“Dirt—from the tunnel.”
“Oh.” Rose reached up and rubbed the spot where his fingers had touched. Her hand shook.
His dark blue eyes shimmered strangely as he fixed her with an intense stare. “If there’s ever anything you need, will you tell me?”
“Yes.”
“You’d better go.” Gruffness infused his voice again. “Frau Geruscha will be worried about you.” But he continued to hold her hand.
She was enthralled with the look on his face and with the way he had come to her rescue tonight. She waited with a strange anticipation—for what, she didn’t know. She wondered when he would let go of her hand and let her leave.
Instead of letting her go, he lifted her hand to his lips, his eyelids closing, and slowly kissed the backs of her fingers. She held her breath at the rush of pleasure his lips created as they brushed softly over her skin. A tiny sigh escaped her.
I shouldn’t let him do this.
“Good night.” She could barely squeeze the words past the knot in her throat.
He released her hand.
Rose swayed ever so slightly, feeling cold and shaky. She forced her legs to hold her up and her eyes not to look at him. She clutched his cloak under her chin and walked toward the tower and Frau Geruscha’s chambers.
Once inside, she leaned against the door and pulled the cloak higher, burying her face in the lining and breathing deeply. Forgive me, God. Only let me have this one pleasure. And she took another deep breath, letting Lord Hamlin’s manly, leather-and-horses smell envelop her in a sweet cocoon of warmth, before she took it off and hung it by the door.
She stared at it. No, she would not take it to her room. She would leave it right there.
Wilhelm watched her go, his heart aching. His conscience smote him for kissing her fingers, as well as for the thoughts he’d just entertained. God, forgive me.
So much for his promise to never touch her again.
How he had wanted to forget who he was for one moment, forget his duty and everything else, to pull her into his arms and kiss her with every ounce of his passion.
He rubbed the back of his hand across his brow, wiping the sweat that had beaded there. Then he remembered Shadow and grabbed his reins, leading him toward the stable.
His thoughts turned to Rupert as he systematically unsaddled his faithful horse, brushed him down, and forked some fresh hay into the stall. When he finished, he hastened into the castle, hoping to find his brother still at supper in the Great Hall.
The servants were cleaning up when he entered and reported that Rupert had left a few minutes earlier, taking a full tankard of wine with him.
Wilhelm stalked down the corridor in search of Rupert. He met him coming from the direction of the privy. Striding up to him, Wilhelm drew his fist back and landed a clean blow to Rupert’s jaw.
Rupert reeled, and after two wobbly backward steps, hit the floor on his backside. He raised a hand to his face.
“Feel better?”
“No. Get up so I can hit you again.”
“I think I’ve had enough, thank you.” Rupert flexed his jaw, dabbing his bloody lip with the back of his hand.
Wilhelm stared down at him with a burning urge to expend a lot more energy on his brother than one single blow. His fists were tight and ready, but his louse of a brother seemed unwilling to get off the floor.
Fine. Stay there. He spun on his heel and strode down the hall. He went inside his bedchamber and closed the door.
Chapter 22
“Rose? What’s wrong?”
Three weeks had passed since Lord Rupert’s odious proposal. Rose knew she’d been quieter than normal, and Frau Geruscha had to have noticed that he wasn’t visiting her anymore. Her mistress hadn’t questioned her about it, and Rose had tried not to raise her suspicions that something was wrong. Obviously, she was failing.
Rose shook her head. “Nothing.”
But Frau Geruscha’s brows lowered even more, telling her she didn’t believe her.
“It’s probably the weather, so cloudy of late…” Rose stopped, not wishing to tell a lie. How could she explain that her future looked as bleak as it ever had? Even bleaker, now that the whole region thought of her as the spurned former mistress of Lord Rupert. At least Lord Hamlin knew the truth. But she tried hard not to think about Lord Hamlin—and failed constantly.
Rose shrugged and turned to throw some more wood on the fire. She tried again. “Hildy rarely visits me anymore.” Gunther had been given the job as the duke’s illuminator that he’d been promised, his murder sentence having been forgiven and forgotten, apparently. “She spends her time making sure the house and meals are perfect for him. As she should.”
Now she sounded self-pitying. Rose grabbed the fire poker and viciously jabbed it into the red hot embers in the fireplace, sending up a torrent of sparks.
Frau Geruscha stepped closer. She placed her hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Some day you’ll be married too.”
Rose whirled around, dislodging her mistress’s hand. The surprised look on Frau Geruscha’s face only increased Rose’s wrung-out feeling. “How can you say that? How do you know? No one would marry me. I’m your apprentice. Who wants to marry the next town healer?”
Why had she said that?
“I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” Thank goodness Frau Geruscha didn’t seem offended. “I suppose I’m only dreading winter. People get sick and die when it starts to get cold.” The thought of winter was a heavy weight in her chest. Winter meant sickness and death, bad smells, groans, and the tolling of cathedral bells for someone else who had succumbed to cold weather’s cruelty. She would be by Frau Geruscha’s side, witnessing the diseases that would steal the life from the human victims of Hagenheim. Always she and the rest of the world feared the Great Pestilence that had decimated towns and countryside alike a few years before Rose was born. Hardly a family had been spared, and only God knew how many would die if it came again. A milder outbreak had happened when Rose was a child. She shuddered, remembering the hideous black buboes under the sick people’s arms—the sign that death was imminent.
Rose’s stomach twisted at being only a whisper away from admitting…she wasn’t sure she would ever be a good healer.
“I pray I will become like you, Frau Geruscha.”
“You don’t have to be like me, Rose. God makes us all different, with our own talents.”
“Then what’s my talent?” I don’t have one. Rose bit her lip. Why couldn’t she just be quiet? The last thing she wanted was for her mistress to send her away.
“You have many talents. I know winter can be hard, especially when people die, but God will bring our town through another year. He always does.”
Frau Geruscha was mature and unaffected by her own pity for the victims. Rose wanted to believe she could shrug off the deaths she would face this winter, but she dreaded her own compassion, the way it tightened around her insides like a giant hand, squeezing and paralyzing her.
Her mistress patted her on the back. “You’ll feel better when you have more confidence in your abilities.”
Rose tried to smile back. She nodded, hoping Frau Geruscha would believe she had been placated. Then Rose went into the storeroom to sort some dried herbs. Anything to keep busy.
It wasn’t only winter and her lack of confidence that had been weighing on Rose, of course. Lord Hamlin’s wedding was coming soon, just before Christmas, to Lady Salomea. What was she like? Was she warm or haughty? Kind or ruthless? Would their personalities be well-suited to each other, or would she make him miserable? Lord Hamlin would have to marry her no matter what she was like. It was his duty, and he would never shirk it. The people of the region respected him for that, even were dependent on it. After all, the marriage would go far toward assuring their safety.
Now instead of seeing Lord Rupert nearly every morning in the chapel at prime, she saw Lord Hamlin. She found herself living for the sight of him, packing all her memories of h
im carefully away to be revisited later. He knelt near the altar at the front of the chapel, the stained-glass window painting him in reds and blues and golden yellows. Often she stayed after everyone had left to ask forgiveness for having her attention on Lord Hamlin rather than the Lord of heaven.
The first weeks of autumn came and went. In spite of himself, Wilhelm looked forward every morning to going to the chapel for morning prayers. While Rupert had started attending devotions and mass at the town cathedral—whether to avoid Rose and his brother or to be near his future “flock,” he wasn’t sure—Wilhelm nearly always saw Rose at the chapel, kneeling near the back.
Most days he barely caught a glimpse of her, as he entered the chapel through the second-story entrance, directly from the castle. But sometimes he exited through the main door. When he did, he always searched for her. He would nod and smile just to see her smile in return. He often asked God to take away his love for her. But a part of him still believed in the message he had heard in the woods the night he took Rose through the tunnel. Hope had taken hold of his heart, hope that God would make a way for them to be together.
“I’m a silly, insipid, pathetic creature,” Rose told Hildy. They were alone in Frau Geruscha’s chamber, the frau having become less vigilant since Lord Rupert stopped coming to see her. “I can’t get Lord Hamlin out of my mind. It sounds ridiculous, but I see us together in my dreams. I know it could never be. He’s a man of honor and would never break his betrothal.”
“Well, he is handsome. You can hardly help looking at him, and he isn’t married yet.”
“You want to know what I sometimes think about doing?” Rose rested her cheek against the cold, hard window casing. “Sometimes I wish I could run away with the Meistersingers and travel all over, singing. I’m sure they need someone who can write stories, and I could start writing songs too, and they would let me join them.”
“Oh, Rose, you wouldn’t truly do that, would you?” Hildy’s face fell and she grabbed Rose’s hand.
“Why not? I suppose Frau Geruscha would disapprove.”
“What about your parents?”
Rose took a deep breath. She might as well tell someone. Hildy’s shock would assuage some of her pain. “Two months ago I found out that Thomas and Enid Roemer are not my mother and father.”
“What do you mean?” Hildy’s eyes opened wide.
“They took me in when I was a baby. My father says he doesn’t know who my parents were. He won’t tell me the whole story, how I came to live with them. He said that he and my mother thought she was barren.”
A slow smile spread over Hildy’s face and her eyes brightened. “Rose, that’s amazing. You know what I’m about to say, don’t you?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Rose frowned.
“You could be Lord Hamlin’s betrothed!”
“No, Hildy, I couldn’t. His betrothed turns nineteen—nineteen—two weeks before Christmas. I will only be eighteen five weeks before Christmas. You know that.”
Hildy sat musing, leaning her head on her hand. “I still think it’s possible.”
“Besides, what duke would leave his daughter to be raised by a woodcutter?”
“What’s wrong with a woodcutter, Rose? Thomas Roemer is a good man.”
“I know, but why would the duke leave his daughter with a stranger in another region and never make contact with her?”
“Because of the evil conjurer Moncore. To keep you safe from him.”
“Oh, please, Hildy. Don’t let crazy ideas in your head. It’s simply impossible.”
The cold autumn wind puffed down the chimney and into the fireplace, threatening to extinguish the fire Rose was trying to feed with more wood. She carefully placed small limbs over the flame until they caught and burned higher, then put down the poker and rubbed her hands.
The door banged open. A man and woman rushed in, carrying a small child about three years old. The child was flushed with fever. The parents—a baker and his wife—described a convulsion the child had suffered on their way to Frau Geruscha’s chambers. Her pale blonde curls clung to her temples.
Rose drew some cold water from the well and dipped a cloth in it to wipe the little girl’s face and neck. She was unconscious, but the mother had been able to make out the child’s complaints earlier in the day. Her head and neck hurt.
For two days Rose and Frau Geruscha tended to the child, who made little murmurs in her sleep. Frau Geruscha stayed up with her that first night.
Rose stayed beside her the second night to let Frau Geruscha rest. She wiped down the child’s small body many times and did her best to pour feverfew tea into her mouth. The child whimpered a few times but didn’t open her eyes.
The next morning Rose spoke soothingly to her. “Sleep and get well. Your mother will be here to see you any moment now.”
Rose gently squeezed the child’s hand, but it was cold, much colder than it should have been. She held her breath as she watched the child’s chest, praying to see it rise and fall. But there was no perceptible movement.
A tentacle of fear tightened around her. “O God, please don’t let her be dead.” She put her ear close to the child’s mouth, desperately hoping to feel her breath on her cheek, but there was nothing. She touched her hand again, but it felt even colder and was growing stiff.
The door opened and someone walked in. Rose turned to face the mother and watched the woman’s features crumple as she read Rose’s expression. She flew to the child’s side and picked her up, holding her against her chest and cradling her head.
The father stood near the door, motionless. “Our only comfort,” he said quietly, his face stony, “is that the priest spoke the sacred rites over her yesterday.”
Rose began to shake all over. She turned and walked up to her room, passing Frau Geruscha on the stairs. Rose didn’t say a word, simply closed the door to her room and sank to the floor by the bed.
Why? I prayed for her, Frau Geruscha prayed for her. I didn’t want her to die. Why, God? Did you do it so that she wouldn’t have to endure future hardships and pain? I don’t understand.
Rose stayed in her room all day and night and refused to eat what Frau Geruscha brought her. The next morning she came down and told Frau Geruscha, “I’ve decided to join the Meistersingers.”
Frau Geruscha merely stared. Finally, she said, “Come, let’s go eat something.”
Rose ate a hearty meal of eggs, fried pork, and bread.
When they returned to Frau Geruscha’s chambers, Rose stopped her just inside the door. “So you don’t object to me joining the Meistersingers? They’ll be here at Christmas. I plan to ask to join them then.”
Frau Geruscha’s top lip twitched. “Rose, that’s no life for a respectable maiden like you. You’ll see. God’s plan for you isn’t traveling the countryside with vagabonds.”
“They’re not vagabonds.” Anger crept into Rose’s voice, and she suddenly knew how a caged animal felt. Words and feelings expanded inside her, determined to find release. “You don’t understand. I can’t stay here, Frau Geruscha. I can’t. I can’t stand another winter of sickness and death. I’m not like you. I’m no good at helping people. I hate the sight of blood, I get sick when I see it gushing out of people’s heads or oozing from some gashed-up body part. I asked God to change me, but he didn’t. I can’t do it. If I stay here another year I’ll either die or go insane.” Tears streamed down her face and sobs shook her. She covered her face with her hands.
Frau Geruscha’s arms wrapped around Rose and she patted her on the back. “Now, now, everything will be well, my dear.”
“Everything won’t be well.” Rose pulled out of her embrace and faced her. “I’m not like you. I’ll never be able to do this.”
“You’re just upset. Come and sit down.” Frau Geruscha took her arm and led her to a chair. “Now listen to me, Rose.”
Rose struggled to control her sobbing.
“I want to suggest something. You think you want to me
et up with the Meistersingers in a few weeks when they come to perform for Christmas. Well, you shall.”
Rose wiped her face with her apron.
“When they come, I’ll arrange it. You can talk to them and decide if that’s what you want to do. Can you wait that long, Rose?”
Rose nodded. Only two and a half more months. Since Lord Hamlin’s betrothed was supposed to come out of hiding and be presented to him and his family two weeks before Christmas, she wouldn’t be able to avoid that dreaded event. But as long as she knew she would soon be getting away—away from him and his wedded bliss, and away from sickness, blood, and death—she could stand it. But for today, she didn’t want to stay around Frau Geruscha’s chambers, sensing her pity, and even amusement, at her wanting to run away with the Meistersingers.
“Can I take Wolfie and go for a walk?”
Frau Geruscha hesitated. “I don’t think you should.”
Rose felt her composure crumbling again.
Frau Geruscha must have seen her distress, because she quickly added, “It isn’t safe for you, since they haven’t captured Peter Brunckhorst yet, and Lord Hamlin is still searching for Moncore, who may be nearby.” Now Frau Geruscha looked distressed.
“Wolfie will keep me safe. You know he would never let anyone hurt me. And I promise not to be gone long.”
Frau Geruscha didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally she sighed. “All right. You may go. But don’t wander far and be back before nones.”
“Thank you.” Rose wiped her nose, feeling some measure of hope. She longed to fill her lungs with fresh air. That would make her feel even better.
Wolfie followed her out the door. It was the warmest day they’d had since early September. She hastened through the castle gatehouse and down the street to the town gate. She drew in a deep breath of crisp autumn air then sighed in relief at being alone in the open meadow, heading for the woods and the stream.
Her head was starting to ache, probably because of her fit of crying. The thought of splashing some water from the stream on her face made her quicken her pace.
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