The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) (4 page)

“It is beautiful, is it not?” Galadriel prods.

I wait for Father to say something, but he looks to me.
Now
he wants me to speak? I bite my tongue out of spite alone.

This heartbeat of silence quickly snuffs Galadriel’s excitement.

Father clears his throat. “It is the finest city I’ve seen in all my days.”

Father’s pleasantries are too late. The air in the carriage hangs heavy with her disappointment. Did she really think we’d be happy? That a pretty view would make us forget all we’d lost? If anything, it serves as a reminder. My eyes roam the city, catching on places similar to Cologne’s Hay Market, Cologne’s Gilded Gopher, Cologne’s City Hall. I brace for a grief that doesn’t come. It seems I am just as numb to sadness as I am to joy.

The rushing of water grows loud as we near the Rhine Gate. A hundred boats, from trading galleys to fishing vessels, lie empty along the great river’s shore. The gate to the city lies open before us. From inside the walls, this city looks much more like Cologne, except there are no carts filled with the dead, and I recall, no large pits outside the city walls to dump them in. The fever has passed this city. I gape out the windows, finally finding a child–like awe.

“There’s no fever here,” I stammer, and look to Galadriel. She brightens at my happy expression. “And the people are cleaner and dressed in finer clothes. Is everyone in this city a burgher?”

“Burgmannen,” she says.

“What are burgmannen?”

“The lord here has no real power. Galadriel points to a man in a scarlet surcote with well–crafted boots and a fine woolen mantle. “He pays the burgmannen to protect him from invasion and to stay loyal to him. Oppenheim is a Free Imperial City, you know,” she adds. “It was a See of the Church before, but now it belongs to the people.”

A free city? A city for the people? Could the same ever happen for Cologne?
”How did they make such a thing happen?”

She shrugs her shoulders in reply.

The carriage stops at another tattered inn such as The White Stag, but at least it is finer than the Gilded Gopher. The driver’s feet fall into the hard ground with a thud, and he shuffles to the door. He holds out his hand to Galadriel and tips his head in obeisance. “My lady,” he says, but she shushes him.

“I am a burgher’s wife tonight,” she whispers, and I cringe at the thought.

“Well, neither of you is dressed for that title, milady,” he notes.

She looks down at her fine clothes and then back to Father, in his rough woolen chainse and surcote. “Yes, I suppose you are right. Well, I doubt I shall be seen by anyone who knows me in this place.”

So she keeps us in these lowly establishments on purpose. God forbid she would run into anyone from her station gallivanting with a shoemaker and his orphan.

She places two groschens in his hand. “Here, after you’ve taken in my trunk, find a warm bed and an even warmer girl to keep you for the next two nights. Be ready to depart the following dawn.”

He bows and dashes to the back of the carriage, lugging her trunk through the door. I barely have my feet planted before he jumps back onto the carriage, whips the horses, and disappears into the city.

Galadriel rushes to her room and changes into something a little more common. We eat in a dark corner of the tavern in near silence, and I excuse myself for bed to keep my wicked tongue from saying something that might force Father to make good on his threat.

I lay upon the bed, staring at the ceiling, looking for patterns in the wood like Ivo and I once used to do when staring at clouds. Father’s familiar gait sounds up the stairs, followed by a softer saunter. A hinge wines, and the door to the room next to mine shuts with a clap.

How can he share a room with her?

I huff and rise from the bed.

At least they’re out of the tavern.

Three army surgeons who thought they knew their art perfectly, were travelling about the world, and they came to an inn where they wanted to pass the night. The host asked whence they came and whither they were going?

“We are roaming about the world and practicing our art.”

“Just show me for once in a way what you can do,” said the host.

Then the first said he would cut off his hand and put it on again early next morning; the second said he would tear out his heart and replace it next morning; the third said he would cut out his eyes and heal them again next morning.

“If you can do that,” said the innkeeper, “you have learnt everything.”

–The Three Army Surgeons

Every creek of the old wood floors seems to amplify as I tiptoe across the room. I slowly push the door open. The hinges squeak. I utter a curse and pause, listening for any stirrings from Father’s room. It remains silent. I descend the steps lightly into the tavern.

With the exception of a table of drunkards and a few men hunched over mugs of ale at the end of the bar, the place is empty. I perch upon a stool and reflect on Galadriel’s use of feminine wiles to cast spells on men. The barkeep returns from the back, carrying two mugs, which he sets before the men sitting beside me.

Black hair haloes his bald head. Lines run across his forehead and along the side of his mouth, so deep a serf could sow wheat in them. I swallow hard before forcibly softening my gaze, pushing my lips into a girlish smile, leaning forward.

He slaps his large, hairy hands on the bar. “What’ll it be, girl?” he asks, exposing teeth as sullied as rotten cheese and breath as pungent. “We have anything you like as long it’s ale,” he adds. I laugh, a bit too heartily at the jest, before reaching out to touch his sleeve. His face darkens. “I only take coin for drink,” he snaps.

I recoil, and feel my face twist with a sneer. Using feminine wiles is harder than it looks.
“All I want is pen and parchment. You can add it to the cost of our rooms.”

The man chortles. “Does this look like a monastery?” He grabs the empty mugs from the men next to me. “Even if I did have it, how do I know that your mistress would pay?”

“My mistress?”
He thinks
I
am Galadriel’s maid.
“She’s
not
my mistress.”

He snorts. “And the pauper’s not her lover.”

My jaw clenches. I imagine grabbing the mug to my right and slamming it into the his temple. I close my eyes and take a breath.
I need to get a letter to Brother John. I need to warn Ivo.
”You’re right about that, barkeep. The pauper is her lover, but I am
his
daughter not
her
maid. Any debts I incur tonight will be promptly paid on the morrow. Please, I need pen and parchment.”

He leans in close, narrowing his wiry eyebrows. “Then become a nun,” he hisses and walks away.

A round, rosy–cheeked man at the end of the bar slides my way. “Now what would a pretty little maid like you be needing with pen and parchment?”

“The same thing any man would do with pen and parchment,” I say. “I can read and write, you know.”

He laughs aloud. “A wicked tongue, this one has. Is that how you wound up with that knot up side your head?” He points his sausage–thick finger at my temple. “Was it your wicked tongue that put it there?”

I say nothing, brooding.

“Ah, don’t take no offense, girl. It’s not every day that a man of my station runs into a girl who can read.” He slaps my shoulder playfully. “Barkeep!” he hollers to the kitchen. “Fetch us two ales.”

“Keep your pfennig. I don’t care to patron a tavern that keeps such rude help,” I say loudly, hoping the miserable bastard shall hear it.

The man chuckles, his great belly jiggling. “Ah, don’t mind him. There’s always someone in here wanting something for nothing. Makes him harsh, even with pretty little maids like you.”

“Well, he shouldn’t make assumptions.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” The man nods.

The barkeep returns, glaring at me. He sets the jovial man’s ale before him but pounds my mug into the wood of the bar. A third of the ale splashes out around my fingers.

“Oh come on now,” the man says as the barkeep lurches back to the kitchen. “Let’s call a truce!”

The barkeep doesn’t so much as turn his head. I look into the mug for any spit in the ale, but I suppose if the barkeep was going to sully my drink, he probably wouldn’t have caused so much of it to spill.

“So you like to write do you?” The man puts his mug to his lips. Foam hangs on his tiny lips.

“I only ever write to keep records for Father’s shop.”

“Ah, I see. What kind of shop does your father have?”

“He’s a cobbler. So am I.”

“You read and write and cobble then. Cut your hair off, and we might think you a lad.” I frown at the suggestion, and he slaps me on the back again, letting out another roar of laughter. He looks up with thought and purses his lips before adding: “A shame you don’t have time to write nothing else but records, though.”

“What else is there to write?”

“Them monks, they copy the Bible and things of that nature.”

“That sounds horrendously dull.”

He laughs. “That it does.” He takes a hearty gulp. “If it were me, I’d write stories.”

“Stories? What’s the point in writing stories?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose there’s not much point. Not too many who can read around here.”

“What kind of stories would you write?”

“I would write an old tale I heard on crusade.”

“You went on crusade?” I ask, and he nods. “I’d never left the city of Cologne until today. The only stories I’d ever been told were my mother’s. Will you tell it to me?”

“Ah, you don’t want to hear it.”

“Yes, I do.”

He takes a long draft from his mug and wipes the ale from his lips. “I’m no true storyteller to be sure, and my memory ain’t hardly what it used to be. God’s teeth, I haven’t even counted my cups tonight.”

“Nine!” shouts the keep from the kitchen.

“Nine,” he echoes.

I give him the withering look of a sad child. “Please,” I say.

“All right, all right now. Let me think of how it goes.” He pauses for a moment and then clears his throat, “Now it’s called The Three Army Surgeons.”

“Three army surgeons, who thought they knew their craft all perfect, went travelling about the world. They came to an inn where they wanted to pass the night. The keep asked where they come from and where they was going, so they said to him, ‘We are roaming about the world to practice our surgeoning.’

“So the keep said to them, ‘Just show me for once what you can do.’ Then the first said he would cut off his hand and put it on again early next morning; the second said he would tear out his heart and replace it next morning; the third said he would cut out his eyes and heal them, too. ‘If you can do that,’ said the innkeeper, ‘you have learnt everything.’”

The jovial man leans in close. The scent of ale is heavy on his breath as he lowers his voice to a whisper. “But they had a trick, you see, a salve, they rubbed themselves with, which joined parts together, and they carried the little bottle of it everywhere they went,” he confesses before sitting pert again. “Then they cut the hand, heart, and eyes from their bodies as they had said they would, laid them all together on a plate, and gave it to the innkeeper.

“The innkeeper gave it to a servant girl who was to set it in the cupboard and take good care of it. The girl had a lover though, who was a soldier. So when the innkeeper, the three army surgeons, and everyone else in the inn was asleep, the soldier came and wanted something to eat. The girl opened the cupboard and brought him some food, but she forgot to shut the cupboard door.

“She sat by the soldier, and they chattered away, but while she was sitting there, a cat came creeping in, found the cupboard open, took the hand and heart and eyes of the three army surgeons, and ran off with them.

“When the soldier had done eating, and the girl was taking away his scraps, she saw the cupboard was empty. She cried to her lover and told him what was the matter.

“And so he said, ‘I will help you out of your troubles. There is a thief hanging outside on the gallows, I will cut off his hand. Which hand was it?’

“‘The right one,’ she said to him.

“Then the girl gave him a sharp knife, and he went and cut the poor sinner’s right hand off and brought it to her. After this he caught the cat and cut its eyes out. Now nothing but the heart was wanting.

“‘Have you not been slaughtering pigs, and are not the dead animals in the cellar?’ he asked her.

“‘Yes,’ said the girl.

“‘That will be easy enough,’ said the soldier, and he went down and fetched a pig’s heart.

“The girl put it all together on the plate and put it in the cupboard. After that he left, and she went up to bed.

“In the morning when the three army surgeons got up, they told the girl to fetch them the plate with the hand, heart, and eyes on it, so she brought it out of the cupboard.

“The first fixed the thief’s hand on and smeared it with his salve, and it grew to his arm directly. The second took the cat’s eyes and put them in his own head. The third fixed the pig’s heart firm in the place where his own had been. All the while, the innkeeper stood by, admired their skill, and said he had never seen such a thing as that and would sing their praises.

“Then they paid their bill, and travelled on.

“As they were on their way, the one with the pig’s heart did not stay with them at all, but wherever there was a corner, he ran to it and rooted about in it with his nose as pigs do. The other two wanted to hold him back by the tail of his cloak, but that did no good; he tore himself loose and ran wherever the dirt was thickest.

“The second also behaved very strangely; he rubbed his eyes and said to the others, ‘I can’t see nothing at all. Will one of you lead me so that I do not fall.’

“Then they travelled on till evening, when they reached another inn. They went into the tavern together, and there at a table in the corner sat a rich man counting his winnings. The one with the thief’s hand walked round about him, and at last when the stranger turned away, he grabbed the pile of coins. One of them saw this, and said, ‘Stealin’ from people is a sin and a crime. You’ll lose your hand if not your head!’

“‘Would that I could stop myself,’ said he, ‘My hand twitches, and I am forced to snatch things whether I like it or not.’

“After this, the three army surgeons lied down to sleep, and while they were lying there it was so dark that no one could see his own hand. All at once the one with the cat’s eyes awoke, aroused the others, and said, ‘Brothers, just look up; do you see the white mice running about there?’

“The two sat up but could see nothing. Then said he, ‘Things are not right with us, we have not got back again what is ours. We must return to the innkeeper. He’s tricked us somehow.’

“The next morning they returned to the inn and told the keep they had not gotten what was their own again: that the first had a thief’s hand, the second cat’s eyes, and the third a pig’s heart. The innkeeper said that the girl must be to blame for that. He called to her, but when she had seen the three coming, she had run out by the backdoor. Then the three army surgeons said he must give them a great deal of money, or they would set his house on fire.