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Maria looked at the moat three stories beneath her window. She had no idea how deep the moat was. Because of the muddy water it seemed bottomless, but it couldn’t be.
“It’s too far to jump, isn’t it?” she asked Anna, who was sitting next to her on the windowsill.
Anna nodded.
“And I can’t swim,” she added.
“Me neither,” Maria said. “Do you think that it is so deep that we can’t reach the bottom?”
“What would be the purpose of it otherwise?” Anna replied. “And if it is shallow enough for us to reach the bottom then we definitely wouldn’t make it, if we jumped.”
“How about binding our blankets together and climbing down?” Maria asked, still looking at the moat beneath here.
“Good idea, except that we still have to get across the moat...”
She had to get out of here. She had to protect her child from Gustaf. Her and Jonathan’s child. Even if he would never love her again, he would be happy to know that she was pregnant.
Maria looked at Anna. No matter what, she was truly happy that she and Anna were friends again. She had no idea how she was going to get through this alone.
“The only way out is the door,” Anna whispered. “What if we attack the servant who brings us food?”
Maria thought about it.
“I’d feel better if we could escape at night, and besides, my chamber is close to the family’s chambers. There must be a lot of people in the hallway all the time.”
“Can we get them to open the door in any other way?”
They thought about it in silence.
“If one of us pretends to be sick at night, then the other could call for help...” Maria suggested.
Anna nodded eagerly.
***
“Help,” Maria hammered her fists against the door. “Help me, please, I don’t know what is wrong with her!”
Anna was lying on the bed whining.
“Help me, please,” Maria cried out again.
She could hear someone stir on the other side and a key that was put in the keyhole. The door opened and a massive guard that Maria vaguely remembered from her time in the Gustaf’s estate came in.
“What’s wrong?” he mumbled.
“She’s sick,” Maria pointed towards Anna, who was whining ever worse now. Maria just stood there, she had no intention of trying to attack the huge guard.
“Hmm,” the guard said and was about to close the door again, when Anna jumped out of bed. She grabbed an empty waste bucket and hammered into the guard’s head. He stumbled away from the door and Anna ran out followed by Maria.
Anna took them to the staircase leading down to the courtyard, but had Maria go first since she was the one who knew her way around. Maria led them down the stairs, all three stories to the dark and deserted hallway of the castle.
She walked through the hallway, not minding the dark, since she knew exactly when she would reach the door. It opened onto a square and beyond that was the small town that lay within the castle walls. Even though they could probably hide in the town for the night, there was no point. They wouldn’t be able to make it across the drawbridge during daytime. It had to be tonight.
“Where are the two of you going?” a sleepy voice said behind them, when they had taken a couple of paces into the square.
They turned around, seeing a guard rising from a stool next to the door. Another guard was sitting on the opposite side of the door. He was still sleeping. It was something new that Gustaf posted guards there. Maria was sure of it.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Anna said in her most cheeky voice.
Maria squeezed her hand. She hadn’t even realized when she had taken Anna’s hand. Her breath seemed caught somewhere between her lungs and her mouth and there was no way she could say anything if the guard asked her.
“I would like to know as a matter of fact,” the guard said and took a couple of steps closer.
He was flirting with Anna, Maria realized. Neither of them were wearing headscarves and she guessed that their cloaks looked plain enough in the darkness for him to think, that they were simply servants. But servants wouldn’t have used the main door to exit the castle...
“If you come a bit closer, I might tell you,” Anna said, her cheeky grin and a flirtatious tone still in place. No one would have known that she had been devastated by grief for the past three weeks.
The guard grinned and stepped closer to Anna who had let go of Maria’s hand.
“Aren’t you a pretty little thing?” he said and wrapped a hand in her loose hair. “I don’t think I have seen you around before.”
“That can’t be possible,” Anna said and stepped closer to the guard.
Maria could feel her eyes going wide and round. Anna couldn’t let this go on. They had to go, they had to leave. The guard’s hand was now completely entwined in her hair, resting on the back of her head.
“Surely, your secret adventure will be worth a kiss...” he said and began to lower his head.
“Of course,” Anna said but instead of meeting his lips, she smashed her head forward into his mouth at the same time as she drew up a knee to his groin. The guard fell to the ground, howling in pain, but he took Anna with him, since his hand was still entwined in her hair. Anna let out a shriek of pain that seemed to awaken the other guard.
“What? How? What?” Maria could hear him mumble sleepily as she tried to free Anna from the guard on the ground who was still primarily occupied with the pain in his groin.
She got Anna’s hair out of the guard’s grip by stepping on his wrist, which made him cry out in pain again.
“The next time we’re trying to escape, you’re wearing your hair up,” she said, as she helped Anna up.
Anna didn’t answer, but the two of them hurried away from the square. Maria could hear that the guard at the door had gotten up and was running after them. Luckily, he stopped to check on his friend, which gave them enough time to disappear in the dark shadows in between the houses opposite the castle.
But they were not far enough away that they couldn’t hear how the guard, now fully awake, called for reinforcements.
Maria led Anna through the city as fast as she dared to run. The city was small, it more or less only consisted of the essential craftspeople and the people working at the castle, but not living there.
They stopped when they spotted the drawbridge. There were at least five guards there. Two were sleeping against the wall, next to the drawbridge, but at least three were awake. Two of them were standing at the lever that lowered the drawbridge, clearly engaged in conversation, while the third guard was marching back and forth in front of the drawbridge. Maria had figured that the drawbridge would be guarded, but not as heavily as this.
“What do we do?” she whispered in Anna’s ear.
There was no way that they could convince the guards that they were two servant girls on their way to a rendezvous outside of the castle walls. They would never get the guards to lower the drawbridge for them. All options of deceiving the guards were taken away from them when a couple of guards came running from the direction of the castle.
“The queen Maria and the duchess are trying to escape!” she could hear one of them yell to the guards at the drawbridge. The two guards sleeping were awakened and all five were guarding the drawbridge now.
“We have to hide,” Anna whispered, and Maria nodded.
She only knew the larger routes through the city. She had never had permission to explore it on her own, going down the smaller streets. The soldiers would know all of them and more importantly all of the best hiding places.
“The stables,” she whispered.
It was the only place outside of the castle that she could think of where they could stay hidden. There was a loft above it as far as she knew. Most likely at least some of the grooms were sleeping up there. But there wasn’t anything better she could do.
They had to make their way back through the city, since the stables were located next to the castle. There seemed to be guards everywhere. It was only by sheer luck that they were not discovered on their way. Some of the horses awoke when they entered the stables and Maria quietly hushed them. A familiar whinny came from the far end of the stables. Arabella.
Maria rushed down to her horse, crouching in the box with Anna beside her. It was just in time. At least two grooms crawled down into the stables, just as they ducked down.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into them,” one of the grooms said, as the other was shushing the horses.
Maria could hear the stable door open and see the flicker of torches on the ceiling of the stables.
“What’s going on in here?” a stern, slightly panting voice demanded.
Guards. Or at least one of them. Anna reached for her hands, and they were squeezing each other’s hands tightly.
“Something has stirred the horses,” said one of the men that had entered the stables. Maria recognized the voice as the head groom. She had been fond of him when she had lived with Gustaf and Margaret. He had thought Arabella a splendid horse and would often converse when Maria came to the stables to ready her for a ride.
“Or someone has stirred them,” another voice said, and Maria could see the light moving across the ceiling. The guards were going to search the stables. Of course they were.
She could hear steps coming down the aisle in their direction and froze on the spot. Arabella had stopped whinnying when Maria had entered her box, but she was still more uneasy than usual.
“Shhh, girl,” she could hear the head groom say and see his hand as he reached into the box and patted Arabella’s muzzle. “It’s just a bit of commotion. Nothing to work yourself up over,” he said to it good-naturedly.
Maria could see part of his face now. All it took for him was to lean in a little and look in their direction. Even the dark couldn’t disguise them. They would be caught now. They would be caught, and Maria had no idea what Gustaf would do to her.
“Dear God, please let the baby live,” she silently pleaded. “You can do what you want with me, but please let the baby live.”
At that moment the head groom turned and saw them. Maria could see the surprise on his face. They gained eye contact and she shook her head slowly.
“Please,” she mouthed.
“I’m sorry,” she thought she saw him mouth back, but it was difficult to be certain in the darkness.
“They...” the head groom had to clear his throat. “They are here,” he then got out.
Maria closed her eyes and hid her head at her knees.