“Yes, Michael.” Anna shrank away from him, her shoulders and head bowed. “I’m sorry.”
He made a scornful sound in the back of his throat and turned away from her. He stalked to the bag he had brought inside and took out a piece of rope. Then he came toward Kirstyn. Without looking her in the eye, he took her arm and tied the new piece of rope to the rope that bound her wrists. Then he tied the other end to a large timber supporting the roof.
Without a word he stalked through a doorway at the back, presumably to another room in the small house.
Kirstyn’s heart was still beating extra fast after the fit of rage she had witnessed. Anna sat on the floor, her arms wrapped around herself, as she stared at the doorway where Michael had disappeared.
“Where has he gone?” Kirstyn whispered.
Anna’s expression was sullen. She did not look at Kirstyn. “To sleep.”
Kirstyn eyed the knife on the floor where Michael had left it. Then she checked the rope that tethered her. It was not long enough, only about two feet long. The knife must be at least six feet away.
She couldn’t bear the thought that this man wanted to use her to hurt Aladdin. She wouldn’t let him do it. Might she be able to pull the timber up out of the ground? Or maybe she would not have to. Maybe Anna would help her and they could escape together.
“He is a frightening man,” Kirstyn whispered. “A very bad temper. Does he beat you?” She had heard of such relationships before.
“He is only upset just now. His partner stole the money your father paid for your ransom. But he would not wish for me to talk to you.”
“Anna, please. You don’t have to be with someone like him. If you help me escape, I promise you won’t be punished. Come back with me to Hagenheim. This man will only hurt you.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at Kirstyn and pierced her with a steely glare. “You, with your perfect life and perfect family, the daughter of a duke.” Anna’s voice was raspy and quiet. “You have nothing to offer me. Michael is the only person who has ever loved me. He may not be as perfect as everyone you know, not like your father and your brothers and your perfect Aladdin. But I know Michael will take care of me, and he’s the man I want. I love him. You don’t understand him as I do.”
Kirstyn’s thoughts were spinning. What sort of madness was this?
“No, I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything except that I have been attacked and taken against my will, held for ransom by this man.” How could Anna claim to love such a vile person? Kirstyn had always thought Anna a sweet girl. Her mother had hired her to serve at the castle even though she rarely hired anyone that young, but she had done it because Anna’s pleas had softened her.
Anna turned away.
Surely if Kirstyn kept talking to her, Anna would see the truth of her situation. Surely she couldn’t be so heartless as not to help her. But Kirstyn’s words would have to be wise.
Aladdin found Herr Kaufmann looking over the ledgers when he stepped into the warehouse office.
“Aladdin!” Herr Kaufmann’s smile was wider than usual. “Come and sit with me.”
Aladdin sat, his mind running to the tasks he had planned for the rest of the day. But he focused on Herr Kaufmann’s pleasant face—his rosy cheeks, broad forehead, large nose, and long chin. A little wrinkled from his sixty years of life, but it was one of the dearest faces he had ever known.
“Aladdin, my son.” He leaned closer, looking intently into Aladdin’s eyes. “Since you have been working with me, profits have doubled. The salt pans you encouraged me to purchase will bring in great wealth for the rest of our lives, and with very little effort of our own. We have added ships and workers, yet still our profits rise. The men all love you, and I happen to know the women who run our stalls and shops all plot to have you marry their daughters. You don’t cheat anyone. Your integrity is well known.”
Aladdin shifted uncomfortably.
“My point is that you are set to be the wealthiest man in Lüneburg when I am gone. How many orphans can say that? But you do not look pleased. Is something wrong?”
“I am quite pleased. It’s everything I dreamed and hoped for, but it is not only due to my efforts. You are the reason for my standing, and I do not enjoy hearing you speak of when you’ll be gone.”
Herr Kaufmann patted his arm. “So kind of you to say that, and I trust your sincerity.” He sat up straighter. “That is all. I wanted to make certain you understand that you have made your fortune. Your future is secure. Now that it’s summer and the weather is warm, I thought you might wish to start planning your trip to Hagenheim to ask a certain duke if you might marry his daughter.”
Aladdin’s heart quickened and he cleared his throat. “What makes you say such a thing?”
“Come now. After the way I have heard you speak of Lady Kirstyn? It is clear you think very highly of her. You’ve said you were dear friends, and you write to her more often than to anyone else.”
The thought of going to Duke Wilhelm and declaring that he loved Kirstyn and wished to bring her back to Lüneburg with him made him lose his breath. But he did love her, and it would feel wonderful to be able to admit it.
Was his impossible dream of marrying Kirstyn actually possible now?
However . . . his last two letters to Kirstyn had gone unanswered. She might have forgotten him, or perhaps she was planning to marry someone else. He swallowed past the lump in his throat.
“Perhaps I will consider it,” he said. “Thank you . . . for everything.”
Herr Kaufmann’s smile was gentle. “Live your life and be glad, my boy.”
Two days later Aladdin had made a list of what he would take with him on his journey to Hagenheim. Already he had arranged which servants and guards to take with him. He had to go and see her for himself, to see if she had forgotten him. And perhaps, if she seemed as favorable to him as she had on the day he had left . . . he would ask her to marry him. He would pledge his love to her, and if she said yes, he would without a doubt be the happiest man in the Holy Roman Empire.
These were the kind of thoughts that raced through his mind on his long walks in the evenings. His mind couldn’t seem to rest. To think that Kirstyn might love him, might actually marry him, and that they might start a family together. It was almost too much. But then his mind would go to the possibility that she did not love him and would not be pleased to hear his proposal of marriage. So he walked.
The next day he and Herr Kaufmann were on their way home for the midday meal when someone called their names. They both looked ahead and saw Herr Kaufmann’s servant Otto running toward them. He stopped and spoke between breaths.
“Master Kaufmann. Aladdin. Duke Wilhelm is come. He wishes to speak with Aladdin.”
“Duke Wilhelm? Here in Lüneburg?” Herr Kaufmann stared with his brows raised.
“Yes. He was at the house when I left just now.”
No one spoke for a moment. Finally Herr Kaufmann said, “Let us go and see what he wants with you.”
Aladdin outstripped Herr Kaufmann’s slow pace as he nearly ran all the way. Sir Sigmund and Sir Conrad stood outside the front door, and they nodded to Aladdin. But the grim expressions on the knights’ faces kept Aladdin from returning their greeting. His heart thudded in his ears as he went inside.
Duke Wilhelm stood in the middle of the room. He strode toward Aladdin and embraced him. He remained with his arms around Aladdin for a length of time that could only mean that he was fighting emotion. When he let go and stepped back, tears were swimming in his eyes.
Aladdin’s stomach sank to his toes while blood drained from his head, making him dizzy. “What has happened? Not Kirstyn.”
Duke Wilhelm’s lips parted, and his whole body looked weighed down. But he reached out and took hold of Aladdin’s shoulder. “She was kidnapped.”
“Wh-when?” His breath shallowed.
“Two and a half months ago.”
How could this have happened? How could he hav
e not felt in his spirit that she was in danger? Then he remembered the day he’d seen the stork and had gone into the church to pray.
“How?” He became aware that both he and Duke Wilhelm were sitting, facing each other. The duke had not shaved for some time. His head and shoulders were stooped, as if he had grown old in the ten months since Aladdin had seen him.
“We believe one of our servants, a young girl from the orphanage named Anna, was helping the kidnappers. There were two of them. They . . . they snatched her from the Marktplatz during the May Day celebration.”
Pain twisted like a knife in Aladdin’s chest.
“I received a ransom note. My men and I brought the ransom as instructed, but only one of the kidnappers, a man named Rutgher, was at the meeting place. He did not bring Kirstyn with him. He took the money and ran. We tracked him for several weeks, but he never led us to Kirstyn. We captured him, and he is now in the dungeon at Hagenheim Castle. We think Rutgher tricked his partner, a man named Michael. He took all the money for himself, and when Michael realized it, he took Kirstyn, and . . . no one knows where they have gone. We have been looking for her, but . . .” He shook his head.
The pain never left Aladdin’s chest, but gradually his thinking became clear.
Kirstyn was in danger.
“What can I do? Surely I can help you find her. There must be some way to track them.”
“Only a few days after she was taken, we found her scarf in an abandoned house in the woods, and there was blood on it. We think . . . we think he may have killed her.” His voice was raspy.
“But you don’t know that. You don’t know. Perhaps . . . perhaps it was someone else, someone else’s blood.” She couldn’t be dead. He would have felt it in his spirit if she had died. “She is not dead. You must keep looking.”
“We have searched every place we know of. We have turned up no other sign of her. No one has seen her. It’s as if she disappeared—she and Anna and the kidnapper. But Rutgher recently revealed that Michael was born in Lüneburg. We thought perhaps he had come here.”
“I shall organize a search.” Aladdin stood up, blood surging through his limbs. “If she is in Lüneburg, I shall find her.”
Hope seemed to bloom in Duke Wilhelm’s expression. “You know a lot of people in Lüneburg, then?”
“Herr Kaufmann and I know nearly everyone in town. And those we do not know shall help us as well.”
“My knights and I shall follow your lead.”
Aladdin and Herr Kaufmann spread the word among their guards that they were searching for a man of rather short stature named Michael, with a scar on his forehead and in the company of two women. They gave a description of both Anna and Kirstyn and offered a substantial reward to whomever might find them.
Aladdin organized the search, assigning men to every section of town. He even instructed them to offer bribes for any information that would lead them to Kirstyn. When the men began coming in with various leads, he sent them off to whatever town or village the information might guide them to. And he himself listened to every lead that came in, often staying up very late at night and rising very early.
After a few weeks, Aladdin gazed down at his ledger while Duke Wilhelm sat wearily on a bench in the dining hall.
“There are still a few men who have not reported in,” Aladdin said. “The two guards who went to Hamburg returned last night to report that the Michael there is not the right one. But the knight we sent to Osnabruck has not had time to return, and we’re still waiting to hear from the knights we sent to Bremen and Braunschweig.”
Duke Wilhelm rubbed his hand over his eyes and down his cheek. “I don’t want to stop looking.” His voice was gruff. “But we have looked and looked and . . . we’re running out of leads. I don’t know where else we could search . . . what else to do.”
O God, please help us. When her father, the powerful Duke of Hagenheim, could not find her, what hope was there? And yet something inside him just did not believe she could be dead. His heart could still feel her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kirstyn put one foot in front of the other, her mind numb and her body sore. They’d been walking in the dark for hours.
It had been weeks, she wasn’t sure how many, since she had been taken from the Marktplatz in Hagenheim. When they traveled at night, Kirstyn was allowed to walk. When they traveled in the daytime, she was forced to lie under the tarp in the horse-drawn cart. And every minute Kirstyn was searching for a way to escape. She had tried many times, but Michael always hauled her back before she could get far enough away to hide, before she could find someone to help her.
Finally, when dawn was breaking, Michael found a place in the woods for them to stop. They forced Kirstyn to help them drag their pallet from the cart to a sheltered spot among the trees. Then Michael tossed Kirstyn two thin, torn, moth-eaten blankets—one to lie on and one to keep her warm. He took the rope tied to her wrist and tied the other end to the cart.
Exhausted as she was, Kirstyn lay awake, waiting for Michael and Anna to fall asleep. The rope around her wrist had become loose over the last two days. She held her hand with the fingers compressed, her thumb against her palm, and worked at the rope.
Her wrist was nearly always bloody, having to endure the almost-constant pull of the rope. Now it was a series of scars and scabs. As she pushed the rope over her hand, she dislodged a scab, causing a dribble of blood on her arm. She smeared the blood over the skin on the back of her hand to help the rope slide. After a few more moments, the rope slipped off.
Kirstyn lay still, listening. Were Michael and Anna asleep? She couldn’t see their faces from where she was lying, and she didn’t hear anything. God, please let them be asleep.
Kirstyn stood and crept around the cart, trying to make as little noise as possible as she stepped on the dried leaves and sticks on the ground. She kept the cart between her and her captors and hurried toward the road they had just left.
The sun was nearly up, spreading its light on the world and leading her toward the opening ahead. When she emerged from the trees, she ran on the hard-packed, rutted road. All she had to do was find people who would help her.
Soon her steps slowed as her breathing grew labored. She was too tired to run very far.
She must have been walking for at least an hour, weary but buoyed by the hope that she was finally free. She couldn’t let herself think about her mother and father, who must be searching and worried. Nor could she let herself dwell on Aladdin or wonder if she’d ever see him again. Did he think about her as much as she thought about him? His face was embedded in her memory, but it had grown fuzzy over the past year since she’d said good-bye to him.
No, she couldn’t think of Aladdin now. She had to focus on finding safety and shelter. Perhaps there was a village just ahead.
A horse’s hooves sounded on the road behind her. Surely this was someone who would help her. Someone with a horse riding that quickly must be either a knight—possibly even one of her father’s knights!—or someone who lived nearby who would take her in, hide her, and help her get back to Hagenheim.
She moved to the side of the road as the rider came into view.
No. Her heart sank. Michael.
She jumped from the road and fled into the trees. The horse crashed through the brush behind her, getting closer. She doubled back, darting between trees and under limbs. Her only hope was if someone were to come along the road now, at this moment.
She ran back onto the road just as Michael reached her. He leapt from the horse’s back and yanked her arm, and she fell back, her hip striking the ground so hard it jarred her teeth together. She jumped to her feet, but Michael held on and jerked her into his bony chest.
She screamed, squeezing her eyes closed. Michael clamped his hand over her mouth. She found herself staring into his beady black eyes.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll smother you right now, sell your hair and clothes, and leave you to rot.”
He took the horse’s bridle in one hand, grabbed a handful of Kirstyn’s hair in his other hand, and led them both off the road into the trees.
As they walked back, Kirstyn heard someone coming on the road. She opened her mouth and cried, “Hel—”
Michael clamped his hand over her mouth until the person had passed, all the while cursing and threatening her under his breath.
By the time they had gotten back to where the cart and Anna were in the woods, Kirstyn’s neck was hurting from all the times Michael had yanked her hair.
Anna rose from her pallet and approached them. Her eye was blackened and the abrasion on her cheekbone red. Michael must have punished Anna for Kirstyn’s escape.
Anna shot a sullen glance at Michael, then Kirstyn, before saying, “So you beat me but not her? She’s the one who ran away, not me. What kind of love is this? You’re a liar.”
He closed the distance between himself and Anna, dragging Kirstyn behind him. “So I’m a liar? Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it? You ungrateful little . . . All you do is complain. Who else is going to put up with you? Without me you have nothing and nobody. If I have to listen to your griping and accusations for one more day . . . You deserve to be beaten.” He raised his hand and Anna flinched, jerking away from him.
“I hate you,” she rasped. “I was better off at the orphanage. I’m leaving.” As she picked up her clothing and stuffed it into a cloth bag, she started sobbing. But she kept stuffing things in the bag.
Michael stood and watched her. Then he stepped toward her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.”
Anna stopped but kept her back to him. She continued to sob but more softly now. He came around in front of Anna, still holding Kirstyn’s arm.
“You know I can’t hit her. I’m hoping to get a lot of money for her, and I won’t get as much if I beat her like she deserves. Don’t leave me, Anna. I need you. After what Rutgher did to me, stabbing me in the back and taking all the ransom money . . . I’d planned to use that ransom to take care of you. What will I do without you? Nobody understands me the way you do.” He caressed the back of her neck.