“She shall be missed,” Father sighs, casting his gaze downward again. “Is there a carriage that can take them back? I would not want them to walk alone in the rain.”
“Oh, yes. Of course, Ansel. Ivan! Get one of the carriages over ’ere and take these girls back to the cobbler’s!” Gregor shouts at a tall, young, blonde man whose pale skin makes me look Arabian. “Shouldn’t ya accompany the ladies back ’ome, Ansel? ‘Tis a cold night ta be out.”
“No, Gregor. I have business to attend to.”
“Anythin’ I can be a ’elp with?” Gregor asks with deep sincerity.
“Have you got any shovels?”
“Course, but what would ya be needing ’em for?”
“Our funeral did not go as planned. I need a pick, as well.” Father coughs to cover the crack in his voice.
Ivan ambles over, pulling the horses and carriage behind him. He straightens at the sight of Galadriel and stares for several moments, though she does not seem to notice.
“It’s not safe ta be outside ’a the gates after dark, Ansel. Oh, a drunkard was cut through outside the Weier gate on ’is way ’ome last week,” Gregor says.
Father opens his mouth to argue, but Gregor continues, shrugging his shoulders. “But if it’s a shovel and a pick ya want, we ’ave ’alf a dozen back in the stables. I could send Ivan with ya if ya like.”
Ivan appears angered and shakes his head slowly and sternly. It is difficult to believe anyone of his impressive stature would be afraid of anything. He is taller than my father by a head.
“Thank you for getting them home and for the shovel.”
“I wish I could do more. Are ya sure you shan’t accept any ’elp?” Gregor asks.
“Yes,” Father sighs as he walks toward the stables to get the shovel and pick.
Ivan opens the carriage door, but I am planted where I stand.
“I shall see you both soon.” Father says.
My heart pounds and the air thins. If I go home without Father, I might never see him again. I cannot lose him, too. Not now. I imagine him being overcome by a large band of thieves or a pack of ravenous wolves. I must make him stay, even at the risk of scavengers getting to Mother before she can be buried.
“Go on, Adelaide,” Father sighs, running his hands through his black hair. I shake my head, and he raises an eyebrow in warning.
I barrel into him and squeeze him hard. “Please, do not go,” I cry into his wet cloak. “We can all go in the morning,” I plead, looking into his pewter eyes.
“Get in the carriage, Adelaide,” he replies somberly and pushes me backward. “I have fought much worse than vagabonds and wolves alone and survived.”
Gregor hobbles to the stables and returns with a crossbow. Father straps it to his arm.
Father turns toward the gate, and I dive to the ground, squeezing his legs in an effort to keep him there. “Don’t go!” I cry.
“Adelaide! That is enough!” he scolds and shakes me from his leg. “Get in the carriage!”
Father has made his choice, and there is nothing I can do to change it. I rise and stare at his face for a moment, trying to memorize it in case he never returns. I hug him tightly, sobbing again.
“I love you, Papa,” I whimper into his cloak.
“And I love you,” he whispers so quietly no one could possibly hear.
I look at his face once more, turn, and step into the carriage. He stands and watches as we ride away down Severin’s Strasse. I do not even bother to keep my composure in front of Galadriel, giving in to tears and sobs, which, I fear, shall never end. I can feel her piteous stares. I am anguished with memories stirred by the places we pass on our way home and terribly worried for Father’s safety.
11 March, 1247, Night
A rich man’s wife became sick, and when she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter near to her bedside and said, “Dear child, remain pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you.” With this, she closed her eyes and died….
The girl went out to her mother’s grave every day and wept, and she remained pious and good. When winter came, the snow spread a white cloth over the grave, and when the spring sun had removed it again, the man took himself another wife.
This wife brought two daughters into the house with her. They were beautiful, with fair faces, but had evil and dark hearts. Time soon grew very bad for the poor stepchild….
Now it happened that the King proclaimed a festival …. All the beautiful young girls in the land were invited, so that his son could select a bride for himself. When the two stepsisters heard that they too had been invited, they were in high spirits.
They called Cinderella saying, “We are going to the festival at the King’s castle.”
Cinderella, too, would have liked to go to the dance with them. She begged her stepmother to allow her to go.
“You, Cinderella?” she said. “You, all covered with dust and dirt, and you want to go to the festival? You have neither clothes nor shoes, and yet you want to dance...! It’s no use. You are not coming with us….”
-Cinderella
~
I stack the kindling and light the long extinguished fire. Little things cruelly remind me Mama is dead. I remember the way she stacked wood. Her eating knife sits alone on the mantle beside the lavender she loved to collect and dry. I pick up a bunch and smell it. It smells like her. Anguish settles like lead in my stomach and I feel I may start crying again, but I am too weary and my head throbs from all the crying I’ve done already. I put the lavender back and sit at the table across from Galadriel, looking away from the hearth and its painful reminders.
“Will I ever be happy again?” I ask hoarsely, barely breaking Galadriel’s deep gaze into the fire.
“Yes,” she says distractedly.
“It doesn’t feel possible.”
“It gets… ‘better’ is not the word for it,” she rolls her eyes as they glimmer with tears. “It gets easier. I felt the same when my mother died, but I can remember her fondly now. I cannot do that yet with Ulrich and Lars.” She sighs hopelessly and forces a smile.
“Oh.” I feel guilty for bringing up the death of her infant son and husband who had died four months ago from fever. The thought of feeling this way for four months is not comforting. “Allow yourself to be sad, and when you cannot bear it a moment longer, find a way, any way, to occupy your thoughts. That helps,” she says with a thick voice, nodding her head and folding her lips in as she avoids my gaze. “You shall forget for a while, almost too well sometimes. Every now and then, something reminds me of them, and I think I shall turn around to see them standing there. Then, I remember they are…” Gone. She swallows hard and tears roll down her cheeks. She takes in a deep breath and sighs.
“We don’t have to speak of this.”
She nods, her brow knit and eyes glassy with tears. She chokes back a sob, then, composes herself with a deep breath. She straightens and flicks tears from each cheek.
I think of Father. Is he burying her now, I wonder? Are there thieves watching him, waiting to strike him dead for his boots and cloak? Are wolves stalking him from beneath the hill? Is he fighting them off with a pick in one hand and a shovel in the other? I could have helped him. What if he is dying right now, all alone? I should have found a way to go with him. I could have gotten out of the carriage and run for Pantaleon’s gate. The man at that gate does not know me. He would have let me out. Thoughts race through my mind, and I grip my temples in a vain attempt to silence my thoughts. But I cannot.
My thoughts only linger on Father for a moment. So many horrible images occupy my mind. I sit across from Galadriel, but I am not there at all. My thoughts travel to the past, to two nights ago. I am in my parents’ bedroom, watching my mother fight for life.
Her purple lips gasped for breath. I knelt at her side, praying all night for God to save her. If I had only prayed harder, if only I had sinned less, surely He would have answ
ered my prayers.
Father lost hope before I did. I thought she was too strong to die, too stubborn, but the fever claimed almost everyone it touched. Father knew this. I knew it too, but I thought Mama was different. I refused to believe it would kill her.
My heart broke each time I thought she was gone, but she came back to us dozens of times, fighting for breath. Eventually, I stopped praying for her to live, but prayed instead for God to end her suffering. Yet we continued to relive her death over and over throughout the night as friends tried to find a priest for her last rites. But no one would come.
Finally, Father whispered a few words into her ear. I do not know what he said, but he kissed her hands and cheeks, and she let herself die.
~
I try to distract myself. Keep occupied, Galadriel says. I watch the flames grow and fall, from blinding white to an orange flicker. It sparks memories of the funeral pyre, but I shall not let that hurt me now. I try to relive Mama’s funeral in my mind in a hundred different ways, somehow changing its tragic end.
~
I stare down at Mama’s shrouded body, my eyes cloudy with tears. I think I see something, but I know it cannot be so. She is dead. I watched her die, but did I see her left hand twitch? I shake my head in denial, yet hope it to be true. I wipe the tears from my eyes. I stare, possessed with hope, fixated on her hand, hoping to see another twitch so I can stop the funeral.
The priest quickly finishes his service and silence lingers. Time slows as Father Soren orders Johan to light the fire, pointing his chubby fingers at the stacks of wood and straw. My eyes widen with desperation and my legs shake.
“Move!” my thoughts beg, yearning for Mama to stir again. “Move!”
Still, she does not stir. Johan drops his torch to ignite the fire and my head throbs with indecision. Perhaps she hadn’t moved at all, I think. Perhaps I have gone mad? The flames begin to grow. The tallest peaks lap at the bottom of the funeral pyre.
Her finger pulses again. I run and press my face against hers. I grab her cheeks and shake.
“Please! Wake up!” I shout, but she does not respond. Father runs for me. I turn around, guarding her. “Her finger moved! She is not dead!” I shout.
Father’s feet anchor into the ground for a moment. His face displays a range of emotions. He shakes them from his head and runs for me again, ready to pull me from the pyre. As his arms wrap around me, ready to take me away... she moans.
His eyes widen, and he pushes me from the fire. He scoops her up and sets her gently on the ground. Everyone gathers around in awe, and Father Soren crosses himself. Father pulls a large knife from its holster, delicately slicing through the shroud. She moans again.
“Katrina!” Father gasps and hugs her limp, but alive, body to his chest. He rubs his face gently against hers and roughly kisses her cheeks and forehead. He quickly stands with her cradled in his arms.
A loud pop from the hearth fire snaps me out of my daydream.
Galadriel puts her head in her hands and cries. I rise and grab two mugs, filling them with ale.
She sighs as I set the mug before her.
“Thank you,” she says between cries. “We usually only have wine at home. I have missed ale.”
We drink in an uncomfortable silence.
“Did your mother ever tell you how Ulrich and I met?” Galadriel offers with a sniffle.
I sip the ale slowly to consider my answer. It irritates me that she brings up her dead husband again. It makes me wonder why she has come to my mother’s, her cousin’s, funeral if all she cares to think about is her own dead family. But perhaps a story will distract me.
“No. Mama never told me that story.”
“Oh.” She smiles and looks up.
“Ulrich was the third son of the Duke and Duchess of Lorraine. He was supposed to be a bishop or abbot or a cardinal.”
I nearly choke on my ale. If Galadriel’s husband was the son of a duke, that meant he was a nobleman, which makes Galadriel a noblewoman.
“So what does that make you?” I ask bluntly.
She knits her brow in confusion.
“Your husband…he was a duke or lord.” I prompt.
“Ulrich was the Count of Bitsch.” She replies.
“So that makes you—”
“Oh, a countess,” she interrupts.
“Is this a jest?” I ask.
“No.”
“Are you of noble birth?”
“No.”
“I thought noblemen only married noblewomen.”
She sighs in annoyance. “I assure you the tale is true. Do you want to hear it or not?”
I nod.
“Ulrich’s siblings were taught by tutors at the castle until they were old enough to be sent to other courts. But not Ulrich. He had to be sent away.” She lifts the mug to her mouth again and gulps heartily.
“Why?”
“Because his mother spoiled him terribly. He grew so wicked that people called him Ulrich the Devil, so the Duke sent him away to a monastery. The Duchess did not like that very well. I heard she had awful fits. The Dower Duchess of Lorraine is quite spoiled herself,” Galadriel confesses, the corners of her eyes starting to relax from the drink.
“Will you pour me another mug, Adelaide? Mine is empty already.” I fill her cup. “Where was I? I have lost myself,” she says with a slight slur.
“You were telling me about—”
“I remember now,” she interrupts. “Ulrich grew up at the monastery, but he never wanted to join the Church. When he was grown, he wrote the Duchess and begged to come home, so she sent for him in secret. The Duke was furious with her. They had no title for him, no land, no wife.”
Galadriel takes a sip of her ale.
“The Duke was at war with his brother and hadn’t a title to give to Ulrich. So they made up a title for him, the Count of Bitsch, hoping it would attract a maid whose father had a lot of coin or a big army. But no one wanted to go to war just so their daughter could marry a third son with a made-up title,” she pauses briefly.
“So the Duchess decided to hold a festival in Ulrich’s honor so he could choose his bride. She invited every eligible maiden from Lorraine, but the girls could only attend if their fathers paid five guilders apiece to help pay for the war. I still have our family’s invitation. It was pouring rain when it was delivered. I was sitting by the mantle, picking peas from the fireplace…”
“Picking peas from the fireplace?” I ask.
Galadriel nods.
“Why would you pick peas from the fireplace?”
Galadriel looks down. “When my mother died, my father remarried. He was a merchant and gone most of the year. My stepmother Gisla hated me and made me a slave in my own home. I do not know why she treated me so badly, for I never gave her reason.
“But my mother had always told me that if I was a good and pious girl, the Lord would provide for me. So I tended to Gisla’s daughters and did the same household chores as our servants. Still, Gisla would throw my supper of peas into the soot of the fire. I would have to pick them from the ashes or go hungry.”
“That is horrible!” I cry.
Galadriel shrugs, takes another gulp of ale, and continues. “I was sitting by the hearth when I heard the knock on the door. It was a dwarf. I had never seen a dwarf before, you know.
“He had the deepest voice and demanded to speak to the man of the house, but Father was off on his travels, as usual, so I called for Gisla. I watched as the half-man reached into a satchel on his back and pulled out a rolled piece of parchment tied with a little gold ribbon. He read the invitation then handed it to Gisla.
“The girls in the village had two months to ready themselves, and it was all anyone spoke of. The richest families raced to the tailor’s, but our father traded in fine fabrics. Gisla had a letter sent so that he would bring Ebba and Dorthe, my stepsisters, beautiful dresses and jewels from his travels. Gisla told him not to get me a dress, say
ing I was an insolent girl and not ready for marriage even though I was nineteen, practically a spinster.
“I begged Gisla to let me go to the festival, but she just laughed at me. I’ll never forget what she said. She told me that there was not enough water in the Rhine to wash the cinder soot from my face, and that it was better I did not go, for everyone would laugh at me. Still, I asked her every day until, one day, she agreed.
“She scraped several days of uneaten peas into the soot of the fireplace and told me that if I could fetch every last pea from the soot by morning, then I could go.
“I stayed up late into the night picking peas from the soot, but each time I thought I had gotten the last pea, I found another and then another. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have for I remember waking the next morning to a rustling in the room. Three pigeons were foraging in the soot. At first I thought to chase them away, but then I noticed they were eating the peas. When the pigeons finished, I dug through the ashes looking for peas, but there were none left. The pigeons flew away, and I ran to follow them, wondering where they’d come from. I followed them through the city, past Saint Lucie’s, all the way to hallowed ground where each pigeon landed on the tree just above my mother’s grave.”
“Really?” I ask in disbelief and she nods.
“I went back home just as the bells tolled six and waited for Gisla to awaken. When they came to break their fast, I begged them to check the hearth. Gisla searched and searched, but did not find a single pea. She was very angry, and Ebba and Dorthe just laughed at how foolish I would look going to the festival in my sooty chainse and surcote.
“That night, two days before the festival, Gisla came to me again. She told me I could wear one of my nice dresses, which she had taken from me, if I could pick all of the peas out of the ashes again. I was so very tired. I remember lying on the cold, hard ground by the hearth with a candle in hand, picking through the ashes while I fought to keep my eyes open.
“The church bells awoke me in the morning. There was a pigeon sitting on the window sill, but the hearth was filled with peas. I wanted to cry, but as my stepmother and sisters were still sleeping, I raced to pick out the rest. But they woke soon after and caught me digging through the ashes, delighted that I had failed.