As she sat by the front window watching the people walking by below, she wondered when she had last done this. It felt strange just to sit and do nothing, not to go hunting, night after night, to know that the poor were going hungry, to miss teaching her class. Were the children sitting there outside the town wall waiting for her, wondering why she did not come, why she had abandoned them? Did they feel as alone as she had felt after her mother and father died?
A tear slipped down her cheek just as she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She wiped it away before Jorgen called, “Odette, may I come in?”
“Please do.” She smiled in anticipation.
Jorgen appeared in the doorway and came toward her. “My mother says you are well, and I can see that you are.”
“I am much better. No fever.”
“And your leg wound is no longer inflamed, I hear.”
“Thanks to your mother’s care, I am doing very well.”
He came and sat in a chair near her. “I want to ask you about the children.”
“I have been thinking about them too. I feel so sad that I haven’t been able to teach their lessons. And now that I realize the meat I was poaching was not going to feed them . . .” Odette shook her head. “I feel like the last year of my life was wasted, stolen, blackened. I wronged you, I wronged the margrave, and I stole from the king. And I failed to help the ones who truly needed help.”
“You were doing what you thought was right.” Jorgen took her hand between his, but then he seemed to realize what he was doing, and he gently laid it back down and pulled his hands back.
“Odette.” He cleared his throat and began to look and sound more businesslike. “I want you to think about what should be done. If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do for the poor children?”
“Well . . .” Odette had thought about this before. “I think there should be a home for orphaned children. The children should be provided food and clothing and be allowed to go to the town school. They should have kind people watching over them, people who love children and will make them feel loved. And for poor mothers there should be a place for them to go where their children are watched over while they learn a skill or learn how to create things to sell, like clothing or candles or something that will earn them enough money to live.”
“Would you like to be in charge of a place like that?”
“Me?” Odette laughed. “Of course. I am a hard worker, you know.”
“Yes, I do know.”
“And even though I am good at hunting, I am good at other things as well.”
Jorgen nodded. “I have no doubt of that.”
“But I am sure the margrave will want to see me, and I am ready to confess my wrongs to him.”
“Yes,” Jorgen said with a sober expression. “He will send for you when you are feeling better. Perhaps even tomorrow.”
She deserved punishment. Even she could admit that. She also quaked inside at the thought of that punishment, but she nodded so as not to reveal her fears to Jorgen.
He stood. “I must go, but I shall return when the margrave sends for you.”
Odette’s stomach sank a little. Must he go so soon? She had hardly spoken to him in days. But she merely nodded.
Jorgen had been gone for a few minutes when Odette looked out the window and saw Anna hurrying up the street. She seemed to stop at Odette’s door. A few minutes later, she came into her room.
“Odette!” she cried in her breathiest voice, her hands cupping her cheeks. “I just heard you were hurt! And Rutger is in the dungeon! What happened?” She sank into the chair that Jorgen had just vacated.
Odette sighed. “What is the gossip?”
“That Rutger was selling poached meat out of The Red House and that you were the poacher.” Her voice sounded shocked. “I heard you were hurt from someone who knows Susanna the healer and that Rutger is in the dungeon. What happened? Please tell me!”
“Jorgen saw me poaching and he shot me, once in the arm and in the leg.”
Anna gasped and covered her mouth.
“He did not know it was me. His mother has been taking care of me. But, Anna”—tears filled her eyes—“Rutger was not giving the meat to the poor. For the past six months, all the good I thought I was doing . . . It was only for Rutger to try to pay off his debt.”
Anna put her arms around Odette’s shoulders as she couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. She wiped at her eyes with her handkerchief, taking deep breaths to try to dispel the tears.