Twenty-Five

 

"Get her up and dressed. Now!"

The male voice giving orders wasn't one Molina recognised. But when unfamiliar hands seized her arms and dragged her from her bed, it no longer mattered.

"Unhand me!" she demanded. "Do you know what Prince Lubos will say if he discovers you have laid hands on his bethrothed?"

"Nothing good, I'm sure, but it doesn't matter, miss, for my orders come from the king."

Someone threw open the window shutters and Molina blinked in the bright light. The man who'd spoken, giving orders that came from the king, was the king's guard captain, who'd stood at the king's side in court. A man of honour, or so she'd thought.

He caught sight of her, too, and turned his back. "Avert your eyes, men, and let the lady dress!"

His men obeyed, and Molina hurried to don the clothes Lubos had stripped from her last night. Dropped from the very heights of passion to this rude awakening.

When she was decently covered, she asked, "Where are you taking me?" She did her best to hide her dread at what the captain might answer.

"To another room in the castle, where the king wants you to demonstrate your spinning skills. When your work is done, I have orders to return you to the prince's chambers."

That didn't sound so bad. Spinning for a day was no harder than what she did at home. Molina managed to summon her best smile as she pulled on her boots. "Then shall we go, Captain?"

He nodded, looking relieved, and gestured for his men to follow behind them. He led her to an older part of the castle, with narrower passageways and uneven stairs leading ever upward, until he opened the door to another tower room, nowhere near as handsomely furnished as the prince's. No tapestries adorned these walls, and his bed would not have fitted here. The windows were little more than arrow slits, where they were visible at all, for the walls were stacked high with baskets of flax, waiting to be spun.

In the middle of all this sat her spinning wheel, fitted with a new spindle. A box containing dozens more sat on a stool that was evidently where she was expected to sit while she laboured.

It would be a challenge, but she suspected that with the aid of her wheel, she could have it all spun before the day was done. If not...well, it wasn't as though Lubos waited for her. The bed would be cold without him, so what was an evening's work if she had little else to do?

She thanked the captain and set to work, barely noticing when the door closed, so focussed was she on her work.

Hours passed and Molina spun, turning the wheel faster now she knew how to work the machine. Basket after basket emptied between her nimble fingers, but she did not stop. She was determined to show the king what her contraption could do in well-trained hands. A week's work in a day, that's what, she told herself, as she lifted the last basket. Her hands ached, but there was so little left, it would be but the work of a moment. And it was – in no time at all, she reached for the door, ready to return to the prince's chamber, only to find the door was locked.

She rapped smartly on the wood. "Captain, I have finished spinning all of the flax!" she called.

She heard the scrape of bolts being drawn, before the door swung open. "Truly?" the captain asked, looking relieved.

He hadn't believed she could do it, Molina realised. Well, she'd proved him wrong, too.

His face fell when he looked around. "But where is the gold?"

"Gold?" Molina looked blank, then remembered what Lubos had told the king. "The gold comes from selling the extra linen made this way. You can't honestly believe I am a witch who spins flax into gold directly, surely!"

"What I believe matters not. It is the king's command that you remain here until you have spun all the flax into gold thread, as you did yesterday." The captain held up one of yesterday's spindles, still full of the yellow thread that horrid man had touched.

Realisation dawned on her. He hadn't tainted the thread – he'd turned it into gold, thinking it would persuade her to help him. Instead, it had landed her in terrible trouble.

"But I can't...I didn't..." she began, then closed her mouth. She could not tell this guard captain that she'd been visited by a man who wasn't the prince in the prince's very chambers. The man's very presence placed her and her child in danger, for if the king had even the faintest suspicion that the child was not fathered by Lubos, there would be no marriage...instead, she'd be tried for treason. And likely die, along with her unborn child.

"Did you lie to the king yesterday about spinning this thread?" the captain demanded.

"No," she whispered forlornly. "I spun it, with that wheel."

He shoved the golden thread at her. "Then spin the rest like this, and I can return you to the prince's chambers." He left, slamming the door behind him. This time, Molina heard the bolts shoot home, locking her in.

Molina fell to her knees and wept. If the king intended to keep her here until she spun gold from flax, then she would die in this chamber, and never see Lubos again.