The Countess' Captive (The Fairytale Keeper Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

keep you for the next two nights. Be ready to depart the following dawn.”
    He bows and dashes to the back of the carriage, lugging her trunk through the door. I barely have my feet planted before he jumps back onto the carriage, whips the horses, and disappears into the city.
    Galadriel rushes to her room and changes into something a little more common. We eat in a dark corner of the tavern in near silence, and I excuse myself for bed to keep my wicked tongue from saying something that might force Father to make good on his threat.
    I lay upon the bed, staring at the ceiling, looking for patterns in the wood like Ivo and I once used to do when staring at clouds. Father’s familiar gait sounds up the stairs, followed by a softer saunter. A hinge wines, and the door to the room next to mine shuts with a clap.
    How can he share a room with her?
    I huff and rise from the bed.
    At least they’re out of the tavern.
     

28 March 1248, Night

    Three army surgeons who thought they knew their art perfectly, were travelling about the world, and they came to an inn where they wanted to pass the night. The host asked whence they came and whither they were going?
    “We are roaming about the world and practicing our art.”
    “Just show me for once in a way what you can do,” said the host.
    Then the first said he would cut off his hand and put it on again early next morning; the second said he would tear out his heart and replace it next morning; the third said he would cut out his eyes and heal them again next morning.
    “If you can do that,” said the innkeeper, “you have learnt everything.”
    –The Three Army Surgeons

    Every creek of the old wood floors seems to amplify as I tiptoe across the room. I slowly push the door open. The hinges squeak. I utter a curse and pause, listening for any stirrings from Father’s room. It remains silent. I descend the steps lightly into the tavern.
    With the exception of a table of drunkards and a few men hunched over mugs of ale at the end of the bar, the place is empty. I perch upon a stool and reflect on Galadriel’s use of feminine wiles to cast spells on men. The barkeep returns from the back, carrying two mugs, which he sets before the men sitting beside me.
    Black hair haloes his bald head. Lines run across his forehead and along the side of his mouth, so deep a serf could sow wheat in them. I swallow hard before forcibly softening my gaze, pushing my lips into a girlish smile, leaning forward.
    He slaps his large, hairy hands on the bar. “What’ll it be, girl?” he asks, exposing teeth as sullied as rotten cheese and breath as pungent. “We have anything you like as long it’s ale,” he adds. I laugh, a bit too heartily at the jest, before reaching out to touch his sleeve. His face darkens. “I only take coin for drink,” he snaps.
    I recoil, and feel my face twist with a sneer. Using feminine wiles is harder than it looks. “All I want is pen and parchment. You can add it to the cost of our rooms.”
    The man chortles. “Does this look like a monastery?” He grabs the empty mugs from the men next to me. “Even if I did have it, how do I know that your mistress would pay?”
    “My mistress?” He thinks I am Galadriel’s maid. “She’s not my mistress.”
    He snorts. “And the pauper’s not her lover.”
    My jaw clenches. I imagine grabbing the mug to my right and slamming it into the his temple. I close my eyes and take a breath. I need to get a letter to Brother John. I need to warn Ivo. ”You’re right about that, barkeep. The pauper is her lover, but I am his daughter not her maid. Any debts I incur tonight will be promptly paid on the morrow. Please, I need pen and parchment.”
    He leans in close, narrowing his wiry eyebrows. “Then become a nun,” he hisses and walks away.
    A round, rosy–cheeked man at the end of the bar slides my way. “Now what would a pretty little maid like you be needing with pen and parchment?”
    “The same thing any man