Wolfbreed (37 page)

He passed the bread to Hilde after taking it from the knight. Something about the man looked vaguely familiar.

“Tell the man thank you, Hilde,” Burthe told their daughter.

Hilde stepped up, looking at the ground, and said, “Thank you, sir.”

“You are welcome, child,” the man said. He looked around at Gedim and Burthe. There was an expression of contemplation on his face, and Gedim suddenly recognized the man. This was the same knight that had come to his farm earlier, looking for Lilly.

Of all the ill luck it was possible to have …

The knight looked at Burthe and asked, “How fares your sick daughter? I do not see her here.”

“She passed away,” Gedim said, before anyone else could respond.

Please, by Christ your god, take that answer and go your way
.

“You have my condolence, I pray then she did not suffer, and she went to her Lord in peace.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I recall you,” the knight said, “but forgive me, I do not recall your names.”

“I am Gedim, and this is my wife, Burthe.”

The knight nodded but showed no sign of walking away. Also, when Gedim glanced around, he saw that the other knights seemed to have taken note of this one’s pause.

“Well met.” The knight lowered himself to one knee in front of Gedim’s daughter. “And what’s your name, child?”

She edged toward Burthe. “H-Hilde.”

“That’s a good name.” He smiled. “Can you tell me your big sister’s name?”

Hilde grabbed Burthe’s arm and shook her head.

“Sir,” Burthe said, “she’s still upset over our loss.”

“I understand. But it is a simple enough question.” The knight reached out and cupped Hilde’s chin. “You can tell me her name, can’t you?”

“L-Lilly. Her name’s Lilly.”

The knight let go of Hilde and stood. “God loves children most of all, I think, because they are so free of guile.”

The other knights were now approaching them, weaving through the crowd. The knight looked at all of them in turn. “Lilly is an unusual name, don’t you think?”

Gedim stepped between the knight and Hilde. “Please,” he whispered, “let nothing happen to my daughter.”

The knight looked at Gedim. “She’s been the most truthful among you. I would worry less for her than for yourself.”

In a moment, four knights of the Order surrounded them.

ilde had never seen Papa scared before. She didn’t understand what happened when Papa stepped between her and the big man with the bread, but she was suddenly afraid that she had said something wrong. When the man grabbed Papa’s upper arm, Hilde cried, “Leave him alone.”

She ran at the man. Behind her, she heard Mama call her name, but all she could think about was that Papa was scared of the man, and it was because of what she had said. “Leave him alone!” She struck the man’s leg as hard as she could, hurting her fist.

The basket he carried fell to the ground, scattering crusts on the ground around her. She attacked the man, biting her lip, tears streaming down her cheeks. She heard Papa yell, “Hilde, no!”

A large hand grabbed her arm and yanked her away. She looked around and yelled, “Papa!” when she realized it wasn’t Papa who had grabbed her. The man who held her hoisted her up off of the
ground, wrapping his mail-covered arm around her chest so snugly it hurt. “You will respect your elders, child.” The man was hard to understand. He spoke his words so thickly that Hilde would have thought him funny if she wasn’t so scared.

The man turned and started carrying her away. Behind her she heard the other man yelling something at her parents. Papa yelled something back, but he was interrupted by a loud thump.

“I’m sorry,” Hilde whispered as she cried. “Please don’t take me away.”

The man carrying her didn’t listen.

urthe tried to grab her, but Hilde moved too fast. Burthe watched in horror as her daughter attacked the knight who had taken hold of Gedim. Fortunately, for all its ferocity, Hilde’s attack raised little more than an expression of bemusement on the knight’s face. Burthe ran forward, hoping to end things before Hilde was hurt.

But one of the other knights scooped up Hilde before Burthe reached her.

“No!” Burthe yelled at the man as he muttered something in an incomprehensible German accent.

The knight with Hilde turned and walked away.

“Give me my daughter!” Burthe tried to follow the man, but another knight blocked her way. Behind her, the knight holding Gedim said something.

In response she heard Gedim yell, “You damned German bastards, give her back!” She turned to see Gedim striking at the knight holding him.

She gasped, her chest now so tight that her voice was completely gone.

Unlike Hilde’s attack, Gedim’s blow had some force and skill behind it, and it inspired more than bemusement from its target.
Burthe saw the knight’s head turn aside slightly, a trail of blood on his cheek.

The knight drew his dagger, and Burthe found her voice. “No! Don’t hurt him!” She dove at them, but mailed arms restrained her from behind.

The knight slammed the hilt of his dagger into the side of Gedim’s head. The force of it dropped her husband to his knees.

“Stop!”

The knight’s boot came up, striking Gedim in the face.

“You bastards—”

“Mind yourself, woman!” The knight leveled the blade of the dagger in her direction, pointing at her throat. “Do not compound your sins. Your daughter is unharmed, and your husband will live. Do not act or speak thoughtlessly now.”

Burthe stared down at Gedim. His face was covered in blood, and one eye was already swollen shut. Bile rose in Burthe’s throat, and she had trouble catching her breath.

The knight gestured to the keep with his dagger. “Take her to a cell.” He pointed at one of the other soldiers who had been guarding the edges of the Prûsan crowd. “And you, help me with her husband.”

s he woke up, Gedim thought,
That wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done
.

“Burthe? Hilde?” The words hurt. His lips were swollen, split, and partly clotted together. Moving his jaw ignited pains all across the right side of his face, and the sound of his own voice fed into a stabbing headache behind his temples.

Most painful, of course, was the fact that he didn’t receive an answer.

He tried to open his eyes, but only his right eye responded. The light, dim as it was, fueled the throbbing in his head.
Above him, a stone vault reflected flickering orange light from a lantern.

He pushed himself into a sitting position, despite the protests from inside his skull. As he sat up, he heard chains rattling. He looked down and saw that his legs were manacled to a heavy chain at the ankle. He reached up and touched his face. The left side was swollen and crusted with blood.

He was on a straw mat on the floor of a small room. The light came from a lantern outside, shining through a small square window in the door.

He got the feeling that they were going to want more than baptism from him this time.

ünter opened the door on a cell only a few hundred paces from where the beast had escaped seventeen days before. He still felt uneasy down here, even though he knew the man he was about to visit.