Valten slipped the rope off his right wrist.
Gisela gasped. Valten pressed a finger to his lips. While working to keep her breathing steady, she glanced at Lew; he was still placidly whittling his piece of wood.
Valten held her gaze. Now what? She assumed they would have to wait until Lew fell asleep. Valten pointed to her and mouthed the words, “You sleep. I will watch the guard.” Then he closed his eyes, put his hands back together, and turned over, as if turning in his sleep. The guard noticed, stared, but then went back to whittling his piece of wood.
Gisela didn’t want to lie there while Valten plotted their escape. She wanted to watch with Valten, to be ready as soon as the guard fell asleep. But this guard didn’t seem tired at all, so she started praying again. God, please let this guard fall asleep. Or let the next one come soon to take his place, one who cannot keep his eyes open.
Gisela had so often eased her pain by telling herself she didn’t care what happened. But she couldn’t tell herself she didn’t care if Ruexner forced her to marry him. To be his wife was a detestable prospect. So she kept praying to God to help Valten and her escape, and to keep them safe. It was comforting to ask for God’s help, to believe that he was listening and that he cared. She felt herself relaxing and letting go of her fear …
“You there. Pssst.”
Gisela’s eyes popped open, and she realized she’d fallen asleep again. The guard had changed, and the new guard, Malbert, was lying against a tree trunk, snoring.
Slowly, Valten rolled over, making no noise. But he was not looking at Gisela, but at someone behind her.
Her heart in her throat, Gisela rolled over as well, to find herself face to face with a stranger. It was the friar she’d glimpsed as he passed by their camp on his donkey.
The man was bending over so that his face was almost level with Gisela’s. His smile seemed so out of place that Gisela could only stare.
“Do you need help?” the man whispered.
Gisela nodded while Valten quietly jumped to his feet. Then he and the friar each took one of Gisela’s hands and helped her up.
Looking over his shoulder, Valten put his hand under her elbow, and all three of them carefully picked their way away from the three men. When they were fifty feet away, they began walking a bit faster. About a hundred feet away, they came upon the friar’s donkey.
“Wait here,” Valten said. “I’m going back to get my horse. If I don’t return soon, go on without me.”
Before she could think of anything to say, he was walking back toward Ruexner’s camp. She stared after him until he disappeared in the dark woods.
What had she been thinking? They had escaped! She should never have let him go back for Sieger. Because if Ruexner were to catch him and find Gisela gone, Valten was a dead man.
Chapter
22
Valten walked more carefully the closer he got to Ruexner’s camp. He avoided stepping on sticks, and he dodged tree limbs that might brush against his shoulders and make a noise. He was only a few feet from the sleeping guard when he had to step over an enormous rotting tree. A loud snap made him freeze — his foot had landed on a large twig. He watched the nearby guard, as well as Ruexner and his other man a few feet farther on. No one moved, and he could still hear the sounds of soft snoring.
Valten stepped his other foot over the log and pressed forward.
Sieger stood silently next to the other three horses. But before he made off with Sieger, he wanted to steal a sword, preferably his own, which he had forfeited to Ruexner when he’d turned himself over to him to save Gisela. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where Ruexner was keeping it, and he had to hurry before the next guard came to take his turn watching them and discovered them missing.
Valten crept closer to the sleeping guard, Malbert, until he could see that his sword lay across his lap with one hand laying limply over it. He couldn’t possibly take it without waking the man. So he crept backward and made a wide arc through the trees to get closer to Ruexner and Lew.
They lay on blankets in the leaves. Ruexner’s sword was by his side, and he too had his hand resting on its handle. Valten moved on to check on Lew, but he couldn’t see Lew’s weapon at first. Then Valten spied it on his blanket, half of the blade under his thigh.
Valten gritted his teeth. He didn’t dare try to steal either sword, for he would be too likely to wake the men. He turned back toward the horses. Just as he turned, something near the ground, propped against a tree trunk, caught his eye: Malbert’s crossbow.