Swept Away (11 page)

Christof was too little and too stupid, the province of his nursemaid. Mother was
his
. And they had secrets. It was a special pride to him that he and his mother shared their secrets. Secrets that would save him from all the beatings he deserved and never received. And this one last secret, kept so well by an earnest and adoring boy, that served to kill his angel mother as surely as if he had driven the dirk past the damask blouse and linen girdle into her loving, all-giving heart.

He stood, the restlessness coming over him again, and looked in the direction of the convent. His silence that night killed her but not immediately. It took a fortnight for her to succumb to the pox and die by inches and pieces. Axel waited outside her room and prayed he would see her again and feel her arms around him again.

When his father told Axel that his mother had died, he did it with a boot that sent the eight-year old sprawling down the hall where he was led away, weeping, by Dojo.

Within a few years, his father knew better than to raise a hand to Axel. Teeth were not easily replaced and he needed every one he had to chew his food. Axel knew his position in the castle was de facto leader. No one questioned his power—no matter how savage or unreasonable. The so-called peace he made with his father was forged by Axel's strength and cunning as his father weakened with age.

But the convent and the Catholic holy women who had lured his mother to share their good works—and then survived when she could not—had yet to pay for their part in her death.

But pay they would.

G
reta walked
into the kitchen and looked around. The stonewalls, looking more like cave walls, were streaked with black where the weather had come in through the many crevices in the stone and stained the rock. It made sense that the kitchen was carved out of rock. When the oven was going—as it usually was—the room was not unbearably cold as it would have been. She saw two loaves of dough rising on a large wooden platter on top of the stove. She frowned and moved to touch the oven. It was cold. The other nuns were at prayer or doing chores. Ella was supposed to be baking the bread and had clearly let the fire go out.

It's like having children
, she thought, not for the first time. But she couldn't help smiling.

“Mother?” One of the older nuns paused in the entrance of the kitchen. “Do you need assistance?”

Greta smiled and shook her head without answering, then opened the oven door to shove kindling inside.

The older nun entered the room. She had her hands tucked into the sleeves of her habit. “The strange girl let the oven go out,” she said.

“Yes, she is strange, isn't she?” Greta said, her voice calm and slow. “I love the energy she brings to us. Don't you?”

The woman, Sister Therese, snorted. “No one can understand her speech,” she said. “Where did you say she comes from?”

Greta lit the kindling and poked at it to get it to catch. She examined her hands which were now smudged black from soot.

“Lunch may be a little late,” Greta said, moving to the sink to find the bucket of clear water.

“She doesn't know how to do basic chores,” Sister Therese said. “That is, if she does them at all. And I have yet to see her pray with the others.”

“It is not your responsibility to determine when our sister talks with God,” Greta said gently as she dried her hands on a clean rag.

“I would have thought it was
yours
,” Sister Therese said.

Greta grinned and took her by both her hands. “You are such a hard worker, Sister,” she said. “And the novices all look up to you. It gives me such peace to know I have you to depend upon.”

Sister Therese blushed and tried to pull her hands away. But Greta could tell she was pleased.

“Don't worry about Ella, Sister Therese. She is doing God's work right now even if she never cleans another pot for us or bakes another loaf of bread. You must believe me when I tell you this.”

“Can she help us get Hannah back? Or any of the others? Can she prevent the monsters from coming for us at night?”

Greta could feel the old woman's hands trembling in her own. At the mention of Hannah's name, she knew her brave face had slipped. While she wept most nights over the loss, she always admonished herself for having so little faith in God, especially now that Ella had come—surely a gift from Him. Now, as she saw the insecurity in this bold, strong woman who had faced death many times without flinching, Greta only saw her own failure.

Did they all live in fear for the moment that the men would come for them?

“I believe she can help us,” Greta said. “And it's up to us to have faith and to not be afraid in the meantime.”

“Are you able to do that, Mother?”

Greta could detect no sarcasm in the woman's question. She leaned over and kissed Sister Therese on the cheek. “On my good days,” Greta said. “The other days I just pray a little harder.”

“Why would she want to help us? Even if she is as powerful as you seem to think?”

“She has something to make up for,” Greta said. “Something to wash away.”

Sister Therese pulled her hands to herself and crossed her arms.

“As do we all, Sister,” Greta said pointedly. She smiled at the nun but waved a hand toward the door to indicate Sister Therese had other places to be.

A
t the end
of the third week of Ella's life in 1620, the nightmare began.

It started as a typical day in the convent except for being allowed to accompany one of the elder nuns and a young novice again to
Altstadt
. Ella knew the scuffle from the last time had been reported to Greta. When Ella downplayed it to her and had succeeded in completing the shopping expedition without further mishap, Greta began to believe she could be trusted out again.

Ella hadn't mentioned Axel.

They left at daybreak, carrying their baskets of produce to trade. Ella knew that Sister Therese didn't like her but the novice—a silly girl of fourteen—made up for Therese's glowers by being cheerful and chatty. As soon as they were on the road and moving toward the market, the girl fell silent.

Just like that, Ella marveled. Like turning off a switch. She wondered if the girl had a tragic backstory or was simply a product of her times when women counted for nothing and girls less than nothing.
God, history sucks
, she thought as she directed her own eyes to the road at her feet.

She let Sister Therese take the lead because this allowed Ella to keep the old nun's black form in the corner of her eye while looking around at the surroundings. Ella also thought that Sister Therese liked being the leader. Ella knew that part of Sister's unfriendliness was because of how close Ella had become to Greta. These little communities had their pecking orders and it stood to reason that Ella had bumped someone close to the chief. She decided she would kill the old girl with kindness and make a point not to seek Greta out so much when Therese was around.

Since her last outing, Ella had made a point of always looking over her shoulder as she walked. She was sure she looked suspicious because she did not look only at the ground as she walked. She noticed a few people crossing themselves as they passed, as though trying to ward off evil. She would have to ask Greta what that was all about.

She nearly collided with Sister Therese when the older nun halted abruptly at the first stall and began to talk in a low voice to the proprietor, who was an old man missing both ears. He appeared to have no trouble understanding Sister Therese, because he nodded his head vigorously throughout the brief one-sided conversation. When Therese handed him a handful of beets, the earth still sticking to their roots in clods, he put a slim flask of amber liquid in her hand. Ella didn't know whether it was brandy or wine or medicine. She watched as Sister Therese tucked it away in the folds of a cloth in her basket, then nod curtly at the man before walking into the street.

Not for the first time, Ella wondered about the benefit of accompanying the nuns on their market trips. She couldn't speak the language—at least not this medieval version of it—and they rarely traded enough produce to fill up the three baskets they always started with.

The closer they got to the square, the more Ella could feel the excitement and energy of old Heidelberg seep into her bones. The little novice must have felt it too, because Ella could swear the girl was moving with a bounce in her step. Ella was hoping the novice would look at her so they could share an anticipatory smile, but the girl kept her eyes down.

A squealing pig bolted out in front of them and Ella looked up to see who was chasing it. Sure enough, a boy dressed in rags emerged from one of the shops and gave chase. She stopped to watch the boy tackle the screaming pig, wrestle it into his arms, and begin to walk toward the shop. The pig squirmed out of his hands and made another desperate bid for freedom. The boy grabbed a back hoof and dragged the pig into his arms. By this time, the boy, who was muddied and sitting in the middle of the street, had drawn a crowd of people who were enjoying the show. Ella was absolutely positive that she and Heidi had sat outside this very shop a few weeks earlier drinking chocolate martinis and gossiping as the sun faded and the evening claimed the street. She turned to see how the novice was enjoying the pig wrestling, and realized that the other two had disappeared.

Frowning, she quickened her pace to catch up to them. How could she explain to Greta that she was distracted by a pig and lost her companions? She began to run. She looked along both sides of the street for two black forms in the shops although she knew the nuns didn't go into shops. Ella had only ever seen them trade with stall owners, most of whom were in the square at the Church of the Holy Spirit.

Damn! How could they have gotten so far ahead of her so quickly?
She willed herself to take a breath and slow down. A running nun was an even more bizarre sight than one looking all around like she was watching a circus on parade.
How can I look down to avoid calling attention to myself and still find them?
In spite of her best intentions, she felt a creeping sense of panic welling up in her chest.

On the street, the pungent smell of horse manure combined with the aroma of rotting vegetables and mulled spice wine. Ella crossed the street in case there were riders behind her. In her experience, they rarely made an effort to avoid running one down in these congested market walkways. She craned her neck to see over the crowd of people in front of her. They were not moving toward the square as she would have expected. They were just standing. Frustrated, Ella switched her basket to her other arm.
Should she just return to the convent?
Her companions obviously weren't too concerned by her absence. They
did
walk off and leave her. Then again, they probably didn't even know she wasn't with them.

She stepped on a man's foot and he turned around and snarled at her. He hesitated when he saw that she appeared to be a nun—and that she was looking at him directly in his eyes—but his lips still curled away from his teeth in an angry grimace. Ella was too afraid to excuse herself, fearful that something about her voice or her words would be too out of place in this time, so she dropped her eyes and hoped she looked as penitent and contrite as she was supposed to be. The man moved away and Ella took in a long breath. She decided to slow down. She wasn't going to find them in all these people and it really didn't matter anyway—except for the fact that Greta would never want her to leave the convent again.

It occurred to her that if this was going to be her last taste of freedom for a while, she might as well make it count. She made her way against the crowd to a point near one of the many alleys and stood with her back to the brick wall. She tried to tell whether any part of this Heidelberg was recognizable as the Heidelberg she had known for the last three months. The cobblestone street and the church were the only things she really noted as the same. They looked like they had been superimposed over a very dirty patch of countryside. The crowd seemed to be moving in all directions in a sort of controlled pandemonium. The sounds were a cacophony of talking, shouting and animal noises. Her stomach clenched when it occurred to her that the larger-than-normal crowd might be for an execution. One more reason not to head toward the church, she thought, where the platform would be. She felt safe off to the side and because she wasn't dodging carts and horses or having to look over her shoulder for would-be rapists, she was able to detect when the crowd began to behave differently.

It started with a change in the volume of the noise of the street. A growing roar seemed to sweep the narrow road, culminating about a block further up. When Ella looked to see if there was a reason for the crowd's reaction, she could see that most of the people walking down the road were bottlenecked in front of the main grocer's. Thinking it might be another escaped pig or even a troubadour or street juggler, Ella edged her way closer to the crowd, most of whom stood with their backs to her. Before she reached them, the mob roared, in approval, it seemed to Ella, but there was no applause. She tried to remember if people clapped in this century when they liked something. Squeezing through the wall of people was impossible unless she wanted to be manhandled.

She skirted around the group, hoping to find a gap where she could see what the crowd was watching. As she got closer, she could see there were men on horseback in the center of the square. Her stomach did that funny flopping sensation she often got when she felt, as they used to say in Atlanta, that someone had stepped on her grave. She had managed to inch her way past only two people in the crowd when the mob cheered again. This time, she took advantage of the movement and pushed her way to the front of the crowd, using her basket as a battering ram to push her way through. When she saw what the street entertainment was, she cried out and dropped her basket.