The Fairytale Keeper: Avenging the Queen

by Andrea Cefalo

  I pull the cloak high over my head and look down as I move quickly through Filzengraben, hoping not to be recognized. It is less crowded than I expect. I suppose most of the villagers are working in the fields, selling their wares at the market, or making purchases there. I turn onto Foller Strasse, which is empty as usual for this time of day, passing a number of row houses as I head toward Ivo’s home. Biting my lip, I knock on his door and wait. No one answers so I race past the houses to the stone wall surrounding the de Belle manor and climb the thick vines that encompass it like a raven’s claw on its prey. With the exception of a few serfs, the de Belle manor field is empty. I drop from the wall and sigh. I had hoped to find Ivo quickly, though I knew that wasn’t likely.

  The farmers spread manure and plough the fields this time each year, so it is most likely they are far outside the city wall. I take a small alley onto Severin’s Strasse. Its narrowness makes the row house seem so much taller than they are and I don’t like the feeling of being so closed in, but I’m onto the wide road of Severin’s Strasse soon enough. I pass St. Catherine’s church and then St. Severin’s. I pout as I make my way to Severin’s Gate for I know Erik is less likely to let me borrow Ivo for the day if heavy work must be done.

  The gate is open, as is usually the case for midmorning, and the daytime guard does not give me a second look for he’s flirting with a pretty young woman who looks quite bored with him. Once beyond the gate, I lift my cloak and skirts and run between the fields in search of Ivo or anyone who might know where he is. In my haste, I miss the sight of a cobblestone which catches my toe, and sends me tumbling to the dirt. My left arm breaks my fall and catches on a sharp rock which slices a large gash in my forearm. A child’s laughter echoes from nearby. His mother slaps the back of his head and the boy is back to work, but not before a dozen serfs turn their attention to me. My cheeks flush hotly in embarrassment, but their pause gives me time to ask of Ivo’s whereabouts. They point south.

  I watch the blood drip down my hand with indifference. I wonder if I am overcome with worry or numbness, but it does not matter so I keep running. I see Erik’s red hair blazing like a beacon in the sun. Thank God I only had to cross three furlongs to find them. Greta steers a plough as Levi whips the oxen, while Erik steers the other and Ivo whips. I am afraid to request Ivo for the afternoon. Plowing is grueling and his absence shall make the day even more difficult.

  I fold my cloak over my dripping wound and bloodstained hand, and hike through the lumps of dirt and manure. My legs tremble as they adjust to the slower pace. Levi turns, distracted by a butterfly and sees me. He drops the whip and runs toward me, crashing into me so hard I nearly land in the mire. He squeezes me around the waist and squints up into my face for the sun is directly above us. I wrap my uninjured hand around him and try to smile.

  “I’m sorry about your Mother,” he says with a pout.

  I brush the hair from his dark brown eyes. “Thank you,” I say and he hugs me tighter.

  “You’ll squeeze the life out of me, Levi,” I gasp, chiding. He smiles brightly.

  “Well I don’t want to do that!” he yells. “Look it, Father is letting me whip the oxen this year!”

  “Really? I can hardly believe how grown you are,” I say and he smiles again before racing back to his whip.

  Erik drops his plow and heads toward me. Sweat beads across his pink forehead and the large muscles in his arms bulge under his sodden ivory tunic. Empathy has softened the normal severity of his face which, on any other day, would make me too nervous to speak.

  Greta follows, her face also sweaty and softened. Dark blonde hairs stick to her forehead. The muck comes halfway up to her knees. Some might bless her for being so short or mistakenly judge her sweet by the looks of her, but they would be wrong. Greta is every bit as tough as Erik.

  Ivo walks between his parents, jaw clenched and eyes down. He is sad like me because we are great friends and when one friend suffers so does the other. My numbness flees, tears form, my arm throbs, and I swallow the desire to run to him and cry. Levi runs between them all, whip in hand.

  Their faces are down, with the exception of Levi, and no one speaks. The silence makes me uncomfortable and I wonder if I should say something.

  “Your mother was a good woman,” Greta says. They nod collectively, staring at the ground, hands folded before them. “I shall continue to pray for her soul, but I do not doubt the Lord has called her home and that she sings with the angels.”

  “Thank you,” I reply. They look up.

  “How fares your father?” asks Erik.

  “I do not know,” I choke and swallow. Two fat tears slip down my cheeks. “I haven’t seen him since the funeral. Have you seen him?”

  Erik looks at me, his eyebrow raises in disbelief. He gives Greta a stern look. She and Levi return to her plough without another word. Erik pulls Ivo aside and they whisper for a few moments. Ivo steps back angrily as his father speaks. He shakes his head in disbelief and his hands ball up into fists. His father grabs him by the shoulders and Ivo softens, casting his eyes downwards again and nodding his head reluctantly. They turn to look at me, neither of them smiling.

  Erik returns to his plough and Levi stands between his parents, whipping his father’s oxen and then his mother’s. Ivo walks toward me and we embrace strongly. He sweeps the hair from my face as I cry into his shoulder, soaking his mustard-colored cyclas. He rubs my back as it rolls with sobs but he does not tell me all will be well or that my mother is in a better place. He says nothing at all.

  “Something… horrible… has happened,” I utter between sobs.

  There is a large space between the end of the first sentence and beginning of the second sentence. Ivo interrupts with a growl. Again, his hands ball into fists. “Father Soren… son-of-a-hog-shivver. He certainly looks half-pig. That bastard.”

  “Ivo!” His vulgarity is so fluent it shocks me despite my own feelings of resentment.

  “He defiled your Mother and made you walk a mile in the cold rain. He left you outside the gates at night! A girl was slit from ear-to-ear outside of the Brook gate only weeks ago.” The thought of a woman murdered so close to where Father went last night wrings my stomach.

  “How do you know all this?”

  “One of the dyers, she found her floating in the stream.”

  “No! How do you know what happened at the funeral?”

  “Father just told me.”

  “How does he know?” I yank him by his cyclas and he faces me. He gives me a sideways glance and tries to pull away, but I pull him harder.

  “Your Father told him last night.”

  “When? Do you know where he is?”

  “I don’t know where he is now, but I know he was at the Gilded Gopher last night.”

  “When? What time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I am so angry I could spit! He let me worry all night and day for him while he was drinking himself into a stupor at the Gilded Gopher.

  The Gilded Gopher, I think angrily, its name is a jest. From what I overheard Mother say of it, it is far from being gilded. It is a filthy pit that serves cheap ale and unlicensed whores. And, though it is a vile place, its members are all carefully selected. All members must agree before inviting a new man and only the most trustworthy are allowed. Membership is seen as a privilege.

  “We have to ask Eric where the Gilded Gopher is. Father might still be there or maybe someone there knows where he is now.” I stress.

  Ivo stares at the ground and scrunches his lips to the side, a nervous habit.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I know where the Gilded Gopher is—”

  “You do? Let’s go.” I say and yank him by the sleeve, but he pulls back.

  “I can’t take you there.”

  “Ivo, I know the rules, but this is different. I am not an angry wife going to drag her drunkard husband out by his ear. My father is missing! We must find him.” I plead.

&nbs
p; Ivo huffs. “My father’ll have my hide for this.”

  “Then take me as far as you can and you can go fetch him or find out where he is,” I say coolly. “Wait…since when do you know where the Gilded Gopher is?” It angers me to think of my Ivo inside the walls of the Gilded Gopher, drinking and gambling, and, worst of all, lying with whores.

  “They voted me in a month ago.”

  Severin’s gate approaches. I lift the hood of my cloak in an effort to hide my face for I do not want anyone to recognize me and offer their pity. The cloth from my cloak has stuck to the gash, and as I lift my arms it pulls at the wound.

  “Are you cold?” Ivo asks, wrapping his arm around my shoulder trying to warm me.

  “I am fine.” I say, but he rubs up and down against my wounded arm anyway. I want to pull away from him and tell him he can’t just wrap his arm around me like I am some wanton harlot at the Gopher, but it feels nice to have him close so I say nothing. I pray he does not notice the blood that has soaked through the cloak and try to make me go home.

  His hand strokes my wound and we flinch simultaneously. Holding his hand up in front of his face, he sees his bloodstained fingers. He grabs my hand, spinning me around to face him and pushes the sleeve of my cloak up to my shoulder roughly to reveal the gash.

  “What is this? What happened?” he yells. I rip my hand from his and shove the sleeve back down.

  “It looks worse than it is. I fell on my way through the fields.”

  “It needs to be bandaged.”

  “After we go to the Gilded Gopher. We can stop at my house and I shall bandage it there.”

  He reaches for my arm again and I pull away. He huffs and shakes his head in annoyance at my stubbornness. We walk the rest of the way in silence. The road is quiet. I had assumed the Gilded Gopher would be closer to Hay Market or on Harlot’s Alley, but we near Pantaleon’s parish. The walk gives me pause to think of what I shall say to Father when I finally find him.

  I should like to scream at him for letting me worry. Then, I think, what if Father is not there? And I feel guilty for wanting to yell at him. I say a quick prayer and tell the Lord I shall be forever grateful if He returns Father to me.

  My legs start to quiver beneath me and I grab Ivo’s shoulder to keep from falling.

  “I stumbled,” I lie. I am weary from hunger, I convince myself, and we keep walking.

  My head swims and I stumble toward the city wall in case I need to grasp it for support. A small red stream winds its way down my middle finger, trickling slowly to the ground. My wound has reopened. Heat drains from my face as everything spirals. My legs shake violently and I reach for the wall, sliding down it to the ground.

  I hear my name and I see a face. Ivo. My cheek stings as he slaps me.

  “Addie! Wake up, Addie! Oh, thank God,” he shouts and then huffs. “You are worse than the oxen. You know that?” he scolds.

  “What are you doing? Stop hitting me,” I mumble in a trance. My eyelids bounce heavily and I desperately fight the urge to sleep. Ivo rips the strings that tie my cloak and throws it aside. He stands and rips off his cyclas, standing before me in only his tunic which is slightly translucent with the sun behind him and riddled with holes. I notice a large golden bruise through a hole in his sleeve and another on his stomach which I can see through the tunic. He kneels and pulls a knife from his boot. He cuts away at the bottom of his tunic.

  “I must tie this around your wound, Addie. It has to be tight to stop the bleeding.” He shoves my blood-soaked sleeve past my shoulder and ties the fabric painfully tight around my gash. I cry out as the knot pinches my skin. He sighs and checks the wound which still bleeds. “Not tight enough.”

  He rebinds it. I feel him yank it tightly with all his strength. The world goes black.

  ***

  People are yelling, one belligerently.

  “What is wrong with you boy? Erik’ll hear of this! His no-good son bringing a respectable girl here…” gripes an unfamiliar voice.

  “Ay! I’ma respectable woman, you stupid ’oreson!” a rough-voiced woman roars as she slaps the complainant with a loud thwap.

  “What are you doing? Oh, no. Get her off the bar!”

  “She’s Ansel’s daughter,” Ivo protests. “She collapsed near Pantaleon’s gate. Would you have me leave her in the street?”

  “Let ’er stay, Paul,” the woman orders, gruffly.

  “Egh!” the man sighs, forfeiting the argument.

  “God’s teeth, Ivo? What happened?” a deep voice hollers in a slur. I recognize Father’s voice immediately. The relief of knowing he is here and safe makes it easy to breathe again.

  “She fell, looking for you,” Ivo barks. “Take a look at her arm.”

  “Mind your tone boy,” Father warns.

  “Ivo, shut it or get the hell out,” Paul grunts. “Ansel had a rough night.”

  “I can tell by the smell of him,” Ivo snaps.

  SWOOSH! A cold rush hits my face. I gasp and awake, soaked from head to toe with icy water. I look around in a considerable daze and nearly fall off the bar.

  “See, she’s a’ight. Now ya can stop yer fightin’ and get the ’ell out. If you don’ I got plenty a’ more cold water fer ya’s. Ansel, ya look like ya could use some,” the raspy voice calls. I look to my left and Paul’s wife Sal limps back to the kitchen with the empty bucket in hand.

  “Alright, alright, Sal,” retorts my father with his hands up as he stumbles backward from Paul who stands between him and Ivo as though the two are going to fight. Though I doubt my Father can stand, nevertheless land a punch

  “It’s a small gash. She’s probly just ’ungry. ’Ere, eat some meat on yer way ’ome.” Sal returns with a chicken leg and slice of bread, slamming it onto the bar in front of me. I flinch. She grins, her crooked teeth hanging out of her face like thatch from a rooftop. I thank her. I eat ferociously and feel my strength return. Ivo reaches for my good arm, but I pass him and jump into Father’s arms, kissing him on the cheek.

  “‘Ay, Ansel! Can yer girl keep a secret or do I need to knock her out? I don’ wan’ the ’ole city knowin ’bout this place.” Sal peaks around the corner of the backroom, waving a rolling pin. Father looks down, wraps his arm around me, and I nod my head. “Good,” Sal says.

  “You scared me,” I say.

  “It is late, I suppose,” Father says light-heartedly.

  “It’s well past noon!” I cry, but Father says nothing. He’s not the type of man to give apologies lightly so he changes the topic.

  “I think the pup wants a piece of the wolf!” Father laughs, wrapping his other arm around Ivo and slapping his chest. Ivo grimaces. “See, she’s all right. She worries too much, like her….” he coughs, unable to bring himself to speak of my mother. His wife.

  “You could have told her where you’d be,” Ivo reprimands.

  “Is it a surprise to either of you that you found me here?” he retorts and kisses the top of my head. Father is always his most affectionate and jovial self after a few drinks.

  Before we leave, I look around and realize I am probably the only virtuous woman besides Sal to see the Gilded Gopher. There truly is nothing gilded about it. The stench of sweaty men and stale ale fills the windowless pub. Stained wooden tables and benches are packed into tight rows. Candles provide the only light.

  We climb the stairs and a woman passes us holding her tattered dress as if to hide her bosom. Dark circles encompass her dead eyes. She limps, though she appears to be healthy. My eyes avert to the wood of the stairs.

  I knew such business took place here. She has sold herself and I wonder what happened to make her so desperate. Daylight blinds me for a moment at the top of the stairs. A child lies on a pile of hay by the fire in the corner of the room. Perhaps this woman’s husband died of fever and she has a child to feed. Perhaps she was the concubine of a burgher who promised he’d marry her, but never intended to do so. I promise myself I shall never turn to such an abase business
, but surely this woman had promised herself the same at some point in her life.

  I bet this whore’s parents had hopes for her once, however meager. I wonder if her parents deny her now, shamed by her profession. Better that they died before she made the bed she now lies in. I shall never put myself in such a position. I shall never give myself to a man before wedlock.

  We walk silently. Ivo’s narrowed eyes stare into the distance pensively. He has become hard to read. He used to be so much like little Levi, so jovial and always wearing his heart on his sleeve. But the fever has worn on those of us old enough to understand it, and especially those of us who have lost a family member or friend. Perhaps he is angry with me for being stubborn or with Father for letting me worry so. We make it to my house and Father heads straight for his workshop.

  Ivo turns to head back to the fields. I reach for his arm.

  “Wait,” I plead.

  “I need to get back to the fields,” he replies shortly.

  “I hate it when you’re angry.” I reach clumsily for his hand.

  “He should have come back to tell you where he was.” He reaches out for my other hand. I wrap my fingers around it and smile, looking into his eyes in the hopes he shall let his anger go.

  “Did you get the firefly?” he asks.

  “I did, and the bread.”

  He nods. “I saw it outside my window in the middle of March! What are the chances?!”

  I shake my head and smile.

  “Do you think we shall catch more of them this summer?” he asks with a grin.

  “Are you sure you’d not rather spend your nights at the Gopher?” I ask with a hint of sarcasm.

  He laughs as though the idea is preposterous. “I’m sure.”

  “Then we can catch fireflies all night long. I owe Father a good scare.”

  I’m glad to know that he’s not fond of the Gilded Gopher and the base entertainment it holds. He turns and heads back to the fields. I want to ask him about his bruises, but there seems no good way to ask. I return to the house to an angry Galadriel and a Father who is passed out at his workbench.