The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest Read online

  Jorgen made his way toward the clearing where Odette gave lessons to the children. As he walked, he planned how he would capture the poacher. He would scour the forest every night, searching the

  clearings where a deer would most easily be seen. He had let the poaching go on too long. He wouldn’t be surprised if the margrave grew tired of his incompetence and replaced him.

  And even though a lot of deer were missing, he still believed it was possibly only one poacher, although with helpers. One person shooting one or two deer every night could produce a lot of meat, enough for a small black-market business.

  He emerged into the clearing where the children were already gathered. Odette was walking toward them on the path from the town gate, along with her friend Anna, with Kathryn trailing just behind them.

  Jorgen was pleased to see Kathryn with Anna and Odette.

  Odette gave her attention to the children, as she always did, and Anna and Kathryn came and sat with him. Anna chatted about many things, but Kathryn hardly said a word. However, she seemed to stare at him nearly every moment.

  Someone was riding toward them. A man appeared on a white mule, coming not from town but from the other direction.

  As he drew nearer, Jorgen recognized Rutger. Odette waved at him but continued her lesson. Rutger steered his mule toward them and dismounted.

  “You must be Kathryn.” He fixed his gaze on the girl, who kept her head down and looked up at him through the hair hanging over her face. “I wanted to tell you that I have found your two brothers and you will be going to live on the farm where they are living.”

  Kathryn lifted her face and stared at him.

  “I have arranged everything. You will live in the house with the Schindler family and will do some light work for them in exchange for your food and other provisions.”

  “My brothers? You found my brothers there?”

  “Yes, and you will join them.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse.

  “I can take you there now, if you wish. Then I will send one of my servants to bring your belongings to you.”

  She nodded eagerly. Rutger helped her mount his mule, and he took the reins, walking beside her.

  As they started off, Odette clasped her hands, smiling. “This is so wonderful. I could not have planned anything more perfect.”

  Jorgen watched them ride away, and he sighed in relief. As Odette said, it had worked out perfectly. Kathryn would be able to stay with her brothers.

  But he didn’t like how tired Odette seemed. She looked beautiful, as always, but her shoulders and eyelids drooped, and she didn’t speak as energetically with the children as she normally did.

  When the children began to leave, Odette was smiling, but the dark smudges under her eyes made him wonder if she was sick.

  “Odette, you seem tired. Are you well?”

  She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it.

  “You do look tired, Odette,” Anna said. “Have you not been sleeping?”

  “Oh, I am not very tired. I am well. I . . .” Odette seemed to be considering what to say. “I have not been getting enough sleep. But I will try to sleep more tonight.”

  Anna looked at her curiously. “Why are you not sleeping?”

  Odette gazed beyond her friend and shrugged. “Sometimes I do not sleep well. It is naught to worry about. All is well. Shall we go?”

  Jorgen could not push away the feeling that all was not well.

  “Odette, I want you to sleep here tonight. You apparently aren’t sleeping well at home.”

  They had gone back to Anna’s house to talk, and now they had just eaten supper and it was getting dark. Odette wanted to stay, but how could she?

  “Jorgen was right. You look exhausted.”

  Odette couldn’t stifle a yawn. She had to go out hunting tonight. Perhaps she could stay until the household fell asleep and then slip out. She could say she went home early because she couldn’t sleep when she wasn’t in her own bed.

  “Of course I can stay the night.” Odette plastered on a smile.

  Anna sent a servant girl to tell Rutger that she would be staying there for the night. “I just do not want you to go home when you seem so tired. I will give you something the nurse gives the children to help them sleep when they are sick. That will be just what you need.”

  With Peter playing with Gunther before his bedtime and the nurse having just put baby Cristen to bed, Odette and Anna sat in the first-floor room talking.

  “And you seem a little nervous too. Are you sad that Rutger doesn’t want you to marry Jorgen?”

  Odette did not answer right away. Perhaps it would not hurt to admit the truth to Anna. “You must not tell anyone what I say.”

  “I will not, of course. We always keep each other’s secrets.”

  “I do like Jorgen.” She sighed. A tingle went down her arms as she imagined his face, his smile, his eyes, the way he looked when he spoke, how kind he was with the children and with her. She especially admired the way he had saved Kathryn. It was sweet and heroic. It reminded her a little bit of how Rutger had come and saved her from those people she was living with and toiling for.

  Wasn’t she even more exhausted now that she was not slaving away or scrounging, but poaching deer to feed the poor? But that was different. She did that because she wanted to.

  “You like Jorgen. Ja, go on,” Anna prompted her.

  “Jorgen is . . .”

  “Kind? Handsome? In love with you?”

  “In love with me? I would not say that.”

  “I have seen the way he looks at you sometimes. I believe I am justified in saying he loves you.”

  “I think Kathryn is in love with him.”

  “Of course she is. He saved her. She would hardly be human if she was not in love with him.”

  “Perhaps he will marry her.”

  Anna wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t think that is likely. She is a pretty girl, but Jorgen doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would want someone so young and timid.”

  That was a good point.

  “You still did not answer my question. Are you sad because Rutger doesn’t want you to marry Jorgen?”

  Again, Odette took her time answering. “I don’t believe Rutger would stop me from marrying a poor man if I wanted to marry him, but perhaps it would be selfish of me.” Jorgen couldn’t help her feed the children like Mathis Papendorp could. Marrying Jorgen seemed selfish for many reasons.

  “But Jorgen is not exactly poor. He is not the wealthy burgher you would be expected to marry as Rutger’s niece, but he does have some status as the margrave’s forester.” After a moment of silence, Anna asked, “Would you marry him if he asked you?”

  Would she marry the man who would hate her if he found out she was poaching? That seemed a bit self-destructive. And yet . . . “I like him very much.”

  “Ja, ja.” Anna’s tone urged Odette to go on.

  “I enjoy talking to him.”

  “Ja, ja.”

  Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to kiss him or be embraced by him, but she wasn’t ready to admit that to Anna. “I think he is handsome.”

  “You would be blind not to.”

  “But I cannot go around falling in love with and marrying every man I talk to. No, I would not.”

  “Oh, Odette. Why are you so guarded? What are you so afraid of?”

  Was she guarded? Wasn’t it wise to be guarded? “I don’t want to get my heart broken. I only have one heart, you know.” But it wasn’t that. She was willing enough to risk her heart. But she wasn’t yet willing to sacrifice the children who depended on her for food.

  It was increasingly difficult not being able to tell Anna everything. But what choice did she have?

  Odette awoke with a start. She had been dreaming about falling into a deep pit. Where was she? Was she too late to go hunting? Someone was breathing in the same room where she slept. Oh yes. That was Anna. She was sleeping at Anna
and Peter’s house.

  Odette slid off the side of the bed. Quickly and as quietly as she could, she got dressed. It was not far to her own house, and she would change into her hunting clothes and retrieve her longbow and arrows.

  Anna made a sound in her sleep. She turned over, her arm flopping down on Odette’s pillow. Odette held her breath. Was Anna still asleep? Or was she opening her eyes and realizing that Odette was no longer in bed?

  Anna’s deep breaths started again, a little raspy and just loud enough and regular enough to assure Odette that she was asleep.

  Holding her breath, Odette slipped out.

  Once she had gone home and changed, she found the three boys who accompanied her. They were sitting in their usual rendezvous spot, but they were all asleep. One of them awoke as she approached and pushed the shoulders of the other two, waking them. Silently they all moved forward into the dark forest.

  Hoping to have better fortune than she had had the night before, Odette moved to one of her favorite spots to watch and wait. She had not frequented this place in a few weeks. Perhaps this was where the deer were feeding now.

  Odette squatted, an arrow nocked and ready. She kept her eyes trained on the tiny clearing several feet in front of her since the deer were typically so silent she would never hear them. So she waited, her eyes burning.

  How lovely to be asleep in bed just now. No doubt Anna would awake in the morning and either come looking for her or send a servant. Odette would have to rise and assure her she was well, pretending she was not still exhausted from being out all night.

  But she did not want anyone to go hungry simply because she would rather be in bed sleeping. She had not been able to kill anything the night before. She could not fail a second night.

  She heard a slight rustling sound. A large stag appeared. Odette had anticipated him, so she was already aiming. As soon as he stilled, she let the arrow fly.

  It found its mark. The deer took two steps, then fell to the ground.

  The three boys leapt into action from behind her. They raced toward the hart and began the hard work of readying him for being transported out of the woods.

  “Who is there?” a man’s voice called.

  The boys all stopped what they were doing and stood perfectly still—as still as Odette’s heart. But then it began to beat again, so hard it hurt her chest.

  A crack sounded not far away, then another, as someone was walking toward them.

  The boys started running. Odette turned and ran as one of the boys flew by her.

  “Halt!”

  16

  TREE LIMBS SLAPPED her in the face as she ran through them. She stumbled over roots and bushes, but she kept going. Her heart was slamming against her chest, and the smell of sweat and animal blood filled her nostrils, even though there couldn’t have been any blood near her.

  Odette was sure that the voice belonged to Jorgen.

  A cry rang out above the crashing sounds she and the boys were making as they ran through the forest. Had one of the boys been caught? Would he tell Jorgen the truth about who was doing the poaching and why?

  As she continued to run through the trees and undergrowth, her head throbbed with every footfall. She emerged from the trees at full speed. The boys were nowhere to be seen, but they had run in different directions. They would find hiding places somewhere.

  Odette found the hole in the town wall, just big enough for her to squeeze through, where she always came and went after dark. She moved the loose stones and squirmed her way through, then put them back in place before hurrying through the back alleys of the town. She climbed over the garden fence and went in the back door.

  She leaned against it, trying to calm her breathing. O Father God, please do not let Jorgen find out what I have been doing. Thinking of how her poaching would look through Jorgen’s eyes, a stab of pain went through her stomach. She was stealing. Those deer belonged to the king and the margrave, not to her, even if she was doing it for good reason.

  But perhaps the boy would not tell Jorgen about her. Perhaps he even got away, slipping out of the forester’s grasp before he could take him back to the margrave’s dungeon.

  Odette’s skin felt cold and clammy around the collar of her leather cotehardie. Her sweat had chilled as she ran, and her head was as light as a cloud, as if it might float away. Her stomach roiled, and she placed her hand on her midsection. “Do not get sick. Do not get sick,” she told her stomach.

  She closed her eyes and tried not to think about Jorgen or the poor boy he had caught. There was naught she could do about it now. She would breathe evenly, in and out, and concentrate on getting to bed without anyone hearing her.

  She crept up the steps to her chamber door, which she had left ajar. The door creaked when she pushed on it. Once inside, she moved as quietly as she could to the other end of the room. She opened the trunk and placed her bow and arrows inside, then started to remove her hunting clothes.

  “Where have you been?”

  Odette spun around. “Anna.” She clutched her hands over her chest to keep her heart from leaping out. “You frightened the life from me. What are you doing here?”

  “I was worried about you when you left my house in the middle of the night. And what are you wearing? Odette, this is strange. Where did you go? What did you do?”

  “Anna, I . . .” How could she lie to Anna? At the thought of telling her the truth, her heart started pounding again, thundering in her head, so hard it made her feel weak. But was that fear making her sick? Or was it the exhaustion of keeping her secret? She had never told a soul, but it would feel good to be able to share it. She could trust Anna, couldn’t she? “If I tell you, do you vow not to tell anyone?”

  Anna, who was lying in Odette’s bed, sat up and threw off the covers. “I won’t tell a living soul.” She scrambled out of the bed and went to help Odette undo the lacings on her leather stockings and her leather cotehardie, which protected her from thorns and tree limbs.

  “I do not quite remember how it started,” Odette said.

  “How what started?” Anna worked at a knot in the lacings on her left stocking.

  How should she word this? “I am . . . I have been poaching deer from Thornbeck Forest. At night. Every night for the past year.” She felt weak, so weak her knees nearly buckled.

  “Odette!” Anna gasped. “Poaching! This is unaccountably strange. But . . . But . . . Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

  Her stomach twisted at Anna’s tone. “I am feeding dozens of orphans and poor families.” That justified her actions, did it not? “Why should the animals live and die in the forest and be no good to anyone?” But it sounded like a pitiful excuse, now that she was saying it out loud.

  Anna covered her open mouth with her hand. The moonlight through the window showed how big her eyes were as she stared at Odette. “You . . . you are so . . . brave.” She let out a strangled laugh. “You go out every night and kill deer in the margrave’s forest? I have never heard of anything so exciting!” She laughed again.

  “Shh. Someone will hear you.” Odette allowed herself a tiny smile at Anna’s enthusiastic reaction.

  “I wish I could see you out there, stalking through the trees, hunting down your prey, and killing the margrave’s deer to feed the poor. It is romantic.”

  Odette sank down on the bed. “It’s hardly romantic, but I am relieved you aren’t scolding me.” She sighed as she lay back on her pillow. “It is exhausting.”

  “However did you begin doing this?” Anna leaned over her, her face obscured in the dark room.

  Odette thought for a moment. “I wanted a way to help feed the poor, something I could do all on my own. I had done a little poaching of smaller animals when I was a child. I learned to use a bow and arrow, and I was good at it. There were so many deer in Thornbeck Forest. It seemed like it wouldn’t hurt to shoot a few and give them to the hungry people. Rutger and I worked out a plan where he would have some of the young men who worke
d for him go with me and cut up and carry the meat after I killed it. And Rutger has some other people who distribute it to the poor.”

  “Oh.” Anna sat facing the foot of the bed. “But . . .”

  When she didn’t continue, Odette asked, “But what?”

  “Does it not seem strange to you that Rutger would allow you to take the risk? If you are caught, the margrave might cut off your hand. He will be furious and will throw you in the dungeon. And what about Jorgen? If he discovers that you’re poaching . . .”

  “I know, I know.” Odette’s heart twisted inside her. “I don’t want to hurt Jorgen, but I also do not want to abandon the poor who are counting on me to feed them.”

  Anna nodded. “But, Odette, how long do you plan to do this? It must be exhausting, going hunting every night. When do you sleep? If yesterday was an indication, you are not sleeping. You looked so tired.”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps someday I can stop. But to be honest, I don’t see how it will ever be possible. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless I marry a rich man who will use his money to feed them.”

  “Odette, you aren’t responsible for every single hungry person.”

  “But I just cannot bear to think of them going hungry when I can do something about it. Besides, I like hunting, and I believe I am doing something good and that God will reward me for what I’m doing.”

  “It seems to me . . . But perhaps I should not say that.”

  “What? Go on and say it. You know I won’t be angry with you.”

  “I just think that Rutger, as your uncle, should be more concerned for you and your well-being. He should not encourage you to break the laws of the land.”

  “Well, Rutger knows I want to help the poor and that I am a woman who will not be easily dissuaded. He also allows me to study with a tutor and to study any subject I wish, and I am grateful for that.” But there was a niggling feeling that Anna was right. Why did Rutger not try to stop her?

  “You should not feel as though you must hunt every night, Odette. Truly you shouldn’t. You will make yourself sick. Besides, it must be hard on you to be always afraid of being caught. I could never handle the strain of such a thing.” She reached out and squeezed Odette’s arm. “But you have always been stronger than I am.”