She drew in another deep breath. The earthy odor of the herbs that hung from the rafters was stuffy, but at least it didn’t trouble her stomach like the smell of blood. Rose focused on the sights around her—the rushes strewn over the stone floor…low shelves packed with flasks of dried herbs…the rough stone wall poking her back. The screaming drifted away.
The tingling sensation gradually left her face and she breathed more normally.
She entered the room again, stepping carefully so as not to rustle the rushes on the floor and draw attention to herself. The boy’s eyes were closed and his lips were the same ash gray as his face. He must have lost consciousness, since he didn’t even wince as the needle pierced his skin.
Frau Geruscha quickly finished stitching the wound. After she tied the last knot and clipped the string of catgut, she wound the remainder of the bandage around his arm and tied a thin strip of cloth around it to hold it in place.
Finally, the people left, carrying the limp boy with them.
Rose hurried to clean up the water spills and the bloody linen. Her stomach lurched at every whiff of the metallic odor, but she had to pretend it didn’t bother her, to hope her mistress didn’t notice how it affected her.
“Are you well?” Frau Geruscha’s gray eyes narrowed, studying Rose. “You looked pale when you ran into the storage room.”
So her mistress had noticed. “I am very well.”
How could she be so pathetic? She had to find a way to prepare herself for the next time she must face the blood, screams, and smells.
Ravenous after his long journey from Heidelberg, Wilhelm attacked the roasted pheasant on his trencher. A page, a lad of less than ten years, leaned over his shoulder to refill his goblet. The boy lost his balance and teetered forward. Wilhelm grabbed him around his middle and righted him, but the goblet overturned onto the table.
The boy’s face flushed red. “Lord Hamlin, forgive me. I—”
“No harm done.” Wilhelm gave the boy an encouraging smile.
With a quick bow, the boy refilled Wilhelm’s goblet and moved on to the next cup.
The Great Hall looked exactly as Wilhelm remembered it. Flags bearing the family colors of green, gold, and red jutted out from the gray stone walls on wooden poles, and several hung like banners on either side of the large mural painted on the wall. His father still spoke sternly, and his mother still clucked over him and his brother, continually admonishing Rupert to proper, gentlemanly behavior. At that moment she was reprimanding him for pinching the serving wench.
If she only knew. While they were supposed to be educating themselves in Heidelberg under the finest teachers in the Holy Roman Empire, Rupert had spent more time carousing than studying. And as Rupert misbehaved, Wilhelm had continued sending out spies in search of Moncore.
His younger sister, Osanna, smiled at him from across the table. Wilhelm smiled back and winked. She’d grown up in the two years he had been away. He missed the freckle-faced maiden who used to trail behind him, begging him to teach her to hunt or fish or shoot arrows.
His father sat at the head of the trestle table, on Wilhelm’s left. He put down his knife and wiped his hands on the cloth across his lap. Then he took a drink from his goblet and turned to Wilhelm.
“So, son, you are still scouring the country for Moncore.” He peered at him from beneath bushy eyebrows. “You’ll get him.”
Wilhelm remembered how his father had awed—and intimidated—him as a child. His greatest desire was to make his father proud of him. “Thank you, Father.”
His brows lowered in a scowl. “You must.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Your responsibility is to your people and to your betrothed. You must not let them down.”
Did his father say these things because he doubted him? He had worked hard to become mighty in strength and swordplay, believing that would please his father. But there was still one thing he had not been able to accomplish; one thing that would exalt him in the eyes of his father, as well as the entire region.
“Wilhelm.” His father nudged him with his elbow, pointing toward the far end of the table. A man dressed in leather hunting clothes stood near the door of the Great Hall. He nodded at Wilhelm, tucked his chin to his chest, and backed out of the room.
“Pray excuse me.” Wilhelm stood and stepped over the bench where he sat with his family and the guests who had come to welcome him home. He strode from the room.
“Lord Hamlin.” The courier stood in a shadowed corner of the corridor outside. He handed a folded parchment to Wilhelm then bowed and slipped out the door.
Wilhelm glanced at the wax seal, confirmed it was from his spies, then ripped open the missive.
Lord Hamlin, we have reason to believe Moncore is in our region. Be on your guard.
Wilhelm crumpled the note in his fist. “Glory to God.”
After Wilhelm’s six years of failing to locate the evil conjurer, the fiend had come to him.