Read The Fairytale Keeper: Avenging the Queen Online
Authors: Andrea Cefalo
My sleep is riddled with nightmares so I rise early in the morning to escape them. My stomach is knotted and my eyes are puffy from exhaustion. I scrub my face with the cold water in my basin, untie my braid, run my fingers loosely through my crinkled hair, and re-braid it. Perhaps we can sit with Ivo’s family today at Mass. Surely they’ll go to the cathedral instead of St. Laurentius. The knots in my stomach release at the thought of seeing Ivo. I hope the sun comes out and we can spend the whole day in the shade of the trees outside Kunibert’s gate. The thought warms my stomach in a strangely pleasant way.
I let Father sleep as I sit on my bed and look out the window. The streets are still empty. The morning is cool so I wrap my cloak around my shoulders and slide my legs beneath the covers. I maintain my vigil over Airsbach, watching for parishioners heading to church.
An unfamiliar crowd of pilgrims approach, probably on their way to the cathedral to see the relics of the Three Magi. Still, there are no townspeople in the street. I haven’t heard the bells ring yet and worry for a moment that it is later than I think, yet it can’t be since I was up at dawn.
The pilgrims are always the first to Mass, but perhaps I should wake Father. I shed my nightshift and put on my hose and chainse when I hear faint voices in the distance. I wriggle my head through the neck hole and rush back to my window. A dozen or so guild members and their families are walking west on Filzengraben. Members of the group are almost unrecognizable in the distance and it takes me a moment to notice the two armed provincial guards among them. “Oh no,” I gasp. The guards have been dispatched to escort the people of Airsbach to church, though to which church I do not know. I throw on my surcote and rush to Father’s room.
“Get up! Get up! Get up!” I shout.
“What? What’s wrong?” he groans.
“The guards are escorting people to church.”
“What?” He stands in his night shift and rushes to the parlor window.
“We must go now! If the guards get here before we leave, they might make us go to St. Laurentius. I won’t go back there! I won’t!” I cry. The thought of having to go back feels like being forced to walk into an oven. My heart pounds and the sting of tears is heavy behind my eyes.
Father peers out the window and looks back at me angrily. “There are only a few people in the street.”
“Yes, but look, there are guards with them!” I say, following him back to his room.
“Fine, I’ll ready myself,” Father sighs. “Now go and—”
He’s interrupted by a thunderous pounding below us and a large snap in the workshop. Someone has broken in the door. Father throws a cloak over his shoulders and we are suddenly silent as church mice. The soft, slow tapping of footsteps echoes from the workshop, followed by the clobbering of a heavier set of feet. I freeze. My heart drums off the bones in my chest.
“Oh, this is the right house, all right. Look at all the shoes,” a nasally voice declares as though he has solved some great mystery.
“Outstanding work, you’re a regular Albertus Magnus,” a deep voice jests sarcastically. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s here. They’ve probably already left.”
“No, I know they’re here,” says the nasally-voiced man while the other man sighs in annoyance. “I’ll check the girl’s bed… I mean the beds. You check the living quarters.”
“Listen, bastard, don’t mess with that girl—” the deep voice warns.
“My name’s not Bastard! It’s Haimo! One day my Father’ll be Archbishop of Cologne and he’ll claim me and you’ll be sorry you ever called me that.”
The other man roars with laughter and their boots pound up the steps. “Your father? Father Soren? Archbishop of Cologne!”
Father motions for me to turn around so he can quickly change into his chainse and surcote. My stomach twists and the air feels too thick to swallow. Before they reach the living quarters, Father walks out and I follow him. “Who’s there?” he calls.
“There they are! I told you they were here,” shouts the nasally voice, pointing a thin finger at us from the distance of a few feet. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To church,” Father says matter-of-factly. “Walk with us if you must.”
“We have other orders,” Haimo says. “You’d better behave yourself, cobbler, or else I’ll—”
“Who gives your orders?” I ask with authority and Aldo laughs. He doesn’t have to say. I already know this is Soren’s doing. I just want to hear him say it. Who else would want to do this? Besides, Haimo seems terribly incompetent. No one but Soren would send him to do such a thing and believe the job might actually get done with some success.
“Everyone sit down,” the large man orders. I recognize his face, his voice, but I can’t pair them with a name.
Father eyes them for a moment. And I know he is wondering if he can fight them both and we can escape. The large man grabs the hilt of his sword and looks from Father to me, sending us a clear warning. Father huffs and heads to the table. I am frozen with anger, so Father drags me back toward the table by the arm.
“Come on. You’re all right,” the large man says trying to calm me down, and then I recognize him. His father was one of the old bakers in the city. His name is Aldo and he is the youngest of four. The old baker, who’s been dead a few years now, had only enough work for two of his sons. The other two were forced to find their own trades. Aldo’s younger brother, Adolph, found success as a tanner, but rumor was that Aldo had failed one apprenticeship after another, before he was accepted as a guard.
I had seen Haimo many times at St. Laurentius, ogling girls in a most sinister way with his buggy eyes. His gaze doesn’t merely pierce; it lances deeply, and makes girls feel violated. I feel his eyes on me, looking me up and down. I look out the window to avoid his gaze, to avoid giving him any hint of interest. Father’s face is like stone. He is not going to give these guards the satisfaction of fear or worry.
“I shall watch her,” Haimo says and reaches beneath the table to touch my leg, but I move it. “And you watch him,” he says to Aldo of my father.
“No,” Aldo retorts, annoyed.
“Why do you always tell me what to do?” Haimo hisses.
“Cause I outrank you, bastard,” barks Aldo.
“Well, my father—”
“My father…my father,” Aldo mimics with a whine. “Do you see what I put up with, Lord?” Aldo calls raising his hands to God.
Haimo mumbles something under his breath.
“Now what do we do?” Haimo asks.
“We sit here until we get orders.”
Haimo sighs. My fear turns to boredom as time passes painfully slowly. The guards watch us in silence. Haimo sulks, but Aldo seems relatively content with the silence. The bells chime nine, ten, eleven, and it shall soon strike noon. I wonder what will happen then. I notice Aldo’s knee pulsing like he is nervous about something.
“You have to piss, don’t you? I told you not drink so much ale,” Haimo scolds.
Aldo growls at him.
“So go. I can handle these two.”
Aldo returns a doubtful glare. Haimo is about Ivo’s size but without the lean strength that comes with hard work. Aldo’s knee bounces harder and faster in his discomfort. His brow furrows and I can guess what he is thinking:
I can’t leave her alone with Haimo and Ansel’s strong enough to take him alone.
My father slithers a hand behind me and races his fingers up my back like they were two running legs. I know what this means: when I get the chance, run.
“I’ll take the girl with me,” concludes Aldo. “I’ve got my dagger on her, Ansel. Behave yourself.”
Father stares stone-faced straight into Haimo’s. Aldo yanks me up by my arm and I mimic Father’s emotionless face as best I can. He holds me in front of him by the point of his dagger as we descend the stairs and walk out to the front of the house. I am a yard away with my back turned to give him privacy. At the sound of the first trickle, I run. I am a block away before he even notices, and three blocks away before he can finish urinating and is ready to chase me. Father charges out the front door, barrels into Aldo, and knocks him to the ground. By the time I reach the corner, Father is beside me.
“Where are we going?” I pant, trying to keep up my speed.
“I don’t know.”
“To church? Before it’s over?” I suggest.
“Too late,” Father replies.
“The Gopher?”
“Not open. Everyone’s… at church…. Out Severin’s gate…. Then down to the cottages…. Someone shall hide us… for a few coins,” he huffs. He grabs me by the arm and we run toward the gate. It is within our sights, but it is closed. Will Gregor be there? Will he open it for us?
“Stop them!” a voice yells. I look behind me and Haimo is running toward us cradling a bloody nose. The bells echo through the city and I know it is noon. Mass is over.
Three provincial guards step from the gate house to the front of St. Severin’s gate. Father grabs my arm and we turn toward St. Pantaleon’s church. If we can just make it there and the crowds are let out, perhaps we can hide among them.
The three guards are young men, not lanky boys with bloodied noses, nor fat men who have been knocked over and are covered in their own piss. These men aren’t tired from running; they don’t have skirts to carry. They are fast and they gain on us so quickly I am afraid to look back. People begin to fill the web of streets around St. Pantaleon. If we can just get there, I know we can lose them. I hear their feet pounding closer and I push myself harder. Someone grabs the train of my cloak and I scream. I pull the string that ties it and I am free again.
One person points to us and then another, and soon most of the crowd around St. Pantaleon’s looks upon us. And then something horribly strange happens, Father stops. He just stops running. Two of the men plow him down.
“Run!” I hear him yell as the men grapple with him.
But I can’t run from him. What if I never see him again? I know it is not what he wants me to do, but I run to him. The third man grabs me. My feet fly through the air as I kick and cry for him to let me go, to let Father go.
***
Haimo meets us as we get back to Severin’s gate. He whispers to one of the guards that holds Father and the men nod emphatically with wide eyes. The gate is opened and we are walked along the outside of the city which I find very strange. Why would they walk us along the outside of the city? I suppose they do not wish for anyone to see us. I am glad for it because I am quite embarrassed to be under arrest, especially as I have done nothing wrong.
I scream when we stop before the North Tower, hoping someone I know shall hear me and come to our aid. My mouth is silenced by a thickly-gloved hand. I bite as hard as I can, but don’t manage to catch flesh. The North Tower is where men are locked away and forgotten about. This is where men are tortured for information or for false confessions. I am not worried for myself. I am a girl, a child, hopefully, in the eyes of the cruel men within these cold stone walls. But what of Father? What shall happen to him? We are rushed up spiraling stone steps and separated. I am thrown into a dark, damp cell where I scream until I have no voice left with which to scream.
***
I do not know how long I am in the dark. Every scream I hear, I fear belongs to my Father as he is being tortured. It is the most horrid feeling, even worse than the last moments of my mother’s life for I cannot hold his hand, I can do nothing to help him except pray. And so I do, until my knees are raw from the damp stone floor.
The cell opens and just outside the frame of the door stands the Archbishop. My mouth drops with shock. It
is
true. He
is
here. I had overheard rumors in the market that the Archbishop had only returned to Cologne to help search for a new man to oppose the rightful King Conrad. Since the death of Conrad’s last opposition, Henry Rapse, it has become an urgent matter to fill his shoes with someone just as successful on the battlefield. It is no surprise the Archbishop didn’t announce his arrival formally for his palace gates would have been packed with those requesting an audience with him. Finding an anti-king is a most pressing matter. The Archbishop hasn’t the time for petty squabbles and land disputes.
He is a slight man with icy, scheming eyes and thin lips. I bow to him though I have no desire to. “I hear you make trouble in my city,” he says with the accent of a man who spends most of his time abroad, probably securing his own interests in Rome. “I am good at dealing with troublemakers, eh?”
“Please, I beg you to have mercy.” I drop to my knees. “Father and I tried to go to your cathedral, but—”
“I have not asked you to speak,” he interrupts. “Ignorant, indeed.”
“And feisty, Your Excellency,” pipes the guard who caught me. “She kicks like a mule and bites like a dog.”
The Archbishop turns on the guard whose face goes white. “Leave us,” he snaps. The guards bow and race from the room. The door to my cell closes behind them.
“Do you know what happens in this tower?” he asks.
“Yes, Your Excellency,” I reply thickly, feeling my tears well.
“Do you love your father?” he asks coldly.
“Yes, Your Excellency!” I cry desperately.
“Then you would save him, if you could?”
“Yes, Your Excellency!”
“Does your Father urge rebellion upon the Church?”
“Your Excellency, if I may explain—”
“Yes or no,” he prompts.
“No, Your Excellency, he tries to stop them.”
“So you know of plots?” he replies with a raised eyebrow and I know I have said too much.
“I have overheard a stranger’s whispers, but also overheard my Father tell this man that he shall go to church and has no desire to see a rebellion.”
“Of course you would defend your Father. I shall have to find ways to get the truth from him, if I cannot get it from you.” He turns to leave and I grab his robe.
“I swear it on my mother’s soul, Your Excellency!” I cry. “He is innocent!”
He turns and I can tell he almost believes me. “Perhaps you tell the truth about your father’s innocence, but I know you lie of something else. You know who incites the rebellion and yet you keep it from me. For this you and your father shall be punished. But I can be merciful. If you tell me who incites the rebellion, then your punishments shall be light.”