Rose’s heart sank. Today. “Will he see me tomorrow?”
“He says he cannot change the sentence and he has no wish to discuss it further.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow.” Rose clenched her teeth. She would not give up on whatever slim chance there might be.
She turned and walked down the corridor until she was out of sight of the bailiff.
What if the duke refused to see her? What else could she do to free Gunther? Tomorrow was Gunther’s last day before the execution.
Wilhelm knelt on the stream bank to refill his leather water flasks.
“Will we bed down here for the night?”
Sir Georg and Sir Christoff stared, their shoulders limp, their eyebrows raised hopefully. All three of them were covered with the dust of travel. But Wilhelm shook his head.
“Let’s go on a little farther.” He needed to be home again, to rid himself of this urgency, and to get back to looking for Moncore. This trip had yielded them nothing—a chasing of the wind.
Georg shrugged and Christoff sighed. They turned to their horses and retrieved their water flasks.
He couldn’t explain to them the strange sense of urgency he felt about getting home. Leaving Hagenheim had seemed like a good idea, to look for Moncore in one of his hideouts, and to get away from Rose—and Rupert. But now this vague-but-desperate feeling nagged at him every time they stopped to rest the horses or to bed down for the night, as if something were happening at home and he needed to be there.
That was foolish. He didn’t believe in premonitions. There could be nothing at Hagenheim that his father couldn’t handle. But then his imagination had conjured up all kinds of possibilities. Perhaps his father was ill, or his mother or sister. Or perhaps Moncore was in Hagenheim, stirring up some kind of trouble. It was probably none of those things, but the desire to get home became irresistible, driving him forward.
O God, please give us a miracle.
The last day before Gunther’s execution, and Rose had come up with no new ideas.
Time to find out if Duke Nicolaus would see her today.
Was that a frown on the bailiff’s face? Just the sight of her seemed to ruin his mood. But he nodded in her direction.
Swallowing and sucking in a shallow breath, she asked, “May I trouble you again to petition His Grace to allow me to speak with him today?”
“I’ll see what he says.”
Rose sat on the bailiff’s vacated stool to wait. She consoled herself with Scripture. The unjust judge in the parable of the persistent widow in the Bible had thought to himself, “Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”
The fact that she had suddenly remembered this verse might mean that God was making the duke see her. Perhaps her persistence was working and was swaying him in her favor, as the unjust judge had been swayed in Jesus’ parable.
Bailiff Eckehart appeared around the bend in the corridor. Rose jumped to her feet.
“His Grace will see you. Follow me.”
Rose’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. She could hardly breathe past the lump in her throat as she followed the bailiff into the deepest bowels of the castle. Finally, he stopped before a narrow wooden door and pushed it open for her. Rose stepped through the door and the bailiff closed it behind her.
Duke Nicolaus sat at the opposite end of the room, his head bent low as he scratched furiously with a quill. He paused to dip the quill in the ink pot.
He raised his eyes to Rose. “Well? Come forth.”
His deep voice boomed, seeming to fill the small room with gruffness and impatience. Rose crossed the room on wobbly legs.
“Your Grace, may I speak?”
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Forgive me for disturbing you, but I wish to plead for the life of my friend, Gunther Schoff.” To keep him from interrupting her, she rushed on, pushing the words out of her mouth as fast as she could. “The death of Arnold Hintzen was not intentional. He fell into the river and drowned. It was an accident. Surely you wouldn’t put a man to death for causing an accident.”
“Pure speculation,” the duke roared. His ponderous gray eyebrows hung dangerously low. “Were you a witness to any of it?”
“No, Your Grace. Please forgive my boldness.” Rose’s heart fluttered, but she clenched her hands into fists to steady herself. “I know Gunther would never kill anyone. He wanted to protect Hildy, who was viciously attacked by this Arnold Hintzen. He only wanted to defend her.”
The duke stared at her with light blue eyes. “So the man thinks we have no order here? That I have no power nor inclination to defend the helpless or punish the wicked? He had to do that himself? No!”