“Who goes there?”
Pinnosa stopped, then leaned her head back as far as she could. When she parted her cracked lips, no sound came out. The guard’s face began to blur, her knees trembled, and the ground quickly came up to meet her. Strange how she didn’t … even … feel it.
Chapter
1
Sophie kept her head bowed as she waited for the duchess to speak. She started to clasp her hands together but stopped. Clasped hands presented an image of idleness, the duchess often said, and the gesture sent her into a rage every time. Sophie let her arms hang limply at her sides.
Carefully, she peeked through her lashes at Duchess Ermengard. The woman’s skin was unnaturally white, her hair dyed ebony using black hickory hulls. Her lips were stained red from berries, and her teeth were so white they made Sophie want to shade her eyes. Did the duchess ever think of anything besides beauty? The irony was that she was naturally beautiful and would look better without all the powder and dye.
The duchess stood unmoving, not making a sound. The silence began to crowd against Sophie’s ears. Duchess Ermengard liked to draw out the waiting, knowing it only increased her victims’ apprehension. Having to stand and wait to hear what her punishment would be was perhaps the worst part.
At long last, when the duchess addressed Sophie, her hoarse voice sent a chill down Sophie’s spine.
“So this is how you repay my kindness to you? You, an orphan, and a girl at that. I could have let you starve by the roadside. Others would have done so in my place.”
No one but you would be so cruel. Sophie’s breaths came faster—she was dangerously close to speaking—but she forced the words down.
“How could you be so audacious as to think … when I rightfully punish one of my servants … No. No, I want you to confess what you have done. You seem to enjoy prayer. Surely you enjoy confession as well. Now confess.” Sophie’s skin crawled as the duchess’s voice lowered to a slow, quiet whisper. “What … did … you … do?”
Sophie almost wished the duchess would scream instead. A dark feeling of oppression, of an evil presence in the room, came over her, as it often did when the duchess was interrogating her. Jesus, help me. Take away my anger.
The oppressive feeling subsided.
Following the rote formula required by the duchess, Sophie began, “Duchess Ermengard, your servant Sophie confesses to sneaking food to your servant Roslind while Roslind was being punished in the dungeon.” Sophie curtsied humbly. Oh, God, please, please, please let it be enough. Let my confession be enough to appease her. And let me appear meek before her.
Silence. Again. With a churning stomach, Sophie waited for the duchess to speak. Her hands trembled but she dared not hide them behind her back. The duchess had a rule against that as well.
Sophie waited so long for the duchess’s next words that her mind began to wander, imagining what her friends, the other servants, would be doing now. But she pulled herself back, bracing herself for what the duchess would say or do next.
“You confess as though you’re not truly sorry for what you did.”
“Please forgive me, Duchess Ermengard.” Sophie suppressed a shudder. This was not going well. It was no longer a matter of if she’d be punished, but how severely. She bowed her head lower, hoping to appear truly repentant. Even though she wasn’t.
“And there is more, isn’t there?” Once again, the duchess let the silence linger.
What would the duchess accuse her of now? Sophie searched her mind for things she had done that the duchess may have uncovered. She had given food to some starving children who had come begging at the kitchen door, but that had been days ago. She searched her memory for something else …
Then she remembered. Yesterday she had followed a guard into the woods, and after he’d heaved a sack of squirming puppies into the river, against her better judgment, Sophie had dived in after them. Dragging the heavy cloth bag from the bottom of the shallow river, she’d dumped out all five creatures on the riverbank, wet but alive. Someone must have seen her and told the duchess. She couldn’t read minds, could she?
“Nothing to say? You know what you did. You defied me.” The duchess’s voice sounded like the hiss of a snake. “You followed the guard to the river in order to save those worthless, mongrel puppies. You are a disobedient, deceitful, horrible little wretch.” She spat out the words as if they were venom.
Sophie’s mouth went dry. Duchess Ermengard hated dogs, especially lap dogs. Anything small and helpless incited her hatred. And these puppies would never grow anywhere close to the size of hunting dogs, which the duchess gave to Lorencz the huntsman to use in his deer hunts.