“His name is Friedric Ruexner, and he was very interested in getting his hands on you.”
Gisela sank to the floor, feeling like she was going to throw up.
“He paid quite handsomely,” Evfemia went on, “but don’t worry. He’s a baron and he promised to marry you. You should be thanking me for arranging this marriage for you. It isn’t as if the duke’s heir would have married you. Ruexner is the best you could have ever hoped for. And since I can’t tell the duke’s family the truth, and since we must go to the ball, I shall tell Lord Hamlin you ran away to marry a wealthy merchant.”
No. This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t let this happen! “You will be found out. If you let me out now, I won’t tell them what you were planning.”
Nothing. Then footsteps, getting farther and farther away as Evfemia descended the stairs.
Gisela stared at the door, too horrified to cry, too numb to think. “God,” she whispered. “God, please, please, please … help me.”
Chapter
14
The guard who had been ordered to watch Gisela met him in the corridor as Valten was leaving his chamber.
“My Lord Hamlin.” The guard bowed swiftly.
“I wish to know how things stand after our first two days of the tournament. Walk with me.” Valten continued down the corridor toward the kitchen. He held his injured hand against his midsection.
“My lord, besides breaking up a few drunken brawls and capturing two pickpockets, we had no problems.”
“And what of the two people I asked you to keep a watch over?”
“My lord, our Queen of Beauty and Love remained safe, and no one attempted to bother her all day.”
“Where is she now?” A fresh breath seemed to enter his lungs at the thought of seeing her right away. Perhaps even now she was in the kitchen with his sisters, eating breakfast.
“She went home with her family after the tournament yesterday.”
Valten stopped in midstride and faced the guard. “What do you mean? I thought she was spending the night with Margaretha.”
“No, my lord. I didn’t know of any such arrangement. A woman and her two daughters approached her and said she was coming home with them. Lady Margaretha told me they were her family.”
“Who was the woman?”
“Lady Margaretha said she was the girl’s stepmother, Evfemia Mueller. I was careful to ask the name.”
It must have been the woman who treated Gisela so badly in the Marktplatz on the day they’d first met. He supposed she was safe enough with her family, even if they mistreated her, but it annoyed him. He wanted her here, where his guards could watch over her.
“What about Ruexner? Where is he?”
“He left town last night, my lord, immediately after your battle — he and his men.”
“Good. But tell the captain of the guard I want you to keep watch for him. He might still be lurking around. If you see him, I want to know immediately.”
“Yes, my lord.”
An uneasy feeling swept through Valten’s gut as the guard strode away. He wanted to send a guard to Gisela’s house to check on her, but he didn’t know where she lived. He could find out, now that he knew her stepmother’s name, but wouldn’t he seem … odd and overprotective if he sent guards to her home? After all, they weren’t betrothed.
He would wait. She would come back today, and she would be safe in Hagenheim. No one besides Ruexner would dare harm her, and Ruexner was gone.
The sun was just coming up when Gisela stuck her head out her chamber window and shouted for Wido and for Miep. She shouted so much she was becoming hoarse. “Can anyone hear me? Please help me!” Yet no matter how many times she called, no one came.
She waited, watching, staring across the fields. She could just make out the roof of Ava’s house past the copse of trees to the north, toward the town of Hagenheim, but it was probably too far away for anyone there to hear her.
The sun was halfway up the sky when Gisela stepped away from the window to get some water.
Now she understood why her stepmother had sent up the pitcher of water. How kind of her. She was planning to lock her inside.
The water still might be poisoned, so Gisela took a small sip, then another. It felt good on her raw, burning throat, and since it tasted good, she drank some more.
But no, Evfemia wouldn’t poison her now. Ruexner might not pay her if his prey was dead. Terror gripped Gisela, squeezing the air from her chest. “Help me escape, God,” she rasped. I must escape. To be in Ruexner’s clutches would be worse than death.
Her chamber was too high for her to jump out of the window without killing herself, or at least breaking her legs. She studied her door for the hundredth time. The cracks around it were tiny. If she had something small and thin she might be able to stick it through the crack and lift the crossbar. But how would she ever find anything thin enough to fit through the crack that would also be strong enough to lift the bar?
She found a pair of cutting shears and began stabbing it into the door, over and over, but was only able to hack off a few splinters after several minutes.
Why didn’t Wido or Miep come to help her? Evfemia must have sent them away, or threatened them, or otherwise made them too afraid to help her.
Gisela alternately prayed, her hands clasped together and her head bowed, her fingers caressing her iron cross, and rushed around the chamber trying to find something she could use to break down her door. She beat at it with a brick from the fireplace. She hacked yet more with the shears. She sat on the floor and cried. But crying did no good at all.
Footsteps. Someone was coming up the stairs. “Please let me out!” Gisela cried, getting to her knees and leaning against the door.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” came Evfemia’s cheerful voice. “Your new master, Friedric Ruexner, will be here soon—any moment now, in fact — and he will let you out. Irma, Contzel, and I are leaving to go to the tournament and then to the ball. But we will tell your Valten that you won’t be there because you have run off with another man. I am sure Rainhilda will help him forget you.” She laughed as her footsteps echoed down the stairs.
Gisela’s heart froze inside her. No, no, no. Please, God! Don’t let her do it. Don’t let her win.
The window was her only hope. She got up and hurried over to look out, hoping this time someone would be there, on the rutted road that led up to her house, or down below where Wido’s flowers grew, the ones he so lovingly cultivated. Wido. Why wouldn’t he help her? How could he be such a coward?
Of course, he was old, although Miep was not so old, and if they lost their place with Evfemia, they might have a hard time finding another. They could starve if they didn’t find work.
Gisela stayed by the window, hearing the crunch of wheels on the road. Soon, Evfemia’s carriage came into view around the side of the house.
Gisela stepped back from the window so her stepmother and stepsisters couldn’t see and gloat over her. The carriage rolled away, and tears once again fell from her eyes. But she couldn’t be crying. She had to do something. But what? She had tried everything she knew, everything she could think of, and she was well and truly trapped.
God had helped her before. Many times in the past, when she prayed for God’s intervention, something unexpected would happen. Once when Evfemia was trying to sell Kaeleb, the man who wanted to buy him changed his mind. And when her stepmother tried to marry Gisela off to an odious man from another town, that man couldn’t raise the money she was asking for, and he didn’t come back.
Not that Gisela would have married him. She had planned to run away to Hagenheim Castle and beg them to give her a job as a servant, a scullery maid, anything. She might have run away anyway, but she couldn’t bear to leave her horses, and she still held out hope that somehow, some way, Evfemia would leave, would perhaps remarry and take her ugly daughters with her. Then Gisela would no longer be a nobody, she would be the owner of the Mueller house.
&
nbsp; But instead of waiting around for Evfemia to come to some bad end, she should have left. She should have done anything rather than let her trap her like this.
Once when she was a child, she’d imagined her stepmother being killed by a band of knights for her cruelty to Gisela. But she had frightened herself with that dark thought and asked God to forgive her.
Perhaps now she was being punished for having those murderous thoughts.
But no. God was not like that. Evfemia was like that. She’d punish a person even after they had repented, but God would not. Besides, God had done good things for her in the past two weeks. Valten had come to her aid when she was accosted by Ruexner in the street. And she had been in the right place at the right time to see Ruexner’s squire put deadly water hemlock in Sieger’s food, so that she was able to save him.
And best of all, Valten had worn her colors and chosen her as the Queen of Beauty and Love.
But … it was all for nothing if she couldn’t get away. It was more pain than she could bear, to think of Valten waiting for her and not seeing her, of Evfemia lying to him and saying that she had run away with another man. She imagined what he would think of her and she doubled over, pressing her forehead against the floor.
“Oh, God, am I destined for pain?” Her tears fell on her long-sleeved chemise. “God, what will happen to me when Ruexner gets here? I’d rather be nobody than married to him.”
Someone was whistling outside her window. She jumped to her feet and stuck her head out.
A boy, one of Ava’s servants, whistled as he walked near Wido’s flowers.
“Boy! You there!”
The boy looked up, craning his neck back, as he was directly beneath her window.
“Help me, please!”
“You need my help?” The boy’s eyes were big and round.
“Yes! Please don’t go. I am trapped here in my chamber. I need you to come inside and let me out.”
His eyes grew even bigger. “I’m scared of Frau Evfemia. She doesn’t like me.”
“She isn’t here. She’s gone and won’t be back for a long time. Please. I won’t tell anyone you helped me.”
“I think I should go tell my mistress, Frau Ava, first.” He turned as if to go.
“No, don’t go! You must not leave me!” Ruexner could arrive at any moment. Gisela gripped the windowsill so hard a piece of the stone ledge crumbled off into her hand. In desperation, she screamed in her hoarse voice, “I beg you, and I charge you by the Most High God to come and let me out!” She must have heard the words at a miracle play. In her desperation, they must have popped into her mind — and out of her mouth.
The little boy looked hesitant, but finally he nodded. “I am coming.” He ran around the side of the house.
Gisela’s heart soared. “O God, thank you, thank you!”
Please let the front door be open. She thought she heard it click and creak open. Of course Evfemia would have left it open for Ruexner.
She was only wearing her underdress. She grabbed up the beautiful red gown and pulled it over her head. As she was wriggling into it, she heard the boy’s footsteps on the stairs.
“I’m here, I’m here!” she shouted, hoping the sound of her voice would guide him to her room. “Can you hear me?”
“I hear you!” he shouted back. He was now at the door, and she heard him grunting, trying to open the door. Let the crossbar not be stuck.
She pulled her dress into place and dug around in the trunk until she found the leather pouch that contained her money, the money her father had made her hide before he died. Then she yanked out the brick in the fireplace, took out her father’s picture, and put it in the pouch.
A sound like wood scraping metal came from the other side of the door. The door began to open, creaking slowly, and revealed the boy from Ava’s household.
His mouth fell open as he stared at her, looking her up and down.
Gisela squeezed his arm. “Thank you! You saved me.” An ecstatic, slightly hysterical laugh escaped her as she looked down at him. “What is your name?”
“Lukas, if you please.” He swallowed. “My lady.”
“You are a wonderful sight to behold, Lukas, and I shall forever be in your debt. But we must leave here at once, for an evil man is coming —”
She stopped to listen. Horses’ hooves thundered toward the house.
Chapter
15
Valten found his sisters, Margaretha and Kirstyn, standing in the courtyard outside the Great Hall. He strode up to Margaretha, but before he could utter a syllable, she cried, “Valten, how is your hand? Are you well enough to dance tonight? I know someone who will be disappointed if you can’t dance with —”
“Margaretha, have you seen Gisela?” If he didn’t interrupt her, he’d never get a word in. And he wasn’t in the mood to listen to her chatter.
“No. I’ve been wondering where she was. Is she not here?”
“No one has seen her.”
Margaretha looked frightened. “I hope nothing bad happened.”
Her words made Valten want to shake her. “What do you mean? Why do you say that?”
He didn’t realize he was leaning toward her until Margaretha took a step back.
“I’m sure she’s fine. But she did have a strange look on her face when she left with her stepmother.”
Valten clenched his teeth. Her family had treated her like a servant, with no kindness or respect. What if she was unable to get back to town?
“Don’t worry,” Margaretha said. “I’m sure she will be here. The ball hasn’t started yet. Hardly anyone has arrived.”
Valten didn’t like his sister telling him not to worry. Only females worried; men took action. He would talk to his father about sending out a couple of soldiers to the Mueller home.
“There is her stepmother now.” Margaretha nodded at a woman coming toward them.
“Run.”
Gisela took the boy’s hand and they ran down the stairs faster than she ever had before. She pulled Lukas along behind her as they headed for the back door. Tugging it open, she darted outside, and she and Lukas hid behind a bush.
Heavy footsteps resounded from inside the house, along with shouts and loud, indistinct talking. Footsteps pounded up the staircase. Instead of waiting to see anything else, she pulled on Lukas’s arm and they ran farther into the bushes and trees that separated her home from Ava’s.
Not knowing if Ruexner or his men had seen them, she kept running, praying she didn’t ruin the beautiful dress. Lukas ran along beside her, and once he even looked up at her and smiled. He was enjoying this little adventure.
If Gisela hadn’t been so out of breath, she might have laughed out loud. She would go to the ball, she would see Valten, and her stepmother would not get away with locking her away and selling her to Ruexner!
If only she could get to the castle before her stepmother told her lies to Valten. Clutching her voluminous skirts in one hand and her money pouch in the other, she and Lukas reached Ava’s house and ran through the front door without even knocking.
Ava was just inside, lounging on a bench piled on every side with cushions. She sat up straighter, gaping at Gisela and Lukas. But Gisela was breathing too hard to speak.
“I saved her, Mistress Ava. She said I saved her.”
Ava raised herself up. “Gisela, what happened?”
Gisela grew able to talk and told Ava the whole story of being locked in her chamber, and of Evfemia telling her she’d sold her to Friedric Ruexner. “This boy, Lukas, came just before Ruexner arrived.”
“I thought I heard someone calling this morning,” the boy said, “so when Ernolf offered to finish my chores for me, I went to see who it was.”
“Good boy, Lukas.” Ava hugged him, then looked at Gisela. “We must get you to that ball.” She pursed her lips, her hand on her side, and propped herself up. She looked Gisela up and down and frowned. “That dress is beautiful, but it’s soiled and has a rip in it.
Come.” She turned and started walked toward the back of the house.
Gisela followed her, and Lukas skipped away, no doubt to tell the other servants of his heroics.
Ava opened a large wardrobe and rummaged inside. “Here it is!” She pulled out a beautiful gown of shimmery fabric, a lovely shade of pale blue that was decorated all over with pearls and silver embroidery. It was a dress fit for a duchess, and it took Gisela’s breath away.
“Put this on.” Ava thrust the dress at her.
“But it’s too beautiful. What if I ruin it? Your husband would be upset, and so would you, I imagine.”
“Nonsense. He’s never seen me in it, it’s perfect for you, and I don’t think it will ever fit me again. I’m always either pregnant or too fat. And what do I care? He can buy me another. Now put it on. We don’t have any time to waste. You must get to Hagenheim Castle before the ball begins.”
She would be late. The sun was already sinking, and the ball would begin at twilight.
Ava sent a servant to tell her coachman to get her carriage ready. Then she began helping Gisela off with the red dress.
“Will you hide this for me?” Gisela showed Ava her leather pouch.
Ava took it and stuffed it inside the wardrobe, hiding it behind the clothes inside.
“I can never go home again, and that is the only valuable thing I own. I suppose I’ll never see my horses again.” Gisela’s voice caught and she didn’t try to go on. Ava didn’t like self-pitying tears.
“You’ll see one horse again. Kaeleb has been in my stable since you rode here two days ago.”
How could she have forgotten about Kaeleb! “Thank you, Ava! I’m so happy he’s safe.” God had saved her, and He even saved her favorite horse. When she ran away, she would not only have the money her father left her, she’d have her beloved Kaeleb too.
Ava pulled the dress over Gisela’s head, tugging at the bodice until it was straight and fluffing the material down over her hips. “It looks as if it were made for you.”
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