The Noble Servant

  How strange.

  She must have waited at least an hour before Steffan appeared at the end of the path at a fast walk. He carried a large pouch under his arm. Her blood seemed to quicken as she sat on the grass with the peaceful sheep on one side and the noisy geese on the other side, grazing and barely noticing the tall shepherd approaching. But she was only excited about writing a letter to Avelina.

  He strode toward her and pulled out a cloth bundle from the leather bag. He squatted beside her and unwrapped the cloth, then held it out to her. Inside were four bread rolls.

  She accepted one. It was still warm. “What is it?”

  “A stuffed roll.” He picked one up and took a bite.

  She did not want to be rude, so she didn’t ask what was inside. She was too hungry to care much anyway and bit into the soft bread.

  Inside was some kind of meat, minced potato, and something sour. She closed her eyes, savoring the wonderful taste and smell. When she opened her eyes, she said, “Is that bacon?”

  He smiled. “I think so. Bacon, potato, and sauerkraut. Do you like it?”

  “Very much. But what is sauerkraut?”

  “You’ve never had sauerkraut?”

  She shook her head.

  “Fermented cabbage.”

  That didn’t sound very appetizing, but the flavors mixed together pleasantly in her mouth. Soon she had eaten the entire roll. “Thank you. That was delicious.”

  “Have another one.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I bought three for you. You said you were hungry enough to eat three breakfasts.”

  “I would look like a pig if I ate more than you.”

  “I’ve already eaten two.”

  She laughed and took another roll, again closing her eyes at how good it tasted. Her family’s cooks at Mallin had never made anything like this. Bacon was not considered elegant enough for a baron’s family, and neither were these stuffed rolls, no doubt, but from now on—if she was ever restored to her rightful place—she would ask for bacon, potato, and sauerkraut rolls every day. And bacon. Copious amounts of bacon.

  When she had eaten half of the second roll, she suddenly felt guilty. Here she was eating this wonderful food when Katrin and the other servants were undoubtedly still hungry. She took out a cloth from the bag at her belt, wrapped up the half-eaten roll, and tucked it away so she might give it to Katrin when she saw her tonight.

  “You know.” Steffan stared at the ground as he used a stick to stab at the dirt. “Wolfberg did not always treat its servants so poorly.”

  She waited for him to go on, admiring the soft waves in his dark-brown hair.

  “They had better food, at least.” He ceased stabbing the ground and just stared across the meadow. Then he threw down his stick and reached into his big leather bag. He pulled out a thin wooden board and some paper.

  “Here is your paper. I only bought three rectangular sheets. I hope that’s enough.”

  She took the paper from his hand.

  “And here is the ink.”

  It was in a tiny glass pot with a cork stopper. Where did a shepherd get enough money to buy paper and ink? Wherever he got it, she had a funny feeling in her chest as she stared down at the paper in her lap. How humbling that someone would go to so much trouble to bring her paper and ink and even food, a man who hardly knew her. If she thought about it much longer, tears would sting her eyes.

  He could have demanded that she give him the information he wanted before he gave her the food. Would he not force her to tell him her name after all? But she had promised him.

  “Now for my end of the bargain.” Magdalen cleared her throat.

  “Yes. You will tell me your name and what you plan to do with the ink and paper.”

  She smiled to cover her uncertainty. How much should she tell him? How much could she get away with concealing?

  Chapter Ten

  Steffan watched her. She stared down at her lap, then away at a goose that had separated itself from the rest of the mean-spirited creatures.

  “Everyone here calls me Maggie—well, only a few people speak to me at all, but they call me Maggie.”

  Why was she so nervous?

  “But you said that was not your name. Is it short for something?”

  “Short for Magdalen, actually.” She finally looked him in the eye.

  Of course it is, because you are Lady Magdalen, the daughter of the Baron of Mallin. But why was she working as a goose girl? It made no sense, unless someone was forcing her out of her place. But who? And for what purpose?

  Until he figured it out, he’d better not tell her who he was. He couldn’t prove he was the Duke of Wolfberg yet anyway, and she obviously didn’t recognize him with the beard and shepherd’s clothing.

  “You were also going to tell me why you need the paper and ink.”

  “I need them to write a letter. Two letters.”

  “Letters to whom?”

  “Letters to my mother and to a friend.” She looked away from him again, signaling that she was either lying or holding something back.

  “How did a goose girl learn to read and write?”

  “Is that what you think of me? That I am just a goose girl who shouldn’t know how to read?” Her back was suddenly as straight as any tree, her chin lifted high. But there was also a slight smile on her lips and a sparkle in her eye.

  “So you were not a goose girl in Mallin?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was not.”

  “What were you?” He held his breath while he waited for her to answer.

  “I was a daughter and a sister.” Her voice was soft as she looked at her lap again. “And I not only learned to read and write in Mallin, I taught my sisters and many of the servants, including Lenhart. And how did you, a shepherd boy, learn to read and write?”

  “You think me only a boy? I am older than you are.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I am twenty-one. Not a boy.”

  “A bit older than a boy, I suppose.” She smiled.

  “And how old are you?”

  “I am nineteen.”

  “Most young women your age are already married. Why are you not?” He watched her face closely.

  “Oh, I suppose because . . . there was no one in Mallin I wanted to marry.”

  “But you are not in Mallin anymore.”

  “No, not anymore. And what about you? Why is a twenty-one-year-old man such as you still unmarried?”

  “Such as me? Do you think I’m handsome?”

  “I might, if I could see your face through all that hair.” She laughed.

  “You don’t like my beard?” He rubbed his facial hair and shook his head. “The truth is I’m not ready for marriage.”

  “Oh? Why not? Do you not wish to be in love and have children?”

  “I don’t believe in marrying for love. People should marry for better reasons than love.”

  Magdalen raised her brows, her mouth hanging open, then she made a sound like, “Uh!” and shook her head.

  “Besides, I have other plans, for now. Perhaps I shall marry when I’m thirty.”

  “What plans do you have? Do you need to study how to be a better shepherd?”

  “Something like that.”

  She looked askance at him. “I never know whether to believe you.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Something about your eyes. I do not think you are a bad person. But there are some things you aren’t telling me. You are hiding something.”

  “That is very strange, because I get the same feeling about you.”

  She nodded once, then looked away from him, as if searching the ground. “I cannot very well write a letter without a pen.”

  She walked toward her gaggle of geese and picked up a feather off the ground. “This looks like it will make an excellent pen.”

  “I’ll make it for you.” He accepted the feather from her and took his knife from the little sheath that h
ung from his belt. To her questioning look, he said, “I am very good at making pens.”

  Steffan cut the hard end of the feather in half lengthwise for about two inches, carefully cutting and whittling to make the best point. When he was satisfied it was perfect, he handed it back to her.

  She examined it closely. “Not a bad job. For a shepherd.”

  “Were you this impertinent when you lived in Mallin?”

  “It’s easy to hone your impertinence skills when you have a lot of sisters. Don’t you have any sisters?”

  Just behind her, a goose toddled toward them. No, it passed right by her and headed directly to him. Steffan began backing away.

  “What is it?”

  “The beast . . . What does it want? Get away.” He waved his arms at it, but it kept coming.

  “Are you afraid of a little goose?”

  “Magdalen . . . take care not to get too close. Will it listen to you? Don’t let it bite you.” He could feel the blood draining from his face.

  She actually laughed as she got in front of the goose and shooed it back toward the others.

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t know what is so amusing. Those birds are vicious.”

  “What happened to make you so afraid of geese?”

  “I am not afraid. I simply do not like them.”

  “No, it’s more than just not liking them. What is it?”

  A prickly feeling snaked up his spine. He opened his mouth to tell her that she did not know what she was talking about, but his mind flashed back to when he was a little boy. The cold, blinding fear came over him, just as it had that day. His hands started to shake. He was falling, falling . . .

  “What? What happened?” Her voice was soft and her eyes were kind as she stepped closer to him.

  “I . . . I was just remembering . . . something.”

  “Won’t you tell me?”

  “It is nothing. Only, when I was a child a goose chased me and I fell down an old abandoned well.”

  “Oh no!” Her brows rose.

  He stared at the ground, trying to shake off the feeling that had overtaken him, and concentrated on breathing normally. He was a child again as the memories flooded his mind.

  “Were you hurt?”

  “I got stuck on some debris before I reached the water. It was daytime when I fell in, but it was dark when they pulled me out.” A shiver skittered through him, the same feeling of being in the cold, dank well, everything covered over in green slime and black mold.

  “Then what happened?”

  His stomach sank as he relived what had happened after he was freed. He shook his head and turned his back on her.

  The worst thing that could happen to a child . . . that was what happened.

  Not waiting for him to answer her previous question, she asked, “How old were you?”

  He swallowed. “I was five. I haven’t thought about it in a long time.”

  Something touched him. He spun around and found Magdalen standing beside him, her hand on his arm, looking up at him with those sympathetic eyes.

  “What an awful thing to happen to a child. It must have been terrifying, being stuck in a deep, dark well.”

  He could still hear his own screams, his throat aching and raw from so much shouting for help and crying. When they finally found him, it seemed to take forever for them to reach him. They lowered one of the house servants, a small young man, down on a rope. He’d been terrified the man would fall on top of him and send them both down into the black water below. But he hadn’t fallen, and he held Steffan in his arms as several men hauled them to the top.

  “If that happened to me, my mother would have been yelling at everyone, including me. What happened when they pulled you out? Did you tell them it was the goose’s fault?”

  He might as well tell her the whole tale so she would stop asking questions. “I was crying and begging to see my mother. But . . . her time had come to give birth to my younger sibling. She died while they were bathing the stench and slime of the well off me. Both she and the baby died.” His father had been so distraught . . . too distraught to pay any attention to a sobbing little boy. Even his nurse was not very attentive.

  “Oh. I’m so sorry.” Her voice was breathy and her face even softer. “Just when you needed your mother to comfort you.”

  She fell silent, and he tried to swallow past the constriction in his throat. The compassion in her face and her tone made it harder to push the feelings away.

  Finally, she squeezed his arm and let go. “I can see why you hate geese. They make you think of that terrible day. I should take the geese to graze somewhere else so you won’t have to see them.”

  “I don’t wish you to do that. I like talking with you.”

  “I like talking with you too.”

  “Then tell me about your family.” Anything to take their minds off the worst day of his life.

  Magdalen sighed, still feeling pity for the poor shepherd’s terrible experience. But he obviously wanted her to talk now.

  “I have a sister named Jonatha. She is closest to me and sleeps in my bed. My other sisters are sweet too. There’s Hildegard, Britta, and Anna. I had a brother, Wilhelm, but he died.” Her voice hitched and she had to take a deep breath to drive away the sorrow. “A year and a half ago. He was always sickly.”

  “I’m very sorry.” And he sounded as if he was.

  “It was very sad. But what about you? Do you have sisters or brothers?”

  “I have one sister.”

  Was his sister named Gertrudt, like the Duke of Wolfberg’s?

  “She married and I have not seen her since the wedding. We are good friends, as much as a brother and sister can be, I imagine, she being only one year older. I told you about my parents dying when I was very young. Tell me about your parents.”

  “My father died three years ago. And my mother . . . she doesn’t care for me very much.”

  “Doesn’t care for you?” He sounded surprised.

  “It’s difficult to discuss.” Perhaps she should not have told him. She fingered the paper he had given her.

  “It must be painful to feel your mother doesn’t care for you.”

  “She once told me that I was selfish for wanting to see my father when he was sick. She said he just wanted to rest and not be bothered with me. But I sneaked in after she left, and he said my presence made him feel better. I think she was jealous of me.” She made this last statement more quietly. “You don’t want to hear my sad stories about my family.”

  “No, I do. Please, go on.”

  She hesitated, then said, “My mother yelled at my father a lot. She often accused him of ignoring her and paying more attention to his children than to her. And it was true. He did.” She didn’t say anything for a few moments. “That was wrong of him, I suppose, but she was always so angry, always yelling. And I was so grateful for his love. And I tried to make up for my mother’s coldness by doting on my younger sisters. I didn’t want them to feel unloved. I hope they are being affectionate to each other while I’m gone.”

  “Your mother’s coldness was not your fault. She must have been an addled and sad person not to love a sweet girl like you.”

  His words caused a dryness in her throat, and she found herself unable to speak. It was as if he knew the exact words she needed to hear. At least a part of her had always believed her mother’s cruel criticism and blame to be true, that it was Magdalen’s fault her mother was always so angry with her. The first time she’d ever seemed close to being pleased with her was when she thought Magdalen was going to marry the Duke of Wolfberg.

  She swallowed twice before she was able to say, “That is kind of you.”

  “It is the truth. Any mother would be proud to have a daughter such as you—clever, brave, kind, and generous.”

  Her foolish heart fluttered, but it was strangely pleasant to be so complimented by a handsome shepherd who thought she was only a goose girl.

  Steffan should not say
such complimentary things to Lady Magdalen. At least she still thought him only a lowly shepherd.

  “Give me one of those sheets of paper. You only need two, after all.” He reached toward the paper she was holding in her hand.

  She gave him one. He pulled out a piece of drawing charcoal from his bag and sat down. Drawing always helped him forget things he’d rather not think about.

  “What are you doing there?” She came and looked over his shoulder.

  “Should you not be writing your letters?”

  “I will, but I want to see.”

  “You can see when I’m finished.” He motioned with his hand for her to go away. The lump that had formed in his chest began to fade somewhat as he traced the outlines and contours of Magdalen’s face on his paper. He sketched in her hair and gradually brought out her eyes and nose and mouth.

  Meanwhile she was hunched over her paper, the ink pot by her side, as she wrote her letter. She was quite lovely, with her small nose and delicate eyebrows that were browner and darker than her reddish-blonde hair. She also had a cute little chin that jutted slightly forward. Yes, he remembered that chin from the last time he had sketched her portrait—two years ago at Thornbeck, though she had not known it then.

  She paused and looked up at him, a furrow wrinkling her forehead. “I don’t know how I will get these letters to their destinations.”

  “I suppose you’ll have to pay a courier. Do you know someone you trust?”

  Her sad eyes stared across the field. “No.”

  His first impulse was to tell her he would take care of it for her. But what if the letters brought important people here, like the Margrave of Thornbeck, before he had proof of his own identity? He needed proof that would help him defeat his uncle and cousin at their nefarious game.

  “Let me find someone to deliver your letters for you.”

  “But I don’t have any money, or anything else, to give them.”

  “I shall take care of that for you.” He would take care of it, but he would also hold the letters for a while first.

  A pang shot through his chest. He was deceiving her, but he would make sure she eventually got back her place as the daughter of the Baroness of Mallin. The girl who would champion a mute boy at risk to herself deserved a champion of her own. He would help her. But perhaps not in the way she was expecting just now.