The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2)

by Andrea Cefalo

  The physician said the potion caused sleep, so I enjoyed my time with Father. But now I wonder, was it poison?

  What if it killed her?

  I gave it to her.

  What if I killed her?

  I dart to the other side of the room, pressing my ear against the rough wooden wall between us, listening for several moments, but hearing nothing. I sniff for the rancid, sickly sweet stench of death, finding the sharp scent of manure and smoldering embers of last night’s fire thick in the air instead. Surely if she’d died someone would have come to tell me by now. I give up on eavesdropping and toss my surcote over my head. My thoughts race too fast to process.

  I could be a killer.

  It is a line that once crossed, cannot be uncrossed. What if I am on the other side of that line? Will God damn me for it? Will I burn for eternity in hellfire? Will I never see Mama again?

  But it isn’t really murder, is it? I didn’t really know what was in that mug, so it couldn’t be murder. Besides, if she intended to poison me, and in turn I accidentally poisoned her, she’d be getting what she deserved. Really I would be defending myself, and Father, from a madwoman.

  Her death might be the best outcome. Father and I would have to return to Cologne. We wouldn’t have anywhere else to go. I could warn Ivo to stay away from Elias myself.

  We have no possessions, no coin. Soren, the vile priest who framed us for uncommitted crimes, had all our possessions burned in the streets only a week ago. But I could apprentice with another cobbler, earning coin that I could use to buy another set of cobbling tools. Then Father and I could return to our trade. In time, we could save enough coin to pay the rent on our home. Ivo would finish his apprenticeship, and we could be married. All in all, it would be best if I knocked on the door to Galadriel and Father’s room to find him saddened over her corpse.

  I shake these wicked, calculating thoughts from my head. No matter how much I hate Galadriel, no matter how many empty threats she makes, I can’t let her turn me into a killer.

  If I kill for my own gains, if I sentence a person to death without trial, then I am no better than Konrad Von Hochstaden—the man who sent us to the stocks knowing we were innocent and then used Soren’s crime against us to hang him without a trial.

  I run my fingers quickly through my hair, braid it hastily, and start to head for the hallway. Caution, from a thought not fully formed, stops me at the door. If I enter the room in a panic, she’ll know what I did. I cannot tempt her to harm Ivo. I take a few deep breaths and look into the water basin for my reflection. Tendrils of my black hair branch out of my sloppy braid, and my brow furrows with worry.

  I no longer have the privilege of transparency.

  I unbraid my wild hair, run my fingers carefully through it, and neatly plait it again. I stick my whole face in the basin, the shock of the cold easing my anxiety. I dry my face and wait for the splotchy redness on my nose and cheeks to fade. I place my hand on the door, taking one more deep breath, and I push it open, heading out into the hallway, to Galadriel and Father’s room.

  I knock lightly, and Father opens the door.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he says, and I feel stung.

  “I thought you might have left without me,” I muse, trying inconspicuously to look past him to Galadriel. He follows my gaze. “What is the matter with her?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugs, his worried eyes upon her. “She won’t rise.”

  I kneel down next to her and shake her shoulder. “Galadriel,” I say loudly, but she hardly stirs. “Galadriel!” I slap at her cheek.

  She grumbles and rolls away from me. I feel her head for fever, but there is none. I turn to Father. “What are her symptoms?”

  “I only woke a little while ago.”

  “Has she retched?” I ask. “She hasn’t a fever. She isn’t pale. Does she have chills?”

  He shakes his head. “She just cannot wake.”

  “Then, let her sleep. If she isn’t well by tomorrow, summon the doctor.”

  “I’ve already summoned him,” he says.

  His words turn my stomach to water. That doctor is no fool. He’ll take one look at Galadriel and know what I did, that I gave Galadriel the potion meant for me. What if he tells Father? What if Galadriel finds out? My heart thuds hard in my chest. Think, Adelaide. Think.

  ”Galadriel had a doctor visit me yesterday,” I confess. “He did nothing but rob her of coin. The man said he could make my knot disappear by this morning,” I lie. “Look at it, just as horrid as the day I got it. I hope that is not the doctor you sent for.”

  Father narrows his eyes. “Galadriel didn’t tell me of this.”

  “We didn’t want to worry you.”

  His lips form a hard line. “Go to the tavern and see who the barkeep sent for.”

  I descend the stairs just in time to see the elderly doctor shuffle his way through the door. I rush over to him.

  “Your services are no longer needed,” I say.

  He eyes me suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve taken too long to get here. We’d sent for another doctor some time ago, and he sees her as we speak,” I lie.

  His silver, caterpillar eyebrows knit. “Oh, and which doctor is that?”

  “I did not get his name,” I say. He’ll keep asking questions if I don’t get rid of him. “I must attend to my mistress. Now be off.”

  He huffs and turns around, grumbling beneath his breath as he lurches back into the street. I inhale, close my eyes, and release the breath. Praise God, it worked.

  Should I send for another doctor? I suppose so. Better to send for a doctor than to have Father catch me lying about sending for one. But there’s no reason to be too quick about it.

  I sink into a chair at one of the empty tables and catch the gaze of two serving girls who must have caught my heated exchange with the doctor. One heads to the kitchen. The other heaves an annoyed sigh as she approaches. It is too late to break my fast and not near dinner. The place is empty, and I’ve interrupted this lull in her day.

  “Dinner won’t be for many hours. Ale or wine?”

  “A doctor actually.”

  A shadow of irritation darkens her face. “You’d already summoned one—and then you sent him away.”

  “That man is a bit old to be a doctor.”

  “He’s the most reputable doctor in the city.”

  “I don’t doubt that he was—twenty years ago. Please send for another one,” I say. “And I will need diluted wine—and bread if you have any left. My father hadn’t a chance to break his fast.”

  The kitchen maid marches off, her blond braid swaying back and forth. She returns shortly after, shoving the bread and wine at me. “I sent for another doctor,” she huffs. “God knows when he’ll get here. I hope your friend isn’t dead by then.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Her face pinches for a moment before she shakes her head and walks away.

  Good.

  The longer it takes for a doctor to get here, the longer we are in Oppenheim. Father shall have time to change his mind about this cursed trip and the fragile creature he’s decided to bed with. We might be home sooner than I thought.

  Or maybe Galadriel shall die… I swallow hard at the thought.

  I take the bread and wine to Father, urging him to eat. He sits in vigil at the top of the bed, his jaw clenched and brow knit. I bend and feel Galadriel’s forehead. She’s neither feverish nor clammy. Her porcelain skin glows healthily, but she sleeps like the dead. Realizing there is nothing I can do—not that I would do much of anything even if I could—I leave him with her.

  I keep my door cracked and perch along the edge of my bed. The mug left by the doctor yesterday still sits on the desk. I really should have thrown out the rest of its contents after I tainted Galadriel’s wine. It is evidence against me—if anyone should think to examine it—though I doubt anyone shall.

  I’ve approached the potion a dozen times but hesitate
at tossing out the remnants. It glares at me accusingly, and I look away, but the weight of its stare burns into me. “You did this to her,” it says. “If she dies it is your fault.”

  “If she dies, it is her own fault,” I say, sounding more ambivalent than I feel.

  “You could find out if I’m poison,” the mug beckons. “Just a little taste won’t hurt you too badly. If I am not poison, that is.”

  I approach the desk and look into the mug, staring at the mixture of wine and herbs. I see my own frighteningly curious reflection staring back at me and take a step back.

  “She’s sick,” I say. “That’s all. She caught something. You were only meant to make her sleep.”

  “That’s not what you thought when you slipped me into her drink,” the malicious potion laughs, and I escape into the hallway.

  I knock on Father’s door. It swings open, for it was already ajar. A doctor still has not arrived.

  “Papa…” I say. He turns his head but hasn’t moved from his spot beside Galadriel.

  I don’t know how to ask what I intend to, so I just stand before him, opening my mouth to speak and then closing it again.

  “What?” Father huffs. He looks so tired.

  “I was wondering if you would allow me to go into the city and fetch a doctor myself. I worry if it takes too long…”

  A resigning sigh breaks the long silence. “Yes.”

  That is all he says.

  I expect him to warn me, to tell me to do nothing else, but he does not, and so after a few moments of waiting for further instructions that do not come, I turn on my heel.

  I pound my fist on the door to the old doctor’s office. A sweet–faced, matronly woman answers. I ask to see the doctor, saying it is urgent. She says that it usually is but allows me in anyway. He turns to look at me and immediately orders the woman to make me leave, explaining that I was the rude urchin that summoned him and then turned him away. The woman’s sweet–face pinches, and she shoos me out like a stray cat. I duck below her arm.

  “What was in the potion? I have to know. What did you give me last night?”

  The woman grasps my arm and pulls me back. I grip the door frame. The doctor turns and raises an eyebrow quizzically. He turns back to his work and waves his hand in the air, dismissing the woman.

  “I told you it was for sleep and pain, but obviously you did not take it.”

  “No, I didn’t, but someone else did…and now she won’t rise.”

  “So that’s why you rushed me away. Thought your mistress was trying to poison you, eh? So you decided to slip her the potion instead?”

  “She’s not my mistress,” I spit. “She’s my father’s lover, though my mother hasn’t been dead a month. We’re cobblers, and she’s a countess. And we hate each other.” Why am I telling him this? “She threatened me yesterday morning, and then you came with your potion. So I thought…you can see how I might have assumed…”

  “That I was paid to poison you,” he finishes, and I nod. “If you hate her so much, why do you care if she lives or dies?”

  “I, I don’t know.”

  “It’s because you’re not a killer,” he concludes. “You see, girl, these things happen. A wife dies. A husband remarries.” He waves his hand dismissively again. “Your father may marry a countess. Although a fool of a countess she must be…to marry a cobbler. Either way, I suggest you accept your good fortune.”

  I ball my fists and bite my lip, confining fury at his suggestion: that my mother’s death and my father’s affair is somehow a blessing.

  His bristled eyebrows raise. “Now when did she take the wine?”

  “Last night near Compline.”

  “Oh, then it should wear off soon.” He shrugs and then turns back to his sheaf of parchments.

  “So it was not poison?”

  “No, it was medicine. Just as I said.”

  “So she’ll live?”

  “Of course.” He laughs. “You see, I am no killer either, no matter how much coin is offered to me.”

  “Did she offer you coin to kill me?”

  He raises his eyes from the parchments at his desk and faces me. “No,” he says evenly. “She offered me coin to heal you.” He turns back around, hunching over his desk.

  The soft indifference in his aged voice convince me that he tells the truth.

  If Galadriel wakes before I return, a doctor may be at her side. What if he discovers her deep sleep was induced by herbs? Who else, besides me, could have, would have slipped her such a potion?

  I have to keep her from finding out, and I know just how to do it, but first there is something else I must do.

  “I know I am in your debt, and that I have nothing to give,” I say. “But I have one other favor to ask of you. I’ll forever be grateful and keep you in my prayers, if you grant me this.”

  The doctor chortles. “I think, between the two of us, I am not the one in need of prayers.” He slowly turns from his chair again, purses his lips, and gives me the annoyed, yet triumphant look of a man once wronged who is now in need of a favor. “But you’ve piqued my curiosity. What is it you want?”

  The doctor grants my request. With that finished, I race back to the tavern, praying the entire way for the old doctor, for Ivo, for Mama, and for myself, that I do not get caught in this scheme.

  I push through the door to the tavern, nearly running down a drunkard who curses me, but I continue toward the stairs. Quiet voices come from our rooms, and I slow my pace, tiptoeing up the stairs. I peek in through the doorway, unseen. A man barely old enough to be a doctor looks Galadriel over, his face muddled with confusion.

  Galadriel slips in and out of sleep, answering the boy’s questions. He feels her for fever and chills. He offers to bleed her, but she declines, saying she feels better. Then he asks something nightmarishly awful, something I had never considered. I dig my fingernails deep into my palms to keep from gasping aloud.

  The boy doctor asks lowly, discreetly, if Galadriel might be with child.

  The silence is piercing. I hold my breath and wait for them to both adamantly, fervently say no and finally Galadriel does. I exhale and quietly peel the door open, entering my room.

  Father may ask me why I never came to check on her and why I didn’t bring a doctor. Of course I shall lie to him later, telling him I could not get a doctor to come with me. I’ll tell him that when I returned, a doctor was already in the room, and I heard Galadriel speaking, so I assumed it best to give them privacy.

  Now it is time to enact the second part of my plan. To show Father that this trip to Bitsch is cursed, that the heavens above do not want it to be.

  I take the potion from yesterday’s wine, still half–full, and before it can mock or goad me anymore, drink the entire thing.

  31 March 1248

  Wheat tickles my arms as I run, giggling through the fields. The stalks sway lazily in the timid breeze ahead of me, but their brilliant blond heads part just before I reach them.

  His long shadow grows closer to me.

  If I slow down, he’ll catch me. Perhaps, I should let him.

  A wanton smile pinches my cheeks.

  No, not yet.

  With another giggle, I sprint ahead. The swipe of his hand tosses a tendril of my hair.

  Almost, Ivo.

  I laugh aloud and veer right, running straight into the sun. The searing pink orb and the illuminated edges of the mountainous plumes of clouds scald my eyes. I turn left, avoiding the blinding brilliance. The wheat goes on and on until the fiery firmament and the gilded fields embrace at some point beyond forever.

  The night sky and stars roll down upon the sunset, squeezing it into the horizon until it is nothing but the faintest lavender line. The moon hangs by a string, swaying in the breeze. It grins widely and beams down upon the stalks, casting silver highlights and pewter shadows.

  I open my hand, running my fingers along the billowy heads of wheat. I expect to hear the brushing sound as I pass through, bu
t instead the stalks ring like whispering bells. A set of fingers caress my open palm, and I slow. I can’t wait a moment longer. His fingers wrap around my hand. They weave together. Panting, I come to a quick stop. He doesn’t expect it and tries to halt, but it’s too late. He yanks me forward. I fall into him, laughing as we plummet into the chiming stalks of wheat.

  I rise up on my hands, the weight of my body upon him. His face reflects the smile that cramps my cheeks. His hand presses into my lower back. A stray strand of hair falls into my face, and he brushes it away, his fingers warm against my cool cheek.

  The happy creases that frame his mouth and eyes have gone, relaxing away. His hand slithers behind my neck, pulling my face toward his.

  His lips brush mine, resting upon my top lip. His fingers sink into my lower back, and I melt into him. The rest is a passionate rush. One sensation flows for the briefest moment before it ebbs behind a stronger one: his hand running through my hair, the scent of his neck, the sweet, silky taste of his lips. Sensations merge, an alloy of bliss.

  I lie on my side, tucking my head into his shoulder. His chin rests upon the top of my head. Every joint, muscle, in my body unhinges. The silver wheat stalks swing to–and–fro, at the whim of the cool, night breeze. The moon swings as well, still brilliant, still smiling. Stars diminish like candle flames with too little wick, and just as one burns out, another illuminates.

  Swollen creatures rise from the wheat, floating lazily like sud bubbles from a laundress’ tub. Fireflies.

  I duck into the crook of Ivo’s shoulder, afraid, worried, though I do not know why. I peer through a squinted eye. Ivo holds out his hand, and a fat firefly lands clumsily upon it, examining us with large, pup–like eyes.

  “Adelaide,” a voice whispers, nearly imperceptible, on the roll of the wind. Ivo grips me tighter. I nuzzle my head deeper into his shoulder.

  “Adelaide,” the voice calls more clearly, no longer coming from the wind, but the heavens. I sit up quickly, startling the firefly who bumbles away.

  “She stirs,” a bell–like voice says excitedly. I stand, looking around for a prankster hiding among the wheat, but the voices come from above. I look to the sky.