The Secret Healer(19)
The men laughed and chatted about their masters’ shortcomings. Someone mentioned another juryman’s name, and Kilian smiled to himself with satisfaction. Now he knew the identities of three of the jurymen. That was more than he’d dared to hope for. After ordering and sharing two more large pitchers of beer, he excused himself and made his way back home. He had accomplished his task. First thing in the morning, he would go see Andreas von Balge. He felt good when he arrived home, his father and sister already asleep. He undressed and crawled under his bedcovers quietly. A warm feeling filled his body. I can help Madlen, he thought, and fell asleep, a happy man.
Chapter Seven
Madlen put on her good dress as she readied herself for the trial. Yesterday, Kilian told her he had discovered the names of some of the jury members. He’d gone directly to Andreas to fill him in about the men who would ultimately decide Madlen’s fate. In the afternoon, Kilian returned home and immediately went to the woodshop to do at least some work for his father that day. Madlen heard Jerg roaring about how he couldn’t tolerate him wandering all around town instead of helping him in the woodshop. When the two came home that evening, Madlen put dinner on the table and tried to appease her father by telling him that Kilian had just been trying to help her. Jerg told her to spare him all the drivel. No matter what happened at the trial, he said, life went on and he had to earn money, which he couldn’t do without the help of his son. She should handle this alone; after all, she was the one who went to Adelhaid and brought their dead child into the world.
Venomously, Kilian spit out that their father had been all too happy to take the money Madlen received for this service. Without warning, Jerg gave his son a resounding slap in the face, and Kilian tumbled to the ground. Horrified, Madlen rushed to her brother’s side to make sure he wasn’t seriously injured. His eyes glowed red with unmitigated hatred, and she wondered whether one of them would end up killing the other after Heinfried took her away. Afterward, she ate in silence and Jerg consoled himself with a tankard of beer before insisting that the siblings go to bed so as not to bother him anymore. Kilian never had the opportunity to give his sister all the details about his work with Andreas von Balge.
Now that morning had come, she focused on making herself presentable to make a good impression at trial. Jerg had already forced her brother into the woodshop. Madlen’s hope of having Kilian by her side during the trial scattered like dust blowing in the wind. With a sigh, she pulled her long dark-brown hair into a braid, straightened her dress, and finally made her way to town.
Her feet seemed to find the way all by themselves. Madlen couldn’t say how she reached the town hall on the market square. The trial would take place in this venerable building, where noblemen could make life-or-death decisions about the accused. She swallowed hard as guards standing to the left and right of the entrance opened the door for her. Blood roared through her ears as she climbed the stairs. For a moment, she had to gather herself so as not to lose consciousness.
How much she would have liked to simply turn around and walk away, passing by the guards standing on the city wall until she reached the outskirts of the city. She’d walk over the long wooden bridge that reached the other side of the Neckar River. Madlen had never crossed that bridge, although she often wished she could. One of the traveling merchants had told Kilian that it took a grown man over two hundred steps to cross the Neckar River. Two hundred steps! His eyes shining, Kilian had reported after his conversation with the merchant that it took just two hundred steps over the wooden planks to reach the opposite shoreline. Only two hundred steps to where the boats were docked and ultimately to freedom. These were steps that she would probably never make.
Still, the thought of crossing the bridge both frightened and excited her. She’d never stepped a foot outside of Heidelberg, spending her whole life in the confines of the city walls, mostly limiting herself to her father’s cottage and Clara’s little hut on the path leading to the castle. When she was little, she had imagined that the castle was enthroned on the cliff above them for their protection. She still had that feeling as she gazed at the brown stone walls. In the summer, the stones warmed her. In the cool evenings, Madlen leaned against them after a hard day’s work and daydreamed for a minute or two. Then she would climb a couple of feet higher until she stood on a small ledge leading to a cave hidden by bushes. There, she could see all the way over to the other side of the Neckar River. There were also hills and rocks there, offering no protection, maybe even preventing people from ever escaping from the valley. Sometimes, Madlen even imagined the world came to an end on the other side of the rocks. But she knew better. From the merchants’ descriptions, the forests and valleys behind the hills were some of the most picturesque landscapes found anywhere.