Heidelberg Effect (22 page)

He finished the flask and tossed it into a
corner of the room where it broke into shards. “Why have we not
returned to the convent?” he said.

“You must only give the order,” his man
replied. He was untying the laces on his trousers as he anticipated
that his turn was near.

“And why must I do that?” Axel said,
grabbing the man by the arm, preventing him from going to the girl
who was now no longer crying but stretched out silent and
motionless on the dirt floor. He indicated to another watching man
that he could take his turn.

“Perhaps, lord,” the lieutenant said, “you
would prefer to be made a surprise gift of these young
virgins?”

Axel grinned and gave the man a punishing
grip on the arm with his fingers. “I want the head hag alive at
least at the start,” he said. “But there is one who must be taken
alive and untouched.”

His lieutenant nodded. “We all know the
one,” he said. “The one who stood and stared at you in the
market.”

“Yes,” Axel said, licking his lips. “I have
never seen a woman look at a man in such a way. If I don’t end up
carving those eyes out of her face, I will keep her chained in the
dungeon as a pet.” He laughed and his gang of men joined in. Soon
the hall rang with their howls.

Rowan kept a sharp eye out in all directions
as Ella straightened the tablecloth on the little patch of lawn on
the bank of the Nekker. Instead of eating their lunch with the
others in the convent today, they had decided to escape into the
fresh air and the countryside just outside the city. He sat on the
ground feeling the exhaustion that came from a morning’s hard
physical work.

“You look tired,” she said, handing him a
sandwich and sitting down next to him.

He smiled at her and for a moment thought of
skipping lunch in favor of a different indulgence. He noticed that
Ella looked more vibrant than he had ever seen her in Atlanta. He
wondered if that was the effect of living in Germany—or of
1620.

“I am, a little, I guess,”
he said. “But it’s a
good
tired.”

“I know,” she said, pouring beer into two
cups for them. “That’s how I feel. I never had this in my other
life.”

“Thinking about staying, are you?”

“No.”

“I was thinking how alive you seem now.
During this time.”

“It’s probably just fear for my life. Back
in Atlanta, I hardly ever felt like I was going to die as many
times during a single day.”

“Unless you went to Starbucks,” he said.

Ella looked at him with what appeared to be
an uncomfortable, almost guilty expression.

“I hate how we fizzled out,” she said.

“Me, too.”

“If I’d stayed, do you think we’d…you
know?”

“Who knows? We’re doing pretty good right
now.”

“And when we get back to 2012?”

Rowan put his beer on the
grass next to him and didn’t answer.
What
did she want him to say? That they’d stay married? That they’d
date?
They had started down that road once
before. It hadn’t gone so well.

“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” he
said.

Ella put the remnants of
their lunch in a large wicker basket. Whenever they
weren’t
talking about
their relationship, they seemed to get along wonderfully. He teased
her and praised her and took possession of her like they’d been
together for years. He acted like he loved her company, respected
her opinions, desired her in all ways that mattered. In fact, being
with him this last week at the convent had been nothing short of
exquisite.

She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it
before. The fact was, she loved him. She had probably loved him
from the moment he’d kicked open the doors to Starbucks and rescued
her.

Forget
Starbucks
, she thought. He had come to
rescue her from
across
centuries
. And maybe, just maybe, that
meant he loved her too. At least a little.

The rest of the day was a long one filled
with more hard work and conversation as Rowan, Ella and Greta
fine-tuned their plan to discredit Axel to his father. After
dinner, they met in the kitchen before heading for their separate
chambers for the night.

“Well, one thing’s certain, we can’t do
anything from here,” Ella said. “So, first thing, I’ve got to get
inside the castle.”

“That
ain’t happening,” Rowan said.

“I can’t gather intel from the convent,
Rowan. I need to be in the castle.”

“I said
no
.”

“Okay, Rowan, you
do
know we’re not really
a product of these times, right? You can’t tell me what to
do.”

“Guess again, Ella.”

“Greta, do you have any ideas? Serving girl?
Cook? Laundress?”

“You don’t know how to do any of those
things, Ella, in a way that would not get you either burned at the
stake or thrown into an insane asylum,” Greta said.

“Okay, not being too
helpful here, you two. I need
suggestions
.”

“You can’t go undercover at the castle,”
Rowan said. “You know what they do to pretty girls. You’ll be on a
boat to Istanbul before dinnertime.”

“Your husband is correct,” Greta said. “You
cannot go as a pretty girl.”

“Okay, good,” Ella said. “Now we’re getting
somewhere. What kind of service can I offer as a boy, maybe an
addlepated boy, so there’s less expectation from me? Would that be
believable?”

“None
of this is believable!” Rowan slammed a fist on the table,
causing a dish to fall to the stone floor and shatter.

“Not helpful, Rowan,” Ella said. “I don’t
need appalled indignation or arguments here. I need fucking
suggestions. Sorry, Greta.”

“Do you know anything about horses?” Greta
asked.

“I used to ride in competition as a
teenager. You’re thinking stable hand or something? But how would
that give me access to the house?”

“You’ll be within the compound. It’s a
start.”

“Jesus, Ella!” said Rowan.
“Can you imagine what they’d do to a
stable boy
found wandering around
the family’s bedchambers?”

“I get it, Rowan. It’s dangerous. If you
have a better suggestion that won’t get me raped, sold into
slavery, or shut up in a seventeenth century loony bin, I’m all
ears.”

“Let
me
do it. I’ll dress up as the
stable boy.”

Ella shook her head. “No
good. First, you don’t speak German and second, there’s
nothing
boy
about
you.”

“She has a point, I’m afraid,” Greta
said.

“Okay,” Ella said. “So, it’s me as a stable
boy. Greta, do you know someone who might be able to recommend me
over there?”

“I think so,” she said, looking
unconvinced.

“Awesome. Get them on that, please. I’ll
need clothes, too, if you can help with that. We should move
quickly. “

Greta left the room and Ella turned to Rowan
who had begun to pace in agitation.

“Okay, Rowan.” She picked up the switchblade
from the table and held it out to him. “I need you to cut my hair
off.”

She waited for him to hold his hand out for
the knife. It was the moment that said, right or wrong, good or
bad, he was on board. The expression on his face nearly made her
lose her conviction, he looked so unhappy. His eyes never left hers
as he held his hand out and took the knife from her.

“It’ll grow back,” he said hoarsely. More to
convince himself than her, she knew.

Chapter Fourteen

The plan was simple. It was
the
execution
of
it that could get them all killed. Ella would be inside the castle,
listening and observing, in order to report anything that happened.
She would plant Rowan’s lighter to implicate Axel as a dabbler in
the black arts. Meanwhile, Greta would get the monks to send an
anonymous letter to the Protestant Magistrate suggesting that Axel
was a warlock. Finally, they would manufacture the necessary
evidence to support the idea that Axel was not Krüger’s true
heir.

Early on the day that Ella was to present
herself at the castle, Greta helped her into her disguise. They had
put much work into Ella’s cover. She was to go into the castle as a
virtual mute, able to make noises but not speak. She strapped her
breasts down before she climbed into the filthy clothes Greta had
found for her. Ella pulled a ragged shirt over her head. Her
leggings were baggy so as not to reveal her shape and she wore thin
leather slippers.

“How do I look?” she asked, holding out her
arms.

Greta eyed her critically and raked her
fingers through Ella’s hair. “We need to cut a few more sections
out of your hair,” she said.

Ella walked over to the kitchen counter and
picked up a knife. She handed it to Greta. “Do it.”

As she held the knife, Greta looked into
Ella’s eyes. “When I see the lengths that you are willing to go in
order to help me, to help us, I know that God sent you to me. I
know God answered my prayers by allowing your sacrifice.” She
dropped the knife and sank into a chair, her hands covering her
face. Her shoulders shook with her sobs.

Ella knelt next to her. “Greta, don’t,” she
said. “I don’t know if God sent me but I know this is exactly where
I need to be. I haven’t sacrificed anything yet. God willing, I
won’t have to.”

Greta wiped her eyes and tried to smile at
Ella. “There is always a sacrifice,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“During the war, I worked in Manheim and
lived in the dormitory with the unmarried girls, but I went home to
my mother in Heidelberg on the weekends. I was always very
Catholic. I went to mass every day that I could. The day I came to
this century, I was walking home from a late mass. It was raining,
but I did not care. I had prayed and begged God to guide me, but He
did not answer.” She looked at Ella and smiled. “Until He did.”

“What happened?” Ella said.

“I was so upset, I don’t think I was even
looking where I was going. But of course I knew the way home by
heart. When the lightning crashed and the world lit up, I thought
it was one of the Allies’ bombs. They said they would not harm
Heidelberg, but we were always afraid. When the light faded to
darkness, I could tell that something was different. That
everything was different. I was here. I had passed over to this
time.”

“What were you crying about that got you so
upset?”

“It is shameful to reveal,” Greta said in a
whisper. “I had received news that day that my husband, who for so
many years we believed had died in the war, was coming home.”

“You didn’t want him to come home?”

Greta looked up at her. “Of course I wanted
him to be alive! I thanked God that he had been spared.”

“But you didn’t want to be married to
him.”

“I was so young,” she said. “I married him
because my stepfather insisted. We would get extra food coupons, we
would get extra favors because of the honor of his service, and all
of that came to pass. I got the good job in Mannheim because of my
status.”

“But you didn’t love him.”

“His name was Georg. No, I didn’t love
him.”

“So how is it you became a nun?”

“I was lucky,” Greta said. “Like you, I
quickly realized what must have happened, but unlike you, I was
ecstatic. Can you see that, for me, it was an escape I couldn’t
possibly have hoped for? Not just from Georg but from the war, too.
As you know, the time portal is by the garden gate. I arrived at
night. I knocked on the convent door and was taken in. I was fed
and given warm clothes and a bed for the night. I was told that the
Mother Superior was very ill. In fact, she was dying.”

Ella picked up the knife and handed it to
Greta who then took a handful of Ella’s hair in her fingers and
sawed it off.

“It hurts me to do this, Ella,” she
said.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” Ella said.
“Please continue with your story.”

“I must have been mad,” Greta said. “After
only a few hours, I asked to be presented to the Mother. I told her
I was sent by God to lead the convent and that He bade me request
her support in this.”

“Ballsy.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, please, go on,” Ella said. “She
agreed to support you?”

“She believed in me,” Greta said. “I lied
and told her I had been sent to her as her replacement and that I
had come from very far away which is why my language sounded so
strange to her. She was tired and was ready to go to our Lord. She
had been fretting, as I surmised she must be—as I would have
been—about the safety of her flock, once she was gone.” Greta cut
another piece of hair and fluffed the remnant so it stuck out.
“Ella, I wish you could have seen the peace that came over her face
when she believed I was sent to take her place.”

“And it was truly what you wanted?”

“Oh, yes!” Greta reached for Ella’s hand and
looked into her eyes. “Since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a
Sister of Mercy. There was no question, it was right for me. My job
from that moment forward was to make it right for the convent.”

“So she presented you to everyone as her
replacement?”

“She did. We made some excuses for my
outlandish clothing and to explain why I had waited to announce my
arrival. She died very soon after that and the sisters never
questioned my authority. That was twenty years ago now.”

“You’re an amazing woman, Greta Schaefer,”
Ella said. “A resourceful and amazing woman.”

“I would say I am a lucky woman,” Greta
said, putting the knife down. “A woman who has heard and seen God’s
will too many times to doubt it, especially as it is manifested in
my own life. You are ready, Ella. You look as much like a ragged
peasant boy as it is in my power to make you. If you don’t speak,
you will fool them.”