Daughter of the Sword

by Jeanne Williams

  His frankness compelled the same from her. “Sir, I should tell you I consider myself engaged.”

  Straight ash-colored brows drawing together, he said, “Not to Rolf Hunter?”

  “No. His brother.”

  “Where is this brother?”

  “He—went to California.” Deborah looked away, mouth trembling. Conrad took her hand, drew back the gauntlet cuff, and kissed the pulse of her wrist. “Oh, my dear,” he muttered. “Don’t let me trouble you! It’s just that, if you were plighted to me, I couldn’t leave you.”

  “Dane could.” The bitterness escaped before she knew it.

  Eyebrows lifting, Conrad said, “But he’ll be back, surely?”

  “In the spring, he said. But what good will it do? He’ll still want to take me away. That’s why we quarreled before.”

  “You don’t wish to go?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Perhaps he’ll stay.”

  Deborah shook her head. “No,” she said woefully. “He’s too stubborn.”

  Conrad burst out laughing. “Like you,” he said. Sobering, his contemplative, almost speculative gaze reminded her that, in spite of his renunciation of it, he was used to command, an older, wiser, more experienced man even than Dane. “Permit me to wonder how, this dilemma appearing unsolvable, you feel betrothed?”

  “Because I love him.”

  The amused expression left Conrad’s face. Turning, he brought the horses, then helped her into the saddle. For a moment, his hands closed on horn and cantle, locking her in. “Love, like grief, wears out,” he said, then sprang up on his tall gray horse.

  Friedental, a safe distance from the stream, presented a curious, extremely neat pattern. A dozen white frame houses ranged on the north side of the road, facing south. Rows of young cottonwoods and other trees were planted between the houses, on either side of the road, and around a church that looked much like the other houses except for its steeple.

  Fields and orchards ran in long broad strips on either side of the road and houses, and one lone dwelling sat back in the orchards. There was a sod stable near each house and two large, lofted barns in what appeared to be a common meadow stretching along the stream.

  Pausing at a distance to stare, Deborah, exclaimed, “I can’t believe such a place is really here! It looks like a giant child’s toy village!”

  “Wait till you see the dolls!” Conrad laughed. “They’re inside for dinner now, but you’ll meet them later.”

  Till she saw the village, it hadn’t really occurred to Deborah that other people were involved in whatever risk there might be in sheltering her. She reined in Chica.

  “Mr. Lander, did Sara tell you in her letter that Rolf Hunter may look for me, that he could be dangerous?”

  “Yes. I beg you not to fear. My colonists are dedicated to peace and non-resistance. I’m not.”

  “I’m not worried for myself, but if he hired some ruffians—I’d never forgive myself if the village were hurt because of me!”

  He closed his hand over hers; she felt warmed even through glove and gauntlet. “Chances are slight that anyone would look for you at Friedental. We’re off main-traveled ways and have no visitors. But I wouldn’t make a decision like this by myself. While Laddie ate and rested, Elder Goerz called a meeting. The unanimous vote was to welcome you. Though you’ll stay with Ansjie and me, you’re asked to consider yourself an honored guest of the settlement.”

  “How kind of them, to run risks for a stranger when they themselves are in a strange land.”

  “Mennonites have so often been fugitives that they feel sympathy for the hunted.”

  Deborah’s jaw clamped shut. “I’m in my own country! I won’t hide forever.” Her Bowie was gone, but Johnny had promised to make her another, though he advised her not to carry one at Friedental. “Forget all that for now,” he’d said. “Let Conrad take care of you this little while.”

  “Of course you won’t stay in hiding,” Conrad now said calmly. “I hope you’ll think of this as a visit, not an ordeal, and yourself as a blessing to us, not a problem.”

  “You’re very, very kind.”

  Gravely, he shook his head. “Very, very lucky.”

  They splashed across the stream, stopped to let the horses drink, then rode past the church and a row of shuttered houses, angling back past the fields to the house in the young orchards. “Since we’re not of their religion,” he explained, “Ansjie and I thought it best to live a little apart.” His teeth flashed. “Also, to be honest, I can do without so much proximity. The trees are young now, but in time they’ll make an effective curtain, and I suspect everyone will be pleased when thick green leaves give privacy without the affront of a wall.”

  “But in winter the trees are bare.”

  His eyes touched her. “In winter one has the patience of hope and waits for spring.”

  As they rode up to the stable, where doves cooed about the thatch, a young woman Deborah recognized as his sister hurried from the house, hands outstretched to take Deborah’s as Conrad helped her from the saddle.

  “Wilkommen!” she greeted, then chided herself. “No, I must my English practice! Welcome, Miss Whitlaw! Come inside and warm yourself. Hurry, Conrad! I’ve been keeping dinner warm and I’m hungry!”

  “Hungry or sated, it takes the same time to care for horses,” said Conrad, taking Chica’s reins. “Besides, if I know you, you’ve been nibbling! Isn’t that a strudel crumb on your cheek?”

  Lifting a guilty hand, Ansjie found nothing and blushed. “Taugenicht!” she bubbled. “Good for nothing! For such a tongue, there may be no crumbs left!” She slipped her arm through Deborah’s and drew her up the path through trees which, though leafless, were warmly tinged with sun, and neatly trimmed hedges bordering garden plots, raked and awaiting spring.

  In a sort of back porch or anteroom, crocks and food stood on shelves and a trapdoor closed off what must be a cellar. Most of the porch was filled with brush, apparently trimmed from the hedges, corn stalks and corncobs, weeds, cow chips, and tightly twisted bundles of long prairie hay. Though the Friedentalers had used wood for their homes, they weren’t wasting it as fuel.

  Near the inner door was a long, low shelf holding boots and house shoes. Above these were pegs holding coats and cloaks, hats and gloves. “Please?” Ansjie selected a pair of crimson felt slippers. “These will fit you, I believe, and so the floor stays schön.” At Deborah’s puzzled look, she put her fingers to her rosy lips. “Nice, I should be saying! Beautiful is too much for floors, nein?”

  “But yours is beautiful!” Deborah exclaimed as Ansjie opened the door.

  The floor was made of seasoned hardwood, not warped, splintering cottonwood shrunk to leave large cracks—and, of course, on the frontier, anything better than a dirt floor was a luxury. Polished to a sheen, the floor actually reflected the big brick stove, which was almost as long as the women were tall and stood six feet high. It was built in the wall, the cooking surface and oven reaching into the big kitchen, which ran the width of the house.

  Carpet stretched beneath a polished table and chairs beside a curtained window. Shelves gleamed with copper and pewter, enamel and blown glass, while a handsome cabinet, carved with leaves and flowers, held crystal and porcelain that reminded Deborah for a heart-stopping moment of Mother’s fine china, smashed in the cabin’s smoldering ruins. The scoured long table beneath the shelves was fitted with ingenious holders for knives, rolling pin, sieves, and other utensils, and beneath were bins and drawers.

  “Praktisch!” declared Ansjie, opening a bin to show flour. “Peter Voth, the carpenter, made it, and the shelves, too.”

  She gestured at the other side of the room, where two cushioned chairs were positioned to catch warmth from the stove and light from the window. A table held a three-branched candlestick, and there was a large single taper on a graceful writing desk by the window. Again, Deborah’s heart skipped in half-painful, half-grateful recognition. Bookshelves fil
led the walls of the sitting room portion, more books than she had seen anywhere except in libraries. There was a globe on a reading table, another candle, and several opened books.

  Following Deborah’s feasting glance, Ansjie sighed. “Books we bring here, hundreds! But aways Conrad scolds me not to bring too much—too much clothes, dishes, furniture, bedding! These we can do without, but not his Bücher!”

  He laughed from the door. “So abused, because I won’t let you transport paintings and gimcracks and elegances that would crowd us into the stable! Besides, Ansjie, I think I’m not wrong in saying you’ve read most of these books.”

  “Because you won’t talk to me when you thrust your nose in the pages!” his sister retorted. “Wash now—you first, Miss Whitlaw—and I’ll see if the goose can still be eaten!”

  Deborah washed with castile soap at the stand near the stove and dried her hands on a spotless towel while Conrad went through a doorway on the other side of the oven. He had her pack, which contained the sketch pad, one of the dresses she’d given Judith and which Judith had given back, and Sara’s contribution of drawers and chemise.

  Not including what she stood in, it was all she had, except for the farm—the farm, with its wrecked house and stable, which she didn’t even want to think about right now. But she shrank from charity.

  “I hope there’ll be something I can do here to pay for my keep.”

  Ansjie handed her a bowl of steaming dumplings, herself hoisting a platter holding a braised fowl anchored by golden roast potatoes.

  “Keep?” She snorted daintly. “Do you speak of yourself like a horse or oxen? Of course there is work and you may help, but Conrad and I are glad to have your company.” She set down the goose and her frown changed to a smile. “Please,” she coaxed, “no more foolish words. Conrad will think it’s my fault—”

  “For what now?” he demanded, striding across the room and laughing as he dropped a kiss on her forehead.

  “She’s one of your independent women.” Ansjie wrinkled her uptilted, somewhat freckled nose, “She wishes to measure her food according to the socks she mends or butter she churns!”

  Conrad watched Deborah while Ansjie plunked down side dishes of red cabbage and gravy, then put out a loaf of brown bread. Butter and several kinds of preserves and pickles were already on the table, which was laid with fine china and silver.

  Drawing back one of the chairs, he seated Deborah, and then his sister, filled crystal goblets from a decanter of red wine. Deborah had never seen wine served at a meal. It seemed rather wicked, decadently European, and wholly desirable, sparkling with tiny bubbles.

  She swallowed her demur along with her first taste of wine, sipped again, cautiously, and decided she might come to like it in time, though it was the appearance and idea that she enjoyed most.

  Was Conrad looking slightly amused? Unfolding his linen napkin, he began to carve the goose and pass the plates while Ansjie added generous helpings of the other things. “There’s a way you could earn not only your board, but a salary, if you’ll accept it.”

  “Conrad!” remonstrated Ansjie, eyes going wide.

  “It’s true,” he said stoutly. “You know better than anyone, sister mine, how I’ve labored with this writing! Now here is a lady with English for her native tongue, one accustomed to reading articles and editorials for a newspaper. What could be more providential?”

  “Oh.” Ansjie relaxed and shrugged. “That!”

  “That happens to be an important goal of mine,” he said good-humoredly. To Deborah, he explained, “An English publisher would like an account of emigrant life on the prairie, and though they could get a translation done, it’s a point of pride with me to write it myself with the proper words.”

  “Your English is very good, and Miss Lander’s, too.”

  “Please call me Ansjie,” the young woman implored.

  “If you’ll call me Deborah.”

  “May I do that, also, and be Conrad?” he asked.

  Having reached the ease of first names, Conrad said that he’d had an English tutor. His father, the count, had much admiration for England, and though Conrad was also required to learn French and some Italian, he and his brothers were expected to use English at every other family meal.

  “It was one of Father’s amusements. At the start of the meal, he would say, ‘We are English,’ or, ‘Nous sommes français,’ or, ‘Siamo italiani’. Or sometimes he assigned us positions or identities. One of us would be Augustine, another Pelagius, and a third a judge hearing us argue original sin.”

  “But you can’t believe in original sin!”

  He laughed. “No, but historically, alas, Augustine’s unhappy theory has dogged Western civilization to reach its noxious flowering in Calvin.”

  Deborah nodded. “I’ve never understood why people should worship a God who was supposed to have condemned practically all of them to eternal fire before they were even born.”

  “Meanwhile,” interpolated Ansjie, “the goose gets cold!”

  “It’s delicious!” said Deborah. And she disposed of a respectable amount of food before observing, “Your father had unusual ideas, surely. What did your mother think of them?”

  “She died at the birth of my younger brother, who is now count. Father took my decision to come here quite philosophically. I think he would’ve come himself had he lived. Even at seventy-nine he was still avid for new experiences, and, besides, he was very fond of Ansjie. I think she was his favorite child.”

  “I was a daughter,” Ansjie said. “Besides,” she added with tolerant affection, “since I was not a Gräfin’s child, the Graf didn’t trouble himself about equipping me for a place in society. He just, praise the good God, let me grow!”

  Did that mean …?

  Sensing Deborah’s confusion, Ansjie said matter-of-factly, “Noblemen have always taken pretty women, but the Graf was different. He loved my mother and put her in charge of his household, was faithful to her, and brought me up as a daughter.”

  “She tended him lovingly in his last years,” Conrad said. “But though my brother made it clear that she was welcome to live on in the castle, she preferred to take a house in the village. Last year she married the chief forester and, from all accounts, is happy.”

  That explained several puzzling things. Though Conrad and Ansjie resembled each other, his features were etched, almost ascetic, while hers were rounded. She exuded an earthy robustness and pride in her home and cooking.

  “When Conrad said he would come here,” said Ansjie with a fondly indulgent glance at her brother, “Mutti said I must look after him, Besides, there was no one I wished to marry.”

  Conrad smiled but Deborah guessed that he was worried about the future of this sister, born between classes, fitting neither. “Since it seems you’ll never return the longing of Elder Goerz’s son or accept Peter Voth since he became a widower, we’ll have to put you in the way of meeting some eligibles.”

  “The Territory’s full of bachelors,” Deborah said.

  “But Friedental isn’t.” Conrad smiled teasingly. “We have a carpenter and shoemaker, but we need a blacksmith, and it would be good to have a doctor. Which, kleines, shall I recruit first?”

  “Whichever is strongest, nicest, and best-looking,” said Ansjie promptly. “He must be honest, no dummkopf, and no drunkard. Also, he must enjoy his food and be sure that there is always plenty.” She considered. “These things are more important than his looks, but he must be strong!”

  “I’ll remember” said Conrad. “No, I simply cannot eat another morsel! If I don’t want to become gross, I must find that hungry brother-in-law swiftly!”

  “There’s strudel,” Ansjie said coaxingly. “Apfel strudel, Conrad, tender and crunchy, with rich, thick cream.”

  “Sometimes,” he groaned, “I think you’re fattening me up like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. A very small piece, then, and after she rests, perhaps we could take Deborah around Friedental.”


  The strudel was the flakiest pastry Deborah had ever eaten. As she helped Ansjie with the dishes, Ansjie explained that the unusual flavoring of the goose was due to being rubbed with caraway seeds, and the red cabbage was cooked with onions, fat, and caraway. When the last pan was stowed away, Ansjie took Deborah into a large bedroom.

  Several feet of the brick oven warmed this room, too. Ansjie said that Conrad, knowing there would be a scarcity of wood, had studied the problem and learned of the hay-burning stoves used in Russia. The brick structures were rather expensive, but only needed firing morning and night and heated several rooms, served for cooking, and also the wide chimney was used for smoking meat.

  Ansjie’s pretty canopied bed was a fluffy mass of blue featherbeds, but the plain bed set up on the other side of a dresser was heaped equally high and looked wonderfully inviting. There was a large carved chest under the window and an armoire which Ansjie opened to reveal many pretty gowns, shoes, hats, and a cleared space.

  “We’re of a height,” Ansjie said. “We must find a few dresses you like and change them to fit.” She brushed aside Deborah’s objections. “Please help me wear them out! Then I can tell Conrad I need some new clothes. He’s not stingy, but he’s a man and understands nothing of such things. I feel wasteful to ask for something different when these are still good, but a woman needs something special now and then, nicht wahr?”

  Deborah had to smile at the appeal. “If you put it that way, I’ll be glad to help you justify a few new dresses.”

  Ansjie gave her a quick hug. “I’m so glad you’ve come! It’ll be like having a sister! I wanted to come with Conrad, but I didn’t realize how homesick I’d get sometimes.”

  “Are there no young women in the village?”

  “All my age are married. Besides, in spite of equal votes on public matters, the people still think of Conrad as the Graf and me as his sinfully born sister.” Her lower lip jutted petulantly before she giggled. “It’s a good thing I don’t fancy any of the young men! Their families wouldn’t want them to marry out of the faith, and I could never be a Mennonite. I like pretty clothes and jewelry too much!”