Blood.Henrik’s blood.Her brother was wounded, and it was all her fault.
“Almost there,” Jonathan said, his voice tight with effort.“Anna!”
Lise could see the horses now, Anna’s white face a pale blur in the shadows where she stood holding the reins.Her maid was crying, her shoulders shaking with terrified sobs.
“Anna,” Lise called, trying to keep her own voice steady.“We’re here.We’re all right.”
It was a lie, of course.Henrik had been shot.They were fleeing into the night with Friedrich’s threats still ringing in the air behind them.But Anna needed reassurance, and Lise needed to believe they would survive this.
More voices echoed from the direction of Friedrich’s house.Running footsteps.A woman’s shriek of alarm from one of the awakened households.
“Can you mount?”Jonathan asked Henrik, already positioning himself to boost him up.
“I can manage,” Henrik said through gritted teeth.In front of the darkened shop, Lise was glad not to be able to see his face, undoubtedly contorted with pain.
Somehow, they got him into the saddle.Lise’s hands shook as she gathered her own reins, accepting Jonathan’s assistance into her sidesaddle with a breathless word of thanks.He assisted Anna as well, and with her maid still weeping, they walked their horses toward the northern gate.
“We won’t stop until we’re well clear of the city,” Jonathan said.“Henrik, can you hold on?”
“I’m not some delicate maiden,” Henrik managed, though his voice was strained.“I was shot in the shoulder, not the heart.Now let’s get moving.”
They broke into a canter, and she tried not to hear her brother’s moans and groans from being jostled.She started to pray silently, for her brother and for all of them.
Grateful for the moonlight, she could keep on eye on Henrik’s dark silhouette directly ahead of her.Jonathan rode beside her brother, close enough to catch him if he swayed.Anna rode beside Lise, her crying gradually subsiding into hiccupping breaths.Thank goodness.
Behind them, Lübeck’s lights grew distant, and the sounds of alarm from Friedrich’s neighborhood had long since faded into the night.Still, no one pursued them.They rode for what felt like hours, but Lise knew, by the moon’s movement, that it couldn’t have been more than one.She was accustomed to riding, but not like this, not fleeing with fear clawing at her throat while worrying over her brother’s life.
Was he still bleeding profusely?She couldn’t tell.
Finally, however, Henrik began to list dangerously in his saddle.Jonathan called a halt.
“There,” he said, pointing to a farmhouse set back from the road.Lamplight showed in one window, despite the late hour.“We must stop.Henrik needs attention.”
“No,” Henrik protested weakly.“Keep going.If the French —”
“The French aren’t pursuing us,” Jonathan said firmly.“Even if they were, we’re like sheep for the knife here on the road.I fear you’ve lost too much blood for battle, my friend.We stop now.”
The farmer who answered the knock at his door was gray-haired and suspicious until Lise stepped forward and spoke to him in rapid German, mentioning her brother being in the King’s German Legion.The man’s weathered face transformed.Quickly, he ushered them inside, calling for his wife.
“KGL,” he said, eyeing Henrik whom Jonathan was fully supporting now.“You are all welcome here.”
His wife, a plump woman with kind eyes, took one look at Lise’s brother and began issuing orders.Within minutes, he was prone, in a small bedroom, with Jonathan stripping off Henrik’s coat and shirt, making him groan more loudly.
“We’ll want clean water.Bring more wood,” the farmer’s wife told her husband.Then she looked at Anna, probably thinking she was Henrik’s wife by her pale face and puffy eyes.Turning to Lise, she said, “Once we get some water boiling, you can make tea for your friend.”
Lise opened her mouth, then snapped it shut.“Of course.Thank you.”
Soon, Jonathan and the capable farmer’s wife, Frau Lexar, as she was introduced by her husband, were tending to Henrik, while Lise plied Anna with hot tea to regain her calmness.Then she sat with her at the kitchen table, realizing she was trembling despite the initial danger having passed.
“Fräulein,” the farmer’s wife said gently, appearing at her elbow a few minutes later, when Lise had let her own tea grow cold.“You are safe now.Your brother will recover.God be praised, the bullet went right through.I hate to admit, we’ve seen worse, my husband and I.”
“Thank you.Thank you so much for taking us in.”
“Any friend of the KGL is a friend of ours,” the woman said firmly.“The French!”She spat to the side, directly onto the broad planks.“They are not welcome in our land.Now, drink your tea, and we’ll find space for you and your friend to sleep.”
For a moment of sheer lunacy, brought on by tiredness and the emotional events, Lise thought the farmer’s wife meant a place for herand Jonathan.Then she understood, nodded and thanked her again.
In another few minutes, Jonathan appeared in the doorway to the bedroom where Frau Lexar was again tending Henrik.Lise jumped to her feet.
