The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest (2 page)

She backtracked toward the three men she had left to take the hart she had killed earlier. They were hoisting the various pieces of meat over their shoulders and across their backs to carry out of the forest. They paused to kick the leaves and dirt over the bloody evidence of their kill.

As Odette approached, they turned and froze.

“It’s me,” she whispered. “We need to leave. People are coming this way.”

They nodded as one of them dragged a tree limb over the ground to further disguise the evidence of their kill.

Just before they reached the edge of the forest, Odette pulled
an old gray cloak out of her pouch and used it to cover her longbow and arrows, tucking them under her arm. She called to the young men, “Wait.”

They stopped and looked at her.

“Give me one of those bags. I will deliver it.”

They exchanged glances. Then the tallest boy said, “Rutger said we should deliver all the game to his storehouse, for him to distribute.”

“I will tell him that I delivered this bag.” She lifted a heavy haunch of venison off his shoulder. “He will not mind.”

The boys continued on, but Odette, dressed as a boy with a long dark tunic and hose, her blond hair hidden inside her hood, went in a different direction.

She headed for the little hut just outside the town wall, a place where many of the poorest people lived in makeshift shelters. She knocked on the house that was leaning to one side and held up with sticks, and little Hanns opened the door, peeking around the side and rubbing his eyes with his fist.

“I’m sorry for waking you, Hanns.”

“Odette!”

“Shh.” She put her finger to her lips, then whispered, “I brought you something. In the morning you will have some fried venison for breakfast. How does that sound?”

Hanns stopped rubbing his face, his mouth fell open, and his eyes got round. As Odette held out the leather bag, the air rushed out of him with an excited, “Oh!”

“Don’t wake your mother now. You can surprise her in the morning.”

“I will!” Without closing the door, he turned and, straining to carry the heavy meat, disappeared inside the dark one-room, dirt-floor house.

Odette closed the door and turned to hasten home while it was still dark.

Jorgen Hartman knelt before the altar of Thornbeck Cathedral and bowed his head. As it was the feast day of St. John the Baptist, he and many other people from town had come to pray. Some of the townspeople had brought herbs to the church for the priest to bless, which should give the herbs special healing abilities. Others, like Jorgen, were there because they had missed the midday Mass and wanted to offer prayers on this holy day.

Jorgen finished praying and rose to his feet. As he did, a woman several feet away caught his eye as she lighted a candle. She was lovely, with long blond hair that fell in curls down her back from underneath her veil. In the candlelight, her face seemed to glow with piety and sweetness. He drank in the beauty of her facial features as she knelt, making the sign of the cross. But then she drew the veil over her face as she bowed in prayer.

Since he didn’t want to stand and gawk at her profile, still visible beneath the veil, he made his way to the other end of the nave, perusing the stained glass windows depicting various stories and people of the Christian faith. He focused on the one where John the Baptist baptized his cousin Jesus and the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove. He’d always loved the brilliant colors of the windows and had often slipped into the nave as a boy, hiding in a corner to stare at the depictions and their bright reds and blues, greens and yellows.

The beautiful girl finally stood and was joined by a man. Was he her husband?
Holy saints, let him be her father.

As they made their way toward the door, he tried not to stare.
She passed by him and out the cathedral door without ever looking his way.

Perhaps he would see her at the Midsummer festival in a few hours.

Jorgen went to visit his friend Paulin, who had broken his leg and was not able to go to the Midsummer festival. Afterward, Jorgen joined with the crowds who were flowing toward the sound of the
Minnesingers
in the town center. Young maidens skipped along in their flowing dresses, carrying bouquets of flowering herbs and wearing woven crowns of white wildflowers.

There would be a bonfire in the
Marktplatz
and dancing, and unmarried maidens would be alert to find their future husbands. Now that he was nearing five and twenty years, even his mother had approved of him coming to the Midsummer celebration.

Winking, she had said, “Perhaps if you dance with some pretty maidens, one of them will dream of you tonight.”

He kissed her wrinkled cheek. “You should pray that whoever dreams of me tonight will be a good daughter to you.”

“I will and do not doubt it.” Her tone was gentler now. “She will be a good girl indeed to deserve you.”

He touched her cheek and looked into her faded blue eyes. “Thank you, Mama.”

Now he looked around and wondered which of the maidens, if any, his mother was praying for. Already he had seen a pretty red-haired maiden glancing back at him, and a raven-haired girl of perhaps sixteen smiling and waving at him.

As he drew nearer the center, moving slowly because of the dense crowd, the smell of fresh bread made him take a deep breath.

A baker stood outside his shop holding a tray of bread rolls. A small boy, perhaps six years old and dressed in rags, stood at the
corner of the shop, his head peeking around from the alley where an even smaller girl stood behind him.

He caught his breath. It was little Helena.

No, Helena had been dead for more than fifteen years. The sight of her bloody body, lying in the street where the horse had trampled her, flashed through his mind like lightning. Her bright eyes stared up, and her mouth moved wordlessly as she fought to draw breath into her crushed chest. He could still feel her body growing cold in his arms while heartless, frowning faces stared down at him, and a man shouted at him to get out of the street.

The tiny girl who now stood in the narrow side street was not looking back at Jorgen. Instead, she was looking anxiously at the little boy peering at the baker and his bread. The look of desperation in the boy’s face seemed familiar. Jorgen watched, knowing what the boy was about to do, but also knowing he would not be able to get through the people in time to stop him.

The boy darted around the corner and ran toward the baker, staying close to the wall of the shop. While the baker was handing two rolls to a woman who placed a coin on the baker’s tray, the boy ran by and snatched a roll.

Perhaps he had not seen the woman on the other side of the baker, but she had seen him. She grabbed the back of the boy’s neck with one hand and his arm with the other. “Thief!” she cried.

The boy dropped the bread and threw all his weight in the opposite direction, but the woman was too strong for him. Her grip held firm. The boy yelped.

From his view of the side street, Jorgen saw the girl child cover her face with her hands and her shoulders start to shake. Even though she couldn’t see the boy from where she stood, she undoubtedly heard his pleading for the woman to let him go.

“A few hours in the pillory will do you good, you little knave.”
The woman gave his ear a twist. Though his face twitched in pain, he did not cry out.

Jorgen broke away from the crowd and stepped in front of the woman and her captive.

“
Frau
, pardon me,” Jorgen said, causing the woman to look up at him. “The child left home without his money. Will you accept this to pay for the bread he dropped on the ground?” He held out two coins to her, enough to pay for four of the baker’s rolls.

The dark cloudiness of her expression changed as she looked at his money and then back at his face.

“I’m sure the child is sorry.” He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and stepped even closer.

“I suppose . . . but if he learns to steal now,” she muttered, “he’ll be a thief all his life . . . naught but a thief.” She accepted the money, took three more rolls off her husband’s tray, and handed the bread to Jorgen.

“I thank you.” He nodded to her and nudged the boy as they backed away from her.

When they were a few steps away, with the boy staring up at the bread in Jorgen’s hand, he pulled the boy aside and squatted so he could look the child in the eye. “Here is the bread, but do not steal. Next time you might be punished.”

The little boy drew himself up, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin, as if trying to look taller. “I am not afraid.”

“Of course not. But your little sister would be very frightened if you were taken to the town square and fastened in the pillory.”

The little boy glanced behind him at the girl who was standing at the corner of the alley, sniffling and staring at them both.

The little boy’s shoulders slumped. “Can I go now?”

Jorgen’s heart constricted at the look on the boy’s face. “Do you have a mother or father?”

“I have a mother.”

“Where do you live?”

He pointed in the direction of the alley. “With my mother’s sister, but she says she cannot feed us.”

“If you need food, go to the gamekeeper’s cottage. Do you know where it is?”

“Outside the town gate, in the margrave’s forest?”

“That is where I live. My mother will give you food if I am not there.”

The expression in his eyes was much older than his years. Finally, the boy nodded. Jorgen walked him back to his sister, and the boy handed her a bread roll. They both put the bread in their mouths and bit into them. Then they turned and started down the alley side by side.

“Wait.” He couldn’t bear to let them leave with only a few small rolls. While he felt around in his pocket, he asked, “What is your name?”

“Martin.”

“Martin, do not lose this.” He handed him some coins. “Buy some food for yourself and your sister.”

The whites of the boy’s eyes flashed, as did his teeth, as he finally smiled. “Thank you.” He grabbed his sister’s hand and ran away.

Jorgen turned back in the direction of the town center and
Marktplatz
, blinking to try to erase the memory that the boy and his little sister had brought to the surface. The sounds of lute, hurdy-gurdy, and a
Minnesinger’s
voice singing a familiar ballad lured him on toward the music and dancing, where he might forget that he was ever as poor, hungry, and desperate as the two children he had just seen.

2

O
DETTE
’
S FRIEND
A
NNA
held up a braided wildflower circlet and placed it on Odette’s head. “Now you are ready for the Midsummer festival.”

“Do you not think I’m getting too old to dress like the other unmarried maidens on Midsummer?”

“Of course not. You are unmarried, are you not? You’ll be the fairest maiden in the town square.”

Odette embraced her friend. “And you’ll be the fairest married woman there.”

Anna laughed. “And the sleepiest. The baby woke me up three times last night.”

They stood admiring each other in the large ground-floor room of the half-timber house where Odette lived with her uncle. Odette wore the lightweight, white linen overdress that all the maidens wore on Midsummer’s Eve, while Anna wore a beautiful blue cotehardie with cutaway sides and a decorative belt.

One of the maidservants came down the stairs with the cloths, brushes, and bucket she used for cleaning the upper floors.

Had Odette hidden her bow and arrows before going to bed just before dawn? The sick feeling in her stomach told her she had forgotten.

Trying to hold on to her smile, Odette squeezed her friend’s arm. “Wait here while I go do something.”

Odette rushed up the stairs to her bedchamber on the third floor and nearly ran into her uncle in the stairwell. “Uncle Rutger. I didn’t see you. Did Heinke clean my chamber?”

He shrugged. “She may have. Did you need her to do something for you?”

“It’s nothing. I just need to . . .” Odette hastened away without finishing her sentence. Inside her chamber, the flagstone floor was swept clean and the bedclothes were straightened. But the old cloak she used to cover her longbow and arrows was lying folded across her bed.