Page 32 of The Noble Servant

Chapter Eleven

The day of the big wedding had finally come. Magdalen’s heart felt heavy even as energy flowed through her to do something.

She led her geese toward the little spring pool in the trees. She wanted to get them watered and then take them to the largest pasture where they could graze while she sneaked off to the wedding.

She simplyhadto see who Agnes was marrying today. If the wedding was like most, she’d be able to watch them walk from the castle to the cathedral in town. Hopefully she’d be able to get a look at the “duke” and see once and for all if he was the man she had met two years ago.

But truly, did it matter if he was the man she met? She hardly knew that man, and she had come to Wolfberg to marry a duke. Her mother expected her to marry a duke. The people of Mallin expected her to marry a duke to provide some kind of work for them. Her sisters expected her to marry a duke so they would be able to make better matches. But now someone else was marrying her duke.

She couldn’t stop the wedding. If she so much as showed her face there, Agnes’s father would kill her.

She could not let her mind go to hopeless places. She had to think wisely, and she couldn’t do that if her mind was full of gloom.

Would the geese be all right if she left them here? Surely no wild animals hunted geese on the castle mount. Hungry animals or not, she had to go and at least try to find out who was wedding Agnes.

She threw her long herding stick on the ground and dashed up the hill.

She ran all the way to the front of the castle. Her breath was coming in great gulps and gasps, but no one was there. Had they not left the castle yet? Or had they already made their way down the castle mount to the town below? Since no one was around, she guessed they had already gone.

She rushed through the front gate and started down the hill. She was less than halfway down when she saw a great crowd of people just as they reached the bottom and started along the main street toward the cathedral. Several young women and children were skipping and dancing and waving brightly colored scarves and ribbons on sticks. It was a typical wedding-day procession to the church.

Her heart in her throat, Magdalen ran down the hill. Would she reach them before the vows were spoken?

She hurried along the street to join the rest of the town as they gathered in front of the church steps, where the priest would lead them in their wedding vows.

Magdalen caught a side view of Agnes’s face. She was grinning, her usual smirk. Magdalen maneuvered her way to the other side of the crowd. But even before she saw the groom’s face, she knew he was the man she had seen in the Great Hall with Agnes.

When she got far enough to see him from the side, his face shining in the bright, late-morning sunlight, she noted his countenance. The Duke of Wolfberg would never have such a lax, timid look on his face. This man might have similar features to the man she danced with at Thornbeck, but he did not have the same expressions. He almost looked afraid.

“As well he should, since he’s marrying Agnes,” she muttered under her breath. But was this man the duke?

The priest asked if anyone knew a reason why these two should not be wed. Magdalen could speak up. She could shout that these two people were not who they said they were. She could accuse Agnes of taking her place as Lady Magdalen of Mallin. But who would believe her?

Just then Erlich turned in her direction as he stood near the front of the crowd. If Agnes’s father were to see her ...

She backed away, keeping her head down, slipping through the crowd again and heading back toward the castle mount.

She trudged up the hill. Climbing up was much harder than going down. By the time she made it to the little trail where she and the geese walked every morning and every evening to and from their little shed, her legs were burning. Her knees were weak, and her hands were shaking.

She had written a letter to Avelina at Thornbeck Castle. Steffan had promised to find couriers to take her letters to Mallin and Thornbeck, but he had admitted the day before that he had not yet found any couriers.

What hope did she possibly have unless this shepherd was able to hire those couriers?

She had been summoned here expecting to marry a duke, a duke with kind eyes and a friendly smile, and she had beenstripped of her belongings and her identity and forced to tend to a gaggle of geese in exchange for bad food and a tiny bed in the servants’ barracks. No one knew who she was, and no one who cared about her had any idea that she had been forced to change places with a vindictive maidservant.

She walked down the little trail and finally came to the large meadow where she had left the geese. But ... they were nowhere to be seen.

Magdalen found her stick where she had thrown it. Where had the geese gone? Had a bear or a pack of wolves killed them all and dragged them away? What would Frau Clara do to her for losing all the geese?

She should go look for them, but which way should she go? Her legs were shaking so much, the thought of running all over the side of this giant hill, seeing Agnes looking so smug, marrying the man who might very well be her intended husband ...

Tears welled up and she sat in the grass. She dropped her stick, then she put her face in her hands and sobbed.

Crying was a foolish thing to do. It would only make her feel more tired. She wiped her eyes, but the tears just kept coming. She dabbed at her face and nose with the cloth she now carried everywhere with her in the small bag that hung at her belt.

“God, why?” she whispered into her cloth. “Why did You send me here only to snatch away everything I’ve ever known? Everything I’ve ever counted on is gone.” She let out another sob and pressed the cloth to her eyes.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to go back home. What will Mother say? She always criticizes me and speaks to me as if I’m nobody, then lectures me on demanding respect. I told Avelina she should demand respect, but I have always been too afraid of mymother’s cruel tongue to stand up to her. I thought I could get married and I wouldn’t feel crushed, the way I do when Mother says her cruel things to me. And now ... my chance for marriage to someone I could care for is gone. I’ll have to go back to my mother.” Another sob shook her body, and she bent forward and gave in to it.