Once we reach Koblenz, we turn south, going against the current, which takes considerably more effort than I would like. But the Rhine is even more crowded than the Moselle, which works to our advantage. We are one small boat among dozens of others, slipping through the shadows of the larger ships. No one bothers to question us. When we pay the tolls at towns to continue down the river, the Catholics assume we’re Protestants, and the Protestants assume we’re Catholics, and neither bothers to ask as soon as my gold is in their palm.
Some nights, I pull the boat out of the river, and we make a campsite under the trees, stretching our legs and walking while we have the luxury. When it snows, we flip the boat and use it as a roof to protect us, curling together for warmth. Even without a fire, Liesel’s natural warmth is enough to keep us all comfortable. Liesel may have hated me for the black cloak I wore when she first saw me, but she’s warmed up to my presence. She only threatens to murder me in my sleep a few times a night, a marked improvement in our relationship.
Castles speckle the cliffs that rise on either side of the river. Some are monstrously huge; others are tiny, each one owned by a prince or a noble clutching at land. Most of the castles are so close together that, were we to stand on the parapet of one, we could see the next. These men are made rich from the vineyards the Romans built and the tolls their soldiers collect along the river, and they use those funds to squabble amongst each other.
One night, we make camp near a sheer cliff made of pale rock, dividing up my stores. I’ll need to replenish supplies soon, but even Liesel can see the way my shoulders are more relaxed than they’ve been since we started rowing.
“What are you so happy about?” she grumbles. We’re down to the hardest strands of jerky, so inedible that we have to soften it with water from the river before our teeth can tear through the dried meat.
“See that castle?” I point to the nearest one. “It belongs to the Count of Katzenelnbogen.”
Fritzi and Liesel glance at each other and shrug, not grasping my meaning.
“It’s the Cat Castle,” I say, using the more commonly known nickname. “Protestant sympathizers. The one we passed earlier, though, the little gray rock castle? That was the Mouse Castle.” Silly names, but easy to remember at least. “The Mouse is allied with Trier. But the Cat is not.”
“Oh,” Fritzi breathes, gathering my meaning. “We’re outside the archbishop’s influence now.”
“Every day we row from now on, all the way to the Black Forest, we’re pulling farther and farther from his reach.”
Liesel hums a little tune to herself, about the katze that catches the maus.
But Fritzi doesn’t seem to share my relief. “Dieter’s not Catholic or Protestant, Otto,” she reminds me. “He doesn’t care about the principalities or the borders. You’re thinking like a man, not a witch.”
I scowl at the little campfire we’d dared to make to warm ourselves and our food. I had wanted to make them feel safer.
But nowhere is safe. Not with Dieter following us.
The farther south we go, the flatter the landscape becomes. Fog clings to the shore, weaving around the trees that are barren of leaves but still speckled with mistletoe, bright green balls clinging to the spidery branches. Towns give way to villages, small clusters of homes that puff smoke from their chimneys into the already gray sky. We go whole days seeing nothing but fog.
Although the land near the river is still fairly flat, we start to see mountains in the distance, the dark green of the forest. We passed Speyer, and then the river bent farther south. “That’s probably France,” I say, pointing to the right side of the river. “If we go much farther, we’ll hit Switzerland.”
Liesel and Fritzi exchange a glance. We all knew that the river couldn’t take us directly to where we wanted to be, but the boat has been a safe haven, a liminal place where time and danger seemed to be behind us.
“Do we know where in the Black Forest to go?” I press, glancing at Liesel. The forest is huge and mountainous; I don’t know of anyone who’s trekked through all its depths, not even the Romans, who notoriously feared the dark shadows of the impenetrable trees.
Liesel looks down at her hands. “I think this is right,” she says.
Which is the best answer any of us has. I dock the boat when the river bends, and we all get off. Fritzi reaches for one of the two satchels, but I grab it first, shouldering both. She glares at me, but when I give her a wink in return, a red stain creeps over her cheeks. I know exactly what I’m doing, and the fact that she has anything but disdain for a man like me… I’ll do whatever I can to make her blush like that.
“What do we do with the boat?” Liesel asks.
“I wish we could sell it.” There’s no one around, though, and even if there were, selling it may draw too much attention to us. My coin purse is almost empty after so much time on the water. I wonder what day it is—surely not the new year yet? I heft the bags on my shoulder again; they’re far lighter than before. “We need supplies.”
“We’ll come across a town before we reach the forest.” Fritzi’s voice is full of confidence, and Liesel accepts her words easily, but there’s a flash of worry in her gaze. We may have to live off the land, a hard thing to do in a bitter winter.
Liesel trots ahead, but I grab Fritzi’s hand, rubbing my thumb across her knuckles. “We will get more supplies,” I tell her. I will protect you both. I cannot put the full meaning of what I want to say into words, but she seems to read the promise in my eyes. Her shoulders relax a little, and together, the three of us venture from the shore into the hills.
About an hour of walking brings us to a cottage, built along a branch. There’s evidence that the land was once used as a mill, an old, broken wheel still partly in the water, but the building is falling to ruins.
“We’re probably close to a town,” I say. I’m about to suggest that we stop and shelter from the cold in the mill house, but as I think the thought, the door opens. It isn’t abandoned after all.
“Aye!” an old woman calls, stepping out. “What are you doing here?”
I hold my hands up, palms open, to show that we mean no harm. “Just passing through.”
Her eyes slide from me to Fritzi, then Liesel. Despite our ages, it’s clear that she guesses that Fritzi and I are wed, and Liesel is our daughter. Still, we are strangers, and the one prevailing rule of the land is to not trust someone you don’t know. It doesn’t matter that we are all German; we don’t belong.
Liesel pushes her way in front of me. “Please, Oma,” she says in a pathetically small voice. “I’m so hungry.”
“Liesel!” Fritzi hisses. We’re far enough away that the old woman can’t hear her.
“What?” Liesel whispers back. “We are hungry. And I’m tired.”
I can see the old woman’s resolve melt under Liesel’s pleading gaze. That child has more venom than an asp in her veins, but God gave her shining blond hair and big blue eyes and the perfect pout on her lip to make the Holy Roman Emperor himself give her a castle just for asking.
“Come in, come in,” the old woman says, gesturing for us to enter her cottage. She has porridge bubbling in the cauldron over her hearth and bottles of beer set on the table—wares she likely intends to sell in a nearby town. She scoops out a bowl of thin porridge for Fritzi and Liesel, but waits until I press a coin in her hand before she gives one to me. Apparently my silver is enough for beer as well, and the old woman pushes a bottle at each of us. I give her another coin, and she wraps up some bread and cheese in a cloth for us to take with us, pushing more bottles of beer toward me. I stow the goods in my satchel, grateful for the weight.
The day’s work is not done, and my heart aches at seeing the work surrounding her, mostly mending and spinning. She’s taking in extra work from town, not sewing for her own family. If I had to guess, this is a widow who is trying to find the means to survive alone. She took a larger risk than most would by offering us food. I offer to bring the woman another load of wood from outside so that she doesn’t have to venture into the cold and lug it in herself.
By the time I come back, the old woman is sitting at the table and chatting merrily with Liesel as Fritzi looks fondly on.
“Tell me a story,” Liesel demands sweetly.
I meet Fritzi’s eyes, shooting her a look that says, We need to go.
Fritzi gives me a helpless half-shrug. Who can deny Liesel anything?
“I saw a White Lady once,” the old woman says, as if she had been waiting for Liesel to ask for just such a tale. “It was a summer day, and she had hair so long that it reached all the way into the river. When the sun shone brightest, it made her hair look like gold.”
“Was she a nixie, Oma?” Liesel asks.
The old woman laughs, clearly pleased at the way Liesel calls her “grandmother.” “A water sprite? No, no. Have you not heard the tale of a White Lady before?”
“She means Holda,” Fritzi says gently.
“Holda?” the old lady scoffs. Her fingers slide over the rough wood of her table, idly drawing in the dust and grime. “You worship the old gods, then?”
Something flickers in Liesel’s face, disappointment, I think. The legend of the White Ladies is a story known throughout the Holy Roman Empire, but from the way Fritzi spoke, I think perhaps the story is more than just a fairy tale. It has roots in magic and goddesses that Fritzi and Liesel know. What is a folktale to me is history to Fritzi and Liesel. How many legends have been told about spirits and miracles, all to have their root in some real event?
“We should go,” I say loudly, bending down and picking up the satchels. Fritzi and Liesel stand immediately, but the old woman stays sitting, her finger still making an outline in some pattern on the table. “Thank you for the hospitality,” I start, my hand on the door.
And then I pause.
The old woman watches us, but her finger glides over the rough table with purpose. Fritzi, Liesel, and I all stare at the word she etches through the grime, the letters visible:
FRITZICHEN.
“Oma,” Liesel says in a tiny voice, “do you know how to read and write?”
The peasant woman laughs. “Of course not, child,” she says, an easy smile on her face. But her finger traces over the letters, again and again. It’s as if her hand is possessed, separate from the rest of her body. She’s looking right at us, not at the letters, and she seems unaware of what she’s doing.
Fritzi sucks in a gasp of horror when the woman’s pale white skin snags on a rough spot in the wood. With an audible snap, the splinter breaks off in the woman’s fingertip, blood smearing over the letters. Despite the obvious pain that such a rough splinter must cause, the old woman doesn’t even flinch, her face showing nothing but a pleasant smile cutting through the wrinkles on her face.
“Please stop,” Liesel says, barely audible.
“Stop what, child?” the old woman says.
A cold, empty feeling washes over me. Is this what Dieter wanted to do to Fritzi? Drain her of her magic, her self, and leave her as a shell, an empty doll he can command like an automaton?
Fury, white hot and searing, replaces the horror.
I will never let him do this to her. I will kill him not only for what he has already done, but for what he wanted—wants—to do. I will kill him, and if God takes issue with that sin, let him stay my hand directly, for nothing short of that would stop my blade.
“We should go,” I repeat, trying to keep my voice calm for Liesel’s sake. I feel for the door behind me, too disturbed to take my eyes off the woman. I get the door open, and Liesel tumbles outside into the cold. I take a step back, grabbing Fritzi’s hand and squeezing hard. Fear radiates off her, and I pull her close, letting her hide her face in my shoulder as we stagger back outside. I keep my arm tight around her waist, supporting her and hoping that she can feel how I will do anything to protect her.
The old woman’s eyes lock onto mine through the open door. And for just a moment, as Dieter’s possession of her body lingers, they are pale, eerie, and soulless.