Rose awoke with a start, her heart pounding and her breath short. She sat up and opened her eyes wide, trying to see something, anything, in the dark room. I was only dreaming. But her heart wouldn’t calm down. In her dream an evil spirit hovered over her, a blackness with orange eyes and a green mouth, then wrapped around her body and squeezed, taunting, “You’ll never get away.”
Rose shuddered, sinking down again into her bed. At first she believed it had been a demon, come to her in her sleep. But then she told herself it was only her imagination that had caused the dream, a product of becoming frightened when she was getting ready for bed.
She huddled under the covers, her eyes searching every dark corner of her chamber. She wanted to run into Frau Geruscha’s room but was too afraid to get out of bed. Instead, she lay shivering and praying, “God, help me. Jesus, help me. Holy Spirit, help me.”
“Did you sleep well?” Frau Geruscha asked as they walked to the kitchen to break their fast.
Rose turned to look at her. She didn’t normally ask her if she slept well. “No, I didn’t. I had a horrible nightmare. You didn’t hear anything, did you?”
“Hear anything?”
“Or know of anyone entering my room lately?”
“No. Why do you ask?” Frau Geruscha stopped, making Rose pause on the path to the kitchen.
“There is something strange on my floor. It looks like ashes, as if someone had drawn a circle and made some strange markings.”
Frau Geruscha’s face went white. She grabbed Rose’s arm as if to steady herself.
“What is it?”
“Probably nothing, but I’d like to see this. Let’s go back now and look at it.”
Why was Frau Geruscha so concerned? The back of her neck prickled as it had the night before.
Frau Geruscha examined Rose’s floor. The ashes were strewn about from Rose’s walking across them, but though indistinct, the crude circle was still visible.
Frau Geruscha, after bending down and staring at the floor, searched about the room, itself in the shape of a semicircle as part of the cylindrical southwest tower. Then she got on her hands and knees and looked under Rose’s bed.
She got up slowly, taking Rose’s arm to help pull herself up from the floor. “Someone must have come into your chamber.” Her eyes were dark and her brows were pulled down. With a quick, deliberate motion, she used her foot to smear the ashes around, messing up the circle and any other markings that might have been there. “We need to start barricading our door, Rose. I’ll ask Bailiff Eckehart to have a crossbar placed on our door. You haven’t seen anyone around—that Peter Brunckhorst or anyone suspicious looking, have you?”
“No. What do the ashes and the circle mean?”
“I’m not certain. But don’t worry about it. Some servant probably spilled them there unintentionally.” Frau Geruscha’s voice seemed falsely cheery. “Let’s go on and have some food. Then I’ll go ask the bailiff for that lock.”
She watched Frau Geruscha’s face until she turned away and went down the stairs ahead of her. A shiver passed over Rose’s shoulders. Frau Geruscha knew more than she was telling her. How strange.
Wilhelm needed some activity. He wandered out to the stable to saddle Shadow for a ride. He had hardly said two words to anyone in the last week, since he asked Rose to marry him and she refused him. He hated to admit it, but she had hurt his pride, and anger mingled with the pain of his heart shattering into thousands of tiny pieces.
His knights, Sir Georg and Sir Christoff, insisted on coming with him on his ride. They said his new status as Duke demanded that he be escorted wherever he went. But Wilhelm refused. He even sent the groomsman and stable boy out on errands while he tended to Shadow’s brushing himself. He started with the horse’s black mane.
Rose was right. He did love honor and duty and the respect of his people. Heaven above, she had seen through him and into his very soul. She might have even been right about him coming to resent her. His heart twisted painfully at the thought. He remembered Paul’s words. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
A mean, dirty trick life had played on him, forcing him to choose between his duty to his people and his love for Rose. But hadn’t he chosen her for all the right reasons? Yes, he loved her for her beauty, but he also loved her for her mind and her heart, her compassion, and her ability to see people as equal. Even as God did. And he wanted Rose to be safe and happy and protected.
But his love for her was selfish too. He loved her because she would make a good wife. He just plain wanted her, and he had been willing to sell his people short so that he could have what he wanted.
But God obviously wanted him to marry his betrothed. Anger welled up inside him. Anger at God? That must be the worst sin there was.
Shadow whinnied, and Wilhelm realized he’d been brushing the poor horse’s back over and over in the same spot. He moved to Shadow’s other side.