at estimating ages, but she didn’t think he could be more than a few years older than she. He was blond, his hair pale in the twilight, with a wonderful face, like a warrior in one of her books: clean-shaven, square jawed, with a fine brow and clear eyes. She couldn’t tell what color they were in this light but she thought, given that he was blond, that they were probably blue.
“I’m very sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!” the man said, pulling his hunter’s hat off and clutching it at his chest.
“How did you get down there?” she asked, telling her heart to calm down. It didn’t, but at this point she suspected that had more to do with the man’s handsome features than the fact that he had startled her.
“I came around the east side of your tower,” he said. “I’m a hunter, I’m very quiet. I didn’t even know there was anyone living here until I saw you at your window. I apologize for frightening you!”
She smiled down at him as he peered earnestly up at her. “Apology accepted. It’s all right, really, no harm done.” She felt an odd shyness and found herself tongue-tied. What to say to a handsome young stranger? She had no idea.
He seemed under no such burden. “I thought I would come survey this part of the world before hunting season begins,” he continued, and shrugged. “Too many others in what used to be my forest. Time to move on.”
“Oh,” she managed, resting her chin on her hands so she could look down at him more easily. “I don’t know anything about that.” After all, the men of the Bruderschaft, although they were hunters, were not primarily hunters of game. It was the evil things of the forest that they hunted . . .
“But what are you doing, out here in the middle of the wilderness?” he asked, putting his hat back on his head and tipping it at a jaunty angle.
“I live here, with Mother,” she replied.
He shook his head. “I cannot imagine living alone in such a remote place. What do you do with your time?”
She had to laugh at that. “We work, of course! There are all the animals to tend, the garden to care for, food to make, clothing to sew, cleaning to do—what do you think we do? Gaze out of tower windows all day?”
“And here I thought you were a princess, who only had to do just that!” he replied, with an ingratiating smile. “May I come in to see your tower?”
“When Mother gets home,” she replied truthfully. “She locks the door when she is gone, and she has the only key.”
“Doesn’t she trust you?” He frowned.
“She doesn’t trust the things in the forest,” she corrected him. “I don’t mind.”
“Hmm. Well, there are gypsies in the forest, and tramps. She’s probably wise.” He nodded sagely. She smiled.
“You haven’t told me your name,” she pointed out. “I’m Giselle.”
“And I am Johann Schmidt,” he replied, and swept off his hat in a flourishing bow. “At your service. Shall I tell you all about myself?”
She felt herself coloring all over again. “Oh,” she replied. “Please!”
Johann stayed until moonrise, then bowed again and took his leave, promising to come back on the morrow. Giselle could not remember ever having been so excited at the prospect of something, not even when learning new magic. After all, her magic had been a part of her for as long as she could remember, but handsome young men were things she had only read of in books, and a handsome young man standing beneath her window for hours just to talk to her was something entirely new.
The men of the Bruderschaft that had visited Mother had not had much time for her; she understood that, of course, to come all this way to this remote part of the Black Forest, deep in the mountains, they must have had very urgent business indeed. They certainly had no time to spare for idle chat. To have another person besides Mother interested enough in her to regale her with tales was wonderful.
To have that person be a very handsome young man was intoxicating.
After Johann was gone, she spent a long time just dreamily staring up at the night sky, for once not watching for the shyer and more elusive sylphs and other Air Elementals that only came out at night.
In the morning there was no sign of Johann Schmidt, not from any of the four tower