The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest (5 page)

Odette admired the look in his blue-green eyes. He did not disapprove of her teaching poor orphans. She refrained from telling him that she also sometimes brought them food and fed them before the day’s lesson, as she couldn’t bear to think that some of them hadn’t eaten all day. And she certainly couldn’t tell him that she slept much of the day because she spent her nights poaching.

“I think that is . . .” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “A very good thing.”

One of the boys had told her that the new forester gave him food when he went and knocked on the door of the old gamekeeper’s cottage. Was that man Jorgen?

The mood had grown somber. Did the thought of the poor children make Jorgen sad? She decided to change the direction of their conversation. “How do you and Mathis know each other?”

“We attended the town school together when we were boys.”

“I heard my name!” Mathis called from behind them.

Odette turned to include Mathis in the conversation, but Jorgen was slower to turn.

They were at the fountain now, and it was almost their turn to get water.

“We were talking about how you and Jorgen know each other.”

“Oh, Jorgen and I knew each other as boys. We fought once, if I remember correctly, over something I said. Jorgen was serious and did not like my sense of humor, I am afraid.”

“What did you say?” Odette wanted to know.

“It was many years ago,” Mathis said. “I don’t remember. Probably Ulrich Schinkel dared me to insult Jorgen.”

“I remember.” Jorgen had that somber expression again as he stepped forward and took the copper dipper that hung on the fountain, used it to catch the clear water pouring out, and handed it to Odette.

“Thank you.” Their eyes met. Would he tell what he and Mathis had fought over? She kept her gaze on Jorgen over the rim of the dipper as she drank.

Mathis took another dipper and caught some water for himself.

When it seemed Jorgen would not tell what had happened, Mathis said, “We were both learning to read and write at the Thornbeck School for Boys, but with very different . . . childhood upbringings.”

Jorgen shot Mathis a warning look, which made Mathis shake his head. “But Jorgen has done well for himself, much better than . . .”

Odette held her breath, waiting to see what Mathis would say. Finally, he ended the sentence with, “the old gamekeeper who raised him.”

So the old gamekeeper raised him but was not his father? Jorgen’s look turned even more hostile, and Mathis added, “And now here we are, dancing in the town square with beautiful maidens on this Midsummer night.”

“Were you good students?” Odette asked.

Mathis turned his head to one side. “I was a good student.”

Jorgen snorted.

Mathis laughed. “Very well. I was not a good student, nor was I well behaved. I wanted to be running in the sunshine and playing games. Jorgen was a much more attentive student than I.”

Anna, who had been standing nearby listening, spoke up. “I was not a good student, either, though my mother forced me to attend the girls’ school. Odette is quite a scholar, however.” She nodded proudly at Odette. “She has a tutor, a monk who comes two days every week to teach her to read and write in Latin and French.”

They all turned their attention to Odette. She shrugged. “My uncle humors me, even though he doesn’t understand why I love to study. I enjoy learning languages and . . . other things.” She decided not to reveal why she had not attended the town school for girls with Anna—or that Brother Philip was teaching her theology. He would only teach her theology if she vowed not to reveal it.

“Shall we dance some more?” Peter, who stood beside his wife, urged them all back toward the dancing and music. He could not know how frightened Odette was of the man she had felt such an attraction to only minutes before, frightened of what he could and would do to her if he discovered she was poaching the margrave’s deer. Just thinking of him delivering her up to be thrown into the margrave’s dungeon made her skin prickle.

She and Jorgen danced the next song together, and the next and the next. Perhaps she should have excused herself and danced with someone else, but Mathis did not return. The longer she danced with Jorgen, the more she was able to enjoy it and forget that he was the forester.

In fact, they danced until the
Minnesingers
began to play closer
to the bonfire, now lit and starting to roar at the other end. They agreed they did not wish to join the drunken merrymaking around the fire. Jorgen kept hold of her hand a bit longer than was necessary. His touch made her heart flutter.

She caught her breath. How could she be foolish about this man she had just met? Had she forgotten what he could do to her? She must be a lack wit.

Uncle Rutger came toward them. “What a merry party you four make, dancing and laughing. Jorgen, you must come to our home for Odette’s birthday feast in two nights. You will be most welcome. Peter and Anna will be there as well.”

Oh, dear heavenly saints. Uncle Rutger must not know Jorgen was the forester.

Jorgen consented to come, and after the details were conveyed of the time and location of their house, Jorgen turned to Odette. “Until then.”

Would he kiss her hand? But he only smiled, bowed, and walked away.

As Peter and Uncle Rutger escorted Anna and Odette home, Odette couldn’t help but wonder what the reaction of Peter, Anna, and the handsome young forester would be if they ever discovered that she was poaching the margrave’s deer and giving the meat to the poor. The fact that Jorgen’s adoptive father, the old gamekeeper, was shot and killed by a poacher a few years ago would make Jorgen hate her.

Her heart constricted painfully in her chest. There was only one thing to do: never get caught.

4

J
ORGEN WALKED CAREFULLY
through the thick undergrowth in the margrave’s game park. He was sure the thicket where he had found the twin fawns was nearby. Curious to see if the twins were both thriving, he was also looking for signs of wolves and wild boar. None had been seen in Thornbeck Forest for many years, but it was always possible that they would wander in from the wilder areas nearby looking for food. The wild boar’s favorite tree nuts grew here, and a baby deer would be easy prey for a wolf.

As he examined the undergrowth, the events of the night before were not far from his mind. He had danced with fair maidens before, but Odette was different. She was graceful and beautiful, but there was something in her eyes and in the things she said, an intelligence and a boldness that belied her quiet demeanor. He had been pleased—and surprised—to have been invited to her home for dinner.

If only Odette’s uncle wasn’t quite so rich.

When they were boys, Mathis Papendorp and Ulrich Schinkel, now the margrave’s chancellor, had never let Jorgen forget that he was not as wealthy as they were. And now, to find that Odette had attracted the attention of Mathis . . . It seemed a bad omen. Mathis probably seemed the perfect person to marry someone like Odette.

Jorgen wanted to believe that the look he had seen in Odette’s eyes and her manner toward him proved that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. He had believed he did see a preference in her reluctance to leave his side. But even if it were so, would she marry a forester?

Still, he remembered one particular moment when Odette had met his eye with such a sweet smile it had made his heart trip over itself. The memory of that smile warmed him so much, he halted. He had forgotten why he was there. Oh yes. The fawns.

As he pushed some brush aside, something on the ground caught his eye. He bent to look closer, then picked it up. An arrow.

The arrow did not appear to have been lying there long. It did not resemble the margrave’s arrows, which were all made by the assistant gamekeepers with a distinctive feather at the butt, which they dyed bright red in order to be able to recover them. This arrow’s fletching was snow white. Besides that, the margrave never went hunting without Jorgen, and he had not been hunting in weeks.

There was only one explanation: someone was poaching, or trying to poach, the animals in Thornbeck forest.

Jorgen stood and looked around, still holding the arrow. His whole body tensed as his heart beat faster.

His father had been shot by a poacher. Had it only been four years ago? It seemed like a long time, and yet he still sometimes would begin to go ask his father a question before realizing that he could never answer Jorgen’s questions again. The memory of his death would flood him for the hundredth time.

After examining the woods that day, Jorgen believed the poacher had been discovered by his father. The poacher had shot at the gamekeeper and missed, then stalked him until he was able to kill him. It had been murder, plain and simple.

And that murderer’s arrows had the same white feathers on the end.

The margrave’s guards had searched for the killer, but they never found him. Jorgen had been preoccupied with comforting his grieving mother and seeing to his father’s burial, not to mention his own grief and shock at his sudden death. He regretted being unable to hunt the poacher down himself. He hoped, with God’s favor, someday he would find him and gain justice for his father.

This new poacher might not be new at all, but the same man who killed Jorgen’s father.

He put the arrow in his own quiver for safekeeping. It was evidence and might help him find the murderer and prove him guilty. Even if this poacher was not the same one who had hunted down Jorgen’s father and killed him, he must be punished. Poaching was dangerous and a serious offense against both the margrave and the king.

Jorgen would not tell his mother someone was poaching deer again. It would cause her to worry—another incentive to capture this poacher and make sure he never drew another bowstring.

O
DETTE WAS WALKING
through the game park with her bow and arrows in the middle of the day. A large stag appeared and she shot it.

Suddenly, Jorgen jumped from behind a tree. She seemed rooted to the ground, as her legs refused to move. He grabbed her arms so tight her muscles ached.

“You will be sorry you crossed this margrave.” He dragged her through the forest. She lost her shoes, and her feet raked over the sticks and rocks.

He took her to the margrave’s castle, threw her into the dungeon underneath, and the metal key scraped against the lock as he trapped her inside.

She sat on the damp stone floor, and the cold wrapped around her body like icy claws. She was all alone and she was hungry, her stomach gnawing and cramping as it had after her mother and father died and she had no food. Nearly half the town of Thornbeck had perished in less than one year from the horrible sickness that ravaged its victims’ bodies and left them dead, sometimes after only one day of being sick. She had been five years old, but being in the dungeon vividly brought back her terror at being left alone with no one to care for her.

Odette shivered and wrapped her arms around her empty stomach. “Jorgen?” she called, but there was no answer.

She bolted upright in bed, a cold sweat on her brow and under her arms.

She had told Anna that she rarely had pleasant dreams, but one would have thought she could have dreamed something a bit less horrific on Midsummer night.