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

would do with pen and parchment,” I say. “I can read and write, you know.”
    He laughs aloud. “A wicked tongue, this one has. Is that how you wound up with that knot up side your head?” He points his sausage–thick finger at my temple. “Was it your wicked tongue that put it there?”
    I say nothing, brooding.
    “Ah, don’t take no offense, girl. It’s not every day that a man of my station runs into a girl who can read.” He slaps my shoulder playfully. “Barkeep!” he hollers to the kitchen. “Fetch us two ales.”
    “Keep your pfennig. I don’t care to patron a tavern that keeps such rude help,” I say loudly, hoping the miserable bastard shall hear it.
    The man chuckles, his great belly jiggling. “Ah, don’t mind him. There’s always someone in here wanting something for nothing. Makes him harsh, even with pretty little maids like you.”
    “Well, he shouldn’t make assumptions.”
    “You’re right, you’re right.” The man nods.
    The barkeep returns, glaring at me. He sets the jovial man’s ale before him but pounds my mug into the wood of the bar. A third of the ale splashes out around my fingers.
    “Oh come on now,” the man says as the barkeep lurches back to the kitchen. “Let’s call a truce!”
    The barkeep doesn’t so much as turn his head. I look into the mug for any spit in the ale, but I suppose if the barkeep was going to sully my drink, he probably wouldn’t have caused so much of it to spill.
    “So you like to write do you?” The man puts his mug to his lips. Foam hangs on his tiny lips.
    “I only ever write to keep records for Father’s shop.”
    “Ah, I see. What kind of shop does your father have?”
    “He’s a cobbler. So am I.”
    “You read and write and cobble then. Cut your hair off, and we might think you a lad.” I frown at the suggestion, and he slaps me on the back again, letting out another roar of laughter. He looks up with thought and purses his lips before adding: “A shame you don’t have time to write nothing else but records, though.”
    “What else is there to write?”
    “Them monks, they copy the Bible and things of that nature.”
    “That sounds horrendously dull.”
    He laughs. “That it does.” He takes a hearty gulp. “If it were me, I’d write stories.”
    “Stories? What’s the point in writing stories?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose there’s not much point. Not too many who can read around here.”
    “What kind of stories would you write?”
    “I would write an old tale I heard on crusade.”
    “You went on crusade?” I ask, and he nods. “I’d never left the city of Cologne until today. The only stories I’d ever been told were my mother’s. Will you tell it to me?”
    “Ah, you don’t want to hear it.”
    “Yes, I do.”
    He takes a long draft from his mug and wipes the ale from his lips. “I’m no true storyteller to be sure, and my memory ain’t hardly what it used to be. God’s teeth, I haven’t even counted my cups tonight.”
    “Nine!” shouts the keep from the kitchen.
    “Nine,” he echoes.
    I give him the withering look of a sad child. “Please,” I say.
    “All right, all right now. Let me think of how it goes.” He pauses for a moment and then clears his throat, “Now it’s called The Three Army Surgeons.”
    “Three army surgeons, who thought they knew their craft all perfect, went travelling about the world. They came to an inn where they wanted to pass the night. The keep asked where they come from and where they was going, so they said to him, ‘We are roaming about the world to practice our surgeoning.’
    “So the keep said to them, ‘Just show me for once what you can do.’ 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, too. ‘If you can do that,’ said the innkeeper, ‘you have learnt