what to do.”

Father’s grip lightens, and I slip to the ground. “Wait.” His angry gaze darts to me for a moment. Then, his face falls. “She is my daughter. She is my responsibility.”

She grasps the sides of Father’s face, her pretty blue eyes catching his gaze. “Ansel, look at me. I am a countess. They shall listen to me, and if not–” She looks down, her full lips curling into a girlish grin. “Well, there is nothing in this world that coin cannot buy.”

She rises, knocking on the carriage to summon the driver. She takes a deep breath and straightens her back. The door opens, and she ducks out. The driver holds out his hand, and she takes it like a queen. I push my back against the seat and watch her through a slit in the shutter from the safety of a carriage.

“You should have come to me,” Father hisses.

“You were angry with me.” A weak defense.

“I am still angry with you! You do not think. Of course, Konrad would have his guards searching Airsbach for the culprit. It is where he thought this rebellion started. How could you not have thought of that?” He shakes his head. “Freeing Elias was a selfish and reckless thing to do.”

“Selfish?! I saved a man’s life and risked my own to do it.”

“You saved yourself from a guilty conscience. By saving Elias from the stocks, you’ve sent him to the stake, and you may send Gregor with him.”

Galadriel saves him as we speak, I think, but the words are too bitter to speak.

“What if we parted earlier or later, Adelaide?” Father continues. “Do you think the archbishop will be a forgiving man today, after his cathedral has burned?”

“No,” I reply.

“What do you think would have happened if those guards had already arrested Gregor?” he asks. “Let me tell you. Gregor would be in the North Tower right now. Konrad would have him tortured. If Gregor yielded, then there’d be a bounty on
your
head. If Gregor did not, then Konrad would burn him at the stake. Did you think of that?

“No, you didn’t,” he continues before I have chance to speak. “And Elias, he shall never yield, Adelaide. He’s a heretic according to every law. He’ll die a heretic’s death, taking any followers, any associates with him. He’ll not think twice for doing so. The man believes himself a martyr.”

“You didn’t see him last night. So many days in the stocks would make any man cautious,” I say.

“Did so many days in the stocks make you cautious?”

His words plant seeds of doubt.

Elias might never cease. My fingers rush to my lips, stifling a gasp.
Ivo!
I’ve asked Elias to teach Ivo to read and write. If Father speaks the truth, then I’ve put Ivo in danger. The screams from the North Tower echo in my mind again. The groans, the wails, the begging, the pleading that I’d heard less than a week ago, come from Ivo.
My Ivo
.

“You have no mind for these ventures, Adelaide,” Father chides, and I concede with a shameful nod. “You are a woman and have a woman’s mind. You too often forget that.”

The sting of his words barely register
. Ivo. I have to warn him.

I turn my gaze to the outside of the carriage. Galadriel’s flaxen hair, made wavy by last night’s plait, ripples in the wind. Her cloak blows aside, revealing the subtle curve of her hips, her chest. The larger of the two guards catches sight of her. His eyes widen, and he nudges the shorter man next to him. Surely it’s not every day a lady speaks with them and certainly none so beautiful as Galadriel.

“I wish to leave, and yet the gate is blocked,” Galadriel coldly notes.

The shorter guard bows quickly, his mop of mousy curls falling into his eyes. His larger counterpart clumsily follows, strands of his thinning, fox–colored hair sliding out of place.