From a High Tower (8 page)

She was out of breath when she reached the stables and paused just outside. Her sylphs gathered around her, no longer mischievous. “Is there anyone in there but horses?” she murmured, pressed up against the wall, trying to squeeze every bit of herself into a particularly dark shadow.

“No, Master,”
said one.
“We made the drunk have bad dreams and he went somewhere else to sleep.”

She looked up at them, hovering above her head. “Well done. I'm going to get my horse and get out of here. Keep watch while I do, and scout ahead of me on the road.” She intended to lead the horse to the edge of town by the quietest ways before mounting him. A man leading his horse calmly would not attract any attention, but someone galloping as if the devil was after him certainly
would.
And the latter would be remembered, which was not something she wanted.

Lebkuchen—her mare—greeted her with a whicker, but tossed her head with displeasure when it became apparent that Giselle intended to saddle her and ride in the darkness. No horse liked being ridden in the dark; it was too easy for them to make a misstep and break a leg. But Giselle didn't have any choice.

Everything was still there, and it was not long before Giselle was leading the mare, laden down with packs and her hunting rifle and supplies, down a street she knew let out directly onto the road northward. She had chosen the direction deliberately, to lead away from the abbey and her tower, despite every instinct she had screaming at her to head straight for that shelter. Instinct might tell her to run for her den, but reason told her that was the last place she should go. Just in case . . . in case someone had recognized a landmark or a village in some story “Gunther” had told, and thought to look in that direction. There were such things as telegraphs in the world, and every police station had one. Word of a fugitive could travel far faster than she could, and she might find herself riding into an ambush.

Every nerve was screaming with stress by the time she got across the bridge and onto the highway, where she could mount. Lebkuchen seemed to have picked up on her nerves. Despite her profound distaste for traveling at night, she transitioned almost directly into a trot, her hooves thudding briskly into the dust of the highway.

Finally on the move, Giselle hunched over in the saddle, her insides knotted with fear and guilt, her mind awash with so many emotions she couldn't keep track of them.
What have I done?
was uppermost, most of the time. Odious as that captain was, and sadistic, she had never meant to kill him—she hadn't really meant to
harm
him. All she had wanted to do was incapacitate him long enough for her to escape. In her mind, she'd planned on making him unconscious until she got out of the irons, then she would lock the door, tie him up, gag him, and leave him in his bed. Probably the humiliation of being left that way by a
girl
would have kept him quiet. She tried to remember the things that Pieter and Joachim had taught her, had said to her, about situations like this, but she couldn't recall a single word.

I killed a man.
Not directly, and not on purpose, but a man was dead, and she had been the cause. What possible justification was there for that? That he had intended to harm her?
That doesn't make it right. . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted by one of the sylphs coming to fly beside her.
“Master, there is no one on the road. Where do you wish to go?”

She passed her hand over her sweat-damp face. “Find me another Master to shelter with,” she said, finally, because she would rather trust her judgment and punishment to one of her own than to those with no magic. And she
would
have to give herself up to
that
sort of judgment, of that she was certain. She had used magic to kill, and anyone who did that and did not give herself up
would
find herself hunted down by the Bruderschaft in short order. That was, at least in part, what they did.

As Lebkuchen sped on through the night—a night lit by a bright, full moon—and she continued to wrestle with her guilt, she scarcely paid any attention to where they were going. She only knew it was well past midnight by the moon when the sylphs chivvied her off the highway and down a narrow little path through what looked—at least in the darkness—like near-virgin forest. Lebkuchen slowed to a hesitant walk immediately; deciding that her mare's safety was of more importance than her own comfort, Giselle dismounted and followed the sylphs, leading the mare carefully around the worst of obstacles, doing her best to clear the path of things like fallen branches that could trip her up.

At least concentrating on
that
left her unable to think about anything else but relief when she finally saw a dim, warm light shining through the trunks of the trees ahead.

But it wasn't until she saw the old woman waiting with a lantern held over her head to guide Giselle to what looked like a hermit's cottage that Giselle suddenly felt the full effect of the evening hit her with a hammer-blow of exhaustion. As she came in through the open gate of a little yard, Lebkuchen whickering eagerly at the sight of a little shed with three goats tethered in it, Giselle stumbled and might have fallen if the old woman hadn't been there in a trice, with a steadying hand on her elbow.

“Not a word, Liebchen,” the old woman said in a firm voice that brooked absolutely no argument. “Your sylphs have told me everything. What you need now is a safe place to rest, and old Tante Gretchen is here to give it to you.”

“But—” Giselle began, her tongue feeling oddly thick with fatigue.

“But me no buts,” Tante Gretchen said, and took Lebkuchen's reins from her nerveless fingers. “You go in that door and take the cot by the fire. I'll see to your mare.”

Giselle did not even bother to argue. She stumbled across the threshold into a warm cottage, sweet with the scent of woodsmoke and herbs, spotted a cot at the hearthside and all but fell into it. She didn't even bother to take off her boots, and was dreamlessly asleep before she had even pulled the blanket over herself.

G
ISELLE
woke to the smell of sizzling bacon, and her empty stomach reminded her that she hadn't had anything but beer and a sausage and bread the entire previous day. Tante Gretchen was sitting at a stool on the hearth, turning over strips of bacon with a fork on a flat griddle atop some coals. She looked over at Giselle and smiled. “There's sausages and flatcakes already done. Go help yourself while I finish these.”

Giselle's stomach growled loudly, and she pushed off the blanket to get up—

And discovered that she also had to quickly comb her fingers through her hair and shove it back over her shoulders—because, as it always did when she was under stress, her hair had grown.

Tante Gretchen blinked a little at that. “Does it always do that?” she asked, with keen interest. “Your hair, that is.”

Giselle made a face. “When things are not going well, it can grow as much as a foot in a day. I don't know why. Mother said she had never heard of anything like it, and the only thing she could think of was that the sylphs like to play in my hair, and when they do, they leave magic energy behind. So she thought that perhaps my hair grew fast when I was under stress to make sure I had extra power.”

Tante Gretchen nodded. “That seems a reasonable explanation to me. Go get a plate of breakfast, Liebchen, and we can talk about your problems.”

The thought of her problems—and the terrible thing she had done—almost killed her appetite. It probably would have succeeded if she hadn't been nearly starving.

The cottage was tiny. There was a loft, but it looked as if it wasn't used for anything, which made perfect sense for someone Tante Gretchen's age; she wouldn't be wanting to scramble up and down ladders. Beneath the loft was a cupboard bed where Tante Gretchen obviously slept. There was a table with four chairs under a little window framed with white, starched curtains, two cupboards and a wardrobe against the walls, a counter with a porcelain bowl for a sink, the stool that Tante Gretchen was using and the cot Giselle had slept it. The floor was old, worn wood, and the walls were whitewashed plaster that had some small, dark pictures hanging on them. It was very pretty, if a bit claustrophobic for Giselle.

There was a covered plate and an uncovered plate on the table, and another pair of plates stacked beside them. Since she was still dressed, Giselle just took the few steps to the table where she found that the plate covered by an immaculate towel held the flatcakes; a little bowl she hadn't noticed at first had butter in it, a pot held honey, and the uncovered plate held the sausages. In no time, Giselle had a plate full of food, including the bacon her hostess lifted directly to her plate from the griddle and a cup of chamomile tea. Tante Gretchen quickly made up her own breakfast from the rest, and they settled down at the table to eat.

The old woman did not permit her to say anything until they were both finished and the plates were cleaned and put away. Then she poured them both another cup of tea, and said, “Now. Tell me everything that happened, and leave nothing out.”

Taking her at her word, Giselle began a lengthy recitation, starting from the shooting contest and how she had won it with the help of her Elementals. Tante Gretchen nodded when she described the abrupt arrival of the captain.

“Hauptmann Erich Von Eisenhertz,” she said, sourly. “He was a bully as a little boy, and being in the Army did not change him for the better. Now he is a bully and a sadist. He has his men put on punishment detail, forces them to run until their feet bleed, or has them beaten on the smallest of causes, and people hereabouts have wondered how long it would be before one of them snapped and murdered him. But go on.”

Giselle blinked a little. This, she had not expected. She went on, ending with her escape from the village. “The rest, you know,” she said, unhappily. “And I am to blame for the Hauptmann's death—”

“Nothing of the sort.” Tante Gretchen shook her spoon at Giselle's nose. “I am the nearest thing to a doctor hereabouts, and I can tell you that it was his own apoplexy that killed him, not you.”

“But—”

“Which of us is the Earth Master?” she demanded. “Between all the food he stuffed into himself and his temper, it was only a matter of time—and probably a race between his heart and his brain as to which would kill him faster. All your sylphs did was accidentally frighten him enough that a vessel in his head burst—a vessel that was just waiting for
something
to make it rupture.” Tante Gretchen snorted. “I am the nearest Master, and one of the oldest around here. So, it is my judgment that you are not guilty of murder-by-magic. At worst, it would be ‘misadventure.' Frankly, I'd call it ‘a stupid accident that befell someone who well deserved it.' And I won't brook any arguments.”

Giselle slowly let her breath out in a sigh. “But, I'll still be hunted. I was the last person with him.”

“I can tell you he was so little regarded that I rather doubt
any
of his men were bothering about looking in on him last night. More likely he wasn't discovered until his orderly found the door was locked this morning.” The old woman drank her tea thoughtfully. “But you are right. You will be hunted. Or rather,
Gunther
will be hunted. No one will be looking for
Giselle.”
She put down her empty cup with a decisive gesture. “You will stay with me until your hair grows out more. While you are staying here, we will think about what you are to do next.”

“But . . . I don't have anything to wear but men's clothing!” she protested weakly.

Tante Gretchen rolled her eyes. “That is scarcely a problem.” She got up, and went to a clothes press under the mattress of her cupboard bed. She brought out hunting gear, but this was of much finer make than what Giselle was wearing, and it had clearly been tailored for a woman, with fine, subtle embroidery around each of the four pocket slits in the jacket. And instead of breeches, there was a divided skirt, which some women wore to ride astride. “That was mine as a girl your age, and I'll never fit into it again, so there is no point in my keeping it,” the old Master said, laying the jacket, vest, and skirt out on the cot and stroking the wool once with a reminiscent hand. “No, you shall have it. And you are welcome to it.”

Giselle hardly knew what to say. She was still feeling exhausted, and more than a bit befuddled, and she
certainly
did not like the feeling that she was being hunted—and this, clearly, was a safe haven. She stammered her thanks, but the old woman waved them off, going to the cupboard again and pulling out an old nightdress of the same size, yellowed with age, but still fine. “First, your wrists need proper bandaging. Then you can move the cot and bedding up to the loft so I have my hearth back. I am not risking a fall at my age, not to mention I don't think I could get the bedding up there myself, much less the cot! Then you can get out of that clothing and into this. And last, you can go back to bed. Then we'll talk about what you can do to repay me.”

“What she could do” to repay the old woman at the moment seemed to consist of doing chores and reading books to her. Giselle didn't mind—it wasn't as if her savior was lounging about while Giselle worked, it was more as if Tante Gretchen was taking advantage of the situation by getting twice as much work done than she could manage alone. And Tante Gretchen liked to sit by the fire and knit of an evening while Giselle read. They had very similar tastes—and Giselle had discovered to her joy that the Earth Master had Karl May books
she
had not yet read. No matter what else was going on, or how her feelings of guilt and worry sometimes overwhelmed her, there was always that to look forward to: the warm fire, the old woman's cheerful companionship, and getting lost in a tale of the Wild West.

She wouldn't hear of Giselle moving on for right now. “Let's see what happens in the next few days,” was all she said, and although Giselle was impatient to get back to earning some money, she also was
not
at all eager to find herself arrested for murder.

So Tante Gretchen was kneading dough for bread in the cottage while Giselle was sitting on the doorstep, shelling new peas into a bowl in her lap, when the soldiers came. There were four of them, all mounted on some of the most ordinary-looking horses she had ever seen, and they rode up the path to Tante Gretchen's cottage as if they knew it well. They weren't even trying to be quiet, so by the time they dismounted at the gate and tied their horses to the fence, the old woman had left the bread dough she was kneading and had come out to stand beside Giselle, wiping her hands on her apron.

They opened the gate and trudged halfway up the path through the yard, and stopped. “Good morning, Frau Wildern,” said one who stood further along the path than the others. The sun was shining fully down on them, and Giselle wondered if they were getting warm in their wool uniforms.

“And what brings you boys here this morning?” she called, shading her eyes with her hand and peering at them. “You're the only one I know, Hans Pedermann. What are you soldiers doing out here in the forest?”

All four of them reflexively pulled their caps from their heads and stood there holding their headgear against their chests, for all the world like schoolboys in the presence of the headmaster. Three of the four stared at the fourth one, as if they expected
him
to do all the talking. After a moment, he did.

“Don't mean to disturb you, Frau Wildern, but we've come to ask if you've seen a stranger about in your forest,” the young man said, his cheeks reddening with the effort of speaking to the formidable old woman. “He'd be a hunter, with a rifle.”

“There are many hunters with rifles in my woods, and some of them are strangers—but not this season,” she said, one eyebrow raised. “This is not the season for hunting. Nor have I heard any shots fired since last winter. Why do you ask?”

“There was a fellow calling himself Gunther von Weber who won the Maifest shooting contest. The Hauptmann didn't like the look of him, so he looked the fellow up in the conscription rolls, and he wasn't there. So he decided to conscript him on the spot.” The young man twisted his hat in his hands as Tante Gretchen gave him a hard look.

“Is that legal?” she demanded, as Giselle sat silently, watching and listening. “He could have been an only son. He could have had a club foot. He might have been foreign-born—there are many reasons why he wouldn't be on the rolls!” She began tapping her foot impatiently, and the young man flushed.

“I'm sorry, ma'am but—” he made a little, helpless gesture with one hand. “—but it was the Hauptmann, you know? It didn't matter if it was legal or not, if the Hauptmann wanted something done.”

There was a long silence, made deeper by the fact that the air was still and not even leaves were rustling. Tante Gretchen stood there, hands on her hips, giving all four of the soldiers the sort of look that would make any young man squirm as if he had been found stealing a pie. Finally the silence was interrupted by a rook calling in the distance and two of Tante Gretchen's hens who came clucking around the corner of the cottage.

Tante Gretchen snorted. “So, go on. Did the fellow desert?”

“In a manner of speaking. The Hauptmann took him into the office and locked the door.” Now the soldier paled a little. “We all knew what that meant, and we all knew what would happen to
us
if we interrupted, so we just . . . went about our business. In the morning, the orderly found the door still locked, and nobody answered at his knock, so he brought men to break the door down. The hunter was gone, and the Hauptmann was dead without a mark on him.”

Tante Gretchen rolled her eyes. “Now boy, don't you
dare
tell me you all think it was witchcraft and you want me to hunt out the man-witch for you! You know I don't hold with such superstitious nonsense! I am a good woman! I go to Mass whenever I can! I have a shrine to the Virgin right here in my front garden! And just because I'm an old woman that lives in a cottage in the woods by herself, that doesn't mean I'm possessed of magic powers and riding a broom to the Horned Mountain on Walpurgisnacht!”