Twelfth Krampus Night (2 page)

Chapter Two

Beate Klothilda's family had little money and, like the rest of the villagers, had to do whatever they could to scratch out a living. And for women that meant sewing. Beate didn't care that her wedding dress would appear to be made of rags—it essentially was—and that despite her best intentions to bathe herself, the nobles would always consider her dirty if they ever deigned to leave the castle and enter the village.

None of that mattered to Beate. She would marry in a week's time her childhood sweetheart, Heinrich Kluber, around whom she wrapped her arms, lovingly embracing him as they rode his family's lone horse, Uli, from the castle to the village.

Heinrich, assistant to his village blacksmith father, had delivered to the castle's burgmann newly hammered knives and pike heads, for the castle blacksmith no longer had the ability to forge anything—dysentery having claimed him a week earlier.

“I can't say it's good fortune for our family to prosper while another man's starves, but with all the work we've been getting, you might just have a fancy wedding after all.” Heinrich held steady Uli's reins, imagining the horse was thankful that both saddlebags were now empty of their iron loads.

“I'm just glad you're back, love.” Beate ran her hands up and down her beau's chest and stomach. “Any number of things could've happened while you were away.”

“It was worth the two weeks I was gone—one of the most successful trade trips my family has ever had to France. Besides, I didn't need to make anything. My father took care of that. All I needed to do was be the salesman. I'm pretty good at it.”

“Think there's a chance your father will work in the castle?” Beate said. “He'd be under the protection of the baron.”

“My father's too old to fight, and it would be expected of him. Me, on the other hand...” Heinrich let it linger.

“You'd fight?”

“I would. I'd just make certain there were hundreds of knights standing in front of me.” Heinrich wore a long-sleeved white linen shirt, covered by a brown waistcoat. Deerskin breeches and leather boots completed the ensemble. Nobody would mistake how he earned his living.

“You could be killed.” She caressed the top of his head, her fingers running over his short black hair.

“The baron is on good terms with the surrounding nobles. It's been unexpectedly nonviolent in recent years.”

“That won't last.” Beate hugged Heinrich, not just because she loved him, but because of his body heat. Although her woolen dress was scratchy, her linen undergarments kept the discomfort to a minimum. Her sheepskin cloak added an extra layer of warmth. “I'd rather you be in the village to protect us and our families.”

Heinrich slowed Uli and looked over his shoulder to address his fiancée.

“We're merely conjecturing, love. The baron seems comfortable with the arrangement in place. My father can travel to the castle and I can work in the village, or vice versa. Having two blacksmiths is a luxury. I plan on being in the village with you for a long time.” He steadied himself and turned some more and ran his fingers down Beate's shoulder-length brown hair and kissed her. “Fear not.”

He prodded Uli to trot the trail.

“How's the dress coming along?”

“Gisela's almost done with it.” Beate smiled, thinking of her best friend. “Since we were children she'd talk about making
my
wedding dress.”

“What if you wanted to make your own? You're as good a seamstress as Gisela.”

“I'm
not
. But thank you. It's one less thing I've had to worry about, and it allows me to earn a living rather than fretting about my own project. Gisela's doing it for free—she insists.”

“That
is
kind of her.”

They ambled down the path a few minutes without speaking, listening to the whistling wind, occasionally shielding their eyes from it, before Beate spoke.

“No reservations? About our wedding?”

“I think we were destined to marry when we learned we were both born on the same day,” Heinrich said. “I'm surprised we didn't marry sooner. My parents did when they were seventeen.”

“We'll be eighteen in a week. There won't be much of a difference. And I think it's appropriate that we marry
on
our birthday. I'm glad you suggested it, love.” Beate thought for a moment. “Love—that's one advantage peasants have over the nobles, for the most part. We marry for love, they marry for land. A marriage isn't healthy if you have plenty of space but don't truly appreciate the person you're sharing it with.”

“It's a good thing our parents arranged our marriage and that we just so
happen
to love each other—some aren't as fortunate,” Heinrich said.

“Well, hello, young lovebirds!”

Heinrich yanked Uli to stop him from hitting an old woman standing in the road.

“Watch where you're going!” Heinrich said.

“Why don't you watch where
you're
going? I was standing here all the while you were chatting with your beloved betrothed.” The old woman expressed no animosity.

“I'm sorry, I didn't see you,” he said.

Beate, still clutching Heinrich, poked out her head to see who stood in their way.

“You could hear us?” she said.

“Not so much
you
,” the old woman said. “The young man's voice carries, and I'm glad it does. Hearing about young love makes me tingly. And truly good women like you deserve nothing but a man who'll cherish and respect them. Here.”

The old woman walked to Uli's side, both riders eyeing her suspiciously. “Open your hand, dear, I mean you no harm.”

Beate cautiously extended her open left hand, ready to yank it back, but there was no need. The old woman clutched Beate's hand with both of hers, and when she released it, Beate held a silver coin the size of her palm.

“Better in the hand than in the shoe, right?” the old woman said, smiling.

“What?” It was Heinrich.

Beate was too distracted to reply. She'd seen silver coins from a distance when the wealthy bought the most expensive clothes during her visits to the castle. But now to hold one?

“Thank you,” she squeaked.

“No thanks necessary, my dear.” The old woman walked toward the castle. She called over her shoulder, “It's a solidus, my dear—all for you. Try not to cry on your wedding day.”

Heinrich looked at Beate and then to the coin, whose face depicted a bust of Jesus Christ—His hand raised in benediction, a cross behind Him—and lettering they did not recognize. The obverse portrayed a man—they knew not who—standing on steps, holding a cross potent.

The couple looked behind them and saw no trace of the old woman.

“Beate,
hide it
. Put it away. Who knows who's watching?” Heinrich said through gritted teeth.

As casually as she could, Beate slipped the coin into a small pocket she had sewn on the inside of her cloak. “Go, love,” she whispered, and kissed his cheek.

They rode Uli in silence while keeping vigilant of their surroundings. Heinrich hesitated farther up the path, and then slowed Uli when he spotted a woman sitting against a tall evergreen, her legs sticking into the road.

“Someone's napping, B.” Heinrich pointed fifty feet ahead to his right. “At least I hope someone's napping.”

“Bandits? It could be a trap.” Beate had heard the stories of criminals springing from the woods, slitting innocent throats and absconding with whatever they could fleece from the bodies.

Heinrich patted the baselard sheathed on his belt and surveyed the landscape, seeing nothing unusual. “I'll just keep going.”

He prodded Uli almost to run but reined him in upon hearing Beate. “Gisela, no!”

Beate didn't wait for Uli to stop moving but slid off the horse, rushing to her friend.

Heinrich couldn't see the woman's face, as her head drooped toward her belly. “How do you know it's her?”

“I'd recognize the fox fur anywhere.” Beate was shocked the cloak hadn't been pilfered. She kneeled before her friend, unable to comprehend the bloody mass that was her bloodstained belly, oozing crimson into her shredded white dress.

She placed the back of her hand to Gisela's cheek and shivered at its iciness. Beate used both hands to gently lift Gisela's head and cried while looking at lifeless blue eyes.

Heinrich hopped off Uli, holding the horse's reins in one hand and unsheathing his dagger with the other. “We can't do anything for her here. We have to warn the rest of the village.”

“Oh no, that means her bab—” Beate stopped herself midsentence, remembering the promise she had made to Gisela never to divulge her now-dead secret.

“That means what?” Heinrich stooped down, trying to make eye contact. “I don't understand.”

“It's nothing, love. I don't know what I'm saying, but I can't leave her.” Beate lowered Gisela's head, glanced to her friend's belly and recoiled. “Someone stitched her up!”

Heinrich squinted and blanched at the running stitches that formed a gruesome and misshapen
X
on Gisela's belly. Bloodstained straw poked from the occasional seam. Beate fingered a stalk tip near her friend's navel.

“What was she doing out here?” Beate stood and hugged Heinrich, sobbing into his shoulder.

“She was supposed to fit me for clothing in a few hours, after our deer hunt.”

Beate and Heinrich whirled to see Lord Wilhelm, the baron's son, looking at Gisela and not them.

So shocked were Beate and Heinrich, they forewent bows and curtsies.

“We found her like this. She's my fiancée's closest friend,” Heinrich said. “Surely you don't think we did this.”

Wilhelm, sitting atop a black courser, eyed the body.

“So much for my new tunic being ready on time. And my brother's,” he said as an afterthought and looked at the shaken pair. “And no, I don't think you killed her. I would wager your dagger and clothes would be drenched if you had.”

“Boy, sheath your sword,” commanded one of the two knights on horseback accompanying Wilhelm. They all were dressed similarly in chain-mail tunics covering woolen gambesons. Wilhelm, who wore a black bear-fur cloak, kept a longbow and a full quiver behind his back. The knight who had spoken aimed a crossbow at Heinrich's chest.

Heinrich did as ordered by the hulking knight, who in kind lowered his crossbow. Wilhelm brought back his cloak's hood, revealing curly brown hair and brown eyes. Beate spotted his dimpled chin.
It figures,
she thought. Both of the baron's sons—Wilhelm born a year before Beate and Heinrich; Karl, the younger, a year later—made the ladies swoon. Whether Karl was as arrogant as Wilhelm, Beate could only guess. She guessed yes.

“We should get you back to the castle,” the knight said. “Let these two worry about informing the village.”

“Patience, Otto,” Wilhelm replied. “You there, girl, look at me.”

Frightened, but not enough
not
to feel insulted, she did. “Yes, my lord. My name is Beate.”

“You've accompanied at times this poor girl to the castle to help fit the nobles, correct? I've seen you there. Normally I forget what peasants look like, but you and your friend are notable exceptions.”

Beate controlled her breathing and tempered her rage. “I have, my lord, on occasions when the baron's seamstresses were either unavailable or dead.”

“Well, then you shall accompany our party back to the castle to fit me and my brother.”

“But my friend!” she shouted, not in anger but disbelief.

“Be careful the way you address Lord Wilhelm,” called the second knight in a tsk-tsk tone.

“Easy, Hans. You too, Otto.” Wilhelm held up his hand to keep his guards at bay and continued with the peasants. “You have my sympathies, but my tunic takes precedence. You see, the baron wants my outfit ready for my brother's wedding. Not only that, Karl has returned from a two-month trip to Spain, and I believe your unfortunate friend there did only cursory measurements on him. Much work needs doing on his. So you'll need to fit him posthaste. Big event, you see. Then again,
all
of our events are big.”

The knights laughed, as if on cue.

“My lord, I respectfully ask you allow me to take my friend, Gisela—she has a name—back to her family. The entire village must know about this. To protect themselves.”

Heinrich stayed quiet, eyeing Wilhelm, trying not to show his contempt. “With all respect, my lord, will Beate be paid for her services?”

Beate looked at him, agog. “Heinrich!”

“But of course your fine maiden will be paid—handsomely, I might add, as you've already been inconvenienced, and that is not lost on me,” Wilhelm said. “I would imagine your friend's sewing kit is on her body somewhere, and I would suggest you find it. The regular seamstress is unable to perform her duties.”

A small gasp escaped Beate and she covered her lips with her fingertips. “I beg your pardon for asking, but is she sick? Fighting plague? Smallpox? Typhoid?”

Wilhelm feigned surprise. “Goodness no! Nothing that would directly endanger the castle's denizens. Bandits merely raped and killed her. Dagger to the heart. Relatively painless. The same cannot be said of the fate met by her attackers. It's fortunate the baron and his hunting party caught them in the act. Happened not far from here, actually. Their capture allowed us to test the new breaking wheel. I'm pleased to say it works. Splendidly.”

Beate knew not what a breaking wheel was and never wanted to find out. “The seamstress's name, my lord, what was it?”

“Who knows? But you'll have at your disposal her sewing kit that I'm certain contains instruments that your little ones do not. Now, I suggest we move along. I will send Hans here to warn the village and to return your friend to her family. Your blacksmith friend here—” Wilhelm looked Heinrich up and down, “—may escort you.”