The Silent Songbird (Hagenheim #7)(84)
“Mother, you promised someday you would find someone who could teach me to read. Might we go to a large town where there is a proper priest who knows Latin, a place where there might dwell someone who can teach me to read and write?” She held her breath, watching her mother, whose back was turned as she wrapped her fragile dried herbs in cloths.
Finally, her mother answered softly, “I saw someone in Keiterhafen this morning, someone who . . . needs my help with . . . something.”
Rapunzel stopped in the middle of folding her clothes, waiting for Mother to clarify the strange comment.
“And now we will be going to meet him in Hagenheim.”
Her heart leapt. Hagenheim was a great town, the largest around.
She tried not to sound eager as she asked, “Isn’t that where you lived a long time ago, when Great-Grandmother was still alive?”
“Yes, my darling. Your great-grandmother was the most renowned midwife in the town of Hagenheim—in the entire region.” She paused. “Someone I once knew will soon be back in Hagenheim after a long stay in England.”
“I don’t remember you saying you knew anyone who went to England. Is it a family member?”
Her mother turned to Rapunzel with a brittle smile. “No, not a family member. And I have never mentioned this person before. I do not wish to talk about it now.”
The look on Mother’s face kept Rapunzel from asking any more questions. Mother had never had friends, and she had never shown any interest in marrying. Although she could marry if she wished. She was still slim and beautiful, with her long, dark hair, which had very little gray.
Later, as Rapunzel finished getting her things ready to tie onto their ox in the morning, she hummed a little song she’d made up. Mother enjoyed hearing her songs, but only when no one else was around.
When night fell, Rapunzel sang her song as Mother finished braiding Rapunzel’s long blond hair. Mother smiled in her slow, secretive way. “My precious, talented girl.”
Rapunzel embraced her and crawled under the coverlet of their little straw bed.
The next day Rapunzel trudged beside her mother down the road, which was nothing more than two ruts that the ox carts had worn deep in the mud that had then dried and become as hard as stone. She led their ox, Moll, down the center between the ruts, careful to avoid stepping in the horse and ox dung. Their laying hens clucked nervously from the baskets that were strapped to Moll’s back.
Night began to fall. Rapunzel lifted her hand to her face and rubbed the scar on her palm against her cheek absentmindedly. She’d had the scar, which ran from the base of her thumb to the other side of her hand, for as long as she could remember. The skin over it was smooth and pale, like a long crescent moon.
“How much farther to Hagenheim, Mother?”
“At least two more days.”
Rapunzel didn’t mention what she was thinking: that a band of robbers could easily be hiding in the trees at the side of the road. It was not safe for two women to be traveling alone, although they had never been attacked in all the times they had moved from one village to the next.
They had also never traveled so far. They normally only journeyed a few hours.
When the moon was up and shining brightly, and they had not encountered any other travelers for at least an hour, Mother said, “We will stop here for the night.”
Rapunzel guided the ox off the road and among the dark trees.
They made a small fire and prepared a dinner of toasted bread, cheese, and fried eggs.
After making sure the ox and hens had food, and after putting out their fire, Rapunzel and Mother lay close together, wrapped in their blankets. Rapunzel sang softly until Mother began to snore.
The next day was uneventful and the unusually warm weather continued. The sun shone down on Rapunzel’s head and shoulders as she plodded along at the speed of the ox and to the sound of the chickens’ clucking and squawking. Occasionally she amused herself and Mother with her songs, but she always stopped singing when someone came within listening distance. Her mother had warned her not to let strangers hear her beautiful voice or see her golden, ankle-length hair, which Rapunzel kept covered with a scarf and sometimes a stiff wimple. But Mother had never explained why. Perhaps she just didn’t want Rapunzel attracting attention to herself for the same reason she didn’t want her singing or speaking to men, young, old, or in-between.
On the second day of their journey, two travelers caught up with them, leading two donkeys that pulled a cart loaded and covered by burlap, with one of the men riding on the tallest lump on the back of the cart. As they passed by to Rapunzel’s right, the man leading the donkeys smiled. “Pardon me, but would you know how close we are to Hagenheim town?”
“We should reach it by tomorrow night.” Rapunzel noticed a big scar on the side of his face. “You may reach it sooner since you are moving faster.”
“Thank you, kind maiden.” He nodded.
Mother turned to stare hard at something just behind them. The second man stared pointedly at their bundles and baskets tied to Moll’s back. When the man’s eyes darted to hers, the hair on the back of her neck stood up at the look in his eyes and the strange smile on his face.
“A good day to you.” He spoke politely, and they moved ahead until they rounded a shady bend in the road and disappeared.
She sighed in relief, until her mother said in her irritable tone, “Don’t speak to strangers, Rapunzel. You know it is dangerous.”