As twilight began to set in, Gabe began worrying that he might go off the trail in the dark woods and get lost. He forced himself to slow his pace so as not to leave Duke Baldewin behind. Gingerbread picked his way through the dense trees and undergrowth until Gabe saw the cottage in the waning glow of the sky. He heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you, God.”
As his heart quickened, he couldn’t help urging his horse to walk faster. A woman came out the kitchen door and dumped a pan of dishwater on the ground, but her form wasn’t quite right to be Sophie. She was a little heavier and her hair was lighter. Had he come to the wrong house? But no, he was sure this was the cottage.
The woman looked up and saw them coming. She stood perfectly still as she watched them draw closer. Finally, Gabe realized her gaze was focused not on him, but behind him, on Duke Baldewin. He turned in his saddle and saw that Baldewin’s eyes were wide as he stared back at her.
The duke halted his horse, got off, and walked toward her, obviously forgetting his saddle sores. He strode toward her as if striding toward home.
Such a strange thought. Duke Baldewin had never been to the Cottage of the Seven before, so it certainly wasn’t his home. And how could he know this woman? Who was she?
The woman waited. She looked like Petra, the cook from Hohendorf, and it looked as if she was crying. When Baldewin had come within two feet of her, he stopped.
Curious, Gabe nevertheless turned away from the pair and led his and Baldewin’s horses to the stable. He unsaddled them himself, anxious to see Sophie and tell her the good news, to see the reunion between father and daughter. He forked some hay to the animals in their stalls and then latched the barn door before hurrying to the house.
Not bothering to knock, he burst into the large front room and found all seven of the men gathered around.
Siggy, instead of playing his lute, sat smiling at a young woman about Sophie’s age who was smiling back at him, and for a moment it was as if Gabe were watching himself and Sophie. But this girl was not Sophie; Gabe recognized her from his first day at Hohendorf as Roslind.
Where was Sophie? A quick glance around the room told him she wasn’t there.
The men quickly noticed him standing there and jumped up to greet him.
“Gabe!” Several of them came and grasped his shoulder or his hand, welcoming him back.
“Is Sophie upstairs?”
The men’s expressions immediately changed and their smiles fled. Only Bartel could look him in the eye. “She’s gone. Your father and Valten came earlier today. They set out immediately for Hagenheim Castle.”
Gabe’s stomach sank to his toes. He’d missed them, missed being there to explain things to his brother and father. Sophie had had to face them alone. And now they were a full day ahead of him.
Or, he should say, them — he and Baldewin. He couldn’t go to Hagenheim Castle without Duke Baldewin. More’s the pity. The man’s slowness would try the patience of Job.
Where was Duke Baldewin anyway? If he didn’t know better, he’d say the man was trysting with that woman behind the kitchen.
He rebuked himself for having such a thought about a monk.
“Can I help you with your horse?” Vincz asked.
“Thank you, but I already stabled them.” He looked back toward the kitchen. “I arrived here with Duke Baldewin. Have any of you seen him?”
The men muttered, asking each other if they’d encountered the duke, already deciding to search for him and who should go where, when Baldewin and the woman entered the door from the kitchen.
For a moment, no one said anything as they all stared at Baldewin and the woman, and the woman stared at the floor, her cheeks pink. Baldewin returned each stare with a leveled one of his own.
“Everyone,” Gabe spoke up. “This is Duke Baldewin of Hohendorf. He is Sophie’s father.”
They all bowed — all except Heinric, who grinned.
Duke Baldewin nodded — Gabe had been half afraid he would take issue with being called a duke, as he had when Gabe had addressed him as such at the monastery. But instead, he stood to his full height, seeming to throw off the humble demeanor of a monk. He looked as majestic as any nobleman, though without a nobleman’s attire.
“And this,” Baldewin said in his most kingly tone, “is Lady Petra, daughter of Baron Otto Kukelbrecht, a woman I’ve been wishing to talk with again for many years.”
Valten was almost home; his bride was riding her own horse — the horse he had personally selected for her — safely in the center of his father’s knights. And he had hardly said two words to her. But the important thing was that she was safe. And it didn’t hurt that she was quite beautiful.