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Anna stood motionless for a moment watching Wulfric, who lay completely still on the ground with a knife in his chest. Lewinus looked at her with a triumphant look on his face and was about to get up.
Later Anna would wonder how she could have reacted this calmly, but she did. She ran towards Wulfric took the knife from his chest and jammed it into Lewinus. She did not manage to hit the soft part, untrained in stabbing anyone as she was. She hit a rib but that only made her even more angry, and she stabbed him again before he had time to react.
Lewinus fell backwards and Anna threw herself at him wanting to stab him for a third time when her hand was firmly held back by someone. She looked into Jonathan’s eyes.
“Let me kill him,” she said with a voice that she did not recognize. So cold and stripped of emotion.
“He’s gone,” Jonathan said and gestured towards Lewinus with his hand. Anna looked at Lewinus. His mouth was a bit open, like someone had just surprised him, and his eyes were completely motionless, fixed upon the ceiling.
Anna threw the knife on the ground and rushed back to Wulfric. His eyes were just as motionless.
“No, please, please, please,” she begged as she hid her head at his shoulder. “You can’t die. Not you too. No. Please, please, please.”
She heard Jonathan calling for servants and soldiers. But she didn’t move. She remained sitting at Wulfric’s side. Begging him to come back to life.
Someone put their arms around her from behind.
“I’m so sorry, but he’s gone,” Maria said. Anna could hear that Maria was crying. But she did not let go of Wulfric.
“He can’t die,” she whispered. “Not him. He needs to be alive. I need to be with him.”
“I know,” Maria simply said. Slowly she helped Anna from her kneeling position. Anna clung to her.
“He can’t be dead,” she kept repeating into Maria’s shoulder.
Maria did not say anything, but simply patted her on the back and stroked her hair. Anna got up. She could not take being comforted right now.
“Get him back to bed,” she said and pointed at Wulfric. “He’s not dead. We need to stop the bleeding. If we can only stop the bleeding, then he’ll be fine.”
“Anna...” Maria began, but Jonathan put his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s fine, Maria,” he said. “Get Lord Rosenkranz back to bed,” he told the servants standing around them.
Anna followed them closely.
“Keep pressure on his wound,” she said. “Don’t let him bleed out. I’ll be right back.”
She turned around and left the room, ignoring Jonathan and Maria, that called out for her. When she reached the stables, she banged on all the doors to the rooms of the grooms before someone appeared. The groom was rubbing his eyes, not even dressed, but Anna had no time to apologize for waking him. She simply told him to saddle the fastest horse there.
“It’s not meant for a lady to ride,” he objected.
“I don’t care,” Anna said.
She rode astride on the horse and screamed for the groom to get the drawbridge down. As soon as it was down, she left the courtyard. She did not realize until she had been absorbed by darkness of the forest and her estate was not visible behind her, that she had no idea where the woman that Wulfric had talked about lived. The woman that was able to bring people back from the dead.
Anna rode towards the nearest town, banging on the door on the first house. A man told her to go away.
“It’s Lady Harold, and you’ll open right now,” she shouted back.
The door was opened a little, and a man only wearing his shirt appeared holding a candlestick in one hand.
“My Lady,” he said breathlessly and bowed. The door was opened more and a woman in her chemise with a long brown braid appeared too and curtsied.
“How may we help you, My lady?” the man said.
“I need to find the woman, that can bring people back from the dead,” Anna said impatiently.
“I don’t know if she can really do that...” the man began.
“Where does she live?” Anna interrupted angrily.
“Your ladyship needs to go through the village and then take the first left on the small forest path,” the woman said, seeming more aware of the urgency than her husband was.
Anna simply nodded, mounted the horse again, and rode off without saying anything more. She was glad that she was on horseback, when she reached the path and saw how narrow it was. The horse made its way easily on the uneven path, where the shrubbery sometimes would be so dense that the horse had to push through it.
The forest became thicker and darker. The trees were old and crooked with large crowns, that blocked the moonlight which had made it possible for Anna to see before. If Anna had been calmer, she might have been afraid of riding through the woods alone. There were wolves in these parts of the country, and who knew what kind of shady people lived there. But right now, her only thought was, that she needed to find Wulfric.
Even though the path was barely visible to Anna, the horse was still able to follow it, and after what felt like hours they arrived in a moonlit clearing, where a tiny makeshift house of clay and timber stood. Anna jumped off the horse and jammed the door.
“What a haste you’re in my darling,” the woman said when she opened the door and saw Anna. She was younger than Anna had imagined her to be. She could not be more than ten years older than Anna. Her precise color of hair was impossible to make out in the dark, but it was clear that she was blonde.
“Come in,” the woman said.
Even though Anna did not want to come in, she entered the house anyway.