The Captive Maiden

Chapter



14





The guard who had been ordered to watch Gisela met him in the corridor as Valten was leaving his chamber.

“My Lord Hamlin.” The guard bowed swiftly.

“I wish to know how things stand after our first two days of the tournament. Walk with me.” Valten continued down the corridor toward the kitchen. He held his injured hand against his midsection.

“My lord, besides breaking up a few drunken brawls and capturing two pickpockets, we had no problems.”

“And what of the two people I asked you to keep a watch over?”

“My lord, our Queen of Beauty and Love remained safe, and no one attempted to bother her all day.”

“Where is she now?” A fresh breath seemed to enter his lungs at the thought of seeing her right away. Perhaps even now she was in the kitchen with his sisters, eating breakfast.

“She went home with her family after the tournament yesterday.”

Valten stopped in midstride and faced the guard. “What do you mean? I thought she was spending the night with Margaretha.”

“No, my lord. I didn’t know of any such arrangement. A woman and her two daughters approached her and said she was coming home with them. Lady Margaretha told me they were her family.”

“Who was the woman?”

“Lady Margaretha said she was the girl’s stepmother, Evfemia Mueller. I was careful to ask the name.”

It must have been the woman who treated Gisela so badly in the Marktplatz on the day they’d first met. He supposed she was safe enough with her family, even if they mistreated her, but it annoyed him. He wanted her here, where his guards could watch over her.

“What about Ruexner? Where is he?”

“He left town last night, my lord, immediately after your battle — he and his men.”

“Good. But tell the captain of the guard I want you to keep watch for him. He might still be lurking around. If you see him, I want to know immediately.”

“Yes, my lord.”

An uneasy feeling swept through Valten’s gut as the guard strode away. He wanted to send a guard to Gisela’s house to check on her, but he didn’t know where she lived. He could find out, now that he knew her stepmother’s name, but wouldn’t he seem … odd and overprotective if he sent guards to her home? After all, they weren’t betrothed.

He would wait. She would come back today, and she would be safe in Hagenheim. No one besides Ruexner would dare harm her, and Ruexner was gone.



The sun was just coming up when Gisela stuck her head out her chamber window and shouted for Wido and for Miep. She shouted so much she was becoming hoarse. “Can anyone hear me? Please help me!” Yet no matter how many times she called, no one came.

She waited, watching, staring across the fields. She could just make out the roof of Ava’s house past the copse of trees to the north, toward the town of Hagenheim, but it was probably too far away for anyone there to hear her.

The sun was halfway up the sky when Gisela stepped away from the window to get some water.

Now she understood why her stepmother had sent up the pitcher of water. How kind of her. She was planning to lock her inside.

The water still might be poisoned, so Gisela took a small sip, then another. It felt good on her raw, burning throat, and since it tasted good, she drank some more.

But no, Evfemia wouldn’t poison her now. Ruexner might not pay her if his prey was dead. Terror gripped Gisela, squeezing the air from her chest. “Help me escape, God,” she rasped. I must escape. To be in Ruexner’s clutches would be worse than death.

Her chamber was too high for her to jump out of the window without killing herself, or at least breaking her legs. She studied her door for the hundredth time. The cracks around it were tiny. If she had something small and thin she might be able to stick it through the crack and lift the crossbar. But how would she ever find anything thin enough to fit through the crack that would also be strong enough to lift the bar?

She found a pair of cutting shears and began stabbing it into the door, over and over, but was only able to hack off a few splinters after several minutes.

Why didn’t Wido or Miep come to help her? Evfemia must have sent them away, or threatened them, or otherwise made them too afraid to help her.

Gisela alternately prayed, her hands clasped together and her head bowed, her fingers caressing her iron cross, and rushed around the chamber trying to find something she could use to break down her door. She beat at it with a brick from the fireplace. She hacked yet more with the shears. She sat on the floor and cried. But crying did no good at all.

Footsteps. Someone was coming up the stairs. “Please let me out!” Gisela cried, getting to her knees and leaning against the door.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” came Evfemia’s cheerful voice. “Your new master, Friedric Ruexner, will be here soon—any moment now, in fact — and he will let you out. Irma, Contzel, and I are leaving to go to the tournament and then to the ball. But we will tell your Valten that you won’t be there because you have run off with another man. I am sure Rainhilda will help him forget you.” She laughed as her footsteps echoed down the stairs.

Gisela’s heart froze inside her. No, no, no. Please, God! Don’t let her do it. Don’t let her win.

The window was her only hope. She got up and hurried over to look out, hoping this time someone would be there, on the rutted road that led up to her house, or down below where Wido’s flowers grew, the ones he so lovingly cultivated. Wido. Why wouldn’t he help her? How could he be such a coward?

Of course, he was old, although Miep was not so old, and if they lost their place with Evfemia, they might have a hard time finding another. They could starve if they didn’t find work.

Gisela stayed by the window, hearing the crunch of wheels on the road. Soon, Evfemia’s carriage came into view around the side of the house.

Gisela stepped back from the window so her stepmother and stepsisters couldn’t see and gloat over her. The carriage rolled away, and tears once again fell from her eyes. But she couldn’t be crying. She had to do something. But what? She had tried everything she knew, everything she could think of, and she was well and truly trapped.


God had helped her before. Many times in the past, when she prayed for God’s intervention, something unexpected would happen. Once when Evfemia was trying to sell Kaeleb, the man who wanted to buy him changed his mind. And when her stepmother tried to marry Gisela off to an odious man from another town, that man couldn’t raise the money she was asking for, and he didn’t come back.

Not that Gisela would have married him. She had planned to run away to Hagenheim Castle and beg them to give her a job as a servant, a scullery maid, anything. She might have run away anyway, but she couldn’t bear to leave her horses, and she still held out hope that somehow, some way, Evfemia would leave, would perhaps remarry and take her ugly daughters with her. Then Gisela would no longer be a nobody, she would be the owner of the Mueller house.

But instead of waiting around for Evfemia to come to some bad end, she should have left. She should have done anything rather than let her trap her like this.

Once when she was a child, she’d imagined her stepmother being killed by a band of knights for her cruelty to Gisela. But she had frightened herself with that dark thought and asked God to forgive her.

Perhaps now she was being punished for having those murderous thoughts.

But no. God was not like that. Evfemia was like that. She’d punish a person even after they had repented, but God would not. Besides, God had done good things for her in the past two weeks. Valten had come to her aid when she was accosted by Ruexner in the street. And she had been in the right place at the right time to see Ruexner’s squire put deadly water hemlock in Sieger’s food, so that she was able to save him.

And best of all, Valten had worn her colors and chosen her as the Queen of Beauty and Love.

But … it was all for nothing if she couldn’t get away. It was more pain than she could bear, to think of Valten waiting for her and not seeing her, of Evfemia lying to him and saying that she had run away with another man. She imagined what he would think of her and she doubled over, pressing her forehead against the floor.

“Oh, God, am I destined for pain?” Her tears fell on her long-sleeved chemise. “God, what will happen to me when Ruexner gets here? I’d rather be nobody than married to him.”

Someone was whistling outside her window. She jumped to her feet and stuck her head out.

A boy, one of Ava’s servants, whistled as he walked near Wido’s flowers.

“Boy! You there!”

The boy looked up, craning his neck back, as he was directly beneath her window.

“Help me, please!”

“You need my help?” The boy’s eyes were big and round.

“Yes! Please don’t go. I am trapped here in my chamber. I need you to come inside and let me out.”

His eyes grew even bigger. “I’m scared of Frau Evfemia. She doesn’t like me.”

“She isn’t here. She’s gone and won’t be back for a long time. Please. I won’t tell anyone you helped me.”

“I think I should go tell my mistress, Frau Ava, first.” He turned as if to go.

“No, don’t go! You must not leave me!” Ruexner could arrive at any moment. Gisela gripped the windowsill so hard a piece of the stone ledge crumbled off into her hand. In desperation, she screamed in her hoarse voice, “I beg you, and I charge you by the Most High God to come and let me out!” She must have heard the words at a miracle play. In her desperation, they must have popped into her mind — and out of her mouth.

The little boy looked hesitant, but finally he nodded. “I am coming.” He ran around the side of the house.

Gisela’s heart soared. “O God, thank you, thank you!”

Please let the front door be open. She thought she heard it click and creak open. Of course Evfemia would have left it open for Ruexner.

She was only wearing her underdress. She grabbed up the beautiful red gown and pulled it over her head. As she was wriggling into it, she heard the boy’s footsteps on the stairs.

“I’m here, I’m here!” she shouted, hoping the sound of her voice would guide him to her room. “Can you hear me?”

“I hear you!” he shouted back. He was now at the door, and she heard him grunting, trying to open the door. Let the crossbar not be stuck.

She pulled her dress into place and dug around in the trunk until she found the leather pouch that contained her money, the money her father had made her hide before he died. Then she yanked out the brick in the fireplace, took out her father’s picture, and put it in the pouch.

A sound like wood scraping metal came from the other side of the door. The door began to open, creaking slowly, and revealed the boy from Ava’s household.

His mouth fell open as he stared at her, looking her up and down.

Gisela squeezed his arm. “Thank you! You saved me.” An ecstatic, slightly hysterical laugh escaped her as she looked down at him. “What is your name?”

“Lukas, if you please.” He swallowed. “My lady.”

“You are a wonderful sight to behold, Lukas, and I shall forever be in your debt. But we must leave here at once, for an evil man is coming —”

She stopped to listen. Horses’ hooves thundered toward the house.