The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) (17 page)

“I know what you are up to,” she hisses.

“And what is that, milady? Am I not allowed to speak with my own uncle?”

Fury flickers in her eyes. “Do not feign innocence with me! Or I shall tell
her
everything.”

“And what shall you tell
her
?”

“That you tried to stop her wedding.”

“I did no such thing, milady.”

“I heard you.”

“
He
didn’t even hear me. I was silenced before I was able to say anything of importance at all. This marriage is bad for us all. It is bad for Galadriel. We have no titles, no coin, no lands to offer. You know this. I was hoping her father could find her a better husband, a richer husband.”

“It’s too late for her now.”

“It doesn’t have to be–”

Her expression darkens. “I am doing you a kindness, so listen closely, street urchin, for I shan’t do it again. The countess holds something over you, and if you do anything to displease her today, she
will
use it. This wedding will happen today.”

I take a deep breath and swallow my utter hatred for Galadriel’s hench–woman. “Now, follow me,” she says. “I shall take you to your uncle.”

Johanna turns and heads to the chapel, not even ensuring that I follow her—but I do.

“I have wondered what it is that she holds over you to make you behave,” Johanna goads. “It cannot be your father’s safety. She loves him too much to harm him, and I doubt you fear for your own safety or name. Your mother is dead, so no harm can be done there. Then that letter came yesterday,” she looks over her shoulder with the slightest smirk, “and I knew exactly what it was. She knows something about that suitor of yours, does she not?”

I try to put on a mask of ambivalence, of confusion, but the anger brims.

“Oh, Galadriel was right about you,” she says with amusement. “Your face tells all.”

I ignore the dig. I haven’t time for this game of quips. I must find more time to think.

We walk up the steps, Johanna’s grey–green train flowing upward like a backwards brook. I place my shoe on the hem of her skirt. The tear is audible. So is Johanna’s horrified gasp.

Her hair whips, a golden curtain, as she whirls around, reaching for the tear at her waist. “My dress! You’ve ripped it!”

“I am sorry, milady,” I say. “My mind was elsewhere. How clumsy of me.”

“Clumsy indeed! You did it on purpose!” she hisses. “If you think this shall buy you time, I assure you it will not. Now, come with me.”

I tip my head and follow her up the stairs to my room. She throws open my trunk and pulls out one dress after another. My eyes rove across the room for anything that can save me, but the only thing to catch my gaze is the cobblestone on my mantle. And what am I going to do with that? Bash Johanna over the head and then do the same to Galadriel?

Think, Addie. Think!

My thoughts are a useless spiral of panic.

“You should know that there are guards waiting in the stairwell to lock you in your rooms if you do anything rash, “ Johanna says.

“That is a lie.”

“Oh, is it? Run away and see for yourself.” Johanna yanks out the burgundy velvet that I wore a few days ago. She sneers. “I suppose this will have to do.” She peels off her silk and slips into the dress. It is too short, and her shift peeks from beneath.

“Perhaps we should go to your rooms and find something a little…longer,” I suggest.

She ignores me and hastens to the mirror, quickly regarding her appearance. Tearing Johanna’s dress only bought me moments, and none of them were useful. Johanna’s rueful eyes fall upon my dissatisfied reflection. She smiles.

“Now, cheer up, street urchin.” She blinks back at me. “Many things can change in a month or more—like you said. Maybe fate will smile upon you, and Galadriel shall die in childbirth. Then your father will be a rich man, a titled man, and you can go marry your Colognian stallion and bring him back with you.”

“I would think someone of your station would take more care with the things she says, milady.”

“My station?” She laughs. “Oh, Adelaide, you should be our courtly fool. Do you honestly think you could repeat what I’d just said to the countess and anyone would believe you?”

“I was once told that even the walls have ears in a court and that one should be careful what she says.”

“That is good advice. Now let me give you some.” She steps forward, her jaw set and eyes hooded in shadow. “Sometimes you can fight fate and sometimes you cannot.

“You are a woman of the courts now, and fate shall hand you what it will. As a lady, it is your duty to hold your head up high, to show fate, and everyone else, that you are not beaten.

“But you won’t heed my advice. I can see it in your stubborn eyes. Some people must learn their lessons the hard way, I suppose.” She sighs. “Let us go. Fate is calling.”

Johanna races through the hallways ahead of me but pauses at the stairwell. I stand and wait for her to go ahead. She shakes her head at me. “Do not think I shall fall for that trick again. You go first this time.”

Just as I place my foot on the first step, a door creaks open. I crane my neck, looking past Johanna into the hallway. It’s Father. His black hair is slicked back and his chin freshly shaved. The sleeves of his scarlet damask tunic peek through a quilted surcote, the color of cream. I barely recognize him.

Johanna’s lips purse. “We should wait here for your father,” she whispers. “When he comes, you will tell him how well he looks, and then you will congratulate him.”

I swallow hard. Father closes the door gently, and when he turns, I notice the sigil of Bitsch, a black writhing serpent, stitched in inky velvet across his heart. At the sight of it, all the fight in me wilts. He’s going to marry her. And it doesn’t matter what I say or feel or do.

His footsteps sound through the empty hallway. Still, he hasn’t noticed us. His fingers fumble with the edge of his sleeve.

“Good morning, milord.” Johanna curtsies.

Startled, he clears his throat. “Good morning.”

“We thought we might escort you to the chapel, milord,” Johanna offers.

He narrows his eyes at me. “You two should have been in the chapel already.”

I fight the rising disdain on my face, the urge to pounce and beat him with my fists for doing this to us.

“Forgive us, milord. I had a tear in my dress, and Lady Adelaide was kind enough to lend me one of hers.”

“Oh.” Father sounds surprised. “I am glad to hear it.”

Johanna nudges me in the ribs.

“You are looking well this morning, Father,” I lie. A groom usually beams on his wedding day. Or sulks at being forced to marry an ugly mare. Father’s face is blank. “I congratulate you on your wedding. May it bring you much happiness.”

“May it bring us all happiness,” he replies.

“Amen,” Johanna says.

Father descends the stairs. I surge forward to follow, but Johanna points up. We climb the stairs and cross to the other side of the castle, taking routes that were unknown to me. She pauses at a locked door and knocks. A man–at–arms opens the door, and we slip into a narrow hallway to another set of stairs.

The clouds are thick today, and the hallway as dim as night. I feel as though I am walking further and further into an unescapable abyss. The wind whistles. A whisper sings shrilly on its frigid breeze. I know what it says. If Johanna weren’t behind me, I’d cover my ears.

Weak
. It whistles
. Weak, weak, weak
.

And then I remember what the firefly said next.
You’ll never save them
.
You can’t even save yourself.

Johanna’s irritated huff jars me into the present. “Hurry along, Adelaide,” she chimes. “Fate is calling on us…and you’re making us late.”

Father Hannes excused the sin of this Lenten wedding. “Does God not smile at babes born and flowers blooming in Lent,” he asked. “Then why not give Him another reason to rejoice. I say let this man and this woman whom He brought together to wed.” Galadriel grinned stupidly at his words.

My fingers curled into fists. Father and Galadriel’s sins played through my mind like a mummer’s whirlwind. After that, I kept my head down and silently prayed the rosary for my mother.

Now that the wedding is ended, feelings reminiscent to those after her death stir within me. Sadness at the recognition of my absolute powerlessness. Relief at no longer needing to fight. But more than anything I am tired. The walk from the the chapel to the bedchamber has never felt so long.

My fingers rest on the door handle, and a realization stops me short. This is not
the
bedchamber. It is
my
bedchamber. The thought sinks heavy in my stomach.

I open the door, and Hilde cries out, slapping her hand to her bosom. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You startled me, dear…er, Lady Adelaide.”

“Please…don’t call me that,” I say, peeling off my shoes and plopping onto the bed.

She waves her hand dismissively, and I notice her red nose and swollen eyes.

“Are you all right, Hilde?”

She sniffles. A handkerchief peeks out from her chubby fingers. “Lord Ulrich,” she stammers, fiddling with the fabric. “He’s not been dead a year.” She breaks into sobs
.

My mother hasn’t been dead a month
.

This thought that should bring tears, brings nothing. The exhausting numbness shields me.

I cross the room and wrap my arms around her.

“Oh, listen to me. ‘Tis I who should be comforting you. Your mother’s hasn’t been gone but a month.” Her red eyes search mine for something between forgiveness and commonality. “Come here, let us grieve together.”

I sit at her feet as she unfurls the plaits in my hair. We share a flagon of strong wine. Each swallow warms me from throat to stomach.

“Did Galadriel tell you much about Ulrich, dear?” Hilde asks.

“Only a little,” I reply.

“They called him the devil you know.” She giggles. “He would pull his sister’s hair and blame it on their cousin and wouldn’t they all fight like tomcats.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Oh, one sibling always causes trouble.”

“I would never have done that,” I say. “I always wanted a sister…or brother.”

“You’ll have one soon enough,” she says.

Yes, I think. At my mother’s death, my father’s affair, and the loss of my home, I will finally have the sibling that I always coveted. I wonder if Hilde knows how soon it will actually be.

“So tell me about your mother, dear. What was she like?”

“She looked like Marianna,” I say. “But Mama’s hair was lighter, and her eyes were brown. She was the best storyteller in all of Cologne.”

Hilde asks me to tell her one of Mama’s stories, so I recite Rumpelstiltskin for her—stumbling through the tale.

Hilde applauds my effort, her puffy eyes filled with genuine pride. It was a terrible retelling, and I don’t deserve the praise.

I’m forgetting Mama’s stories.

The guilt is a hard lump in my throat. But Hilde is like a doting mother: proud of the smallest accomplishments and blind to everything but the most apparent of faults.

We sit in a comfortable silence before the fire. My eyelids grow heavy as she gently twirls the tendrils of my hair around her soft fingers until I resign to sleep.

It is warm, and the air is thick.

I toss sleeplessly when it is too warm to coil beneath the false safety of the blankets, but I am tired tonight, so perhaps I shall sleep well. At least I hope so.

I have three fireflies in a jar next to my bed thanks to Ivo. He tries to convince me to join him in the DeBelle fields at dusk to catch them, but Father won’t allow it.

I peer through my open window. A cool breeze rolls on the night wind and brushes my cheek. The fireflies rise and fall like fat, flitting golden stars. I rest my chin on the sill of the window and watch, wondering if Ivo is in the DeBelle fields right now with a glass jar, catching more fireflies for me.

Mama climbs the ladder to my room. Her eyes are worn and puffy. A good daughter would tell her to go to bed, but I look forward to her story each night and so I selfishly say nothing.

I wonder if she has trouble sleeping like me. I know sleeping beside Father is much like sleeping too close to the hearth. When I was first put to my own room and had nightmares, I would climb down the ladder and sneak into their bed. If I slept between them, I woke in the night covered in sweat. I wonder if she does the same and if it robs her of sleep, especially now that it is summer.

I slide over, giving her the larger part of my small bed. She slips in and sets the candle next to my fireflies. They flit towards the flame, tinking against the sides of the jar.

“I’m tired,” Mama says through a yawn. “You tell the story tonight, my little Snow White.”

“But I don’t tell them right.”

“It takes practice,” she slips deeper into the covers, “which is why you should tell the story tonight.”

“You tell it. You’re the best storyteller in all of Cologne,” I don my best fake pout. “Please.”

“No,” she coos and yawns again. “How shall you ever remember them if you never tell them?”

“I am too little still,” I reason. “When I am older, when I have a little brother or sister.”

Mama stiffens. “And what if you do not?” She rolls back over, propping herself up on one arm. “What if you always wait for something that never comes? Our stories shall be lost with no one to tell them.”

I sigh. “Why don’t you write them down? Then, I won’t have to remember them. I can just read them. I can give them to my children and they to their children. People will know them forever.”

“You are a silly girl,” she says with a smile, fine lines creasing around her lips.

“When I am older, I shall write them down, every single one.”

“How shall you write them if you haven’t remembered them?” She raises her chestnut eyebrows.

“You can tell them, and I’ll write down what you say.”

“Oh, I suppose that would work, but how shall you ever afford so much parchment?”

“I shall be the richest cobbler in all of Cologne.”

She gasps in jest at this. “And what of your father?”

“He can be the second richest.”

She laughs. “Did you hear that, husband?” Mother calls down the ladder.

“What now?” he calls cheerfully.

“Adelaide says that she shall be the richest cobbler in all of Cologne one day!”

“God willing!” Father hollers back.

“And she says that you can be her second!” Mother adds.

There is a silence and then a loud chuckle.