“You can’t be serious, Greta. I promised your father—”
“Come with me or don’t,” she cut him off curtly. “I climb up, find out what’s going on, and get out again. I’ll be back in just a few hours. You can roast a hare over the fire in the meantime.”
Her face remained stony. Greta didn’t want John to see her inner turmoil, but she was deeply relieved when he threw up his hands in resignation.
“You’re a stubborn, unruly wench, do you know that?”
Greta grinned. “That, at least, is one thing I’ve inherited from my father.”
The northern side of the castle was the darkest.
Here, the small river Sèvre Nantaise wound its way through a valley toward the moat and the dam. The valley was so steep that scarcely any moonlight made it to the ground at the bottom. Thick undergrowth made their progress even more difficult, and Greta and John continuously got caught in thorny brambles. It was as if the castle didn’t want to be approached from this side. They found a shallow spot to cross the river. On the other side, the black castle wall rose into the night sky, additionally protected by a lower second wall. Some way to their left was a gate and a narrow road leading to the river and across a bridge.
“What next?” asked John.
Greta motioned toward the right, where the larger of the towers stood, a massive construction crowned with a ring of machicolations and a covered walkway. Underneath it stood one end of the dam, which separated the moat at the castle’s front from the river beyond.
“Admittedly, there was more light yesterday afternoon. But at least there are no watch fires here, either,” she said. “We can climb up on those broken stones east of the tower. Also, in that spot we don’t have to climb over the outer fortifications.”
John looked up skeptically. The wall was at least sixty feet high. “We don’t know if there’ll be broken stones all the way to the top.”
“I know, John! Like I said, you don’t have to come. But I think it’s doable. I’ve climbed up smoother walls than this.”
It was a blatant lie. Greta could walk on any rope, and a few times she had scaled a church tower during her shows with Johann and Karl in order to reach her rope, but she had never climbed a wall like this one before. She had to convince herself that she could do it—otherwise she would falter or fall.
“All right. But at least let me climb first.” John stepped up to the wall, felt along the stones, and started to climb, inch by inch. Greta watched him for a while. John was strong and athletic. He might not have been quite as flexible as an acrobat, but he was doing well—it certainly wasn’t his first wall. She tied up her skirts and followed him, her fingers searching for the ledges, cracks, and crevices John had used. They climbed in silence—ten feet, fifteen, twenty, and up.
Greta avoided looking down. She focused entirely on her handholds and footholds. It still seemed endlessly far to the top, and increasingly mossy and slippery. But climbing forced her to focus entirely on the moment. There was no room for gloomy thoughts up here. Her heart thumping fast, she realized that they were doing even better than expected. They could really make it! She tried to ignore the thought that they’d probably have to leave the castle the same way.
John was climbing faster than her. He was almost twenty feet above her now, his outline just a black shadow on the wall. As he climbed like that, swift and elegant as a dancer, Greta was overcome by boundless love. This was her man, the one she had been waiting for. And she carried his child in her belly; she could sense it strongly now. It wasn’t just a missed period—she was pregnant. She felt as if God had revealed to her that she would bear a child, John’s child. So long as she made it back down to the ground safely, she would thank God, she would pray and donate a large candle in the next church. She would—
Her foot slipped on a slimy rock. She managed to grasp a protrusion with her left hand, a long, weathered stone, probably a pitch spout. Greta cursed under her breath. Daydreaming this far above the ground could have fatal consequences. What happened next was what she had been fearing the whole way up.
The brittle stone in her hand broke.
It fell down without a sound, the darkness below swallowing it instantly. Greta clung to the wall with only her right hand now, her fingers digging into a small hole in the rock.
“John,” she managed from between clenched teeth, but it was as quiet as a small sigh. “John, oh God.”
He couldn’t have heard her but still he paused, looked down, and immediately grasped the gravity of the situation. He started to climb back down without a moment’s hesitation. Greta knew that climbing down was much harder than climbing up, because you couldn’t see where your feet were going. But John had memorized his footholds well and moved as fast as he could. Meanwhile, Greta was still dangling from the wall, her muscles aching as if they were about to tear, only three fingers between life and death. She was too weak to find a hold with the other hand, and fear seemed to paralyze her. A cold wind tugged at her dress and salty sweat ran into her eyes, blinding her. She felt her strength draining from her body; her fingers slipped, one by one.
Goodbye, John.
Just then, someone grasped her left hand and placed it on a ledge.
“Your feet,” said a gentle yet firm
