Page 50 of The Piper's Pursuit

“Hoorah!” The children cheered and whooped, some hugging each other, others jumping up and down. Katerina embraced Verena and then Albrecht.

“Come,” Kat urged. “Is everyone here? We must hurry.”

“Are we leaving anyone behind?” Verena looked like a miniature mama as she craned her neck and appeared to be counting heads.

“No one is left in the farthest chamber,” one little girl said. “I was the last one out.”

“Very good. Let us go.” Verena herded them with her hand.

Anxious to see if Steffan was all right, Kat allowed Verena to take up the rear as she hurried ahead.

When they were spilling into the large chamber where she’d left Steffan, her eyes hungrily sought his tall form. When she didn’t see him, she called, “Steffan!”

No one answered. Two bodies lay on the floor. But where was Steffan and his last opponent?

Katerina ran forward and searched the ground. “Steffan!”

Then she saw a body lying facedown against the wall. Was it Steffan? She ran toward it. No, it was the guard. She let out a strangled sound.

“I’m here,” a muffled voice came from above her.

“Where?”

“Up here.”

She looked up and there was Steffan’s face emerging from a hole in the wall a few feet above the guard’s body.

“What are you doing up there?”

He didn’t answer as he disappeared for a few seconds, then his feet reappeared as he lowered himself down. He used the guard’s body as a step and emerged, dirtier but smiling.

“Making sure we have money if we need it.” He held out a bag and a handful of silver coins. “Hennek must be using the extracted silver from the ore to make coins, silver guilders.”

“And you found where he was storing the silver money he was making?” Kat reached out and picked up a piece.

“How badly are you hurt?”

The question, spoken by Verena behind her, pulled Kat’s attention away from Steffan and to the child Verena was talking to, the little boy whom the guard had been choking. Kat knelt beside him. “Are you well? Can you speak?”

The boy nodded and lifted his head. “I was brave, wasn’t I?”

“You were so very brave. I’m sure your mother will be so proud when I tell her.”

“I don’t have a mother.”

“What is your name?”

“Dietmar.”

“Well, Dietmar, you must continue to be brave, because we must escape from a very bad man.”

“The piper?”

“Piper?”

“The man who plays the flute pipe. He’s the one who lured us away, then his men grabbed us and put us in a sack and carried us here, to the mine.”

So that was how Hennek had managed to take the children without leaving any trace. She had known he was responsible for taking them, but luring them away with something as innocent as playing a pipe... Children loved when Hennek played his pipe. He would play in the town square at every holiday, and sometimes on market days. People would smile and compliment his playing and thank him, assuming he was good and gentle-hearted for wanting to entertain children. How dare he use that against them!