The Fairest Beauty

  He also had to admit that the thought of saving this girl himself was strangely appealing. No one thought of Gabe as a warrior. He was a rambler, a fun-loving friend, but certainly not a knight. He had never cared for fighting or jousting and left the tournaments to his older brother and his father’s knights. As the second son, Gabe should have trained as a knight or applied himself to a trade such as a master mason or even joined the church. But none of those things appealed to him — a life of chastity least of all. He preferred roaming the countryside with his friends, sometimes drinking too much and doing other activities he was glad his parents knew nothing of. His few skills included flirting with fair maidens, playing the lute, and archery. In fact, archery was the only war sport in which he could best Valten.

  If Gabe rescued his brother’s betrothed while Valten lay helpless in bed with a broken leg, it would be perfectly ironic. Valten traveled the world entering tournaments and winning glory and gold. But Gabe could do one better — rescue a girl from a terrible fate, thwart an evil ruler, and complete a quest that should have been Valten’s.

  Perhaps Gabe wasn’t as tall or as muscular as his brother, had not the sheer girth or physical power his brother possessed. But here was his opportunity to impress his parents, his brother, and even Brittola, the girl he was expected to marry.

  Gabe followed close behind as his father entered Valten’s bedchamber. The heir to the duchy of Hagenheim was propped up by pillows and reading a book.

  “Thank God you’ve come.” Valten closed the tome with a loud snap. “I was about to come out of my skin from boredom.”

  Valten was indeed pitiable in his forced confinement to his room. With all his purpose and energy and strength, the passivity of healing didn’t fit him very well.

  Gabe hung back as his father approached Valten’s bed and began relating the story of the old woman who had just died in the healer’s chambers and the tale she had told. Gabe watched closely as astonishment and something akin to disbelief clouded his brother’s eyes.

  Several moments passed while they waited for Valten to absorb the information. He seemed to be concentrating on the cover of the book in his lap, his eyebrows scrunched. Gabe had the strangest feeling that his future depended on what his brother would say.

  When he finally spoke, Valten’s voice was low. “Probably just an old woman’s senile ramblings.” He glanced up and met his father’s eyes. “But we must find out.”

  Duchess Ermengard stared into her mirror. During the past year, tiny lines had appeared around her eyes. The white powder hid them. Mostly.

  Sophie had no wrinkles or even a blemish. Ermengard’s lip curled as she thought about the girl’s pale, perfect skin and the natural red of her lips, her thick black eyelashes and brows. The way Lorencz the huntsman’s eyes lingered on the girl made Ermengard’s blood boil. Did he think the little chit was fairer than Ermengard? While two days in the dungeon should take some of that rosy glow out of the girl’s cheeks, the duchess had started to question if she should keep that wretched child around. Ermengard enjoyed forcing her to work as a scullery maid, making her do her bidding. Inwardly she gloated over Duke Baldewin and imagined his pain; if he only knew what his only beloved daughter was suffering. But watching her capture the attention of Lorencz … it was time to get rid of either her or Lorencz — or both.

  She gazed into the mirror, studying her face more closely. Was her skin starting to sag beneath her chin? Perhaps if she cut off a fold of skin just below her jawline it would be tighter when it grew back together. She couldn’t abide sagging jowls. She wouldn’t allow them.

  A knock sounded at the door. “Come in.”

  Lorencz entered and bowed low. She extended her hand and he kissed it, lingering long enough to make her smirk at him. You’d better endear yourself to me …

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. I need you to do something.”

  “Anything, Your Grace.”

  Perhaps she should insist he call her something besides “Your Grace.” That sounded too formal. Her husband had called Sophie “my precious,” never noticing the seething rage it caused in her, his wife. He never called Ermengard sweet endearments like that. She could order Lorencz to call her that … No. He wouldn’t mean it.

  What did everyone see in Sophie? It seemed as though her fellow servants couldn’t do enough for her. They all flocked to her, wanting to help her. It was sickening.

  “I want you to kill someone for me.”

  Lorencz did not look away from her direct gaze, a quality she admired in a man. “Did someone try to run away again? One of the servants?”

  “No.” But if they had, the penalty was death. The duchess couldn’t afford to have anyone leaking her secrets. If the king knew of the people she had killed or of Sophie or of what had become of Duke Baldewin … “I have just sent the scullery maid, Sophie, to the dungeon. I want you to gain her trust. Then, when she gets out, I want you to take her somewhere in the woods and kill her.”

  There, the look on his face … was that disgust? Or merely distaste? Her huntsman wasn’t going soft on her, was he?

  “Take her some food or some wine, maybe. I want you to kill her without a struggle, without anyone knowing. No screams. I want her to simply … disappear.” She allowed a smile, imagining the girl’s pain when Lorencz betrayed her, when he thrust his knife through her heart.

  “You will have to bury her afterward. I don’t want anyone finding her body. We’ll say she ran away, and no one will be the wiser.” And no one will ever know who she truly is.

  Unless she was mistaken, Lorencz had turned a shade paler. “It shall be done as you say, Duchess Ermengard.”

  “Do not fail me. Now go.”

  Sophie held her wooden cross against her cheek. She had whittled it herself from a piece of cedar and wore it tied to a strip of leather around her neck. It was rather large and somewhat thick, and she had to be careful to keep it hidden down the front of her dress. Feeling the smooth wood against her skin, she whispered her prayers as she paced back and forth across the hard, earthen floor of the dungeon. Staying in constant motion kept the rats away. She couldn’t continue pacing all night, but she wasn’t tired enough to stop — yet.

  As she was being dragged away to the dungeon, Sophie had glimpsed Lorencz entering the duchess’s chamber. Were the rumors about him and the duchess true?

  The huntsman had arrived at Hohendorf a few years before. He was handsome — even Sophie thought so — with his wavy brown hair and daring smile. And he had seen much more of the world than anyone else she knew. All the female servants sighed over him, giggling and whispering whenever he came into view. His confident swagger differed greatly from the bent-over, bowlegged shuffle of most of the men in the village, and his bright-green leather jerkin, brown-leather knee boots, and jaunty cap were a stark contrast to the dull-brown woolen tunics, loose hose, and hoods with long, floppy tippets the servants and poor villagers wore. Compared to them, Lorencz was almost a different creature.

  But it was no business of Sophie’s what the huntsman and the duchess did together. She wouldn’t waste time thinking about them.

  She shivered as the shadows deepened outside the high, grated window, located at eye level. The early spring air still wielded a sharp chill. Despite the breeze, the small dungeon chamber reeked of human waste, proof it hadn’t been cleaned since the last person spent time here, but she was already growing used to the smell. Stench was the least of her troubles.

  As Sophie paced the dungeon cell, she prayed for Duchess Ermengard, since the book of Saint Luke told her to love her enemies. It was a difficult task, she had to admit. But the verses also said that God would someday put her enemies under her feet. She supposed she needed to be righteous for God to do that, so she continued praying for her enemy.

  Duchess Ermengard was an unhappy person, given to vengeful speeches and angry outbursts, and Sophie shuddered to think how the duchess would be punished if the injustice
s perpetrated by her — especially all the cruel things she had done to the innocent people who served her — were discovered. Trying to kill defenseless puppies was the least of her offenses. Sophie had heard whisperings of people the duchess had murdered over the years, often with poison the duchess concocted herself. And she had killed at least one servant Sophie knew of, a servant who had attempted to leave Hohendorf without the duchess’s permission.

  The duchess’s sins spread yet farther. She had destroyed the castle’s chapel when Sophie was only seven years old, and she’d done away with the village priest. Sophie wasn’t sure if the duchess had killed him, but she must have, or he would have told someone what she’d done. The church in Hohendorf had been vandalized and looted, but many people, including Sophie, still went there to pray. She could still see the young priest’s face, could still recall his reverent look when he spoke of Jesus the Christ and his love for mankind, his sacrificial suffering.

  One of the maids had rescued an illuminated, transcribed portion of the Holy Writ that had been destroyed when the duchess burned the chapel. The rescued pages contained the book of Saint Luke, or most of it. Sophie had kept this precious portion of the Bible hidden ever since, and only took it out when she was certain none of the duchess’s spies were about. She wished she had it now so she could read it. In truth, she practically had the whole portion memorized.

  The familiarity had come in part because she often had to read it aloud to the other servants, as she was the only one who could decipher its words. The priest had secretly begun teaching her Latin when she was five years old, claiming it was because she was the last surviving member of a noble family, though she still didn’t know what he’d meant by that or who her parents were. She had long ago decided the priest must have been mistaken — what noble parents would leave their daughter in such a dreary and hopeless demesne, and as the lowest servant of such an evil duchess?

  Facing the small window, Sophie let her mind travel. She was standing in the middle of a sunlight-drenched meadow, situated in a safe, spacious, warm land far away from the duchess and her evil intentions. She was free. No one was yelling at her or belittling her or locking her in a dungeon.

  Sophie wasn’t sure if she had dreamed the vision of her standing in the sunny meadow, or if it was a vision from God. All her life, as far back as she could remember, she had lived on the hill of Hohendorf, at Hohendorf Castle, where the dense forest surrounded the stone castle and blocked out the sun. Sophie had never experienced an open field. Each day was dominated by the gloom and shadow of the forest. In fact, when Sophie felt oppressed by her surroundings, she recalled the time she had been allowed into an upper tower to help clean. There, through one of the windows, she had seen the village below, at the base of the castle hill, and had gotten a far-off glimpse of a sun-soaked meadow. For a moment, in front of the window, she had felt the sun flooding her from head to toe. It had seemed like heaven, and she had wanted to experience that again.

  Of course, as a servant, it was a sin to run away from one’s mistress. But would Sophie not actually be saving the duchess by escaping? By leaving the duchess’s service, she was keeping the duchess from further sin — the mistreatment of an innocent person. And Sophie was innocent, for she had always tried to be a good servant to the duchess. No, that wasn’t true. She had sometimes done things she knew the duchess wouldn’t like. Things that had led to her standing in this cell now — saving the drowning puppies and sneaking food to Roslind when she was in the dungeon.

  When Sophie was younger, she’d thought if she were good enough and behaved well enough, the duchess would come to love her, or at least treat her better. But she had eventually come to realize that her efforts were wasted on the duchess.

  Still, because of what the Bible said and what the priest had told her, Sophie stopped herself from taking petty revenge on the duchess like some of the servants did when they spit in her food or spoke hate-filled curses against her under their breath. The priest had once told her — this she remembered clearly — that God loved the merciful and pure of heart. The priest had also said that she must never hate anyone. Hate was of the devil, and love was of God. So even though the duchess had locked Sophie in this horrid dungeon with the rats and the filth — all because she had saved some puppies — and punished her for every perceived slight, Sophie must not hate her. And, Sophie reasoned, since she was the servant the duchess hated the most, leaving the duchess’s service was the greatest gift of mercy she could bestow on her mistress.

  “Jesus,” she whispered. Just saying his name comforted her as she came to accept that she was going to be locked in for two days and nights. Two days was a long time to go without food or water, so daunting a thought Sophie had to clutch the cross to her chest and pray more fervently.

  “Sophie.”

  She looked up, squinting at the window. A hand was there, holding an apple. She hurried over and found Roslind kneeling on the ground outside, which was level with the window.

  “You shouldn’t be here!” Sophie grabbed the apple through the bars. “Make haste! Get away before the guards see you. I couldn’t bear for you to get in trouble.”

  “No one is around.” Roslind peered in through the bars. “Your lip looks swollen. Did someone hit you?”

  “It is nothing. It barely hurts.” Further evidence of the duchess’s sins. “I’m glad you came and am thankful for the apple, but you really must go unless you want to join me in here.”

  “All right, Sophie. I’ll be praying for you.”

  Sophie smiled at her and waved at her to go.

  Roslind smiled back and called, “Good-bye, sister!” as she ran off.

  Both Sophie and Roslind were orphans and had no siblings that they knew of, but they and the other servants were their own family.

  Sophie bit into the apple, hoping to eat it before the rats smelled food.

  The apple tasted sweet, though it was a trifle shriveled, left over from the previous autumn. Sophie wrapped her arm around herself while she ate the entire thing, then threw the stem and core out the window.

  She stared out at the trees that shielded the setting sun, and a chill that had little to do with the cool air nipped at her heart. Her constant prayer was that God would provide a way of escape. Somehow, some way, she would have to flee, and she sensed it would be soon. She was old enough, a grown woman at seventeen years old. It was time she attempted what no one as yet had ever accomplished — escape from Duchess Ermengard and Hohendorf Castle.

  She hated to leave behind her “family,” the other servants she loved. Sophie often daydreamed ways to save them all. Sometimes she thought of ideas that seemed almost possible, and other times her ideas were farfetched — finding a magic pond that granted wishes, or encountering a brave knight who offered to save her and her friends from the duchess.

  But daydreaming would do her no good. She must start planning.

  If she were to marry a free man, her husband could take her away. But the duchess would never allow that. Could she hide amidst the traveling merchants’ wares? No, guards searched each cart as it left the Hohendorf gates.

  As she pondered each potential mode of escape, the rats became bolder, skittering out of the dark corners of the dungeon and watching her, their beady eyes shining in the dark room. Sophie forced herself to ignore them.

  As the sun began to set, she noticed someone else approaching her window. “Mama Petra!”

  The cook, Petra, lifted her skirt and ran the rest of the way, falling to her knees by the window.

  “Here, Sophie. Some bread and cheese for you. Eat it quickly. And a stick to keep the rats away.”

  Petra shoved the things at her through the bars. Sophie grabbed the food but couldn’t catch the stick before it clattered to the stone floor. She almost laughed.

  “Oh, Petra, you mustn’t be seen! I couldn’t bear it if you were punished for helping me.”

  “Nonsense, child.” Petra stuffed her hand through the bars an
d squeezed Sophie’s arm. “I would do much more for you, my dear.”

  Sophie saw tears in Petra’s eyes as her bottom lip quivered. Then Petra jumped to her feet and hurried away.

  “Thank you, God,” Sophie whispered. “Thank you for Mama Petra and Roslind.”

  She set about to eat her food as quickly as she could. If she got rid of the evidence, perhaps her friends wouldn’t get caught and punished for helping her. Although it seemed as if Duchess Ermengard had eyes everywhere and could see through the very walls.

  The sound of a key grating in the door lock made her jerk away from the window. She shrank into the dark corner, clutching the half-eaten food to her chest.

  The door creaked open and something came sailing through it, landing on the floor. Then the door slammed shut again, the key grating once more.

  Sophie crept over to see what had been thrown in.

  A blanket of gray wool. She picked it up. It smelled clean, so she wrapped it around her shoulders, unable to hold back the smile on her face. “Who could have done this?” she whispered to herself. Most likely, the old guard Walther. Sophie had helped care for his sick child when everyone else was too afraid to come near, frightened of catching the strange fever that had been accompanied by a rash. Sophie suspected he had a soft heart for her because of it.

  The scratching of the rats came closer, reminding her to eat. She bit into the hunk of cheese, then her bread. It was still fresh and soft. She sighed as she chewed.

  “Sophie.” This time a large, dark form knelt at the window.

  Lorencz. Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized him. He’d paid a lot of attention to her lately, and she couldn’t help but wonder why.

  And now he was kneeling by the dungeon window, calling her name.