The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) (19 page)

Perhaps Galadriel shall stumble upon a witch on her way to Landstuhl, and the witch shall make her into gingerbread. My lips curve even higher. Then I shake the fantasy from my head and set to purpose. I have a story to tell tonight.

“Dear father, do with me what you will. I am your child,” the girl said. With that she stretched forth both hands and let her father chop them off.

–The Girl Without Hands

I unshackle my hair from its tightly wound plaits and coils, letting it tumble over my shoulders. Hilde sighs, and I expect her to complain that she shall have to plait it all over, but she says nothing. The throb in my head dulls now that the tension is gone.

My knee bounces as I peruse my sloppily written version of Hansel and Gretel—though my mind ventures into anxious worry.

In one imagined scenario, I forget the tale mid–telling, standing dumbfounded before a hall filled with disappointed faces. In another, I am jeered, and the people throw their half–eaten food at me. Dozens of times, I banish such thoughts from my head and start reading again from the beginning. At least, I have that part good and memorized.

Hilde plays at being my audience. I stammer the tale a half–dozen times, trying to tell it without the parchment. But I make a mess of it—over and over. My throat burns, and frustrated tears sting at the backs of my eyelids, which only makes me angrier with myself.

How is it that I could tell the tale to Ivo with no practice? I close my eyes and take a few even breaths—picturing him in the chair by the hearth, rather than Hilde. And, finally, it comes out right.

I have recited it three times now. Once with my eyes open.

I can tell the tale—not as well as Mama could—but this will have to do. I bounce the stack of parchments on my knee, shifting them into place. I think I will take them with me—in case I forget.

The sour stench of unclean bodies fills the hall, and I chide myself for thinking such a thought. Bitsch hasn’t baths like Cologne. The streams are cold, and the poor covet their kindling too much to waste it on warming bath water. Heated voices echo off the stone as Hilde and I approach the stairwell.

“What is this?” Johanna spits at Father Hannes, gesturing to the villagers filing past her. “What are these filthy peasants doing in the great hall?” She crosses the hallway in a streak.

“Lady Johanna,” Marianna hisses, ushering the children past her, “keep your voice down.”

Hilde and I exchange knowing looks. The witch has poor Father Hannes cornered. Picking up my skirts, I rush down the stairs.

“It wounds me to hear you speak of God’s children in such a manner,” Father Hannes says.

Johanna’s shrewdly set jaw proves she isn’t wounded in the least. “I did not approve this. The countess placed me in charge of the house in her stead.”

“Her father is steward.” Father Hannes’ voice is calm. “I approached him, and he approved.”

“And who gave the orders to have the hall readied? We must have food for all these mouths, and you know there are to be festivities in less than a week.”

“Only what is allowed in Lent… bread and ale. And do not forget that their hands work the fields that provide the food for all of our mouths.”

“I wash my hands of this,” Johanna says. “If so much as a goblet is stolen, it shall fall on your shoulders, Priest, not mine.”

“Come now, Adelaide.” Father Hannes ushers me forward.

A young girl, as slender as a twig’s shadow, skirts around me at a run and trips on my train, nearly knocking over the boy in front of her.

“Watch where you go, changeling,” he snarls.

I recoil at the name. It conjures a memory long–forgotten. Mama once delivered a child who came out deformed. The babe’s back bones were exposed. I never saw her though. Father kept her wrapped in a linen sheet so I wouldn’t see, but an arm dangled out: blue, limp, lifeless.

The midwife said it was a changeling, that Mama’s true baby had been taken by the devil or fairies or trolls.

That was the last time Mama ever had a midwife.

Why must people believe in such things? I’ve heard tales of changelings. According to legend—and senseless midwives—a child is taken in the night by some fantastical creature, and one of their children, a changeling, is left behind.

But Mama’s baby came out of her deformed. The devil hadn’t time to make a switch. Some people truly do not try to make sense of anything. They hear a tale once and assume it to be truth.

A small crowd forms around the girl.

“Did fairies not give you wings to fly or feet to walk, changeling?” An older girl taunts.

There is a cruel harmony of snickers and laughter. The little girl’s lips trembles, and her eyes well.

“Stop that,” I command. “Or you can leave the castle without supper.” I hold out my hands to help the girl up, but she only holds out one jittery arm, hiding the other behind her back. Peering around her, I see the hidden arm ends in a rounded stump. I pull her up. “She isn’t a changeling,” I say and hold her to my side. “There is no such thing.”

The girl and the boy share a look that suggests I am the foolish one for not believing such nonsense.

“Apologize to her or go hungry,” I order.

“Sorry, Ava,” they chime, voices overlapping.

“Go on then,” I say, and they run into the great hall.

I crouch and brush tangles of ashy brown hair from the girl’s face. “Are you all right?”

She nods, her black–brown eyes still glassy with tears.

“There is no such thing as a changeling,” I say, and she nods. “Where is your mother?”

“Dead of the fever, milady.”

“Who cares for you?”

“My uncle.”

“Then go to him,” I say, and she runs into the great hall.

I hold the parchments in my hand. Several servants pass me with trays of warm bread. Only half the great hall is filled. Not only have the children come, but the grown have come, as well. I count the backs of heads, stopping at one–hundred–twenty. My stomach twists, and I swallow hard. Father Hannes leads a blessing. The bread is passed around the tables, and servants fill mugs with ale. Smiles and conversations ease my nerves, as no one is paying much attention to me.

“Are you ready?” Father Hannes asks.

I look down at the parchment, to Hansel and Gretel. I have it memorized, but there is another story I should tell tonight. I hope I know it well enough. I nod.

“It’s probably better for you to tell the tale after the ale warms them,” he flashes a warm smile, “but before it runs dry.”

I nod again.

He anchors his hands on his knees, and rises with a groan. I put the mug to my lips and take several swallows. Papa once said a strong drink gave a man courage, but that was after we watched a drunkard try to steal a wineskin. The thief lost a finger for it.

I wipe the lingering foam from my lips. By the time Father Hannes is at the front of the room, the great hall is silent. In Cologne, only a man of great importance could get a throng of this size to put down their cups and quiet themselves.

“Good people of Bitsch, how are you enjoying your ale?” he asks, and the people reply with raised mugs and cheers. Father Hannes sloshes the ale in his mug. “I hope your sowing of our fields is equally as smooth.” He raises his cup to them in toast. “May the soil be soft, the rocks be few, and the harvest bountiful.” The people raise their mugs and drink again. “There is more than just ale and bread,” Father Hannes adds, and my stomach flutters with nerves. “We have a storyteller come all the way from Cologne.” He glances toward me and gestures for me to rise. “You may have seen her. Rise, Lady Adelaide.” The expectant stares of the crowd bore into me. “Her mother, God rest her soul, was a storyteller in Cologne, a gift she shared with her daughter and that Lady Adelaide would like to share with you. Please raise your mugs in toast to the count’s daughter and her generosity.”

All raise their cups again, before taking hearty gulps.

I center myself in the front of the great hall so all can see. Scanning the room, I foolishly measure the gazes that weigh upon me. A few brim with excited anticipation, but most are glazed with blank unfamiliarity or politely feigned interest. A heartbeat passes and then another. Fear festers.

To them, it matters little if I butcher the tale, I remind myself, for they’ve each been paid a half–gallon of ale and a slice of white bread to listen. They shan’t boo or jeer me. And then I realize, it’s not their approval I long for. At this, the fear takes flight and flits away.

I clear my throat and straighten up.

“This is the story of a girl who was flawed, marred, and some might have looked upon her and declared her a changeling, a criminal for her deformities, but they couldn’t have been more wrong about her.

“Once upon a time, there lived a poor miller who had nothing more than his mill and an apple tree behind it. One day, as he collected sticks for his hearth, a strange man approached him.

“‘Why do you bother yourself with collecting wood,’ the strange man asked, ‘when I can make you rich.’

“The miller eyed the man in his rough–spun and said, ‘You look a beggar. ‘Tis little you can do to change my lot. Now be gone.’

“The strange man pulled a heavy sack from his cloak and opened it. Sunlight glittered off the thousand golden coins it held.

“‘I will give you my coins,’ said the strange man, ‘if you promise me that which is behind your mill.’

“Thinking there was nothing but an apple tree behind his mill, the miller happily agreed.

“The strange man laughed, gave the miller his treasure, and said he would return in three years to fetch what was his.

“Excited to share the good fortune with his family, the miller called to his wife and daughter. The wife came from the house while the girl jumped down from a branch in the apple tree where, on that morning, her father had bid her to pick the season’s fruit.

“The man went white as a toadstool when he realized his folly, but there was little he could do to hide the bag of coins, and when his wife asked from whence they’d come, he said, ‘I traded them to a man who I met in the woods.’

“‘For what,’ asked the wife. ‘Our mill?’

“‘He asked for that which stands behind the mill,’ the miller replied sadly. “I was happy to give up the apple tree for such riches…until I remembered our daughter was climbing the tree’s branches.’

“The girl shuddered with fear, and the basket slipped from the her fingers. The fruit rolled red across the forest ground, and the miller’s daughter began to cry.

“The miller was determined to undo what was done. He kept every guilder and went to the forest each day in search of the strange man, but the wife said it would not matter, for the man must have been the devil, and devil’s deals can hardly be unstruck.