Page 94 of The Noble Servant

And so they searched another room, as no one slept in that wing of the castle and it was mostly deserted even in the daytime. After half an hour, they were satisfied it was not in that room either. One by one they searched all the rooms in the east wing that were unoccupied and not near Lord Hazen or Alexander’s bedchambers. They found old clothes, blankets, and toys that had belonged to Steffan and Gertrudt, but no portrait.

Magdalen reached up to push the hair out of her face, which had come loose from her braid, and found Steffan watching her.

“We should stop for the night.”

“Is it still night?” She glanced at the window. The gray half-light of dawn was beginning to show through.

“Not for much longer.” Steffan sighed. “At least we know where the portrait is not.”

She would have laughed if she’d had the strength. They trudged back up the stairs. They were almost at the top when Magdalen stumbled. Steffan caught her arm and kept her from falling.

“Thank you.”

“Are you well?”

“Just tired.”

They both fell onto their makeshift beds and were soon asleep.

Steffan’s back ached from all the searching he and Magdalen had done the night before, and he sat whittling a piece of wood. Magdalen was still asleep, but the sun was high and his thoughts would not seem to leave him alone.

A sound came from the door like a key turning in the lock. Steffan jumped to his feet, clutching his knife.

The door opened, and Alexander and Agnes stood looking at them.

Steffan leapt at Alexander with his knife aimed at his coward’s heart.

“Please! Wait!” Agnes threw her arm across Alexander’s chest.

Alexander held out a loaf of bread. “We mean you no harm. We brought you food.”

“What sort of trickery is this?” Steffan glanced behind him to make sure Magdalen was all right. She stood by the window with wide eyes and her hand over her heart.

“It’s no trickery. If we wanted to harm you, we would have brought my father up here. We simply wanted to tell you that we intend to help you regain your rightful stations.”

“And why would you do that?”

Alexander’s normally pale cheeks reddened. “I never wanted to pretend to be you. My father ... he would not listen to reason. He has gone mad with greed and a sense that he deserves whatever he wants. And Agnes feels the same way I do.”

“Is that true, Agnes?” Magdalen asked. He could tell she wanted to believe them, but after all Agnes had done to her, she was not certain if she should.

“I am sorry.” Agnes took a step forward, then glanced at Alexander. “It was my father’s idea all along. But I am sorry for doing it. I ... I was wrong.”

The boldness in Agnes’s eyes put him on his guard. “No one turns from evil to good so quickly and easily.” Steffan gripped the knife and stepped closer to protect Magdalen if necessary. “Who else knows we are here? Whom did you tell?”

“No one. Last evening we were taking a walk and we heard you laughing. We saw that this window was open, and it’s normallyclosed. We also heard that some food had been stolen from the kitchen during the night.”

Steffan glared at him, trying to think of how they might escape.

“I can understand your anger and mistrust,” Alexander said, “but I tried to talk Father out of it. He had discovered there was valuable iron ore in Mallin’s mines through a mining expert who had once been employed by the baron. This expert explained that whoever ended up mining the iron ore would become quite wealthy. So Father had me pretend to be you and marry the heiress of Mallin. If I had not gone along with his plan, he would have killed me.”

“We have known each other since we were children, Alexander, and I have never seen you so humble, meek, and mild. Why the change of heart? Why do you care?”

Alexander did not answer for a moment, staring off to the right. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t want you to be harmed. I didn’t want that on my conscience. I am not the unfeeling person my father is. I am not like him.”

Perhaps that much was true. Alexander never struck him as being the same sort of heartless, greedy person as Lord Hazen. Whiny and fearful, yes. But he had been a child. Perhaps he had grown up and decided to turn away from his father’s wicked ways. Still, Steffan and Magdalen had been betrayed too many times not to be cautious now.

“My plan,” Alexander went on, “was to protect Lady Magdalen from my father. I thought I could at least do that much to redeem myself in God’s eyes. And then ... I discovered the woman I married was not Lady Magdalen, but a pawn in her own father’s scheme.”