TO CONQUER THE HEART OF A KING

Copyright © J. S. Laurenz, 2011

Chapter One

The Seer of Mariendorf was not accustomed to telling her own future, but she sensed fate had brought a man to the cloister who could mean her freedom.

“Give him a good fortune, and he’ll give us a good fortune…in gold,” the abbess whispered harshly into her ear, before closing the door to the bare stone cell behind her.

“May I touch your face?” The Seer was surprised at her own request. She was surprised too that her hand trembled ever so slightly as she held it out to this visitor. For a long moment he did not come. She gave him time to become used to her appearance.

Some visitors called her a ghost, or an angel. Some whispered she was a witch. Too much fasting and too little sunlight had left her skin pale, almost translucent. The contrast to her black hair was startling. It hung loose over her shoulders, like a dark stain on her white novitiate’s robe. What disturbed them the most were her eyes. They lacked any color. Were they grey? Were they white? The windows to heaven? Or to hell. The Seer herself did not know. She was blind.

He was near enough now that she could touch him, and she traced the hard jaw, the sharp cheekbone, and just under it, she knew it would be there, was a raised scar. Her delicate hand flitted impulsively to his lips which were pressed in a firm grim line. Under her fingertips they turned upward. In amusement? Or impatience.

And then her hand was trapped in his. His grip was gentle, but commanding. On his fourth finger, in which the vein ran straight to the heart, he wore a ring. On it, she was sure, a raised signet. A falcon. It was the Year of Our Lord 1774, and spheres of influence were changing here in the Black Forest where castles rose and fell like the towering pines in its impenetrable darkness. German dialects were as many as the disagreements in these splintered Kingdoms. The only language understood by all was power. And this man would be powerful.

He turned her hand so that it rested palm-up in his and ran his thumb over the star-shaped scar there, souvenir of the fire that had taken her memory--and her sight. They were both marked by the past. They would both be marked by the future.

“You wish to know if you will be King,” she said quietly.

He dropped her hand as if the flame that had once branded her with a star had touched him too.

“Yes,” she continued softly. “You will be King…until your people rise against you.”

“That’s a lie!” Lukas of Falkenberg spoke to her now for the first time. She did not brace herself as he grabbed her shoulders. “You can’t know the future.”

“Of course I can’t, but I see the present very clearly. Let me finish! If you rule with a stone heart like your father, if you steal the food from your subjects’ mouths--”

“What you say is treason,” he growled.

“Is it so hard to see the difference between treason and truth?”

He held her for a long moment. “Maybe it is,” he said then as if weighing his words…and hers. When he released her, it was only to capture her wrist. With his free hand, he threw open the door. “The abbess will collect your things.”

“That’s not necessary. I have nothing, not even a name,” the Seer said.

“You can’t take her,” the abbess begged as he pushed past her. “You can’t--”

“A King can do as he likes,” the Seer interrupted. Lukas tightened his grip around her wrist as he guided her out the low doorway and down the spiraling stone staircase.

“I am not yet King. There are obstacles to overcome and you may be one of them,” he said tersely against her ear.

“I didn’t say you were King, I simply made a statement. Kings do as they like.”

He dragged her over the threshold and she stumbled into the courtyard where she stood unsteadily as he released her to swing into his saddle.

“Lothar, hand her up to me.”

“You can’t--” Lothar began.

“A King can do as he likes,” he said roughly. “Tilman, what are you waiting for? Open the gate.”

“But it’s locked.”

“I said open it!”

She felt Lothar’s hands on her waist. He grunted, not with effort, but surprise. “She weighs no more than a child.”

“Are you comfortable?” Lukas asked as he cradled her in his lap.

The saddle dug into her hip. “No.”

“Good!”

The horse jostled to the side, straining at its bit, and then shot forward as the metal gate of the monastery crashed outward. The damp spring wind, the thrill of movement, the sound of freedom, all that made her shiver.

“Are you frightened?”

She turned her face up to his voice. “If I could see the future, I think I would be very afraid,” she said. If he smiled she couldn’t see it. The only response she registered was a brief grim laugh.

Chapter Two

Lukas felt a heavy burden, but it was not the Seer. He held her light frame easily against him as they traveled the muddy rut-filled road to Falkenberg. For a moment he wondered if she could indeed read minds.

“I think the question you should ask is not whether you will be King, but whether you have the heart for it,” she said.

“I will not be weak.”

“That’s not what I meant. You have a better heart.”

He snorted. How did she know? There were other things he was curious about.

“How did you know who I am?”

“The scar on your cheek. The falcon signet on your ring.”

“You knew all that before you touched me.”

The Seer smiled a thin smile. “I am blind, not deaf. Men come to me to ask questions, but they tell me more than they realize. I know, for example, your hair is the color of the wheat that grows at the very southern tip of the Kingdom, and shorn as closely as at harvest time. Your eyes are the color of the Trollinger grapes that grow on the heights of Falkenberg. Your nose is as straight as a Roman’s. They say you’re quite handsome. They also say you look nothing at all like your father.”

“I’m quite familiar with my own face…and the rumors of my illegitimacy. Tell me what I don’t know. Why were you expecting me?”

“When your father fell ill, a messenger was sent to find you in Hessen where you were employed--is that the right word--as a mercenary.”

Sold into it was more like it. It had served two purposes for the King’s advisor. It gave the appearance of providing for Lukas’ military training while keeping him as far away from the throne as possible. In every sense. He and Lothar had fought side by side, for anyone who could afford to hire the feared Hessian soldiers. They would have shipped for Amerika under British pay to crush colonial uprisings if the messenger from Falkenberg had not come with news of his father’s illness.

“And that messenger passed through Mariendorf,” he surmised.

“The cloister lies on the main trade route. It’s the quickest and easiest way,” she confirmed. “And the most dangerous….” Her eyes focused then on his, if that were possible, and there was meaning in those horrible white orbs. He pulled up on the reins motioning for Lothar and Tilman to stop. The two could have been brothers with their lanky figures, brown eyes and sandy-colored hair. Tilman’s locks, however, stood up in unruly tufts, as hard to control as the boy’s mouth.

“There’s no other way to get to Falkenberg,” Lukas said.

“There is always more than one way.”

He sighed. She was right. The Black Forest had been his playground. There were ways through its darkness, for those who dared find them. Silva nigra. The Romans had known--and feared-- the Black Forest. Its gigantic firs and spruces were as straight as the spears of legionnaires, and just as threatening during storms.

Men gouged a brutal existence from the damp earth, as loggers or coalers. A short distance away in Triberg men worked with their hands too, but in the fine detailed work of clock-making. Here life was rough and required all the strength a man had. Like politics. And he was about to bring this woman into it. Was she a woman? She had the body of a girl. Was she human? Or did she really have some tie to the otherworld?

“Are you suggesting we go through the Hexental?”

“If you’re not afraid of witches.”

If there were witches in the valley, like its name suggested, he need not fear them. He held one of their own in his arms.

Chapter Three

It was dusk when the men found a sheltered cave. Even in her blindness the Seer could tell it was more than a rough indent in the craggy hill. She sensed the deepness and emptiness of the ancient silver mine yawning like a hungry mouth. The sounds of the men making camp echoed in its silence. Soon she heard the angry snap of a fire, and the scrape of branches along the ground. The scent of fresh-cut pine rose in the damp air, and hands holding a little too tightly were lifting her from the horse and guiding her down to a primitive bed of boughs beneath a coarse blanket. Whose hands were they? Lothar. He didn’t like her. Or he didn’t like her being here.

“Tilman,” he called out. “Make yourself useful. Go kill something.” There was mockery in his voice, but a certain brotherly fondness as well. Brothers were often cruel.

“But I filled our packs at the cloister, just like you told me. We have everything we need.”

“Everything but peace from your endless questions.”

Lothar, she noticed, answered those questions. Lukas seemed to ignore the boy completely.

Tilman was quiet for awhile then. In the silence other sounds came to the fore, strange echoes and an eerie whine, like a baby crying.

“That’s something I never heard at the North Sea,” Lothar said lazily. “What do you think it is, Til, a ghost or a wolf?” There was derision in his voice, but Tilman did not pick up on it.

“Evil spirits,” he said immediately, then corrected himself. “I mean…that’s what people would say around here. That’s why they’ll dress up in terrible masks tonight to chase them away.”

Lothar chuckled. “And it has nothing to do with the amount of spirits they’ll be imbibing before the fasting season begins tomorrow?”

In his enthusiasm, Tilman continued unchecked. “Every town has a special guild. The wooden masks have been handed down for hundreds of years. In the Kinzigtal they dress like devils, in Waldkirch they’re Salamanders. There are beavers and louses and--”

“And what do they have in that run-down little kingdom that spawned you? What’s it called again? Castle rotten egg?”

“It’s Schloss Rodeck,” Tilman said in a defeated voice. “It doesn’t matter, forget it.”

“Come on, tell me,” he taunted.

“They have Hexen,” the Seer said quietly.

Lothar’s tone was no longer teasing. He did not ask her how she knew. “It would take a witch to know a witch,” he said coldly.

“There are no such things as witches!” Lukas had the final word, but the conversation was not finished.

Hours later as the Seer faded in and out of an uneasy, uncomfortable sleep, she heard him say it again quietly, adamantly.

“There are no such things as witches.”

“I know that, but the peasants believe in them.” Lothar’s voice was not as quiet.

“She can be useful to us.”

“She can be used against you.”

“Should I give up my sword then too? Any weapon has two sides. And what we don’t have enough of is weapons or allies. I have a title to the throne, but what is a seal compared to an army? Magnus has my father’s ear. He’s made sure my education, my training has all taken place as far from Falkenberg as possible. No one is left who has any loyalty to me.”

“But me…and a fifteen-year-old who’d piss his pants at the sight of a kitchen knife.”

Lukas laughed. It was a bitter laugh. “It’s not too late for you to go back to those Plattdeutsch-speaking fish-heads and spend the rest of your life trawling the North Sea for a handful of crabs.”

“I’m the only voice of reason in this godforsaken jungle full of spooks and ghosts.”

“And witches? We can use her, Lothar.”

“But can you trust her?”

Chapter Four

Could he trust the Seer? Lukas wondered. Who was she? Maybe a better question was, what was she? She was strange and strange things seemed to be happening around her. Three days it took to find a route through the Hexental. Three days in which winter surrendered much too early to the gentler hand of spring.

On the last night in the forest a swarm of mountain finches had sought a roost close to their camp. There were legends of such swarms, where millions of birds darkened the skies, but no one had seen such a thing in hundreds of years.

“Is it a sign, Seer?” Tilman had asked after the birds settled into the plentiful branches of spruce trees. The reverent, awed tone in the boy’s voice annoyed Lukas as much as it assured him that he had been right to bring the Seer. Christianity had swept through these hills over 11 centuries ago, but had not cleared out the cobwebs of paganism in its dark corners.

“It is a sign, Tilman. A sign that spring is coming. They’re on their way home. And it’s a sign it will be a cold night. They swarm together to keep warm,” she said.

“But what about the transfer of power?”

“A man makes his own future. With his own power.”

“But it must mean something--”

Lothar interrupted the boy. “You know what it means, Til? There’ll be a load of crap under these trees tomorrow. As if we didn’t have enough of it already.”

In the morning, a million wings beat the darkness from the blue sky. As he woke, Lukas noticed with satisfaction the birds were leading the way. Towards Falkenberg.
Later that day they cleared the tangle of forest, and he could see the castle of Falkenberg rising above the city it protected. The wind that had been held in check by the thick pine barrier, was more capricious now. A new weather front was moving in. The calm of the last few days was about to end.

The Seer had come with him willingly enough on this journey, but would she balk now? He did not know her motives. He did not know who she was. He knew only she could not see, and even that he was not so sure of.

“I thought you were blind,” he said to the Seer after he had mounted his horse and she was once again nestled against his chest.

“And what do you think now?”

“How do you know the things you do?” he asked her not for the first time. Her silence lasted so long, he assumed she wouldn’t answer, but then she spoke so softly he barely caught her words.

“I don’t know.” She turned her head back and forth as if seeking something. “They say I can see the future. Maybe I can. But there’s one thing I know I can’t do. I can’t see the past. He might be right, you know. Lothar. Maybe I am a witch. Maybe my soul belongs to the devil already.”

“I doubt that.”

“Do you doubt me?” She turned her face up to him. She played with the truth like a child would play with a doll, sometimes gently, sometimes with imagination and sometimes cruelly. And still he trusted her. It was instinctual. And he trusted his instincts.

“Will you help me?” he asked, although he knew the answer.

“Yes. But I’ll ask the same of you. Will you help me?”

“What do you want?”

“Freedom.”

“I promise you, when I am King, you will be free.” He had learned a thing from her already. He did not say as soon as he was King. It wasn’t enough to ascend the throne. He had an empire to consolidate and establish. He would let her go, but only when the time was right.

Chapter Five

Magnus. His name implied greatness. It was something he had long strived for, and fell short of. It had often been said that he took great joy in destruction, that he did not love anything. That was wrong. His problem was he loved too much. And what he loved, he wished to possess. And what he could not possess he wished to crush.

He gazed out from the kingly chambers down to the city of Falkenberg that he loved. It knelt practically at his feet. Soon its people would as well. What a picture it made: a mosaic of red-tiled roofs shot through with ribbons of blue canals and framed by a thick stone wall. The King and his cruelty had long been feared and no enemy soldiers had sought to breach its walls, or storm the stone fortress above it in more than 30 years. The only incursions made were by sheep that roamed the steep pathways to the castle grazing between grapevines trained dutifully into rigid rows.

For weeks now Magnus had kept watch at this window, and with each day that Lukas did not appear, his hope had grown. As well as his imagination. He would have these chambers completely redone. The wood-paneled walls and timbered ceiling were kingly enough, as were the canopy bed, and the open fireplace, but they were stale. It was time for a change.

This morning the finches, as in the legends, had swarmed over Falkenberg. He would be a fool not to use that occurrence to cement it as a sign in the people’s minds that change was on the way. He emptied a small vial into the King’s cup and handed it to his father. “Drink!” he commanded.

“I’m not thirsty,” came the irritated reply.

Magnus brought the gold cup to the weak man’s lips and held his nose closed until he swallowed the amber liquid. “Have you made your decision?” he asked when the King could speak again.

“I don’t need to choose a successor. I’m not dying,” he gasped, but even in his hoarse voice there was doubt. He was, in fact, too young to die, not yet an old man, despite the wrinkles in his face and the worn eyes.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Magnus said nonchalantly as he turned back towards the window.

The cup fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.

“What is it?” The King asked weakly.

“Lukas! And the Seer.” Magnus was not surprised at her presence. His spies had already informed him of Lukas’ visit to the cloister. What surprised him was that Lukas had survived the trip. He was supposed to have been waylaid and dispatched by the bandits that plagued the countryside. Magnus sighed. This was a temporary disappointment. He knew of a weapon he could use against Lukas, one that Lukas had been kind enough to provide himself. The Seer. Magnus knew exactly who she was. After all he’d helped to make her what she was. Not that she would have considered his actions helpful.

If he was superstitious he would think his past sins were catching up to him. He was not. He was practical. Every action had a consequence, and every consequence could be turned to an advantage.

“Bring the Seer to me. She will tell me what ails me,” the King panted.

Magnus shrugged his shoulders as he rang for a servant. He would not deny a dying man his last request.

Chapter Six

Lukas had been 15 the last time he had laid eyes on the castle of Falkenberg. He’d been gone almost 20 years. Such a short time in the life of a 300-year-old fortress. Four towers of differing height crowned the stone monstrosity, each with a different purpose, a prison, a look-out, the King’s chambers, and the last closed off and crumbling, conquered by time and weather. They gave the castle a crooked appearance. The many-tiered courtyard was pleasant enough with its gardens and fountain, both picturesque and practical. With its own water source the castle could withstand a siege indefinitely. If the enemy was on the outside.

It all had the busyness of an anthill, but there the similarity ended. Ants worked selflessly for the common good. Courtly life had always attracted the flatterers and the plotters and hangers-on. A bunch of Arschkriechers. The fools would crawl right up his ass if he let them get close enough. Lukas felt their calculating eyes upon him. It had been a long rough trip. He and his party had ridden in like muddy beggars. He would take the liberty of a bath before seeing his father. The King respected strength, and Lukas would meet him like a Prince.

He entered the low archway into the great hall with the Seer, a woman he knew little about, Tilman, an awkward boy who had been entrusted to him as a page, and Lothar, a man who had fought beside him before, but might not realize what he was getting himself into. In the vastness of the hall, his party seemed miniscule and outnumbered. The leaded stained-glass windows only grudgingly let in the weak sunlight. As the door closed behind them, Lukas had the sudden feeling they had been swallowed and had landed in the belly of a beast.

Chapter Seven

The Seer was taken immediately to the King. He had asked her the same question three times now.

For the third time she gave him the same answer. “I cannot see your future.”

“I am not…going to…die!” he whined.

But he was.

The room was close, too warm. Was there someone else here? She sensed a presence. Was it a man, or just a sense of evil? And there was a sickly sweet scent. Something unnatural. Poison most likely. Could she tell him? He would doubt her. The weakness in his voice, his inability to complete a sentence, it was too late for him. But not too late for this Kingdom.

“Tell me…what you see for me!”

She said nothing. What could she say?

“Fetch the guard. Have her put in the tower,” he panted. “Maybe that will open her mouth.”

Unhurried steps told her she’d been right. There was another person in the room. One who passed close enough to her so she could catch the scent of sulfur. Her knees buckled. If the King thought she was afraid of being imprisoned, he was wrong. She would have fallen, if the rough hand of a guard had not clamped tightly around her arm. All the while she could sense that silent devil watching her. It was a devil, she was sure. She had met him once before when her world had almost ended in fire.

Chapter Eight

Lukas was refreshed, but not reassured when he collected Lothar from the guest chamber and they wound their way through the castle’s maze of corridors under the glassy-eyed scrutiny of stuffed boars’ and stags’ heads which lined the stone walls. The corridors had the same musty smell of tradition and hubris he remembered from his youth. They ascended the narrow spiral stone stairs into the upper rooms. It was cold, even draftier than in his memory. Only a fool would want to live in a castle. Only a fool would want to be King.

They had been directed to the plotting room. If his father was there fulfilling his duties, surely he was not as ill as had been feared. Not that he had any deep feeling for his father, but the castle oppressed him. The cold stone seemed to weigh on him. Did he want the burden of a crown?

They passed through the room’s low arched door, and Lukas had to bow his head to clear it. There was the same ornate writing desk he remembered, the broad table strewn with maps, the aging pictures on the walls of men in battle. The shutters to the wrought iron balcony stood open. The chair with its lion feet was empty.

“We’re going to his sleeping chambers,” he said to Lothar.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Outside in the corridor, four guards blocked the exit. When they finally parted it was only to let Magnus in.

Lukas did not greet him, although it had been years since they had last met. Magnus had not aged. He was as fair as ever. He had always had the face of an angel. And the heart of a devil. “Let me see him.”

“He won’t be seeing anyone today,”

“He’ll see me!”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand. The King is dead. The prophetess you brought foresaw it.”

“Where is she?”

“I’ll instruct the guards to take you to her now.”

Lukas had always thought Magnus capable of anything…but regicide. He had underestimated him and that would have costly consequences. He didn’t care so much for himself as for the men…and woman that he had brought into this. Tilman was from the house of Rodeck, under the protection of the King of Zaehringen. Magnus would spare him. But Lothar? And the Seer? What awaited her? He hoped for her sake she was already dead.

He turned to Lothar. Nothing needed to be said. The man knew. And understood. He blinked once. In acknowledgment. In preparation for the fight ahead. Lukas hoped not in farewell.

Chapter Nine

The Seer had considered her 15 years in the cloister a torture. How wrong she had been. Up and up she stumbled, the guard’s merciless hand around her wrist. The sickening scent of sulfur was replaced now by a potent mix of urine, vomit, sweat and fear as a heavy door scraped open and she was dragged over a threshold.

“Throw her in there,” her escort demanded.

“But…she’s a woman,” a voice said.

“Give me those keys!”

She was released for a moment. There was a tussle, the wrangling of keys, a lock opening, and she was being shoved forward. “Come get me when she stops screaming and starts talking.”

She heard nothing else but grunts, heavy steps, arguing voices. Were the prisoners fighting over their prize? She sank to the stone floor, shuddering as a hand clawed at her shoulder. She was too frightened to scream.

“Don’t be afraid.” The voice was as comforting as the blanket, or was it a coat, that went around her. “My name is Sebastian. My men call me Bastian.” He continued to talk as if sensing that it soothed her. “We would never hurt a woman. We’re here because we fought for the wrong man.”

“How many of you are there?” the Seer asked in a shaky voice.

“14.”

“Would you like to fight for the right man?”

“What do you mean?”

She told him in a quiet voice, then called loudly to the jailor. “Let them go!” Her voice now did not tremble.

The jailor approached. “Don’t ask that of me. It would mean my death.”

“It will mean your death if you don’t.”

“You’ve seen my future?” he gasped.

“I see no future here.” She said. God forgive her, she knew exactly how he would understand that. “Let this man out. It’s the only chance you have.”

She waited for an answer. It came in the click of the lock as the cell door opened. There was the sound of quick movements, of another tussle. Then the door to the cell clanged shut again. With her inside.

Sebastian’s voice was near. “I’ve locked you in. It’s the safest place for you now. If I don’t come for you, it means--”

She cut him off. “You’ll come. Now go!”

The Seer crawled to the far corner of the cell and waited. She was practiced at waiting, but that had been in the silence of the cloister. Exhaustion claimed her more than a few times, and each time she woke to a new horror. The groans of some prisoners, the vile exclamations of others, the prickling feet of mice. How she hoped they weren’t rats. How long had she lain there before smoke tickled her nostrils. Was it hours or days? She had almost burned before. Would fire claim her now? She was almost, almost too tired to care. Her limbs were stiff from cold, her mouth dry. Her eyes, useless as they were to her, refused to open. Voices floated past her like leaves on a stream, so hard to catch. Then there was a voice she knew, a voice her heart responded to.

“Is she alive?”

She tried to say yes. Tried to sit up.

“I…I don’t know. I didn’t touch her, I swear.”

“Nor did you help her!”

The jailor was begging for mercy. The answer to his plea was the angry scrape of a blade from a scabbard.

“No!” the Seer cried, but her dry lips made no sound. Even if they had, it would have been too late. Too late! The wheels of fate were turning. She had done her part to set them in motion, and nothing she could do could stop them.

She felt hands on her then. Gentle, lifting her up as she sank into a deep blackness.

Chapter Ten

The Seer woke to brightness. Like any other sightless flower, she could recognize and respond to light. There was darkness still, but that was in her mind. Her body was sore, but it also ached for freedom and movement. She climbed out of the plush bed, how unused she was to such luxury of down and satin. She stumbled here over a low couch, there over a plush chair, and now a table. She did not feel the edges smart against her shins. She did not feel the cold penetrating her thin nightdress or emanating from the stone floor against her bare feet. Like an animal in a trap she only felt the urge to escape. At last she found the door and pulled on the ornately carved handle. It was locked.

The Seer screamed.

On the other side a key slid into the lock. “Is something wrong?” Tilman’s voice was anxious.

“Yes,” the Seer said. “Tell the King I’ve had a vision. It’s urgent.”

It was not really a lie. She had had a vision, a dream of freedom, but that had been destroyed.

Chapter Eleven

The Seer had awoken that morning. It was the news Lukas had hoped for, but it was night before he was able to escape from his advisors and courtly duties to see for himself that she was well. At her quarters, he commanded Tilman to open the door without wasting a glance at the boy. He reminded him too much of what he’d lost. He did not knock. He was King; everything in this castle now belonged to him.

The Seer was standing by the window, her back to him, dressed in a simple shift. The gowns he had ordered made for her lay strewn over the canopy bed as if discarded. She had heard him come in, he was sure, but she did not turn. From anyone else he would not have tolerated that sign of disrespect, but this almost amused him. Almost.

He joined her at the window. The night was black, he saw only their reflections in the glass. She was quiet and still as a statue. He put his fingers under her chin and angled her face towards the flame that burned in the sconce. Shadows of exhaustion still marred the whiteness of her face.

“Didn’t Tilman tell your Majesty I had a vision? That it was urgent?” she said coldly.

“Didn’t you tell me you can’t see the future?”

She shook her face from his hand. “You killed that man.”

He gave a short bitter laugh. “Which man?” There had been too many.

“The jailor. He saved you.”

“You saved me.”

“I gave him hope.”

“It wasn’t yours to give.”

She faced him now. “You gave me hope. You said I would be free as soon as you were King.”

“Did I? I said when I was King. I didn’t say exactly when. You see I’ve learned something from you.”

Impotent anger tightened her features and she turned back to the window. Her voice was almost a hiss when she finally spoke. “I’ll be the dancing bear in your circus if you make me,” she said. “But just remember bears have claws.”

It was not a loss of control on his part that his arm went around her like a vice. It was a test of his willpower that he did not hurt her then as his hand took hold of her chin from behind and forced her head back onto his shoulder. It was exactly the position in which to slit a man’s throat. And God knows, he had. More than once. He’d seen too much of brutality, too much betrayal. His mouth was at her ear. “Don’t,” he spoke barely above a whisper. “Ever threaten me again.”

“Let me go!”

He wasn’t ready to free her. In any way. He clamped his arm around her abdomen even tighter until she couldn’t breathe or speak. “There are a million ways a man could hurt you. You’re lucky I got to you first. I will protect you, but should you cross me, you’ll see more than visions. You’ll see what a man is capable of. Do you understand me?”

He waited for her answer. She didn’t give it. Admiration for her stubbornness vied with so many other emotions. Anger, disappointment, sorrow. As King he could show none of them, not truly mourn what he’d so lately lost. And behind that was a darker drive. As he held her pressed tightly against him, he was aware of the fragrance of her hair, her delicateness, her fragility. Her femininity. She had fought on his side, because he was the best choice in this world of bad men. But was he a good man?

Before he found an answer he didn’t want to hear, he released her. He had never run from anything before, but he fled her chambers. His wounds were too new. His anger too great. His needs too many for her to take them up without being destroyed.

“Lock the door, and don’t open it again tonight. For anyone. Even me.” he said hoarsely to Tilman as he brushed past the boy into the darkness of the corridor.

Chapter Twelve

There would be no freedom for the Seer. Of a physical kind. She sought a different type of escape. She was no stranger to fasting. If she refused food and drink long enough she would disappear. She was weaker than ever, and it gave her a grim sense of satisfaction that there was strength in that. When the King came to see her, she knew she had won a battle of wills.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

“Freedom.”

“What would you do with it? Where would you go? What would you do?”

“I mean freedom from this burden.” She had refused to eat, but guilt had gnawed at her insides since that night. “A man died because of me.”

He snorted. “20 men have died on my account.”

“It’s different.”

“How? To make a difference takes decisions and consequences. Inaction has its own consequences.”

“It’s too much.”

“It’s only the beginning. There will be much more.”

“I can’t help you.”

“I need you.”

“It would be a bad sign, if I died. Wouldn’t it?”

“If you die, I’ll wring your neck.”

She didn’t smile. She turned her head back to the wall.

“Please.”

Was it the word? The gentleness in his voice, or the soft touch of his hand on her shoulder. On his last visit he had been brutal. Now he was kind. They were just different tactics to gain the same goal, to have her bend to his will. She saw that all too clearly. But her heart? Her heart was dumb and blind and responded only to the way he stroked her cheek now, smoothing a strand of her long hair away from her face and tucking it so tenderly behind her ear.

She had never been touched like that and the intimacy of it woke something in her, as violently as spring tears at the ground. And as painfully. Her mind started to work. Without her bidding, without her wanting it to, like in the cloister, when she would put it to the task of solving puzzles, of knitting one stray piece of information to another to form a picture of what the future could be like. After a long while she spoke. “You have 14 legions.”

“Mmmh,” he said in response.

“Sebastian had 14 men with him.”

“So?”

“Give each of them command.”

“Half of them don’t have the experience.”

“That doesn’t matter. All of them have loyalty. You need those 14 men.”

“There are only 13.”

She had not asked what had happened while she was locked away. She had not wanted to know. She sighed in regret and sadness. “What about Lothar? He could--”

In an instant his touch was gone. “There will be only 13,” he repeated with a grim finality.

She did not say, I’m sorry. There was nothing to say. She closed her eyes for a moment in pain over the loss of his friend. “Do you believe in God?” she asked then.

“No.” There was no hesitation in his voice.

“I do.”

“How could you? Locked away in that cloister slowly starving to death?”

“Those were the trappings of religion, not faith. I felt his presence. I felt him shelter me when I was burning.”

She opened her palm, realizing only now that her fists had been clenched. With a finger, he touched the star-shaped scar and she closed her hand instinctively over his, as if he could pull her from this darkness. Maybe he could.

“I felt the devil’s grasp then too.” She shuddered and swallowed before she could continue. She tightened her grip, pulled him closer with a strength neither thought she possessed until her lips were at his ear. “He’s here. In this castle.”

“I know.”

Chapter Thirteen

A week later, Lukas ordered the Seer to dine with him at the midday meal. He did not take his repast in the Great Hall as his father had done, but rather quietly in the plotting room. He’d ordered a dining table to be placed at the door to the balcony. The shutters were open to let in the spring air and the sounds of the bustling, and peaceful city below.

“Magnus, you may take your leave,” the King said as he cut the groveling visit short.

“How gracious of you, your Majesty,” he replied just as the Seer’s presence was announced. “Ahh this is the prophetess who foretold your rise to power.”

“I thought you’d met.”

“Welcome, my dear,” he said as he approached her like a wolf circles a winged dove. He took her hand although she hadn’t offered it, and her knees buckled ever so slightly as if in a curtsey. “Are you ill?” Magnus asked with little sincerity. “Or was it a vision?”

The Seer nodded. “I saw light, a blinding light.”

“My future looks bright after all,” he said looking meaningfully at Lucas as he put his lips to the Seer’s hand, on her palm, at the place where she had burned.

There was significance in that. Lukas was suddenly sure that Magnus knew who the Seer was. And he would use that knowledge against him.

When Magnus left, the Seer let out a breath. Lukas caught her before she could fall.

“It’s him. The devil,” she murmured.

“I know.”

“That smell…sulfur. He wears the scent of hell.”

“He dabbles in alchemy.”

“Kill him,” she whispered.

“I can’t.”

“Surely he was the one to betray you.”

“I can’t prove it.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“For a long time the laws did not matter here. Now that I am King, they will be obeyed.”

“But the men who rose against you. Did they not implicate him?”

“They’re dead.”

“You killed them?”

“I imprisoned them. They killed themselves.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Neither do I, but I can’t touch him.”

“You must!”

“You realize he knows who you are, don’t you? Aren’t you curious about your past?”

“Not as curious as I am about the future. And there will be no future unless you end his.”

“I can’t! He’s my brother.” Even as he said it the old doubts surfaced. Different mothers, the same father. But was it the same father? The King had never cast public doubts about the Queen’s loyalty, but his actions in private had showed how he detested both his wife and his only legitimate son. His son he had sent far away; his wife he had sent to an early grave.

Lukas was nothing like his father, in looks or in spirit. Maybe the Seer was right he didn’t have the heart to be King. If there was any chance that the blood that ran through the heart of Magnus was the same as his, how could he let that flow? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Chapter Fourteen

Magnus spent days, sometimes weeks away from the castle. Even then the Seer never felt truly safe. Shortly after Easter, she woke, not to the sun, but to coldness. Her eyes were wet, burning, despite the cold compress that covered them. She sat up abruptly and flung the cloth away.

“But, it’s necessary,” a woman’s voice said. “The abbess said you’ll always be blind, if you don’t let me--”

“Leave me!” There was no sound of movement. “Leave me!” she repeated and lashed out. Her hand struck something, a bowl? She heard it hit the stone floor and shatter.

In a moment Tilman was there and the woman was gone. “No one is to pass that threshold again, but you and the King,” the Seer demanded.

“But you need a Lady in Waiting to help you…dress and things.”

“I need no one!”

“Did she hurt you?” He was suddenly near. The embarrassment in his voice replaced by concern.

“She tried.” The Seer reached out a hand to the boy. And only when he grasped hers with a steady hand did she realize she was shaking. She did not fear that woman. She was just a tool of Magnus. But how did he know what the abbess had done to her? From the floor came the sickening smell that turned her stomach, the contents of the shattered ceramic. Every week there had been a special treatment for her eyes. To keep the Seer from becoming even more blind, the abbess had said. But in truth to keep her captive there. For the Seer had made the abbess a fortune by telling fortunes. Donations from grateful, and wealthy, pilgrims had gone into the cloister’s coffers. Had Magnus sought the abbess out now? Or had they conspired in the past to steal her future?

“Tell me something, Tilman.”

“What should I tell you, Seer?”

“Anything. A story. Something happy.”

“I can’t think of anything happy,” he said sullenly after a long pause.

“What’s wrong?” He’d been quiet lately, dutiful as ever, but withdrawn. “It’s hard for you to be trailing after me like a guide dog, when you could be training to be a Knight.”

“It’s not just that,” he said then was quiet again. She knew he was blushing. She could almost feel the heat radiating from his fresh cheeks. “It’s an honor to guard you. I do it gladly.”

“I know you do, Tilman.”

“But I’m worried.”

“About what?” The Seer could have asked, “About whom.” Slowly, with embarrassed pauses, with youthful pride, with the whole mix of everything that drives a man, he told her the story of young love, of courtly arrangements, of a girl with flaxen hair and blue eyes. A girl with a good heart promised to a bad man.

And it gave the Seer an idea. “Things will work out, Tilman,” she said as she released his hand.

“You’ve seen it happen?” he asked in that perpetual naivety.

“No, but maybe I can make something happen. Don’t dwell on it. Come, help me now to clean up this mess.

He seemed to become aware of it only now. She heard a sharp intake of breath. “What was in that bowl?” he asked in a surprised voice. “It’s blanched the floorboards.”

As she dined with the King that afternoon, the Seer had little appetite.

“Lent is over. There’s no need for you to fast,” he said with irony. The laws of the Lenten season had not been followed. At least at the King’s table.

“I wonder if your subjects know that.”

“No one is starving in my Kingdom.”

“Do you think you could perform your duties on their diet? Should I ask your chef to throw away the venison steaks and serve only spaetzle noodles for the next week? Would that appeal to you?”

“I’ll have him prepare bread and water for you for the next 10 years. Now leave me, if you’re not going to eat anyway, before you completely ruin my appetite.”

She stood, but did not leave.

He sighed. “What is it?”

“I need a woman.”

He gave a short laugh. “We have more in common than I thought.”

“I have someone in mind who could assist me and be my guide. Would you allow me to send for her?”

“Of course.”

Out in the corridor, Tilman would be waiting to take her back to her chambers. The King’s voice caught her before she reached the door. “And don’t bother me with matters of personnel again.”

He did not see the pleased smile on her face that she could not suppress. So satisfied was she in her own scheming, she did not share with him her suspicions about Magnus’ pact with the abbess. It was an omission that would have consequences.

Chapter Fifteen

Royal subjects were expected to give their lives for their King in service of his army. They also gave what little wealth they could accumulate in taxes. And they took their fates in silence. For there was no way for a common man to gain an audience with the King. In some realms, that silence grew and grew until it burst into the angry cry of revolution.

In Falkenberg, it was well-known that the Seer in her blindness could never be the King’s eyes, but the people had sensed early on, she had his ear. Beneath a trellis of snaking grapevines in the castle’s courtyard, she gave audience to those who sought her out. Each day there were more. Each evening the guards would shoo them away and shut the heavy castle gates behind them. This evening, the air was thick and heavy with the scent of new blossoms. It weighed on her like the stories she had collected of hunger, misfortune and unfairness.

“Luzia,” the Seer called, as she stood and reached out a hand. The girl was there in an instant, guiding her from the castle’s courtyard into the maze of corridors and stairs to the plotting room.

“Won’t his Majesty be angry?”

“I’ve kept him waiting before.”

“I meant about me and Tilman?”

The Seer didn’t answer that question. “Go to your husband, now.”

“But how will you…”

“I know the way.”

“But--”

“I said, go to Tilman!” The Seer waited until she could no longer hear Luzia’s quick footsteps then she nodded to the guard she knew would be there before the plotting room. He opened the door.

Voices halted for a moment inside the chamber, but just for a moment. The Seer stood patiently listening to the King confer with his general. Listening to how little the ambitions of a King matched the needs of his people. Finally there was a rustling of papers, a rolling of maps, a curt dismissal from the King.

The Seer held out her hand. “Bastian, you are well.” It was a long-practiced habit of hers to phrase questions as statements. Stating things sometimes made them true.

“As are you,” he replied and there was a smile on the tenor of his voice. He gave her his rough hand and she took it. And kept it.

“You wished to see me, my Liege,” she said without turning.

“Hours ago,”

“There were many of your subjects who wished to see me.”

“Are they more important than a King?”

“That is a very interesting question, Sire.” Sebastian’s grip tightened for a moment, in warning. Or amusement? The Seer did not release his hand. “Come see me tomorrow. I’d like to talk to you about Tilman’s training.”

“And I’d like to talk to you about Tilman,” the King’s voice had warning in it.

For such a large man, Sebastian moved quickly. He took his leave and was gone in an instant.

“You’ve put me in a difficult position,” the King said when they were alone.

“Have I?”

Something, a book maybe, landed on the floor, propelled by his anger.

“You have! And you know how. I have no patience for your mystical bullshit tonight. When you said you needed a girl to assist you, you never told me you had chosen Luzia of Sankt Georgen.”

“You didn’t ask.”

Something hit the table then. A fist?

“Zaehringen is already disposed towards you,” she said. “After all they entrusted Tilman’s education to you as a sign of their allegiance.”

He snorted. “They made me a babysitter and spared a distant relative to the King that they had no use for.”

As if she hadn’t heard, she continued, “An alliance between Zaehringen and St. Georgen can only help you and hurt your enemy. She was promised to the Prinz of Littenweiler. We all know he’s a monster.”

“And since you arranged a secret marriage between Tilman and Luzia, there’s no danger of him ever getting her, is there?”

“I never suggested or encouraged their young love.”

“Neither did you discourage it.”

She said nothing.

“Don’t do that again.”

“Are you unhappy with the results?”

“No. I’m quite pleased. Tilman proves useful for something after all. But that’s not the point. You did it without advising me. You’ll never do that again.” He closed his hand around her wrist as if to attract her full attention. “Promise me!” he demanded.

“I promise to inform you of my actions,” she said evenly.

He laughed. “I know you. You’ll inform me before you act! Say it!”

The pressure on her arm increased. She remained silent.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re stubborn?”

“If they have, I can’t remember.”

“Promise me!”

Suddenly he released her wrist. It was her face he held in his hands now, gently.

“What are you doing?” She tried to take a step back, but he would not let her go.

“Applying pressure in a different way. Have you ever seen your own face? Before you were blind?”

“I don’t know…I don’t remember.”

“So you don’t know what you look like.”

“Like a witch.”

“Who said that?”

“Many of the men and women who come to see me. They think because I can’t see, I also can’t hear.” Her voice she realized was no longer even. A trace of bitterness was there.

“Do you know you’re beautiful?”

She tried to shake her head, but it was trapped between his hands. His thumbs traced the shape of her brow, the line of her nose, the fullness of her lips.

“Say it,” he whispered. His mouth was so close. “Say it.”

A truth welled up inside her. For a moment she almost gave voice to this secret, if he hadn’t then told her exactly what to say.

“Repeat after me, ‘I promise I will inform you of my actions first, before I act.’”

“I promise I will inform you of my actions.” she said automatically.

He pulled her face closer to his, “Go on,” he said softly, tilting her head as if to gain access to her lips.

“First,” she gasped.

He released her so suddenly. She swayed for a moment, not because she sought her balance, but from the sudden harshness in his voice. “Now, leave me!”

Chapter Sixteen

The next day the King did not ask for the Seer as had become his custom. That did not deter her.

“Let me see him,” she demanded of the King’s guard.

“That’s not possible.”

She brushed past him, felt for the door to the plotting room and opened it herself. Even without sight, she sensed the emptiness in the chamber.

She turned on the guard. “Where is he?”

“His chambers.”

“Is he ill?”

“No.”

Her own relief kept her from hearing the embarrassment in his voice.

“Luzia,” she called over her shoulder. “Take me there.”

“He’s not to be disturbed. Under penalty of death!”

“Penalty and death are exactly what I would like to talk to him about. Come, Luzia, then take me to the West Tower. I can’t breathe in here.” While the girl led her up the winding stone casement, she let her fingers trail along the rough stone wall. So rigid and strong, but it could crumble so easily. Luzia opened the latch and the iron door, and would have followed her outside onto the turret, if the Seer had not held up a hand.

“But you’ll never find the way--”

The Seer cut her off sharply. “I am not helpless!” The wind along the battlements picked up her words and flung them derisively back in her face. She would find her way back. Her feet and fingers had memorized these castle corridors, but could she find a way to convince the King to stop an injustice?

One man’s life was at stake and it could bring down a Kingdom. A peasant had slain a stag to fight off that beast called hunger. Caring for his family was punishable by death, because he had dared touch game that was the King’s quarry.

The wind played like a child messing her hair, pulling at her long skirts, flinging up bits of conversation from the courtyard below. She could hear the creaking of carriage springs, the jangling of reins. An important visitor was arriving. Her natural curiosity asked, who was it? In time she would find out, but it would be too late to stop the consequences that already had been put into play. She turned back into the darkness of the tower. The King did not want to be seen? She would have to make him see.

The Seer went alone to the King’s chambers. A guard denied her entrance with words, but she knew he would never dare touch her. She felt again for the ornate door handle and pushed the door open.

“You can’t let that man die!” the Seer exclaimed without a greeting.

“Would you care to join him? How dare you interrupt me!”

“How dare you put the life of an animal above that of a man!”

“A King can do as he likes,” he growled.

“And your subjects will do as they please with your head and plant it on a spike at the gates of Falkenberg.”

He laughed then, but it was not in amusement. There was anger in it. If she had not been so upset, she would have taken more notice of other sounds in the room. Were those footsteps and the swishing of fabric as someone glided past her, or was it just the crackle of the fire and the ceaseless draft playing with the curtains of the canopy bed?

“How I would love to have you punished for your insolence, but then I’d have no one to amuse me.”

“You’d have no one to tell you the truth. How can you kill a man for feeding his family? Is an animal worth more than one of your subjects?”

“Are my laws worth nothing?”

“Pardon him, then.”

“That would be a sign of weakness.”

“Not seeing reason is also a weakness. Change the law.”

“It’s too late.”

“It’s never too late.”

“Stop torturing me. I don’t want to talk about it any longer.”

“It’s your conscience torturing you. You know it’s not right. What are you going to do?”

He sighed. “Pour a glass of Riesling. Here.” He was putting a glass into her hand.

She did not drink.

“How old are you?” he asked after a long sullen silence.

“I…I don’t know. I counted 15 years at the cloister. They thought I was perhaps 10 when I arrived.”

“When is your birthday?”

“How would I know that?” she snapped.

“What would you like for your birthday?”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Pearls?”

“Pearls bring tears.”

“A ruby?”

“Give me a man’s life, and a sack of flour for every hearth in your Kingdom.”

“I’ll do as I like.”

“Do you know what I would like to do?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

She didn’t tell him, she showed him by throwing her full glass in the direction of the brightness. The light flared briefly as the alcohol fed the hungry fire, and she knew she had aimed well.

Without taking her leave, she turned and felt her way to the chamber door. She stumbled before she could reach it, and he caught her before she could fall. If only he would act as compassionately toward his subjects. She took her leave without saying a word. There was nothing left to say.

Chapter Seventeen

The Seer’s presence was requested, or rather demanded, the next morning at breakfast with the King.

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asked lightly.

“Executions ruin my appetite?”

“Try this, I think you’ll like it.”

He put a small, polished box into her hand. “What is it?”

“A gift.”

She shoved it away and rose from her chair, pushing past him to the balcony. The shutters were closed, but the noise of the crowd at the foot of the hill pushed against them. For once she was grateful she wouldn’t see the wooden stage, the executioner and his long double-sided sword. But because she was blind, it did not mean she would hide her face from this sight. She felt for the latch and flung the shutters open.

The King was beside her now, guiding her out into the open. She reached for and clutched the balcony railing. “No,” she whispered as the crowd roared in one voice.

It took her a long moment to hear the celebration in that voice. She turned to the King. “You used me.”

“You gave me a way to do the right thing. Was that wrong of me?” She could not answer. He was behind her now, smoothing her hair to one side over her shoulder. Then she felt his fingers at the nape of her neck. “Just as you wished, a man’s life, a sack of flour for every hearth. And this,” his fingers brushed her skin as he straightened the necklace he had fastened around her throat, “is for you, Happy Birthday.”

Their hands met as she reached up to touch his gift. It was a smooth string of pearls. And it would be harder to break free from than an iron chain.

Chapter Eighteen

“Luzia,” the Seer said as the girl set out her clothes the next day. “Did you ask Tilman who that carriage belongs to?”

“Graf Zeldorf.”

“It’s about time the King improved relations with such an important ally,” she mused, running a hand over the smooth satin of the gown. Zeldorf’s holdings were small, but were an independent buffer against the Prince of Littenweiler.

“Oh it’s not him, it’s his….” Luzia’s voice fell.

As did the Seer’s heart. It was still tumbling inside her as she finished Luzia’s sentence. “His wife.”

Chapter Nineteen

For days, when the King demanded her presence, the Seer refused him, remaining in her chambers, thinking about how he had destroyed her faith in him. She would not admit that he had broken her heart.

On the third day, when the door to her chambers opened, she did not turn from the window. “I’m not hungry, Luzia, thank you.”

“You’ll eat, if I have to force feed you,” Lukas said. She heard the tray slammed down upon the small dining table.

Her blood raced. It was the call to a challenge, a battle of wills, but there were other emotions there that came unbidden.

“Has the King become a servant?” She asked with irony.

“Do you wish to become a skeleton? If it’s death you want, I’m tempted to assist you.”

She did not respond to that, instead she asked: “Do you trust your allies?”

“I suppose so.”

“Maybe the more important question is, do they trust you?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She continued with another question. “Can they trust their wives?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he repeated. But it was clear from the anger in his voice that he did know.

“Then let me explain myself. Graf Zeldorf has influence, he’s in a position to lead men. For you or against you.”

“He wouldn’t cross me. He’s got too much to lose.”

“What if he feels he’s lost everything already? Everything that matters.”

“This Kingdom belongs to me. Its fields, its forests. Its men, and its women. I will have and do with them what I will.”

“And you will satisfy your desires.”

“I am a man, after all.”

“You’re more than a man, you are the King.

“And I can do as I like. You said so yourself.”

“And I was wrong. In some ways you’re more a prisoner here than I am.”

Chapter Twenty

For the first time in weeks, the Seer accepted the King’s invitation to dine with him. He was not in a good mood. Summer had brought hot sticky air from the south and it pressed against the castle walls which oozed with humidity. The Seer’s silken summer robes were light, but she had pulled her heavy hair back from her face.

“You look different,” the King said gruffly.

She did not know what to say, although it pleased her that he had noticed. There was no time for pleasantries. First Sebastian interrupted the meal. The Seer was dismissed, but before she could leave the page announced another visitor.

“It will have to wait,” the King said with annoyance.

“Who is it?” the Seer asked the page as he led her from the plotting room.

“I…I don’t know.”

She sensed the lie. Then she dismissed the page and felt her way to the King’s chambers.

Upon entering the chambers, the Seer could not see Cordula Zeldorf, but she knew from Luzia’s description exactly what she looked like. Hair the color of honey. Eyes like blue sapphires. Her features as delicate as a porcelain doll’s.

A gasp told her she’d been noticed. Of all the questions she could ask, only one burst from the Seer’s lips. “Do you love him?”

“Oh, no!”

“Then why--”

“How could I deny a King?”

How? It was not a question the Seer had been able to answer herself in these last months. They were both captives in a way. But not in the same way.

“Does your husband know?”

“Yes. And he hates me for it. When the King called for me the first time, I thought there was no way out, but then you were there suddenly. The door was open. I slipped out. I told my husband that nothing had happened, but he doesn’t believe me.”

Instinctively the Seer reached out.

“Will you help me again?” Cordula asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she grasped the hand offered to her. “Stay with me.”

“Yes,” the Seer said, and then hesitatingly she began again. “Would you--”

“I would do anything in return.”

“Would you tell me what it’s like to be a woman?”

Cordula’s hand tightened around hers. “You love him,” she said simply. But it made things anything but simple. “Come.” Cordula led her to the bed. They lay on top of the feather comforter, foreheads together, holding hands, sharing hearts, giggling like playmates. They didn’t hear the door open. They only heard it slam shut.

Chapter Twenty-One

Lukas leaned against the door to the chamber and crossed his arms. The Seer had a frustrating knack for getting involved in his affairs. The two women were putting themselves guiltily back together, tying up bodices they had loosened against the oppressive heat. He enjoyed for a moment the tantalizing picture of bared shoulders and reddened cheeks. In a far corner of his mind there was a realization that he had never heard the Seer laugh. How unhappy she was here! But oh how unhappy she had made him. The anger was in his voice. “Leave us!” he demanded.

The Seer slipped from the bed. “Please--”

“Not you!” he growled, clamping a hand on her arm just above her elbow.

He watched as Cordula gathered her things, clumsy in her nervousness and haste. She would have been a delicious distraction, but the time for distractions was over. He caught her under the chin as she left. “Don’t come back,” he said gently before releasing her, and then she was gone.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked the Seer chidingly, although he knew the things he wanted to do with her, was more aware now than ever of the true object of his desire.

She lifted her head. “Let me go, too.”

“If I’m not free to do as I like, neither should you be. In fact I’m starting to believe you’re too free. I’ve half a mind to put you in chains.”

“You already have,” she said quietly, almost as if to herself.

“And what does that mean?”

“I don’t know what it means.” Her hand that held her gown together at the base of her throat moved to touch the string of pearls there. Her bodice slipped again from her shoulder, a delicate smooth shoulder. She closed her eyes. With her eyes shut she was no Seer. The cloister had starved her and given her the body of a girl. The past months had given her the curves and contours of a woman. Her hair shone, her lips and cheeks were healthy and red. But those eyes. She had those same otherworldly eyes. If there was an angry deity, she was his instrument. Defiling her would be like destroying an angel and God help him that’s exactly what he wanted to do. Destroy that otherworldliness and make her a woman.

“Tell me what you mean,” he demanded. He released the pressure on her arm, but his hand, as if by itself, moved to her shoulder, lingered there for a moment. She shook her head and he made a fist at the back of her head, his fingers entwined in her hair, holding her still. “Tell me!” he demanded, but he was no longer interested in words, only the way her body spoke to him, the way her exposed throat quivered, the way her lips parted.

He would have closed his mouth over her willing lips, had she not opened those terrible eyes! He flung her from him and she stumbled, catching herself against the door. “Go!” he commanded roughly. “You’ve won.”

She pulled on the heavy latch. “Is that what you think?” she gasped, and then, she too was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Two

As if all that had not happened, the King and the Seer resumed the ritual of dining together. Days had passed, the heat had not. Pressures were mounting not only in the atmosphere.

“You have your appetite back, it seems,” the King commented gruffly one afternoon.

“And yours?”

“Let’s just say my appetites have gone unfulfilled, thanks to you.”

“Is there something wrong with your stomach?” she asked in mock sweetness.

“My stomach is not the organ I was talking about.”

“You’ll thank me in the future for saving your neck.”

They were both quiet after that, eating in silence. Neither of them was sure that was true. Magnus had returned. Rumors swirled he had been conferring with the Prinz of Littenweiler.

“A storm will break soon,” the Seer said into the quiet.

“I know,” Lukas said grimly. Neither of them had been talking about weather.

After the King left her, the Seer waited patiently at the table for Luzia to collect her. It was not Luzia who arrived. Her visitor did not speak. “What is it you want?” the Seer asked.

“To thank you. Cordula was…is my wife.”

She gasped and reached out to Graf Zeldorf. He came near enough so she could put a hand on his shoulder.

“You have my gratitude,” he said brusquely.

“He never had her,” the Seer said quickly, but she felt the doubt in his rigid posture. “And he never had her heart.” She felt his big frame shake. He said nothing more.

She realized later, when it was almost too late, that she hadn’t asked him, hadn’t asked herself what he was doing there.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The next morning the Seer woke from a nightmare. Into a nightmare. Tilman was at her bedside. “We must go!” He shook her roughly. “Now!”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

“Where is Luzia?” she asked suddenly aware of the girl’s absence and the incongruity of Tilman pushing a pile of clothing into her arms.

“Safe. Now get dressed,” he ordered. “I’ll come back for you in a few minutes. Be as quick as you can.”

She was quick. In a moment she was dressed. In two moments she had slipped out the unlocked door and made her way to the plotting room. She fell more than once as she navigated the corridors by memory and in haste. Her fingertips were raw from scraping against the stone walls. There was no guard to bar her way. The door when she reached it was open and she stepped inside, interrupting the low, urgent murmur of voices.

“I’m not going!”

Behind her she heard Tilman’s voice, out of breath. “I only left her for--”

“I don’t have time for this. Take her, damn it!” the King said.

“Let me stay. I can help you,” the Seer pleaded.

“You’ve wanted your freedom, now take it. Go!”

“No!”

“Go,” he said again, but his voice was suddenly gentle. She tried to shake her head, but his hands were cupping her face, holding her steady. So softly now that only she could hear it, he said, “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“You never hurt me,” she began, but did she ever finish the sentence? When she finally woke with a terrible ache in her temple, she would realize she had taught him well. He hadn’t meant in the past, but in the future.

Lukas had hit her no harder than was necessary to knock her from her senses, because there was no time to bring her to her senses. No time, and no way out. Late in the night messengers had come from the southern edge of the Kingdom, at the border to the Duchy of Zeldorf where the Prinz of Littenweiler had amassed his troops. With Bastian, he discussed the tactics they had long had in place to use against a force twice the size of their own if it would come to this. And it had. The citizens of Falkenberg were being brought into the protected walls of the castle. Then the gates would be closed and battened. There would be no way out. He looked down at the Seer one last time resting in Tilman’s arms. At least she had a chance.

“Go! Bring her to the cloister, then go home. And stay there.” How much more would he lose?

Chapter Twenty-Four

It had taken three days for Lukas to bring the Seer from the cloister at Mariendorf to the heights of Falkenberg. Tilman traveled the main road and the reverse trip was over by the afternoon. The rain that had waited all day to come, began to fall now in heavy eager drops.

Tilman halted his horse abruptly. “Magnus is here!” he whispered against her ear as he held her in front of him on the saddle. “With his men. I see their horses.” His arms tightened around her as he gathered the reins for flight.

She covered his hands with hers. “We can’t outrun him, not in this weather. Put me down here, you have a chance if you ride alone.”

“I won’t leave you here. We’ll take our chances.” In her voice she heard, not the stubbornness of a boy, but the decisiveness of the man he had become.

Her mind worked quickly. “Magnus won’t hurt me. I’m sure of it. Perhaps there are more ways to escape than just by running.” In hurried tones, she told him of the passages inside the cloister. The ways the abbess had used to spy on her, thinking they were secret, but all the while the Seer knew. She began to repeat them, but he cut her off.

“I’ll be there. Here take this,” he was pushing a sheathed dagger into her hand. “When night falls again we’ll make our escape.” He was wrong. Only one of them would be leaving the cloister that night.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Now here in her chamber in robes just like the ones she had always worn, the Seer wondered had she ever really been gone from the cloister? When Magnus came to her, she was composed. The sound of the heavy door closing and sealing her inside with him did not make her flinch. She had steeled herself against him, but with one word, one name he completely undid her. “Margareta,” he said simply.

She could see now…into the past. She dropped her head into her hands and groaned as one picture after another crashed through the gates of her memory. There had been another castle. It had been her home. She saw her mother’s sweet face, her father bent over a book, mixing herbs and elements.

How Margareta had loved to hide beneath a table and watch him. She had seen it all happen. Had seen Magnus become enraged, over what she would never know. He threw something into a cauldron over the open fire in the hearth then spun on his heels. The click of the latch as he left and locked the door behind him was almost indistinguishable as the mixture began to sputter, spilling over into the hungry flames.

She must have cried out, for only then did her father realize she was there. He covered her with his own body as the contents of the cauldron exploded. Fragments of flame flew to the ceiling and began eating at the wooden timbers. And then she was falling as he pushed her through the window, an oriel, just barely big enough for a girl to fit through. How her hand burned, and her eyes ached. Her body felt broken. She saw one last thing before everything went white. A shadow coming over her, and then she was being dragged….

She looked up. Was it the same shadow before her? She was sure it was.

“Now you know who you are, Margareta von Zaehringen,” Magnus said.

“Yes, and you do too. How?”

“Do you not remember me? I was sent to Zaehringen for my training. Your father had no interest in politics like his brother, the King. Your Uncle! But he dabbled in a more dangerous arena. I know. I assisted him in his alchemy. He was careless and he and your mother paid for it with their lives. It was assumed you were dead as well, but I knew…I hoped it wasn’t true. When Lukas brought you to the castle, I recognized you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t, not until Lukas could be defeated. And it will not be long now. With Graf Zeldorf as an ally, there is no one to stop Littenweiler from entering the kingdom. His force is large and concentrated. Lukas has half the amount of men and they’re scattered. Within a week, Littenweiler will reach Falkenberg.”

“The castle can withstand a long siege.”

“It will be breached in a day.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He laughed. “I can tell the future as well as you. Littenweiler has knowledge of its secret passages.”

The Seer did not have to ask how he gained that knowledge. “But then he will rule Falkenberg.”

“No! He will fall from its battlements in drunken celebration. His troops will have worn themselves out on the battleground. With you as my Queen, the whole force of Zaehringen will be on our side and we will take back what Littenweiler gained, and more. Our Kingdom will reach from the Rhine to the Danube. You’ll be free of Lukas like you’ve always wanted. Forever.”

How many men would he sacrifice to gain power? To gain her? Margareta was weak with shock, disgust, and sadness. It was easy to fall to her knees. Her voice trembled, but she spoke loudly enough for the walls to hear her. For Tilman, if he was there, to hear. “I pledge my allegiance to my future husband, the King, and will do all in my power to secure his reign. Go, now, to my uncle. If he loves me, he will send his entire army to do my bidding.”

Magnus laughed as he lifted her up. “Patience,” he chuckled while he stroked her cheek with a smooth thumb. “It all needs to be official.” He pulled her against him. “Not that we need a certificate of marriage to seal our bond.” She felt the dagger tucked into her bodice. She would use it.

But that wasn’t necessary. There was activity in the corridor. The door burst open.

“My Lord, we can’t find him.”

“Do I have to do everything myself?” Magnus said as he pushed her away.

She restrained him with a hand. “Tilman is my blood. My mother. His mother. They were cousins. He’s one of us.”

“Of course he is. I just need to help him realize it himself.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

It did not happen as Magnus had foreseen. Lukas had done what Margareta had never thought possible. He had given up. Instead of fighting a war he couldn’t win, a war that would devastate the kingdom and its people, he had entered into a treaty with the Prince of Littenweiler, ceding the southern third of his Kingdom. Littenweiler had retreated, satisfied enough with a piece of and not the whole pie. He did not die as Magnus had planned.

But Lukas? He had acted to save his people, but he himself was lost. Magnus had turned the situation again to his advantage, convincing the council that capitulating had been an act of treason.

“What will happen to him?” Margareta asked of Magnus when they returned to the castle.

“He’s stubborn, so he’ll be tried for his crimes. It would be so much easier if he would just sign a confession. Not that it’s easy now for him to hold a quill.”

“Let me see him. Let me bring a priest.”

“Why?”

“I’ve lived too long in a cloister to let a man die without the last rites.”

“As you wish.”

The parish priest of Falkenberg was a humble man, and a brave one. “This could mean your life,” Margareta whispered to him as they waited for the heavy bolt to be removed and the door to the dungeon to be opened. A fallen King was not given the luxury of incarceration in the tower. The pit was reserved for him. It had been unused since Lukas had risen to power, but before his reign many a man had gone insane in its hopeless darkness.

As if descending into hell, Margareta held her breath and eased herself down the shaky wooden ladder that the jailor had dropped into the hole. The priest descended after her with a torch. To her eyes it was useless, but the idea of light reassured her. She felt her way gingerly, directed by the groans of a wounded man and went down on her knees.

“Lukas,” she whispered, as she sought and found his face amid the rags that had been his clothes. She smelled the blood, felt its stickiness under her fingertips. “Oh, Lukas,” she said in despair. Was she too late?

“Mnmh.”

“Lukas, do you know who I am?”

His words were unclear, coming from bruised and swollen lips. “The most…stubborn woman…in the world,” he said haltingly.

This was no place for laughter, but there was joy in her heart that he lived. “Besides that. Do you know my name?”

“No,”

“I do now. I am Margareta von Zaehringen. My uncle is the King of Zaehringen.”

After a long pause, he said in a low voice. “Greta of Zaehringen. . .is dead.”

“I was dead for 15 years until you took me from that cloister.” She felt for and found his hand. His fingers were bent and would not straighten. “Is there a question you’d like to ask me?” she said softly.

“Why are you here?” he breathed with effort. “I wanted you to be safe.”

“That’s the wrong question. Ask me to marry you.”

He snorted then groaned in pain. “Go back to your uncle,” he panted.

She did not respond.

“Leave me!” he demanded.

“Make me!”

With a groan of frustration he tried to sit up, and failed. He slumped then against the clammy wall of the pit.

“Vater Ignasius, come! Begin the ceremony.”

“I haven’t said yes,” Lukas said. Was there teasing in his voice beneath its hoarseness?

“That part comes later,” she assured him as the priest began to call upon heaven to join them as man and wife here on earth. In this hell.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The marriage ceremony was short. Lukas sagged back against the wall as the Priest gave a final blessing, then reared up again as the Seer—Margareta—his wife—said to the holy man: “Leave us now.”

“You’re going with him!”

“No, our business is not finished.”

Her fingers were working at what was left of his clothes.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Making our marriage real.”

He tried to push her away. “I won’t defile you here in this filth.”

She would not be deterred. “You can’t defile your own wife. Please, Lukas, if you don’t consummate this union, it can be undone. Magnus will have it annulled to have me for himself. If you take me now, no one can enslave me again.”

“But me. You’ve fought me for your freedom, and now you wish to be shackled to me forever?”

“Love is a different type of fetter. I love you, Lukas.”

“How could you?”

“I didn’t say I wanted to! All I know is I love you. Now love me! That is…if you still can.”

With a groan of pain and desire, he turned her then onto her back. He had lost hope here, had become an animal cowering in a corner. She had given him strength. Now he was a man, taking his bride. With broken hands he lifted her skirts. It would be wrong to say he forced himself inside her. She was open to him. Ready. But there was that resistance. There had always been that with her. That delicious tension between them. He broke through it now.

For him escape from this earthly prison was impossible. For Margareta it was anything but sure. But for a few fleeting moments they found the freedom that comes from being bound utterly, one to another.

“Go now,” Lukas commanded his wife, as she curled herself protectively around him in the cold pit. In the light of the torch, her beautiful face was still flushed with the heat that had passed between them. She made no move to leave his side, but continued stroking his bloodied forehead.

“Where should I go? My place is here.”

“Go back to your people. Let your uncle’s soldiers fight the battle now.”

“How would I find my way back there? There is no one left here I could trust to guide me.”

“Try. Hide yourself. Don’t stay. It will mean your death.”

“Magnus wouldn’t dare. It would mean his own death. He’ll bring down the wrath of a larger Kingdom.”

“Oh, Greta, don’t you see, he won’t care. He’s lost too much.” And Lukas would soon know how he felt.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Because his own thoughts always dwelled on the dark side, Magnus was by nature suspicious. Suddenly he turned to one of his men, “Find them!” What he had meant to say was, find her! But he already knew that they were together: Lukas and Margareta. He did not yet feel anything. Only hollow. But soon he would have the pleasure of watching his brother be hollowed out.

“Graf Zeldorf,” he addressed the man who stood at the window, “would you like to have your revenge?”

It was all Lukas could do to remain standing. His ribs, he was sure, were broken. Being dragged from the pit to the plotting room had been an agony, but was nothing compared to the pain he felt as he looked at his wife, and knew he could do nothing to save her. How beautiful she was then, despite the blood on her face. His blood. Her hair was wild, her clothes disheveled. How proud he was that she did not cry.

“You will both be tried for treason. You wanted to be together? You’ll be hanged together,” Magnus spat.

The door opening might have meant hope, but Lukas did not allow himself the luxury of that feeling.

“My Lord, your spies have brought word. The Kingdom of Zaehringen is moving against you. They have allied themselves with St. Georgen.”

Lukas did take hope then. For his Kingdom. For him, for Margareta, it was too late. It would take weeks for the first wave of soldiers to reach Falkenberg. He and his wife would be together by then--in their graves.

“There will be no trial!” Magnus hissed. “Zeldorf, kill him now. Let her hear him die, then throw her back into the pit. We’ll have her burned in the town square like the witch she is.”

Lukas did not avoid the Graf’s eyes and the hatred in them. He had tried to take what was important in this man’s life, and now he was about to lose everything.

“Please,” Lukas begged. “Spare her.”

“That’s not my decision to make,” the Graf said evenly as he sank the dagger deep. Into the breast of Magnus. He pulled it out as the King’s brother slumped to the floor. “It’s yours,” he said then, handing the hilt to Lukas, and kneeling in front of him.

By the laws of man, Lukas had every right, every obligation to have his head. He rested the dagger on the Graf’s shoulder, the point pushing against his neck. But Lukas knew something about betrayal. He lifted the blade suddenly and placed it against his other shoulder, making him a knight. “Lead my troops to Littenweiler and take back what that bastard stole from me…and more.”

He threw the knife to the floor, and went to his brother. There was nothing that could be done for him, but forgive him.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Margareta of Falkenberg put a restraining hand on her husband’s arm and pulled him back into the plush feather bed.

“I have a Kingdom to govern,” he protested.

“You have ribs to heal.”

“You can’t force me to stay in bed.”

“I don’t think I need to use force, but I will if I have to.” She straddled him on all fours, mindful that even her delicate weight could hurt his broken bones. Their naked bodies barely touched.

His face was a map of hurts and her fingertips traveled the rough ridges of lacerations that were slowly healing. His lips were swollen. She kissed them carefully, until the heat she felt in his mouth spread through her body. The pressure that was building at her center was pushing outwards, pushing her into him.

He groaned in pain.

“Am I hurting you?”

“Yes.”

She raised herself up.

“I didn’t say stop,” Lukas said as his strong arms restrained her. Then he was pulling her to him, building that delicious pressure inside her so he could break it. This time the groans that echoed against the King’s chambers were hers.

Chapter Thirty

In the palace garden, fall had tinged the leaves with crimson. It had been a bloody year, but stability was returning to the Kingdom.

“Have you noticed anything different about me?” Greta asked her husband as she stood from the table underneath the trellis of grapevines and stretched. Lukas picked a fresh pear from the bowl on the table and tossed it to her. She caught it.

“I’ve noticed you see more than you let on,” he said.

“And you see less than you can,” she snapped.

He laughed. How he loved to tease her. How he loved her. “Come to me!”

When she was resting on his lap, he ran his hands over her breasts, and let them come to rest on her stomach. “I’ve noticed you haven’t been fasting,” he said as he kissed her ear.

“I’m not fat!”

“I know. You’re with child.”

“How did you know?”

“Maybe I see more than you think. So tell me, Seer, will it be a boy or a girl?”

“You know I can’t see the future!” she laughed as she kissed him back.

Neither could he, but he could well imagine it.

--End--

Dedicated to:

My family

My friends

My community

You know who you are.

You’ve made me what I am.

This was a group effort.

For an irreverent look at writing romance, check out my blog:

http://dime-store-cowgrrl.blogspot.com/

Credits:

Editing by Suzanne Stewart

Cover Design by Amy Lynch
http://www.wix.com/amykathryn/pencil-me-in
http://www.pensandneedles-by-amy.blogspot.com

Cover Photo by Craig A. Wactor

Inspiration from Freiburg, Germany, and the surrounding Black Forest: http://www.freiburg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1140679_l2/index.html

Copyright © 2011 by J. S. Laurenz
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, February 2011

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Certain areas or events may have been used as a basis for some of the work, but they are not meant to conform 100% to history.