The Captive Maiden

“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.

 

Melanie Dickerson's books