The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest (A Medieval Fairy Tale #1)(20)

He did not protest, probably because the minstrels were playing their last song and everyone was leaving.

“Good night, my fair Odette.” Mathis kissed her hand.

“Gute Nacht,” Odette answered, trying to look kind but not flirtatious. Thankfully, Rutger was standing nearby. She had a nervous feeling that Mathis might have told her he wished to marry her if her uncle had not been there.

When all the guests were gone, Odette squeezed her uncle’s arm. “Thank you for the party.”

“Did you have a pleasant birthday?”

“Oh ja, very pleasant.”

“It gives me joy to hear it.”

Perhaps she didn’t thank him enough. Her conversation with Jorgen tonight had reminded her how her uncle had saved her from crushing lack, loneliness, and mistreatment at the hands of people who did not love her. She owed him so much.

Tomorrow she would tell him about the arrow and about Jorgen’s realization that there was a poacher about, killing stags. For now she had to prepare herself for the hunt. She didn’t want anyone to go hungry tomorrow because she had danced too much and was too tired.

And she had tomorrow afternoon with Jorgen and the children to look forward to.





8





ODETTE YAWNED AS she walked to the place outside the town wall on the south side where she taught the poorest children to read and write. Most of them lived in rickety shacks propped against the brick wall of the town. The little hovels were made of cast-off materials—wood, tree limbs, blankets, and whatever else they could find to keep out the wind and rain. Some of them were orphans and lived with older siblings, and some lived with parents who couldn’t work due to sickness or infirmity and couldn’t provide a better place to live.

These children were too embarrassed by their shabby clothing to attend the town school. The other children would tease them mercilessly. She suspected that if it were not for her, the children would not care enough to learn their letters and numbers, or how to read and write, add and subtract, which she also planned to teach them.

As she drew nearer the patch of bare ground where the children played and where they practiced making letters by drawing them with sticks in the dirt, she heard Jorgen’s voice.

He was standing, and the children were sitting in a semicircle in front of him. They were gazing up at him in rapt attention.

“. . . and when the rabbit hopped, the wolf leapt and landed on the grass. But there was no hare beneath his paws. His dinner had disappeared.”

The children began to ask questions in hushed tones, and he answered them patiently, glancing at Odette every so often as she was standing behind the children. Finally he announced, “Your teacher is here, so listen to her now.”

Odette came forward while he took a step back. “You are not leaving yet,” she warned him before turning and facing the children.

She spoke to them for a moment before asking, “Wouldn’t you like to hear some more of Forester Jorgen’s verses and tales?”

The children cheered and shouted their assent.

Jorgen half smiled before pulling some folded sheets of parchment from the pocket inside his hip-length leather tunic. Although up to now she had seen him wearing the style of dress of a middle-class burgher, today he wore the type of clothing one might expect of a forester going about his duties in the woods: A brown linen shirt covered his neck and arms, and over it was a green, sleeveless, leather cotehardie that buttoned down the front. A dagger hung from the belt around his waist.

He looked just as handsome as he had the night before, only more rugged and more sure of himself—a combination that made her heart beat like the Minnesingers’ drums at the Midsummer festival.

He first recited a poem about a magpie and a grasshopper that made the children laugh. Then he read them a tale about a baker and a starving raven that stole one of his pies. By the end of the story, the baker had made two pies for the bird and her baby birds. Of course, it was a children’s story in which the bird could talk, but it made tears come into Odette’s eyes. When he finished, she applauded along with the children.

After each poem or rhyme or story, the children all begged him to read another. He spread his hands wide. “There are no more. I have read them all.”

“Read them again!” the children shouted.

Odette and Jorgen both laughed. He shook his head. “Not today.”

Odette gave a short lesson, then dismissed the children to play. Jorgen walked her back toward the town gate.

“Your tales and poems were delightful.” She probably sounded like the children as they had hopped up and down, squealing at him when he was done. But she didn’t care. He deserved the praise.

He gazed down at her. Could he tell that she had slept very little the night before?

She had been out hunting all night but only managed to shoot one pheasant. Anna woke her up early and called her “lazy head” for still being in bed. They had talked for hours about her party the night before.

“It is true Jorgen is not rich.” Anna had frowned. “It is a pity because he is very handsome, and he seems to like you. But what man wouldn’t adore you? You are beautiful and will make someone a very good wife. Odette, why don’t you marry?”

“And whom do you suggest?” Odette feigned a flippancy she did not feel.

Anna sighed and shook her head. “That is the trouble. There is no one worthy of you.”