Princess without a Palace: A King Thrushbeard Fairy Tale (12 page)

Liesel blushed. “Never mind. It doesn’t
matter any to me.”

“No need to be embarrassed,” he
reassured her. “I haven’t met a maiden in all the land that didn’t secretly
wish to marry one of the princes.”

“Oh no, you misunderstand. I am not one
of those maidens.”

Albert didn’t look convinced.

“No really, I can assure you. I have
no
desire to marry a prince.” 

“Then aren’t you glad you’re not a
princess?” he returned with a wink.

The question caught her by surprise.

“Indeed,” she barely choked out. It
pierced her heart to say it, but the old man didn’t seem to notice.

“I suppose you have no need to dream
about princes when you’re already in love with someone else,” Albert mused.

“With who?”

The old man looked surprised. He then
prompted, “With your betrothed? The man you introduced to me yesterday?”

“Oh, of course … him,” she answered
flatly.

“Aren’t you in love with him?” the old
man asked, surprised by her tone.

“Well, I … You see …” she stammered. She
felt a warmth burn her cheeks and she wished she could hide. She knew Albert
must surely be misinterpreting her blush, but she couldn’t offer any other
explanation. She was at a complete loss what she should say.

“It’s alright. I won’t make you say it,”
he said, patting her hand. “I saw the answer for myself when he surprised you
with a visit yesterday.”

Liesel’s heart thudded against the
confines of her chest. What a thing for him to say! Surely she couldn’t have
given such an impression!

She was wondering how to change the
subject when a piercing scream down the street jolted her from her seat.

Her head whipped around toward the
startled sounds of people yelling down the lane. A black horse was charging
down the cobblestone path with a wagon and rider in tow. The driver showed no
mercy as people scrambled and dove to escape from his path.

Liesel jumped back against the wall,
shielded her face, and braced herself as the thundering hooves approached.

But right before the cart passed, she
felt herself yanked around the corner to the safety of the other lane.

Her large eyes looked up at Albert in
surprise just as she heard the crash of her pottery as it shattered into
thousands of pieces against the wall where she had just been standing. She
shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn’t pulled her away.

“Drunken idiot,” Albert muttered as he
released her. His slender form was shaking with rage.

Liesel’s eyes filled with tears and she
dashed back around the corner to survey what was left of her merchandise. Her
heart plummeted deep within her. Only a few pieces that had been tucked back
inside her handcart had survived.

She dragged her eyes back up to follow
the wagon as it continued terrorizing the market with its rampage down the
lane. The hooded figure was relentless in his chase, whipping the horse forward
all the way up the hill.

Before the wagon disappeared from view,
the driver turned to briefly glance back. His face was only visible for a
second, but in that moment, Liesel felt the air sucked right out of her.

She recognized the profile.

And it wasn’t a man.

It was impossible, she argued to herself
as she clutched her stomach and tried to regain her breath.

But surely her eyes could not be so
mistaken.

She looked back down at the crumbled
pieces of pottery at her feet and finally allowed her tears to roll forth.

“How could it be?” she whispered,
shaking.

A clap of thunder shook the ground, and
the rain that had hung threateningly overhead all morning finally began its
descent.

Liesel fell to her knees and sat
shivering in the cold rain as she tried to sweep up the shards of pottery
scattered around her. She knew most people would have just left the hopeless
mess, but she didn’t want the rider to be able to return again and glory in the
ruined remains.

The street was completely empty by the
time Liesel finished packing up her handcart. As she stared at the desolate lane
stretching out both ways before her, she wondered how she was ever going to
muster the courage to return to the hut again.

After all, if Maria had done this, what
else might she do? 

M
aria
was crazy. That was all there was to it, Liesel decided as she shook and
shivered her way back to the hut.

There was no other way to explain such a
strange outburst of behavior.

Unfortunately, she knew Roderick would
probably think
she
was the crazy one if she tried to accuse Maria of
being the hooded rider. Maria would never admit to such a thing and why would
her brother ever believe the word of someone he had just met over that of his
sister’s?

There was no use trying to argue it. She
knew there was no way she would ever win.

But she wasn’t about to forget about it
either, Liesel silently vowed. Maria couldn’t be trusted. That had never been
clearer. She was still unsure whether she would confront Maria privately about
the matter, but in the meantime, she was determined to guard herself better.
She wasn’t about to be defeated so easily again.

She hit a deep groove in the road and
grunted as the handcart smacked against her wet frame.

She really needed to find an escape from
this life of peasantry.

When she finally arrived at the hut, she
returned the handcart to the barn and then approached the front door. Her hand
froze on the door handle and she closed her eyes. She wished there was
someplace else she could go. Anywhere else.

But there wasn’t. Straightening her
shoulders, she took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

Maria and Roderick looked up from where
they were standing near the fireplace, but Liesel avoided meeting Maria’s gaze.
The repulsion she felt toward the woman was overwhelming now that she was in
her presence again.

Unfortunately, Maria wasn’t about to
ignore
her
.

“Liesel!” Maria exclaimed. “You look
nearly drowned.”

Liesel clenched her jaw while her
chilled limbs remained frozen where she stood. She hadn’t planned beyond this
moment and felt wholly unsettled at the thought of entering. It seemed like it
would be an act of surrender to pass over the threshold.

Roderick came forward to draw her into
the room, and she debated what she should do. Instinctively, she wanted to
resist, but she realized there was nothing to be gained from perishing in the
cold.

“You must be freezing. I assumed you had
found somewhere to shelter from the storm in town, or I would have come for
you,” Roderick commented as he offered her a chair near the crackling fire. 

“No, it just took a long time to pull
the handcart through all the mud,” she replied, collapsing into the seat.

“That’s obvious,” Maria cut in, shaking
her head. “Just look how the mud has stained your skirt all the way to your
knees! Your poor, new dress.”

Liesel bit her tongue against the
woman’s mock sympathy. Maria was infuriating. She silently swore she would
eventually scrub all of the mud out, no matter how long it would take to do so.

Roderick retrieved a blanket for her,
which she quickly wrapped around her trembling shoulders. She twisted the
corner of the course fabric in her hands while she pondered over what to say.
Now that she was settled in the hut, Liesel knew she shouldn’t waste any more
time before telling Roderick about the pottery. It would only be torture to wait.
She just wished Maria would leave so she wouldn’t have to make the confession
with an audience present. Unfortunately, she assumed Maria was lingering nearby
for precisely that reason.

“I had a very good morning at the
marketplace,” Liesel began. She smiled inwardly at the surprise that crossed
Maria’s face. This was obviously not what the woman had expected to hear.

“That’s wonderful, Liesel,” Roderick
answered. “How many pieces did you sell?”

“Fifteen in all. Here’s my earnings,”
she replied, pulling the sack of coins from her pocket.

“Well done,” he approved.

“That is impressive,” Maria chimed in.
“And all in one morning! Pray tell, how did you fare in the afternoon?”

“Not as well,” Liesel replied evenly as
she met Maria’s eyes for the first time.

Roderick was surprised. “What happened?”

Liesel looked down and gulped. The
moment could only be delayed so long. “In the afternoon, a horse and cart came
barreling down the lane and crushed almost everything. If my friend, Albert,
hadn’t pulled me around the corner, I might have even been crushed by the
madman’s recklessness as well.”

“Thank heavens, you are unhurt!” Roderick
exclaimed. “And I hope the irresponsible driver is met with swift justice.”

Liesel couldn’t help wishing for that
too.

“But the pottery is all gone?” Maria
pressed, quickly guiding the subject back to Liesel’s loss. “Everything
Roderick purchased for you to sell is ruined?”

“The pottery can be replaced, Maria,”
Roderick reproached. “Liesel’s safety is far more important.”

Liesel’s soul nearly collapsed with
relief by his kindness. She had feared he would only scold her.

“You are right, brother,” Maria
responded after collecting herself. “Thank goodness Liesel is returned to us
safely. I was only disappointed for both of you that your jar will have to be
emptied again to buy new pottery.”

Liesel’s eyes narrowed. So that was it.
Maria was just desperate to keep her from marrying her brother. She couldn’t
help being amused by the irony of it all. If only Maria had known that Liesel
was only working to try to earn enough money to be able to set off on her own,
she would be very disappointed to learn that she had now condemned her to have
to stay with them even longer.

But maybe she didn’t need to stay … She
had hoped to have more money saved by the time she set out on her own, but with
this turn of events and Maria’s apparent hostility, perhaps this was her best
opportunity to make her argument to be able to escape.

“What if we don’t buy new pottery,”
Liesel suddenly proposed, surprising both brother and sister.

“What else would you want to buy?”
Roderick questioned.

Liesel paused to gather her courage and
then answered, “Our freedom.”

Roderick was clearly stunned by her
declaration, but he quickly collected himself and then asked, “What are you
talking about?”

“Roderick,” Liesel tentatively
explained. “I think we can agree that we have both been unfairly chained to
this arrangement. And obviously I’m only fit for failure here. If we split the
profits I’ve made so far, we can go our separate ways and you can be free of
me.”

“That’s impossible, Liesel.”

“Why?” Liesel and Maria exclaimed
simultaneously. Liesel folded her arms against her chest, annoyed by the
woman’s constant interference.

“First and foremost, you have nowhere
else to go.”

“I could find something. If you could
give me a map so I could see what lands are nearby, I might remember someone
else I might be able to contact to help me.”

Roderick shook his head. “This is a pointless
discussion. I made a promise to your father, and I am a man of my word. I will
not break it.”

Liesel jumped up from her seat with a
growl and spun away from him. Her argument was not playing out like she had
planned. Why wouldn’t he just let her go?

Her thoughts were interrupted by his
quiet voice, “Liesel, why do you want to leave so badly?”

She turned around to face him and he
questioned further, “Are you that unhappy here?”

She looked once more at Maria before
finally meeting his gaze.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice just above
a whisper. “I’ve imposed upon you both and I don’t want to be a burden to
either of you anymore.”

The room was frozen as Roderick regarded
her carefully over several long moments.

After a while, Liesel started feeling
dizzy, and she had to remind herself to breathe. She hadn’t realized she had
been holding her breath, waiting for his answer.

At length, Roderick finally broke the
silence. “I don’t think it’s wise to make any sudden decisions on such a
difficult day. After your terrible ordeal in the marketplace, and then long
walk home through the mud, you must surely be exhausted.”

Liesel closed her eyes to contain her
frustration. She was annoyed that he was dismissing her pleas as merely a hasty
outburst. She clenched her fists at her sides and approached him, determined to
make him hear her out.

“This is not simply my fatigue
speaking,” she contended. “I have thought about this for a while now.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and
looked deep into her eyes. “Then allow me some time to think it over as well.”

His dark eyes softened her.

“How much time?” she dared to ask.

“We can talk in the morning,” he
offered. “Surely your plans can wait until then.”

Liesel bit her lip and risked another
glance toward Maria. As much as she didn’t want to stay any longer, she didn’t
have anywhere else to go that night.

She would just have to endure another
long night trapped in the hut with the crazy woman.

Long after Maria retired, Liesel was
still awake, toiling away over the wash barrel in the dim, flickering light of the
dwindling fire. Her hands were raw and wrinkled from the wash water, but she
refused to quit scrubbing until she had washed all of the mud from the skirts
of her new dress. She was determined to show Maria that the dress was actually far
from ruined.

When the stains had finally been vanquished,
she collapsed into her straw pile in the corner, but her relief was
short-lived.

“My shoes!” she groaned as she noticed
them lying at her side. Caked in so much dirt, they were almost unrecognizable
as such.

Her limbs felt so heavy. She was tempted
to just ignore them until the morning, but considering her plans to set out on
her own on the morrow, she knew she wouldn’t want drenched, sloshy shoes if she
would be walking all day.

Stifling a groan, she plucked the shoes
up and pushed herself back to her feet. There wasn’t time to waste grumbling
about it. After rolling up the sleeves of her old peasant shirt once again, she
plunged the shoes into the murky water and scratched at the dirt until the
buckles were gleaming and the shoes were purple once more.

When they had finally been restored, she
set them on the warm hearth next to her dress to dry. She then settled into her
straw bed for a fitful night of sleep. She couldn’t risk a deep slumber. After
Maria’s nefarious act this afternoon, she didn’t dare leave her dress and shoes
in such a precarious place. She would have to make sure she awoke first to
ensure no “accident” befell them so close to the fire.

Roderick punched down the straw of his
makeshift bed and tried to get comfortable for what seemed to be the hundredth
time that night. Sleep was proving to be elusive while his thoughts were
tumbling over themselves in his mind.

What was he going to do about Liesel? He
couldn’t let her go yet. Per his agreement with her father, he was still
committed to almost three more weeks. How was he going to convince her to stay?
Until the month was complete, she was his responsibility, and he couldn’t very
well protect her and watch over her if she left.