The Fairytale Keeper: Avenging the Queen

by Andrea Cefalo

  “No!” I laugh. “Otto likes to do that to Ivan’s sister because her face is too ugly to look upon.”

  He laughs out loud. “If your father heard you speak of such things, he’d send you to a nunnery.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

  “What makes you think I know?”

  “Because you go to the tavern now and it seems all I heard about tonight was fighting and fornicating. Mostly fornicating.”

  “I should have taken you home.”

  “So what is it?” I ask. “I’m practically a woman, you can tell me.”

  “It’s a whore’s trick, but I do not lie with whores so…”

  “Oh.” I smile and kiss him on the cheek.

  “What was that for?” he laughs.

  “For not lying with whores.” I smile again and he shakes his head at me, grinning widely.

  ***

  The trip back to his house seems too short and we walk slowly to make it longer, pausing in front of the door. Ivo turns to face me and I suddenly feel aware of the dirt on my hair and face. His arm slides up my shoulder until it embraces the back of my head. His fingers branch through my hair, raising a ticklish shiver down my back. My stomach heats with anticipation. His warm lips press against my forehead and the tingle lingers. My hands want to dart out and grab the sides of his face, so I can kiss him like I should have done a dozen times by now. But I am filthy and this is not how I want our first kiss to be. Instead, I bask in the warm tingle in my stomach and on my forehead. We enter the house quietly and I lie in his bed with a smile on my face.

  ***

  I drift in and out of sleep, grinning about my kiss. I want the sun to rise so I can see him again, even if it is only to break our fast. Tomorrow is Monday and now that it is spring, I shan’t see Ivo much at all for the farmers shall be in the fields from dawn to dusk readying the fields for this year’s crops. It makes me sad for I know I shall be grieved tomorrow without him around. I shall work so I can keep from thinking too much about my mother and too much about missing Ivo. Still, it shall be a long week.

  18 March, 1247

  “Better wake up, boy,” a hoarse voice orders as the breeze of a large object sweeps past my cheek, smacks the wall next to me, and lands with a thud. My hazy eyes flash open and I shoot up violently from the unfamiliar bed. The room is a blurry brown smudge and I try to quickly rub the sleep from my eyes.

  “I said, get up!” the voice commands and my vision clears in just enough time to see the second boot fly at me right before it slams into the side of my face. My fingers rush to the furious heat above my cheek.

  I narrow my eyes at him, pick up the boot and throw it at his head, but he dodges it.

  “Watch yourself, girl. If you were quicker you’d a ducked,” Erik scolds with a drunken slur.

  “I was sleeping.”

  “You sleep too long,” he growls.

  I ball my fists and want to say: “When my Father finds out, he’ll shove that boot up your arse.”

  Ivo told me his father woke him in this way. I didn’t put much thought to it, but now it all makes sense. The odd bruising on his arm and stomach the day Father disappeared came from his father’s hateful hands, not from clumsiness, hard farm labors, or even horseplay like I had thought. Ivo’s being beaten. Badly. It makes my hands shake with anger.

  The boot that struck my cheek was meant for Ivo, a boy who helps anyone and everyone naturally, a boy who never complains, even when his hands are bloodied from hard work, a boy who has a smile upon his face every day. It is a crime that he must wake to this while his drunken father sits around, spoiled from drink, barking orders. It is only the thought of making life harder for Ivo that keeps me from lunging at his drunkard father with every ounce of my strength, and with any object I could use as a weapon.

  “Boy!” Erik hollers and spit flies across the room.

  “Erik!” I yell. “They’ve already gone. It’s Monday. They’re probably in the fields.”

  Just as I finish speaking, Ivo skids through the door, his hands caked with mud.

  “Yes, Father,” he says. He notices my welt and rushes toward me. Before he can reach me his father grips his arm and whips him around. Ivo is strong, but he is young and lanky, the opposite of his stocky father and no match for him yet.

  “Where have you been? What’s she doing here?” Erik barks, his nose pressing onto Ivo’s.

  “My father ordered me to sleep here last night while you were at the Gopher,” I say.

  Erik pauses for a moment, looking into his tarnished memory of the night before. His eyes widen as he remembers and he releases Ivo’s arm from his grip, shoving him backwards. Ivo stands, frozen and red-faced, his eyes cast downwards as Erik stands, stumbles outside, and pisses. Erik couldn’t have been anymore disgusting or despicable. Ivo turns toward me and I look upon him with pity. He looks down again and squints. His angry lips squeeze together.

  He storms out the back door past his father into the manor yard where beds are being plucked of weeds and fertilized for spring flowers. I follow him, not to say anything, just to offer help. I know it is best for now if I turn his mind from his embarrassment.

  I join Ivo and Levi at one of the beds and watch as he furiously tears chunk of weeds out, one after another. I give him a few moments to get over his anger and I pull weeds as well. Levi giggles as he watches me struggle.

  “You have to wiggle the big ones, Addie,” Levi says and I notice a small bruise on his wrist. I recall Ivo having black eyes and split lips at an even younger age than Levi’s. Suddenly it is as though I can feel the pain of the blows myself.

  “Why don’t you show me?” I say so I can look him over for bruises.

  “If you pull too hard the top breaks off and it all grows back.” Levi demonstrates though I’m not listening closely. His neck and arms are free of injury and I sigh in relief. He stands up and looks into my face, checking to see that I’ve understood his lesson.

  “Oh, uh, like this, you mean.” I stammer and bend to wiggle a weed free from the soil. I tear it out, roots and all, and Levi nods his head.

  “What happened to your wrist?” I ask him.

  “Me and Matthew were playing crusaders.” He says, looking at the bruise.

  I suddenly feel Greta’s eyes on me so I return her stare coldly. How can I respect a mother who allows a man to beat his children so brutally? I expect her to glare back proudly, but she looks upon me with sad eyes and quickly averts her stare, returning to work. And then it hits me. Erik probably beats her horribly, too. He probably does worse and their children have likely born witness to it. The thought makes me cringe.

  I go back to pulling weeds and Levi continues his instructions on weed-pulling though I know what I’m doing now. I look up to see a slight smile touch Ivo’s face, so I slowly work my way over and let him instruct me on flower gardening.

  His face relaxes a bit and the angry blush caused by his father’s scolding fades. I am glad for that. We pull weeds, scrape at the soil, add fertilizer, and scrape some more. Levi is absolutely delighted I am there to help but I cannot stop myself from looking the little boy over for bruises every chance I get.

  ***

  We finish for lunch early and I am glad for I never had a chance to break my fast. I don’t want to take another bite of food that Erik has earned. It wouldn’t taste the same now I see him for what he really is.

  “Can I take Ivo to my house for lunch? You have fed me many times. It seems only fair,” I ask.

  Erik scowls, but Greta intercepts. “Be back after lunch, Ivo.”

  “Does he really throw a boot at you every day?” I whisper as we walk up Foller Strasse.

  “No, sometimes he throws mugs. You know, whatever’s nearest to him,” he says with a painful laugh.

  “I think I’m safer at home. Maybe you’dbe safer there, as well,” I say, trying to disguise my disgust. My father, being good friends with Erik, would never allow Ivo to stay with
us and leave his father’s home, even if he knew how Ivo was being treated. Erik needs Ivo to help with the work.

  Ivo grins halfheartedly and nods. His bright blonde hair falls into his eyes and is promptly swept aside with a toss of his head to reveal the huge bruise of dark purples, blues, and greens that I’d made last night with a cobblestone. I stop to stare piteously at it and he places his hand gently on the welt on my cheek.

  “Does it hurt?” he asks, as he traces the welt lightly.

  “A little… it’s not too bad.”

  “He’s such a bastard sometimes,” he sighs, and I nod in agreement. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s nothing compared to what I did to you last night,” I say. But what I do not say is: “It’s nothing compared to the beatings you’ve endured for God knows how long from your father.”

  “Besides, you weren’t the one to throw the boot at my face. Does your bruise hurt?”

  He shrugs.

  A cold mist floats through the streets causing the ground to mirror the milky grey of the sky. If it were not for the row houses, it would be hard to tell where the ground ends and the sky begins. It is still early, well before lunch, which makes me wonder how early Ivo had woken. Did he get any sleep at all? He never seems to need it. When we’d catch fireflies, even at midnight, he ran with the same speed as he did during the day. My eyelids felt like they were carrying bags of flour by midnight, as did the rest of my body. I doubt we got back before three in the morning last night. I woke as the bells struck seven and Ivo was up well before that, probably five if he’d finished all of his work now. My stomach twists into knots on less than seven hours sleep.

  “Aren’t you tired?” I ask.

  “No,” he replies as if it is a peculiar question, as if I am the strange one for needing sleep.

  “You only slept two hours.”

  “So?” He says with a shrug. We walk silently for a few blocks.

  “Galadriel should be going home today,” I say hopefully. “Perhaps, she’s already gone.”

  “I doubt she’d leave without saying goodbye.”

  “Do you like her?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know her,” he shrugs.

  “She fancies my father. I know it. Last night Father placed his hands on her shoulders for a moment and she blushed! And she beams with delight when he tries to pretend to like her cooking. I wish she’d just go home,” I huff.

  “I’ll race you to the house,” Ivo says, changing the subject.

  “Do I get a head start?”

  “Does it matter?” he replies arrogantly.

  “Probably not,” I laugh. I pick up a dirt clod and throw it at his stomach which he successfully dodges. “Depends on how much of a head start you give me.”

  “To the count of five?”

  “Ten,” I counter, but rather than reply, he starts counting.

  “One… two…” I gather my skirt and bolt through the crowds of Filzengraben. “…three… four… five…” Ivo finishes counting just as I see the door to my house. Just as I feel I might beat him this time, he leaps past me effortlessly and reaches the door first.

  I fake a pout and open the door, expecting Father to be working at his bench, but he is not. The house is strangely silent. Ivo and I run up the stairs and I wonder if Father is quietly dining at the table. He’s not. Mugs are strewn about the table, benches, and floor, remnants of the night before. A snore roars through the house clearly coming from his bedroom. Father has finally slept in his own bed again, I think happily. He must be sleeping off his drinks from last night.

  I climb to my room to wash my face and change my chainse. To my surprise, the room is empty. Galadriel has left already? Better yet, I have not been sent away with her! I smile happily. If my welted cheek hurts, I am too numb with glee to feel it. Perhaps Father stayed up all night and escorted her to the gate as early as possible.

  I descend the ladder clumsily, racing to Father’s bedroom to hug him for I am so happy he has changed his mind and shall let me stay in Cologne. But just as I enter his room, and the words “good morning” beginning to roll off my tongue, I am halted by a horrific site before me.

  My shirtless father cradles a bare-shouldered, sleeping, yet stupidly grinning Galadriel in my mother’s bed. My gasp wakes my father, whose startle shakes Galadriel awake as well. Frozen with shock, I stand as my eyes well with tears and my cloak slips through my fingers. Galadriel clutches the blankets and tries to hide beneath them as my father squints his eyes trying to see who is standing before him. Is this why he wanted me to stay at Ivo’s? So he could take Galadriel to my mother’s bed?

  “How could you? In her bed!” I scream at them both. I snatch up my cloak, wipe the tears from my cheeks, and run from our house.

  “What happened?” Ivo calls and follows me out the door.

  The most saddening thing is that the one person I want to run to is the one person that I cannot. I need my mother. I pause halfway down Filzengraben. Where am I going to go? Should I run out Severin’s gate and to the woods to visit her grave just so I can tell her about her husband’s betrayal? And how could I, even if she is dead? My heart jumps hard and fast. I sob, choking for air. The crowd seems to spin around me and I do not know in which direction I am headed. Two long arms wrap around me, holding me up. Ivo whispers in my ear. “I know where we should go. Come on.”

  I let him take me across Cologne and out St. Kunibert’s gate, half-carrying me as I cry.

  There is a huddle of oaks just outside the gate. If one climbs them you can see the beauty of our homeland: boats from different lands floating up and down the Rhine, patches of farm fields filled with workers, the streaks of bright hues in the streams around the city as dyers color their clothes, and the myriad of steeples of Cologne and Neuss.

  Ivo finds the thickest tree and raises an eyebrow at me. He wants to climb. I shake my head, knowing very well that I’m not going to be able to stand much longer, much less climb because my hands and legs are trembling so badly from my anger. So he sits with his back to the trunk and I sit next to him. Over the course of the afternoon, my head transitions from his shoulder to his lap. He plays with my hair as I weep, mumbling curses at my father.

  The sun eventually breaks through the clouds and varying shades of green cascade through the myriad of leaves above us. The combination of warmth, exhaustion, and the hushed sounds of the river lull me into sleep.

  My nap is dreamless, the kind that makes one feel she has closed her eyes for just a moment, when she has really slept for many hours. It is better than the nightmares I usually have. My head throbs behind my puffy eyes and nose. My stomach knots and the lump in my throat swells as I miss my mother and pity her at the same time for having such a terrible husband.

  I hope she knows nothing of any of this, that Heaven keeps her ignorant of the troubles on Earth. If Heaven is a blissful place, then how could she know of it? How could she enjoy it if she did? My logic brings some peace. If Mother cannot see us then she cannot see me suffering. She didn’t see what happened this morning, or worse what happened last night between Father and Galadriel. Perhaps she does not know, I try desperately to convince myself.

  I open my eyes and roll over, looking up at Ivo who has fallen asleep against the tree trunk. The sun, while still high in the sky, is beginning to descend behind us. It shines through a treeless patch of sky, haloing the crown of Ivo’s head. So he needs sleep after all. His face is peaceful, but his head rests crookedly on the trunk of the tree. He is heavenly and painfully distorted at the same time, much like Christ on the cross or so many of the martyrs whose pain decorates the stained glass windows of the churches in Cologne.

  I know Ivo is likely to face punishment for not returning to his parents’ house for work, but I cannot bring myself to wake him. Perhaps I can come up with a grand lie to tell Greta and Erik, blaming all of this on me, so he can at least escape one beating. I watch him as clouds roll over us and disappear into the distance.
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  ***

  My neck is sore from lying in Ivo’s lap and I can’t stand it another moment. I sit up and Ivo wakes viciously, throwing punches. His eyes are wide open and wild with fright. I shriek and call his name, but even though his eyes are on mine, they look through me. He turns on the tree and punches it until his knuckles bleed. I pounce on his back, shaking him and shouting his name, but nothing helps. He mumbles something and I stop shaking him, desperate to hear the name of the person he is fighting so hard.

  “How could you do it?” he shouts so loud it flushes a hundred tiny black birds from their trees. Then, just like that, he stops. Ivo returns, his arms and eyes relaxing again. He must see the terror in my eyes. “What? What’s wrong?” he says sleepily.

  “You were having some sort of fit or terror,” I cry. “Look at your hands. You were punching the tree. I tried to wake you, but I couldn’t. What were you dreaming about? What’s upset you like this?” He shrugs like it is nothing new.

  “I cannot remember my dreams,” he replies shortly.

  “Ever?” I ask. “You look tired still. Put your head on my lap for a while.”

  “I don’t want to sleep anymore,” he says, and I pity him more than ever. He doesn’t even have solace in his dreams.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just run away,” I say.

  “And how would we live? You are a woman shoemaker with no coin to start her trade and I am not yet done with my apprenticeship with the armorer.”

  “We could run away and live in the woods,” I suggest.

  “You’d not last a day in the woods,” he laughs.

  “Probably not alone.”

  “Probably not at all.”

  “Just because I’m clumsy doesn’t mean I’m useless, you know.”

  “Fine, how are we going to survive?”

  “Well, we could stock up on things for a while so we didn’t go into the woods empty-handed. I can cook. You can farm. We can learn how to hunt while we ready ourselves. We’d make a little dwelling at first until we could make a bigger one. I thought we could move close to another city, but not so close that we’d be bothered by the politics of princes and bishops.”