Heart of Snow

Chapter 1

Margaretha

I did not look at the pyre in the center of the crowd.

I watched boys in hooknose witch masks chase screaming girls toward their mothers’ skirts.

I watched celebrating villagers dance, kicking up the dust of the open field as they pounded their feet to grating tunes from slide trumpets and shawms. I even watched drunken men staggering and spilling ale from their cups.

All so I might avoid seeing the woman of twigs and straw propped atop an ominous pile of logs, waiting to burn.

The villagers paid her no heed, carrying on with their throbbing noise and chaos, forgetting what I could never forget.

I remembered when the woman who burned was real.

“You’re shivering, Countess.” My lady-in-waiting, Belinda, rubbed my arm. “Let us warm you with some ale.”

“It isn’t the cold; it’s the place.” Despite the nearly ten-year absence, dark memories hovered around me like fog clinging to the forest’s trunks.

Belinda’s eyes turned sympathetic. “Do you wish to leave? Perhaps we can sneak away without your father noticing.”

My heart swelled at the idea of escaping the mock burning, and I nodded excitedly. “Yes, let’s do. Only, first I must deliver these electuaries.” After reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the small vials.

“Margaretha, you brought your medicaments to a festival? Do you never rest?”

“Ailments don’t cease simply because it’s Walpurgisnacht.” I rolled onto my toes to search for the blacksmith. “I’ve only two left to dispense.”

“Very well. Let us be quick.” She slid her arm through mine, letting me lead her along as I weaved through the crowd.

Heads turned as we passed, young men staring after me, old men’s eyes going wide.

I batted away my rising embarrassment from their attentions, until my sights landed on a nobleman, his brown eyes following me with interest as his foot relentlessly tapped the dirt.

I nodded a quick acknowledgement, though it was not quick enough. Belinda had already followed my line of sight to the man, a broad grin coming over her face. “Is that Baron von Dalwigk? Well, this will be diverting. Let us have a chat with him.”

“Belinda, no.” I tugged on her arm to steer us away from another of her attempts to have me speak with a man, but Belinda was stronger, dragging me toward him.

Before he’d even pushed himself up to greet us, my hands trembled, and it seemed my tongue was swelling in my throat.

As Belinda and I dropped our bows, I locked my gaze safely on his boots.

His tapping toe indicated he welcomed this conversation as much as I, but he returned our bows, greeting me first to show deference for my higher rank.

“Guten abend, Herr von Dalwigk,” Belinda said. “You’re looking quite a man now. Are you yet five and twenty?”

“Eight and twenty, Baroness, and I see you are as lovely as ever.” He took her hand to kiss it, and peeking at the pair, I suddenly saw Belinda as he might, with the advantage of five years’ maturity over my nineteen and beauty enough in her own right.

Her darker features were not as fashionable as my fair ones, but she had a cleverness about her eyes, and her mouth was bent in a soft, knowing smile.

Dalwigk turned to me next, and I dropped my sights back to his mud-splattered, fidgeting boot. “But could this really be the young countess? Lady Margaretha, I would not have thought it possible you would grow to be such a beauty.”

His compliment was part insult, but at the insistence of Belinda’s elbow in my side, I stammered out my thanks.

“What calls you from Burg Lichtenfels, sir?” Belinda asked. “Would you not rather be feasting with your own people?”

“Not when there’s such company to be had here.

” Dalwigk caught hold of my hand and lifted it to his lips, but before I realized what I’d done, I wrenched my hand away.

Cheeks warming from my blunder, I risked a glance at the frown that dropped the corners of his mouth.

Annoyance colored his words as he added, “I own a second motive for my presence. I bring news for the count.”

News?

His fingers joined the rhythm of his foot, drumming a beat on his leg that made my head heavy. This was not good news. My thoughts flew to my brother, and I cast Belinda a nervous look.

“About the war?” she asked, perfectly anticipating my anxiety. “Not unpleasant news, I hope.”

“Ah, here is the count now.” Dalwigk ignored Belinda’s question, stepping past us to greet my father with a bow.

Father’s mouth was already set in a frown as he acknowledged the man, then nodded to our private tent. He said nothing until the four of us were safely inside.

“My man tells me you’ve come to report.”

Dalwigk’s nervousness did nothing for the weight on my brain. “It’s not good, I’m afraid. Mühlberg was a loss. Your troops were defeated, every man either captured or killed.”

Father’s face drained of blood, and he sank into his chair. “Every man?”

Dalwigk nodded, his face solemn.

My throat seized until I could only whisper a strangled, “Samuel.”

“The kaiser is sending his Spanish troops to every rebelling German territory,” Dalwigk continued. “Unless you keep fighting, it will only be a matter of weeks before your county is overrun and you’re forced to renounce Luther and return to the Catholic faith.”

Father gave him a dark glare. “Keep fighting? Every man in my army was at Mühlberg. Whom would I fight with? And it’s no different for the other nobles in the league.” He ran a shaking hand over his beard, letting out a low curse. “All that work, yet in one battle the Reformation is dead.”

The Reformation. For nearly thirty years our lands had been aflame with reform.

Ever since Martin Luther bravely nailed his criticisms of the Catholic Church to the Wittenberg chapel door, each beat of his hammer echoed throughout the German lands in the drums of war.

If Luther and all our territories denied the Catholic faith, then Luther and all our territories would deny the kaiser his God-given right to rule.

And with the core of the kaiser’s empire free from his control, how much longer till Burgundy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sicily, Naples, and the rest of his lands wrestled for independence?

No, the kaiser would put down such rebellion here, enforcing with sword and ball his divine right to govern and fighting whatever hordes of men dared rise against him. Men like my brother.

“But what of Samuel?” I asked, finally meeting Dalwigk’s eyes. “What fate befell my brother?”

Father leaned forward, just as eager for Dalwigk’s answer, but the grim set of Dalwigk’s mouth was not encouraging. “I admit I do not know. But take heart.” He offered us an unconvincing smile. “Count Samuel is a fighter.”

That was precisely what worried me.

I wrestled back the threatening emotion, rubbing a hand over my nose until I caught Father watching me. He shifted his sorrowful eyes to my lady-in-waiting, his voice weary as he addressed her. “Mistress Hatzfeld, why don’t you see Lady Margaretha back to the festival.”

She nodded, giving him a sweet smile and pulling me toward the tent door.

“But—”

“Look,” Belinda whispered, holding back the tent flap. “The sky grows dark. Let us deliver the vials and be gone.”

Behind the orange and pink clouds loomed a darker purple hue, and I knew Belinda was right. We hadn’t much time.

I let her lead me away through the field’s matted grass, plunging back into the thick of the crowd to resume our search for the blacksmith, but I passed faces without seeing.

When would I learn what had become of Samuel?

No doubt it took time to identify the bodies of war’s mutilated dead.

But no, I shouldn’t think that way. Samuel could well be alive.

“Your brother is all right, Margaretha. He has to be.” Belinda’s fierce tone matched her grip on my arm.

She was every bit as worried as I, though she would never admit it.

“And anyway,” her posture relaxed, an air of indifference slipping over her like a comfortable chemise, “we have our own troubles to fret about. Your sorry showing with Dalwigk . . . You must be more sociable if you hope to succeed in Brussels.”

She was intentionally diverting the conversation, but I allowed it. “Will you persist in dragging me to speak with every nobleman in the empire?” I shot her a glare.

“Until you can learn to look a man in the eye and say two words together, yes.” Her smile was infuriating. “Oh, don’t furrow your brows at me. It’s my duty to prepare you for the courts of Brussels.”

“Why all this talk of Brussels?” I pulled to a stop. “Has Father asked you to speak to me?”

She suddenly seemed very interested in searching for the blacksmith.

“Belinda?”

Meeting my eye, she heaved a great sigh. “As it happens, another invitation from the queen arrived today. It’s quite a distinction, you know, being asked as her lady-of-honor.”

I shook my head and resumed the slow push through the crowd. “You know full well I’m not going to Brussels.”

Belinda huffed. “Why would you refuse the queen’s invitation now? As the kaiser’s sister, she could sway him to—”

“The war is lost.” I rounded on her. “Any plans to promote our reformist cause have been slaughtered. I do more good here with my healing medicines.”

Belinda pressed her lips in a tight line, her usual countenance when she had much to say but not the composure to say it with. She kept silent, following behind me until I found the blacksmith. Upon seeing me, he whipped off his cap and gave a bow so hasty he nearly knocked his head with mine.

“I thank ye, m’lady,” he said, taking the vial I offered. “Weren’t never a better brewer than you. Or a prettier one.”

His wife slapped his arm.

I pretended not to notice. “Can you point me in the direction of the harness maker’s wife?”

“There,” he said, “beyond the pyre.”