The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) (11 page)

“Should I show you to your rooms, Herr?” asks Lutz.

“No. I’m quite capable of finding it myself.”

He pats my shoulder on his way to the door. “Goodnight, Adelaide,” Father says. I look up. His face is lax from drink. Wine and ale always cause his iron mask to give. Usually he is a jovial drunkard, but there is a hint of sadness in his steely eyes.

The commonality of our shared sadness is strangely comforting. He turns to the door and heads into the hallway. “Goodnight Father,” I call after him.

I look around, unsure of what to do.

“Shall I show you to your room, Fraulein?” Lutz offers, and I follow him into the hall. Linus, so quiet and quick, seems to appear out of nowhere.

“You owe me a pfennig,” Lutz says to him.

“Oh, come now. We never shook on it,” Linus complains. The brothers walk side–by–side.

“You wagered, and I accepted. You owe me a pfennig.”

“I said it in passing.”

“Perhaps we should ask the Fraulein her opinion on the matter.” Lutz turns toward me, his rosebud lips pursed.

“Take your stupid pfennig if you need it so badly.” Linus reaches into a leather pouch and slaps a pfennig into his brother’s chubby palm.

“I shall be needing it. How else will I get enough to eat?”

“You eat too much already, though I have never seen a man so lean eat so much.”

“Scraps won’t be what they used to be with
him
around. In a month, I might be as lean as you.”

“It shall take more than a month.”

Lutz shrugs. “This is your room Fraulein. Sleep well.” He opens the door. Lutz elbows Linus in the ribs.

“Sleep well, Fraulein,” Linus mumbles.

I step through the door, and Lutz closes it behind me. Hildegard stands at the desk. She has been waiting on me for some time, I suppose. A large tub sits near the fire, and I approach it. It is filled two–thirds with water. The door to the presence chamber opens. The oldest laundress and one of her daughters enters, drying sheets in hand.

“Do not worry, Fraulein. The water is warmed.” Hildegard senses my apprehension and places a finger into the tub. “You’ve let it cool,” she snaps at the young eweress.

“We did not know when she would be finished with her supper, Hilde,” the mother of the younger laundress defends.

“I put a stone on the fire,” the girl snaps. “The nursemaid fusses over nothing.”

“Mind your tone,” Hildegard warns.

The girl turns on her heel and opens her mouth to argue, but the girl’s mother grabs her by the arm. “Imma,” the mother hisses, and the girl narrows her brown eyes, before returning to the fire.

She scoops a large stone between two shovels. The water hisses as she plops it into the tub. All three women turn expectant gazes on me.

“Do not be shy.” Hildegard gives a little laugh. “The countess bathes in front of us all the time.”

Hildegard approaches, and I take a step back, crossing my arms over myself.

It is not that I am unaccustomed to baths. Mama took me to the bathhouse weekly, but it feels strange that I will be the only one bathing, the only one without clothes.

“She is shy,” Hildegard says to the laundresses. “Wait in the presence chamber. I shall call if we need you.”

The mother tips her head and they go.

“I am tired,” I say. “Can I not bathe on the morrow?”

“The countess says you are to be bathed tonight, and we answer to her, dear. Things are different here than they are at home. I shall tell you what to do and leave you to it. You can lock the doors if you like. No one shall bother you while you bathe. When you are finished and dressed, unlock the door and call for us. We shall come in then.”

I nod, and she heads toward the tub. “Will you tell them?” I ask, calling after her.

She turns, her brow knit in confusion. “Will I tell who what, dear?” she asks with a compassionate laugh.

I catch myself biting my lip, afraid my unwillingness to bathe revealed my true station in life, and Galadriel shall find out. “Will you tell others that I—”

“That you are modest?” Hildegard smiles warmly. “That is an honorable trait in a young lady.”

With her kind words, my panic subsides. She hands me the tools to bathe: sponges, a bucket of herbed water, a bucket of rosewater, and drying sheets. She tells me what to do and then leaves the room.

I lock the doors and quickly get to it, afraid that even with the doors locked someone might walk in and see me naked. I scrub quickly with the herb water and submerge my scalp, scrubbing my hair. I rise and quickly douse myself with the rose water and tiptoe out of the tub, covering myself with the drying sheets as I shiver. Once dried, I slip into the sheer linen nightshift left for me on the bed. I unlock the doors and Hildegard comes. The laundresses follow, but Hildegard sends them away.

“Good night, ladies,” she says. “You can empty the tub on the morrow.”

With an obedient tip of the head, the elder laundress heads into the hall. The younger laundress follows.

Hilde picks up the chair from the desk with a groan. I fight the urge to take it from her and ask her where I should put it. That isn’t the kind of thing a lady would do for a servant—though it should be. It isn’t right for an old woman to carry heavy things. She huffs and sets the chair before the fireplace.

“Come and sit,” she says, and I do, shivering. Hildegard grabs a fur blanket from the trunk and a drying sheet from the edge of the tub.

“There you go, dear.” She wraps the blanket about my shoulders. “My, you have a mess of hair.” She twists the drying sheet around my locks to take out the wet. “Black as night, but your skin is snow white. Makes you an unusual girl—a very pretty girl though.”

Her words are a hot poker in my throat.
Snow White.
The name Mama called me. What would I not give to hear her say it again?

Of all the things that have happened today, those two words snuff out the flame of my resolve.
Hildegard stops and leans over. Her small brown eyes peer into mine, darting with worry.

“Did I pull your hair, dear?”

“No,” I say and wipe the stray tears that run down my cheeks.

“What is it then?”

“My mother used to call me Snow White.”

“Oh.” Her thin lips fold and pout. “It’s a wicked thing that fever—sent by the devil himself.” She crosses herself.

“How did you know about my mother?” I ask.

“Lady Galadriel told us.”

“What else has she told you of us?”

“That your father is a merchant, trading in wool and fabrics.”

Why would Galadriel peddle this lie before she even knew we would return with her? I dig my nails into the arms of the chair. Was it her intention to bring us back here all along?

“She said the fever was worse in Cologne,” Hildegard continues. “She feared for you both. She didn’t want to see anymore kin claimed like her husband and son.”

Perhaps Galadriel was just trying to save us. Perhaps her threat against Ivo is an empty one, made to keep me from sharing her torrid secrets.

Still, the more it seems I learn about Galadriel, the more questions I have.

“Did many die here?” I ask.

“Too many. ‘Twas the strangest thing. It left the old and the young and killed half of everybody else. We are only now getting back to sorts. The countess’ father had to send for more servants. The huntsmen died, and so Tristan came. The castellan died, and so Crispin, the carpenter’s boy, took his place. A smart boy, that Crispin. The midwife’s apprentice died a week after the midwife herself. We still haven’t found anyone to take their places—though we haven’t reason to, I suppose. Many outside the walls died too. What about Cologne, dear? Did it claim so many there, too?” Hilde puts the brush down and starts plaiting my hair.

“Thousands,” I reply. “The poorest were paid to dig a pit outside the city wall to hold the bodies, but it wasn’t big enough, so they dug a second pit, a bigger pit.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

“After a while the priests stopped performing funerals and last rites. Men roam the streets with a cart every day to load up the dead and take them to the pit.”

“Your mother—”

“No one would perform the last rites. We paid for a funeral. It did not go so well.”

In a flash, I am watching Mama burn on her pyre, seeing Soren kick the log from under it, and her corpse tumble to the ground. The rains pour down, squelching the flames, leaving her ashen body contorted.

No matter how I try to forget it, I do not think I ever shall.

“We had a second funeral,” I add. “A monk performed the rite, and our friends came. He performs the funerals still, in secret.”

“I cannot imagine, dear. Not a soul here has died without last rites or a funeral. Our Father Hannes is a godly man. He’s gone to everyone who has fallen ill, prayed with them, given them their last rites, even buried a few himself when no one else could. He’s a good man, but I have heard stories of wicked priests before. Fat drunken louses who take tithes for their own good. A man like that wouldn’t have lived a week in Bitsch. If Lord Ulrich hated one thing, it was a man who did not live by his word.”

I nod and feel relief. “Will Father Hannes be at morning mass?”

“Of course, dear. ‘Tis always him unless someone is dying of the fever, but the fever left us months ago, and, praise God, ‘tis not returned.”

“You think he might say a prayer for my mother, if I ask him?”

“Of course, dear and if you’re feeling shy again tomorrow, I can ask him for you.”

I smile at her and get a warm feeling.

She might be someone I can trust.

Hildegard ties the plaits off with a ribbon. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, never have I plaited that much hair. You have enough hair for three maids, at least.” She rises with a groan and takes the chair back to the desk. “Do not take that wrong, dear. ‘Tis a joy to have a nice girl and to plait hair again. To bed now. You’ve got to be up early for matins.”

Hildegard removes a cobblestone from the hearth. She wraps it in a wet sheet and then a dry one. I pull back the blankets and slip into the cool, soft bed linens. Hildegard slides the wrapped stone into the bed.

“There you are now, dear. That’ll keep your toes warm for the night. I’ll leave you to your prayers and see you in the morning.”

I nod, and she leaves, offering another warm smile before closing the door.

The room seems so big and dark with no one in it but me. The bed is warm, and my eyelids grow heavy, but I reluctantly force myself from the sheets and kneel on the cool, hard floor to say my prayers.

I have so many, so much to pray for. My head bobs as I try to stay awake to say it all.

Late in the night, I wake, with my head on the bed and my knees on the ground, shivering and confused.

Where am I?

My eyes adjust to the dark and dart about the room.

A glass window, flanked by evergreen drapes, reflects embers from the dying fire. Large wooden columns rise from each corner of this bed like towers. Thick fabric makes a flat roof at the top.

I run my fingers along the coverlet, smooth, shimmering, and evergreen like the drapes. A great tub looms at the edge of the bed. The realization comes like a wave, leaving dread in its wake, but I’m tired, too tired to care.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, do you always wake in such tangles? You must thrash about your bed something awful,” Hildegard complains as she forces the brush through my unruly hair, yanking my head with each stroke. “You’d hardly know I plaited your hair at all.”

Hildegard’s knock came a little while ago, and it is still dark. I look to the bed longingly, not only because I am tired but because every moment I am awake is a reminder that I am not in Cologne and that I must not only do whatever Galadriel bids, I must anticipate what she wants me to do before she commands it.

Hildegard pulls the brush, and I grit my teeth. “Does it hurt? You have to tell me these things.” A childhood memory, long forgotten, returns to me in voices and sensations: the tug on my hair, the sharp pain in my scalp, the faint sound of my own crying, and Mama cooing to me, apologizing with each stroke of the brush.

Matins fills with faces: some familiar and most not, though two very familiar faces haven’t shown: Galadriel’s and Father’s.

That seems quite unfair.

Why must I rise before dawn for mass while they sleep until it pleases them? I suppose it is good that at least I am here. God hears our prayers best in a church, and a chapel is close enough.

A nobleman kneels in the first row, his head bowed in prayer. Does Galadriel have another guest, a man we haven’t yet met? He looks over his shoulder at my approach. I hesitate, for it is no strange nobleman but a sight even stranger: my father, sitting in the first row of a chapel, early to mass, his black, shoulder–length hair neatly combed back. He slides deeper into the pew, and I join him, bowing my head in prayer.

The mass is long, for there are many fever victims to pray for. When Mama’s name is uttered, I feel a sad smile creep upon my lips until I hear the surname that follows it: von Cologne.

Katrina von Cologne?!

What is the point in praying for Mama if every lip utters the wrong name?!

Anger boils in my blood. The searing heat rises to my cheeks, surely coloring them red.

I unleash an angry stare on Father.
How could you,
my glare says.
How could you let that witch take Mama’s name, too!?

But his shocked, wounded eyes are downcast, unseeing. He looks like a man run through with a long sword. So he
didn’t
know. This was Galadriel’s doing. I grip the pew to keep from rising, from crossing the chapel, the stairs, the hall, and storming into Galadriel’s chambers to slap her across the face.

Of course, Galadriel would have Mama known as Katrina von Cologne, the dead wife of a wealthy merchant. It would raise questions if she did not.

Father’s stare burns into the side of my face, but I cannot bare to look at him. He gave up our home. He gave up our legacy. He gave up our name. And now, I cannot even pray for my own mother.

At the end of mass, I leave the chapel, fuming, storming past the chambermaids. But I catch an urgency in the tone of their whispers, and I hear the words “countess” and “unwell.” I dampen my pace so I can hear more.

Galadriel is unwell, they say, sick to her stomach and exhausted.

They mention Galadriel’s illness during our travels, the illness caused by my laced wine. Galadriel believes that it is this illness that returns to her. Only I know this to be impossible. The maids suggest everyone should pray for her at next mass until her health is restored.

This is what she gets for robbing my mother of needed prayers, for spewing lies like nonchalant observations, for seducing grieving widowers.

Her health shall be the last prayer on my lips.

Father approaches his presence chamber ahead of me, the soles of his fancy boots scuffling along the stone floor. I wish I could see his face. Is it pained? Is he angry at all for what Galadriel’s done? But all I can see is his slick, combed hair, his fine surcote, and the garish, new boots that take him quickly down the hallway. He is either hungry or angry. I hope it is the latter.

Galadriel sits at the table, waiting for us, her eyes following Father as we enter his presence chamber for dinner. A soft smile warms her pale face. I’d like to pick up one of the eating knives and stab it through her heart. Before she died, I’d ask her to find Katrina von Cologne in the afterlife and give her a kiss for me.

But I can’t say or do any of that. Father bows into his chair, and I wait for him to exact my vengeance, utter my words.

“I hear you are unwell, milady,” Father prods, placing a hunk of bread on his charger.

I hear you are unwell?!

These are his words to her.

I grit my teeth.
Galadriel is merely sleepy with a sour stomach. Mama is dead and in far greater need of prayers, prayers she cannot have because of that trollop. I shake my head, thinking Ansel von Cologne buried Ansel Schumacher in a grave next to his wife.

“It is nothing, Herr,” Galadriel replies sweetly, breaking her loaf into tiny pieces. “Tired from travels. That is all.”

Father nods, and we eat in silence.

Without warning, Galadriel’s chair scrapes along the floor, and she clumsily rises. “Marianna,” she stammers, “I am…unwell.”

Marianna and Johanna rush to her side. Father’s brow furrows, and he rises, standing dumbfounded, as the ladies help her from the room.

I return to my bedchamber and sit at the desk looking out the window. I run my finger along the cool glass, which distorts the view, making everything below seem so far away.

The door opens and Hildegard rushes in.

“Now do not be worried. The countess shall be fine,” Hildegard soothes.

I hope she dies, I think but don’t dare say. I hope she dies and everyone forgets her surname when they pray for her.

“‘Tis the traveling. She’s done too much of it,” Hildegard scolds as though Galadriel is here to hear it. She heaves a heavy sigh. “It will be a boring day for you, with no sewing, no music. I could bring you some sewing if you like.”

“No, thank you, Hildegard.”

A blond peasant boy, chasing a chicken in the bailey below, catches my gaze. I think of Levi and then of Ivo.

“Do you think you could get me pen and parchment, Hildegard?”

“I suppose but for what, dear?”

“I should like to write a friend.”

“Oh, of course.”

“May I have my own stack and my own ink well with pen?”

“For one letter?”

“It shan’t be the last one I write. Wouldn’t it be easier if I had my own stack rather than force someone to fetch a sheet each time I need it?”

“I shall have Linus fetch it from Herr Herrmann. Surely he shouldn’t mind.”

“Thank you, Hildegard,” I say, but before she leaves, I think about the letter I’d written a few days ago. “Have any letters come for me?”

She chuckles. “‘Tis a bit early for that, isn’t it now? You just got here yourself.”

“How long might it take to get a letter from Cologne?”

“I wouldn’t know. Sending out the letters is the steward’s duty, not mine, dear. Shall I have Linus ask him for you?”

“No, Hildegard,” I say.

“You can call me Hilde, dear. Saves you a breath.” She smiles warmly and waddles out of the room.

Not long after Hilde returns, there is a knock on the door. I turn, and Linus stands with a thick stack of parchment, a pen, and an ink well. Never before had I seen so much parchment.

My cheeks pinch.

I am smiling, a skill nearly forgotten. Linus blushes and averts his eyes before handing Hildegard the stack and shuffling back into the hallway.

Hilde sets the stack onto my desk. “Here you are.”

“Thank you,” I reply, and she hovers above me. “May I have privacy to write my letter, Hilde?”

She nods, pats me gently on the shoulder, and slips into the presence chambers. The hinges whine as Hilde closes the door behind her, and I sink into the soft chair.

Being around others exhausts me. I must sit straight. I must guard my words and expressions. I’d rather be alone than always cautious.

I stretch my arms over my head and peer down into the bailey through the distorted glass as another boy, short and thin, dawdles near his mother. She balances milk pails on a bar across her shoulders as her son skips circles around her. He nearly runs right into her, and she stumbles.

The pails rock from the jarring and small waves of cream splash over the rims. She chastises the boy, who bows his head as they walk toward the manor. She kneels and bows behind the bar. The boy picks up one pail and she, the other. Tristan exits, a bow and quiver slung across his shoulders. He nearly runs the pretty young woman down. He stops and reaches a hand out to steady her. They talk, and she smiles before he jogs toward the gate, but he stops and looks up toward the castle. I sink lower into the chair, afraid he might catch me watching.

His worried gaze turns to Galadriel’s window like a chivalrous knight worried for the lady of the castle.

What is it that makes men mad for her? If I believed in witches, I’d think her one.

Perhaps, this is a thing men do for their ladies to gain favor. Perhaps, it is because she is so pretty. I hope that Tristan, so innocent in his devotion, sees her for her true self and runs into those woods, never to return. For Galadriel is cursed, she poisons everyone, everything she touches.

The little boy and his pretty young mother return. She has dark hair. His is buttery gold.