The Piper's Pursuit Read online

  Steffan stared down at his frumenty. Was that regret in his expression?

  “Kill many Poles, did you?” Hennek’s smile was obscenely broad.

  Steffan cleared his throat, not quite meeting Hennek’s eyes. “I was fighting with the Teutonic Knights, but I’ve since parted company with them.”

  “Parted company? Fighting was not to your liking, then?”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Steffan seemed to let out a breath he was holding. He reached for his goblet and drank a gulp.

  “Couldn’t stomach killing men, eh? But killing wolves is more to your liking?”

  Steffan gazed down at his bowl. “You could say that.”

  Well, perhaps the stranger from Hagenheim did have a bit of humility inside him.

  Then he looked up at Hennek, the sad, humble look completely gone, if it had ever been there. He gave Hennek a wry smile. “My father taught me and my brothers and sisters to do good, never evil, with whatever skills or resources we have.”

  “Oh yes, the Duke of Hagenheim would certainly teach his sons to do right. That is exactly how I live my life as well. I support the orphanage in town with my own money, and I do not use the town’s coffers for any of the orphans’ expenses. That has always been my way. I please God in all that I do. God is our ultimate Sovereign, and He requires we do good. When I was . . .”

  Hennek began one of his hypocritical stories about some good deed he had done, but Katerina was no longer listening. Was Steffan the son of Duke Wilhelm of Hagenheim? That must be why Hennek allowed him to come to dinner and called him Lord Steffan. Her cheeks heated. That might explain why he was so arrogant. And she had not exactly treated him with deference.

  He must think her ridiculous, a mayor’s daughter giving him disdainful looks, judging him when he was the powerful Duke of Hagenheim’s son. But then, why should she care if he was a duke’s son? He was a man just like anyone else. God was no respecter of persons, so why should she be? And if God hated haughty eyes and prideful looks, Katerina could hate them too.

  “. . . and then the duke appointed me mayor of Hamlin.” Hennek sat back and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Now, tell us about your oldest brother, Lord Hamlin. We are due a visit from him soon. Has he been helping his father keep the rabble in their place?” He laughed as though it were a very amusing jest.

  “I am not certain what my brother Valten has been doing. I’ve been away, as I mentioned.” Steffan turned his eyes on Katerina and gave her a look that at first seemed humble. But then his lips stretched into a small smile, and he winked, a movement so quick . . .

  Humble, ha! He was no more humble than Hennek was. Probably the two men were quite similar, bullying their way through life, squashing ordinary people under their feet to get ahead. Oh yes, she’d heard of this younger son of Duke Wilhelm’s. The rumors were that he was a drinker and carouser and that he had left his father’s soldiers and gone instead to the enemy side, the Teutonic Knights, to satisfy his own ambition. These dukes and earls and their sons were all the same. They seduced women and laughed at their pain when they abandoned them. No doubt Steffan had done the same everywhere he went. She had heard Duke Wilhelm was a good and God-fearing man, though many people thought Hennek was as well. A reputation for righteousness meant very little in Katerina’s mind after living with a man who proclaimed, very loudly, his own.

  But perhaps what she’d heard about the Duke of Hagenheim had been true and this Steffan had not been pleased to live under his rule. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t been home in so long.

  “Katerina, you would like it if Lord Steffan killed the beast, would you not?” Hennek met her eye before he started laughing again, that fake laugh that went on and on, one of his many ways of controlling those around him, forcing them to wait until his loud laughter stopped before they could speak and be heard.

  No one spoke. Everyone’s eyes were on her, even Mother’s. No doubt she worried what Katerina might say in front of Lord Steffan, the son of the lord of this land.

  “I would be very glad if Lord Steffan was able to kill the beast,” Katerina said. “Then the people of Hamlin would no longer have to be afraid.”

  Hennek chuckled. “She is a smart girl after all. My daughter would like being married to a duke’s son, would she not?”

  She gave Hennek, then Steffan, her coldest look. “I am a free woman in the eyes of the Church, and I will not marry against my will. And it most certainly is not my will to marry.”

  Three

  Steffan couldn’t say he was surprised at the cold look the Bürgermeister’s daughter sent his way, but he was a bit surprised at her giving the same look to her stepfather. No one even moved for several seconds after her softly spoken but biting words.

  She was not impressed that he was Duke Wilhelm’s son, then. He admired that. After all, he had done nothing to merit his status. And Katerina was just the sort of woman to only respect and admire people who had earned her respect and admiration.

  Another sensation went through his chest. He suddenly wanted to earn her respect.

  Her chestnut-brown hair lay uncovered and unfettered over her shoulders, her eyes sparking as she stared back at him. Her dress was colorful and fine, transforming her from the peasant girl she had appeared to be on the street into a wealthy burgher’s daughter. But he barely saw the dress because he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her deep blue eyes.

  He would never try to force anyone to marry him. However, if she ended up wanting to marry him . . .

  He closed his eyes, shutting out her lovely face, and mentally shook himself. The girl was beautiful, but he was not ready to marry.

  He focused on the food in his bowl. The frumenty contained juicy chunks of pork and was delicious. And he didn’t even like frumenty. As soon as he’d inhaled the last spoonful, the servants entered and whisked away his bowl, replacing it with a plate. A servant laid a slice of bread in the middle of the plate, then ladled meat and gravy on the bread. More dishes—stewed fruit and cooked vegetables swimming in sauces, all steaming hot—were brought in on large platters and set in the middle of the table.

  “Take some of everything,” Hennek boomed. “A young man like you needs his strength! Eat up! There’s plenty of food in the kitchen!”

  The food looked delicious, but Steffan got a niggling sensation in his gut over how Hennek had treated his wife and daughter. Hennek seemed jolly and cordial enough, and his words, which had angered Katerina so much, seemed more careless than spiteful. But it was the looks on the two women’s faces and their reactions to Hennek that made Steffan uneasy. Hennek had unnecessarily mentioned Katerina marrying, more than once, which obviously infuriated her.

  He’d never really thought about it before, but it would be humiliating to have someone offer you in marriage, especially when you did not know the person to whom you were being offered. It made him want to protect this girl.

  The mayor had such a friendly smile. Perhaps he meant no harm. Though Steffan had never heard or seen his father embarrass his sisters or push a man on them. He couldn’t even imagine it.

  In the past year, after what had happened with Wolfgang and the Teutonic Knights, Steffan had realized how wise his father was. Everything he’d said about the Teutonic Knights, which Steffan had thought reflected his father’s unjust prejudice, had actually been true. And his father was kind. His orders, telling Steffan what to do and what not to do, had only been a father trying to save his son from pain. His brothers and sisters had seemed to know that all along. Why had it taken Steffan so long to realize that his father and mother were good? That they had only had his best interest at heart all along?

  But hadn’t he changed? He’d saved his brother’s life, after all. He still bore the scar above his eye from that tilt.

  Hennek ladled stewed fruit onto Steffan’s plate. “Try this,” Hennek said, “and tell me if the cooks at Hagenheim Castle have anything this good.”

  Steffan tasted the fruit. “It’s good.
” But he refused to say it was better than Hagenheim’s cooks’ fruit. Could he be feeling a newfound loyalty to home?

  Hennek began talking again, his blustery voice filling the room.

  “My daughter here thinks she can kill the beast herself. What say you, Steffan? Do you think you can out-track her?”

  “I do not know.” Truthfully, he had never done much tracking. His father had a master tracker who led their hunting parties. He’d done his own tracking in the last year, whenever he’d tried to fell a deer—with little success. But he wasn’t about to tell them that.

  “Is Katerina a good tracker?” Steffan addressed the question to Hennek but kept his gaze on Katerina. Her lips thinned and she glared at him, her blue eyes darkening.

  “I guess you will find out.” Katerina completely ignored her stepfather and went back to eating her food.

  “My daughter likes to feign this fractious attitude.” Hennek laughed, a forced, aggressive sound. “She goes out every day with her crossbow and tells the servants she’s going to kill the beast, but she hasn’t killed it yet. Perhaps she feels pity for it and doesn’t truly want to kill it. Women are such gentle creatures. Not fierce like men.”

  “I am fierce enough to slay a beast that kills children.” Katerina’s voice was quiet but seemed to shiver with a hard edge. “And you will find that I am not too gentle to put a bolt through the skull of any animal that bares its teeth at me, including ones that walk on two feet.”

  With this she slowly and deliberately turned her head to stare straight at Hennek. But it was the look on Hennek’s face as he returned her stare that sent a jolt of heat up Steffan’s neck and across his shoulders. Would he have to defend the girl?

  Hennek licked his lips and looked away from her. Then he laughed.

  “Have you ever heard such talk from one of your sisters, Lord Steffan? I imagine your sisters are much more submissive.”

  “Less than you might think.” Steffan glanced back at Katerina. “They’ve been known to fight back when someone threatens them and would no doubt approve of her hunting—”

  Hennek cut him off by shouting at the servants to bring out the rest of the food. Then he said, “No one has been able to kill this beast. Soon there may be so many people hunting it that you’ll be likelier to shoot each other.”

  Hennek’s laugh this time was even less genuine than before, sounding brittle and fake. Steffan glanced at both Katerina’s and her mother’s expressions. The girl’s face was red, tight-lipped, and her jaw hard as stone, while her mother’s was white, her bottom lip trembling, her eyes blinking rapidly.

  “How many people have tried to kill the beast so far?” Steffan asked, trying to keep Hennek from further upsetting the women.

  “Oh, there have been some, but they were not fierce hunters, only peasants from the area, and one or two of them were killed by the beast.” Hennek eyed Steffan as he took another bite of food. “But you, Lord Steffan, should be in Hagenheim helping your father, trying to curry your brother’s favor so you can inherit a grand estate somewhere.”

  Heat leapt to Steffan’s cheeks.

  “Oh, I know you are wanting to make your own way in the world. I understand that, of course! Look at me. I earned my success. I did not wait for my father to leave me an inheritance. He was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Braunschweig, and he distinguished himself in the Duke of Hagenheim’s guard. He was a captain when your grandfather was still alive. And he made sure his son was educated in some of the best households in the Holy Roman Empire. Now I’m the Bürgermeister of Hamlin, and you will also do well for yourself. A man who goes out seeking adventure, however, must be ready for it when it comes.” The shrewd look he aimed at Steffan did not match his smile.

  The only sound for a moment was of Hennek’s knife scraping his plate. He shoved a huge bite of pheasant and gravy-soaked bread into his big mouth as the brown sauce dripped from his lip.

  “Dear,” he said, addressing his wife, “why don’t you tell Steffan about Hamlin’s history, how much more prosperous we have been since I took over.”

  Frau Grymmelin sat up straighter and cleared her throat before looking up and smiling as she began to tell how much money had been taken in taxes, the industries that were flourishing, and how many new homes and warehouses had been built since her husband had been appointed mayor. But her eyes never quite met his.

  “I never boast myself, but the town has done very well.” Hennek actually stuck out his chest.

  Katerina’s lip curled as she stared down at her plate. “Please excuse me. I must go to my room now.”

  “We haven’t finished our meal. The cooks are working on a special dessert. You are too thin. You’ll waste away if you keep refusing to eat the special dishes they make for us. Besides, don’t you want to hear how Lord Steffan plans to kill the beast? He may reveal his secrets if you stay and listen. I might even ply him with strong drink. Eh? Lord Steffan, what is your weakness?” He raised his brows high, then laughed.

  He was guffawing so loudly no one could have heard anyone’s reply, even if they’d made one. The longer his raucous laughter went on, the more set Katerina’s jawline became.

  Finally, when the annoying sound dissipated, she said quietly, “I have eaten sufficiently and would like to go to my chamber. Enjoy yourselves.” She stood without receiving his permission and slipped away.

  “She is quite a beauty, would you not agree, Lord Steffan?” Hennek winked.

  “She is a lovely young lady, Herr Hennek.”

  And true to his word, after the sweetmeats arrived, Hennek plied him with strong drink. Steffan refused it, however, remembering his promise to himself. He had not let himself get drunk since he and Wolfgang had been at Malbork Castle, since he’d left Poland.

  He couldn’t quite decide what, but something about Mayor Hennek was not right. He seemed jolly and eager to please one minute, insulting the next, and then laughing as though he was in jest. But the reactions of his wife and stepdaughter to his bluster stuck in Steffan’s mind. If anyone would know the intentions of this man, it would be his family members who lived with him.

  Even so, when Hennek urged him to stay the night in his home, Steffan had no better options, so he accepted. Besides, he wanted to kill the beast, get the reward money, and stay long enough to make certain that the beautiful and spirited Katerina was safe, because, in spite of her confident defiance, she was too much at the mercy of this man Hennek for Steffan’s liking.

  Four

  “I see you are an early riser.”

  Katerina startled and spun around at the voice behind her. Ack. It was that Steffan fellow. Why wouldn’t he leave?

  Katerina didn’t reply to his statement, but he didn’t seem to mind. He followed her down the stairs.

  “Your mother is quite lovely. I might almost have mistaken her for your sister.”

  “She was young when I was born. What of it?” Was he interested in her mother? Katerina went toward the kitchen and he kept following her.

  “I have already broken my fast and thought I would ask you where the best place was to hunt the beast.”

  “You should ask my stepfather.”

  “He didn’t seem as knowledgeable about the animal’s habits as someone who had experience hunting it. Someone like you.”

  Katerina entered the kitchen. Hilde and Grette smiled and greeted her, then started gathering her usual breakfast into a cloth.

  “Oh, may I have one of those?” Steffan leaned over her shoulder.

  “Of course, Lord Steffan.” The cooks smiled and hurried to wrap up an identical bundle of bread, cheese, and cold pork, and they gave it to Lord Steffan at the same time they gave Katerina hers. Grette and Hilde were glancing from Katerina to Steffan and back again.

  “Thank you.” Katerina bolted from the room as Steffan thanked each of them. Why was he fawning over the servants? No doubt he wanted something from them, or he just enjoyed the way they were smiling and blushing at his attent
ion. But she wasn’t waiting to see any more. She had to get rid of him before he followed her to little Bridda’s home.

  Out on the street, she took up a brisk pace. Almost immediately, heavy footfalls sounded behind her. She clenched her teeth, preparing herself to tell him to get away from her.

  A woman and two children were walking down the other side of the street. The woman was holding a small child on her hip while a slightly older child held her hand.

  “Mama, look at this!” The older child let go of her hand and darted ahead.

  “Caspar, no!” The woman fairly screamed.

  The child stopped, his face turning pale. He turned and went back to his mother.

  “Hold my hand, you naughty—” She stopped and her face began to crumple.

  “Don’t cry, Mama. I’m sorry. I’ll hold your hand now.” The little boy grasped his mother’s hand.

  “I just don’t want the beast to get you. You know that.”

  They walked on past.

  “The people here are very frightened, aren’t they?” Steffan appeared at her side. He had already opened his bundle and was taking a bite of bread and cheese.

  “I thought you already broke your fast.”

  “I did.” He chewed and swallowed. “I got hungry again.”

  His smile was so friendly it made her angry. She shouldn’t have said anything to him. She opened her own bundle and took a bite, keeping her head turned away from the talkative duke’s son.

  “So, have you actually seen this Beast of Hamlin?”

  Katerina considered ignoring him, but finally she shook her head.

  “I heard a rumor that a few people have seen it and lived to tell of it.”

  “Two people. A man was attacked but beat it off with a stick.”

  “May I talk to him?”

  “He’s dead. Died of a putrid fever from his wounds.”