Kraaia meets a man strong enough

Kraaia stepped through the doorway into the narrow corridor. “Cedric…” she sang softly.

She was almost certain Cedric and the boys had come through here, for she had already exhausted most of the other possibilities at this end of the castle.

Even if she did not find him, however, she was happy to explore. The Countess no longer entertained, and the young Earl’s eleventh birthday was therefore Kraaia’s first opportunity to give herself a little self-​​guided tour of Bernwald.

She passed a steep staircase leading up through the thickness of the wall, but she decided to venture down to the end of the corridor first.

“Oh, Cedric…” she sang. She would have been angry at him for fleeing her if it had not been so much fun to pursue him.

She found nothing at the end of the passage – only a low stool and a few barrels and bits of rubbish, and no way out but back the way she had come. It appeared the tiny room was only meant for spying on the comings and goings at the main gate, and at the moment there was not even a guard for her to tease. There was nothing left but to go up the stairs.

When she turned, however, she saw something that had not been there before.

It was Princess Irene’s servant Andronikos, that strange creature who dressed more finely than the local nobility on most occasions. He was called a eunuch, and whenever the word was mentioned the ladies hid their mouths behind their hands and blushed or giggled or both.

Kraaia did not know what it meant, and Cedric would not tell her. She would have thought it the perfect opportunity to ask the interested party himself, but something about the way he stood told her he would not suffer gladly the prattle of an eleven-​​year-​​old girl.

Nevertheless, he stood between her and the stairs.

She lifted her nose like Lady Lili and said, “There is nothing whatsoever of interest down this way. We shall have to go back.”

Andronikos said nothing, but the instant Kraaia lifted a foot, he rushed at her.

She braced herself and prepared to execute the kick and the squirm that always freed her from any sort of unwelcome embrace. Andronikos simply rushed over her and carried her off like a tall wave.

She skittered across the floor, desperately trying to stay on her feet. She only just put her hands up in time to prevent her face from smashing into the wall.

Before she had recovered from that shock, he had spun her around and slammed her back against the stones. She found she could not even control her breath long enough to scream.

Andronikos bent his head over her and spoke rapidly in his eerie boy’s voice.

“I don’t – understand!” she whimpered.

He slapped her face. “Understand this?” he asked in English. “What do you do here?”

“Nothing!” she squeaked. “I was only looking for – for Cedric…”

“No! Not here! What do you do here? In this valley?”

She tried to dodge around him, but his hand shot out and closed over her ear. At last her pain permitted a pure, shrill scream.

He jerked her head back against the wall, but she scarcely felt her skull strike the stone. She only feared it was possible for a man to rip the ear from a girl’s scalp.

“What do you here?” he panted. “Who sent you here?”

“No one!” she wailed. “I followed – Cedric – and Leofric!” Oh, if only one of them could find her now!

“Do not lie! Who – sent – you – here?” he asked, yanking on her ear with every word.

Kraaia could no longer speak. She could no longer see. Her hands pawed helplessly over the silk of his robe, no longer struggling but only pleading.

“Who – told – you – ”

Suddenly, miraculously, the burning in her ear was relieved, and she fell away from him. For an instant she was alone in her tiny universe of throbbing pain and fear, but then she became aware of terrible sounds above her head: dull blows and gasps and grunts.

It was Leofric, but she knew it only by the height and the bulk of him, for his face was unrecognizable. It was not even Leofric-​​colored: it was so red as to almost match the maroon of his tunic, and it was twisted and ugly as she had never seen it.

He soon stopped beating Andronikos’s face, but only to grab his throat with his left hand and bring a long knife up to it with the right.

“I thought you were a eunuch,” he growled.

Kraaia had never heard such a voice, either. Was this the same Papa Leofric who let her braid pink ribbons in his mane and who called her his baby?

Andronikos said nothing and only gingerly lifted his hands away from his face. Kraaia saw blood smeared on hands and face both.

Leofric slowly lowered his right hand, snagging the point of the knife in the golden silk and tearing a long slit down the front of it.

“If you’re not yet, you’re about to be,” he snarled through clenched and grinning teeth, like a vicious dog.

Suddenly Kraaia had some idea of what a eunuch might be. She peeked out from behind her hands and whimpered, “Papa Leofric…”

“Son of a serpent!” he roared. “Get out of here, idiot girl!”

She sobbed. All while watching, she – like he – had forgotten she was even there. Now she was too terrified to move.

“Run, Kraaia! Run! Go find Egelric and send him to me!”

That was a simple task – that was something she could do. She did not have to think: she merely had to find Egelric. She ran.