The Maid of Chateau Winslow Read online

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  About the Author

  Bare trees cast eerie shadows across the bedchamber I shared with my sixteen-year-old brother, Orell. Hidden in the cocoon of furs draping the bunk under the window, I stared at winter’s frosty fingers that webbed our windowpane. My heart thumped in my ears as I listened to the heated discussion unfolding between Mutter and Vater in the main room of our three-room cottage. I lifted the corner of the covers and peeked across the small room at Orell. In the light from the lantern on the night table, I saw him stretched out on his bed with his hands arranged behind his head, his long legs extended over the footboard.

  “You can’t do this!” Gravity etched Mutter’s words. She had always been soft-spoken and gentle in manner.

  “I will. And I am,” Vater said with a familiar hardness. I imagined the flash of his cool blue eyes. “And it’d be best if you spoke no further.”

  Fear thickened my throat at the deadly bite in his last words.

  “You’re a fool, Timo Fürst. You underestimate them. Heed my words: you’ll come to regret this.” Tears clotted Mutter’s voice when she said, “Have you considered the children and the danger you put them in?”

  I jumped at the sound of a fist hitting the table. Orell winced and released a string of curses. The pain in my head throbbed.

  “Piera, your concerns involve tending the household and nothing more,” Vater said.

  “And my children,” Mutter said with helpless urgency.

  I held my breath, too afraid to breathe, and waited for the outcome of Mutter’s unwillingness to withdraw.

  “Your vater spoiled you,” Vater said. “You know nothing of hardship.”

  “And you, my dear husband, are about to know a kind of hardship you’ve never experienced before.” Mutter’s tone was calmer; weariness echoed in her voice. “I must go check on the children. We will worry Valentina. She had another one of her headaches today. They grow worse each year, and the doctor can’t understand what causes them. I wish you’d let me take her to the healer. Perhaps—”

  Feet shuffled and glass shattered. “You stay away from her. Do you hear me?”

  “Let go. You’re hurting me,” Mutter said.

  “Why must you test my patience?”

  “Did you ever love me? Or was Papa’s wealth what appealed to you?” she asked. “You have squandered my dowry, and with your recent tomfoolery we stand to lose this farm. You gambled away our home in the village. Papa purchased this cottage and land for the children—for their future.”

  “I won’t listen to any more from you. I have animals to feed,” Vater said. Footsteps stomped across the dirt floor then a door squeaked open and slammed, sending a gust of wind and a powdering of snow scurrying under the gap between the floor and our chamber door.

  Moments later Mutter opened our door, and I lowered the furs. She stood on the threshold, lantern in hand, a vision in a blue velvet frock; the last of the luxuries she had brought with her from Italy. Nonno had been a wealthy man, and my mutter—Piera Francesco—was his only child. The times I’d met him, he’d exuded the same kindness as Mutter. His robust and infectious laugh would jiggle his rotund stomach and long, frosted beard. I remembered how he’d bend and scoop me into his arms before sinking into a rocker. He’d give me a peppermint stick and tell me grand stories of my mutter as a little girl. Tucked in his arms, I observed how joyful tears had dampened Mutter’s dark eyes. Her smile had shone the brightest on his visits.

  “Hello, my darlings.” Mutter mustered a cheerful greeting as she swept into the room and set the lantern down on the night table.

  Orell had swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up upon her entry. “Why must you argue with Vater. Can’t you see you anger him?” His tone was sharp and accusatory.

  “I’m sorry, my love.” She stroked my brother’s wheat-blond curls. “You need not worry about Vater and me.” The light from the lantern gilded her beautiful face as she pressed her lips to his forehead. He cringed at her touch and pulled away. Pain reflected on Mutter’s face, but she remained silent and stepped back.

  Orell was becoming more like Vater each year. He lacked empathy and showed no concern for Mutter or me. I feared him as much as I did Vater, perhaps more. Sometimes I wondered if Mutter did too, as I’d catch her observing Orell when no one was looking and a great sadness would wash over her. But whenever I grew angry over Vater’s mistreatment of her, she’d say, “Hush now, my Valentina. You mustn’t judge Vater and Orell too harshly.”

  Mutter’s dainty hand brushed Orell’s shoulder. “Rest, son. Everything will be better in the morning.”

  His eyes narrowed, but the long day spent splitting wood had wearied him, and without a reply he lay back on his cot and turned his body away from us.

  Mutter moved to my bed and lowered herself onto the edge, her gown flouncing about her. I reached out and touched the soft fabric. Mutter gently touched my shoulder and pressed me back against the bed linens. “How is your head?” she asked.

  “The same as most days. Do you think the healer could help me?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes drifted for a moment, as though stolen by troubling thoughts.

  “Mutter,” I said, “why don’t you write to Nonno and ask for his help if we have no coins?”

  Her fingers traced my face. “It’s not only coins that trouble me. And those matters, Nonno can’t help me with.”

  “What does Vater plan to do?” I searched her face.

  “You mustn’t worry. Everything will be fine.” She could not conceal the worry in her eyes. Leaning close, she cupped my face in her hands and kissed each of my cheeks. “The mountains have eyes. You must remember this, Valentina.”

&nbs
p; Confused by her statement, I said, “I will, Mutter.”

  She straightened and smiled. “When you marry, make certain your prince is truly a prince.”

  I bobbed my head in agreement. “Only a prince.”

  Schläfrigz—Valentina

  Years have passed since my parents’ disappearance. For weeks the villagers had helped my brother search. Torches lit the forest surrounding our homestead like thousands of fireflies until eventually they flickered and faded as people returned to their lives.

  Although the hunt for my parents had ended, whisperings and far-fetched stories of their vanishment filled the marketplace and the taverns. Villagers blamed the woman who’d lived by the healing springs for their disappearance. Accusing her of witchery, they burned her at the stake. Helpless to stop it, I’d stood in the blood-hungry mob as the flames took form. Orell stood beside me, pumping his fist in the air. “Burn,” he’d screamed, his eyes fierce with rapture.

  Excruciating pain had ripped through my head and I’d feared it was another headache, but it was different, more severe. The pounding of my heart reverberated in my ears, and the crowd seemed to fade. I’d tried to call to Orell, but my lips wouldn’t move. I had become trapped in my body as though asleep. Vater had been right: evil had been at work with the healer.

  Later, when the animals of the forest started disappearing, legends spread that a creature believed to dwell in a cave in the mountains was responsible. Some said the healer, transformed, had returned to seek revenge on the villagers. My parents had scarcely been gone two years when I heard the blind storyteller, circled by eager, dirty-faced street urchins in the market square, tell a tale of their death. “Limb by limb, the beast feasted on them, using the woman’s delicate fingers to clean its teeth,” he’d said.

  As time went on poverty had swept through our canton, and with hunting scarce the poor scrounged to find whatever food sources we could while the rich grew fatter. However, my fight for survival was governed by the darkness burrowing deep in my brother’s soul. Each day I yearned for the one security I’d had in life, but Mutter was gone, and with each passing year my hope of her return dimmed.

  Winter had swallowed up the valley and my family’s farm, in the foothills of the Alps, sat tucked in the embrace of the mountains. Today the barn lay nearly empty of livestock. Animals that hadn’t escaped through the dilapidated fence in the north pasture Orell had sold, then squandered the money to sustain his lust and greed. Trips to the village turned into days spent at brothels and taverns. When the ladies of the night and drink didn’t occupy his time, he and his friends had taken up robbing wealthy travelers along the roads. The maintenance of the homestead fell on me. My attempts at repairing the fences and cottage were endless, and it all seemed for naught. Our home was crumbling around us. And, as usual, the responsibility of selling our goods and securing enough coin to eat for another week weighed heavily on my shoulders.

  The bite of early morning’s chill burned through the holes in my threadbare woolen mittens as I harnessed the mare to the wagon for my journey into the village. I glanced at the cottage, and indignation at my brother simmered. He and his friends lay splayed on the table and the floor in front of the hearth. Keeping watch on my chamber door and their drunken snores had robbed me of sleep.

  A flash of movement near the tree line twitched the mare’s ears. Over the back of the horse I got a clear view of them watching me, as they often did. They never came closer and always observed me from afar. I found comfort in the whisperings and scurrying feet of the earthmen. Mountain earthmen lived high in the Alps while the mine-dwelling earthmen inhabited the lower regions. Herds of chamois had come down to the lower slopes for the winter to feed on the sprouts of conifers and broad-leaved trees, bringing with them their herders—the mountain men. My dearest and oldest friend, Flicker, was a mine-dweller, but his spirit was too big to be harnessed underground. I could often find him mingling with the villagers and carrying on, if not creating a spectacle of himself. He possessed the ability to shed radiance on the bleakest days.

  Pulling my furs tighter around me, I climbed into the wagon and cast a glance at the tree line. Lifting a hand, I waved, and the little men darted for cover. I smiled to myself and flicked the reins, and the horse plodded off toward the village.

  I drove the wagon along the road, the towering trees on either side standing stark and naked against the bright canvas of Old Man Winter. As I neared the fork in the road I caught sight of a convoy of enclosed carriages turning down the tunnel-like lane, darkened by the tree canopy that led to the abandoned estate of Lord Winslow. The home had stood empty for years after he and his daughters had returned to their estate in England. Had they returned?

  I shivered as I remembered accompanying Flicker into the dark, serpentine drive leading to the secluded mansion. The home had sat in decrepitude, entangled in a veil of vines, windows protected only by the wrought iron bars over broken windowpanes. The front doors hung crooked on their hinges, open to the environment. Leaves had blanketed the floors, and back when animals filled the forest they’d roamed freely through the home. It would take months to make the house habitable, if not years.

  I urged my gaunt mare on toward town. Two crates containing cheese, ointments, and oils I’d concocted clattered in the wagon’s bed. Choices at our family’s stall would be limited, and I worried that villagers would overlook the goods and pass by. The supplies I used to make my salves was depleted, and our livestock required food. I’d rationed out the provisions for Orell and myself for as long as I could, but surpassing the magnitude of worries was his threat to sell the cottage. The necessity to earn had become ever more grueling.

  Kingdom of Himmelart—Mountain Dwarves

  Prince Sixtus kissed the servant girl’s ample breasts before trailing his mouth up to her full lips. Her moans of pleasure made him smile. He’d become skilled in winning the maidens of the kingdom, much to his vater’s dismay. A passionate toss in the hay appealed to his manly desires more than tedious negotiations in the Great Hall. The endless bickering between the tribes of Alps earthmen and the demands of the peasants would dull anyone’s senses.

  Behind him, someone cleared their throat. “Your Highness, your vater wishes to speak with you.”

  Sixtus leaned back on his knees and adjusted his trousers. The girl beneath him scrambled to cover herself. The prince smirked and gave her a wink before rising to his feet.

  Turning, he eyed his vater’s manservant. “What is it my vater wants?”

  “He did not say, Your Highness.” The servant kept his head bowed.

  “Come now, Lio, we both know that isn’t the truth. I’m sure he wishes to bore me with princely matters.”

  The kitchen girl, tying the laces on her bodice, hurried past them. Sixtus leaned forward and smacked her buttocks. She giggled, gripped the sides of her skirt, and raced across the courtyard to the kitchen. At the doorway she swung around to look back at him, pulling her lip between her teeth before smiling bashfully and disappearing inside.

  Sixtus brushed the hay from his clothing. His dashing good looks had assured his choice of the most beautiful of women, but when his urge was great a scullion wench would do. “Come, let us see what His Grace wants.” He gestured for the servant to lead the way.

  His expression masking any astonishment at Sixtus’s lack of respect, the manservant turned on his heel and exited the stables.

  Sixtus stepped out into the courtyard and peered up at the turquoise dome of ice sheltering the mountain kingdom from any outsiders who would dare enter the mountains uninvited. Below it, glimmering bronze roof tiles reflected the illumination from giant glass spheres ignited by dwarf magic up to the curtain aloft, and he shielded his eyes from its brilliance. The muttering and bustling of palace servants filled the yard. A stable boy led the prince’s white horse toward the blacksmith’s shop. To his right, two servant girls eyed him as they beat a silk Kashan rug with brooms to displace the dust. He gave them a half
bow. They paused in their task, and lashes swept down over rosy cheeks. But it was the scent of the fat sizzling on a pig roasting over an open fire that wet the prince’s mouth and captured his attention. A hunger more considerable than the warmth of a woman tugged at him, but his king beckoned so he strode after Lio into the palace.

  They threaded through gleaming corridors crusted with luminous pink rock crystals toward the golden double doors of the Great Hall, their surfaces etched with the script King Jörg had written after he agreed to peace between mountain dwarves and humans. Two armed guards clad in brass armor over the blue-and-gold garb of the king’s army stood on either side, staring straight ahead like the snowy marble owls perched on each corner of the curtain wall. There Sixtus and Lio paused at the sound of the king’s outrage.

  “We will stop this once and for all. If my son is to govern all of Himmelart, he must start carrying himself as a prince and not the debaucher he has become. With the recent developments in the human village, he should be concerned with more pressing matters.”

  Lio opened one door and motioned Sixtus forward. “My prince.”

  Sixtus’s mouth set as he pushed past the manservant and marched into the room.

  His vater, clothed in a robe of scarlet and gold, stood behind a grand table embedded with gems mined by the earthmen of the Schattenberg kingdom. The knights gathered around him straightened at the prince’s approach, and all eyes turned to him.

  “There you are.” Annoyance pinched the king’s face. “Leave us.” He gestured at his men with a hand gleaming with jeweled rings. Looks of pity crossed the faces of some, and displeasure appeared on the faces of others.

  Sixtus squared his shoulders. He wouldn’t subject himself to their disapproval, nor that of his vater. It was hardly his fault that he had inherited more beauty than most earthmen. If his vater was looking for a more suitable heir to sit upon his throne, he should have sired another son with one of his four wives. Instead, only girls had sprung from his loins.