“Bartel will see to his injury,” Dominyk said.
After the three men went upstairs with Gabe, the four that were left stood staring at Sophie and Walther. She sensed in her heart that these seven were good men and would treat Gabe kindly. Tears of relief and gratitude pricked her eyelids. Thank you, God.
Dominyk, who was obviously their leader, turned to a man with a massive scar on the side of his head where no hair grew. “Gotfrid. You and Dolf go and prepare a bath for the lady.” He made some hand signals to the young man with neat brown hair and a kind face, who hurried out of the room. Gotfrid, his scalp shining in the firelight, scowled and grumbled under his breath as he followed Dolf out of a door at the back of the room.
Sophie would be so thankful for a bath. She hadn’t had one since before she and Gabe had escaped from Hohendorf. Was that only three days ago? It seemed like months.
She wrapped her arms around herself as she was beginning to tremble with cold and fatigue. Now Sophie and Walther were alone with Dominyk and one last man — the shaggy-haired giant who was standing behind the much-smaller Dominyk. Dominyk turned to him.
“Heinric, go get some rags to clean up the water they’re dripping on the floor. Go. Rags.”
Smiling ear to ear, Heinric ran out the back doorway, then came running back in, his arms full of cloths.
Sophie looked down at her feet and saw that she and Walther were making a mess, dripping water on the floor. Heinric came toward them, grinning at her, and fell to his knees at her feet.
“I’m so sorry about the mess,” Sophie said.
Heinric grinned up at her as he wiped up the water on the floor. Then he started wiping her feet. And she was sure he would have gone on to wipe her legs too, but Dominyk said firmly, “That’s enough, Heinric.”
Heinric stopped and looked back at his short leader. “Enough?”
“Yes, Heinric, enough. Very good. Now wipe the floor — only the floor — at the man’s feet.”
Heinric moved over to Walther and began wiping the floor around his feet.
“I believe we have some clothes that will fit you,” Dominyk said, addressing Walther. “Go upstairs and into the first room on the right. You’ll find clean clothes and a basin to wash in. We will have supper in an hour, when you and the young maiden are ready.”
She and Walther exchanged glances, then Walther went upstairs, Heinric watching him go and saying, “Bis bald. Bis bald. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.”
Dominyk gestured to Sophie, as if he didn’t notice Heinric’s behavior was somewhat strange. “Come into the kitchen, my dear. Gotfrid and Dolf will have your bath ready.”
Sophie followed him meekly, not sure what to think about having strange men serve her in this way, but she sensed that these men were trustworthy. Besides, Petra wouldn’t have taken the time to tell all three of them — Sophie, Gabe, and Walther — to come here if she wasn’t absolutely sure it was a safe place.
“You seem to know Petra, but she hasn’t told me anything about you.”
Dominyk looked up at her from beneath bushy gray eyebrows that grew all the way across, like one giant, hairy caterpillar. “Petra and I must be careful what we say to and about each other. The duchess has ears and eyes everywhere.”
Before she could question what he meant by this, he went through the door into the smoky semidarkness of the stone kitchen. Gotfrid and Dolf were busy pouring water from a giant iron kettle into a large metal basin, large enough for Sophie to sit in and be covered up to her shoulders. After pouring hot water into the basin from the steaming kettle, they poured cooler water in from a bucket on the floor. Then, after Dominyk instructed them to put up a blanket that hung from a rope to partition off the corner of the room, they left her.
Sophie checked to make sure the blanket was secure and the room was completely empty before taking off her clothes and the bandage on her arm. She sank into the warm water and could hardly believe how good it felt. Until the water touched the cut on her arm; she jerked her arm out at the burning sensation it caused.
A bar of soap lay on the side of the tub. She picked it up and sniffed it. Heavenly! Instead of the stinky soap she and the other servants made out of ashes and lard at the castle, this soap smelled of lavender and something else she couldn’t quite name, something fresh and clean and wonderful, like fresh air and flowers. Sophie quickly rubbed it all over herself, being careful to be gentle with the long cut on her arm, and then scrubbed herself with a cloth. She washed her hair as well, rubbing her scalp with her fingers, then dunking her head in the water.