Chapter One
Holy Roman Empire, 1527
Early morning light shafted through the single window of Christyne von Heidelbraum’s bed chamber, spearing the lingering darkness of the clinging night, yet doing little to battle the chill that refused to welcome the coming day. The warm blankets cocooning her beckoned for her to slip back into a fitful slumber, still she must not allow them to draw her back. Not if her purpose for the day had a chance to succeed. Her father would be absent only a few more days, and if she desired to slip past the castle gates, it needs be done while he was away.
She slid from her bed and tiptoed on bare feet across the woven rushes to the warm brazier, treading carefully so her tender soles would not be pricked by a splintered fiber. She sighed deeply as she let her body adjust from sleep to wakefulness.
A sly grin slithered across her face. The penance Bishop Wilmer would require if she were discovered should deter her, yet she found she cared not one tittle about the clergyman’s displeasure.
Noise drifted through the window. Reluctant to leave the warmth of the burning coals, she leaned toward the outer wall, thankful she had left the shutters open the night before. Voices carried to her, and though she could not decipher the spoken words, it was sound enough to make her stomach plunge to her toes.
She had stayed beneath her warm bedclothes too long.
It would have been easier to escape the castle before the servants and her father’s men had broken their fast, but all was not lost. Mayhap the day would still unfold as she wished. To her knowledge, their suspicions yet lay upon pallets even if their bodies did not. And as long as those suspicions stayed abed, she could escape the donjon through the undercroft of the castle.
The vaulted storage room had been abandoned before her birth for reasons unknown to her. If not for her servant Hette’s loose tongue, Christyne would be unaware of its existence still.Divine providence. Especially the small window in the corner, devoid of shutters or parchments. Wide enough for her to thread her way through.
She lifted the clothing Hette had secreted to her the night before from the back of a chair by the brazier. If she emerged from her chamber in her own gown of fine cloth ringed with several stripes depicting her noble bloodlines along the hem, she would be spotted at once and refused admittance past the castle gates. Not with her father,ReichsfürstErnst von Heidelbraum, prince of the region, away fetching a new bride to produce him male heirs. But with Hette’s birch-stained overtunic devoid of any adornment—a simple maid’s kirtle—no attention should be drawn Christyne’s way.
Her lips quirked. She must thank the countess that had visited from the seat of the Papal States months past for boasting at such length of masquerade costumes, thus giving Christyne the inspiration for her own concealment.
She stripped off her embroidered linen chemise and donned Hette’s faded hemp shift. Next, she pulled on an undertunic that fell midway between ankle and knee—longer than her own undergowns, but the added length shielded her from the coarse wool of the maid’s kirtle. She laced herself in at the front, relishing the independence such clothing afforded, as opposed to the restrictive brocades and velvets she was required to wear at court.
The low, square neckline pinched. Mayhap her bosom was a bit fuller than Hette’s. No matter. She was covered by the shift and supported by the undertunic. And, of more importance, she was disguised—insomuch as no one peered too closely upon her face. She prayed they would not, for then all would be lost.
Attaching first an apron and then a leather girdle to her waist, she examined the bag dangling from her hip. The sparkle of gold coins winked back at her. Insufficient for the needs, but the paltry sum would have to do. For now.
If only her father would stir himself enough to see the state of the least among them. Instead, he closed his eyes to the peasants’ plight. Allowed his gaze to be colored by the other princes of the empire and the drive of greed and power.
The yoke of taxes to fund the pope’s extravagant spending had threatened to choke them all. In answer, peasant lands had been seized, lower nobility snuffed out, and the feudal system strengthened.
Christyne pressed a hand to her middle, bile rising at the memory of the revolt two years past in response to the harsh treatment. It had been futile; the peasants brutally squashed, the lands watered with their own blood.
A shiver ran down her spine as she recalled the keening cry that had echoed from the forest incline that separated the castle from the peasants dwelling in the village and farmlands. The terrifying copper scent the breeze had carried from beyond the safety of the quarried battlements. Tales of ruthless fighting from thelandsknecht—the heartless mercenary soldiers the empire and princes commissioned—were enough to make even the most callous of men lose the contents of their stomachs.
Since then, her father had endeavored to assure her that the peasants in his province were treated fairly. That they wanted for naught and would not take up arms once more because their needs were provided for. But he retained a regiment of landsknecht to regulate the area. She had spotted them from her window in their notoriously bright-coloredhosenandlederwams.
It had been that discovery that had spurred her to witness for herself how the people faired. Against her father’s wishes, she’d had her palfrey saddled and accompanied a group of house servants to town under the guise of shopping for a spool of thread for her embroidery.
Unwashed children had littered the streets, their dirty skin stretched over skeletal bodies in need of nourishment. Those, she had learned, were the hapless souls that had lost both mother and father. The more “fortunate” still toiled with their families in fields, their young backs bent under the weight of a grown man’s work. Wherever she looked, want stared back at her.
At that moment, a vow had pushed past her lips. One given to improve their people’s lives. The few coins she had concealed would be trivial compared to their need—a drop in a vast ocean—but mayhap it would ease at least one family’s burden and fill their empty bellies.
Costume almost in place, Christyne pinned her dark hair near the nape of her neck. She retrieved a paddedwulsthaubeheadpiece, placing the hem of material at her hairline so the bulge circled the top of her head near the back like a crown of thickly braided hair. Once secure, she covered thewulstwith a linenschleierveil, twisting the long tail and wrapping it over her head before tucking it into place at the base. She would forgo a hat. Hette never wore one. Not even on journeys to town.
Behold. She was as transformed as she could be without the addition of extra padding or smeared soot to discolor her clean skin. If only she had a length of looking glass to discern her resemblance to a serving girl in place of a princess of the Holy Roman Empire.
With one last sweep of her hand down the front of her borrowed wool kirtle, she squared her shoulders and strode to the large door that would open to a passageway and then stairs down to the great hall. At the last second, she remembered herself and tucked her chin to her chest, borrowing yet still from Hette—her posture of humility and servitude.
She hugged the cold stone wall as she descended the winding stairway. She passed one of her father’s men, but he spared her not a glance. Breath released from her lungs. Safe, for now. But if her ruse were found out and recounted to her father, her life may yet be forfeit.
She shook her head, displacing such thoughts. Now was not the time to dwell upon the unstable relationship between Prince Ernst and herself. Besides, her father surely would not carry out his threat to her, would he? She recalled his crimson face when she had informed him she would not enter into marriage with the Duke of Schlestein. Forsooth, he had been angered.
Her eyes closed as she gathered about her the courage she needed. Without doubt, he would send her to a convent as spoken—though such an action would not increase his esteem among the other princes, those neighboring closest now requiring their people worship according to the newly established Lutheran doctrines.
Christyne herself had been privy to many debates during her time at court or hosting visiting families. The professor from Wittenberg had caused an uprising, and only the protection of his patron, Frederick the Wise, Prince and Elector of Saxony, had saved Martin Luther from a papal bull and death. Her father and other princes of the empire continued to remain loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, however, and so she did not think the threat of a convent idle speech.
Another shudder, reminiscent of the one not an hour past, coursed its way down her spine. As with reports of the ruthless landsknecht, stories of what transpired within the walls of some cloisters sickened her. Martin Luther’s own wife had run away from an abbey and made her escape in a fish barrel.
