“Go on, now.” Wido shooed her toward the house.
Relenting, Gisela turned and ran inside. She stirred up the dwindling fire in the great hall but dared not add any more wood. Her stepmother did not allow her to “waste” wood. Shivering, she stepped inside the giant fireplace and knelt among the dying embers where it was warm. Her dress was already dirty from the ashes in her bedchamber fireplace, in addition to being torn and permanently stained over most of the fabric, as it was a cast-off of a former servant, having been altered to fit her eight-year-old body. Besides, she could wash it tomorrow.
She put her cold fingers under her arms and leaned her shoulder against the heat of the fireplace bricks. “I don’t care what they think of me. I don’t care what they do.” If her father was here, he’d never let her stepmother deny her a fire in her room or treat Gisela like a servant. But she reminded herself she didn’t care.
She imagined her father and mother in heaven, picturing how they would welcome her—hugging her, kissing her, their arms warming her. The thought was so comforting, she relaxed inside the fireplace, leaning her cheek against her folded hands.
Gisela woke to cackling laughter. She opened her eyes to her stepmother and stepsisters standing in front of the fireplace.
Irma pointed her skinny finger at Gisela, her face twisted in a sneer. “Lying in the cinders like an addlepate.”
“She’s filthy.” Contzel wrinkled her nose.
Evfemia planted her fists on her hips. “Get up from there, you ridiculous girl, and go to your chamber. You shall scrub every inch of the floor from this fireplace to your door, as you couldn’t possibly make a step without strewing filth everywhere. I don’t know where you got such a notion, to sit in the fireplace among the cinders.”
Gisela stood.
Irma clapped her hands and squealed. “I know. Instead of Gisela, we’ll call her Cinders-ela.” All three of them laughed.
“Cindersela!” “Always dirty!” “The girl who smells like cinders and horses.”
With the taunts and laughter ringing in her ears, Gisela walked with her head held high all the way up the stairs to her room.
Gisela changed out of her ragged work clothes, put on her nightdress, and washed her face in the cold water of her basin. Today she had washed every window on all three floors of the house, she’d helped Wido muck out the stables, and she’d mended two of Irma’s dresses. She had cleaned up the mess Contzel’s puppy made in the dining hall. And she cleaned the mess the puppy made on the stairs. And in the solar. And in Contzel’s chamber. And then the snippy animal bit her on the ankle.
She did not like that dog.
Gisela wrapped herself in a blanket and sat on the bench in front of her window. Across the hills, over the city wall to the north, stood Hagenheim Castle, barely visible through the deepening night except for its five towers interrupting the horizon. The castle towers’ lit windows seemed to carry her back to a year ago.
When she was still seven, and before her father died, the Duke of Hagenheim and his oldest son, Valten, had come to buy a horse from her father, because, as Father said, he bred and raised the best horses in the region. Valten wanted a war horse, a destrier that would serve him as he practiced jousting and other war games.
The two of them, Duke Wilhelm and his son, rode up the lane to her house. Duke Wilhelm and her father greeted each other like old friends. The duke’s son was fourteen, and Gisela had been seven. Valten was already quite as tall as her father and broad-shouldered. She remembered his hair was blond, and he’d looked at her with keen eyes and a sober expression.
Within the first moments, she decided she did not like him. He had come to take one of her horses away, and worst of all, this boy meant to ride her horse in the lists. She didn’t want one of her horses competing in the dangerous joust, risking serious injuries with each charge.
But the boy and his father treated the horses gently and respectfully. From several feet away she had watched as they examined all the youngest destriers. By the time the duke’s son made his choice, Gisela realized he would love the horse, would take care of him. The horse would have many adventures with the duke’s son, more than Gisela could give him.
As their fathers settled their price, Gisela watched Valten — she was supposed to call him Lord Hamlin, as he was the Earl of Hamlin, but she thought his given name suited him better — as the young earl rubbed the horse’s nose and cheek and talked softly to him.
“He likes carrots.”
Valten turned and looked at her. “Then I shall make sure he gets some.”