Authors: Donna Lea Simpson
“Yes, we are…”
Frau Liebner’s comment was interrupted as the carriage jerked and skidded sideways, the lamp spilling oil as the wick went out and the body of the carriage creaking with an ominous shudder as it came to a halt at an angle. Frau Liebner shouted a guttural expletive in the sudden blackness, and the door popped open at that moment, the faulty latch Elizabeth had noticed earlier giving way.
“I’ll find out what’s wrong,” Elizabeth cried and crept from the relative darkness of the carriage to the moonlit road.
The vehicle shuddered and creaked as the team of horses kicked and pawed in their traces and the driver shouted at them in unintelligible German. The carriage tilted precariously, having slid too close to the embankment that edged the road.
“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth shouted, staggering sideways on the slippery hump of frozen snow and mud. “What happened?”
She attempted to regain her footing, but the driver ignored her as he tried to bring his team into control. The horses were wild, stamping and bellowing, rolling their eyes, steam puffing from their nostrils. Elizabeth, who had been trying to approach the driver, was forced back by fear of the giant beasts, and as she stepped back she slipped and fell, her skirts and cloak wrapping securely around her legs until she was bound as tightly as a babe in swaddling clothes.
As if she were separated from her body, she could hear her own voice whimpering in fear, and the snort and whinny of the horses. Peril, as close as the slashing hooves of the horses, loomed above her and she rolled out of the way, crusty ice tearing at her gloved hands. But then she saw, crossing the road in front of the pawing horses, a woman, as slim and little as a young girl but most definitely an adult woman. Silvery hair unbound and streaming, her body naked, gleaming pale in the moonlight like a ghost, she bounded down the embankment and raced into the dark woods on the other side.
Elizabeth only had the chance for a brief glimpse of the spectral vision before a horseman on a black steed, his cloak billowing and a hood concealing his face, galloped across the snow-coated road. She struggled to right herself as he skidded down the other side and crashed into the woods after the woman.
“Help her!” Elizabeth screamed, unwinding her skirt and struggling to her feet. “Help that poor woman,” she cried again, striding to the side of the carriage near the driver, who was finally succeeding in getting his team under control.
He glared at her with dark eyes, his pouchy face a mask of incomprehension.
“Help her!” Elizabeth shrieked, pointing into the forest, but he just stared at her and then shouted a string of unintelligible syllables. “Oh, for pity’s sake
I’ll
do it, then.” She found the path in the moonlight and crunched down the embankment, her feet breaking through the crust of icy snow. Her bonnet obscured her view, and she pushed it back impatiently.
“Elizabeth!”
She turned and gazed up the hill; Frau Liebner sat in the doorway of the carriage, moonlight illuminating her pale face in stark contrast to the gaping maw of the dim vehicle.
“I have to go,” Elizabeth cried, pointing into the forest. “There’s a woman, a girl… she seems to be in trouble…” It was useless to try to shout out the case from such a distance, and she gave a cry of exasperation and turned and stared back into the woods; could she see movement in the black depths? Or was it her imagination?
Hands grasped her from behind and she gasped, struggling as the driver tried to haul her back up the hill toward the carriage.
“No,” she shouted, twisting away from him. “No, there is a woman…
eine frau ist in die
…
oh, what is the word for forest?” she cried out in frustration, speaking to herself, for there was no one else to understand. “How do I say she needs help?”
Her world abruptly turned upside down as the stolid driver hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her toward the hill.
“No!” she yelled and twisted in his grasp. “Let me go!”
But he was strong and determined and urged on by Frau Liebner, who sat in the doorway of the carriage screeching commands in German. As much as Elizabeth struggled, she could not break free until he had scaled the embankment and deposited her at Frau Liebner’s feet.
Elizabeth, gasping and out of breath from her ordeal, rose and dusted the snow off her dress hem as best she could and with what dignity she could muster. “What was the meaning…”
“Do not
ever
go into the forest alone!” Frau Liebner said. She had her ebony cane, the knob a silver wolf’s head, and she banged it on the ground for emphasis with each word. “Never!”
Shaken, Elizabeth gazed at her friend as she peeled her saturated and torn gloves off her cold, scraped hands. “You don’t understand. I saw a woman running across the road and a man on a horse behind her, chasing her. She may be in danger, and I wanted—”
“If what you say is true,” Frau Liebner interrupted, glaring up at her, “what could you do to a man on horseback?”
“It’s true, I saw her!” Elizabeth cried, latching on to the doubt in Frau Liebner’s remark. “Do you think I’m fabricating this? She was… she was… running.” She turned back to gaze at the fringe of deep green conifers at the bottom of the steep decline and gesticulated, trying to illustrate, frustrated by Frau Liebner’s lack of action. “The horseman, he was mounted on a black steed and had a cloak on, and he rode down the side of the embankment into the forest,”
she said, pointing to the trail left in the pristine snow, “and galloped into the woods after her.”
“And what would you do if you were so fortunate as to find them in the dark of the forest? It is likely a matter between husband and wife, and so not our affair.”
“But—”
“No!” Frau Liebner held up one hand. The driver stood to one side and watched their exchange. When Frau Liebner spoke to him again, waving her cane, he nodded and mounted the driver’s seat. “Help me get in, Elizabeth. I have hurt my head and need your aid.”
“But that poor woman, she wasn’t even properly dressed—she’ll freeze to death.”
“We cannot help her,” she said.
Her tone was grim, and Elizabeth stared at her, the wrinkles on the woman’s face pronounced in the moonlight, shadows concealing her eyes. Clouds had gathered around the moon like a shawl drawn around a dowager, but instead of concealing the moon they radiated a clearer light, casting a more even, diffused glow. By that blue-white light Elizabeth could see that there was indeed a trickle of blood on her friend’s forehead; she tossed her spoiled gloves into the carriage and drew a kerchief out of the small purse she had tied to her waist. She dabbed at the wound, stanching the flow.
“I don’t understand,” she said in a low tone, shivering with the cold. “How can we ignore what just happened? That woman clearly needed our help.”
Frau Liebner pulled herself to her feet and began to climb back into the carriage, grunting with the effort. “Help me, Elizabeth!”
Elizabeth offered her arm, and they managed to get back into the black interior of the carriage, the faint smell of lamp oil all around them. No sooner were they settled—the faulty door latched as securely as possible—when the team started and the carriage bumped and jounced, eventually finding the rutted path on the highway again and moving on.
“I don’t understand,” Elizabeth repeated, unable to leave the subject alone. She tried to right her bonnet as best she could, tying it under her chin again and tucking in a stray wisp of hair.
“Why can’t we help that poor woman? Who knows what that man intends? Who knows—”
“Enough, Elizabeth.” Frau Liebner’s tone was weary. “I have heard enough. I would ask that you not mention this when we arrive at the castle, please. If I feel it is necessary, I will tell of what you saw.”
In silence they moved on through the night; Elizabeth no longer gazed out the window but let the darkness of the carriage envelop her. Her subordinate position had never irked her more than at that moment, when she truly felt how helpless she was to do what she wanted, what she felt was right. Would she ever learn not to strain at the traces? Her fate was to do others’
bidding, but how hard a fate it seemed when one had an independent spirit.
“Elizabeth,” Frau Liebner said. “You are beginning a new life here. Do not begin it badly. Do not make trouble for yourself.”
“I won’t,” Elizabeth said and was surprised to feel Frau Liebner’s gloved hand take hers in the dark. “I won’t,” she repeated, warmed by the old woman’s concern. “I promise.”
“I would not have you make an unfavorable impression on my nephew. Things at the castle are not always easy. There are many personalities, many people, and some may not have your best interest at heart. I have been away many years, but this I know. Be wary.”
With that warning ringing in her ears, Elizabeth settled herself, as hard as it was, to forget the slender, pale figure and her pursuer. There was truly nothing more she could do without the cooperation of Frau Liebner and the driver. It infuriated her and she worried about the woman who would surely freeze to death in hours if she was not helped, but there was not another thing she could do.
The carriage made a final turn and Wolfram Castle came into view, an imposing structure of stone and wood, with two wings stretching back from a central tower. It hugged a flat outcropping on the hillside like a giant predatory bird ready to take flight into the moonlit sky.
Elizabeth shuddered and Frau Liebner squeezed her hand.
“I will not desert you, child. This I promise. Always, you can rely on me.”
What should have been a comforting reassurance left Elizabeth feeling uneasy. But as they drew close to the porte cochere, and the brooding entirety of Wolfram Castle was not before her, replaced as it was by the view of an open door and lamplight streaming out yellow into the night, her worries eased.
I am not faint of heart, I am strong, brave, and have survived much in my life. This will be no
exception
, Elizabeth promised herself.
I am not a child, but a woman of intelligence
. She would try to find a way to get help to the woman in the forest, if it was at all possible. But it might not be possible, and she would have to accept that fact.
With the aid of a liveried footman, she descended from the carriage and stood by while two others helped Frau Liebner step out. The elderly woman leaned on her cane and gazed up at the structure, murmuring something in German; she then held out her arm to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth took her friend’s arm, but as she began toward the steps up into the castle, a sound in the distance made her skin raise in bumps and the hair at the nape of her neck bristle. She looked over her shoulder. Somewhere in the nearby woods a wolf howled, and even the stolid footman cast a fearful glance into the dark edge of the forest.
“Never mind that,” Frau Liebner commanded. “Let us go in together.”
They started up the steps, Elizabeth suppressing the urge to accelerate her pace. She would not look foolish, nor superstitious; she was neither and wouldn’t give in to mere nerves. At that moment, from the great hall, a woman stepped out onto the landing at the top of the steps.
“Tante Katrina,” she called out, as Elizabeth and Frau Liebner ascended.
Frau Liebner advanced on the other woman, a slim lady of perhaps forty years with a coiled braid of silvery blond hair worn high on her head. “Adele, how many years it has been?” she said, speaking in her flawless, but accented English. “And still you are slim as a girl.”
“Ah, how good that you have come home,” Gräfin Adele von Wolfram replied, she too using English.
Elizabeth expected that a familial greeting would follow and the two would embrace, but instead they shook hands, as strangers would on first meeting.
“And this is Miss Elizabeth Stanwycke,” Frau Liebner said, drawing Elizabeth forward with a hand at her elbow.
“Welcome, Miss Stanwycke, to Wolfram Castle.” She inclined her head, her only form of greeting.
Elizabeth curtseyed but was at a loss for words.
“But your head, Tante Katrina!” the woman exclaimed, reaching out but not quite touching the wound. “What has happened?”
Though Frau Liebner’s cut had stopped bleeding, the mark was still evident on her pale forehead. “It is nothing, Adele, nothing. Please do not mention it again.”
Gräfin von Wolfram inclined her head once more, in answer, and then said, “What am I thinking, keeping you standing out here on this cold night? Come in, come in!” She turned and led the way into the great hall. “I trust,” she said over her shoulder, “that you had a good journey. The roads are better than they were just a week ago when we had an unexpected thaw.”
“You would trust wrongly, Adele,” Frau Liebner said. “The roads are terrible! What is Nikolas thinking, not to send out some men to make them better?”
“Nikolas has other concerns,” the other woman retorted, her tone sharp.
Elizabeth halted, awed by the cavernous great hall that the Gräfin led them into. Vaulted ceilings soared fifty, or maybe even sixty, feet receding into dimness; gothic arched windows lined the front, the brilliant moon glistening through, making them silver. Along the side of the hall opposite the wall of windows, stone pillars supported an upper gallery, and blood red pennants on posts mounted on the pillars fluttered in the breeze from the open door.
Flambeaux lit the chamber, the wavering flames casting ghost shadows across the floors and walls; liveried servants scuttled back and forth, their footsteps echoing.
Though she had been in great houses in England, never had Elizabeth seen anything like this, and she felt as though she had been transported back in time to medieval days. Any moment a knight in armor would stride into the hall claiming it in his own name. When she stopped gaping, Elizabeth met her new acquaintance’s gray eyes and unsmiling expression. With all that had gone on, she felt raw and preternaturally aware of everything, every nuance, every voice, every gesture.
The Gräfin, though welcoming, appeared distracted. “
Willkommen
,” she said, opening her arms wide and gesturing to the hall. “Welcome to Wolfram Castle. I hope you will be happy here, Miss Stanwycke. My brother is otherwise occupied at the moment, but I will see to your comfort.”