The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) (23 page)

“She is so pretty,” Reinhilde says longingly.

“I am sure she would like to have a girl like you in her court.”

The girl’s eyes are longing. She seems so much younger than thirteen. “Do you think so?” she asks.

“Oh, yes.”

“Will you stay here or shall your stepmother send you away, too?” she asks.

I am in the midst of sipping my wine when she asks. It goes down hard, and I cough before answering her. “She’ll send me away.”

“Do you know where?”

I shake my head, unsure of whether I should share the news of the Duchess of Lorraine’s reluctant invitation.

“Mother says it is not the business of a girl to know what her orders shall be but to do what she is bid when she is bid it.” Her words drips with sadness and resignation.

“Oh,” I blurt, feeling quite bad for her. It is a thought most girls resign to, especially those of her station.

Perhaps, I, too, resigned to fate long ago. I was born to a cobbler, an only child. And like all little girls, my fate was determined by my father.

I
would
be a cobbler. I
would
marry a craftsman. These words were stitched into the fabric of my soul when I was too young and obedient to question them. And now they are ripped away, leaving a gaping hole surrounded by tattered strings.

I hate the thought. The desire for these things felt like a choice, and now I’m not sure it ever was. Even if it was, why should I get the privilege so few girls get? It almost feels wrong that I should choose my own fate when girls like Reinhilde cannot. Almost.

There is so much wine. It could make the Rhine bleed red. It comes and comes and comes. I wait for someone to announce that we have run out, but that announcement is never made. I abstain. I have a story to tell. To be drunk when telling it would shame my mother…and infuriate Galadriel.

A man rushes to the corner and retches from the window. Laughter and teasing follow. The smell of vomit begins to mix with that of baking bread. Surely, Uncle orders more food to sober these over–indulgent drunkards. I slip into the hallway, though no one seems to notice or care.

A faint cry echoes through the stairwell, coming from above. I crest the stairs two at a time and find a large man pressed against the wall. The cry sounds again, and I crane my neck. He’s not pressed against the wall. He’s pressed against a woman. The man slides sausagey fingers along the curves of her chest. It is the pretty, buxom kitchen maid who usually serves our meals.

“Milord, the next courses come and I…” she trails off as she catches my gaze. Her eyes are pleading.

“Maid!” I cry out, a bit shamed that I haven’t yet learned her name. The man turns for a moment, his eyes lax from drink. “There you are,” I hiss. “You’re needed downstairs, and here you are acting the harlot with our guest! You shame yourself and this household. Now get to the kitchen!”

The kitchen maid scoots from the man’s arms, curtsies before me, and rushes down the stairs, her face painted with relief.

The nobleman’s chubby lips, glistening with spit, pinch into a spoiled pout. “She’s just having a bit of fun,” he slurs.

I say nothing, straightening my posture so he thinks I am his equal, even if I am not. I march toward my room, but he grabs me by the arm and whips me toward him. He looks upon me, hungrily, like he’s a starving street urchin, and I am a slice of sweating cheese.

I narrow my eyes and grit my teeth. I almost want him to say something vile. I’ll kick him so hard between his hose that he’d never think to look lustily upon an unwilling maid again. No one could punish me for it, for protecting my virtue. He releases me with a backward shove. I brush his appalling touch from the sleeve of my chainse.

“You think you are grand now, do you, girl?”

“That is Lady Adelaide to you,
milord
.”

“
Pfft
. You and your father are nothing but upstarts.”

“If that is how you feel, you should not have come. Since it is you, milord, who think yourself so
grand
, go to your own
grand
estate, have your own
grand
harlots, and drink your own
grand
wine. Although from the looks and smell of you, I would say you’ve had enough of our upstart wine to last you a year.”

His eyes widen with shock.

I turn like Johanna would, whipping my skirts around and walking with the straight confidence of a lady. I pass Father’s rooms and see another man with his hands on a very willing woman. I sigh, and they do not seem a bit disturbed by my presence. I reach my room, open the door, and lock it behind me. The bells toll once, and there is a knock on the door.

So much for a moment’s peace.

When Cinderella appeared at the festival in this dress, everyone was astonished at her beauty. The prince had waited until she came, then immediately took her by the hand, and danced only with her.

–Cinderella

I ignore the rapping at the door. Perhaps, whoever it is shall just go away if I don’t answer. The lock clicks, and the hinges whine. My thoughts turn to the lusty drunkard in the hall. Could he have bribed a servant for the key?

I scan the room looking for a weapon. My eyes rest upon the hearth. I grab a poker from the fireplace and a candlestick from the mantle.

“Who is it?” I ask, warning heavy in my voice.

“It’s me, dear.” Hilde’s voice is shaken. “Are you all right?”

I toss my makeshift weapons to the floor and throw open the door. Hilde rushes in, panicked. “I just saw Mary! She’s quite upset.” She takes my hands in hers. Her eyes, wide as a doe’s, brim with pride. “That was very brave—what you did for her.”

“Oh,
Mary
. I can never remember her name,” I say. “Why did she not fight the whoreson off herself? She is bigger than I.”

Hilde releases my hands with a sigh. “She could be put out for that.”

“God’s teeth! That’s horrid! Do you think Galadriel would do something so cruel?” I shake my head at the stupidity of my own question. If she could see Ivo burned at the stake, she could easily cast out a servant.

“You would be surprised what a noblewoman would do when pressed by her betters.”

“That man is no one’s better.”

Hilde nods, and then approaches the hearth, plopping into a chair. She looks, befuddled and concerned, at the poker and candlestick sprawled across the ground. I quickly return them to their rightful place.

“I didn’t know who was at the door,” I excuse, and she nods.

“Are you still going to tell your story?” Hilde asks.

I sit with a heavy sigh. “Is there anyone sober enough to hear it?”

She smiles warmly. “They’re not so soused as they were. Your uncle ordered the wine to be watered, Ettienne’s bread has come, and Hedy rushes the next courses.”

The heat of the fire is comforting and fatigue weighs heavy on my shoulders. “Must I go now?”

“No, I suppose we can wait a little while, milady.”

I cringe. She sometimes forgets and calls me
dear
. I much prefer that over my new title.

“Are you nervous, dear?” Hilde asks.

I heave another sigh. “Yes. I don’t know that I have the story by memory.”

“The Strasburg girl shall read her tale from a book.”

“Will she really?”

“Of course. Her story is quite long.” Hilde nods. “Just write your story down, dear, and read it from the parchment.”

“She is the girl telling the tale of Tristan and Isolde?”

“Yes, her grandfather wrote it, dear.”

“That is a lie. Tristan and Isolde is an old French tale, and her grandfather was German. He may have written it down, but he didn’t write it.”

“You’d better not let the countess catch you being so contrary,” Hilde warns.

“I speak the truth.”

Her gaze is challenging. “How many times must I tell you that no one cares to hear a woman’s truths?”

I tire of the debate and return to the subject of storytelling. “I know the Romance of Tristan. Mama used to tell.” A lump of grief rises in my throat. “
She
never needed a book to read from.”

”Your mother wasn’t born telling stories, Lady Adelaide. She
learned
them. Perhaps she read them. Perhaps they were told to her, but she learned them, and you shall learn them, as well. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you remember her stories well enough to have written them down now, don’t you?” She fusses. “All you need is a little strong wine for courage.” She leans back into the chair and then rocks herself forward so she can rise.

“No, Hilde. No wine. Just stay here with me a moment longer,” I say, and her brow knits again. I rise and grab the parchment from the desk, perusing a tale I call Cinderella, born of a conversation Galadriel and I had a month ago. “Will you listen to me tell it…and let me know if it sounds all right?”

“Of course,” she groans as she sinks back into the chair. “An old woman like me could use a few moments off her feet, but we cannot stay too long.”

A wan smile pinches my cheeks. “Then I’ll be quick.”

Hilde walks beside me as I repeat the tale of Cinderella over and over in my head. She squawks about something: the dangers of roaming the castle alone, how I should stand up straight, or stop chewing my lip. I don’t know which. I bar her out of my mind, her voice distant yet grating like the chatter of mice in the ceiling when one is trying desperately to sleep. I nod, hoping my resignation silences her. It doesn’t.

The doors to the great hall swing open. The multitudes of conversation rise from hum to noise. Maids bustle out carrying empty trays, rushing into the stairwell. I look past Hilde to the throng of nobles. My throat clenches and rib cage constricts.

“You did well the other day,” Hilde soothes as the doors close. “And you didn’t even practice that tale.”

“That was in front of villagers…and children.”

“Then imagine them as children.” She lowers her voice, and her eyes dart about, looking for unwelcome listeners. “For that’s all they truly are. A bunch of blubbering children who can hardly wipe their chins or arses without help.”

I laugh despite myself.

She shushes me, before breaking into laughter herself. “‘Tis true.”

She releases my arms and takes me by the hand, leading me to the door but leaving me to enter the great hall alone.

Men lean back in their chairs, hands upon their swollen bellies. Clarity and awareness wash over the once lax faces of these drunkards.

As the dessert courses come, a tall red–haired girl with fair skin rises from the table, and Uncle once again heads toward Galadriel and Father to announce her. She cradles a book with her heavily freckled hands and sits on a chair at the head of the hall, near Galadriel and Father.

The story of Tristan and Isolde is dull. It’s a tale of a man’s life and his tragic love for a woman married to his kin and king, but by the end you don’t feel like you know either of them at all. They do not speak to each other, the events are stated, not described. Reading it is like listening to someone give you directions from Hay Market to church. I do not see how it is such a legend to us. Mama’s stories were more interesting by far.

I lift my charger and tuck the parchment beneath it, leaving it behind. A good storyteller, a storyteller by blood like me, should never read her stories from parchment.

The Strasburg girl doesn’t tell the tale. She reads it. She doesn’t look up from the pages. She doesn’t pause to create suspense. My attention ebbs, and it isn’t her story that passes the time but my own rambling thoughts. A short silence and polite applause signifies the end to the tale.

It is then, when Uncle’s expectant gaze meets mine, that the anxiety flutters through me. His nose crinkles, and I realize I am chewing my cheek, contorting my face. A deep breath brings resolve, and as much as I wish I could expel the nerves with an exhale, I can’t.

I rise ever so straightly as expected and smooth any wrinkles in my skirts.

I hide beneath this velvet dress, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. No,
I
am a sheep in wolf’s clothing, for these nobles are wolves, ruthless and calculating. Willing to sell their daughters to old men in order to rise, willing to violate a servant simply because they can.

I was a cobbler, a storyteller, a commoner once upon a time, and now I am one of
them
. A loathsome part of me wants these nobles to measure me and deem me good. What truly scares me is how I hate myself less and less each time I pretend for them.

Dozens of uninterested eyes fall upon me. I look to Father, glad now to make these people wait on me. He smiles proudly back. I think upon what Hilde said:
Imagine them all as children.

I don’t need to.

Everyone in the room seems to disappear, everyone but one, Galadriel. This story is for her.

“A rich man’s wife became sick, and when she felt her end drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, ‘Dear child, remain pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you always.’

“With this, the woman closed her eyes and died.

“The daughter went out to her mother’s grave every day and wept. And, just as her mother had told her to do, she remained pious and good.

“When winter came, the snow spread like a white cloth over the grave, and when the spring sun had removed it again, her father took himself another wife.

“This wife brought with her two daughters who were beautiful, with fair faces, though their hearts were dark and wicked.

“Times soon grew very bad for the poor stepchild.

“The stepsisters would ask, ‘Why should that trollop sit with us to sup? If she wants to eat bread, then she will have to earn it.’ And with her merchant father gone, the evil stepsisters had their way.

“They took her beautiful clothes and shoes away, dressing her in servant’s clothes.

“‘Just look at the proud princess!’ The poor girl’s stepsisters teased. ‘How adorned she is!’ They laughed and laughed.

“There the girl worked from morning until evening, getting up before dawn, carrying water, making the fires, cooking, and washing.

“They scattered her supper of peas into the ashes so that she had to sit and pick them out again. This was all she had to eat each day.

“And in the evening, when she had worked herself weary, there was no bed for her. Instead she had to sleep by the hearth in the ashes. Because she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her…”

My gaze flits to Galadriel, “Cinderella.”

Galadriel’s smile falters at the name. It was the name she was tormented with at the hands of her stepmother and sisters. Surely, she saw similarities between this tale and hers, but from now until the end of the tale, she will squirm, wondering if today is the day that I expose her for what she is.

I look to Johanna from across the room and wonder if she knows this story, too. Her wrathful eyes say yes. Marianna stands beside her, face blanched, gripping Johanna’s forearm like she might swoon. I shift my gaze back to the audience, starting where I left off.