The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest (17 page)

“What does he want?” She threw off the linen bedclothes.

“He said he wanted to talk with you. Shall I tell him you are sick?”

“No. Tell him I will be there in a moment.” She jumped out of bed and glanced out the window. It must be midmorning. She’d probably slept about four hours. She rinsed her mouth out with
water, then drank a gulp. She popped a mint leaf in her mouth and chewed it.

Heinke came back and helped her on with a pale-green gown. A contrasting emerald-green band with gold stitching decorated the neckline and hemline. The belt was also made of the same emerald-green material and gold stitching as the band. Heinke covered her single blond braid with a silk wimple, secured with a circlet.

Her heart fluttered as she went down the stairs to meet Jorgen.

He stood waiting for her in the large room that served as a sitting room as well as a dining room. As he turned to face her, she couldn’t help thinking how good he looked with his hair brushed to one side and wearing his work clothes—a soft leather cotehardie in a shade of green that matched his eyes and a white shirt that peeked from underneath it, encircling the base of his neck. He was hoodless, since it was such a warm day already. Something about the way his dark-blond hair curled around his ears made her want to touch it.

Foolish thought. She should remember that the reason he was here might be because he suspected she was the poacher.

One side of his face was in shadow, and he did not step out into the light coming through the window, even when she approached.

“Odette.” The way he smiled—sort of sheepishly—put her at ease. “I hope you do not mind that I came to your home to speak to you.”

“I don’t mind at all, if you do not mind if I break my fast while you talk.” She led him into the kitchen and motioned for him to sit with her at the rough wooden table near where Cook was working.

Cook set bread and sweet cream and pasties filled with stewed fruit in front of them.

Odette bit into an apricot pasty. She had not eaten anything
before going to sleep after her long hunt the night before, and it tasted wonderful.

When she looked across the table at him, she quickly swallowed her bite of food, nearly choking. “What happened to your face?”

His left cheekbone was bruised dark purple, and the left side of his lip was puffy with a dark line, like a cut.

“Does it look that bad?” He grimaced and rubbed his jaw.

“Did you get in a fight?”

“It will take me a little while to tell you all of it, and I was hoping . . .”

Odette gestured at the food in front of him, but Jorgen shook his head.

“I was wondering if you would come with me. I need you to speak to a young maiden.”

“A young maiden?” She took another bite of food.

“I rescued her from The Red House.”

The bite of apricot pasty got sucked down Odette’s throat, and she coughed violently. Jorgen stood and pounded her on the back.

Finally Odette ceased coughing. “Did you say you rescued her from The Red House?”

“She has been crying and my mother thinks she will leave, but she is an orphan and has nowhere else to go.” He spoke quickly, as though afraid she would stop him. “I thought perhaps you could convince her to stay, or if she refuses to stay, you could find her somewhere else to go.”

Odette tried to hide her shock. What was Jorgen doing at The Red House? And what did he mean, he rescued a maiden from there? “Who is crying? Can you begin again? Maybe I am still half asleep, because I thought you said you rescued a maiden from The Red House.”

Jorgen sighed. “Forgive me. I know it sounds strange. I was actually . . .” His face turned a little red. He cleared his throat. “I do not normally go to The Red House. It isn’t somewhere I would
ever
”—he made a horizontal slicing motion with his hand—“ever go. I only went there to investigate something for the margrave.”

Odette raised her brows. What could the margrave want him to investigate at The Red House? “I thought your job was to take care of Thornbeck Forest and catch poachers. The margrave does know what The Red House is, does he not?”

“Of course.” Jorgen took a deep breath and let it out. “You see, as strange as it sounds, I
was
investigating the poachers.”

Should she believe him? After all,
she
had never been to The Red House, and
she
was the poacher he was looking for. Wasn’t she?

He cleared his throat again and spoke quietly. “There is a black market of poached deer meat being sold at the back of The Red House. I am trying to discover who is involved.”

But that could not be. Odette forced herself not to speak as she thought this through. Was someone else poaching the margrave’s deer? She had never encountered anyone else while she was hunting in the forest. How could someone be selling the poacher’s meat? It was impossible since she was the poacher.

She must concentrate on what Jorgen was saying. “Go on. So you went to The Red House to find out about the black market. What happened then?”

He looked down at his hands clasped in front of him on the table. “While I was there, I encountered a young maiden.” He held up one hand, still not looking Odette in the eye. “I did nothing to her, I vow to you. I was only there to get information.”

“I believe you.” He had such a look of embarrassment, she could not help but believe him.

“Thank you. So, this girl was much too young to be in a place like that, doing what . . . what she was supposed to be doing there. I told her I would take her to a safe place, that she did not have to stay there, and she came with me.”

“They just let you leave with her?”

“No.” He ran his hand through his hair, ruffling the curls at his temple. “I helped her sneak out.”

“Is that how you got that bruise on your cheek?”

He nodded.

“And that cut on your lip?”

“But you should have seen what I did to him.” The look on his face was something between pride and humor.

“He looked worse than you?”

He shrugged. “You could say that.”

She laughed, but her heart tripped over itself at the thought of Jorgen rescuing this girl. “How old is she?”

“Fourteen.”

“Dear heavenly saints!” Odette pressed a hand to her stomach. She had forgotten to eat while he was talking, and now the two bites of pasty in her stomach roiled as if they might come back up.

“I took her home. She spent the night there last night, but now she is crying and says she should leave. She says she will taint our house, and she is afraid that now that she has not paid her debt to Agnes, she will do something bad to her little brothers.”

“Agnes? Her little brothers?”

“Agnes is the woman at The Red House who helped find her little brothers a home when their mother died. She said if Kathryn—that’s the fourteen-year-old maiden—would work for her, she would find them a home.”

“No.” Odette pounded her fist on the table. “We must not let her think she has to give in to this terrible woman.”

“I will have to find her brothers, or she will go look for them herself.”

“Do you know where they are? I will go get them!” Odette rose from her seat. “How dare that woman do such a thing to helpless children? We should have her thrown in the pillory or locked in the dungeon.”

“We must have evidence first, Odette. If we want her to be stopped, we must keep our heads and find evidence that she has broken the law. I am not sure that we have proof she has violated any laws yet, and we do not know where Kathryn’s little brothers are.”

“Of course. Still, how could anyone do such a thing to a fourteen-year-old?”

“Why don’t you sit down and eat your breakfast. Then you can come with me to talk to her.” The half grin on his face made her wish he was as rich as Mathis Papendorp.

Three young orphans were in need, and Jorgen wanted her assistance in helping them. She didn’t want to think about the mayor’s son.

14

O
DETTE DID AS
Jorgen suggested and ate her food. Soon after, they were walking toward the gate closest to Thornbeck Forest and to the gamekeeper’s cottage. Jorgen led her through a well-worn path—a path she avoided at night so as not to leave footprints.

“I am sorry for intruding on your day.” Jorgen held a tree limb out of the way so she could pass. “I did not know who else to ask, and I know you care about people, especially orphans.”

“I had nothing to do today anyway.”
Except sleep.

“I do thank you. I hope she didn’t leave while I was gone.”

She wasn’t the only one who cared. Jorgen obviously cared, too, so much that his forehead was creased just thinking about her leaving.

A sudden thought sent a strange pain through her. Did Jorgen feel something for this girl, some attachment or attraction?

She should not even have such a thought. The girl was only fourteen. Of course, fourteen-year-olds often married, and they married much older men. Usually it was for the gain of their fathers, but it was not unheard of for a man of Jorgen’s age to marry a fourteen-year-old girl. But this girl was in a bad predicament and her situation was pitiable indeed. Odette should be thinking only of helping her.

They reached the old gamekeeper’s cottage, and she thought it looked pleasant, with flowers growing all around it and a roof so neatly thatched it was like a hat made of one piece of cloth.

Jorgen opened the front door, calling, “Mother? Kathryn? I have brought my friend Odette to see you.”

Odette followed him inside. The front part of the house was one long room, complete with a hearth and a table and stools. A few comfortable-looking chairs stood at the other end of the room. Some colorful tapestries decorated the walls, and the windows were thrown open to let in the light. It was a homey kind of place that smelled of freshly baked bread.

“Mother?”

“Coming!” a voice called from down the open corridor at the back of the room. A moment later, an older woman with sagging cheeks and a pleasant smile appeared in the corridor connecting the front room to the rest of the house. She turned and motioned to someone behind her. “Come, come.”

A young maiden stepped forward to stand beside the elderly woman. She met Odette’s eye for a moment, then looked down.

“Odette, this is my mother and Kathryn. And this is Odette.”

Kathryn did not look up at her, but Odette could see enough of her face to know that she had been crying.

Jorgen’s mother grasped Odette’s hand in both of hers and squeezed it. She was only as tall as Odette’s shoulder and rather plump. “I thank you for coming, my dear. Was it a very long walk?”

“Not so long.”

“Shall I fetch you some milk? We have our own cow, so it is fresh, and we have a little underground storage house by the stream that keeps it cool.”

“That sounds good. Perhaps Jorgen and Kathryn would like some too?”

“I will help you, Mother.” Jorgen gave Odette a look, then went with his mother.

Kathryn stood unmoving, her head still bowed.

“Will you come and sit with me over here?”

Kathryn gave an almost imperceptible nod and followed Odette to the other end of the room. They sat, each sinking into the feather cushions of the wooden chairs, decoratively built from crooked tree branches. It may have looked rustic, but it was the most comfortable chair she had ever sat in. Kathryn sat with her legs folded underneath her.

“Jorgen tells me his mother is pleased to have you staying here with her. I am sure she gets lonesome, with Jorgen gone most of the time and no other family.”

Kathryn seemed to consider Odette’s words. Perhaps the girl had not thought that she might be serving a purpose by being with Jorgen’s aging mother.

When Kathryn said nothing, Odette went on. “I hope you will stay with her. I have never met her before, but she seems like a kind person.”

After a moment of silence, Kathryn said softly, “She is a kind person. But I do not think I should stay. Jorgen had to give up his bed for me. Besides, I have a debt I need to pay.”

“What sort of debt?”

Kathryn finally looked at her. If she wasn’t mistaken, Odette read resentment in their deep-blue depths. “You would not understand. Sometimes orphans must do . . . bad things to stay alive and get food for their younger siblings.”

“How surprised you would be to know that I do understand. I foraged through other people’s garbage to get food for myself. I had no siblings, but when my mother and father died, I went to live with a neighbor’s family. They did not want me and treated me
like a servant. I was five years old. It was not until years later that my uncle came and took me to live with him. I do understand, and you do not owe anyone anything, especially if they want you to do something that makes you feel bad.”

“Jorgen told you, didn’t he? Do you know what will happen to my little brothers?”

“No.”

“I cannot let them be mistreated or turned into the streets to starve. Besides, Agnes was kind to us. She fed us and gave us clothes. I have to do what she says, for my brothers’ sakes.” She was near tears again.

“What if Jorgen and I can help your brothers? Perhaps we can find another place for them to stay.”