Chapter Fourteen

Beate used the lingering roar to her advantage. She grabbed Heinrich’s tankard, whirled, and crushed it into Wilhelm’s face, knocking him over a table. Heinrich punched Mumfred in the diaphragm and then rammed his head onto a tabletop, leaving the steward in a dazed heap on the floor. Heinrich and Beate fled the great hall, frantic to find the inner courtyard.

Realizing they had not passed anyone as they ran, they slowed to walk out of the building, as if nothing had happened.

“We have to hide.” Beate casually pointed toward the gatehouse. “We’re trapped in here as long as the gate is down.”

“Maybe not.” Heinrich grabbed Beate’s hand and they hastened their pace to the gatehouse, the interior of which was awash in candlelight. An oafish guard with a scraggly yellow beard wandered out.

“State your business.”

“Lord Karl is allowing us to stay in the seamstress’s and blacksmith’s quarters for the evening, and that is where we wish to go,” Heinrich said.

“Pleased to meet you. This is our first time in the castle. It’s so…” Beate lingered for the word, “…majestic.” She smiled at the guard. “And to sleep in one.” She flirtatiously brushed her hand against his chain-mail-covered shoulder. “You are so lucky to do so every night!”

The guard sheepishly grinned. “Well, I mean, I get to sleep on the floor. I’m not a knight—not yet. I still must prove my worth to the baron and—”

“I am so sorry to interrupt, but Lords Karl and Wilhlem have provided us with so much excitement, I’m now woozy, and I really must lie down.” Beate swept the back of her hand against her forehead.

Heinrich nervously glanced over his shoulder, looking at the great hall’s moonlit entrance, dreading Mumfred and Wilhelm would burst from it.

“Well, all right. I remember seeing you two come in here with them. Enjoy your stay.” The guard poked his head through the gatehouse door. “Open it!”

Beate and Heinrich bounced on the balls of their feet as the spiked door clanked open. “Thank you,” they said simultaneously and rushed under it—Heinrich nearly scraping the top of his head on a rusty spike.

“She must really be tired,” they heard the guard mutter, and then made their way toward the seamstress’s quarters.

“We’re not hiding in there,” Beate said. “That’s exactly where they’ll look.”

“Along with the blacksmith’s,” Heinrich said.

“Then where?”

Beate and Heinrich approached a cluster of six small apartments—one-room dwellings wedged together—lining the curtain wall. Two rooms appeared occupied based on the wavering candlelight visible through shuttered windows.

“Do we know any villagers who stay here who could hide us?” Beate said.

“Let’s just knock and ask to come in.” Heinrich approached the crude wooden door resting against the entrance.

“Anyone caught hiding us will be in as much trouble as we are,” Beate said. “We can’t endanger them.”

She turned to Heinrich and her eyes widened. Heinrich pivoted, saw the danger and sprinted to save Beate, yanking her from the doorway where an arrow struck a second later.

“Stop them!”

They recognized Wilhelm’s voice and saw, next to the raised portcullis, a dark figure pull an arrow from the quiver behind his back. They assumed the tall figure standing next to him to be Mumfred, and a third person, leaning against the wall in obvious distress, to be Karl.

Beate and Heinrich raced toward the stables built between the curtain walls on the castle’s left side. Arrows whistled by the couple and smacked the stone walls. Wilhelm ran alongside the gatehouse’s front wall to intercept them. They charged by a corner and were momentarily out of Wilhelm’s view. They knew he’d round the bend and see them taking shelter in the stables, which spanned the length between curtain walls, creating a barrier to the other side. It was their only option.

The two-tiered building had twelve stables visible from the front. Heinrich knew the leftmost part of the building, featuring a closed wooden door, housed the marshal. Someone was always inside, especially if guests were staying in the rooms built on the structure’s second floor.

“Can you jump?” Heinrich called to Beate.

“I hope so!”

“Follow me!” Heinrich didn’t slow as he approached the third closed stall from the right. He planted both hands on the five-foot-tall door, jumped and vaulted into the stall. Beate felt an extra kick of adrenaline and did likewise just as an arrow split through the stall door.

The unoccupied stall’s rear opened up top so that a horse could loom over the rail. It was dark enough for the pair to hop that opening and stand in the aisle separating the twelve stalls visible from the front of the building from a dozen similar stalls opening behind the stables. A few horses poked their heads into the aisle, hoping for a carrot.

From their darkened position, Beate and Heinrich saw Wilhelm charging toward the stables along with more men—guards, they reasoned, summoned to hunt them.

“Do we cut through the stables and keep running?” Heinrich said.

“Uli!” Beate gasped, excited to see Heinrich’s horse in the stall to the left of the one they had scaled. The horse eagerly dangled his head over the interior door so they could stroke him.

“I forgot that they housed him here after we arrived.” Heinrich patted Uli from his forehead to nose.

Beate looked around. “I have an idea.”